Draco A Medieval Scottish Roma - Jayne Castel Page 0,18
wood with a tiny knife.
Gavina had been aware of his presence all evening, although she made a point of ignoring him. It was growing late now, and only the three of them sat by the fire. Her protectors had set a watch around the camp and erected a small tent for her.
“Perhaps ‘The Hammer of the Scots’ won’t strike Dunnottar,” Draco continued.
“Excuse me?” Gavina asked, frowning. “What’s all this talk of ‘hammers’?”
“Cassian’s convinced Edward will be the one to strike the castle,” Maximus replied, meeting Draco’s eye over the flickering flames. “And I agree with him.”
“Shaw Irvine might just get to us first though,” Draco countered.
“What are ye two blathering on about,” Gavina snapped, irritated that she still didn’t understand.
Both men looked her way then, before Maximus inclined his head. “I thought Aila told you of the riddle, My Lady?”
Gavina frowned. “Aye … she did.” She paused then, her gaze flicking between the two men. Draco now wore a shuttered expression. He didn’t welcome her inclusion in the conversation. Nettled, Gavina continued, “She never actually recited it to me though.”
“It speaks of an assault on Dunnottar, My Lady,” Maximus replied after a pause.
Gavina tensed. She agreed with Cassian that an English attack was imminent, but the thought of it being somehow ‘preordained’ made a chill feather down her neck. “Could ye recite the riddle to me?” she asked.
“You don’t need to hear it, My Lady,” Draco said curtly. “Such things needn’t concern you.”
Gavina bristled. “Perhaps not, but they still do,” she replied, her own tone turning frosty. She recalled Draco’s anger back on that hilltop, at dawn after they’d slain the English patrol. He hadn’t wanted the women to learn their secret. But it was too late now. Gavina knew who these men were.
“What can it hurt, Draco?” Maximus’s brow was furrowed as he met his friend’s eye across the fire pit. “She knows the worst of it … Lady Gavina might as well hear the riddle too.”
A muscle bunched in Draco’s jaw. He respected Maximus, Gavina sensed it. In many ways, Maximus was the unspoken leader of the three men, despite that Cassian captained the Dunnottar Guard.
When Draco didn’t voice another protest, Maximus cleared his throat and began to speak. His voice, low yet powerful, drifted across the fire.
“When the Broom-star crosses the sky,
And the Hammer strikes the fort
Upon the Shelving Slope.
When the White Hawk and the Dragon wed,
Only then will the curse be broke.”
When Maximus finished, Gavina pondered his words. The riddle fascinated her—so much so that she forgot the humiliation and disappointment regarding her brother.
“And so, ye have managed to solve most of it?” she finally asked.
Maximus nodded. He glanced up then, his gaze shifting to the star-sprinkled night sky above them. “That fiery star comes every seventy-five years, My Lady … and the three of us wait impatiently for its arrival.”
Gavina raised her chin, focusing upon the bright silver comet that streaked across the heavens. “The Broom-star,” she murmured, before her mouth compressed. Her dead husband had been a suspicious man; ever since the star had appeared in the heavens, he’d muttered on about it being an ill-omen. Indeed, it might have signaled the end for him, yet to these three immortals, it remained a sign of hope.
“The Hammer refers to Edward,” Maximus continued, casting Draco a pointed look. “And the fort upon the Shelving Slope refers to Dunnottar’s old name.”
Gavina nodded. Dùn Fhoithear. She remembered Donnan De Keith telling her about it once.
“And now we finally have our ‘Dragon’.” Maximus’s mouth quirked as he gestured to Draco. “We have only to find a ‘White Hawk’ for him to wed, and, as the riddle says, ‘the curse will be broke’.”
Silence settled over the fire. Draco’s shuttered expression had turned brooding. He whittled the piece of wood in sharp movements, tension rippling off his lean frame.
“The White Hawk and the Dragon,” Gavina murmured, letting the words sink in. A chill slithered through her belly then, making the wine she’d been sipping churn. “And ye have no idea who the ‘White Hawk’ is?” Her voice sounded forced and a trifle shrill, as dread now wrapped icy fingers around her throat.
Both Maximus and Draco looked her way once more, their gazes narrowed.
“Not yet,” Maximus admitted, his frown deepening. “Is something amiss, My Lady? Your face has drained of color.”
Hysteria bubbled up inside Gavina, but she managed to swallow it down. “It’s a shock … that’s all,” she choked out.