“Can you reach for the ladder? It should be just to your right.” He didn’t know how long the spike would hold with the weight of two men attached.
“Aye.”
A few long moments later, Thom felt a surge of relief as the strain was released from his arm and shoulder. Christ, it felt as if it had been yanked out of the socket.
As he was still hanging by the spike with one hand, Thom told Randolph to give him a minute before he started to climb. Thom felt around in the darkness for the ladder with his feet, and after some maneuvering was able to release his hand from the spike and climb up. Randolph appeared beside him a few minutes later.
The wall above them was quiet, the soldier apparently having thrown his rock and moved on, never knowing how close his carelessly but fortuitously aimed rock had come to killing one of Bruce’s most important commanders.
Even in the moonless darkness, Thom could see the bloodlessness of the other man’s face. He gripped Thom’s hand hard. “Thank you. I owe you my life.”
Uncomfortable with gratitude from a man he could only resent, Thom shook him off. “It was nothing.”
But Randolph wasn’t having it. “It was incredible. I’d wager there aren’t a handful of men in Christendom who could have done what you just did. You must have hands and fingers of steel. I will see you rewarded for your deed tonight.”
“As this night is far from over, you might not be held to that.”
Randolph let out a bark of laughter and put his hand on his back. “You are right about that.”
Randolph’s near plunge off the cliff was the only thing to go wrong that night. The rest of the team made it up the ladder without mishap, and when the warriors dropped over the twelve-foot wall, it was to take the handful of unsuspecting soldiers left to patrol this section of the castle completely by surprise.
The cry of alarm was sounded, but with the noise from Bruce’s diversionary attack at the gate, not enough soldiers were able to respond to the real threat: the men who were now inside the castle.
The fighting was fierce and bloody, and more difficult than it might have been for Bruce’s men were they not worn from the strenuous, almost three-hundred-foot climb. A few of Randolph’s Highlanders from Moray fell alongside the English, and Randolph himself, in his second narrow escape of the night, barely avoided a well-aimed English spear.
But when they reached the south gate to open it for the rest of the army, the battle was won. The English fought with unusual ferocity, but once their commander fell with the initial swarm of men surging into the castle, they quickly surrendered.
The cheer that went up when Bruce’s men knew the castle was theirs was something Thom would never forget. The sense of euphoria, accomplishment, and joy was overwhelming.
One of the first men to congratulate him was the king himself. Bruce threw his arms around him and might have spun him around were Thom not so powerfully built. “Your feat of bravery this night will be rewarded! What say you, Sir Thomas?”
Thom stilled. “Sire?”
Bruce smiled and slapped him on the back. “You’ve earned your knighthood, lad. And”—he paused, with an eye to the man who’d just come up beside them—“I’d wager a place with this bunch.”
MacLeod frowned at the king. The formidable leader of the Highland Guard had been in the heat of the battle the entire time, but you would never know it from looking at him. He looked cool, unruffled, and untouched. “I thought asking was my job.”
Bruce shrugged unrepentantly. “Royal prerogative.”
MacLeod didn’t look like he agreed but turned to Thom. “Aye, the king is right. I’d seen enough after what you did at Dunbar, but what you did tonight has only solidified it. You have earned a place with us if you want it.” His mouth curved in what was almost a smile. “Assuming you make it through Perdition, that is.”
From how MacLeod said it, Thom surmised it was a big assumption. But he had no doubt he would do whatever it took. “I want it.”
What a prodigious understatement. He felt a sense of satisfaction that dwarfed even the feeling of climbing Castle Rock. In many ways, it was a higher climb. He’d done it. Actually, he’d done more than he set out to do. Not only would he be a knight, he’d earned his way into the most elite army in Christendom.
All those times someone told him it was impossible, all those knocks, cuts, and bruises, all the hours he’d spent pulling himself out of the dirt, all the digs about his birth, all the times he’d wanted to give up...
Christ, it was sweet. Only one thing would have made it sweeter. Fury swept through him for thinking about her at all.
“I only wish that we’d thought of a climber before,” the king said with a shake of his head. “It seems so obvious. If we’d had you with us years ago, we would have had a much easier time taking back some of our castles.” He laughed. “We can talk about this tomorrow. But now we celebrate!”
The king clapped him on the back again and practically danced him around the yard. It was one of the biggest moments in his kingship, and Bruce was determined to enjoy every minute of it. All but one of Scotland’s great castles was now wrested from English hands. When King Edward marched his men to battle in June, they would not have the mighty Edinburgh Castle to protect them. Bruce’s chances for victory had just taken a big step forward.
Though it was the middle of the night, from the church tower a bell was rung. What remained of the castle larder was raided and brought to the Great Hall. Casks of ale and wine were carried up from the cellars—more than they expected—and despite the abstinence of the season, the drinking went on well into the wee hours of the morning.
By the time Thom crawled into bed, he wasn’t just a soon-to-be knight and member of the Highland Guard, he was also a baron of lands in Roxburghshire. The magnitude of what he’d achieved stunned him.
But he had only a few hours of sleep before he was awakened again.
