The Recruit Read online

  The minutes tolled slowly. Kenneth could see the anxiousness on the faces of the men around him as they waited for the first sounds. The familiar battle scent of fear laced with anticipation hung in the air.

  Finally, a fierce battle cry tore through the night, and a moment later, there was the answering clash of steel. Felton sprang from his position on the opposite side of Percy and began barking commands. His men took off in all directions, fanning around the attack to cut off all means of escape.

  Kenneth, Percy, and Felton approached slowly, taking care not to alert Bruce’s man of their presence.

  Percy’s men were good, he’d give them that. For Englishmen they were doing a damned find job of imitating Bruce’s “furtive” methods. If this had been a real attack, the Highland Guard might have been in trouble.

  But his friends knew what was coming, and they’d be ready.

  Finally, Kenneth and the English reached a turn in the road where they could see the battle. About a hundred feet ahead of them, pandemonium reigned. Swords, pikes, axes, hammers—a symphony of weaponry flashed like a lightning storm in the night air before them. If he hadn’t known better, the sight of Bruce’s “phantoms” would have taken him aback as well. Wrapped in dark plaids, with their blackened faces, helms, mail coifs, and cotuns, the Highland Guard did indeed look like wraiths, flying through the night air in a whirl of death and destruction. He noticed more than one man startle beside him.

  “They’re only men,” Percy reminded them softly, but there might have been a hint of uncertainty in his voice. Then he stood, brandishing his sword about his head. “For England!” he shouted, leading the charge.

  Only Kenneth hesitated. He looked around to where Felton had instructed the young earl to remain, protected by a half-dozen soldiers who would prevent the Guard from escaping to the south. “Remember,” he warned the lad. “Stay back, and out of the way.”

  Wide-eyed, transfixed by his first glimpse of battle, David nodded.

  Kenneth raced forward, taking his position on the east flank where Percy was shouting out his commands. The Highland Guard had already fought their way through the first line of defense—the soldiers protecting the cart—and Percy was ordering the outer line forward, tightening the noose.

  The plan was for the Highland Guard to create a hole in the defense and slip through before the English were in position. It should have been simple enough. With Percy’s remaining men spread all around, the eight guardsmen could easily defeat the dozen or so closest men and slip into the cover of darkness.

  But something was wrong. The Guard was taking too long.

  It took Kenneth a minute to realize that one of the Guard had been injured—Seton, maybe?—it was too dark to tell. The guardsman nearest him—this one he had no problem recognizing, Boyd’s powerful form being impossible to mistake—was locked in battle with three of Felton’s men and couldn’t break free of them. MacKay was trying to make his way over to help them, but Felton had seen what was happening and ordered a handful of his men to stop him.

  Unfortunately, Seton—he was sure it was he now—Boyd, and MacKay were on the opposite side of the road from the rest of the Guard, and the time for creating that hole was quickly disappearing. The noose was tightening and would become harder and harder to break through.

  Timing was everything, and they were losing it. Kenneth was trying to think of a way to help without making it obvious, but his own position on the outer line beside Percy hampered him.

  Then things went from bad to worse. Improvising, the Guard decided to make two holes. MacGregor, Campbell, MacLean, and Lamont broke through the line in the northwest and escaped along the planned route through the high pass. MacKay, Boyd, and Seton would take the backup route along the river. Splitting up made sense. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that between the three guardsmen and escape was the young Earl of Atholl.

  Would they be able to tell in the darkness it was only a lad? The boy was tall already, and with his mail and helm …

  Ah hell.

  “Get back!” Kenneth shouted, but the boy was too far away and the din of battle too loud for him to hear the warning.

  Realizing the danger, Felton had moved his men around to protect the boy. The added men were making it harder for the three guardsmen to break through and giving Percy the delay he needed.

  “Don’t let them escape!” Percy shouted, ordering the rest of his men to circle around from behind.

  MacKay, Boyd, and the wounded Seton were fighting their way forward, but they needed to hurry up. The rest of the army was closing in fast. They only had a handful of seconds to get away.

  One by one, they cut through the men standing before the boy. The earl was trying to back up, but he wasn’t moving away fast enough. Felton was doing his best to fend off MacKay, but the others were no match for Boyd, and even an injured Seton.

  Finally, they had their hole. Seton and Boyd slipped through and headed for the edge of the hillside.

  “Stop them, Felton!” Percy shouted. “They’re getting away!”

  Percy’s champion was good, but MacKay was better. He feigned a swing of his sword from the right, but at the last minute dropped his hands, spun, and delivered a blow from the opposite side, sending Felton careening to the ground on his arse.

  Kenneth didn’t have time to enjoy the moment, however. MacKay was past Felton and headed for the others when he saw the lad—except he didn’t know it was a lad. He thought he was just one more soldier in his way.

  Kenneth was almost there.

  MacKay lifted his sword.

  “Nayyyy!” Kenneth shouted, leaping through the air, his own sword raised to block the blow meant for David.

  His gaze met MacKay’s shocked one as their swords clashed right before the terrified boy’s face. Unfortunately, due to the angle and the fact that Kenneth was flying through the air, the swords did not meet squarely, and the blade of MacKay’s two-handed long sword skidded sharply off the blade and into Kenneth’s arm.

  The shot of pain and hot pulse of blood told him the powerful slice of MacKay’s blade had found a narrow gap between the sleeve of his habergeon and gauntlet and penetrated the padding underneath to find flesh. Quite a bit of flesh, he suspected, feeling the amount of blood seeping through as he tried to staunch it with his gauntleted hand.

  Kenneth hoped he was the only one to hear his brother-in-law swear and mutter a hasty apology in Gaelic before disappearing into the darkness.

  Moments later, Kenneth heard a splash below and knew his friends were safe.

  Not surprisingly, not one of the Englishmen attempted to jump off the cliff to go after them.

  Thirteen

  For the better part of two days, Mary had plenty of time to consider what she should do. With Sir Adam in constant attendance to the Earl of Cornwall and Davey having accompanied Lord Percy, Sir John, and—to her surprise—Sir Kenneth on some last-minute journey to Roxburgh (at least she thought it was Roxburgh, though Sir Adam had been unusually vague), she’d been left largely to herself.

  Although she was certainly eager to avoid Sir Kenneth, and truth be told Sir John as well, she wanted to tell Sir Adam and Davey of her plans to return to Ponteland as soon as possible.

  Her chest squeezed at the thought of leaving so soon after arriving. It wasn’t fair. She’d just begun to make inroads with her son, just started to get to know him, and he had to show up and ruin everything.

  Mary’s first instinct had been to toss a few items in a bag that night and find the nearest ship to take her to France. But once the initial shock of seeing Kenneth Sutherland in all his too-handsome glory in England had passed, she’d calmed down. Well, at least enough not to run to the stables and jump on the first horse.

  There was no reason to be scared, she told herself. No reason to overreact or do anything rash. Perhaps he did not mean to stay long?

  But Mary knew that even a few days was too much to risk. She would return to Ponteland on the prete