Page 1

Chapter 1

Highgate End, Scotland 1274

“Are you going to be ill?” Aidan asked his sister-in-law.

Gillian sat clutching a chamber pot as tenderly as if it were a newborn babe. Her fondness for that pot had been growing of late.

He rushed to her side, pulled her hair behind her back and waited. Aidan had come to the solar looking for his brother. Instead, he’d found Gillian, alone with her chamber pot, looking much as she had every day this past sennight.

“I don’t believe so.”

Aidan wasn’t quite sure he agreed, so he decided to stay put for now. Peering around Gillian’s shoulder to see her face, he said, “You don’t look good, lass.”

“Why thank you. ’Tis kind of you to say, brother.”

He should not taunt her, but Aidan could not resist. “The bairn is a wee lassie, no doubt. Another Lyndwood girl come to save the de Sowlis men.”

Even as he said it, he could see the color return to Gillian’s face. He allowed her hair to fall back against her gown and pulled up a wooden chair to sit beside her. Poor Gillian was often forced to sit, the babe growing bigger inside her every day, and Aidan did not wish to make her feel uncomfortable by towering over her.

“Your brother is convinced otherwise. He believes the babe is a boy.”

“His son would be lucky to have such a father.”

“Kind words from my brother? To what do I owe the pleasure?” Graeme de Sowlis, clan chief and Aidan’s only remaining family member, by blood, walked into the room and strode straight to his wife.

“I’d not have said them had I seen you standing there preening.”

Both men knew that statement was not true. Aidan revered his older brother.

“Were you ill?” Graeme knelt beside his wife.

“Nay.” She looked into the pot. “Not this time, thank the heavens.”

Graeme placed the chamber pot on the floor. When he laid his hand on her slightly rounded stomach, a familiar pang of fear tore through Aidan. This babe, whether it be a nephew or a niece, would not be harmed. If the border descended into chaos, an event some claimed had already happened, they would forsake their family home before they put Gillian and the wee one in danger.

Highgate End may have been the seat of Clan Scott for four generations, but it was nothing more than dirt and stone. If not for the people under their protection, he’d have begged Graeme to take Gillian away. In fact, he’d suggested it once, but his brother had refused to listen.

“You’ve heard about Douglas?” his brother asked.

“Aye. According to his messenger, the Lord Warden is only a half day’s ride from Highgate.”

Graeme merely nodded, still crouched beside Gillian.

The look on his face was enough to convince Aidan his brother shared his concerns.

Graeme had never hidden his emotions well, his only failing as clan chief. His brother’s strength and skill with the sword was unmatched, yet even the most undiscerning adversaries could read his every mood from afar. If he were angry, his foe knew immediately. Now, his worries were written across his face. Worry over the increasing number of raids, the possibility of the first outright battle at the border in years, and the impending arrival of the Lord Warden.

“What do you think he wants?” Graeme stood and began to pace the room.

With more sunlight than most chambers at Highgate Castle, courtesy of an outside wall and two windows whose shutters were currently thrown wide open to usher in the unusually warm April day, the solar had always been the brothers’ favored meeting place. Gillian could oft be found in here as well. She liked to imagine the darkness of the long winter was finally behind them, but Aidan feared just the opposite was true.

He shook his head. “I neither know nor want to know. A visit from the Lord Warden now can mean only one thing.”

Graeme stopped pacing long enough to stare at him, prompting Gillian to speak up.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Aidan hated the worry in her voice, but surely she should be worried. They all should.