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was a child Elizabeth had been as carefree and wild as a sprite, but the accident had changed that.
    On a June day six years before, Elizabeth had been playing on the banks of Lough Rea when she had slipped and fallen in. Her governess had not been watching her. The lough was deep and the child couldn’t swim. By chance two squires had been passing and leapt in and saved her. At first, Ulster blessed his good fortune, then, after the shock of almost losing his daughter wore off, he thanked God in prayers more heartfelt than ever before. By that evening everyone in the castle, himself included, was calling it a miracle.
    But when God had saved her He seemed to have claimed her for Himself, so that now Elizabeth was wed to Him, her prayers and piety demanding all her time, leaving little room for merriment, or indeed a suitor. It was why she remained the only unmarried one of all his children. Still, Ulster refused to send her to a convent, despite her pleas. Elizabeth’s youth and beauty made her one of his greatest assets and the earl was determined that while God might have her soul, a husband would have her heart.

Chapter 3
    Caerlaverock, Scotland, 1301 AD
     
    The siege engines towered out of the mist – monstrous forms dedicated to destruction. Each had been christened by the Englishmen who manned them. The Vanquisher. The Hammer. The Boar. Each was primed, ready for the day’s ruin.
    With a roared order from the engineers the winches were released, the beams arcing up to slingshot their loads at the sandstone walls and towers of the castle. The great stones struck with ear-splitting cracks, dust and mortar exploding on impact and a gaping hole appearing in one of the twin towers of the gatehouse. As rubble splashed into the moat, the shouts of the engineers echoed and, immediately, men began to heave on the ropes, drawing down the arm of each machine and hoisting up the massive weighted basket that hung at its opposite end. When the arm was down, a large stone ball, hewn for the purpose, was rolled into the leather sling. It was David and Goliath. Only now it was the monster who had the stone in his fist and sixty Scottish soldiers cowered within the walls, like a David with no hope whatsoever.
    Beyond the industry of the siege lines, crowded among the castle’s earthwork defences and outbuildings, which had fallen to the English yesterday, was a seething encampment of three thousand men. Smoke curled from fires, adding a grey pall to the morning mists. The smell of boiled meat from the cooking pots blended with the reek of horse dung and the stink from the dug-out latrines. The place blazed with colour, from the knights’ surcoats and mantles to the pennons on their lance shafts and the banners that were hoisted above the great retinues of England’s earls.
    At the heart of the camp, King Edward watched as the siege engines were primed again. At over six feet he was an erect tower of a man, standing head and shoulder above most of those around him. His crimson surcoat was emblazoned with three golden lions, beneath which a mail hauberk and coat-of-plates broadened his muscular frame. His beard, the same swan-feather white as his hair, was clipped brutally close to his jaw and did little to soften his grim countenance. The only trace of frailty to be found in that face was the droop in one of his eyelids, a defect inherited from his father, which had become more prominent since he had turned sixty. With the gold crown upon his head and the scarred broadsword strapped to his side he was the embodiment of majesty and might, inviting comparison with legendary warriors of old – Brutus, Roland, Charlemagne. Arthur.
    As the engines let loose another barrage, Edward followed the missiles with his eyes. It was only the second day of the siege and already the walls were pitted with damage. It would, however, take much more to bring the structure to ruin. Caerlaverock Castle, shaped like a shield with towers at each point