Page 2 of The Scottish Bride
Two years ago, Sir John Witton had married Lady Thomasina Keith for political advantage and bedded her twice. When no child resulted, he left his “Scottish bride,” as he called her, to her household tasks and “pretty parchments”—the books she so treasured. Her husband was an English lord in command of a castle captured from the Scots—Tamsin had heard the previous baron of Dalrinnie was a Seton, though she knew nothing of that family—and while Witton had King Edward’s support, he had few allies among Scottish lords. Though most Scottish knights and nobles pledged to serve the English king, her kinsmen among them, many did so unwillingly.
In his will and testament, Witton had left Dalrinnie and its estate to his Scottish bride, a surprising gesture. Yet it hardly mattered now. King Edward had sent word that he would determine the widow’s future. Then he let her wait.
Burrowing under the blankets, thinking of the knight in the dream, she remembered that her Grandda Thomas told her to always heed her dreams. He spoke sincerely, for Thomas of Ercildoune had been a prophet, a poet, a counselor to lords and kings, and a kind great-grandfather.
I see the gift bright in thee, lass,he had told Tamsin once, tugging on her golden braid.One day visions will fill thy head. What you will see is true. Remember that.
Bewildered, she nodded.Aye, Grandda.
Though he was gone seven years now, his legend still grew. They said that as a young man, he had been taken by the Queen of Faery, returning after seven years with the gift of prophecy. True Thomas, harper and poet, could not lie, and his wisdom was widely respected. When he visited Kincraig to consult with her father, Sir Robert Keith, and other Scots nobles, he always found time for Tamsin and her siblings, Henry, Margaret, and Rowena, his granddaughter’s children. The Keiths of Kincraig were family to him.
One evening, Thomas had leaned toward her older brother Henry and poked him hard in the chest.Thee maun protect thy sisters, lad.
Henry nodded. Certes, it would be his chivalric duty one day.
Nah, nah. Listen. Each lass has a gift. Thee maun keep watch over them.
Henry knew that one day he would make an oath as a knight to serve King Edward the First of England, pressed like other Scottish knights to place his fealty where it might not sit. Once he inherited his father’s lands and title, he would be guardianto his sisters if they were still unwed.My father will find good husbands for my sisters,Henry answered.
Thomas snorted.Our lassies need love matches, or none. You make sure of it. And thee, lad—the old man poked him again—seek what thy heart needs, too, and love and freedom will be yours.
But that is what all Scots need, sir, and cannot find under English rule.
One day, Thomas gave each child a gift. He handed Tamsin a wooden box containing parchments with verses he had scribbled, and an inkpot made of crystal.A queen gave this to me and now it is yours. You have the truthy tongue, lass. Use it wisely.Then he whispered what she must do with his work someday.
After that day, she never saw him again. Rumor said True Thomas had disappeared into a magical hillside to join the faery queen. But his son, another Thomas, sent word that his father, nearly one hundred years old, had wandered into the hills one afternoon and died.
Sighing, Tamsin lay back against the pillows. Thomas had wanted his great-grandchildren to marry for love. But Papa had wanted protection for his daughters and alliances for the Keiths in the climate of the conflict between Scotland and England. So Tamsin had been yoked to an English lord, the only daughter to marry before illness took her mother and father both, leaving Henry, serving Edward, to sort things out.
Now she was no longer the Scottish bride—instead, she was the Scottish widow, trapped among the English. In these two years, she had learned to stifle her “truthy tongue”—her natural, sometimes lamentable honesty—in favor of silence when she could manage it. Besides that simple honesty, she also protected the touch of the Sight that she carried.
One day, a quick, alarming vision had flashed in her mind seemingly from nowhere, an image of her husband fatally wounded in a skirmish. She summoned the courage to warn him to be wary.
“Always have your men around you,” she pleaded. “I have seen danger for you.”
He had half-listened, then dismissed her with a harsh laugh. “Scottish nonsense,” he had said. But she saw the fearful look in his eyes.
Now, wrapping her arms around her knees, she sighed. Eventually that day came for him. And for her, silence and a measure of boldness became her armor in this garrisoned castle.
I came for you,the knight in the dream had said. Fervently, she wished it could be so, that she could escape and yet be safe. But she must solve this dilemma on her own.
Henry, she thought suddenly. Of course! Her brother, riding for King Edward now, might not know her situation had become so dire. He might be able to gain audience with Edward to argue leniency for his sister so that Tamsin could be free to determine her own path in life.
Henry’s last message, months ago, said he was leaving Edward’s castle at Carlisle to visit English-held Scottish castles. If his orders did not change, he thought to come to Dalrinnie and then Kincraig by Yuletide.
But she had to find him soon or lose all.
Chapter One
September 1306
Lanercost Abbey, Northern England
“So you refuseto speak,” the old man rasped. Through flickering firelight, his rangy old bones draped in red wool, King Edward sat in a leather-slung chair and glared hard at the prisoner.
Sir William Seton, dispossessed baron of Dalrinnie Castle and environs in Scotland, stood silent, wrists and ankles wrapped in chains. Sweat trickled down his back and dampened his brow. The blazing hearth, together with the afternoon sunlight angling through arched stained-glass windows, made the room stifling. Motionless, without reply, he watched dust motes float in a wedge of light.
He had no reason to answer. It would not gain back his castle, held by the English now; it would not restore those he loved who had died; nor would it free him, a captured Scotsman, a knight, a rebel. Raising his head, he gazed at the king.
