Page 3 of Highland Slayer
“Ye should,” Kaladin said. “God is here, for certain.”
Rodion looked at him. “What do you mean?”
Kaladin cocked a dark eyebrow. “The most infamous abbey in Scotland is nearby,” he said. “Ye should also feel fear as well as reverence.”
“Fear for what?”
“Na Ban-Teamplairean.”
It took Rodion a moment to realize what he was saying because he wasn’t as good with Gaelic as others were. He was literate and educated, but he’d never taken to the Gaelic language. In fact, it was Mateo who spoke first.
“The Templar nuns,” he muttered. “Bloody Christ, are those abominations around here?”
All eyes turned to the enormous knight with dark hair and pale eyes. His grandfather, Patrick de Wolfe, had possessed legendary height. There were few men taller in England, if not the entire world, than Patrick had been. Mateo was a twin, son ofPatrick’s eldest son, Markus, and he’d lived a rather solitary life. He’d been married, once, but he’d lost her in childbirth about twenty years earlier and had never remarried. He was a bit of an enigma because he kept to himself for the most part, a quiet man who was highly intelligent. That meant that when the man spoke in that deep, raspy voice, men listened.
Like now.
He always sounded ominous.
“Aye, they’re around here,” Kaladin said, pointing off to the east. “St. Margaret’s of Loch Doom is that way, over that rise.”
Mateo’s gaze moved in that direction. “I hope we do not run into any of them.”
“They keep tae themselves,” Kaladin said. “I dunna think they go beyond their walls, seeking trouble.”
“I’ve heard stories about them,” Titan said. “They were founded by a woman whose husband had been killed in battle. Legend says she prayed for forty days and forty nights before St. Margaret appeared to her and told her to start a fighting order of widows in her name.”
“And she had forty widows right away, one for each day she prayed,” Mateo finished. “I know because I’ve heard the legend, too. We all have. True or not, that was over two hundred years ago, and now all they have are a group of nuns who have been known to fight battles when their sanctuary is threatened. They have a foundling home there, you know. They protect those children rabidly.”
“I heard they never let the children leave,” Kaladin said. “At least, they never let the girl children leave. They throw the lads tae the wolves when they come of age, but they keep the girls.”
“Then they must have a lot of girls,” Titan said. “My father said he saw the Douglas summon them for a border skirmish against Carlisle Castle, and he said the nuns fought like men. They were more effective, too, because a knight is sworn toprotect not only the church, but women in general. Their appearance caused a great deal of confusion because no one wanted to engage them.”
“It probably caused some deaths, I would imagine,” Mateo said.
Titan glanced at him. “You disapprove of a fighting woman?”
Mateo shook his head. “They have their place,” he said. “I was married to a woman who took up arms, and she was fearsome. I have great admiration for a woman who can fight.”
“Then why disapprove of the nuns?”
Mateo frowned. “Because they are nuns,” he said. “They are women of God. It seems to me that if they can be summoned by a clan to fight for their cause, then they arenotfighting for God. They are fighting for men. There is something inherently self-serving about that.”
Titan didn’t have an argument for him. He couldn’t disagree that nuns, by virtue of their holy vows, probably shouldn’t take up arms, and most especially not fight other men’s battles. He was about to say so when they heard a shout from Rodion, who was still riding on the crest overlooking the river. When everyone turned to look at him, he pointed toward the water.
“There!” he shouted. “There is something there!”
He spurred his horse toward the river and they lost sight of him. That brought Titan and Mateo charging after him with Estevan and Kaladin bringing up the rear, all of them thundering over the rise only to see a dirty, rocky belt that ran alongside the river as it dumped into the firth.
But there was indeed something on that sand.
A body.
Rodion was the first one on the scene. He dismounted his horse swiftly and went to the body, bending over it but not touching it. He was a man with a knowledge of healing, so he knew what to look for. As he was visually inspecting it, as it waslying face down, Titan and Mateo arrived. They hit the ground running, so to speak, moving swiftly to the body and kicking up sand as they went. Titan reached down and yanked on an arm, pulling the figure onto its back.
It was a woman.
Her face and hair were covered with dirt and filth. Rodion knelt beside her, feeling on her wrist for a pulse to see if she was even alive. She certainly didn’t look like it, pasty and gray like the dirt surrounding her.
