Chapter 1

AUGUST 19, 1561

MUSSELBURGH, SCOTLAND

Andrew…Drew…scowled as he eyed his opponent across the field. He’d trained long and hard for this duel. He didn’t intend to lose, especially not to the cocksure Scots nobleman who was currently brandishing his weapon with all the grace of a crofter chopping wheat.

Drew seldom lost. He’d earned his reputation on the tournament field as a master. He was lithe, strong, and intimidating. His arm was powerful and his aim deadly. He’d left his last two opponents gasping on their knees and the one before that cursing into the dust.

Ian Horn would likewise prove an easy conquest. The barrel-chested Scot was currently making a great show of flexing his arms, adjusting his trews, and gauging the position of the rising sun, which was nearly invisible on this unusually gloomy summer morn. But it seemed to Drew that Horn was merely delaying his inevitable demise.

The motley mob of peasants and merchants and nobles who crowded around them, shouting and shoving and placing hasty wagers on the match, did not agree. By the loud cheers they sent Horn’s way and the nasty aspersions they hurled at Drew, ’twas apparent most of them had bet heavily on their local hero.

Unable to stall any further, Horn mopped his brow, cleared his throat, and approached, gripping his weapon so tightly that it seemed as if he meant to throttle the life out of it.

The crowd hushed, their gazes locked on the combatants.

Drew took a calm breath and waited.

Despite the man’s poor form as he swung, there was a tap as he managed to connect with the ball, sending it bounding well down the green, where it arced to the left, bounced four times, but somehow landed at the far edge of the grass, a good two dozen yards past the hole.

Nonetheless, his supporters roared with gloating satisfaction, and Horn let out a triumphant cackle. He bowed, inviting Drew to do better.

Drew lifted the corner of his lip in a grim smile. Oh, aye, he’d do better. He hadn’t left his home in England, changed his name, and risked his life, roving through the land of enemy Scots, just to lose to a smug Lowlander with a distinct hook in his swing. Drew might not be spilling the Scots’ blood as his uncles would have wished, but he was definitely doing his part to drain their coffers.

Ignoring the raucous bystanders, who tried to rattle him with insults, Drew made a small mound of sand and placed his elm ball upon it. He glanced at the blades of grass in the rough to gauge the direction of the breeze. A light wind normally blew in from the North Sea, which was visible from the links, just past the rise, but today the air was still and veiled with fog. He could only faintly discern the imposing rock of Ard-thir Suidhe, which rose above Edinburgh like a fortress wall.

Drew chose the spoon from among his clubs, earning him a scornful bark of laughter from Horn, which was echoed by the crowd. Apparently no one realized how short the hole was. Drew balanced the club easily in the fingers of his left hand as he set the head down with calculated precision behind the ball, then clasped lightly with his right hand.

Ironically, much of his golfing aptitude came from the training his uncles had given him with a sword. His grip was solid, yet not too tight. Flexibility, whether holding a blade or a golf club, was the key to control and accuracy. The rest of his skills he’d learned from Lowland golfers who were more than willing to show a stranger a thing or two about golf for a few pints of beer.

Drew glanced up once toward the hole, which was slightly to the right on the rise ahead. ’Twas hardly necessary—he could have played the Musselburgh links blindfolded.

The Scots who’d wagered on Horn gathered as closely around Drew as they dared, yelling and stomping and waving their hands in an effort to break his concentration.

Taking an even breath, Drew shifted his weight back then forward, swinging the club with smooth power. It whistled and connected with a solid crack. The ball shot straight ahead, rolling and bounding down the green like a hound on the hunt, slowing and settling directly in front of the hole.

Horn made a pained, strangling noise, which he quickly disguised with a cough, and his constituency groaned in collective disappointment. Then he waved to his servant to bring along his satchel of clubs as he shuffled off toward his ball.

Drew always carried his own clubs. He refused to engage a servant to do something he could do just as well himself. Besides, he preferred to keep the Scots at arm’s length, and that included the serving class. He was an Englishman masquerading as a Highlander, and the fewer who knew his secret, the better.

As they ambled down the course, trailed by the disgruntled crowd, Horn tried to strike up a probing but friendly conversation. “So, MacAdam, have ye played much at Musselburgh?”

“A time or two.” The truth was he’d played at Musselburgh enough to have memorized the lay of the land. This might be the country of his foe, but he liked it well enough to spend a good deal of time here. There was a wild quality about the eastern coast of Scotland that pleased him.

Horn’s servant, upon reaching his ball, extracted a fairway club from the satchel. Drew cleared his throat, wondering if the servant had made a mistake in his choice. After all, the ball wasn’t that far from the hole.

But the servant arched a knowing brow at Drew. The crowd hushed, and Horn lined up behind the ball, wiggling his backside to get the proper posture. When he finally swung forward, the servant’s choice proved to be a prudent one after all, for Horn all but missed the shot, only narrowly clipping the top of the ball, which rolled forward to end up, by fool’s luck, beside Drew’s.

The Horn faction cheered, and Drew let out a whistle of disbelief, which Horn mistook for admiration.

“Aye, we Lowlanders have golf in our blood,” Horn boasted, resting his club on his shoulder and marching happily forward. “Tell me, MacAdam,” he said loudly enough for the onlookers to hear, “do they even play the sport where ye’re from?”

In England? Drew thought. Not anymore. Golf had been outlawed there. But that wasn’t what Horn was asking. As far as anyone knew, Drew MacAdam was born and bred in the Highlands. No one here had heard of the Englishman, Andrew Armstrong. Still, these Lowlanders had almost as much contempt for their northern brothers as they did for their English foes.

“In Tintclachan?” Drew replied in his best Highland brogue. “Nae. There’s naught but rocky ground and lochs so deep ye’d drown chippin’ your way out.”

“Indeed?” Horn nodded to the crowd, as if to confirm that a Highlander couldn’t possibly have the experience to win this match.

“Aye.” Drew nodded out of courtesy to indicate Horn could play first. “And ye’d be lucky to swing a club without hittin’ a cow.” He gave the bystanders a wink, and the few of them who’d wagered on Drew to win chuckled in response.

Horn took a putting cleek from his servant, who then spread a cloth on the grass before the ball and helped his master to his knees. Horn doubled at the waist to line up his shot, his hands flat on the ground, his arse in the air. He cocked a wild eye at the hole as if to threaten it into submission. Then he straightened, and with three practice swings, he knocked the ball forward, missing the hole by more than a foot.

“Damn!”

The crowd’s oaths were somewhat coarser. Some of them had wagered a week’s earnings on Horn to win.

The servant helped Horn struggle to his feet while Drew waited without comment. Just as he’d expected, this was going to be an easy match. Horn was already losing his temper on the first hole. By the seventh, he’d doubtless be apoplectic and completely unable to control his shots.

Drew advanced toward his ball. With scarcely a wasted motion and before the onlookers could distract him with their taunts, he tapped it neatly into the hole.

Horn started in surprise. “Oh.” He added grudgingly, “Well done, MacAdam.”

After that, it took the man not one, but two more attempts to sink his ball. By then his ears were red, and the onlookers were growling in irritation.

“Your drive,” Horn muttered.

Drew nodded and walked past the green to tee off. The path to the second hole was much longer, with a marshy patch in the middle. On a sunny day, he could do it in five strokes. Today, with the mist heavy on the course, ’twas hard to tell.

He lined up the shot with his longnose club while the mob closed in, whistling and jeering. Ignoring the detractors, he swung back, but as he swung forward, an overly enthusiastic Horn supporter waved out his arm, and Drew’s club caught on the man’s sleeve, destroying the shot. The ball sliced to the right, landing near the edge of the rough.

Half of the crowd cheered in approval, willing to seize on any advantage. The other half, recognizing the man’s behavior as unsporting, shoved and rebuked the offender.

Drew frowned. He’d seen men cheat like this before. ’Twas one thing to bellow and stamp and cast aspersions. ’Twas another to physically interfere with a man’s shot.

Horn, however, was a man of some character. “Ye can take the shot o’er, MacAdam,” he offered.

Drew nodded his thanks. But to be honest, he didn’t want to take all of the challenge out of the game. “Nae, let it lie.”

Horn seemed unsure whether to be grateful or insulted. He nodded in deference to Drew’s courtesy, then took the club from his servant and groused at the onlookers, “I’ll play my own game, if ye please.”

While they moved down the course and Horn carried on about unruly crowds, Drew grunted, only half listening. He was distracted by the sight of something odd upon the waves in the distance—strange shadows shifting through the veil of mist. As he scanned the horizon, the dark flank of a ship emerged from the fog. Ghostly white sails billowed on its three masts as it sailed toward Leith Harbor. Behind it another vessel materialized.

Horn, oblivious to the ships, chattered away as he struggled to keep up with Drew. “’Tis a foul day for this time o’ year—not golfin’ weather at all.”

Drew stopped, squinting to try to make out the colors of the flag flying from the highest mast.

“I suppose it could be worse,” Horn blathered on. “It could be rain—”

He suddenly crashed into Drew with an “oof,” but Drew was too preoccupied to take notice. Ships came into Leith Harbor all the time, but there was something different about this pair.

“Those galleys,” Drew said, “whose colors are they flyin’?”

Horn sputtered, then shaded his eyes with one hand to try to make out the ships.

His servant joined them. “They’re French, sir.”

“French.” Two French galleys sailing up the Thames in London would have presented a threat. But here, Drew reminded himself, there was a strong alliance between France and Scotland that went back centuries.

“Aye, right ye are,” Horn chimed in, pretending he could see that far. “They’re French. Ye can tell by… Wait.” He straightened abruptly. “French? French? Is it…” He elbowed his way past Drew and scrambled through the rough to get a better look. “Nae. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t due to arrive for another two days!”

“She?” Drew asked, turning to the servant.

The crowd began murmuring in wonder as the servant gazed into the distance with curious adoration. “The new queen,” he breathed.