“We’ll leave tomorrow before dawn,” the laird said.
“We’re all ready,” young Andrew Home replied.
“Your hall is fuller with our men, I will wager, than it has ever been. How your cook has managed to feed us all for two days I will never know.”
“I actually think Elsbeth and the others have enjoyed it,” Adair said with a smile.
And as if to prove her words a great supper was produced that night, with beef and lamb and trout. There was venison, and rabbit pies, and roast fowl of several varieties. There was bread and butter and cheese, all washed down with the laird’s October ale. And at least two hours before the dawn, as the men stirred sleepily in Cleit’s hall, Elsbeth, Margery, Grizel, and even Flora were placing trenchers of hot oats on the trestles, along with bread and cheese. As the men prepared to depart, the four women moved among them, passing out freshly baked oatcakes and small wedges of hard cheese to be stored in their purses. Cleit’s hospitality would never be faulted.
Adair had dressed herself that morning as her husband had never seen. She wore a pair of dark brown woolen breeks that had obviously been made just for her. Her linen shirt was a natural color, and with it she wore a short jerkin of leather that had been lined in rabbit’s fur and was closed with small buttons carved from ash wood. About her waist she wore a leather belt, from which hung a thin leather scabbard containing a bone-handled dirk. She had a sash of red Bruce plaid that was pinned to her shoulder with a silver clan badge. The round insignia showed a lion with his tail extended, and above the beast was the clan’s motto,Fuimus, which translated toWe Have Been. Her black hair, braided as always in a single plait, was topped with a small flat cap that sported an eagle’s feather. She was every inch the clan chief’s wife, as the admiring glances of the men in the courtyard told her. Without help Adair mounted her own black gelding.
They rode out even before the sun came over the hills. Anyone seeing them would simply assume another border raid was in the offing. But when night came and they stopped to rest their animals for a few hours, no fires were lit. The horses were slowly watered, and then allowed to graze along the hillsides. The riders sat on the ground eating oatcakes and cheese, drinking sparingly from their flasks. While some slept, others kept watch for any danger that might approach.
Late the second night they reached Stanton and, concealing themselves in the grass and thickets of trees, they waited. Ramsay and his men returned with the dawn, and as Murdoc had told them they entered the cottages of the village. Eventually, as the morning deepened, the women began coming forth to go to the well for water and to gossip. The Scots raiding party prepared to attack.
“I want to go with you,” Adair said to her husband.
“You promised you would remain upon the hillside,”he reminded her.
“Surely you don’t intend to kill the women, do you?”she asked almost fearfully. “The women have done no deliberate treason. Most, if not all, are captives. You need someone to take them to safety so you may do what you must.”
“She is right,” Andrew Home said. “We want Ramsay and his men. Not the lasses. I would not deliberately kill a woman without cause.”
“But how?” Conal Bruce asked. “I will not have my wife endangered.”
“If you are in position, and prepared to sweep into the village from the hillsides themselves, you will have more than enough time, even if one of the women sounds the alarm. Let me ride into the village and just ask the women to follow me.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Conal exploded angrily. “One or even more of the damned wenches is certain to have fallen in love with her captor. She will run screaming, and the others will follow for certain.”
“I think you are wrong,” Adair replied. “These men will have raped the women now with them. They will have shared them amongst one another, and beaten them. The men will have expected them to cook and clean, and no matter how hard they have tried to please—and some will have in hopes of escaping the brutality—they will have still been mistreated. If someone had ridden into Willie Douglas’s camp when I was a captive, and said, ‘Follow me,’ I more than likely would have, and I was in his charge only a few days.
Many of these women have been here for several months. Let me try, my lords. If I fail I will ride up the hills as you are all riding down. The women will scatter when they see you if they do not follow me.”
“Jesu, madam, you have courage,” Hercules Hepburn said admiringly, “but I am not certain whether you are totally mad.”
Adair laughed. “I am not mad, Hercules, I swear it.
But this is Stanton. My lands. I must avenge my family’s honor. And while, if you all insist I remain upon the hillside while you attack, I will, I should far prefer to have a more active role in these doings.” She turned to her husband, as did all the other lords with them. “Please, Conal.”
“She should be safe,” Duncan Armstrong said. “The men are sleeping, and the women are believed so cowed that Ramsay hasn’t even set a watch.”
Adair threw her brother-in-law a grateful look.
“I agree,” Hercules Hepburn said. “And it would certainly be a huge help to us if we could get the women out of the way. It will be a lot easier to go about our task if they are not there to howl and shriek.”
“And one rider whom they will quickly see is another woman will quell any fears the little darlings may have,”
Andrew Home remarked with a grin.
“Go,” Conal Bruce said to Adair. “But if you get yourself killed I shall not forgive you, woman. I’m expecting more fine sons from you.”
She laughed. “I think I’m supposed to say something like that,” she told him. “It will take me a few minutes from here to ride around to the valley’s entry. Watch for me.” Then, gently nudging the gelding forward, she moved off.
They watched her go, losing sight of her briefly until she came out upon the narrow track leading into Stanton village.
It was all so familiar, and for just the briefest moment Adair was assailed by her memories. The orchards were still there, although some trees had fallen over the last few years, and they remained where they fell, for there was no one to clear them away. Eventually all trace of the orchard would be gone. She wondered what had happened to the bodies of the men slain there that day.
There was the burying ground where her parents, FitzTudor, and so many others of her acquaintance were interred. But not Andrew Lynbridge. She sighed. Would it have all been simpler if Andrew had not died that day at Bosworth? She didn’t know. Would never know.
