"I served under Sir William Keith for jist under a year, ever since the Bruce fell tae leprosy. Oor king had aye wished tae take part in the crusades against the Saracens, but kent he wis dyin'. He asked for the contents o' this casket tae be buried in the Church o' the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The Black Douglas wis tae lead the mission, joined by Sir William Sinclair, Sir Keith, an' mysel'."
"Go on."
"When we arrived in Spain, Alfonso XI of Castile and Leon… he convinced Sir James tae join his vanguard against Osmyn, the Moorish governor of Grenada. The Black Douglas agreed, an' we set off on the twenty-fifth of March, that is, all but Sir William Keith, who had injured his arm frae a fa' an' couldnae fight."
"Whit happened?"
"The battle went badly. The Black Douglas wis deceived by a feint, an' the Moors' cavalry broke through oor ranks. It happened so fast, bodies an' blood everywhere, that I could scarcely react. I saw Sir William Sinclair fa' doon, followed by the Black Douglas. An' then a sword caught my flank, an' I fell.
"When next I awoke, it wis dark. My nostrils were fu' o' blood, an' my left side burned. It wis a' I could dae tae regain my feet beneath the bodies. I wanted tae flee, but first I had tae find the Black Douglas. By the half-moon's light, I searched one corpse tae the next 'till I located his body, guardin' the Bruce's casket even in death. By then, the dawn had arrived an' Sir Keith wi' it. He dressed my wounds, but fearful o' another Islamic attack, suggested we separate. I wis tae return tae Scotland, then make my way to Threave Castle, stronghold o' Archibald the Grim, Sir James's son. Sir Keith wis tae return tae the Lowlands an' Melrose Abbey wi' the casket."
"But yer plans changed, I see."
"Aye. On the eve o' oor sail, Sir Keith took sick wi' dropsy. Fearful o' his condition, I decided it best if the casket remained wi' me and too' it frae him."
Calder pulled MacDonald aside. "Do ye believe him?"
"Aye."
"But why does he seek a Templar?"
"Bruce wis a Mason, born intae the Order. The contents o' the casket belong tae Scotland. It represents nothin' less than oor freedom."
MacDonald turned back toward Adam. "Ye were right tae come here, laddie. Whit lies within that silver container's far ower important tae leave in any abbey. There's a cave, a day's walk frae here, known only tae the Templar. If Cooncil agrees, then I'll take the casket there and—"
"No ye willnae!" Adam interrupted. "The coven's between the Bruce an' the Wallace Clan. Direct me, an' I shall take it there mysel'."
"Dinnae be a fool, ye dinnae ken whit ye're sayin'. The cave I've in mind leads tae Hell, guarded by the De'il's ain minions."
"I'm no' feart."
"Aye, but ye will be, Adam Wallace. An' it's a fear ye'll carry wi' ye 'til the end o' yer days."
Chapter 1
The Sargasso Sea is a two-million-square-mile expanse of warm water, adrift in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. An oasis of calm that borders no coastline, the sea is littered with sargassum, a thick seaweed that once fooled Christopher Columbus into believing he was close to land.
The Sargasso is constantly moving, its location determined by the North Equatorial and Gulf Stream currents, as well as those of the Antilles, Canary, and Caribbean. These interlocking forces stabilize the sea like the eye of a great hurricane, while causing its waters to rotate clockwise. As a result, things that enter the Sargasso are gradually drawn toward its center like a giant shower drain, where they eventually sink to the bottom, or, in the case of oil, form thick tar balls and float. There is a great deal of oil in the Sargasso, and with each new spill the problem grows worse, affecting all the sea creatures that inhabit the region.
The Sargasso marks the beginning of my tale and its end, and perhaps that is fitting, for all things birthed in this mysterious body of water eventually return here to die, or so I have learned.
If each of us has his or her own Sargasso, then mine was the Highlands of Scotland. I was born in the village of Drumnadrochit, seven months and twenty-five years ago, give or take a few days. My mother, Andrea, was American, a quiet soul who came to the United Kingdom on holiday and stayed nine years in a bad marriage. My father, Angus Wallace, the cause of its termination, was a brute of a man, possessing jet-black hair and the piercing blue eyes of the Gael, the wile of a Scot, and the temperament of a Viking. An only child, I took my father's looks and, thankfully, my mother's disposition.
Angus's claim to fame was that his paternal ancestors were descendants of the great William Wallace himself, a name I doubt most non-Britons would have recognized until Mel Gibson portrayed him in the movie, Braveheart. As a child, I often asked Angus to prove we were kin of the great Sir William Wallace, but he'd merely tap his chest and say, "Listen, runt, some things ye jist feel. When ye become a real man, ye'll ken whit I mean."
I grew to calling my father Angus and he called me his "runt" and neither was meant as an endearing term. Born with a mild case of hypotonia, my muscles were too weak to allow for normal development, and it would be two years (to my father's embarrassment) before I had the strength to walk. By the time I was five I could run like a deer, but being smaller than my burly, big-boned Highland peers, I was always picked on. Weekly contests between hamlets on the football pitch (rugby field) were nightmares. Being fleet of foot meant I had to carry the ball, and I'd often find myself in a scrum beneath boys twice my size. While I lay bleeding and broken on the battlefield, my inebriated father would prance about the sidelines, howling with the rest of his drunken cronies, wondering why the gods had cursed him with such a runt for a son.
According to the child-rearing philosophy of Angus Wallace, tough love was always best in raising a boy. Life was hard, and so childhood had to be hard, or the seedling would rot before it grew. It was the way Angus's father had raised him, and his father's father before that. And if the seedling was a runt, then the soil had to be tilled twice as hard.
But the line between tough love and abuse is often blurred by alcohol, and it was when Angus was inebriated that I feared him most.
His final lesson of my childhood left a lasting impression.
It happened a week before my ninth birthday. Angus, sporting a whisky buzz, led me to the banks of Aldourie Castle, a three-century-old chateau that loomed over the misty black waters of Loch Ness. "Now pay attention, runt, for it's time I telt ye o' the Wallace curse. My faither, yer grandfaither, Logan Wallace, he died in these very waters when I wis aboot yer age. An awfy gale hit the Glen, an' his boat flipped. Everyone says he drooned, but I ken better, see. 'Twis the monster that got him, an' ye best be warned, for—"
"Monster? Are ye talkin' aboot Nessie?" I asked, pie-eyed.
"Nessie? Nessie's folklore. I'm speakin' o' a curse wrought by nature, a curse that's haunted the Wallace men since the passin' o' Robert the Bruce."
"I dinnae understand."
Growing angry, he dragged me awkwardly to the edge of Aldourie Pier. "Look doon, laddie. Look doon intae the Loch an' tell me whit ye see?"
I leaned out carefully over the edge, my heart pattering in my bony chest. "I dinnae see anythin', the water's too black."
"Aye, but if yer eyes could penetrate the depths, ye'd see intae the dragon's lair. The de'il lurks doon there, but it can sense oor presence, it can smell the fear in oor blood. By day the Loch's ours, for the beast prefers the depths, but God help ye at night when she rises tae feed."
"If the monster's real, then I'll rig a lure an' bring her up."
"Is that so? An' who be ye? Wiser men have tried an' failed, an' looked foolish in their efforts, whilst a bigger price wis paid by those drowned who ventured out oot night."