The Arrow Read online

  Though every instinct told him he was making a mistake, Gregor didn’t heed the warning. “My home is in Roro—near Loch Tay in the Highlands. You can stay there with my mother, if you wish. You will be safe there.”

  The look on her face was one he’d seen many times before—a cross between adulation and love—and he instantly regretted whatever impulse it had been that compelled him to make the offer.

  But it was too late.

  “Do you mean it? You will really take me with you?” She launched herself against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  Bloody hell, what had he done?

  He looked over the dark head that barely reached midpoint in his chest to see his friends watching them and trying not to laugh—even MacLeod.

  “Breaking hearts wherever he goes,” MacLean said to Lamont with a laugh. “Looks like you’ve made yourself another conquest, MacGregor. Though this one’s a little young even for you. The curse of a pretty face, I suppose.”

  “Bugg—” Conscious of the lass, Gregor bit back the rest of his normal response.

  Instead he gave MacLean a deadly look. It wasn’t funny. Especially as Gregor suspected it might be true.

  What had he gotten himself into?

  One

  Berwick Castle, English Marches, 6 December 1312

  There is nothing wrong with me.

  Gregor drew his arrow back and let it loose. One shot. One kill. He wouldn’t miss.

  He didn’t. The soldier froze in paralyzed shock as Gregor’s arrow found the narrow patch of skin between his eyes—one of the few places unprotected by mail and the steel kettle-cap the soldiers favored. The old Norse nasal-style helm that the Highland Guard wore would have served them better. But even at this close range—Gregor was no more than thirty yards away—such a small target required skill to hit. Skill like that possessed by the greatest archer in Scotland.

  A moment later, the Englishman’s mail-clad body toppled to the ground like a felled tree. Before he’d even hit the ground, the next target already had appeared on the rampart. Gregor took quick aim and fired. He didn’t appear to think; his movements were as smooth and precise as a finely tuned engine of war. But the cool, effortless facade masked the intense focus and concentration underneath. Everyone was counting on him, but under pressure was when Gregor MacGregor was at his best.

  Usually.

  The second soldier fell as the arrow found its mark.

  After nearly seven years fighting in the Bruce’s elite Highland Guard, no one was better at eliminating key targets in advance of an attack than Gregor. Targets. That’s how he had to think of them. An obstacle in between him and his objective that needed to be eliminated to achieve victory. And there had been plenty of obstacles over the past seven years.

  But they were making progress—real progress—and the victory over the English that most had thought impossible was inching closer to reality. Since returning to Scotland from the Western Isles, where Bruce and those loyal to him had been forced to flee six years ago, the king had made steady gains in wresting his kingdom from English occupation. He’d defeated his own countrymen to take control of the North; Robbie Boyd, along with James Douglas and Thomas Randolph, had a firm grip on the lawless Borders; and the isolated former Celtic kingdom of Galloway was about to fall to the king’s only remaining brother, Edward Bruce.

  All that were left were the English garrisons entrenched in Scotland’s castles, and one by one those were falling to Bruce as well. But none would be more important than Berwick Castle. The impenetrable stronghold in the Scottish or English Marches (depending on who currently had control) had seen more than its share of this war and had served as the English king’s headquarters on his previous campaigns. Taking it would bring them one step—one big step—closer to victory. But without siege engines, Bruce and his men had to rely on more inventive methods. Like the grappling-hook-and-rope ladders two of Gregor’s fellow members of the Highland Guard were waiting to toss over the wall, as soon as he cleared the battlements of the enemy.

  Gregor peered into the darkness, scanning the wall patiently, his pulse slow and steady. There had been three soldiers patrolling this section of the wall. Where was the third?

  There! His reaction instantaneous, Gregor let loose the arrow at the first glimpse of steel as the soldier emerged from the shadows of the guardhouse. The man fell to the ground before he even knew what hit him.

  Pop, pop, pop, and it was done. The targets had been cleared.

  Gregor never missed. Which was why he was so valuable. When stealth was key, the Highland Guard could not risk an errant arrow or one landing in a part of the body that might give the enemy a chance to raise the alarm. Bruce’s success depended on subterfuge. And Gregor would do whatever he had to do to see Bruce permanently entrenched on Scotland’s throne.

  Except that he had missed. Gregor bit back a curse of frustration. The third arrow had landed in one of the soldier’s eyes, not between them. To anyone else it might be on the mark—dead was dead—but not for him. For him, it was a miss.

  And it wasn’t the first. The past few weeks—months—he’d been off by a few inches more than once.

  It’s nothing, he told himself. A temporary rut. Everyone has them.

  Everyone but him. He couldn’t afford to be anything but perfect. Too much was riding on this. The king was counting on him. And the small misses bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

  Gregor took one more look before using hand gestures to let the others know that it was all clear. Leaving their position hidden in the shadows of the riverbank, the five men crept toward the White Wall. They were the advance guard. The men handpicked by Bruce to go over the wall first and open the gate from within to let in the rest of them. In addition to Gregor and his fellow Guardsmen Arthur “Ranger” Campbell, Lachlan “Viper” MacRuairi, and Erik “Hawk” MacSorley, Bruce had chosen James “the Black” Douglas for the honor of taking Berwick.

  This was the most ambitious—and dangerous—attempt they’d made to take a castle by subterfuge yet. Two stone guard towers along the riverbank of the Tweed were linked to the main fortifications atop the motte by the steep winding wall with the apt name of “breakneck stairs.” So scaling the wall and taking the lower towers was only the first challenge; they would then have to climb the breakneck stairs and take the upper guard tower before the English became aware of what was happening.

  Their task would be aided significantly by the ingenious ladder. Sir James Douglas or, depending on whom you talked to, Sir Thomas Randolph (the good-natured rivalry between the two men for the position of the king’s most trusted knight was becoming legend, and they often vied for credit for the latest escapade) had come up with the idea of attaching iron grappling hooks to a rope ladder fitted with wooden footboards. It was light enough to be carried by two men and far easier to hide than the fixed wooden ladders used to scale walls. This would be their first attempt at using one.

  Gregor scanned the area of the rampart above for additional soldiers, as Campbell and MacSorley—who as a seafarer had plenty of experience with grappling hooks—went to work tossing the hooks over the wall and securing the ladder into position. With the fierce Island chieftain’s uncanny ability to slip in and out of shadows, MacRuairi would go up first, and Gregor would follow, setting up in position along the wall to observe and, if necessary, get rid of any unexpected problems while the rest of the men made their way up the ladder.

  Observation was Gregor’s secondary role. It was his job to make sure they weren’t the ones surprised.

  The first part of their mission went smoothly—too smoothly, which always made him twitchy. He’d been on enough missions to know that the only thing you could count on was that something always went wrong.

  But the ladders worked better than they could have hoped. Within five minutes, Gregor was in position along the wall where he could see both guard towers, and the other men had clear