Page 42 of Laird Of Her Heart

It could be a postcard, had they been invented yet.

Maggie gusted a sigh. It was beautiful. It felt like home.

As they passed through the village, everyone waved. Tall, braw lads and lasses dressed in the kirtles of the day. They were her people, far-removed, of course. But they were her people.

They crossed the moat and rumbled over the bridge, beneath the gaping portcullis. Maggie tipped back her head and soaked in every detail. The well-oiled chains and the pulleys. The murder holes built into the passage. All exactly as she’d expected it to look. It was fascinating.

The bailey of the castle fascinated her as well. They passed the guard house, the dove cote and the smithy. She could see the gardens and what looked like an apiary on the far side, and the stables to her left. Men and women of all ages bustled about their work. She took it all in with delight.

But apparently, she was not to be allowed delight.

The cart stopped and Ewan hopped out. “Come along, you,” he growled, grabbing her ankles and dragging her from the cart by her feet. As unseemly as this treatment was—and his continued use of her tether—Maggie tried to hide her outrage. She’d come to terms with the fact that these men didn’t trust her. It was the consequence of her situation and hardly their fault. They were simply trying to protect their people.

Ewan took her arm and led her toward the north tower, but before they reached the steps, a horn blew. The activity in the bailey shot from busy to frenetic, like a beehive, nudged too hard.

“What is it?” she asked, but everyone ignored her. Really ignored her. Ewan and Harry ran back to the portcullis, leaving her standing in the yard. They gestured madly at the villagers who were now streaming into the castle.

One old woman bustled past her, with a basket of vegetables. Maggie grabbed her arm. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

“’Tis the Camerons,” she said. “They are approaching from the east. “It looks as though they’ve brought an army.”

And that quickly, her delight at finally seeing her ancestral home deflated.

They were under attack.

As the last of the villagers scuttled into the keep, the portcullis rolled down in an ominous clank and the men pulled up the bridge over the moat. Men and women—farmers and milk maids, scuttled to the armory and began carting arrows and spears up to the ramparts.

It seemed well-ordered and practiced. Dominic had, perhaps prepared his people for such an event. Or it had happened before.

Pushing through the crowd making their way into the castle proper, Maggie headed for the rampart steps; she took them two at a time.

The men stationed on the wall shot her odd glances, but said nothing as she made her way to Ewan’s side. She watched in silence as a wave of armed and mounted men in blue plaids swept across the plain.

It was a breathtaking sight, but not in a good way. They pounded closer and then halted, about three hundred feet from the castle wall.

“What do they want?” she asked in a whisper.

Ewan frowned down at her. “You shouldna be here.”

“Why not?”

She expected him to spew some nonsense about women being helpless and frail, but he just said, “The Macintosh would no’ like it. He wanted me to keep you safe.”

“I’m perfectly safe.”

His nostrils flared. “This is an attack, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I have noticed. I’ve also noticed they stopped out of range.” While the Macintosh arrows could not reach them, the enemy, in turn, could not hit the broad side of the castle…at least, not from that distance. “Besides, I’ll have you know, I wrote an entire chapter in my Masters thesis on siege warfare tactics of the Middle Ages.”

“The middle what?” His brow rumpled. “I have no idea what that means.”

“It means I can help. So quit bugging me and let me think.” She thrust her hands out. “And untie me.”

He frowned at her, but he complied. Then he turned to his men and began barking orders for them to finalize their defense. Maggie studied the movements of their enemies, as they surrounded the castle in a semi-circle and started setting up camp. Several large carts followed them at a distance. One carried the familiar lines of a trebuchet and another, with a domed wooden roof, was undoubtedly their battering ram machine.

It was the beast that followed that made her heart lodge in her throat. These Camerons were serious. An enormous siege tower rolled onto the plain. It moved slowly on lumbering wheels, but that didn’t make it less ominous. She knew the damage a siege tower could wreak on a castle.

As menacing as the battering ram and the trebuchet could be, the tower was the real threat. They had to incapacitate it at once.