Page 59 of Highland Guard

“Oh, we dinnae have to leave here. There is a way down to the cellars right in that lovely wee privacy room.” Mary pointed to the garderobe David had as part of his bedchamber. It was to the left of the huge fireplace and a room with his writing table was to the right.

Annys shook her head. “I believe my husband kept a lot of secrets, such as how this keep is fair riddled with holes.”

Mary laughed. “I heard t’was from his days as a randy young lad with verra pious parents.”

“It was. He did confess that. I just wish he had made some map of all the ways he found to slip away from their watchful eyes.”

“M’lady!” Gavin called as he ran into the room, stumbling to a halt in front of her. “Ye are wanted at the walls.”

“Why?” she asked as she followed him out only to tug him along with her so that they could use the way to the walls in her bedchamber.

“Sir Adam has demanded to speak with you.” Gavin’s eyes widened as she opened the way to the stairway that went up to the walls from her bedchamber. “I didnae ken about this.”

“Ye would have been told when ye reached the age to take a turn at watch on these walls.”

Annys moved as quickly as she dared. She knew Sir Adam was going to offer her a way to halt the battle they faced, but one that could give him all that he wanted and leave her with little or nothing. Yet, it would also halt the bloodshed that was to come. She had to force herself to be strong, to not think on saving her people from the trouble at their gates now, and think only of saving their futures. There was a part of her that desperately wanted to escape all of this but she had to keep it caged.

“Weel, that is a bigger force than I had hoped to see,” said Harcourt as he looked out at the army gathered before the gates of the keep.

Bear the blacksmith paused in his self-appointed rounds of inspecting everyone’s weapons, occasionally replacing a sword he thought inferior with one of the ones he had with him in a leather sack strapped to his back. “His clan has given him a lot of coin. Wagering on a big prize.”

“You up on the walls,” bellowed Sir Adam as he rode closer. “Where is Lady Annys?”

After winking at Harcourt, Bear stepped up closer to the wall to peer down at Sir Adam. “Inside the keep doing things the lady of the keep is supposed to do.”

“Weel bring her to the walls!”

Bear looked around and then back down at Sir Adam. “Why? She cannae wield a sword or shoot an arrow. Nay useful up here. This be men’s work.”

Harcourt joined the others in laughing. He knew what Sir Adam saw. A huge, shaggy-haired oaf. It was Bear’s best weapon. Bear was a head taller than him, and very muscular which, for reasons Harcourt did not understand, appeared to make people believe the man had to be witless as well as if somehow having a body that big and strong stole something from the man’s mind. Harcourt had been guilty of thinking the man some slow-witted overgrown fellow himself when he had first seen him, an opinion that had changed the moment he had looked into those sharp green eyes.

“I wish to parlay with her, fool. Now, fetch her.”

“Nay sure she wants to speak to ye what with ye coming here with an army and threatening her and all.”

“Get her!”

“As ye wish.” Bear just stared at Sir Adam for a moment before saying in a low, hard voice that somehow carried down to the knight and all his men. “I am thinking ye would be wise to back away a wee bit ere one of us gives in to the temptation to end this here and now.”

Sir Adam backed away as did his men and Bear nodded. “Wise lad. Now we will see if our lady is inclined to talk to you.”

Harcourt signaled to a waiting Gavin and the boy scrambled off the wall to go find Annys. He had known Sir Adam would want to offer something to try to gain the keep without raising a sweat. He also knew that, no matter how badly Annys wanted to avoid a fight that could cost some of her people their lives, she would not simply hand over Glencullaich. She would refuse to do that, not just for herself or Benet but for the people. It was one of the reasons he loved her, he thought, and was startled by that realization. It was a very poor time to have it.

“She willnae give us up,” said Bear.

“Nay, I ken it, although her heart will break with every drop of blood her people lose.” He looked at Bear. “This is what her people want, aye? To fight?”

“Och, aye, right down to the last bairn old enough to speak its mind. It has been peaceful here so long ye cannae find anyone alive who has kenned different, but it was nay always this way. The tales are passed down and the graveyard tells the same story. Glencullaich used to be ruled by ones like that oaf down there. Ones who fought with everyone and committed near every crime ye can think of. Then the laird’s twig of the clan tree took o’er and it all stopped. Pious lot but they brought peace to this place, made it prosperous, and no one here wants a return of the battles, the feuds, the raids, and the lairds who wasted the lives of their men as they did their coin.”

Bear looked at the army in front of the walls again. “These are nay our people e’en if there are some MacQueens amongst them. They dinnae care about those bairns and women in the nursery, the lads too young to fight setting buckets of water and sand near anything that might catch fire. That greedy fool sitting there waiting to talk to our lady only cares that this land can fill his purse with more money to buy whores and fine clothes. Och, aye, we will all fight because we want what we have—a good life and kenning the laird cares for each and every one of us.”

Harcourt nodded. He also studied the army spread out before them. There were the men with the scaling ladders just behind the archers. It would begin with a rain of arrows. In the confusion caused by that, the men on the walls and elsewhere simply trying to stay alive, the ladders would be set up against the walls. Their chance to fight back would come only when the men on the ladders began to obstruct the archers. It was going to be bloody and the fact that there was little he could do to change that enraged him. The sound of the bell announcing Annys headed up to the walls was all that stopped him from giving in to the urge to order Geordie to put an arrow through Sir Adam’s black heart now.

“Oh, sweet mother of God.”

It took every last shred of control Harcourt had not to pull Annys into his arms to try to comfort her. She stared out at the army, her eyes wide with shock, and her face as white as frost. Even she, with no knowledge of wars and tactics, could see that they were badly outnumbered. Bear patted her on the back and, that quickly, a thread of amusement broke his deep concern for her. A movement of her skirts told him she had braced herself the moment Bear had moved his hand toward her but she didn’t flinch. It was clear to see that she had been patted by Bear before and knew it was necessary to brace herself or risk being knocked over.

“It will be fine, m’lady,” Bear said. “Ne’er forget, everyone stands with ye. Every single person in Glencullaich.”