The Recruit (Highland Guard #6)(6)

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. “After the 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.”

He tried to hold his scowl, but a bark of laughter escaped. He shook his head as a doting father might at a naughty child. “I should like to see it.”

He handed her the bag of coin they’d agreed upon.

She thanked him and tucked it into the purse she wore tied at her waist, enjoying the weight that dragged it down.

One dark, bushy eyebrow peppered with long strands of gray arched speculatively. “You wouldn’t need to work so hard if you agreed to take one of the requests I’ve had for your work. Fine opus anglicanum embroidery like this is wasted on these peasants.”

He said it with such disgust, Mary tried not to laugh. The customers who frequented his booth were not peasants but the burgeoning merchant class—people like him—who were helping to make Newcastle-upon-Tyne an important town.

The markets and fairs such as the one today were some of the best north of London. And John Bureford’s booth, full of fine textiles and accessories, was one of the most popular. In an hour, it would be crowded with eager young women seeking the latest fashions from London and the Continent.

He picked up one of the ribbons, a plush ruby velvet on which she’d embroidered a vine-and-leaf motif in gold thread. “Even on these they notice. The ladies of the town are vying to be the first to secure your talents for a surcote or a wall hanging. Even the hem of a shirt might satisfy them. Let me arrange it; you could name your price.”

She stilled, a flash of her old fear returning. Her voice dropped automatically to a whisper. “You did not tell them?”

He looked affronted. “I do not understand your wish for secrecy, milady, but I honor our agreement. No one needs to know it is you. But are you sure you won’t consider a few select items?”