“This entry won’t hold against an assault,” Gabhan told Mary.
“Then quickly, wake Mab and the lasses and get upstairs,” Mary told him as she hurried to climb the stairs into the hall. There she found Frang snoring in a bedspace. “Get up! Get up!” She shook him. “The Grahames are upon us, man!”
He was awake in an instant. “How? Where?”
“In the village for now, stealing women, but they’ll be at the hall soon enough,” Mary told him. “They came from the loch side, or they’d have had me. I couldn’t sleep, and heard a noise, saw the shadows, and ran.”
“I’ll get the men, and we’ll go into the village and settle this,” Frang said.
“Nay! Nay! You mustn’t leave the lady and her bairns unprotected. The ransom would be fierce, and ’twould beggar the laird. Besides, it appeared there were more of them than there are of us.”
The door at the end of the hall opened, and Cicely stepped out. “What is it?” She saw Mary Douglas, and her brow lifted questioningly. She was wearing a long chemise.
“The Grahames are in the village,” Frang said.
“Is the house secure?” Cicely asked him.
He nodded.
“Nay, the kitchen can be breached,” Mary said. “Gabhan said so.”
“Then we’ll seal the entry from the hall to the kitchen stairs,” Frang told them.
“Where are Mab, the lasses, and Gabhan?” Cicely wanted to know. “Get them upstairs immediately.”
Frang hurried down into the kitchen, where he found Mab, her two helpers, and her great-nephew shoving the big kitchen table so that it blocked the outside door, which was also barred. It was a good strategy. He helped them to get it the last few feet, and then shooed them all up into the hall. Cicely had gone into the large bedchamber with Mary Douglas, and they pulled the outer wooden shutter closed over the chamber’s single window. The window was now made of glass, but they had not yet dispensed with the inner wood shutters. They pulled them tightly and laid a wooden bar across them. Then they piled the trunks in the room before the windows. With great effort someone would be able to get into the chamber eventually, but all they needed was time.
“I want you, the bairns, the women in that chamber,” Frang said. “You’ll be safe unless someone manages to break in, and you’ll have time to reach the hall if they do. You can then bar that door to gain more time for us.”
“Can we send to Sir William or Ben Duff for aid?” Cicely asked.
Frang shook his head. “Their men are also with the king but for a few, my lady.”
Cicely nodded. “Then we are on our own,” she said. “Sine, go up. Wake the children and their nursemaid. Bring them downstairs. Where are Mab and her lasses?”
“Here, my lady,” the old woman said. She held a large wooden rolling pin in one hand. Her helpers, Bessie and Flora, held wooden mallets used to tenderize the meat.
“You are well armed, I see,” Cicely remarked. “Let us pray they cannot breach the house,” she said, leading them into the enclosed bedchamber. But she kept the door open, and after she had quickly dressed Cicely went back into the hall to speak with Frang. Kate came downstairs with the two children. She was wide-eyed, but calm.
“What are our chances of avoiding a fight?” Cicely asked Frang.
He shook his head. “We’ll try to hold out until either they grow weary of the game and depart with their booty, or offer decent terms for our surrender,” he said. “And, of course, they could go away with what they have gained today, and return another day.”
“I don’t want anyone’s blood on my hands,” Cicely quietly told the captain of the men-at-arms. “I could not bear to lose any of you.”
He gave her a warm smile. “We will do our best, my lady,” Frang promised. But he knew that if the Grahames managed to reach the hall it would be a fight to the death. He crossed himself and prayed silently for a miracle. Then he sent one of his men up to the second floor to see what was happening, and relay it down to them.
“The village is burning,” the man called. “I can see it from here.”
Frang shrugged. “It was to be expected,” he said sanguinely.
“The women are shrieking up a storm,” the lookout said. “They are having quite a time containing them. I can see some of them running, being chased.”
“Good,” Frang said. “They may have to decide if they want the women more, or what’s in this house more. If they can’t control our lasses they can’t storm the house.”
Durwin Grahame was learning, to his annoyance, the truth of this as the women scattered about the village, evading his men, half of whom were chasing after them while the other half fired the cottages. “Leave that cottage at the end alone,” he called to his men. “We’ll pen the women in there with two of you to guard them. Then we’ll go after the laird’s wife and bairns for the fine ransom they’ll bring us.”
After several hours of running the younger women of Glengorm down, the raiders finally had them bound and incarcerated in Mary Douglas’s cottage. The older women and the children they had let run off, for they weren’t interested in them. And while the elderly had protested the destruction of their homes, the Grahames had waved them away threateningly, telling them they were fortunate not to be killed. There were some who might have killed them, and another time Durwin Grahame might have. Today, however, he was interested in only two things: women to bear Grahame bairns, and a fat ransom.
