Read Online The Knights of Christmas by Suzanne Barclay - Free Book Online

thought you were short of food,” Duncan murmured as he helped Kara step over the bench.
    â€œIn addition to thanking you for your quick thinking, we celebrate Samhuinn tonight.”
    â€œThe feast of the dead?” Duncan said, appalled.
    â€œWe prefer to think of it as the winter solstice. The day we bring our flocks to their winter folds and give thanks to all gods for the harvest. Still, I’m surprised you know of it.”
    â€œMy mother practiced the old ways.”
    â€œYou do not approve.”
    Another memory flickered through his mind. A bonfire at dusk, people dancing around it, eating, drinking and laughing. His parents, holding hands as they gazed into the fire. “I was taught to think such things unholy.”
    â€œBy that dreadful cousin of yours?”
    Â 
    â€œCousin Niall is a godly man.” If a bit overzealous.
    Kara snorted. “Too much of a good thing can be bad.”
    â€œI do not agree.” But he was beginning to question.
    â€œI’ve saved the best bits for you.” The huge man who’d been by the door set a platter down on the table.
    â€œDuncan, this is Black Rolly MacHugh.”
    Duncan nodded. “You’re not a Gleanedin, then?”
    â€œIn spirit only.” He began heaping slices of roasted venison into Duncan’s bowl. “I was wed to Kara’s aunt.”
    Duncan assumed she’d died in a MacGory raid, but when Rolly had moved on to serve Fergus, Kara leaned over and confided that Annie Gleanedin MacHugh had died in childbed several years ago.
    â€œBlack Rolly stayed on here. He was with Fergie when the MacGorys attacked and took a blow to the hip. Now his leg’s stiff and nearly useless. So much suffering,” she said sadly, looking out over the crowded hall.
    It was tiny compared with the great hall at Threave, the vaulted ceiling so low the battle banners hanging from it nearly brushed the heads of the diners. Poor and mean, Cousin Niall would have called it, for the rough-hewn timbers were soot streaked from the smoke of countless fires. But colorful woolen hangings brightened the stone walls, and the rushes underfoot smelled of fresh herbs.
    To Duncan, the greatest difference was the people.
    â€œYour clansmen have endured much,” he said. “But their trials have neither broken nor embittered them.” Indeed, the folk of Edin bounded about like a brood of boisterous pups. They laughed and teased each other. They praised Black Rolly’s feast and devoured it with disarming relish. “Never have I seen people take so much enjoyment from a simple thing as eating.”
    â€œLife can be harsh and short,” Kara explained. “We’ve learned to wring as much pleasure as possible from each moment that comes our way. The good times should be savored like sweet mead as a buffer against the troubles sure to come.”
    Â 
    Duncan’s throat tightened. Heathens, he’d called them, yet their ideals were far more Christian than those of many a seemingly pious knight he’d met on Crusade.
    â€œWhat troubles you?” She laid a hand on his arm.
    The casual gesture jangled every nerve in his body, made him suddenly conscious of her leg pressed against his beneath the table, the subtle scent of her hair, the sheen of her skin in the torchlight. He knew exactly what caused his heightened awareness of Kara. A passion he should be ignoring. Unfortunately, he didn’t want to. He wanted to sweep her from the hall, to take her away someplace dark and private. Someplace where he could act on the impulses that had plagued him from the first time he’d laid eyes on her.
    â€œDuncan?” she asked softly.
    â€œHmm.” He struggled to bring his mind back to the business at hand. Food. Eating. “The meat is good.”
    She chuckled. “Then why are you scowling at it?”
    â€œI...” He stared into her upturned face, his mind veering down paths it had no