Page 7 of My Warrior
CHAPTER 2
Sir Roger Fitzroi massaged the stubble on his cheek as he squinted through the pines toward the distant slumbering castle. He hadn’t slept well, unlike the other knights of his company, who snored comfortably on the sod around him in the chill light before dawn. His bitterness toward his new overlord, Holden de Ware, festered like an untended wound.
King Edward had turned his favor not upon Roger, but upon the Wolf, despite the fact that, for all intents and purposes, Roger was the king’s own uncle. Once again the king had ignored the blood tie, slighting his grandsire’s bastard and giving Holden de Ware command over the forces in the north. Then he’d let the Wolf lay siege to the best, most formidable keep, granting him lordship of it.
The siege on Castle Bowden, if one could rightly call it that, had lasted no more than three days, and the newly made Lord Holden de Ware settled into his grand accommodations with relative ease. It had been with great zeal, then, that Roger embraced the opportunity to claim a similar victory at nearby Castle Blackhaugh.
That was until he learned there was a special provision for this keep. Apparently, the Border laird had willingly agreed to its use by the English and pledged to sign support for Balliol as long as the castle and its property remained in its present owner’s name. And that damned Holden de Ware had approved the conditions.
Roger spit on the ground in disgust at this ridiculous coddling of the enemy. He’d sooner sell his own mother as a whore than let a Scotsman hold property while he remained landless. Curse the Wolf! King Edward had promised the victors the spoils. Roger would be damned if he’d be cheated of his.
Suddenly eager for the fight in spite of the early hour, he nudged his half brothers with his boot.
“Hugh. Owen. Get up,” he grunted, ignoring their drowsy protests. “Let’s storm a castle.”
The denizens of Blackhaugh had likely never seen so impressive a display of knights, Roger thought with satisfaction as he slowly removed his gauntlets. Nearly two score of them strutted through the great hall in full mail with tabards bearing proud English crests. Even his own, branded with the bar sinister that proclaimed him a bastard, was finer than any of the threadbare rags he saw on the Border knights.
Servants only recently jostled awake rushed about, lighting wall sconces, heating porridge, trying in vain to keep the knights’ tankards filled. Though Roger towered above them all like a golden god, it amused him to play at humility. He graciously accepted the silver chalice of ale his host, the Gavin, pressed into his hands.
Pushing back his steel coif, Roger sipped politely at the brew that he would ordinarily guzzle. He was playing the role of Holden de Ware’s courteous mediator to perfection, and he knew it. Only one small flaw to his plans niggled at the back of his mind.
Roger had been misinformed about the number of knights in residence at Blackhaugh. He’d asked three different maidservants if all their men were present, and they’d told him aye. But the dearth of defenders still disturbed him. His entire plan hinged on his ability to make it look as if the Scots had put up a fight. Their lack of armed men would almost certainly cast a shadow on his credibility.
Hugh and Owen were being difficult, as usual. Roger wished he didn’t have to bring his stupid brothers with him everywhere he went. But their mother would have it no other way. One did as one was told, or the royal stipend would be cut off. Roger grimaced, praying they’d keep their mouths shut and let him handle things his own way.
Impatient to begin, Roger shoved his empty cup into Owen’s hands.
“Laird Angus,” he announced, “my brothers and I…”
The laird looked dubiously back and forth between the three men. Roger was used to that. The three brothers looked no more similar than whelps born of a promiscuous bitch, and so they were. Owen was small and dark like their mother, Hugh was tall and thin, with stringy blond hair. Only Roger could boast of a royal sire and the stature and golden good looks that went with it.
“My brothers and I would prefer to discuss the terms of your surrender privately,” he explained with exaggerated courtesy. For what they would say and do he wanted no witnesses.
Laird Angus felt the hairs stiffen at the back of his neck. He didn’t like the Englishman’s use of the wordsurrender. He glowered at Roger Fitzroi a long while, until the man’s smile grew stale. Then he let out a sigh. He supposed a bit of bent pride was a small price to pay for the survival of the clan.
He sent a wordless message to Malcolm the Steward, directing him to keep an eye on the rest of the company, and then he motioned the brothers toward the adjoining chamber. The door closed behind them with a hollow thud.
He gestured toward the benches at the table in the midst of the room, but the three Englishmen remained standing. Fitzroi leaned almost insolently against the door.
It was just as well, Angus decided. The quicker this business was over with, the better. He offered his hand. “You have the document then?”
Fitzroi patted his chest, and then withdrew a piece of parchment, feigning astonishment to find it there. “This?” His brothers snickered. He grinned.
Angus resisted the urge to make that grin toothless. Instead, he thought of the clan and rubbed his hands together. “I’ll need a quill and—“
The slow tear of parchment violated the air like lighting. The two halves of the document drifted to the rushes. The grin never left Fitzroi’s face.
Misgiving slithered its way up Angus’s spine.
“We don’t need this,” Fitzroi said with a shrug. He nodded once to his dark brother.
There was a flash of silver.
And then it was too late.
Before Angus could draw breath to cry out an alarm, the cold length of a sword burned impossibly deep into his chest.
Then Fitzroi was beside him, clutching the front of his tabard, so close he could see the golden stubble on Roger’s chin going in and out of focus, so close he could see the spittle at the corners of the man’s mouth.
