Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF

worn cording of the handle. Water lapped rhythmically against the shore, lulling me to sleep.
    I dreamt of home. Of riding along the Douglas Water and running over the hills with my simple-minded brother Hugh trailing behind. Of foxes loping through the meadows and a hare with its black-tipped ears peeking above a tussock of grass. I dreamt of my stepmother Eleanor rocking my wee brother Archibald in the ivory cradle of her arms as she sang to him and my father sitting on a bench before the hearth with a cup of ale in his hands, his thoughts consumed within the dancing flames. Of the Englishman, Neville, shoving Eleanor onto a table and yanking her skirts up, as she wept tears of shame. My knife, arcing through the air to cut him. Longshanks’ boot slamming against my jaw to dislodge a tooth.
    Then I dreamt long of two great armies staring at each other across an open plain, of a voyage in a leaky ship filled with rats the size of dogs and a journey into a strange land over a muddy field. Of Paris, cramped and reeking, and Master Andrae telling me to grab my ankles and bend forward as he tested his willow switch on the floorboards before laying it over my back. My father lying dead in a Tower dungeon. I dreamt of Bishop Lamberton reciting Mass from behind glittering relics and William Wallace walking away on a long, dusty road, never turning around, never showing his face, only the great sword strapped against his broad back.
    And then, in the drifting mist of my dreams, Robert, tall astride his horse, twisted at the waist and beckoned to me. His embroidered cloak swung regally from his shoulders. Upon one of his fingers was a ring bearing a seal. Upon his brow sat a circlet of gold.
    “James? Come along, James,” he called, a soft, half-smile playing over his mouth.
    As he began to go, I tried to follow, but something held me back. I willed my feet to move, but they could not. Further and further he went, saying my name, but never stopping to wait for me or looking back.
    “Look ‘ere,” a gruff voice said. “A Scottish dog, good as dead.”
    The dull fog of sleep lifted suddenly like a blanket thrown off. It was not Wallace’s voice, nor Robert’s. Neither was it Torquil’s.
    Through barely parted lashes, I glimpsed a man with a bulging paunch standing over me. He grinned and flicked his tongue over lips pocked with sores. Drooping jowls rough with black stubble melted into a thick neck. The man had not suffered for lack of food, or from the guilt of gluttony. He reached beneath his oversized leather jerkin and scratched at his crotch. Then he lifted a nicked and rusty sword. Its point pricked the soft of my belly.
    My heart thumped in a wild cadence. I curled my fingers around empty air. My blade lay tangled in the grass, only a few feet away. If I reached for it, I was dead. If I didn’t – I was dead then, too.
    His mouth spread into a macabre smile of jagged yellow teeth and irregular gaps. A guttural laugh shook his flabby gut and gurgled out of his throat, making him sound like a braying donkey. “Scared, are you? Don’t worry, I’ll keep you alive long enough to get some sport out of you.”
    I opened my eyes fully, gauging his quickness against mine. No contest. I would have skewered him in a heartbeat in an honest fight. Gutted him like the fat pig he was. That was when he pressed the point deeper into my belly, reminding me who had the advantage.
    “Will, over ‘ere!” he bellowed. “Look what I found me!”
    With every shallow breath I drew, the sword point bit harder, almost burning. I held my breath. Fear, or fate, whatever it was, held me entranced to observe the slow approach of my own death.
    God’s teeth, I had always thought I would die in a furious blaze of glory, not like this. Not in such a pathetic, helpless way.
    Behind him, twigs cracked. Footsteps plodded, then stopped.
    He chuckled, this time scratching at his buttocks. “What do you say we should do with him, Will? Strap him