Page 40 of The Falcon Laird
“Not here!” Robbie, the youngest, shook his head, the sun shining through his ears like pink glass.
“Our Da says Robert Bruce is beating the Sassenach army in Ayrshire,” said Patrick, the older lad.
“But we do not know where he is and we have never seen him,” Robbie insisted. He and Patrick both shook their heads in rapid, intense denial.
Gavin made a doubtful face. “So your parents and other adults have never seen him?” They each shook their heads vigorously, hair flying outward.
“Would you vow the truth on a holy relic? That Bruce has never been here?” John asked.
The boys looked at each other. Patrick gulped.
“Here, now!” a voice called. “Wha’ are you lads doing?”
Gavin turned. A man walked under the half-lowered portcullis with barely a pause and came through the courtyard. Once again Gavin reminded himself to restore the damned gate. The man was short, broad, and well-muscled in a brown tunic and bright plaid that flapped about his powerful calves. He carried a cloth sack in one hand. His head, Gavin noticed, was shaved clean over the front of his head, brown hair long at the back. A priest, he realized with a start, recognizing the peculiar tonsure.
Glaring at Gavin, he fisted his hands on his hips. “Who are you, and wha’ are you doing with my lads?”
“He’s a Sassenach, Da!” Robbie yelled. “We’re his prisoners! You need to pay a ransom!” Robbie bounced up and down with excitement. Gavin noticed then the boy’s strong resemblance to the priest in the prominent ears and reddish-brown hair.
“Did you bring coin, Da?” Patrick asked.
“As if we had any. Hush,” the priest said. He turned to Gavin. “Wha’ did they do? I hope they did not use fire arrows on you. They tried those before, but I put a quick stop to that.”
“We were capturing the Sassenach, but he caught us.” Patrick scowled.
“Ach. Well, your mother wants both o’ you home now. Where is Michaelmas?”
“With Lady Christian, captive in the tower! The English dogs are questioning them,” Robbie said. Gavin groaned, but rubbed a hand over his face to wipe a smile away.
“Ach, you do not look like prisoners to me,” their father said. “Take your bows and go. And your mother says do not shoot at her hens again, they’re not game birds.” He leaned as if to smack their behinds, but the boys laughed as if knowing the game and scampered away. Grabbing up their bows with an anxious look for Gavin, they ran out of the courtyard.
The priest held out a hand. “I am Fergus Macnab, rector o’ the church o’ Saint Bride, a league from here over the moor. You’re sent by King Edward?”
“Aye, sent by the king. I am Sir Gavin Faulkener.”
“Faulkener!”
“Sir Henry’s cousin. And husband to Lady Christian now. This is my uncle, Sir John Keith.”
The priest nodded at John. “Well! So Lady Christian is safely home! We heard she was taken with the other Bruce women.”
“She was. I brought her out of there—on the king’s orders,” he added.
“So you wed the widow for castle, and intend to rebuild and garrison it with English again?”
“Those are my orders. Since you are a man of the Church, may I presume you are an ally?”
Fergus frowned. “I am no friend to the English. But you are only two men here, and my older sons told me Lady Christian was ill, so I came. But Michaelmas and her escort got here sooner.”
“Your older sons?” Gavin asked.
“You met two o’ them yesterday at the burn.”
“We thought they were rebels. Forest outlaws,” John said.
“My sons are good men, though the English will call them outlaws. They were burned out o’ their homes by that king’s demon, Oliver Hastings.” He raised his square chin. “My wife and I have eight sons, six grown. Our two youngest bairns you’ve just met.”
“Eight sons!” Gavin stared at him. “And you are a priest?”
