Forbidden Heart (Hearts of the Highlands #6) - Paula Quinn Page 0,3
king’s captain.
He continued onward while Will vowed to shoot arrows into their arses as soon as he was free. The others swore retribution with crass jokes and laughter.
Galeren shook his head. His men would not be tamed.
“What d’ye know of John’s niece?” Morgann asked him.
“All I need to know. She is a novice and will become a nun next spring.”
“Why does the church council want to meet her?”
“John sends fer her. He hopes that her place in the church will secure him a place on the council.” He saw the sour looks on his men’s faces. He felt the same way. He didn’t like that John was using his niece as a piece in his game for power. But no one spoke of it.
“What is the novice’s name?”
“Silene Sparrow,” Galeren told him.
Morgann’s lips parted as he breathed the name then he looked about to smile. If he had, it would have been the first time in a sennight. “’Tis pleasin’ to my ears.”
“Aye,” Galeren agreed. It was a bonny name. What were they supposed to call her? How could he warn or prepare her for her journey with them? He felt as if he knew her because of all the time John had spent talking about her. He felt protective of her and a bit glad to finally be meeting her.
They reached the border hamlet of Southdean the next day. Galeren met his kin, the Hetheringtons and shared news with them about his mother, Braya, whom he’d last seen this past summer.
His grandparents had not been able to make the journey from the central Marches where they lived. They’d had a letter written and sent with Galien Hetherington, Galeren’s uncle, telling him they missed him, but his grandfather, Rowley, hadn’t been feeling well and his grandmother thought it best not to travel.
Uncle Galien had some dried food and fresh bread for him and his men and some long-sleeved tunics that his grandmother had sewn herself for Galeren for the cold nights.
“I will return to Invergarry when my duty is done, and I will tell her,” Galeren said, sitting back in his chair in the hamlet’s town hall after supper.
“You are a good lad,” his uncle commended, pouring them some more whisky. “Tell me a bit about your brothers.”
“Bors left the king’s service. Most of the army dissolved after he was captured at Neville’s Cross.”
“But not you.”
Galeren shook his head. “Not me.”
“How long will you follow him?”
“As long as he is king.”
His uncle nodded, showing his respect by not arguing the point. “You always have a place on the border if you ever decide to be a reiver.” He lifted his cup to his nephew, and they drank together.
“Did I ever tell you about the time my eldest brother, God rest his soul, Ragenald was first discovered teaching your mother how to fight?”
“Ye never told me, Uncle,” Galeren said with a smile and leaned in to listen.
But the tale was interrupted by the sound of a fist landing against a face. Galeren looked over his shoulder at Will shaking off the effects of the punch. The captain rolled his eyes heavenward, then he closed them when his uncle sprang from his seat and hurried past him.
He thought about the young novice, Silene Sparrow. Was she the fragile sort? How would she react to this kind of fighting?
He rose from his chair, dreading having a hysterical woman with him for two days.
He knew and understood that man’s first instinct was to flee from something so troublesome. He’d felt the urge to flee more times than he could count, on the field and off. He felt it in Dundonald Castle and in his vow to Cecilia Birchet, and he felt it in Bamburgh and his vow to keep the novice safe.
But he never fled. He’d conquered the urge and faced whatever it was, head on.
But he had never faced a force like the one in his path.
Chapter Two
Silene wasn’t supposed to be out alone, but this was her last dawn in the priory—in Bamburgh, and in England. She didn’t think she would ever return. She didn’t know why. It came to her one night, this knowledge, this certainty that if she left Bamburgh, she would never return. Was she going to die? Because only death could keep her from the prioress and from her sisters. But, oh, she didn’t want to think on it now. It was too glorious a morning to weep over what she could not control.