The Viper (Highland Guard #4)

The Viper (Highland Guard #4)
Monica McCarty



FOREWORD

The period from March 1306, when Robert Bruce makes his desperate bid for the Scottish crown, to the late summer of 1308, when he defeats the MacDougalls at the Battle of Brander, marks one of the most dramatic falls and subsequent comebacks in history.

By September 1306, six months after Bruce is crowned king at Scone by Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan, his cause is all but lost. He is forced to flee his kingdom a fugitive, taking refuge in the shadowy mists of the Western Isles.

Yet from the jaws of certain defeat, with the help of his secret band of elite warriors known as the Highland Guard, Bruce returns to Scotland six months later and defeats not only the English, but also the Scottish nobles who stand against him.

Yet this is only half of the story. Not all of Bruce’s supporters have escaped the wrath of the most powerful king in Christendom: Edward Plantagenet, King of England, the self-styled “Hammer of the Scots.” Many have paid the ultimate price, but others still are suffering for freedom’s call.

In these merciless times, when the line between life and death is merely a shadow, once again Bruce will call on the legendary warriors of the Highland Guard to set them free.

Prologue

“Because she has not struck with the sword, she shall not die by the sword, but on account of the unlawful coronation which she performed, let her be closely confined in an abode of stone and iron made in the shape of a cross, and let her be hung up out of doors in the open air at Berwick, that both in life and after her death, she may be a spectacle and eternal reproach to travellers.”

Order of Edward I imprisoning Isabella MacDuff, Countess of Buchan

Berwick Castle, Berwick-Upon-Tweed, English Marches, Late September 1306

They’d come for her.

Bella heard the door open and saw the constable flanked by a handful of guardsmen, but her mind still didn’t want to accept the truth.

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.

In the weeks it had taken them to build her special prison, she’d told herself that someone would intervene. Someone would put a stop to this barbarity masquerading as justice.

Someone would help her.

Perhaps Edward would relent, as he’d done for Robert Bruce’s daughter and wife, and send her to a convent instead? Or maybe Bella’s erstwhile husband, the Earl of Buchan, would see beyond his hatred and plead for mercy on her behalf?

Even if her enemies did nothing, surely she could count on her friends? Her brother might use his influence as a favorite of the king’s son to help her, or Robert … Robert would do something. After all she’d risked to crown him king, he would not forsake her.

In her weaker moments, she even convinced herself that she might have been wrong about Lachlan MacRuairi. Maybe when he heard what Edward planned to do to her, he would come for her and find a way to get her out.

She told herself these men wouldn’t leave her to this horrible fate.

But no one had come for her. No one had intervened. Edward intended to make an example of her. Her husband despised her. Her brother was a prisoner, even if a favored one. Bruce was fighting for his life. And Lachlan … he was the one who’d put her here.

She was alone, but for her cousin Margaret, who would serve as her attendant. The one concession Edward had made to her noble blood.

The constable of Berwick Castle, Sir John de Seagrave, one of Edward’s commanders in the campaign against Scotland, cleared his throat uncomfortably. He wouldn’t meet her gaze. Apparently even Edward’s lackey didn’t approve of his king’s “justice” this day.

“It’s time, my lady.”

The flash of panic came so hard and fast it stopped her heart. She froze like a doe in the hunter’s sights. But then instinct set in, and her pulse exploded in a frantic race. She felt the overwhelming urge to run, to flee, to save herself from the arrow aimed at her heart.

Perhaps guessing her thoughts, one of the guardsmen stepped forward to grab her arm and hauled her to her feet. She flinched at his touch. Sir Simon Fitzhugh, the cruel captain of the guard, made her skin crawl with his florid, sweaty face, stale breath, and lecherous stares.

He pulled her toward the door and for a moment her body resisted. She leaned back, her feet planted firmly on the stone floor, refusing to move.

Until she saw him smile. The excited spark in his eye told her this was what he wanted. He wanted her to resist. He wanted to see her fear. He wanted to drag her across the bailey in front of all those people and see her humiliated and humbled.

The stiffness slid from her limbs as the resistance went out of her. She gave him an icy stare. “Get your hands off of me.”

He flushed with anger at the haughty contempt in her voice, and Bella knew goading him had been a mistake. She would pay for her words later, when she was completely at his mercy. He wouldn’t abuse her person. Though she’d been branded a rebel and found guilty of treason, she was still a countess. But he would find millions of ways to exact his punishment and make her life miserable over the next …

Her heart caught in another hard gasp of panic. Days? Months? She tried to swallow. God help her, years?

She pushed back the bile that rose in her throat, but her stomach clenched as she followed the constable out of the small room in the guardhouse that had served as her temporary prison.

The first thing she noticed on stepping outside after over a month of imprisonment wasn’t the brightness of the daylight, the freshness of the air, or the vastness of the crowd gathered to watch her torment, but the sharpness of the wind and the piercing, bone-chilling cold. The heavy layers of wool she’d donned as protection felt as gossamer as the linen of her chemise.