Prologue

1470

Inverie, Scotland

St. Benedict’s Abbey

“Put yer hands out, palms facing down,” Atholl ordered, each of his words vibrating with his discontent.

The door to the small chapel was thrown open and a cold blast of wintery wind swept through the room. Graeme Stewart didn’t bother sending a prayer up to God that it wasn’t Bernard Campbell entering the stark chapel, because God never answered Graeme’s prayers. In stalked the Campbell guard with his right hand clutched around Eppie’s thin arm, dragging her so that she was half stumbling to keep up with his pace. Graeme tensed with the desire to demand Bernard unhand Eppie, but he didn’t speak. Last time he’d made a demand of the Campbell guard not to hit her, he’d lashed her back bloody and then Graeme’s too. Graeme could take the pain for himself, but the torture of having to watch the woman he thought of as a mother writhing in agony, was more than he could bear. The scene had haunted him for months last time, stealing any hope of a night of sleep devoid of night terrors.

“Did she have the loaf of bread?” Each of Atholl’s words were cold and exact.

“Aye,” Bernard answered the head monk. Bernard’s mouth twisted in grim lines. “She’d eaten half.”

“Ye’re nae a thief, aye?” the old monk said, snarling at Graeme.

“She baked that bread,” Graeme said. “She bakes it day after day, and ye bunch of fat—”

He took a hard hand across the mouth from Atholl for the insult. Graeme stared at the dirty rushes scattered on the chapel floor as he kneeled on the rocks Bernard had scattered. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth from his throbbing lip. He swallowed the blood. Spitting it onto the rushes would get him another smack across the mouth.

Rage pumped through his veins, making his head ache and his ears roar with blood. Slowly, he turned his head to Atholl, whom he dreamed of killing nightly. “Ye are starving her. She’s had nae but broth for weeks.” Graeme had to push the words through his clenched teeth.

Atholl hiked his silver eyebrows. “’Tis penance for her sins.”

“What’s sinful about telling me of the family from whom I was taken?”

“Her stories make ye rebellious,” Bernard snarled as he came to stand beside Atholl and pushed Eppie to her knees beside Graeme. She hissed at the pain in her aged bony knees.

Graeme wanted to reach out and grab her hand and squeeze it to reassure her, as she did for him so many nights, but any show of comradery between Graeme and Eppie right now, would likely increase Atholl’s punishment. “She was telling me of my da’s treason that got him killed, so I’d nae end up like him,” Graeme said, using the lie Eppie had made him practice. “Twas nae a tale as much as a warning.”

“Ye took the bread from the kitchens, therefore ye are a thief,” Atholl said. “I should cut off yer hand to teach ye nae to steal.”

“He needs those hands for labor,” Bernard inserted. “Give him the lashes as we discussed and give this one some as well for encouraging him to steal.” Bernard shoved a foot in Eppie’s back, sending her sprawling forward on her hands.

The rage inside Graeme exploded, and he bolted to his feet, only to be shoved easily back down by Atholl. He was surprisingly strong for an older monk. Graeme’s teeth rattled when his knees cut into the rock, and he barely contained his howl of pain, and that was what mattered because it showed strength of character. ‘Never show yer enemy they hurt ye,’ Eppie always said, and these two men were their enemies.

“Eppie did not know I was going to steal the bread,” Graeme said.

“Nay?” Atholl demanded.

“Nay,” Graeme answered.

“But she ate the bread ye took from the kitchen, and she knew she should nae have, so she must be punished.”

At that moment, Eppie righted herself back onto her knees, shoved her silver hair out of her face, and tilted her chin up in a defiant gesture. It occurred to Graeme that he could spare Eppie more punishment. “She did nae eat it,” he lied to which Eppie gasped. “She’d nae out of fear of punishment, so I did,” he finished, puffing out his chest. He had to be believable.

“That, I believe,” the fool Benard said to Atholl. “The old woman is smarter than this dull-witted boy,” Bernard added.

Graeme could feel the heat of Eppie’s disapproving glare, but he didn’t dare look at her, and she didn’t dare negate his lie because he’d receive even more punishment.

“At last, we come to the truth,” the monk said. “Put out yer hands for the thieving, and then we will address the lies that spewed from yer mouth.”

Graeme raised his arms with some effort, given he’d been made to carry stones for the entirety of the day before. His hands trembled before him, and the first hit with the lash sent his right hand down. Pain shot through his hand and shot up his arm, but slowly he raised his hand back up. The next hit was to the top of his left hand, then back to his right, until he lost count, and he no longer felt the sharp sting of each hit, but a dull hot ache. He stared at his bloody hands as Eppie cried softly beside him, and the names of his enemies rolled through his mind. First the ones before him, a man who claimed to serve God—the blackest of lies—and a man who had dedicated his life to carrying out the treachery of others. Atholl. Bernard . Then the enemies he had never met—those who had their hands in the killing of his parents, the attack on his home, and the scattering of himself and his siblings to three corners of the Highlands so long ago. Laird Campbell. Brody Campbell. The Campbell Clan. The Lord of the Isles and all those who bent the knee to him.

The lashings stopped, and Bernard jerked him to his feet. Pride swelled within him that he did not sway, though he felt ill from the lashings.

“Open yer mouth,” Bernard ordered.

Graeme hesitated, thinking to refuse, but when Bernard’s gaze flicked to Eppie, still kneeling and crying, Graeme opened his mouth immediately. He would shield her. He was thirteen summers now, and he wanted to be a man like he’d been told his father had been—strong, honorable, protective of those he loved. Bernard tipped up the skin and the horrid stench of the foul liquid hit Graeme’s nose before the awful taste covered his tongue. In a breath he was on his knees tossing up the food he’d eaten that day until he had emptied his guts. Sharp stabs of pain pinched his sides, and sweat covered his brow, neck, and armpits when he finally stopped and managed to find the strength to stand.

Bernard and Atholl stood side by side, looking like the well pleased bastards they were. “What have ye to say?” Atholl demanded.

Graeme knew what he should say, but knowing and doing were two very different things. He swiped a trembling hand across his mouth and glared at the men. “One day, I will take vengeance upon ye both, upon the Campbells, and upon the Lord of the Isles, and when that day comes, ye will wish fervently to the God ye both claim to serve that ye had nae ever laid a hand upon me or Eppie.”