Prologue

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."

Kahlil Gibran, 1883-1931, poet

11 May 1544

Carlisle Castle Dungeon, Northwest England

Rory MacLeod let the growl sitting at the base of his throat rumble out of him. Low and long, like a guttural tumbling of rocks, it sounded like a warning rumble from a lion. After a year in Carlisle Castle's dungeon, he looked the part with a mane of long, dirty hair, scars, a full beard, and lips that pulled back to show sharp teeth.

Perhaps this was part of God's required penance for the devastating foolishness of his youth.

He growled again, and the sound had the desired effect of making the English guards back up outside the narrow, barred door. The barrels of their muskets bobbed, showing that the English trembled.

"Move back," ordered one of the two guards who carried an unconscious Asher MacNicol between them. "Else we throw him in the moat."

Cyrus Mackinnon and Kenan Macdonald stepped back. Rory would rather lunge, ripping into the guards. A year of hell had brought out the beast in him. He'd thought Kenan Macdonald and his clan were Rory's biggest enemy until he'd suffered the true foe, England.

He pressed against the damp stone wall, and the guards dropped Asher on the musty straw clumped on the floor of the cell that the four of them shared. Rory stared hard at the Englishmen until they looked away, swallowing in discomfort. His amber-colored eyes and disconcerting stare made most men look away even when he was washed and dressed properly as a Highland chief's son. Now he looked half beast, like his battle title implied. He would use every weapon he had against King Henry's men.

"God's teeth," a guard said, staring at Rory. He was new, and Rory had the sudden desire to open his maw and roar at him, to see if the man pissed himself.

"He's the Lion of Skye," another guard said. "Don't look in his eyes. It'll make you unable to move so he can rip your throat out."

Rory remained with the other two Highlanders while the guards backed quickly out, and one relocked the barred door. "If any of you Scots bastards try to escape like him, you'll get the same treatment or worse." The portly man spat on the ground. "The only way out is giving your oaths to England and paying the ransom due to the king." The three Highlanders glared at him, and he ordered his men away.

The new guard cast a glance toward Rory, and Rory bared his teeth. The man's eyes grew round, and he skittered off. As soon as they were out of sight, the three men descended on Asher. Rory crouched next to the man whose back had been flayed open with a studded whip, leaving a bloody mess, raw and jagged.

He met the grim faces of the other two, all of them originally from the Isle of Skye, a western isle off bonny Scotland. "Bloody fok," he said and the other two nodded.

All four of them were hardened warriors and would fight England until their last drop of blood. They hadn't been captured at the embarrassing Scottish loss at Solway Moss but had been traded for more important family members after they were captured. Rory, Cyrus, Kenan, and Asher were left to pay the price of a weakened Scotland. Abandoned by their clans. Forgotten.

I'll send the ransom money within the month.

Alasdair MacLeod's words were a distant promise now. Rory had believed his father, until months went by without a word or a coin.

Kenan checked Asher's pulse. "He's alive. Let's get him to the pallet."

Cyrus punched his fist into his other hand. "We need to leave here now."

"Aye," Rory said. "But first we need to get Ash walking again."

"Damn fool," Kenan huffed. "Trying to leave on his own."

Cyrus snorted. "And telling Wharton to shove the other prisoners' bribes up his arse until he could taste the silver on his tongue didn't help him, either."

The fact was the four Highlanders from Skye hadn't been sent any coins with which to bribe Wharton to give them extra food and care. 'Twas as if their clans had decided they were already dead. Would Rory's older brother tell their cloistered sister, Eleri, that he had died down in England even though he'd survived the battle at Solway Moss? Would she insist on a funeral even without a body?

"We need to work together," Rory said, his voice a low grumble. "Not break out on our own."

Cyrus, Kenan, and Rory lifted the MacNicol warrior and set him as gingerly as they could on the rumpled pallet. How easily they worked together now when at first they'd hated one another. The adage was true. The enemy of an enemy is a friend.

"I'll ask Mirella for clean water, some spirits, and rags," Cyrus said. Since he was the one who smiled the easiest, he'd been the one to charm the keeper's daughter when they were still treated as possible allies by King Henry. The English tyrant thought he could persuade Highlanders to his side against King James of Scotland. Rory didn't know who he hated more, the king or those Scotsmen who assured him they'd back English rule over Scotland and all Henry's religious dictates.

"Ointment, too," Kenan said. "Ash's back will fester."

"He might still die," Rory said, inspecting the weeping skin on the man's back. Ash had tried to escape with a small dagger but was overpowered by four guards with muskets and swords. Asher hadn't warned his cellmates he planned to attack when he was taken from their cell after volunteering to work on a new wall at the castle. They hadn't seen him for two days when Mirella snuck down to tell them he'd been caught and was being whipped.

"Wharton is practically starving us," Kenan said, his voice low. They did get two meals a day and ale, but for four warriors, the amount wasn't adequate to keep up their strength, especially while surviving the constant cold. "We need to get out."

Kenan went to the small, barred window cut through the stone wall and peered out at the damp grass that had grown green with spring. "If we were but birds to fly away," he said. Despair was making them all a bit mad. Kenan sucked in the fresh wind like it was a meal. "Da Vinci made plans for a flying machine," he murmured to himself.

"Where did Ash get the sgian dubh?" Rory asked, ignoring Kenan's ramblings.

Cyrus grabbed one of the woven blankets they'd each received from an anonymous benefactor for Beltane. Made from thick, warm wool, each one had come with a printed tag penned with their names. "I saw him picking away at the hem, plucking the strings," Cyrus said, pinching the edge and looking at it closely in the light from the window. But there'd been only one blade, and it was gone.

Rory grabbed his own blanket and slid his fingers along the bulky seam. A thin, hard object sat near a corner. "There's something here," he whispered and bit down on the threads binding the blanket. He plucked the threads away and worked a hard piece of iron from the hole he'd created. "'Tis…a key." He held it up. It had minimal teeth, so it could work in numerous locks. "A skeleton key." Glancing at the bars, he tucked it away quickly.

"Coins." Kenan worked them out of his own blanket. "Eight gold crowns."

Cyrus kept running his fingers around the edge of his blanket and shook his head. "I don't feel—" He stopped and held the edge to his ear. "But I hear something." He bit hard at a seam and pulled out a piece of paper. Without reading it aloud, he passed it to each of them.

The Renegade

Captain Bunch

Dock at Girvan Port

Cyrus looked up at Rory. "The Renegade? 'Tis a ship."

"One that will take us north to Skye?" Kenan asked.

Rory exhaled. "As long as it gets us out of England."

"If we work together, we have a chance of making it past the guards," Kenan said, stretching his arms overhead. He nodded at Asher. "All four of us."

The three looked at each other, the question of whether to leave the man who'd tried to escape on his own already answered. They were four enemies on the Isle of Skye, each of them belonging to a different feuding clan, raised to hate each other. But here in a dank cell in Northwestern England, they'd become brothers.