Page 2 of My Warrior
“Good.” They clasped forearms. “I’ll teach you everything I know,” Holden promised, wrapping an arm around Garth’s shoulders as they ambled toward the serge tents. “How to conquer fear, how to inspire loyalty, how to rule men with an iron hand and a just heart, how to seduce wenches, how to besiege castles…”
Garth stopped in his tracks and looked dubiously up at Holden.
“Aye, even that,” he vowed. “It’s not as difficult as you’d imagine, lad. Indeed, most of them are more than willing to surrender. One knock at their barbican and the drawbridge comes winding down. They change masters as often as the moon changes its face, and they’re easily won.” He gazed dreamily off into the night. “Others are untouchable, flawlessly constructed. They’ll never be possessed. Such perfection you must be content to gaze upon from afar.” He thumped Garth on the chest. “Now the most challenging and rewarding conquest is the one that puts up a good fight. You win, of course. De Wares always win. But the taste of victory is so much sweeter when… What?”
Garth was staring at him as if he were addled in the head. “This will be my first campaign. I don’t think I’ll be besieging many castles.”
“Besieging castles”? Holden said, chuckling. “Who’s talking about besieging castles?” He hauled Garth off with him toward the pavilions. “I’m speaking of seducing women.”
CHAPTER 1
A brindled rabbit sat up on its haunches, sniffing warily at the cold, crisp air. The sun caressed a leaf here and there, steaming the moisture from the mossy trees. The sparrows had yet to rise, and an owl flew home on soundless wings. For a moment, the irresistible scent of tender green shoots beckoned from a nearby meadow. But then a faint, unfamiliar odor wafted by. The rabbit froze.
The silence of the morning was broken abruptly by the sharp whisper of an arrow slicing neatly through the mist to embed itself in the damp earth. In a flurry of leaves, the rabbit scampered away into the brake, more startled by the loud oath that rent the air than by the wayward shaft.
“Damn him! Damn that brainless ox of a fletcher!”
The hunter’s azure eyes, as bright as a Highland stream, narrowed in disgust as the rabbit made its escape.
The ash longbow, flung in anger, bounced upon the ground, followed by the quiver of ill-fletched arrows that spilled out over well-worn leather boots. In a sweep of russet brown, the hunter’s cloak swirled like a storm cloud. The hood fell back, spilling out long chestnut hair burnished red-gold by the early sunlight.
Nearby, Laird Angus Gavin chuckled, his voice both rough and warm, like strong mulled wine. “Temper, lass, temper.”
Cambria expelled a foggy puff of air and glared at her father over an indignant shoulder. He was a fine one to talk. She hadn’t inherited her fiery temperament from her timid deer of a mother, God rest her soul.
“I told that bloody addlepate to check the balance of the shafts this time before he gave them to me,” she fumed, swatting her hair back from her face. “These are utterlyuseless!”
Her father nodded and wrapped a consoling arm around her. “I’ll speak to him, lass.”
“I’d have skewered that one,” she muttered, vengefully kicking over a toadstool.
She knew she was right. Although Malcolm the Steward oft complained about her distasteful penchant for what the old boar referred to as hunting, hawking, and hacking, evenhehad to admit she possessed considerable skill with the longbow.
She scooped up the faulty arrows with a swipe of her hand and flung the quiver over her shoulder. It wasn’t just the unbalanced shafts that upset her. She’d hardly been able to concentrate on anything lately.
Laird Angus took her hands between his own meaty paws and studied her face. “It’s the clan troubling you, and this inevitable war,” he guessed.
When she gazed into his wise old eyes, the anger drained out of her. Her father could always sense her worries. Indeed, she swore sometimes he could divine a person’s soul.
The trouble had begun a fortnight ago. Her cousin Robbie had been at the heart of it. Robbie, with his mischief-bright blue eyes and the unruly thatch of red hair that made him recognizable clear across the glen. The boy who’d waded with her in summer ponds and battled against her with the wooden swords of childhood, who’d lent her his shoulder to cry on when her mother died a dozen years past. It seemed only days ago that she and Robbie had been laughing over a cutthroat game of chess.
Everything was different now.
“Still pining over that upstart cousin?” the laird grumbled.
She poked at the wet carpet of last year’s leaves with the toe of her boot. “Robbie was right, you know. We owe a debt to the memory of Robert the Bruce. It’s up to us to continue his fight for the Scots cause.”
“Faugh!” Laird Angus barked. “What that young whelp Robbie knows about the Scots cause would fit in a thimble. He’d get himself and half the clan slaughtered, and for what? He has no home now, no land. And,” he added pointedly, “no clan.”
She tried to ignore the hollow ache in her heart. Damn that fool Robbie. Ifshewere laird, she’d forgive him, take him back into the clan, even if her father was too proud to do it. Robbie had only made a stupid mistake, after all, trying to convince her to join their cause, forgetting that her place was beside her father, who put clan before country.
She picked at a ragged fingernail and muttered, “The English are our enemy.”
“At times,” he agreed, bending stiffly to retrieve Cambria’s bow, “but so are the Highlanders.”
It was true. The Highlanders generally mistrusted the Border clans like the Gavins, with good cause. Loyalties along the Borders shifted as frequently as the tides of the North Sea, rallying to whoever commanded the superior power.
But there was no question in Cambria’s mind who wielded the mightier sword. She’d been raised alongside the great knights of Gavin. There wasn’t an Englishman alive who could match her magnificent clan warriors in strength, courage, and loyalty. She was sure Scotland would eventually triumph, and a Scots king would occupy the throne.
