Crusader

Alexander III is only seven when he inherits the Scottish throne, and his minority gives Henry III of England an opportunity to press claims of overlordship. Married at ten to Henry’s daughter Margaret, Alexander grows up amid competing guardians, dynastic pressure and the violent rivalries of the Scottish nobility. In a court where almost every adult seeks influence over the child-king, David de Lindsay of Luffness becomes his most dependable companion and one of the few men whose loyalty is personal rather than political.

David teaches the boy to hunt, helps him escape the prison-like restrictions of Edinburgh Castle and encourages him to resist both his English father-in-law and the magnates who would rule through him. Their friendship develops alongside Alexander’s struggle to become king in fact as well as name. Yet David possesses an ambition of his own: to take the cross and fight as a crusader. Duty to Scotland repeatedly delays that calling, binding the two men together until Alexander’s maturity finally allows his friend to pursue the distant cause he has never abandoned.