In two weeks time he would leave to attend his first council meeting with the other lairds. He wouldn't be gone long, because Johanna was expected to deliver their babe in about a month's time.

Auggie and Keith had stolen the noser from the Kirkcaldy clan. Laird Gillevrey had mentioned the man and had made the comment he was the best noser in all of the Highlands. Auggie kept the noser locked up for a good long while once he'd selected the finest of the brew for them. The noser was named Giddy, and he was harmless enough. After a month or two of boredom, Auggie took mercy on him and let him try his hand at the game of striking the stones. Within a week, Giddy caught the fever. Now there were two fanatics digging holes all over the courtyard, the meadow, and the valley below, and Gabriel had the suspicion that, once the barrels had been traded and Giddy could go home, he probably wouldn't leave. He and Auggie had become fast friends; and when they weren't striking stones, they were dragging copper kettles to Auggie's cottage to convert into a more effective brewing apparatus.

Johanna sat by the fire every night and worked on her tapestry. Dumfries waited until she was settled in her chair and then draped himself across her feet. It became a ritual for Alex to squeeze himself up next to her and fall asleep during her stories about fierce warriors and fair maidens. Johanna's tales all had a unique twist, for none of the heroines she told stories about ever needed to be rescued by their knights in shining armor. More often than not, the fair maidens rescued their knights.

Gabriel couldn't take issue with his wife. She was telling Alex the truth. It was a fact that maidens could rescue mighty, arrogant warriors. Johanna had certainly rescued him from a bleak, cold existence. She'd given him a family and a home. She was his love, his joy, his companion.

She was his saving grace.

Epilogue



England, 1210

The chamber was stale and musty with the scent of dying flesh. The room was filled with priests and students who surrounded the bed on all sides. They held candles up and chanted prayers over their esteemed bishop.

Hallwick was dying. His breath was shallow and uneven. He didn't have enough strength to open his eyes. Across the room was a round table covered with coins the priests had collected from the congregation to pay for indulgences for their bishop. They thought to buy his way into heaven, and the gold would be given to the church as assurance that any past sins the holy man might have inadvertently committed would be forgiven.

Hallwick had never tried to hide his hatred and his disgust for women. Yet the priests he'd trained didn't believe those views were sinful. They accepted as fact each and every dictate the bishop gave them and were determined to preach his beliefs to their own subjects so that Bishop Hallwick's good word would be carried down through the generations.

Yet in death the bishop contradicted himself. He died crying his mother's name.