Newly planted fields just showing green growth were trampled over. Livestock was wantonly slaughtered or taken to feed the two vast armies. Farms and villages were burned to the ground, their inhabitants—men, women, children, the aged—murdered. The women as usual suffered the worst for the unfettered rape that was permitted by the English commanders.
Nothing in the path of the English invaders was spared, including the church. Along the border were some of Scotland’s greatest abbeys—Kelso, Dryburgh, Melrose, and Jedburgh. All were sacked and then burned to the ground; the monks slaughtered without mercy. Edinburgh’s port of Leith was in ruins. Edinburgh was attacked, and part of the city burned for two days. The castle itself could not be taken, but the English sacked both Holyrood Abbey and its adjoining palace.
Marie de Guise quickly had the little queen moved from Stirling north into Perthshire. They took up residence in Dunkeld Castle. The English who had been advancing on Stirling stopped upon learning their quarry had escaped them. They returned to England, leaving the southeast of Scotland in shock, mourning, and ruins.
Word of this tragedy was slow to reach Brae Aisir, but the lack of traffic both ways through the pass told them that something was very wrong. Fin doubled the watch and kept the cattle and sheep nearer to the keep as the summer progressed. Not until late July when a member of the Kira banking family came from Edinburgh to go south to England did they learn the extent of what had happened.
They were not located on the south side of the city, which had suffered the most damage, he told them. “Thank God for the Aisir nam Breug,” he said, “for I need to get to London to inform our family there of what has happened here. We must remain open for our clients, of course, but it is dangerous now, and likely to become more dangerous.”
“It’s begun, and God help us all now,” Fingal Stewart said. “We may not escape the ravages of the war that is not really a war. I will have to keep the drawbridge up now as the Hay did. It’s becoming too dangerous to leave it down.”
“No one has attacked us,” Maggie said.
“There is war all around us, Maggie mine,” he told her. “We cannot wait for an attack to come, but we must be ready when it does, for it surely will.”
And for the first time in her life Maggie Kerr was afraid. But she was not fearful for herself; she was fearful for her two sons, her daughter, and the new bairn she suspected she was carrying. If Master Kira was to be believed, the English had spared no one, even the littlest of children. The thought of their coming to Brae Aisir sent an icy shiver through her. She went to the keep’s little armory, and taking down her claymore, she began to carefully hone its dulled blade to a fine sharp edge. If the English came to Brae Aisir, Mad Maggie Kerr would be more than ready.
Chapter 19
Ewan Hay had returned home to find the older of his two brothers not particularly welcoming.
“Ye had yer chance,” Lord Hay told him. “ ’Tis over now.”
“Her husband returned,” Ewan whined. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Aye, her husband came back, but ye were outmaneuvered. I’ll wager ye still haven’t figured out how he got into the keep. There was probably some secret entry, but ye made no effort to befriend the Kerrs. Instead, ye walled yerself up with yer own men and gained no allies,” his older brother said. “Yer a fool, but then I always knew it. There’s nothing for ye here at Haydoun.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” Ewan demanded. Curse Mad Maggie Kerr and her husband. They had brought him to this ruin. He’d have his revenge on them somehow.
“Go to England,” Lord Hay advised.
“What?”Ewan Hay was astounded by his brother’s words. “Why would I go to England?” he demanded to know.
“For the coin they will put in yer purse, of course, ye donkey,” Lord Hay told him. “King Henry is determined to have our queen for his son. There is a strong pro-English faction here in Scotland. They are being paid in hard coin to support this marriage.”
“And how would ye know this, Brother?”
Lord Hay smiled archly. “Ye could become one of what the English callassured Scots, Ewan. Seek out the Earl of Hertford, and tell him yer my brother. That I sent ye to him. Ye’ll be welcome, and I’m certain yer firsthand knowledge of the Aisir nam Breug will be a great interest to him.”
“Can I take Bhaltair, and my men?” Ewan asked his brother.
Lord Hay shrugged. “If ye can pay them, they’re yers,” he agreed.
And so Ewan Hay had taken his captain along with their men-at-arms and gone over the border into England where he found he was indeed welcomed by the English. He took part ravaging the Borders in that terrible summer. He did not, however, reveal his knowledge of the Aisir nam Breug right away, gaining a reputation as a ruthless fighter and a reliable ally instead. There would come a time when his information would garner him more than just gold. And he would have his revenge on the Kerrs of Brae Aisir. He was learning to cultivate patience.
And Ewan Hay was in good company. Matthew Stewart, the Earl of Lennox, second in line for Scotland’s throne, defected to England, pledging his allegiance to King Henry. He also turned over Dumbarton Castle and the Isle of Bute for English bases. The king made him his lieutenant for the whole of northern England and for southern Scotland. And then the handsome twenty-seven-year-old earl was married to Henry’s niece, Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of Henry’s late sister, Margaret Tudor, by her second husband, Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus.
This betrayal, however, but strengthened the Queen Mother’s position. The common folk praised her desperate defense of Scotland in the name of their little queen.
Her closest adviser, Cardinal Beaton, was blamed for the terrible destruction of the southeast. They threw stones at him when he rode past in the streets. The common folk didn’t know that the cardinal was a great diplomat. They only knew he lived like a king, had several mistresses, and had fathered more than twenty children. Scotland had burned while the cardinal had feasted with his noble whores. And the English kept badgering the Borders, keeping the Scots busy defending themselves while King Henry waged war with France, whose Scots allies were unable to aid them.
An invasion was being considered into the southwest of Scotland. Ewan Hay at last saw the opening he had been awaiting. His reputation allowed him an audience with the Earl of Lennox. Matthew Stewart was a tall, handsome man whose wife had just given birth to their first child, a boy they named Henry in honor of her uncle. He waved Ewan Hay into his presence with an impatient hand from the chair where he was sitting.
“I am told ye would speak with me,” the earl said.
“I am told yer considering an invasion of the southwest,” Ewan replied boldly. “I may have some information that could be of use to ye, my lord.”
Lennox did not invite Ewan Hay to sit down. “Speak,” the earl instructed him.
