The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(4)

“The best thing I ever did was steal your mother.”

“Why do you say that?” Ewen lashed out, the emotion erupting all at once. “Why do you say you took her when you didn’t? She came with you willingly.”

Fynlay could only manage to lift one side of his mouth; the other side of his face had been bashed in by the rocks. “I don’t know what she saw in me.” Neither did Ewen. “I think the only irresponsible thing she ever did in her life was fall in love with a barbarian.” He coughed uncontrollably, emitting a sickly wet sound as his lungs filled with blood. “She would have been proud of you. You might look like a brute like me, but you are much like her. It tore her apart to disobey her father.”

Ewen knew so little of his mother. His father rarely mentioned her. Now, suddenly, when time had run out, he wanted to know everything.

But it was too late. His father was all but gone. The light flickered in Fynlay’s eyes. A wild look came over him, and in a final burst of life, he grabbed Ewen’s arm. “Promise me you’ll finish it for her, lad.” Ewen stiffened. He wanted to pretend he didn’t understand, but he could not hide the truth from death. “Promise me,” his father repeated.

Ewen should have refused. Every time he returned home and saw that half-finished pile of rocks, he wanted to die of shame. It was the reminder of everything his father had done wrong. It was a reminder of everything Ewen didn’t want to be.

But somehow he found himself nodding. Duty and loyalty meant something to him, even if they never had to his father.

A moment later, Wild Fynlay Lamont breathed his last breath.

With his father’s death, Ewen’s time in Sir James’s service came to an end. Instead of marching off to Irvine to join Wallace and fight the English, Ewen returned to Ardlamont to bury his father and take over his duties as chieftain.

Sir James told him to be patient. To practice his warrior’s skills and make himself ready. When the time came, he would be called upon.

Eight years later, when Robert Bruce made his bid for the throne and handpicked a team of elite warriors for his secret army, Ewen Lamont was the greatest tracker in the Highlands and ready to answer the call.

One

Coldingham Priory, near Berwick-upon-Tweed, English Marches Ides of April, 1310

Ewen didn’t hold his tongue, which more often than not, caused him problems. “You sent a woman? Why the hell would you do that?”

William Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews, bristled, his face red with anger. It wasn’t the blasphemy, Ewen knew, but the not-so-subtly implied criticism.

Erik MacSorley, the West Highland chieftain and greatest seafarer south of the land of his Viking ancestors, shot Ewen an impatient glare. “What Lamont meant to say,” MacSorley said, attempting to mollify the important prelate, “is that with the English tightening their watch on the local churches, it could be dangerous for the lass.”

Not only could MacSorley sail his way through a maelstrom of shite, he could also talk his way out of one and come out smelling like a rose. They couldn’t have been more different in that regard. Ewen seemed to step in it wherever he walked. Not that he cared. He was a warrior. He was used to wallowing in muck.

Lamberton gave him a look to suggest that muck was exactly where he thought Ewen belonged—preferably under his heel. The churchman addressed MacSorley, ignoring Ewen altogether. “Sister Genna is more than capable of taking care of herself.”

She was a woman—and a nun at that. How in Hades did Lamberton think a sweet, docile innocent could defend herself against English knights bent on uncovering the pro-Scot “couriers of the cloth,” as they’d been dubbed?

The church had provided a key communication network for the Scots through the first phase of the war, as Bruce had fought to retake his kingdom. With war on the horizon again, the English were doing their best to shut down those communication routes. Any person of the cloth—priest, friar, or nun—crossing the borders into Scotland had been subject to increased scrutiny by the English patrols. Even pilgrims were being harassed.

Perhaps sensing the direction of his thoughts, Lachlan MacRuairi interjected before Ewen could open his mouth and make it worse with Lamberton. “I thought you knew we were coming?”

The thin, nondescript bishop might look weak, especially compared to the four imposing warriors who were taking up much of the small vestry of the priory, but Lamberton had not defied the greatest king in Christendom to put Robert the Bruce on the throne without considerable strength and courage. He straightened to his full height—a good half-foot under the shortest of the four Guardsmen (Eoin MacLean, at only a few inches over six feet)—and looked down his long, thin nose at one of the most feared men in Scotland, as MacRuairi’s war name of Viper attested. “I was told to look for you at the new moon. That was over a week ago.”

“We were delayed,” MacRuairi said without further explanation.

The bishop didn’t ask, probably assuming—correctly—that it had to do with a secret mission for the Highland Guard, the elite group of warriors handpicked by Bruce to form the greatest fighting force ever seen, each warrior the best of the best in his discipline of warfare. “I could not wait any longer. It is imperative that the king receive this message as soon as possible.”

Though they were in England, it was not Edward Plantagenet, the English king, of whom Lamberton spoke, but the Scottish one, Robert Bruce. For Lamberton’s efforts in helping Bruce to that throne, the bishop had been imprisoned in England for two years, and then released and confined to the diocese of Durham for two more. Although recently the bishop had been permitted to travel to Scotland, he was back in England under English authority. It was where Bruce needed him. The bishop was the central source for most of the information winding its way to Scotland through the complex roadway of churches, monasteries, and convents.