touched the rush-strewn floor of the great hall.
“Knaves,” she cried, centuries of command in her voice. “Bring it quickly. He comes.”
Moving with alacrity, footmen wearing the crest of the Murrays emblazoned on their tunics hurried to do her bidding. Within moments they returned, their muscles straining under the weight of a large, irregular boulder.
“Place it there,” she ordered, “on the banquet table. Scotland’s Stone of Destiny should not rest on the ground with the dogs.”
The men looked at one another, their faces a combination of fear and surly defiance. Only one had the temerity to question his orders. “M’lady.” Sweat beaded his upper lip and formed large wet circles under his arms.
“What is it?”
“I dinna wish to burn in hell,” he ventured tentatively. “If there be another way—”
“Art you a fool?” snapped Mairi. “If there were another way, I would have thought of it first. Do as you are told.”
Fear made him brave. “But, m’lady, what o’ the prophecy?”
“Words, knave, only words.” She whirled on him in savage fury. “I do this for all of us. For your life and the life of Murray’s heir. How dare you question me? Leave at once.”
Chastened but unconvinced, he backed out of the room.
Mairi tore the coif from her head and unpinned her hair. Braids, thicker than a man’s wrist, fell to her knees. With frantic fingers she loosened the plaits until the heavy mane fell all about her, silky fine and black as a crow’s wing. Her hair was beautiful as was the gown she had chosen. She would need all of her beauty this night. Once, not so very long ago, Edward of England had been very much a man. Mairi hoped it was still true. She had staked the life of her child on it.
Horses’ hooves clattered in the cobble-stoned courtyard. The Bear Gates stood open. There was no guard tower, no portcullis, no drawbridge to lower, no castle wall to storm. A symbol of grace and beauty nestled in a sheltered valley, Traquair was a home, not a fortress.
The wooden doors burst open, and men on horses, in full battle armor, filled the room. Mairi lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance, her eyes fixed on the circle of swords mounted above the entrance. No hated enemy would see her fear.
The line of horses parted, circling to the left and then to the right, until every inch of wall was guarded. No one spoke. She waited in trembling silence, her nails digging into her palms, for the encounter she knew was inevitable.
He came on foot, in full mail, holding his helmet under his arm. Moving with sure, impatient steps, he stopped directly before her. She would have known him anywhere. Tall, strong, incredibly handsome, magnificently royal, a man beloved by his subjects and feared by his enemies. Edward I of England was exactly as she remembered, every inch a king.
For a long time they took each other’s measure. She was the first to look away. Issuing a low, brief command, he relinquished his helmet to a horseman, who stepped forward. The knights, lined up in glittering rows, looked on impassively as he reached for Mairi’s hands.
“Please.” Unbidden, the single plea escaped her lips. She had not intended to beg. Maxwells never begged. He lifted a hand to caress her cheek. Mairi turned away but not before she felt the large knuckles graze her skin. Tears stung her eyelids. In all of her imaginings of this meeting, she had not expected gentleness. It was very unlike him. Edward, Hammer of the Scots, was not a man given to gentleness.
The hand that touched her face so sweetly was the hand of his sword arm. The same hand had severed the head of Llywylyn of Wales and carried it to London, where it sat skewered on a pike above the city gates until scavengers picked it clean. It was that hand, wielding a sword and targe, that defeated Wallace, the hope of Scotland, at the Battle of Falkirk. Ignoring his pleas for mercy, Edward ordered him strung up, drawn, and quartered, his body left, carrion for scavengers.
It was the very same hand that had closed over her throat, threatening to choke out the very breath of her life if she went through with her marriage to David of Murray. It was the hand of a builder, a statesman, a warrior…a butcher.
Never, for one moment, would Mairi forget who he was and what he had become. But neither could she forget what