The queen. Isabella.
Margaret looked wildly down the ravine, and finally saw Sir Nigel with Queen Elisabeth, both on foot, and both, apparently, unhurt. She now remarked Isabella, Sir Neil, Christina Seton, and then she saw Robert Bruce. He was astride his mighty warhorse, giving orders to his men.
Tears blinded her. Those dear to her had survived this battle, but for how long?
Alexander put his arm around her again. “We must tend to the wounded,” he said. “And if ye can, we could use yer help.”
Margaret gathered up her composure and nodded. “Of course.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MARGARET SAT WITH Isabella, arm in arm, in exhaustion. They had gathered up the wounded and fled the ravine. In a more defensible area, they had paused and Margaret had spent the afternoon with the other women taking care of their wounded.
Margaret leaned tiredly against Isabella, her cheek upon the other woman’s shoulder. The camp was spread out before them. The wounded lay in one area; the women had gathered near them while the able had gone to forage for their supper. The horses grazed. “I am too tired to move.”
“I am afraid,” Isabella whispered.
Margaret took her hand. “We’re all afraid.”
She was so tired that she did not want to think. But she had to contemplate the future. Bruce had lost hundreds more men. His army had been reduced to almost nothing. His men were exhausted. The horses were exhausted. They had no supplies, no food. Now what would they do?
She had heard bits and pieces of their conversations all afternoon. Sir Guy had not led the attack. It had been devised and commanded by Argyll’s son—John the Lame. They remained on MacDougall lands. Everyone expected to be attacked a second time.
Bruce was considering a different path of flight, into the lands of his close ally, the Earl of Lennox. But Lennox had not been seen nor heard from since Methven....
She saw Alexander walking slowly toward her. He was so tired. She saw it not just by his pace, which was more sluggish than usual, but in the set of his broad shoulders.
Nevertheless, he smiled at her. “Can we speak?”
“Of course.” He put his arm on her shoulder and guided her aside. “What will we do now?”
He smiled again and tilted up her chin. “Bruce has decided to send the women back to Kildrummy. They’re not safe here, and he needs to travel swiftly now, in order to hide from those who seek to hunt him down and kill him.”
Margaret trembled in dismay. Kildrummy was now safe? Since when? “I do not want to return to Kildrummy,” she began.
He held up his hand, silencing her. “Bruce is sending the horses with the women. It will be too hard to find grazing for them.”
Margaret had thought the situation very dire before. Now, he meant to hide in the forests with his remaining men, on foot! “They will not move as swiftly on foot.”
“They will move swiftly if they do not wear mail.”
She inhaled. They would abandon their armor. “So they will flee with but sword and dagger?”
He nodded.
She was suddenly furious. If an English army found them, they would be destroyed. A man on foot could not fight a man on horseback. No one would survive such an encounter. “God, and you will flee with them?”
“No. He sends me back to Kintyre to warn Angus of what has happened—to beg him for his aid and for refuge.”
He was leaving Bruce and his decimated army—she was relieved!
“I want ye with me, Margaret.”
She took a deep breath, but before she could speak, he said, “Kildrummy has never been under siege. But I fear for the queen and her women with Aymer in control of so much of the north. I could be captured, Margaret,” he warned. “If yer with me, ye’d be captured, too.”
She nodded tearfully. “I don’t care. I will come with you, Alexander.”
They stared at one another for a long time. “I’ll tell Bruce.”
