Knight Triumphant

She looked around the great hall. It seemed as if they were all casting glances her way. Glances that were filled with consternation and sorrow.

Eric had returned with some news regarding her, obviously, and they were all talking about it.

Sounds could be picked up and echoed, and heard across the room. She caught whispered syllables of their words.

With mounting horror, she put them together.

Weakness filled her limbs. Murdered. Her death was to be one of the “events” taking place at Langley tonight. This was a drastic measure. Not even King Edward had executed his female hostages. And now, Eric wanted her to go upstairs so that he could tell her alone, so that she could get some dignity together, compose herself so that her screams wouldn't create an uprising within the castle.

“Igrainia,” Eric said, “Jarrett will escort you up.”

She shook her head, facing him. “No. Find the courage to tell me here and now.”

“The courage?” He arched a brow.

“Tell me now,” she said, her limbs like ice. “Am I to be killed?”

“Killed?” Eric repeated, frowning and startled. He shook his head, lowering it, a dry, curious smile curving his lips. “No, my lady, I have not returned with any intent to do murder, legal, royal, or other.”

“I overheard the men talking. You don't need to disguise what is happening to me. If I am to be executed,
murdered,
simply say so.”

His smile deepened, and once again, he shook his head. “So you hear them speaking, but I'm afraid you didn't hear correctly. You're not to be
murdered.
You are to be
married.”

More historical romances by Heather Graham

 

 

 

The Alliance Vampire novels

H
EATHER
G
RAHAM

K
NIGHT
T
RIUMPHANT

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Table of Contents

Once upon a time . . .

There lived a good king, and the land grew in peace and prosperity.

But the king grew older. Anxious to secure the succession, he remarried, because after the loss of his beloved wife and son, only the infant female babe of his daughter was left to inherit the crown. His new bride was young and beautiful, and his task—to procreate and give his country strong sons to rule after his death—should have been a pleasant and easy one. Indeed, in his eagerness to rejoin his lady after a council meeting one dark and stormy night, he rode the high cliffs and tors of his native land with abandon, despite the warnings of his advisors.

Along his way on that deep and tempestuous night, the king's horse lost its footing, or the king himself lost his horse. He plummeted down the ragged hillside, and perished before his time—and before his task could be complete. The land mourned.

The king's young granddaughter inherited the throne. Hope remained. The land would still thrive, all thought, for the Guardians of the country would protect their young queen well.

She was Margaret, known as the Maid of Norway. But alas, the child queen of Scotland died before ever reaching the shores of the land she should rule.

The land lay in loss and confusion, for after her death, the claimants to the crown were many. The strong, powerful, and rightful king of a neighboring country was called upon for aid and advice. He would listen to the claims of all, and help the Guardians decide who should rule. Of the many claimants, three were predominant: John Balliol, John Hastings, and Robert Bruce, the Competitor. All three were descendants of the daughters of David, Earl of Huntington, grandson of David I, another good king who had given the land strength and prosperity.

The wise men of the country were sadly unwary and indeed, unwise.

Their neighboring king had eyes upon the country himself.

Before the death of the young heiress, he had planned that she should marry his son, and thus unite the two countries.

Now, he helped to choose a puppet king, a man to rule the country, yet bow to him as an overlord. With his eyes in truth, upon the prize for himself, he chose John Balliol.

King John was at first acclaimed and accepted. But the overlord made the demands, and when the puppet king disobeyed, he was brought low. The great neighboring king folded his hands and nodded with pleasure. The prize, he thought, was his.

The land was cast into years of war.

Years of hell.

A desperate purgatory, at the very least.

Heroes rose to fight in the name of their absent king when he was broken by the overlord, dishonored, and forced to abdicate. They fought for freedom from the overlord's brutal rule for they were a country of their own people, proud and separate. The greatest of these heroes was a man named William. He brought the would-be conquering army low. But in time, the great wrath of the neighboring king fell upon them, and William Wallace, champion of the people, fell to treachery and lost his life—head, limbs, innards, and more—to the fury and vengeance of the English king.

Two men would now vie for the questionable treasure of the Scottish crown: John Comyn, kinsman of John Balliol and a powerful baron, and Robert Bruce, grandson of Robert Bruce the Competitor, who had made the original claim.

The two would make a pact, the one giving the other his lands and riches in exchange for the other's support in his quest for the crown. The neighboring king was now growing old and ailed, and, they thought, they could seize back their own country at his death. The churchmen knew of this plan, and they were pleased.

But treachery again struck: The one betrayed the other, seeing that the neighboring king knew of the plan. Edward, self-proclaimed “hammer” of the Scots, failed to die as all had hoped, and instead, vowed his wrath and vengeance once again.

John Comyn conspired against Robert Bruce, telling the neighboring king of Bruce's compact with him and great churchmen.

The neighboring king was again in a fury.

And Robert Bruce, hearing of the betrayal, rode hard in his wrath to find the man who had betrayed him. They met within a church, and there, upon the altar, Bruce spilled the blood of Comyn. If he did not murder his distant kinsman with his blow, it did not matter, for his men finished the deed.

In 1306, Bruce was crowned king of the Scots at Scone. The English king had stolen the great stone of Scone, upon which Scottish kings had been crowned for eons, but still, Robert the Bruce was anointed in the ancient tradition. He was crowned not just once, but twice, for Isabel, a daughter of the house of Mar, came rushing to perform the hereditary duties of her family at a coronation as her brother, the earl, was a lad, and held by the neighboring king, Edward of England. She was but nineteen and married to the earl of Buchan, an ally of the English king, but in her devotion to her land, she was heedless of her marriage. And the consequences.

She arrived for the coronation a day late, and therefore, so that tradition and propriety might be maintained, the ancient rites were performed again on Palm Sunday, the twenty-sixth of March, 1306. Now none of the people might doubt that Robert Bruce was king.

And so, in name, he had risen at last to claim his great quest.

But the new king had many enemies, among them the kinsmen of the slain John Comyn, powerful barons of the land.

And then there was Edward I of England, who had ruled long, and hard, and brutally.

And who, most annoyingly, had failed, thus far, to die.

When he heard of Bruce's coronation, Edward I had his son honored as Prince of Wales. Hundreds of hardy young Englishmen were knighted at the ceremony, giving vows before the altar of chivalry and valor.

The English king's wrath was such that no such vows might be maintained. There would be few prisoners taken by the English, for all men captured who supported Robert Bruce were to be treated as outlaws, executed without trial, hanged, beheaded, drawn and quartered, or dragged through the streets to meet various forms of torture, humiliation, then a grisly death. Heralds proclaimed throughout the land that the women—the wives, sisters, even daughters of the valiant patriots—should be treated little better. The English knights were given leave to rob, rape, and murder as they saw fit. They were the outlaw kin of an outlaw king.

Within months of his coronation, Bruce had met savage defeats, and many of his finest men had been captured and executed, including three of his brothers. His wife had become a hostage of the vengeful English king, along with two of his sisters and his daughter. Only his great prowess, at times against incredible numerical odds, kept patriotism and loyalty alive among those who would serve him. He was not a ruler with a great army, but a tattered bandit fighting from the rich forests in which he could find shelter. Troops had to be raised from those loyal to this new king, and to the dream of freedom. Help was sought from abroad. The highlands of Scotland were far from the English, but the lowlands had been brought to their knees.

The borderlands remained a form of Hell on earth. In this purgatory and chaos, men and women, the great and the small, struggled to survive.

Robert Bruce was king of Scotland.

But it was treachery that reigned.

Once upon a time . . .

There lived a man who would be a great king.

But in the year of our Lord 1307, his battle for the land, for the freedom of his country, had only just begun.