Highland Guard (19 page)

Harcourt took Annys by the hand and led her out of the great hall, pausing now and then for them to speak to another one of the wounded men. He tried to find the words to tell her that it would all suddenly take a turn in their favor but his head knew he would be just giving her a false hope. He would not give her that and he knew she was strong enough to take the hard, cold truth. Harcourt also knew she would do anything that was needed to ensure the safety of as many of her people as she could.

Once inside the ledger room, the only room in the keep that was not being shared with any others, he took her into his arms and kissed her. To his relief, he could feel no tension in her lithe body and she returned the heat of his kiss without hesitation. When the kiss ended, he continued to hold her close and rested his cheek on the top of her head, enjoying the silky softness of her hair against his skin.

“Ned had the idea to get those who cannae move quickly out of reach beginning now,” he said. “It means that when the time comes for the rest of us to run, we willnae be held back or, far worse, end up having to leave someone behind.”

“So Big Mary told me,” she said, resting her cheek against his chest, letting the strong, steady beat of his heart soothe away the lingering fear caused by seeing that he had been wounded. “’Tis a brilliant plan.”

“It is, isnae it. I am glad that ye see that.”

“I dinnae want my people slaughtered to save this keep. Aye, we had to fight, to try, and I grieve for the ones lost, but, if defeat is staring us in the face, I dinnae want them to keep fighting. I will confess that the plan to take all we can of what is valuable here did please me. As Big Mary said, we will leave Sir Adam with only empty buildings.”

As if conjured up by hearing her name, Big Mary burst into the room through the doorway down to the cellars. The woman nearly found herself skewered by Harcourt’s sword, which he had drawn even as he had pushed Annys behind him. Annys grabbed his sword arm out of fear for Big Mary but could feel the taut readiness to strike already leaving him.

“Mary,” she said, speaking as calmly as she could while stepping forward, a little closer to the obviously frantic woman. “Were ye attacked?” she asked.

“Nay, ’tis nay me,” Mary said. “’Tis Geordie. I need to find Geordie.”

“He is on the wall,” said Harcourt as he sheathed his sword.

“Aye but they have wounded him.”

“Ye cannae be certain of that.”

Big Mary stood straight, squaring her broad shoulders as if prepared for a blow and looked at Annys. “I will understand if ye wish me gone after I say this, but I
do
ken that Geordie has been wounded. I ken things from time to time. I was securing my flock in the bothy and kenned that I had to get back here as fast as I could, that Geordie was going to have need of me.”

“Ye have the gift?” asked Harcourt.

Big Mary nodded but kept her gaze fixed on Annys.

Annys stepped over to her and patted her on the arm. “That is why your clan sent ye away, isnae it.” Big Mary nodded. “I am nay certain what he means by saying ye have some gift but if ye have warnings about things, I should think ye had best heed them.”

“If Geordie has been wounded then the battle has resumed.” Harcourt gave Annys a brief, hard kiss. “Ye should stay back, Mary,” he said as he started out the door only to sigh when the woman rushed right past him.

“How odd. Geordie and Big Mary. I best go and join the others in the hall,” Annys said as she walked past him and disappeared down the hallway.

Harcourt shook his head and hurried to get to the walls, going through the door in Annys’s bedchamber to save time. He had just reached the area close to where Geordie stood guard when he saw Big Mary tie a bandage on the man’s upper left arm. If the wound was deep and painful, they had just lost their best archer. He was only steps away from them when Big Mary took up Geordie’s bow.

“What do ye think ye are doing, woman?” demanded Geordie.

“Taking your place until ye can do it again. Quiver?”

Geordie moved his arm so that she could reach the arrows more easily. Big Mary readied the bow and Harcourt could see the strength in the woman’s arms as she drew back and then sent the arrow into the advancing men. He cursed softly when a man fell, a curse echoed by Geordie. One arrow, one dead enemy. Harcourt looked at Big Mary in amazement tinged with admiration.

“It appears we have us another archer,” he said and almost laughed when Geordie removed his breastplate and put it on Big Mary.

“Dinnae get your fool self killed,” Geordie said as he headed down from the walls.

“Late in the day to attack,” Harcourt said as he took up his post by her side.

“Then t’will be a short battle.”

Harcourt kept her as shielded as he could while she efficiently took down soldier after soldier in Sir Adam’s army. Twice they crouched behind the wall huddled under shields as Sir Adam’s remaining archers tried to end the new, clear threat presented by Big Mary. And there was no question that she was indeed a threat. Harcourt instinctively wanted to get her off the walls and back inside the keep where it was safe, where the other women were, but the warrior inside him recognized what a useful weapon she was. It was evident Geordie did as well, or at least knew there would be no arguing with her, for he returned with his newly bandaged arm, a lighter bow, and a quiver full of arrows. Without a word, the man stood by Big Mary’s side whenever she rose to her feet to end the lives of more of Sir Adam’s men.

The light of day began to fade as they fought and Harcourt knew it would be their last battle. There were too many empty places on the wall, the men still able to fight now having to watch larger and larger areas. He prayed they could keep Sir Adam’s men out of the keep until the dark of night drove them back to their camp. Then he would order everyone to grab what they could and leave.

Suddenly the noise on the field began to fade, starting from the back of the attacking army and moving to the front in a slow wave of silence. Harcourt looked for what had caused it and began to swear viciously. Behind the army that was already defeating them appeared even more soldiers. These were mounted men, each wearing pieces of armor and mail they had undoubtedly taken from the bodies of some defeated foe. At least twenty of them sat on their heavy warhorses behind Sir Adam’s men, swords in hand. It was hard to see through the many shadows cast by a setting sun but Harcourt suspected there were more men behind the ones he could see.

Then the one mounted on a huge gray gelding gave a signal to the others and started to ride forward, his men keeping pace on his flanks. Ten more mounted men came out of the shadows to join the arc of steel and warhorse moving toward and around Sir Adam’s army. The first of Sir Adam’s men they reached were swiftly cut down, surprise and uncertainty making them slow to see the threat. The others immediately began to fight, or, in the case of any who were outside that arc, run.

Shock held Harcourt silent for a moment. This was all he could have hoped for yet would never have expected to get. Although it was obvious these men were not allies of Adam’s, Harcourt could not be sure they would be allies of him, either.

Then the man on the gray gelding bellowed out, “For Glencullaich and Sir David!”

The battle quickly grew even more fierce and bloody. Seeing only an ally now, Harcourt ordered his men down off the walls even as Nathan ordered someone to open the gates. Once in the bailey and the gates had finished opening, Harcourt led them out to attack the enemy from behind. Their enemy was now pinned between two groups of men eager to kill them. For the first time since he had seen the army at the walls, Harcourt could taste victory and it was sweet.

Covered in sweat, dirt, blood, and a few things he preferred not to look closely at, Harcourt stood and watched the man on the gray gelding dismount and walk up to Sir Adam who was encircled by men who had ridden with him. The man tore off his helmet and tossed it to the ground. Sir Adam paled and staggered back a step. Harcourt had to stiffen his legs to stop himself from doing the same. It was David, he thought, and knew that was impossible. Either Nigel was not as dead as people had thought, or David had at least one other close kinsman who was willing to avenge him and stand by his family.

“Ye were supposed to die in France, ye bastard!” screamed Sir Adam and he charged the man.

Sir Adam did not lack skill with his sword, but he was clearly allowing his emotions to control him. The man who looked so much like David was coldly enraged but was not allowing his obvious loathing and fury at Sir Adam to cloud his mind and steal any of his impressive skill. It was not long before Sir Adam was bleeding from several wounds, struggling to stay on his feet.

“Ye should have died in France,” Adam repeated, his tone that of a child deprived of some sweet he wanted. “It was all planned and it was a good plan.”

“I ken it. Seven years, ye bastard. Ye stole away seven years of my life. I escaped two years ago but it has taken me this long to heal and get home.” The man easily knocked aside Sir Adam’s attempt to cut him with his sword. “I lost two good men, two friends as close to me as brothers, in that hellpit ye had us thrown into. And when I arrive home, it is to discover that ye had the world thinking I was dead, made certain no message from me e’er reached my brother. Ye left me to doubt him, to e’en blame him for what was happening.” He glanced up at the gravestone on the hill. “Then I discover that ye killed him ere I could apologize for those disloyal thoughts.”

“Aye! And I saw to it that the fool would ne’er produce an heir!”

“Actually,” said Harcourt, “I believe he was trying to get him killed but was probably nay so unhappy by what he got for his troubles.”

The man spit at Sir Adam’s feet. “Ye filthy bastard! Ye sent that crazed fool after David?”

“This should all be mine!”

When Sir Adam lunged at the man who looked so much like David, that man easily deflected his strike and ran his sword into Adam’s belly. He then gripped Sir Adam by the shoulder and yanked out his sword. Harcourt could not be sure, but he strongly suspected the man had twisted it a few times as he did so. Sir Adam fell to his knees, clutching his belly in a vain attempt to hold himself together.

“It was ne’er to be yours,” the man said. “David and I came before all others. Ye die here, Adam, on the land ye thought to steal and in full view of the grave of the mon ye had murdered.” He stepped back, turned toward David’s grave, and saluted it with his raised sword, a gesture his men repeated with an admirable precision. Then, with one graceful twist of his body and a swift swipe of his sword, he took off Adam’s head.

Harcourt looked around at the once beautiful fields. They were torn up by foot and hoof. Groups of survivors from Sir Adam’s army, guarded by either his men or their new allies, sat in the middle of it all. The ground was strewn with bodies, thankfully those of the enemy, and not all of them whole. He looked at the man who had killed Sir Adam only to find that man aiming his sword at him. Harcourt’s companions moved to flank him as did men from Glencullaich much to his surprise. If this was Nigel or another close kinsman of David’s he could be their new laird.

“Who are ye?” he asked the man.

“Sir Nigel MacQueen of Glencullaich.”

“Ah, so ye are nay dead then.”

The flicker of a smile touched Nigel’s mouth. “Nay. Now, who are ye?”

“Sir Harcourt Murray.” He indicated with a wave of his hand each of his men as he introduced them. “Lady Annys sent for us after David died and when Sir Adam began to cause her a lot of trouble, thinking she was weak and badly protected.” He looked around at all the exhausted men. “Mayhap we can discuss all of this inside.”

“Agreed.” Nigel sheathed his sword.

Harcourt ordered the men to clear the field as best they could. Nigel informed him that a few of his men had already cleared Adam’s camp and were collecting anything of value. The two of them began to walk toward the keep when one of the dead rose up from the ground and stood in their path. Soaked in blood, one eye gone, it took Harcourt a moment to recognize Clyde. The man had a knife in his hand and Harcourt could only wonder which of them would end up with that knife in their flesh even as they drew their swords. There was no way for them to stop the man from throwing that knife but the one still standing would make certain he did not throw another ever again.

Then Clyde grunted and the knife fell from his hand. Very slowly he sank to his knees. Even his subsequent fall face down on the ground was slow. An arrow stuck out of the man’s back and Harcourt looked up at the wall. There stood Big Mary and Geordie and Geordie pointed at her. Harcourt saluted her with his sword.

“Ye have a woman on your walls?” asked Nigel as, after staring at Big Mary for a moment, he resumed their walk to the keep.

“Nay to my liking to have a woman on the walls instead of tucked safely inside the keep during a battle but”—he glanced down at Clyde as they walked past him—“nay fool enough to send away one with such skill when defeat was banging hard at the gates.”

“Ye thought all was lost?” asked Nigel.

“Didnae just think it. Kenned it for certain. I was already getting the slowest of us out and stripping the place of all that was valuable.” Harcourt turned to Callum who walked on his other side. “Best tell everyone ye can find that they dinnae have to leave and get back any who already have.” After Callum ran off, he turned back to Nigel. “If I didnae have plans for taking Glencullaich back from Sir Adam later, I think I would have burned it down as weel, nay even leaving the bastard the buildings.”

“I begin to think there was a great deal more going on here than just that fool deciding to kill David and take Glencullaich from my brother’s widow.”

“Aye, a lot happened, but it all led back to that base greed the mon suffered from.”

Nigel looked around at the men who had fought so hard for Glencullaich, even glancing up at the ones on the walls. “My family worked for their whole lives to prevent this from happening here,” he murmured, sadness weighting each word. “For doing this, for bringing back what had become naught but stories of the past, for that alone Adam deserved to die.” He looked at Harcourt. “But, ye got the men here to fight, trained them to do it weel, too.”

They entered a very crowded bailey. Harcourt almost smiled. All the people of Glencullaich who had gathered were staring at Nigel as if he was a ghost. He was certain he had looked just as stunned as they did when he had first seen the man’s face. Then Joan pushed her way through the crowd, stood before Nigel, and stared at him. All the attention turned to her as people waited for her to confirm what they were seeing.

“Ye have a few new scars, Sir Nigel,” she said, “but ye are looking verra hale for a dead mon.”

“Ah, Joan, if I wasnae covered in filth and gore, I would hug ye,” Nigel said and grinned.

“Then we shall get ye cleaned up and gather in the hall to feast and hear your tale.”

As Joan was busy ordering everyone to do what was needed to get Nigel and his men clean and ready to have a meal, Annys hurried out of the keep. She looked at Harcourt and did nothing to hide her relief to see him standing. Then she saw Nigel and went so pale that Harcourt rushed toward her, thinking she was about to swoon and take a dangerous fall down the stone steps. She held up her hand and he stopped, watching as she visibly gathered her strength. By then he and Nigel stood before her.

Annys could barely believe her eyes. Nigel had the look of David with the same brown eyes and black hair, even possessing a similarity in his features. When he had ridden away he had looked enough like his younger brother to have a few thinking they were twins. Now, however, there were a few strands of silver in his thick black hair, his features had grown harsher, and there was a steeliness in his gaze that had never been there before.

“Annys?” Nigel asked cautiously when she gave him no greeting.

“I was just thinking that Sir Adam might nay have been as bad at plotting and planning as we thought,” she said. “He is why we have been allowed to believe ye were dead for years, aye?”

“Aye. ’Tis a long tale and I will tell it. I am eager to hear all that has happened to ye as weel.”

“Maman!”
Benet rushed out to stop by Annys’s side with Roberta trotting behind him and Roban sitting on the lamb’s back. “Ye look like my fither,” said Benet as he stared at Nigel.

“I am your uncle,” said Nigel, glancing between Benet and Harcourt several times and then looking closely at Annys. “I believe there is a lot your mother has to tell me about what has happened while I was gone.” Smiling at Benet, he said, “’Tis a fine thing to meet ye at last, Benet. I did hear a whisper or two about David’s son as I traveled here and was eager to see him.”

“Sir,” murmured Nigel’s man who had kept his back covered every step of the way from France, “there is a cat sitting on a lamb.”

“I ken it, Andrew, but I was attempting to ignore it.” His lips twitched when he heard Kerr and his other men start to chuckle.

“This is Roberta,” said Benet as he patted the lamb and then he added in a fierce voice, “and she is not for the pot. That is Roban on her back. He likes to ride.”

“Ah, not for the pot. Understood.”

Before anything else could be said, Joan hurried up to them and began to instruct them on where they could go to bathe. Harcourt watched Nigel disappear with his men and turned to speak with Annys only to find her hurrying back inside the keep with Joan, both of them discussing how to quickly ready the hall for a meal, what that meal would be, and how to sort out enough beds for Nigel and all those men with him. There would be no time to talk to her until much later, he realized. He sighed and, with his own men, headed toward the bathing house that had been prepared for Nigel, his men, and any other who fought for Glencullaich and wanted to scrub the stench of battle off himself.

“He kens who fathered Benet,” Annys said to Joan as they spread a cloth over the newly scrubbed head table.

“Ye cannae be certain of that,” Joan argued as she smoothed down a few wrinkles in the cloth.

“I am certain. T’was there to see in the way he looked from Harcourt to Benet. Then he looked at me and I could see that knowledge in his eyes. He kens the truth.”

“Weel, I wouldnae fret o’er it. Nigel kenned what happened to David before he left, didnae he. Will ken that, with us thinking him dead, there was, and ne’er would be, an heir. Suspicion he now kens verra weel what David did and will nay give ye any trouble o’er it.” Joan looked at Annys. “And, doesnae this solve the problem that ye believed would mean ye and Sir Harcourt could ne’er be together?”

“Does it? If Nigel accepts Benet then Benet remains the heir.”

“Dinnae go borrowing trouble, lass. Wait. Stay calm and just wait a wee while. It will all be discussed, I am certain, and then, only then can ye truly ken what faces ye now.”

Annys knew that was the sensible thing to do but it was not easy to be sensible. Although it would indeed solve a lot of problems if Nigel stepped into place as the laird and pleasantly wished her weel in whatever she chose to do, there was still a chance that it would solve nothing at all. There would also be an extremely uncomfortable confrontation to come. Even though David had been immensely pleased with his plot to get an heir, as well as the results, that did not mean that Nigel would be. Far worse would be if Nigel did not believe that it had all been David’s idea, if he saw her as no more than an unfaithful wife who was trying to put her bastard child into a laird’s chair he had no right to.

She pushed all her concerns aside and forced herself to think only of getting a hearty meal set out for the men who would soon fill the hall. There was also a lot of work needed in order to put the keep back to rights, from getting the returning wounded brought back and on their way home, right up to and including preparing the dead for burial. She both grieved for their loss and rejoiced over the fact that there had been so few killed.

The people who had sheltered in the keep worked hard and quickly, putting the rooms and hall back to rights with an admirable speed. Then they began to leave, eager to get back to their homes. She was pleasantly astonished to find that even David’s bedchamber had been returned to what it had been before it was used as a nursery. It was now ready for Nigel who would, without question, become the laird of Glencullaich.

Assured by Joan that the meal was ready, Annys hurried to her bedchamber to clean up. Away from all the work, her worries returned, but she fought to shake free of their hold. This was a time for celebration. Sir Adam was gone, the threat to Glencullaich ended. Nigel, a man thought lost to them, had returned and Glencullaich had a laird again, one who was battle-hardened and well able to keep his people safe. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she started back down to the hall. The one thing she refused to think about, determinedly pushed deep down inside her mind, was what Harcourt would do if she did find herself freed of all ties to Glencullaich.