Conquer the Night (41 page)

“Aye, sister, I always do.” He reached down, patting her head.

“I'll see you at Stirling! And we'll dance on the hills in victory!”

She ran along as they started to ride out; then she looked up at Arryn. “God guard you and guide you, Arryn.”

“Aye, lass, thank you.”

“I will not be nice to
her
, Arryn!” she cried.

“As if the lass were ever accused of being
nice!
” Jay muttered dryly at Arryn's side.

Arryn smiled, then reined in quickly. He reached down, caught her hands, drew her to him, and kissed her cheek. “Take care of yourself, Katherine.”

She nodded, biting her lip, falling back.

Arryn spurred his horse. It wasn't a time to deal with domestic issues.

They started to race across the countryside.

For Abbey Craig.

Kyra rose slowly, feeling as if she were a very old woman.

She wished that he had wakened her; she wished that they had talked.

She wished that he had not ridden away, that the battle was not imminent. It was true that war was terrible! The victors would pursue the beaten, strike them down.

So much death, so much blood!

Shaking, she walked to the cool brook with her father's mantle wrapped around her. She had to stop thinking about it. Somehow she had to endure the waiting. She knelt and doused her face in the water, rinsing away her useless tears. She sat back upon the embankment and heard a twig snap.

She turned around.

A slim, angelic-looking blond girl leaned against the trunk of one of the oaks. Startled, Kyra rose slowly, hugging the mantle closer, looking at the girl in return.

“Hello,” she said curiously.

“So you are the Lady Kyra.”

“Aye. And you're …”

“My name doesn't matter. I would not want to hear it from your lips.”

“Ah,” Kyra murmured smoothly. “Then why have you come here to talk to me?”

“I haven't come to talk to you. I just came to see what an English whore looked like.”

The girl spoke with frightening venom in her words. Kyra wasn't at all sure how to respond to her, and she realized that whoever she was, she was not from Seacairn. She felt her hands trembling, and she knotted them into fists behind her. She would betray nothing of her unease to this girl. She had to pray that the battle came….

That the battle was won. And that she might quickly ride to Arryn again.

If
the battle was won.
If
Arryn lived.

She felt ill, as if her heart were sinking. She wondered if she could bear the fear, and the waiting, and not knowing….

And just who was this girl who wouldn't identify herself? And what did she mean to Arryn?

Would it matter, if he perished?

She clenched her hands more tightly, drawing strength from the effort. She spoke quietly, without betraying the slightest temper.

“Well, you've come, you've seen me, you've been vulgar and rude. Goal accomplished, whoever you are. So run on now, and leave me be.”

To her surprise, the blond woman pushed away from the tree and started to leave. But she paused, turning back.

“You may bewitch men, my lady, but I am not so easily fooled by a face and form. Take care with me, for I know you for what you are! I can use a sword, and I'm very good with a knife, and you take one wrong step toward me, and I will kill you. Do you understand?”

Startled, Kyra weighed her answer carefully. “I don't know what you think you know about me, but I never hurt you.”

“Oh, lady! You cannot begin to know!”

“
I
never caused you pain. But I am fond of living. And I know how to use a sword and a knife. So I've a suggestion: let's keep far apart in the future, shall we?”

“When you are in hell, Lady Kyra, we will be far enough apart, and only then!”

With that exit line, the young blond woman left her at last.

Kyra turned back to the water, feeling dull and heavy with dread. The men had gone on to battle. God knew what the day would bring come tomorrow. She might never see him again….

She heard a movement in the trees and turned quickly.

She saw no one. And yet …

There seemed a strange whispering in the trees, as if someone had been there. She felt a tremor of warning snake up her spine.

Someone had been there.

Watching her.

Still searching the trees, Kyra frowned and wondered if the blond woman had come back to watch her. No. There was nothing furtive or surreptitious about the blond. She was angry, hated Kyra with blunt honesty, and that was that.

She was not likely to spy on her in the forest.

Watch her.

She was being ridiculous, she thought.

Because Arryn had come and gone so quickly. And because the time had come for Scotland to stand.

Or fall.

The breeze picked up, the leaves rustled, and there seemed to be a whispering in the forest again—the bare sounds of the brook, the wind, the small creatures that scurried about, that lived here. She was imagining evil within those natural sounds.

She heard humming. Ingrid was coming. Her maid came into the copse. “Ah, my lady, there you are! Sir Arryn said you were to sleep and not be disturbed, that it was better to ride to war without waking you. But they will take the day; aye, lady, don't be afraid—I know they will.”

Ingrid smiled brightly, curling her fingers around one of her long braids. She smiled. Then she burst into tears.

“Oh, Ingrid!” Kyra stepped forward, putting her arms around her, hugging her closely. “You're right! They will take the day.”

“His people have come, you know. To be with us, protect us. But Harry—a fine fellow, he was steward at Hawk's Cairn—says we may wait a bit before moving on. We're close here to the battle, aye, but far enough away to run with due warning. Oh, my lady! If they fail, if my Swen is killed, it won't matter if I run; he is my life!”

“Swen is bigger than five men put together, Ingrid. I'm certain he'll be fine.”

“If Swen is bigger,” Ingrid said, and it was apparent, even through her sniffs and sobs, that she was proud of her husband's great bulk, “then Sir Arryn is stronger. And abler! Oh, my lady, they must triumph; they must!”

Her sobs came hard again. Kyra tried to soothe her.

Yet, she looked past her….

It seemed, again, that the trees were watching her. That there was evil in the whisper of the wind.

Eyes!

In the shadow and the light, branches waved softly, leaves rustled.

And again the feeling snaked along her spine.

She was being watched.

By whom?

Why?

Aye, the time had come!

He smiled, knowing that she was aware, that she was uneasy.

He had waited; he had played the game of the sycophant. And they were all such fools.

The English would win; the Scots would be ground into the dirt. Blood would run and run and run, because the traitors who were not killed would meet their fates at the hand of the law. Aye, the law decreed what became of a traitor! English law. The English law of an English king And those who had served the glory of England …

Would be rewarded.

He would be rewarded.

The Scots had ridden on; he had learned all that he needed to know here. It was time to join with his own kind again; men who were powerful, men who would be victors.

Oh, aye!

He would be rewarded.

He slipped quietly from the woods, and began his own journey to the battle.

The Scottish rallied to Wallace's cry.

They had been coming for days, weeks, from many parts of the country. Some of them were poor tenants; some of them were rich men. There were Highlanders and Lowlanders, Picts, Scotia, Britons, Angles, Norse, and more, descendants of all the many tribes and peoples who had come to make up the realm of Scotland. Many of the great lords, men who had sworn allegiance to Edward, did not come.

Their vassals did. Their men-at-arms came, men who could wield swords, ride heavy destriers into battle—men who could slash and slay, and tear down an enemy.

That night, that summer's night, they encamped with great force on the heights of Abbey Craig. Old friends greeted one another. Men wounded in past fights with English embraced other scarred individuals. New faces came, and all of them the people of a country who would fight beneath a man who was not a king. He didn't fight for glory, and neither would they. They would fight for Scotland.

Gathering at Abbey Craig, they could see the fires of the English as well, stretching endlessly into the night. Thousands of them. Perhaps tens of thousands.

Arryn, as did many others, stood upon the heights and watched the fires burn. The various greetings of the men began to die down, the boasting, the laughter, the raw and bawdy jokes that sustained them and gave them bravado here tonight. They must have such energy, gusto, determination—and such desperation. Such spurs in the heart and soul were the weapons the English would not have.

He was quiet, watching as the men greeted old friends and relations. They drank, but most of them sparingly. They laughed, grew grave over friends and relatives lost, imprisoned in England … executed as traitors.

He hadn't joined in, but stood some distance away. His closest companions were near him, but his forces had grown so large, and were from so many towns and villages, that they were staggered throughout the encampment as well. He didn't see the priest, Father Corrigan, but then the priest seemed to be an industrious man, ready to bless men and help them with sword techniques at a moment's notice.

John came to where he stood.

“Your great army is raised,” Arryn noted. “You have sworn by Wallace all this time. And he has united us.”

“Aye, well, he needed Andrew de Moray. Andrew is a richly landed fellow, with admirable lineage. But that isn't all. He's a fierce fighter, and ne'er a coward—nor has he ever vacillated for the favor of a foreign king. His raids against the English were as fierce as any Wallace took on, and perhaps better known.”

“Well, then, two great men have brought us together.”

“Aye,” John said. He hesitated. “Arryn?”

“Aye?”

“Did your lady speak with you before you rode?”

“My lady?”

“Kyra.”

“Ah.” He studied John. “Now she is my lady? I thought that you did not like her—or did not trust her, rather.”

John lifted a hand. “Her eyes are honest,” he said after a moment.

Arryn studied him, then looked toward the gathered men again. “I did not wake her when we left,” he said quietly. “Why?”

John seemed to hesitate, then shrugged. “No matter, not for now…. Have you watched the English encampment?”

“Aye.”

“It's large.”

“That it is.”

“Do you think we'll die?”

Arryn shrugged, then grinned. “Nay—I've promised not to do so.”

“Well, then, the clan will live on.”

“The clan is prolific—there are already many of us, from many areas of the country.”

“Aye, there are many of us. Many … to live when we are gone, to cherish, I pray, this country we would win for them.”

“John, is there something more you meant to say?”

Strangely, his cousin hesitated. “No. Not unless you think you're dying. Then call me over from wherever I am on the battlefield—you can assure yourself I will be close.”

“John—”

“Excuse me, cousin; I see a fellow with whom I need a word.”

His cousin left him. Arryn watched him, curious, frustrated.

Had he spoken with Kyra? To what end? Had John suddenly decided that she should be his lady, and that he owed her concern and protection?

She would be cared for, come what may. She would be safe. Harry might wait for news of the battle, but when the first hint of danger reached him, he would get the women well into the Highlands. Outlaws, brigands, wild men indeed. The Highlanders were the fiercest of the clans, and they would forever protect those entrusted to them.

Still, if they survived the coming battle …

He'd make John explain himself.

But John didn't return. Arryn remained apart. Friends urged him to join them. He courteously refused, needing to maintain his solitary vigil. The day to come meant so very much.

Vengeance.

Freedom.

The men, in their different groups, grew quieter. The hour grew later. The fires burned lower.

A lone piper began to play an outlawed song.

And suddenly the darkness seemed to come alive with the sound of the pipes. The haunting wail rose higher and higher in the night, like a lament to heaven …

Or to hell.

Amidst the wheeze and whine of the pipes, a cry began to come as well, a cry from the lips of men.

Higher, louder, a battle cry. Their courage, their resolve, anger, and passion, joining on the wind.

Come the dawn, that courage would be tested.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

He rode alone, taking care with his direction. It was easy, however, to avoid the trail of the large contingent traveling with Sir Arryn.

As he neared Stirling, evidence of the armies became abundant: trails worn by the heavy travel, bracken and trees flattened, the earth stripped bare of summer's produce. Broken pieces of harness and wagons, discarded in the heavy rush of movement, lay indiscriminately along the wayside; the waste of horses was rich and verdant as well.

By darkness, campfires lit the countryside.

There was no sense hiding them. The armies were in the process of negotiation; the Earl of Surrey, worn and ill, wanted no part of a battle, so rumor went. He was anxious for the Scots to capitulate.

They had done so often enough.

Easy enough, as well, to recognize the Scottish banners, and the English. Seeing the English camp, he rode harder to reach it. He felt a moment's uncertainty. There were thousands of troops, men who had come north, mercenaries, and Scottish lords with English estates who would fight for Edward. Rebels and outlaws defying the king and fighting for freedom.
Common men
.