To Tempt a Knight (14 page)

“Dress by the fire to avoid a chill.” He motioned her forward. “I’ll join you in a moment.” He picked up his discarded clothes and slipped into the shrubs nearby.

The sound of the falls rushing toward the rocks below filled the quiet of the night. The sound comforted her as she slipped her shift over her head and fastened her simple gown over that. She’d just finished with the lacings and ties when a rustling sounded off to her right, the opposite direction from which William had vanished into the woods. “William,” she called softly, expecting him to reappear.

A squat, dark figure emerged from the bushes.

“Who are you?” Siobhan asked, searching about for something to protect herself with.

“My compliments, milady. You are indeed a force of nature to take down a man as devout as our Brother William.”

Her cheeks flamed at his unspoken implication. “Reveal yourself.” She bent and grasped a long branch from the fire, sending a shimmer of sparks and smoke into the air. Flames at the opposite end illuminated the stranger’s face.
She recognized him. “You are a brother from the monastery. The one I saw conversing with Brother Kenneth the day I arrived.”

“So I am.” He came forward, and it was then she saw the crossbow he clutched in his hands.

“Brother Lucius.” A reclothed William leapt from the shrubs, his sword drawn. He thrust her behind him, standing between her and the crossbow. He leveled his weapon at the man in monk’s garb. “What do you want?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He glanced around their campsite with a frown. “I had hoped you’d already retrieved what it is I want.”

William’s muscles tensed. “The Spear?”

The man gave a jerky nod. “I must have it.”

“Why? You took an oath to protect and preserve the Templar artifacts.”

“As I recall, you took an oath as well.” The man’s gaze moved beyond William to Siobhan. “Sometimes need overcomes our past commitments.”

“I was a warrior before I took the cloth. I am a warrior still.” William’s body coiled, prepared to strike. “I have no desire to harm a fellow Templar, Lucius. But I shall if you force this issue.”

The monk’s eyes widened. His grip tightened on the crossbow. “I can kill you before you ever reach me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Lucius’s fingers shook on the crossbow. He moistened his lips. “Don’t test me.”

“What do you want with the Spear?” William’s voice was harsh.

“I want revenge. The Spear will ensure that I get it.”

“Killing de la Roche will not bring Peter back to you.”

“Killing that villain will save others from dying as Peter did.” Lucius’s voice was raw. “Do you want to burn like all the other heretics he’s captured?”

“Nay,” William said. “But if we keep the Spear from him, de la Roche is just a man. Men can be taken down.”

The monk straightened. “I’ll be the one to send de la Roche to his grave.”

“You can’t handle the Spear’s power.”

For a moment, an expression of unease crossed Brother Lucius’s face at the certainty of William’s tone. “I’ll take my chances. With the Spear I have some hope at revenge against de la Roche and his men. Without the weapon, my fate will be the same as my brother’s—tied to a stake and burned as a heretic.”

“You might be dead regardless.” William lunged.

William struck not with his sword, but with all the force in his body. Brother Lucius flew backward. The crossbow fired toward the sky before the man and his weapon fell to the ground with a thump. Brother Lucius rolled and leapt to his feet, searching the hazy darkness for his weapon.

With his booted foot, William sent the crossbow into the ferns beyond them. “Go back to the monastery.”

“I want the girl.”

William startled. “Why?”

“She can read the scroll that shows the way to the treasure.”

“Who told you about the scroll?” William tightened his grip on his sword.

“Word carries fast around the monastery. To have my revenge, I must have her.”

“Revenge is no worthy master.” William took two steps toward Brother Lucius, threatening to strike him again. “Praying for Peter’s soul will help him more than spilling more blood.”

The monk edged backward. “I am done praying. I want to fight.”

“Then fight for a cause worthy of your sacrifice.” William frowned at the monk he thought he knew. “I miss Peter as well, but this isn’t the way to grieve him.”

“What do you know of my grief?” Anger flared in
Brother Lucius’s gaze. “You want the Spear for yourself.”

“Nay,” William said quickly. “The Spear must be protected, not used. That’s why I’m here.”

Brother Lucius looked to Siobhan. She stood back from the two of them, silhouetted by the light of the fire. “Is that her purpose as well? Or does she want something more?”

Brother Lucius tried to twist Siobhan’s reasons for finding the Spear into something more sinister. But William knew her motives. He sent her a soft smile. Her father’s life depended on their success.

She smiled in return.

Brother Lucius bolted for the bushes. In a rustle of leaves, he vanished into the foliage. William’s body coiled, prepared to chase him.

“Let him go,” Siobhan said softly.

William’s gaze darted to her, and he relaxed. “He’ll only follow us.”

“What would you do? Capture him and tie him to a tree? Sentence him to a slow and painful death? You might as well kill him now.” She folded her arms. “At least we know who was following us. We are warned, and we can take precautions.”

“You’re right. Brother Lucius on his own is no great threat.” But the young monk’s presence raised a thought William hadn’t considered. Once they found the Spear, how would they keep it away from those who would use it for ill purposes? Finding it would be easy next to that Herculean feat.

William sheathed his sword. He crossed to the fire and took Siobhan’s cold fingers in his own. “Come, sit. Let’s warm up. Brother Lucius likely won’t come back tonight.”

She nodded and followed him down to sit on his cloak
by the fire. Siobhan moved close, nestling into the circle of his arms. William pulled her cloak around their shoulders, warding off the chill of the night.

“Why did Brother Lucius threaten you with being burned at the stake?”

William looked down at her head resting on his shoulder and gave her a small smile that did not quite reach his eyes. He took a deep breath. “All Templars await the fate of heretics until we are cleared by our accusers.”

“That’s horrible.” Siobhan pulled away from him. William watched her dark eyes cloud with concern.

“That’s what de la Roche’s purpose is in Scotland, to cleanse the world of heretics. The Spear is only a secondary purpose.”

“Have you known…Have any of your brothers died at his hands?” she asked.

“While Simon and myself and others were away from Scotland, aye.” He reached out and ran a finger down the softness of her cheek. “The man will be stopped.”

She took his hand and held it in both of her own. “The Spear will help you stop him.”

William looked down at her fingers, so slender and delicate, clasped around his large palm. “Tempting as it may be, I’ll not use the Spear for such purposes.”

“Yet your sense of loss is just as great as Brother Lucius’s.”

He startled. “How can you know that?”

She looked up at him. “I’m not blind. Anyone who looks at you, William, can see that you carry a great burden of pain. Is it your family that grieves you so?”

“I lost them so long ago, they are but a distant memory to me.”

Her brow furrowed. “Then for whom do you suffer?”

Could she see so clearly into his heart? Did he truly carry so much of his grief in the lines of his face? Wil
liam remained silent, and she let that silence fall between them in a soothing, comfortable way without judgment or expectation. He drew a deep breath and released it slowly. Could he tell her his greatest failure? Admit his weakness and still remain whole?

He searched for a way to begin. “I told you about being one of the Bruce’s guardsmen. What I didn’t tell you is the nightmare that took the lives of six of those knights.”

He waited, giving Siobhan a chance to speak, but she simply watched him with concern in her eyes, waiting for the words yet to come.

“When King Robert the Bruce died, he bid the ten of us to remove his heart from his chest, embalm it and return it to Jerusalem for burial in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It had long been his dream to go on Crusade, but the wars here kept him close to Scottish shores. So we made the journey for him. We got as far as Teba, Spain, before all hell rose to meet us.”

William stared off into the distance as the memories surged forward in his mind. He drifted back to the terrain of the Iberian Peninsula.

Forty thousand Moors advanced upon their army of a hundred. Spanish forces had yet to engage. There was no time to consider why they waited. Like a wave of rolling thunder, the black-clad Saracens swept across the dry terrain, impervious to the sun’s punishing rays.

Flanked on both sides by his brethren, William Keith ignored the heat, focusing on his own breathing and that of his horse. Phantom’s muscles bunched and quivered beneath his legs. William reached forward and stroked the animal’s neck. “Hold steady, Phantom. Wait until they’re upon us.”

A deathly moan of sorrow seemed to hang in the air until a war cry shattered the stillness. William dug his spurs into Phantom’s side, charging into the fray. Like white foam on the
tide’s crest, the white-coated knights broke across the enemy, a small wave of destruction on an endless, turbaned sea.

A horse bore down upon William with alarming speed. The dark-cloaked rider on the animal’s back was poised to kill. They came together. William ducked, leaving the air between them filled with the whistling sound of Saracen steel.

There was no speech exchanged, no sound at all, save for the screech and clangor of steel and mutual grunts of exertion each time the two warriors clashed. Time slowed even as the day died, leaving William the ability to see each move before it was made and counter each mortal blow until he took the man down with a cut to the knees.

Carnage surrounded them. In less than an hour, Christian troops had been shredded by the Moors’ hooked swords, burned by their flaming arrows and trampled by their cavalry.

William pierced the heart of a man, but not before the man put an arrow into Phantom’s side. The horse’s legs buckled, and the two of them slammed to the ground. William hit the rocky desert floor hard. The hot, arid air robbed him of breath, and for a moment the battlefield swam before his eyes.

He rolled from the saddle, grateful to see that his horse yet lived, and came to his feet. A Saracen charged toward him on foot, battering William’s broadsword in an attempt to take him down.

He was losing ground, being pressed. Despair began to swamp him. He had only begun to live this life he’d been given. He was not ready to die. Not yet. William advanced, forcing the enemy back. He had the advantage now. His chest heaved, his muscles ached as he delivered a lethal blow to the man’s neck.

Before he could catch his breath, another Moor appeared, then another. With a thrust of his sword he took them down one after the other. He twisted left to find two more. Over and over he slashed his way forward, back to his brethren.

Red Sinclair stood up in his saddle as he and his horse surged forward into the tide of unending black. Walter the
Small pursued, covering his flank. Robert followed, protecting them both with lethal swipes of his blade.

Blood turned the desert floor into a bog. And the blood continued to flow. Men William knew, men who had followed the ten Templars into this battle, lay dead around him. Others lay dying, praying, crying, moaning as they were shredded by a relentless foe. As the Saracens set fire to the tents, the smell of death mingled with sweat and the acrid scent of smoke.

Black Douglas charged forward into the worst of the fighting. He held the small silver casket containing the Bruce’s heart high into the air. He screamed a terrifying battle cry and flung the casket into the melee as a beacon of protection.

William watched the heart’s protective casket arc, then fall. It hit the red, rocky ground in the same instant that a sword pierced deep into his side. The impact of the cold steel slicing through muscle and tissue took what breath remained in his lungs.

There was no pain, only a curious sensation as the sword pulled free. It was smeared with blood—his blood—glinting red in the sunlight. The heat pounded his flesh as relentlessly as the enemy’s weapon. He raised his sword to counter, but the weapon fell free of his numb grasp. He dropped to his knees, no longer able to stand.

William hitched a sharp breath as a chill swept over him. How could he be so cold in this inferno? He collapsed against the soil, his gaze still on the silver vessel containing the king’s heart. The casket lay on the ground not ten feet from him. The Bruce’s heart was supposed to protect them. But how could a heart, even
his
heart, defy an unholy force?

William dug his bare fingers into the rocky soil. Slowly he edged forward, toward the relic he’d sworn to protect. He clenched his fists in the soil as a wave of pain consumed him.

Rivulets of sweat formed beneath his heavy mail, even as a chill half deadened his limbs. Still he inched forward, grim determination spurring him on.

Another wave of a hundred turbaned Moors bore down upon him. His hand moved instinctively to his side to grasp his sword, but he came up empty. His weapon was gone.

From somewhere nearby, Sir James Douglas yelled a battle cry: “We will follow you or die!”

The words did not halt the enemy as they rushed over Sir James, Sir Walter Logan and William. Their horses’ hooves barely missed William’s head, his body. The talisman had failed. The heart had not protected them as the Bruce had claimed it would.

William watched the Moors kick the casket out of their way, intent on victory.

Like a force of fury, they slammed into him, shredding his clothes, lacerating his flesh. Pain rippled up and down his nerves and through his mind as he lay upon the ground. His arms ached, his body grew numb, blood seeped from countless wounds as the forces moved on, leaving him for dead.

The thunder of battle and the anguished cries of the fallen faded. Stillness hung in the air, broken only by the rasp of his breath. Of the ten knights who had formed the Brotherhood of the Scottish Templars, how many had fallen among the hundreds dead? Would any of them survive to carry the king’s heart home to Scotland now that their quest had failed?

With what remained of his stamina, William pulled himself closer to the precious vessel now nestled in the lifeless arms of Walter the Small. What Black Douglas had thrown into the fray, Walter now protected in death. William crawled toward Walter and the casket, his mind finding energy his body didn’t know he possessed.

He would survive to take the heart back to Scotland. He drew a painful, wheezing breath. He would survive, somehow—he had to.

William startled when he realized he’d told Siobhan the whole tale. He expected to see blatant rejection staring back at him for what he had failed to do.

Instead, she leaned forward and brushed his lips softly with her own. “You’ve suffered so much at the hands of others.” Her voice remained steady, strong and filled with understanding. “The secrets of your heart are safe with me.”

He didn’t know what to say or how to react. The cold ache of failure that he had kept buried deep inside suddenly didn’t seem so cold or so desperate any longer.

He’d shared his darkest secret with the woman tucked once again in the folds of his arms. Hope surged. “What have I ever done to deserve you?” William smiled against the softness of her hair. “Tomorrow we will find the Spear, Siobhan. Tomorrow, life begins anew.”