Knight Triumphant Read Online Free Page B

others. It was all he could do to keep from throwing the woman down from his horse. She was anathema to him, hair pitch black when he sought a woman with a head of hair as golden and glowing as the sun, eyes a curious dark shade of violet when his world had come to rise and set in a gaze as soft and blue as the most beautiful spring morning.
    Alive and well and walking while Margot lay dying . . .
    He lifted the Englishwoman with a forced control and set her to the ground before dismounting behind her.
    â€œWhere is Sir Robert Neville?” she asked.
    One of the guardsmen stepped forward.
    â€œMy lady, he is . . . he is abed.”
    â€œDoes anyone tend to him?” she asked anxiously.
    Eric lost his patience, stepping around her. “I am Eric Graham, emissary of the rightful king of this holding, Robert the Bruce of Scotland. Lay down your arms, and your lives will be spared. The castle is now in the hands of the Scots who honor and acknowledge Robert Bruce as king.”
    He glanced back at Peter MacDonald, who had ridden at his heels, giving a quick nod that he should now take over as the authority. Ignoring all else, he then started across the courtyard to the door to the keep, knowing exactly where the prisoners, even though near death, were held. It might have been a foolish move; a guard with a death wish of his own might have brought a battle sword piercing through his back. Behind him, he could hear the fall of arms as his men dismounted from their horses and collected the weapons. Peter MacDonald, a man who had been his right hand since the coronation of the king, began shouting the orders. Eric had complete confidence in Peter: the Scottish nationalists with whom he rode had survived thus far by covering one another’s back. They had become so tightly knit in their numbers, they nearly thought alike.
    He was prepared for some sign of resistance when he entered into the great hall, but there was no one there, other than an old man hunched in a chair by the fire. The old man tried to stir at the sight of Eric, but the effort seemed too great. He fell back into the chair, watching Eric as Eric watched him.
    â€œYou’ve the disease, man?” Eric asked, his voice seeming to bellow across the stone expanse.
    â€œAye. But survived, I believe,” the fellow replied, watching Eric. “You’ve come to take the castle, sir? You’ve taken hell, sir, that’s what you’ve done. Slay me, if you will. I would serve you, if I could.”
    Eric waved a hand. “Save your strength. Tell me, where are the rest of those who serve the castle?”
    â€œDead, many dead. Sir Robert Neville fell, and the Lady Igrainia’s maid tends him in his room. The guards . . . not yet afflicted, keep to the courtyard and the armory. The Lord of Langley was laid hastily into the crypt, walled into his grave, lest his sickness travel; his wife could not bear that he should be burned, as the rest of the victims.”
    â€œAnd what of the prisoners and their guards?”
    â€œFallen together below in the dungeons.”
    â€œAnd who tends them?”
    â€œThose who still stand on two feet among their own number. Before . . . ah, well, the lady of the castle tended to the dying, until she was sent from here that her life might be spared.”
    â€œRest, old man. When you’ve strength, you might yet be called upon to serve.”
    Eric strode through the hall, finding the passage that led from the hall to the winding stone stairs that led below. Hell. . . the man had said. Hell had been planned long before any disease for those incarcerated here. The damp stairs to the bowels of the castle seemed endless; the prisons here were sure to bring about disease all on their own, fetid, molded, wretched. Those brought here to the belly of the fortification were among the dead, long hallways with crypts where past lords and ladies, knights, nobility, and those who had served them well lay