Her heart pinched, hearing the hint of relief in his voice. But could she blame him for not wanting to leave? England was the only home he’d ever known.
God, how they’d failed him!
She didn’t answer him directly, but looked at her sister. “We have to go back before we are discovered.”
They would never be able to make it to Scotland on their own.
“Don’t give up yet, lass,” Cailin said. “The MacRuairis know how to fight.”
But how long did they dare wait?
The decision was made for them a few moments later when they heard the sound of horses coming toward them. The English were fleeing! But unfortunately, the soldiers were headed for the bridge, and they were right in their path.
“Hurry,” Mary said. They raced back toward the bridge before they ended up in the middle of the fleeing Englishmen and the Islesmen, who from the sound of it were pursuing them.
She had just made it to the other side of the bridge when she heard Janet cry out behind her. Mary looked around just in time to see Cailin fall off the horse, landing with a horrible thud on the wood planks.
Everything seemed to happen at once. Janet pulled to a stop, jumping down in the middle of the bridge to help him. Cailin had landed facedown, an arrow protruding from his back. Mary glanced behind her sister, seeing the hillside they’d just escaped now swarming with men. The fierce war cries of the Islesmen pierced the night air. The pursuers had caught up with their prey, and the riverbank had become a battleground.
Mary yelled through the din of swords to her sister. “Leave him! You have to leave him.” The English were heading straight for her, trying to evade the Islesmen. Janet was going to be trampled.
Their eyes met, spanning the distance of the forty or so feet that separated them. Mary knew Janet wouldn’t leave Cailin. She was trying to lift him under the arms, but struggling under his weight.
Mary turned her horse, intent on forcibly dragging her sister off that bridge if she had to, when she thought she heard a voice shout “no” behind her. But then her horse reared as a terrifying boom shattered the stormy night.
She screamed, clenching David and holding onto the reins for dear life, trying not to slide out of the saddle. She’d nearly gotten the animal under control when a blinding flash of light crashed on the bridge before her. Lightning? And the strangest thunder she’d ever heard.
Oh God, Janet!She looked in horror as the bridge seemed to burst into a ball of flames and her sister disappeared from view. The last thing she remembered was holding her son in front of her as they pitched backward off the horse.
When she woke hours later, warm and dry in her bedchamber, at first she thought it had been a bad dream. But then she realized the nightmare had just begun.
Cailin was dead and her sister had vanished, presumed dead after being swept away in the river when the bridge collapsed. The voice she’d heard had been Sir Adam’s. He’d arrived just in time to see her fall. David had been unharmed, but Mary’s head had struck a rock, knocking her out cold, and her back was badly bruised.
But her injuries were the least of her problems. If not for Sir Adam their next few weeks would have been precarious indeed.
Protecting Mary from Edward’s anger by the lie that she’d been forcibly taken by Bruce’s men, Sir Adam made a plea to the king that she be allowed to recover before making her journey to London. Thus, it wasn’t until November that she and David were brought before the king. She’d had nearly two full months with her son before he was once again taken from her and imprisoned in the Prince of Wales’s household to serve as a yeoman.
She left court, returning to Ponteland (where she’d been ordered to remain) on the fourteenth of November, one week after the Earl of Atholl was hanged from an elevated gallows as befitting his “exalted” status—King Edward’s cruel response to her husband’s reminder of their kinship. Leaving the city, she was careful not to look up as she passed under the gatehouse of London Bridge, where her husband’s head had been impaled on a spike beside those of the other Scottish traitors (or heroes, depending on which side of the border you lived on) William Wallace and Simon Fraser.
The handsome, gallant knight had raised his sword for the last noble cause. Mary had put her love—or was it youthful infatuation?—for Atholl behind her a long time ago, so the depth of her sorrow took her by surprise. But along with her sorrow was anger at what he’d done to them.
She was fortunate, it was said, not to be sent to a convent like the other wives and daughters of traitors. Her “loyalty,” the king’s fondness for her son, and Sir Adam’s surety had saved her. If not for the vows she had made to herself, she would have welcomed the quiet solitude of a nunnery, free from the tumult of a war that had taken her father, brother, and now her husband. But she vowed to see their son restored to his father’s earldom, and to never stop searching for the sister who in her heart she refused to believe was dead. The life she knew, however, was gone.
One
July 1309
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, English Marches
Mary handed the merchant the bundle that represented nearly three hundred hours of work and waited patiently as he examined the various purses, ribbons, and coifs with the same painstaking attention to detail he’d given the first time she’d brought him goods to sell nearly three years ago.
When he was finished, the old man crossed his arms and gave her a forbidding frown. “You did all this in four weeks? You had best have a team of faeries helping you at night, milady, because you promised me you were going to slow down this month.”
“I shall slow down next month,” she assured him. “Afterthe harvest fair.”
“And what about Michaelmas?” he said, reminding her of the large fair in September.
She smiled at the scowling man. He was doing his best to look imposing, but with his portly physique and kind, grandfatherly face, he wasn’t having much success. “After Michaelmas I shall be so slothful I will have to buy an indulgence from Father Andrew or my soul will be in immortal danger.”
