Knight Triumphant Read Free Page B

brilliantly blue and cold against the mud-stained darkness of his face.
    â€œI will save your wife and child, if you will swear to let your prisoners live.”
    Again, he arched a brow and shrugged. “Their fates matter not in the least to me; save her, and they shall live.”
    She started forward again, then once more stopped. She had spoken with contempt and assurance. A bluff, a lie. And now, her hands were shaking. “What if I cannot ? What if it has gone too far? God decides who lives and dies, and the black death is a brutal killer—”
    â€œYou will save them,” he said.
    They had reached his horse, an exceptionally fine mount. Stolen, she was certain, from a wealthy baron killed in battle. He lifted her carelessly upon the horse, then stared up at her, as if seeing her, really seeing her, perhaps for the first time.
    â€œYou will save them,” he repeated, as if by doing so he could make it true.
    â€œListen to me. Surely, you understand this. Their lives are in God’s hands.”
    â€œAnd yours.”
    â€œYou are mad; you are possessed! Only a madman thinks he can rule a plague. Not even King Edward has power over life and death against such an illness. Kings are not immune, no man, no woman—”
    â€œMy wife and child must survive.”
    He had no sense, no intellect, no reason!
    â€œWhich of the women is your wife?” she asked. She wondered if she could kick his horse, and flee. She was in the saddle; he was on the ground.
    â€œAnd if I give you a name, what will it mean to you?” he inquired.
    â€œI have been among the prisoners.”
    It seemed he doubted that. “Margot,” he told her. “She is tall, slim and light, and very beautiful.”
    Margot. Aye, she knew the woman. Beautiful indeed, gentle, moving about, cheering the children, nursing the others . . .
    Until she had been struck down.
    She had been well dressed, and had worn delicate Celtic jewelry, as the wife of a notable man, a lord, or a wealthy man at the least.
    Rather than a filthy barbarian such as this.
    But it was said that even Robert Bruce, King of the Scots, looked like a pauper often enough these days. He was a desperate man, ever searching out a ragtag army, reduced to hunger and hardship time and time again.
    â€œWho are you?” she asked
    â€œWho I am doesn’t matter.”
    â€œDo you even have a name, or should I think of you as Madman, or Certain Death?”
    His eyes lit upon her with cold fury. “You must have a name when it doesn’t matter, when your life is at stake? When Edward has decreed that Scottish women are fair game, no better than outlaws to be robbed, raped or murdered ? Wouldn’t you be the one who is surely mad to expect chivalry in return for such barbarity, and test the temper of a man whose rage now equals that of your king? You would have a name? So be it. I am Eric, Robert Bruce’s liege man by choice, sworn to the sovereign nation of Scotland, a patriot by both birth and choice. You see, my father was a Scottish knight, but my grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a Norse jarl of the western isles. So there is a great deal of berserker —or indeed, madman —in me, lady. You must beware. We are not known to act rationally—and by God, no matter what our inclination at any time— mercifully. Now, tell me what I ask. Does my wife live? You do know her, don’t you?”
    â€œAye. I know her. Father MacKinley is with her,” Igrainia said. “She lives. When I left, she still lived.” Aye, she knew his wife. She had spoken with her often when the disease had brought them together, forgetting nationalities and loyalties, fighting death itself.
    And she knew his little girl. The beautiful child with the soft yellow hair and huge blue eyes, smiling even when she fell ill. The little girl had gone into a fever with a whimper.
    But the woman had been so ill, burning, twisting,