The Angel Knight Read online

  THE ANGEL KNIGHT

  SUSAN KING

  COPYRIGHT 1996 2012 SUSAN KING

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Galloway, Scotland

  Summer, 1306

  She stood on a green hill at dawn and watched her home burn. Thick charcoal clouds darkened the sky and acrid smoke stung her eyes, but Lady Christian refused to allow tears to form. Glancing down at her fair-haired daughter, she gently squeezed her hand.

  “Màthair,” the child said. “Your clàrsach—”

  “My harp is safe,” Christian murmured in Gaelic. “I have hidden her away. As I will hide you, sweet girl.” She tightened her hold on the child’s fingers. “The English shall have nothing of value from Kilglassie Castle.”

  She was the widow of an English knight, yet Lady Christian MacGillan had been declared a traitor and an outlaw by King Edward of England, who had dispossessed her of her Scottish lands. As if he had any claim to the land himself, she thought bitterly. Now her survival and her daughter’s safety depended on eluding the English soldiers who sought them.

  No turning back now that she had set the castle’s interior ablaze. Setting torch to straw had taken all the courage she possessed—but she reminded herself that she had obeyed the orders of her king and cousin, Robert Bruce. She had no choice.

  Her daughter glanced up. “What will become of the legend of Kilglassie?”

  “The legend is safe,” Christian said. She drew a sharp breath. Then, pushing back her thick, dark braid, she slipped her hand beneath the blue and purple plaid draped over her gown to touch the golden pendant on a leather thong around her neck. She traced the inlaid garnet surrounded by swirls of gold wire embedded in a small golden disc. The pendant was all that remained, now, of the castle’s legend.

  At least she had been able to save her harp and a few other things. But the fire would surely destroy the ancient treasure, never yet found, that legend said lay hidden somewhere inside Kilglassie Castle. Gone forever, all of it.

  Christian lifted her head to stare at the dark smoke. The burning of Kilglassie was an act of defiance against the English, and necessary. When the English soldiers arrived, there would be no Scottish castle to take, and no prisoners to capture.

  Yet Christian felt like a traitor more than a loyal Scottish rebel. The fire would consume more than this stronghold in central Galloway: it would also destroy an ancient legend that foretold hope for Scotland. And none of them could afford to lose that now.

  Burning timbers crashed inside the thick walls, sending up hot, bright sparks. Kilglassie’s four towers were great belching chimneys now, blackened shells inside a curtain wall that enclosed only fire, smoke and ruined stone.

  Set on a promontory overlooking a loch, the castle backed up to high, wild, forested slopes of Galloway in western Scotland. From those high crests, on a good, clear day, the hills of Ireland could be seen. On a bad day, the fires of the English armies sullied the sky with smoke.

  “Christian!”

  She glanced toward her cousin Thomas Bruce, who held the reins of two restive horses. He looked like a wild, proud prince, she thought, truly like the brother of a king. “We must hurry!” he called.

  “Aye, Thomas.” She answered in northern English, the language that her husband had taught her. Sighing, she turned away from the dark clouds that spiraled upward.

  “King Robert’s message was urgent,” Thomas continued. “Now that you too are outlawed like the rest of us, my brother wants you to meet him in Strathfillan, and travel with his queen and family to safety at Kildrummy. My brother Neil will guard you there. I beg you, hurry.”

  “Spare me another moment to speak to my daughter.”

  “Quickly. We are all renegades in the heather along with our king. The English look for us even now. There is no time.”

  She nodded, aware of how much turmoil had entered her life once Robert Bruce had made his bold move to take the throne of Scotland. After stabbing his key rival within the sanctified confines of a church, he had arranged to be crowned King of Scots—a courageous and necessary act for the good of Scotland, she was convinced. But after a disastrous June battle at Methven, where the Scots had been soundly defeated by the English, Robert Bruce had taken to the hills with only a few followers. All of his supporters had been declared outlaws by the English king.

  As cousin to the Bruces through her maternal grandmother, Christian had offered what help she could from Kilglassie: men, arms, some coin. That help had created ripples that affected her life, too. When her English husband had died in battle just weeks earlier, the considerable fury of King Edward of England had been directed toward her.

  And now, with her home in flames, she had made her irrevocable decision. Pulling on her daughter’s hand, she walked toward her friend Moira, who waited. Bringing her child along would be far too dangerous, so she had asked Moira and her husband to keep Michaelmas until her return. Soon Christian intended to flee with her daughter into the western Highlands, to Clan MacGillan and her father’s people. The English presence would be less obvious there.

  Looking down at her adopted daughter—not her own, but so close to her heart as to feel like her own—she smoothed the girl’s pale, silken hair. The child looked up, her light blue eyes more serious than nine years should have allowed.

  “Moira and her husband will care for you,” Christian said in Gaelic, which she and the girl used most often, thought they both understood the English that so many Lowlanders spoke. “I will send for you soon.” The girl nodded nervously. “You are safe, milis, sweet one.”

  “Christian,” Thomas urged.

  “Mother,” Michaelmas said. “Thomas Bruce looks very angry. Will he ride without you?”

  “The Bruce brothers, all five, are known for being brave and handsome and clever—but not for patience. Let him learn to wait.” Christian pulled the pendant and its leather thong over her head and handed it to Michaelmas.

  The old golden disk, no larger than the child’s palm, was decorated with golden wire twisted in a graceful interlace design, surrounding a central garnet. Michaelmas looked up. “You are giving his to me?” she whispered in awe.

  “Aye. Keep it safe,” Christian said. “The women of my mother’s family have always been the keepers of the legend. This piece is all that remains of the treasure that lies hidden somewhere in Kilglassie.” She slipped it over her daughter’s head. “Wear it and protect it. The English know there is some secret here that is important to the Scottish throne. They must never find this.”

  “But I do not have your mother’s blood in me
, to be the hereditary keeper of such a thing,” Michaelmas said. “Moira says I am a child of the fair-folk, a changeling.”

  “Hush. You were an orphan, nothing more,” Christian said. She sighed. “I wish we knew who your mother was. But she must have been a beautiful lady, with you for a daughter. And we were told you were born on Saint Michael’s feast day—the name brings you angelic protection. Remember that always.”

  “May the angels be with you, too, màthair, when you leave here,” Michaelmas said.

  “Christian!” Thomas called. “Are you waiting for the English to arrive? We must all go!”

  Tucking the pendant inside the neck of her daughter’s gown, Christian hugged her. “Keep all our secrets safe until I send for you, milis,” she whispered. Then they walked toward Moira.

  Embracing her tall friend, Christian turned quickly away, tears now pooling as she ran toward Thomas. Her cousin boosted her into the saddle of the waiting horse and turned to mount his own fine charger. Settling into her seat, Christian picked up the reins, ready to ride.

  Thomas smiled. “Lady Christian MacGillan of Kilglassie,” he said, “burns her own castle, kisses her child farewell, and rides out as an outlaw to join her fugitive king. I admire your courage—and your beauty, my lady.”

  She smiled a little. “Thomas Bruce, you have a silver tongue, and more beauty than I have. Nor do I feel brave at all.” She watched the dark smoke overhead. “I feel frightened.”

  Thomas urged his horse forward. “Once the English retreat from Scotland, we will have peace in our lives.”

  “I crave peace more than you know,” she said as she guided her horse beside his. “I was wed for eight years to an English knight, with an English garrison in my castle. Never again,” she said vehemently. “The Sasunnachs take our castles, our lands, murder our people in the name of their king. It must end.”

  “Robert will succeed, but he needs the full support of the Scots. Many still do homage to Edward.”

  Christian sighed. “All I had was Kilglassie. The English king allowed me to keep it only because I paid homage to him for the lands.”

  “You were very young then,” he reminded her.

  “Fifteen, and my uncle forced me to sign the oath of fealty for my own protection before he arranged a marriage with a Sasunnach knight. He said the marriage would keep me safe.”

  “Not all English knights are bad. Your husband was called a fair man.”

  “And I am called his murderer now,” she said quietly.

  “You had no direct hand in Henry Faulkener’s death.”

  “The English do not care.” She glanced back. Michaelmas stood still in the distance beside Moira. Anguish pulled inside Christian’s chest. She turned away.

  “Your husband brought in an orphaned babe,” Thomas said. “They say he was a good man.”

  “He was, to others.” She urged her horse forward, glad to end the conversation.

  So much was gone, she thought—her husband, her castle, her child in another’s care now. The English had even taken her father’s castle in the western Highlands, killing her parents, years ago. Kilglassie had belonged to her mother’s people, descended from Celtic royalty, and had come down to her. The old castle had been guardian to the old legend.

  And she had made it into a ruin, destroying the heritage always preserved there.

  Without looking back, Christian rode on.

  September, 1306. The Highlands.

  The stone chapel in a sunlit, shallow glen, was filled with screams; its steps were doused in blood. Shivering, Christian lay hidden behind a stand of nearby trees, helplessly watching. Only moments ago, Elizabeth—Bruce’s queen—and their young daughter Marjorie, along with Robert Bruce’s sisters and a young Scottish noblewoman, had been hauled from the chapel by English soldiers. The Scottish knights who had tried to protect them had been slain or captured.

  In the weeks since Christian had joined the queen at Kildrummy, she had come to know those men and women well. Today they had been riding north, intending to escape to the Orkneys, when they had stopped to pray at this Highland chapel. English soldiers had ambushed them outside the chapel, outnumbering the Scottish knights who had fought so valiantly.

  Now, breathing in tight little gasps, Christian watched, lying on her belly among the autumn leaves. She prayed as she hid. The only reason she had not been taken was that she had stepped away from the chapel for a walk, stiff from long hours on horseback. Hearing the screams she returned, she had hidden, horrified.

  Trembling, she rose to her feet and ran, leaping over fallen birch branches, skimming over the leaves, her feet pounding a rhythm. Too late she heard horses closing in behind her, hoofbeats muffled by the leafy carpet.

  “Stop!” English soldiers called out. There were four of them. She ran on. But suddenly they were close—an arm swathed in chain mail reached out, only to miss her as she darted sideways. The man spurred his horse, trapping her between two horses. Someone grabbed her plaid and wrenched upwards, but she twisted and fell, scrambling to her feet, caught.

  One man dismounted and threw himself on her, pinning her to the ground. The massive weight of his body in armor and padding was crushing. She could hardly move or breath, though she bucked and cried out beneath him.

  “Let her up.” The voice above her head cut like cold steel.

  The soldier came off her, grunting, and jerked her to her feet. Her hair covered her face in wild dark ropes until she tossed back her head defiantly to face a tall knight in a red surcoat.

  Dhia, she thought; Dear God! Of all the English commanders who had visited her husband at Kilglassie, this man, Oliver Hastings, was the most vicious, or so it was said. A priest had once told her that when King Edward turned his wrath toward Scotland, the devil had sent Oliver Hastings to carry out the king’s word to the letter.

  “Ah. Lady Christian.” Hastings stared at her, dark eyes narrowed, mouth grim. The neat black beard edging his jaw gave his face a lean precision. “How interesting to find you here with Bruce’s women. I saw Kilglassie Castle. Bruce favors scorching Scottish earth, I hear.”

  She raised her chin. “King Edward has no cause to invade Scotland. We have cause to resist.”

  “Soon you can tell the king your pretty speech. And he will recognize you for a traitor.” He drew off his leather gloves, slapping them against his right palm. His eyes were flat and dark. “King Edward has declared that the Bruce’s women are to be treated as outlaws. No mercy. Any man may rob, violate or murder the lot of you without reprisal.”

  Christian’s heart thundered in her chest. “No reprisal here on earth,” she said low.

  “That may be. But you are without protection now, my lady. But you will be safe in my care, provided I can rely on your compliance.”

  Panicking, she stood silent, waiting.

  “Kilglassie is not far from Loch Doon Castle, my newest holding. We took the place from Bruce sympathizers several weeks ago.”

  Christian drew in a sharp breath, wondering what had become of Michaelmas, yet unable to ask. She did not want Hastings to know that her child was staying so near his property.

  “Before Kilglassie was burned, I trust you moved whatever was of value.” He looked at her expectantly.

  “What do you want?” she asked. “Say it out.”

  “Kilglassie holds a treasure that supports the throne of Scotland. King Edward wants that hoard—he has the right, as king of both England and Scotland, or so it should be.”

  Her heart beat hard, more in anger than fear. “My own husband searched and could not find it,” she snapped. “Why would I give it over to you?”

  “He was a fool. I am not. And once the king discovers that you were the one burned that castle, he will be furious. He will demand the gold you kept there. Remember,” he added softly, “how much you need my protection. Tell me where it is hidden.”

  “The treasure of Kilglassie has not been seen for generations.”

  “I said
I am no fool, my lady.”

  “And I am no liar.”

  He smiled. “A rebel who does not lie? A wonder indeed. That treasure exists and you hold the truth to it. King Edward lays claim to whatever relics support the throne of Scotland.”

  “Robert Bruce has the true claim to the throne, and so the right to Kilglassie’s gold.”

  He sighed. “Very well, keep your secret for now. But remember that rebellion earns its due.” He held out his left hand to her. “Come with me, then.”

  Christian’s breath caught, pinioned by a cold, piercing blade of fear. “What will Edward do?”

  Hastings paused, a stiff smile on his lips, his hand outstretched. “My lady,” he said. “Have you ever imagined hell?”

  CHAPTER ONE

  January, 1307

  Carlisle Castle, England

  “A bird,” Gavin said thoughtfully. He gazed over the parapet edge. “A small bird in a cage.”

  Fog drifted through the boards of the square cage, a timber and iron enclosure, attached to the outside wall of the parapet. Inside, he could see the form of the woman wrapped in a blue plaid and huddled on the wooden floor. She lay still as a statue, reminding Sir Gavin Faulkener of some gruesome portrayal of death or the plague. Sad, he thought. How cruel.

  Her slight form shifted beneath the wool. Now he saw a tangle of dark hair; long, slender fingers; a narrow foot in a leather boot. He heard her cough.

  “God’s bones! Caging a woman?” Gavin glanced at his uncle beside him. “Whatever prompted King Edward to do this? I have never heard of a Christian sovereign who dared to treat a woman in such a manner, no matter her rank.”

  “It is similar to a barbaric device I saw in the Holy Land, thirty years ago,” John MacKerras said. “But from the man called the flower o’ chivalry, it is a muckle savage thing.”

  Gavin nodded grimly. “The king’s hatred of the Scots cuts deep. I can well understand why you, Uncle, as a Scotsman, are horrified by this.”

  “Aye, and it is partly why I wanted you to meet me up here.”

  Gavin reached out to tug on the small door of the cage, so close to where he stood. Locked. Scanning the unusual structure, he noted that it was barely six feet in length and width, lashed and nailed into place on the outer side of the castle wall. The planked base was nailed to the jutting wooden beams that normally supported hoardings, the timber constructions that protected soldiers during battle. The door had been placed in the opening in the crenellated wall.