Page 106 of The Falcon Laird
She knew somehow that she and Gavin were meant to love each other, meant to heal each other, destined to grow and learn together. Their spirits had bonded forever in that moment in the abbey.
She looked at Gavin’s strong, beautiful face lifted to the lamp light. He held his hands steady, his eyes closed, and breathed deeply and calmly. His hands were still surrounded by their own faint light.
And she knew that what flooded from him into her was the most perfect love imaginable.
Gavin exhaled and bowed his head briefly. She looked down and saw that the bleeding had stopped. In place of the open gash, there was a knitted line of clotted blood, clean and tight, as if the wound had had several days of healing time.
She stared up at him, and he smiled, a slight lift of his lip, his eyes bright. Christian loved him utterly and completely in that instant. “Thank you,” she whispered, reaching out to touch his hand. He wrapped his fingers, warm and secure, around hers. “You surely have your mother’s touch,” she said.
He squeezed her fingers. “How do you feel?”
She smiled, feeling suddenly very happy, sailing on light, blissful joy. “I am fine and strong,” she said. “And hungry.”
He laughed and glanced over her head. He stood quickly as three men came through the doorway of the chamber.
“My lord king,” Gavin said, bowing his head. “We have found Kilglassie’s treasure.”
Robert Bruce walked down the steps. He inclined his head toward Gavin and Christian silently, and looked around the chamber with an astonished, speechless expression. John and Fergus followed him down into the room. Fergus grinned and whistled low, glancing around, then watched Robert Bruce expectantly.
The king turned, scanning the chamber. After a few moments, he went to Christian and held out his hand, helping her to her feet. She stood, her leg feeling fragile, but well. Gavin put his arm around her to support her.
“Cousin,” Robert said, smiling widely, “you have been keeper of a glorious secret. This chamber is magnificent. Truly magical.”
She smiled. “Indeed, my lord, true magic has happened in this place,” she murmured. Glancing up at Gavin, she slipped her hand into his.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Holy saints,” Fergussaid then, as he gazed upward. “The treasure o’ Kilglassie is real. You did say that the gold had likely melted in the fire, Lady Christian. And here it is.”
“This gold was melted into these walls long ago,” Robert Bruce said. “And it will be our pleasant task to remove it.”
“Now that the Scots have taken back Kilglassie, will you mine the gold, but order the castle burned to the ground?” Christian asked her cousin.
Robert half laughed. “I am no fool, my lady. I know well when an exception should be made to a rule. There is too much treasure”—he glanced at her, and at Gavin beside her—“and too much loyalty here, to destroy even a stone of this place. Kilglassie will stand, and its gold will help to support the throne of Scotland.” He turned to Gavin. “I need a commander here, but I will not ask you to break a vow of honor.”
“I am free to give my oath where I choose,” Gavin answered. “My oath of fealty to Edward of England no longer holds, since he calls me outlaw now.”
Bruce held out his hand. “Then I am pleased to call you friend and ally.”
Gavin clasped the proffered hand and bowed his head. “I would be honored, my lord king, if you would accept the support and loyalty of an English-born knight.”
“I would gratefully accept it of you,” Robert said.
Watching, Christian felt the sweet sting of tears in her eyes. “My lord cousin,” she said, “we found something else.” Shepicked up the little golden casket and handed it to him. “There is a parchment in here that says something about a king, and about Merlin. But I cannot understand all the words.”
Robert Bruce opened the box and withdrew the little cylinder of vellum. Setting the box aside, he unrolled the parchment and looked at it for a few moments. Then he handed it to Fergus. “Can you make sense of this, priest?” he asked.
Fergus tilted the page toward the light and perused it carefully. “By all that’s holy,” he breathed, “this could have been written by Merlin himself!”
“What?” Gavin said. “What does it say?”
Fergus tapped the page gently. “Some o’ these words are in old Gaelic, and some are ogham symbols, from an ancient code used by the Druids. Both sections say near the same. Here, the ogham script—these odd scratch lines here—mention that a greedy king will die, and a brave king will triumph and lead his people to peace. These marks, just here, refer to a small hawk, a merlin.”
The others began to talk at once, but Fergus raised his hand. “The Gaelic says more. When the greedy king dies, the brave king o’ Scots will gain victory. There will be peace throughout Scotland and Wales too, it says, until the end of time. ‘This is the prophecy of Merlin, a wise man and advisor to a brave king’, it says, just here.”
“My God,” Gavin said slowly. “There are other prophecies of Merlin, collected in a chronicle of the kings of Britain. I have read them myself. I had thought them invented, but this parchment has clearly been sealed here for hundreds of years.”
“An undiscovered prophecy,” Christian said, intrigued. “The Kilglassie legend says that when Merlin came here with Arthur, he left a great gift with the laird, fashioned by his own magic.”
