Читать книгу The Knight's Bride - Lyn Stone - Страница 8

Prologue

Near Stirling, Scotland

June, 1314

Alan of Strode grimaced at the sickly sweet smell of impending death. Putrefaction. The fever raged now. Tavish would be damned lucky to see the morrow dawn. Alan’s own wound, superficial by comparison, ached with empathy.

“Four days,” Alan said, forcing the smile into his voice, “Five at most, and your lady can tend ye. We’ll make it, Tav.”

Carefully ignoring the groans Tavish struggled to suppress, Alan busied himself raking through one of the many English packs he had captured as spoils. He unfolded a crimson silk surcoat embellished with a yellow griffin. Rich stuff, he thought, rubbing the fabric between his fingers.

Another foray yielded an ornate silver cup, which he filled from his own humble flask of good Scots spirits. “See how much more of this ye can hold, Tav. Ye’ll still hurt, but ye won’t care.”

Tavish pushed it away. “Only numbs me from the chin up. Have you a quill in there?” he asked, his voice choked with pain.

Alan poked deeper into the hidebound pouch. “Aye,” he answered as cheerfully as he could manage, “parch and ink as well. Ye’ve a mind to write, then?”

Tavish nodded slightly and exhaled the words, “To Honor. Help me sit.”

A half hour later, Tavish Ellerby made a final, stronger scribble and let the feather fall from his hand. “Done.” His weary eyes rested a moment under their grime-crusted lids before he met Alan’s steady gaze. “See if you...agree.”

“To this?” Alan asked, biting his bottom lip. He touched the page of slanting marks that meant nothing to him.

“Orders for my lady,” Tavish explained through gritted teeth. His white-knuckled hands clutched the moth-chewed blanket as his breathing grew labored and irregular. “Good plan, eh?”

Alan followed the wavering lines of lampblack ink and came to rest on the larger, ornate loops at the bottom. “Well writ, Tav.” He tapped the parchment with the back of his fingers and smiled. “’Tis braw advice. She’ll be minding ye, too, if I’ve aught to say to it.” His friend’s peace of mind justified Alan’s small pretense. And the Lady Honor would take comfort in her husband’s last thoughts and wishes, no matter what they were.

Though he could see Saint Ninian’s roof from here, Alan knew that moving Tavish would only hasten death. He hated to tell Lady Honor that her husband breathed his last neath a gnarled old oak at the edge of the battlefield. But no lie would make it finer. Dead was dead. And if ever a soul made heaven without benefit of a final blessing, it would be that of Tavish Ellerby.

Everything south of Stirling lay in ashes. He prayed Tavish’s keep, nestled in the Cheviot Hills, lay out of both armies’ paths. What the English had not laid waste to in the last few weeks, Robert Bruce had, in order to keep his enemies shelterless and hungry. Now many Scots would suffer the same, even though they had won the battle.

Tavish reached out, fingers weak and trembling as they grasped Alan’s forearm. “You will take me on home? Lay me under a cairn by the Tweed? Do not...let Honor see me first. Not like this. Promise?”

“Aye, I will. Got yer leg, by God, and I’ll take that, too.”

Weak laughter trickled out like the dregs from a wineskin. “Put me back together, will you?” The eyes closed again and Tavish shuddered. “Alan, tell her. Tell my Honor...that ’tis for the best, my dying. Say how much I... cared.”

“She’ll be knowing that, Tav. I’ll sing it like a bard, I swear. Sweet things she’ll be weeping over long after she’s grown old and...Tav? Tavish?”

Alan drew in a deep, ragged breath and expelled it. Stinging wetness seeped down his cheeks. “Ah, Tav, lad. Would that yer Honor coulda seen ye smile just so.”

He looked long into the blank, blue eyes before he closed the lids at last.