The Rock Read online

  “But be careful what you wish for,” Elizabeth said with a laugh, bounding the adorable fair-haired child in her arms. “I remember how it was when Hugh started to walk. It seemed we were forever chasing him to prevent some sort of disaster.”

  The little boy seemed to like her bouncing and gurgled with laughter, revealing a handful of pearly white teeth. He was a cute little devil with a cherubic round face, big green eyes, long lashes, feathery soft blond hair, and sturdy little limbs.

  “He likes you,” Lady Helen said with a smile. “He seems to have a fondness for pretty lasses already.”

  Elizabeth grinned and laughed as he started to play with one of her plaits. “How old is he? Ten months?”

  Lady Helen’s brows lifted. “Yes, next week. I’m impressed. You’d think with all I know about healing I’d be better at this. But Willie has a knack for revealing just how ignorant I am. I never seem to know what to do with him. I can’t believe I actually thought this would be easy.”

  Hearing the very motherly frustration in her voice, Elizabeth had to smile. She remembered Joanna’s similar travails during Uilleam’s first year. Her nephew would be two in June. “He is your first?”

  Helen nodded. “I’ve heard from some of the other wives that it gets easier. Since a few of them have more than one child, I guess I’ll have to believe them.”

  It must have for Jo, Elizabeth thought with a smile, if the recent greenish hue to her skin in the morning meant anything.

  Elizabeth suspected she was referring to the other wives of Bruce’s secret Guard. “Your husband doesn’t mind you and the baby being here?”

  Lady Helen’s mouth twisted. “I wouldn’t say that. I think he’d rather Willie and I were at Varrich Castle in the far north of his lands in Sutherland, but he knows I may be needed, so we try to find a balance. Willie and I stay far away from danger, but as soon as Magnus deems it safe we are with him. With the victories the king has been having of late, I hope it won’t be long until most of Scotland is safe.” She glanced down in horror at Elizabeth’s wrist. “Willie, no!”

  The little boy had moved on from trying to poke his chubby fingers through Elizabeth’s plait to gnawing on her bracelet.

  “It’s all right,” she said with a laugh. “He isn’t doing any harm.”

  “Are you sure?” Lady Helen said, watching uncertainly. “It’s very beautiful.” She peered closer at the thin, etched piece of metal. “And unusual. I noticed you holding it when I walked into the room. It must be special to you.”

  Elizabeth must have been twisting it again. Joanna had pointed out more than once—as if she should signify something by it—that she did so often when she was anxious or nervous about something.

  “It is,” Elizabeth answered. Thommy had given it to her for her saint’s day right before she’d been forced to leave for France at the start of Bruce’s war. She rarely removed it.

  The small cuff was simply designed, consisting of two half-circles of brass (likely remnants from making the quillons from a sword) hinged on one side and secured by two clasps on the other. The workmanship was exquisite. It was etched with ancient symbols, such as those that were on the old cross at St. Mary’s in Douglas said to have been from the time Christianity was first introduced by the Irish missionaries St. Finian and St. Columba. Thommy was so talented, which is why she’d never understood why he wanted to be a knight. Although perhaps she had a better idea now.

  “May I see it?” Helen asked.

  “Of course,” she replied, trying to wrestle it from the baby’s gummy grasp. When he started to argue the way that babies do, she distracted him from whining by putting him down on the ground. He took off exploring right away. The room was sparsely furnished—so not much for him to get into—but she kept a close eye on the fireplace.

  With one eye on her son, Helen marveled at the design.

  “I read once about the Romans giving armbands to their soldiers for military distinctions,” Elizabeth said. “It has always reminded me of that.”

  Something in Helen’s gaze sparked. “It does! I’ve heard of those as well. Armilla, I believe they were called. Hmm . . .”

  Elizabeth would have followed up on that hmm, but Helen handed the bracelet back to her at the same time as she darted forward to cut off Willie’s path to—of course—the fireplace.

  “What is it about babies that makes them see danger and head right for it?” Elizabeth said with a shake of the head while Lady Helen gently admonished her son.

  “I don’t know,” Lady Helen answered. “But not all of them outgrow it. My husband, for one.”

  Lady Elizabeth laughed, but she sobered when Helen turned from the window where she’d moved over to point out things to distract Willie.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  The healer’s relief was visible. Until that moment, Elizabeth hadn’t realized how anxious she was. “They’re back.”

  7

  THOM HANDED SIR David Lindsay the sword. The important knight, and one of Bruce’s closest companions, held it out in front of him to examine. He turned it over in his hand, sliced through the air a few times, and looked at every angle of the handle as if he were searching for something, while making short exclamations along the way.

  “Bloody hell, MacGowan, how did you do this so quickly? It feels like an entirely new sword. The balance is incredible, and the handle feels as if it was made for my hand.”

  Thom shrugged. “If I’d had a pair of fullers I could have fixed the blood groove. It could use a little more taken out near the tip to lighten it. But the English armorer wasn’t thoughtful enough to leave all his tools behind.”

  The castle forge appeared to have been hastily abandoned after Douglas had taken Roxburgh. Thom had decided to make use of it when he wasn’t attending to his duties for Carrick. God knew, he wasn’t sleeping; he might as well make some extra coin in those wakeful hours.

  He had nothing to feel guilty about. But damn it, seeing Elizabeth’s pale, anxious face from across the Hall or courtyard the past couple of days had eaten away at his resolve. Indeed, he’d skipped the midday meal today as much to finish the sword as to avoid seeing her.

  Not that it helped. He could still see those big doe eyes right in front of him as she’d looked up at him and pleaded with him to help her.

  The pull to go to her aid was so strong it physically hurt not to do so. His chest had been aching for two days.

  He cursed inwardly and turned his attention back to Lindsay, who paid him the coin they’d agreed upon and thanked him. “I could send a few more men your way, if you think you’ll have time. I know many of us have had a difficult time finding a good smith with as much time as we spend sleeping on heather.” Thom stiffened. Not noticing, Lindsay laughed. “It seems of late that the only time we are in a castle, it is to destroy it.”

  Us, the men who fight, and you, the men who serve. Thom knew the knight didn’t mean anything by it, but it still reverberated. He wasn’t one of them, and maybe he was a fool to try to change that. Damn it, what did he have to do? For three years he’d been killing himself to become one of “us,” and all he had to do was pick up a hammer and once again he was “you.”

  But he had to admit there was something about being back in a forge that was oddly comforting. He felt more at home in this unfamiliar building than he had in any of the places he’d stayed in the past three years.

  He’d been back to Douglas only once since he left, and it had been horrible. Although it had been good to see Johnny, the short time he’d spent with his father had been awkward, uncomfortable, and filled with pain on both sides. It was as if neither of them knew what to say to one another anymore. His father thought Thom was ashamed of his background, and Thom didn’t know how to explain what drove him to try to do more. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he could explain it to himself. But it was the same thing that drove him when climbing. He liked the element of danger and pushing himself to the extreme. He wanted to see how far