Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy) by N. Gemini Sasson Page A

he been within arm’s length, I wager he would have felt the impact of Edward’s fist to his mouth. With a sneer, Edward turned on his heel and stalked off.
     
     
    In the early spring slop, the English were bogged down like overloaded boats on a rapid river. From the forest’s edge we watched them. They dared not venture inside the murky tangle with their unwieldy columns and rumbling wagons. We lurked and struck at night and were gone again. The great armies we let pass by, taking only stragglers or detachments sent off to steal provisions. Often we drove the cattle up into the hills, so by the time they arrived there was nothing for them to take.
    Nearly every day, Robert ordered our camp moved. Being less than a hundred men, we could cover twice the distance in a day that the hulking English were capable of. We had no wagons, few horses, and only the armor we had taken on Arran and at Turnberry. Our greatest hardship was not being hunted or homeless, but that the people, even Robert’s own Carrick tenants, were afraid to offer us succor. If it was discovered that they had given us aid, it could well cost them their homes, their crops, even their lives.
    Springtime brought little more to fill our bellies than winter had. Occasionally, we stole a cow or two. Sometimes a herd, although that was not often. When we had a single cow, it was always a great debate whether to milk it or slaughter it. We were encamped in the wilds of Galloway, some of us sharing the comfort of a cave as our ‘home’ when such a debate raged. A ring of pines stood sentry and beyond them the green hills opened up, broad and surging. April’s rains had abated and the breeze carried the first soothing warmth of summer as May passed. Gil had stolen a ruddy dun cow, far past her best calving days. A few of us were gathered in a clearing a hundred feet from the mouth of the cave, eyeing the moon-eyed, intractable cow that Gil led with obvious difficulty by a rope, tugging and cursing, into our starving midst.
    Boyd poked at the cow’s ribs. “You going to hoist her on your back or cradle her like a helpless bairn over the mountains while we run from the English?”
    Gil settled on his haunches beside the cow, his fingers kneading the udders as he aimed and caught the milk in a bowl on the ground. The cow stamped a front hoof, then calmed as Gil began to hum to her. Boyd probed her bony hips with both hands.
    “Keep your hands off her.” Gil shoved his gaunt, pockmarked cheek up against her muddy, brown hide. “We’ll get more from this one cow over the course this way.”
    “Ach, dry as a stone, I say. Douglas, meat or milk?” Boyd lifted up his shirt and scratched at his hairy paunch.
    Just beyond our circle of trees, Robert shot arrows at a target marked in a stripped tree trunk with some of the other men. I was the only one among us who could better him – although sometimes I think he missed the bull’s eye just to foster rivalry between us. He flicked the fingers on his bowstring and another arrow twanged dead center.
    I pushed my tongue around a bone-dry mouth. My belly grumbled and flopped. “Meat.”
    Torquil dragged a forearm across his mouth and nodded. Boyd whipped out his knife. As he moved to the cow’s throat, Gil shot to his feet so fast the bowl of milk overturned and splattered over Boyd’s shins. Gil drew his fist back. I stepped between them and caught his forearm.
    Boyd’s mouth twisted within the dark red mat of his beard. He plowed his bulging chest against me. “What now? Soft over a cow, Douglas? Is that your pleasure, seeing as how I’ve never seen you with a lass beneath you? Let him go. We’ll have this out and then we’ll all eat well tonight.”
    “No.” I nudged Gil aside and peered at the horizon. “Someone’s coming.”
    Boyd drew his chest up and looked about. “There’s no one.”
    “There,” I said.
    Riding double with Cuthbert, who had been on picket, was a lady I had never seen. Twenty