Chapter One
Scottish border—summer 1388
“Sweet Mary, Sorcha, I cannae go down there.”
Sorcha Hay understood her pretty cousin Margaret’s hesitation, one bred of a horror she shared. At the base of the small, windswept hill they stood upon sprawled the men who had fallen in the latest skirmish between Sir James Douglas and the English Lord “Hotspur” Percy of Northumberland. It was a bloody squabble. This one had been over a banner which the Scots had stolen while raiding in England, causing Hotspur to vow to get it back. Word was that the Scots had won, even capturing Hotspur himself, but it had cost them Sir James Douglas, a brave knight. Sorcha doubted that many of the men scattered on the rocky ground below her felt particularly victorious as they breathed their last.
A gust of wind slapped a hank of her thick chestnut hair across her face. She welcomed the way it obscured her view for a moment. The sight of so many dead men was a painful one. She was also terrified that one of the broken figures on the ground was her brother Dougal. A heavy sigh escaped her as she more securely tied her hair back with a length of blackened leather. She could not give in to her own fears and weaknesses. She had to be strong.
Firmly taking the plump and timid Margaret by one dimpled hand, Sorcha tugged her pale, wide-eyed cousin down the rocky hillside. In her other hand she clutched the worn reins of her sturdy Highland pony Bansith. She prayed she would not need her little horse to carry Dougal’s body back to Dunweare.
The human scavengers were already approaching the dead. If Dougal was down there and still alive, Sorcha knew she had to find him before they did. Any man still clinging to life would swiftly have his throat cut even as his pockets were stripped clean. The cold-eyed men and women who scurried over such battlefields wanted no witnesses to their ghoulish thievery. Sorcha hoped she and Margaret had the skill to act as debased as the scavengers.
In an attempt to ease some of her fears, she briefly touched the small bow and quiver of arrows she carried on her back. She and Margaret also wore swords and daggers made specifically for them by their clever armorer Robert. They were not totally helpless.
“Those corpse-robbing corbies will kill us,” whispered Margaret, tugging her thick, dull-brown cloak more tightly around her voluptuous figure.
“Not if we join in their thievery,” answered Sorcha.
“Nay? If they have no qualms about cutting the throats of helpless, dying men, why should they be troubled about killing us?”
“I am not saying they arenae dangerous, but if we go about the business of picking o’er the corpses as if we do so all the time, they will probably ignore us.” Sorcha stopped by the body of a young man, thinking sadly of how short his life had been.
“I cannae touch him.”
“Then hold Bansith’s reins, Margaret, and keep a very close eye on those scavengers.”
As Margaret took the reins, Sorcha crouched by the young man’s body. Murmuring a prayer for his soul, she gently closed his empty, staring eyes, careful not to let the others roaming the field see her acting so kindly. She collected up his sword, dagger, and all else of any value, silently promising the youth that she would do her best to see that his belongings were returned to his kinsmen. Sorcha took careful note of his appearance, her only real clue to his identity, before putting her booty in the panniers slung over the strong back of her pony. Reluctantly, her stomach knotting as she fought down queasiness, she moved to the next man.
Sorcha did not stop by every man, performing the distasteful task of stealing from the dead only enough to assuage the keen suspicions of the scavengers. All the while she and Margaret looked for Dougal, but without success. By the time she crouched by the fifth man she felt forced to rob, she was feeling distinctly ill. Although she found some cause for relief in not finding Dougal’s body, she was still worried about his fate. It would be a particularly cruel twist of fate to stain her soul with the crime of robbing the slain men only to have to leave the field with no certain knowledge of what had happened to her brother.
“This mon is verra finely dressed,” Sorcha murmured then froze, her hands still upon the ornate buckle of his scabbard, as his broad chest rose and fell with a deep breath.
“Touch that sword, ye foul, thieving corbie, and I will send ye straight to hell,” the man said in a deep, soft voice made hoarse with pain.
She could not fully stifle a soft cry of alarm as he clasped her wrist in one large hand, the mail of his gauntlet cutting into her skin. A quick glance at Margaret told her that her cousin was too intent on watching the scavengers to notice her current difficulty. Trying to hide her fear, Sorcha looked at the man, shivering inwardly over the fury glittering in his pain-clouded dark green eyes.
“Ye dinnae have the strength to kill every corbie slinking o’er this bloodied field, my fine knight,” she whispered.
“Ere I die, I can make sure that a few of you will ne’er pick at a mon’ s bones again.”
“Aye, and ye will die if those other corbies ken that ye are still alive. Howbeit, if ye will heed me ye might yet leave this cursed field alive.”
“Who are ye talking to, Sorcha?” asked Margaret.
“Weel, cousin, if ye will babble at me at all the appropriate times, mayhaps the others will believe I am talking to you,” replied Sorcha.
“Is that mon alive?”
“Aye, for the moment.” After another swift peek at Margaret assured Sorcha that the girl had the sense not to stare at her, Sorcha looked back at the knight. “The first thing ye can do, sir, is to let me go about the ill deed of robbing you.”
“Oh, aye? So ye can steal all I own more easily ere ye cut my throat?” he snarled.
“Nay, fool, so the other thieves slinking o’er the battlefield dinnae ken that ye are alive. We could all be slain then, for they will realize that Margaret and I are not what we pretend to be.” She did not waver beneath his hard stare. “Ye had best decide quickly. They will soon wonder why I linger here.” Despite the tension of the moment, Sorcha almost smiled as she heard Margaret deride Dougal in colorful terms for his insistence upon joining the neverending battle against the English.
“Why is that girl talking to you?” grumbled the man.
“So that the others dinnae guess that ye still have the breath to speak,” replied Sorcha. “After all, we both ken that they are watching us, and I must be talking to someone. Ye are supposed to be dead.”
“If ye are not here to rob the dead then what are ye about?”
“My cousin and I are looking for Sir Dougal Hay, laird of Dunweare.”
“Ye willnae find that brash laddie here. The English took him.”
“I thought the English lost this battle.”
“Aye, but they managed to drag off a few of our lads as they fled the field.”
Sorcha cursed, ignoring the man’s startled look. “Do ye think anyone else on this bloodied field survives?”
“There may be a mon or two, but they willnae be breathing much longer. What the English didnae finish, the thieving swine tiptoeing amongst the bodies will, be they English or Scot.”
“Shall I wander about and see if I can find another survivor?” asked Margaret.
“Only if ye truly wish to, Cousin,” replied Sorcha, resisting the urge to rub her wrist when the man eased his hold on it.
“Now that we have seen that this mon still lives, I think I must.”
“Dinnae be too obvious about what ye are doing and ’twould be best if ye leave the horse behind.”
“How will I help anyone if I cannae move them?”
“If