The Ghost

by Monica McCarty

  She slipped it on. “I will.”

  “Leave it with the priest at St. Mary’s if you ever need me.” He looked at her for a few moments longer as if undecided about something. “I should probably go. The others are waiting for me.”

  She nodded. It was hard when he left. She always felt so . . . alone. Most of the time she liked it that way. But the short, infrequent meetings with Lachlan were the only time she could talk to someone without being on guard.

  Lachlan pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I probably shouldn’t be giving you this, but here is the powder you requested from Helen.”

  Helen MacKay—known as Angel—was the de facto physician of the Guard.

  Joan tried not to wriggle under his intense scrutiny, but those eerie green eyes had a way of penetrating. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” she explained.

  She thought he might call her lie right there, but he refrained. “Helen told me to remind you not to mix it with spirits—the effects are intensified.”

  “I’ll remember that,” she said blankly.

  He wasn’t fooled. “You better be careful, Joan. If your mother finds out what you are doing . . .”

  She lifted her chin. “I can take care of myself, Lachlan. I’ve been doing so for six years.” Eight if she counted back to when her mother left.

  “I don’t ask you how you discover all this information—”

  “Good,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s none of your concern.”

  He ignored her warning. “But I’m hearing rumors.”

  She stiffened and gave him a hard look. “You better than anyone know better than to listen to gossip.”

  The lies that were spread about him were far worse than anything they might say about her.

  “Maybe so, but I also know there is usually a little bit of truth to them.”

  She pursed her mouth closed, signaling that she wasn’t going to talk about it anymore.

  He sighed. “You keep your thoughts hidden better than any warrior I know—your mother used to do the same thing—but don’t think I haven’t noticed how sad you seem lately. I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile.”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. But seeing that she hadn’t convinced him, she added, “I know you are worried, but you don’t need to be. I know what I’m doing.”

  Whatever it takes so that no one else ever has to see her mother in a cage.

  The damned fools were going to get him killed.

  Alex was riding at the head of the long train of English soldiers when they first caught sight of the smoke.

  “Scot raiders,” their scout confirmed shortly thereafter, having raced back with the news. “A few furlongs ahead.”

  Two years later and the word still made every muscle in his body tense with . . . frustration? Anger? A sense of futility?

  Raider, the war name of his former partner in the Highland Guard, Robbie Boyd. The man who’d pushed Alex for seven years until he’d pushed him too far.

  You raze me, I’ll raze you more. The retaliatory raids that characterized the war in the Borders had driven Alex to London two years ago, yet here he was back in the north and the first thing that confronted him was fire—or the smoke from it.

  “How many?” Pembroke asked. Aymer de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke, was the leader of the two hundred knights and men-at-arms who were making their way north to answer King Edward’s call to muster.

  Since he’d left Scotland and the Guard, Alex had been in the south of England able to avoid the fighting and the prospect of meeting his former compatriots across a battlefield. But no longer. King Edward had ordered him to march north with Pembroke ahead of the army to prepare for battle against Bruce. Like many of his Scot countrymen in Edward’s allegiance, Alex served in an English earl’s retinue.

  “Not many, my lord,” the scout answered. “Two score—perhaps less. The man leading them wore a surcoat of white with a red chevron.”

  Alex swore silently. That coat of arms was only too well known.

  Pembroke could barely contain his glee. “By God, it’s Carrick! We’ve a chance to take Bruce’s only remaining brother. Ready your men,” he ordered the knights around him, including Alex. “We’ll circle around them from all sides. I don’t want any chance of him escaping.”

  Despite the English being on the losing end of such confrontations most of the time over the last six years, it apparently never occurred to Pembroke that they might be the ones who would need to escape. English arrogance was one of Alex’s many frustrations.

  Though experience taught him that it would likely be futile, he tried to urge caution anyway. “Carrick wouldn’t be raiding this far into England so close to Carlisle Castle with only forty men. Perhaps we should wait until the other scouts report back?”

  Something about this didn’t feel right, and Alex had learned a long time ago to trust his senses. He’d also learned that things like odds and superior numbers didn’t matter to Bruce’s warriors. And perhaps most important, he’d learned to never rush into battle without knowing exactly what you were up against.

  They didn’t even know the terrain they were working with—and it was getting dark.

  Pembroke gave him a scathing glare. “And risk losing him?” His eyes narrowed. “You would think the brother of one of the most famed knights in Christendom would be eager to fight and prove himself. Perhaps you aren’t eager to cross swords with your old compatriots?”

  Alex ignored the insult and thinly veiled questioning of his loyalty—it had been his constant companion the past nine years no matter what side he was fighting on. Born in England and raised in Scotland, Alex was suspect to both. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever belong anywhere.

  But it was much harder to ignore the reference to his brother. Sir Christopher Seton had indeed been one of the greatest knights in Christendom, Robert Bruce’s closest friend and companion, and the person Alex most looked up to in the world. Chris had been executed along with Alex’s other brother, John, eight years ago because of Pembroke’s treachery. At the Battle of Methven, Sir Aymer had given his word as a knight that he wouldn’t attack until the next morning, but he’d broken that word and sent his men into Bruce’s camp in the middle of the night.

  One of the reasons Alex felt he could no longer fight with the Highland Guard was that he was tired of furtive tactics and wanted to take the fight to the battlefield like a knight. Yet here he was taking orders from the man whose dishonorable treachery had cost him the lives of his brothers.

  Irony was a capricious bitch.

  It took everything Alex had not to respond and let the pompous bastard get away with the smug reference to his brother. But Pembroke was wrong if he thought Alex needed to prove anything. He might have at one time, but he’d proved himself many times over fighting alongside the best warriors in Christendom. The best of the best; that was why Bruce had chosen them. Each warrior of the Highland Guard had brought an important skill of warfare to the group. Except for Alex, that is. He was good with a dagger, but he’d been recruited because of his brother. Chris couldn’t join—he was too well known—but he wanted his younger brother to be a part of it.

  Alex had started out on unequal footing, and it had taken years for him to climb his way up from the bottom rung. But he’d done it. When he’d left, it hadn’t been his warrior skills that were the problem. Hell, he’d even defeated Boyd, the strongest man in Scotland, in hand-to-hand combat, and no one had done that in years.

  Though Alex would like nothing more than to prove himself to Pembroke—a fist through that smug smile would be a good start—he resisted the urge. Alex was here to help put an end to this, damn it. If it meant he had to work with arses like Pembroke to do so, he would. The people in the Borders—his people—had been bearing the brunt of this war for too damned long. No more faces in the flames. So he gritted his teeth and tried again. “I will be the first one to lift my sword if we determine Carrick is alone
. Just give me a few minutes to find out.”

  “He could be gone in a few minutes,” Sir Robert Felton, the captain of Pembroke’s household knights (and even more of an arse than his lord), interjected. “It doesn’t take long to steal a few dozen head of cattle.” He gave Alex a hard look. “And I’ll take the lead with Kingston, la Zouche, and Vescy. With your sword arm still weak, you won’t be much use to us. You can stay in the back and protect the baggage cart with your men.”

  After a couple of weeks being around Felton, Alex had new respect for Kenneth Sutherland’s ability to contain his well-known temper. Felton had been Sutherland’s nemesis when he’d returned to the English fold as a spy a few years ago, and Alex didn’t know how Sutherland hadn’t ended up killing him. Alex would like nothing more than to do so right now. But then he would have to use his right hand. His arm was fine, but he wasn’t ready to admit that yet.

  This time not only were his teeth gritted, but his fists were clenched around his reins as well. “I take orders from the earl. I wasn’t aware he’d put you in charge.”

  “He hasn’t,” Pembroke said with an admonishing glance at Felton. “I shall lead.” In addition to Felton and the knights he’d mentioned, Pembroke added a few others, and then turned to Alex. “Felton was right. We need someone to protect the carts, and until your arm is strong enough you are the obvious choice. Stay here, and I’ll send for you if you and your men are needed.”

  Had Felton not been the one to suggest it, Alex might have been glad not to have to face his former friends just yet. Hell, he was glad—Felton or not. He’d hoped to never be in this position.

  A few moments later, the bulk of the army rode off, leaving Alex, the dozen men he’d brought with him from his estates in East Lothian, and the fifty or so servants and skilled laborers who accompanied the army, from the stable lads who tended the horses, to the smiths and their apprentices who repaired the armor and shoed the horses. The “small army” as it was called was a vital part of any conventional force, but it also complicated the process and prevented them from moving quickly. By contrast, the small strike forces that Bruce employed weren’t hampered by all the added weight and logistics. That was part of what had made them so successful.

  The first clash of battle sounded like a thunderclap; it filtered through the cold evening air as if it were a hundred feet away rather than a half-mile or so. The roar of the attack, the shouts of surprise, the clatter of steel . . . the cries of death. It was fast and furious. Or at least it should have been with nearly two hundred men to forty. But after about five minutes something changed. There was a shift in the sounds of the battle that told him something had happened. A short while later, he found out what.

  One of Pembroke’s men-at-arms came racing back. “Take what you can and make for the castle. The Scots are on their way.”

  Alex swore. “What happened?”

  “Carrick’s men weren’t alone. The Earl of Moray and at least another fifty men were nearby and came as soon as they heard the attack. We were forced to retreat. Sir Aymer and the others are racing to the castle.”

  Being right didn’t make Alex any less furious—or frustrated. Sometimes it seemed as if the wall he’d been banging his head against in Scotland had followed him to England. For two years, he’d been trying to get the English to stop underestimating their opponent so they would see a reason to negotiate and bring an end to this bloody war. But all that men like Pembroke seemed to see were their superior numbers, armor, and weaponry. Things that hadn’t stopped Bruce’s men for eight years. Pembroke might have double Carrick’s men, but the arrival of the king’s nephew would have changed the odds. Alex ought to know, as he’d been responsible for some of the Earl of Moray, Sir Thomas Randolph’s, training himself.

  Alex shouted orders for his men to take what they could of the valuable plate and the silver Sir Aymer was bringing north to pay the garrison at Carlisle, rounded up the livestock, and ordered the small army to follow the old Roman road to the castle, which should only be a few miles away. The small army wouldn’t be hurt. No matter what horrible stories they told of the “barbarous Scots,” Alex knew that Bruce had given orders only to kill those who fought against them. It was the cattle and coin to provision the army that he was after.

  There was nothing barbarous about Bruce’s men, but it wasn’t until Alex had tried to cure the English of all their ignorant misconceptions and beliefs that he’d really understood it himself. The Scots might be terrifying and appear out of the darkness like brigands, but they weren’t.

  But unfortunately, unlike the small army, Alex and his men wouldn’t escape death so easily if Bruce’s men caught up with them.

  Alex didn’t delay, heading straight for Pembroke’s cart to retrieve the silver.

  He’d just shoveled the last of the fifty pounds’ worth of coins from the wooden box into a linen sack to make it easier to fit in a saddlebag, when he heard the not-so-distant sound of approaching riders.

  With a curse, he handed the bag to the last of his men and told him to go. They were leaving a lot of valuable goods behind, but there was no help for it.

  Knowing Bruce’s men would be on him at any moment, Alex mounted his horse and took one last look around. A movement out of the corner of his eye stopped him cold.

  Bloody hell, where had she come from? A wee lass, not much older than five or six, had just emerged from the trees. Alex watched in disbelief as she started to cross the road that was directly in the path of the oncoming horsemen. He shouted a warning, but she didn’t give any indication that she’d heard him. Couldn’t she hear the horses?

  She must have felt them. She stopped suddenly—right in the middle of the road—stared down at the ground, and froze. She had her back to him, but Alex didn’t need to see her face to know that it was struck in terror.

  Go, he told himself, looking in the direction of the road leading to the castle. You can still escape. They’ll see her in time.

  But it was almost dark, and she was wearing a black cloak . . .

  She turned and saw him. Her eyes widened, and for one hideous moment, Alex’s mind flashed back to another. He saw another little girl with wide eyes and full of terror staring at him, but this time from the open door of a loft in a barn with flames jumping all around her.

  Flames that he had set.

  Oh God, I have to reach her in time. Please let me reach her in time . . .

  The memory cleared, but not the sense of urgency. He knew he couldn’t take the chance that they wouldn’t see her. He wouldn’t see another innocent life put at risk—not when he could stop it.

  He swore again and swung his horse toward the girl. He didn’t have much time. The first rider had just appeared perhaps a hundred feet behind her. They weren’t much farther away than Alex.

  He sure as hell hoped his sword skills hadn’t diminished as much as he feared in the past two years, because even if this worked, he was going to be fighting for his life in a few seconds.

  With a snap of the reins and a click of his heels, his stallion shot forward. Staying low over its neck, Alex held the reins in one hand and slowed just enough to lean over and wrap one arm around the girl’s shoulders and drag her out of harm’s way. Turning his horse in to the trees, he set her down. The pounding of horses stopped. Aware of the riders circling around him in the darkness, he told her to go.

  Big, dark eyes in a tiny pale urchin’s face stared at him mutely.

  Nay, not mute, he realized, deaf. That’s why she hadn’t heard him or the horses. It was the feel of the ground shaking that had alerted her to danger.

  “Go,” he repeated again, pushing her in the direction of the trees. “You’ll be safe.”

  She must have understood his meaning if not the words, because she gave him a frantic nod and scurried off into the trees.

  Even before he looked up, Alex felt a chill of premonition as the men who’d surrounded him emerged from the darkness. The hand reaching over his back for his s
word stilled.

  Damn it, it couldn’t be.

  But it was.

  The blood drained from his body in a violent rush. He muttered a harsh curse, recognizing the familiar blackened nasal helms, soot-stained faces, black leather studded cotuns, and dark plaids.

  Hell, he wasn’t ready for this. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready.

  His hand dropped to his side. After fighting alongside these men for seven years, he knew better. He was good, but single-handedly defeating nine warriors of the Highland Guard was beyond any one man’s skills.

  Alex had always known he might pay with his life one day for what he’d done, he just hadn’t anticipated it being so soon.

  A familiar voice broke through the silence. “I see you are still polishing that shiny armor of yours, Sir Alex.”

  2

  ALEX BRACED HIMSELF for the condemnation and hatred, as he turned to face one of the most feared men in England, his former partner and hate-everything-English, Robbie Boyd.

  But nothing could have prepared him for the stab of guilt that plunged through his gut when he saw the look of betrayal in the eyes of the man whose friendship and respect he’d struggled for so long to earn. At times Alex thought he had, and at others, it felt like all he was doing was banging his head against that wall.

  You did what you had to do. He never trusted you anyway. You were never really a part of them. But the guilt coiling in his chest didn’t seem to think that was enough.

  “You didn’t get enough of rescuing fair maids in Scotland, so you had to stab us in the back and go to England instead?” Boyd said.

  Alex flinched. Though he’d anticipated the blow, it didn’t make it any easier to withstand.

  He didn’t miss the emphasis—or the sarcasm. Boyd’s wife was known as “The Fair Rosalin” after her illustrious ancestor “The Fair” Rosemund Clifford. When Alex had still been with the Guard, Rosalin had been taken hostage after a retaliatory raid in Norham to secure her brother’s agreement to a truce. To say that Alex had clashed with Boyd over the taking of the hostages (Rosalin’s nephew had been taken as well, although the boy had managed to escape) was putting it mildly.