Susan King - [Celtic Nights 02] Read Free Page B

elegantly over the water. The shore was empty, though shouts continued on the other side of the castle.
    Gawain stood cautiously, holding the girl in his arms. The soft floor sucked at his feet as he waded to shore. Water sluiced from them as if they were kelpies rising from the depths. Slung in his arms, sopping wet, she was yet a light burden.
    Glancing uneasily toward the castle, he ran along the bank away from the burning tower toward the forest. People waited there in the shadows. A woman stepped between the trees.
    "Mother!" the girl said. "Set me down." He did, sweeping his arm around her to hurry her toward the trees.
    The shadowed figures came closer, reaching out. A woman pulled the girl into her embrace and swathed her in a thick plaid. Someone offered a blanket to Gawain. He refused it.
    The girl turned to look up at him. Her eyes were luminous; in shadows and moonlight, he could not tell their color.
    "I am Juliana Lindsay," she said. "Tell me your name, so that I can ask the angels to watch over you."
    He frowned. If he told her the name given him at birth—Gabhan MacDuff—she might know him for a local Highlander, and despise him for being with the English. If he told her his English name, Gawain Avenel, she would loathe him for that.
    She shivered, waiting, her cheeks pale, hair hanging like strands of honey. He touched her chin with a fingertip.
    "Swan Maiden," he murmured. "Call me your Swan Knight in your prayers, and the angels will find me."
    She nodded, watching him. Her mother drew her back.
    "They are coming this way, knight," the mother said.
    "I will lead them away from here. Go! All of you—go!" He waved them back into the forest and turned to run toward the castle, where the inferno still raged, bright and ferocious. As he went, he felt keenly as if the girl and the others watched him from the cover of the trees.
    For a moment, he felt the odd sensation that he left heaven behind him and ran toward hell.

 
     
     
    Chapter 2

     
    Scotland, Perthshire
    Spring 1306
    Quicksilver and pale as the moonlight, she glided out of the forest and into the clearing. Glancing over her shoulder, she heard pounding hoofbeats and the male shouts that commanded her to stop, to wait.
    She turned to watch them, slowly, deliberately, though her heart beat like a war drum. Lingering would be foolhardy, but she always made sure they saw her; she had done so for years.
    Nearby, she knew that a group of people ran through the forest in another direction. They conveyed a burden, large and cumbersome: a wooden war machine on creaking wheels, partially dismantled, its struts stacked on a pony cart. Once it was conveyed through the forest, the engine would be transported along the river at night, until it reached the rebel camp.
    The king's men must not discover it.
    She waited in a translucent beam of moonlight. The two knights spurred toward her through the trees.
    "The Swan Maiden!" one of them shouted. She forced herself to be still as their horses crashed through the shadows.
    Then she whirled and ran toward the loch, shedding the white feathered cloak that covered her head and shoulders and tossing it aside. She stepped into the water and crouched quickly, her pale tunic billowing around her. Her blond hair fanned out and floated as she surged.
    Arrowing through the water, she neared a cluster of swans and ducks gliding on the loch and swam into their midst. The birds ignored her, accustomed to her presence. When a curious cygnet swam too close, she pushed it gently away.
    Treading water, she watched the shore. The knights burst into the clearing and dismounted. Running along the bank, they scanned the loch, pointed. One of them bent, then held up a white feather fallen from the cloak.
    She watched, hidden within the ring of swans. The men walked to the water's edge. One of them picked up a stone and flung it, and it sank near the birds. They scattered with fuss and noise.
    Her protective circle gone, she dove under