The Battle for Duncragglin (12 page)

“To victory!” Wallace bellowed, thrusting his sword higher still.

“To victory!” the men roared in reply.

“Come.” Wallace slid his sword back into its scabbard and placed his arm around Sir Ellerslie's shoulders. “Let us plan for war.”

“T
ake 'm to the hold,” Rorie demanded.

A guard stepped forward, but Malcolm blocked his way. “There's no need for that,” he snapped. “Ellerslie has vouched for these lads and said they'll be put to good use.”

A short, stout man with a large apron wrapped around his sizeable middle raised his hand. “I could use some help.”

“Well, then, Groenie, these lads are your new assistants.” Malcolm clapped both Alex and Craig on the shoulder. “Treat 'm well, and may they last longer than the other assistant we gave ye.”

Groenie scowled. “It was no my fault Sandy cut off his thumb.”

“Give 'm some dinner, for starters, and make 'm a bed. They've had a long hard day. In the morn, they'll be ready to assist ye with your tasks.”

Malcolm leaned in. “Groenie is our cook,” he said to Alex and Craig in a low voice. “He'll make sure you're not idle during y'r stay with us, but do keep out of his way, especially when he gets in a temper – and
do
be careful with the
knife.” Malcolm laughed and shoved them toward Groenie. “We don't need extra bits in our stew.”

Still scowling, Groenie led them around the far side of the tent. Staked and roped poles held up a long canvas awning that sheltered benches and tables. They passed a partly butchered deer. Its head hung limply over the edge of a table, a bucket catching the blood that dribbled from a wide slice across its neck.

Groenie thrust bowls into their hands. Then he plunged a ladle into a large cauldron, which hung suspended from a tripod of poles lashed over a small fire, and poured some strong-smelling brown stew into their bowls. Grunting for them to sit, he tossed them each a piece of crusty bread ripped from a large loaf.

Under normal circumstances, Alex would never have eaten such a foul-smelling stew, not even were he under the wrathful glare of his uncle. However, he was ravenous, and he knew his chances of getting anything else to eat were zero-to-none. He raised a spoonful and sniffed it cautiously. Alex knew that the gristly chunks were animal bits, but could not tell which parts of the animal they came from. He wondered numbly if Sandy's thumb was in the pot.

“Offal,” Alex mumbled.

“You're right.” Craig gave an extraloud slurp. “Awful good.”

“No, offal. That means parts of an animal other than meat; you know, like the brain or something … oh, forget it.” Craig was too busy slurping to listen.

Hunger got the better of Alex – he took in a small spoonful. It was chewy and tangy, but not too bad. He tried another.

Before he knew it, both he and Craig were looking down at empty bowls. Still hungry, he glanced over at the cauldron, then at Groenie, who was busy chopping greens. With some trepidation, Alex got up, bowl in hand, and approached Groenie. He was acutely aware of what happened to the Oliver Twist of his comic book when he was in this situation.

“Please, sir, can I have some more?” Alex asked timidly.

Groenie swung up his cutting knife. “How dare ye! That stew has to feed a whole army, and none of the men ever ask for more.”

Dejected, Alex slumped back down.

“Alright, alright, here ye go, then.” Groenie roughly slopped another ladleful into their bowls. “Just this once.” He held up a hand. “Dinnae thank me, I'm going to make ye work double hard for it. See all them buckets? When ye are done stuffing y'r greedy guts, ye can each use a yoke to carry two at a time to fill 'm down by the loch.”

Alex glanced at the buckets. He could do that.

For now, the only sounds were the distant voices of the men, the occasional snort from a faraway horse, the chopping and scraping of Groenie's knife on the cutting block, and the puffing and slurping of Alex and Craig cooling and eating their stew.

Craig looked up from his bowl. “What's William Wallace doing here? Didn't he live long ago?”

“Don't you get it?” Alex wiped his mouth, his hunger finally satisfied enough to talk between sips. “That chamber we were in, the one you thought was a spaceship launcher, it teleported us back in time over seven hundred years.”

“So, we're not even born yet?”

“Of course we're born – we're here, aren't we?”

They mulled this over in silence. Craig picked a gristly bit out of his mouth and laid it carefully next to his bowl. “I wonder if my mum or your parents are here.”

“Who knows?” Alex sighed. He was tired of trying to make sense of it all. Even if his parents were here, how would he find them? What if they were teleported back even further and were really old now? How would he recognize them? The effort to think through these questions made his head hurt. It occurred to him that they might never find a way to get back to their own time … that he and Craig might become two more missing persons, never to be heard from again….

“Water! Now!” Groenie punctuated every word with a stab of his knife.

Alex felt a surge of anger. He considered refusing, but because Groenie'd given them the extra bowl of stew, he stumbled to his feet.

The meal had made him feel sleepy. He wanted to curl up somewhere, just about anywhere, tuck a blanket under his chin, and fall asleep. He forced himself to investigate the yoke. It was no more than a long stick with hooks on either end. There was a flat section in the middle to rest across his shoulders.

The boys headed for the loch, empty buckets swinging from their yokes, and approached the split rock. Abruptly, two burly guards stepped forward, barring the path with their spears. “Halt! Where do ye think ye're going?”

“We're off to get water.” Alex thought this must be obvious, seeing how they were carrying empty buckets, but the guards did not move. “Groenie sent us,” he added.

One of the guards hesitated. He jerked his head in the direction of the path and lifted his spear out of the way. “Off ye go, then.”

The other guard protested. “Rorie said no one was to leave camp. No exceptions is what he said.”

“Dinnae be daft. Groenie needs water to cook. D'ye want a meal at the end of the day or no? Besides, he'll cut off their thumbs if they come back empty-handed.”

“Aye, true.” The guard chuckled. “We don't want any more of 'm in our stew.”

“Keep an eye out for any scouts Hesselrigge may have running about,” said the first guard. “If ye're no back in ten minutes, we'll send some men out to look for ye.”

The other guard laughed. “To look for what's left of 'm, ye mean to say.”

Alex spotted more guards high up on the rocks overlooking the trail. He felt their watchful eyes following them as they passed. Well along the path, Craig stopped and pointed into the woods. “Let's take a shortcut – the loch is just over that rise.”

Trudging through the dense forest, Alex tried to keep his buckets from banging against trees. The noise made him nervous. He recalled his encounter with the thieves all too well.

Once over the rise, sure enough, the loch came into view. The late-afternoon sun flashed off windblown ripples. They came to the water's edge at a rocky section, where they could
lower and fill their buckets without getting their feet wet.

“My favorite hiding place is around that bend.” Craig nodded towards a steep embankment. “Let's check it out before we head back.”

Stepping-stones in the water allowed them to follow the shoreline past the embankment. About to round the bend, Craig stopped and pulled back abruptly.

Alex bumped into him, waving his arms to keep from slipping into the water. “Watch it, will you?”

“Shh!
There are people over there.”

“People? What do they look like?”

“Soldiers. They're wearing armor and they have swords and shields.”

“Let me see.” Alex squeezed past Craig and peered around the embankment. Horses were grazing on clumps of grass at the water's edge. Several soldiers sat with their backs against the trees, watching over them. From behind the tree line came flashes of sun reflecting off metal. Men were moving about within the forest.

Alex's eyes fixed on one person – a man who wore a red-dyed deerskin jacket. The man turned and stared, as if aware of being watched.

Fearing he was spotted, Alex scrambled back quickly, leaping from stone to stone.

“What about the buckets?” Craig called.

“Forget about them. Run!” Alex said, heart pounding.

Alex and Craig sprinted back up the trail. They knew the guards would be watching from high up on the rocks. Sure enough, they stood with their bows drawn.

“I hate haggis,” Alex gasped without slowing down.

Panting heavily, they ran up to the tent where they had last seen Wallace and Sir Ellerslie. They tried to rush past a guard at the entrance, but the guard grabbed them roughly by the arms and held them back.

“Into the hold with 'm!” he roared.

Two other guards rushed forward and seized the boys.

“Sir Ellerslie!” Alex shouted. “Help!”

A cuff to the side of his head cut him off. Before he could get a breath to yell again, a gloved hand roughly covered his mouth and turned his head about.

“Be still, or I will have ye gagged,” the guard hissed.

“But we saw soldiers, down by –” Alex's protests were cut off by another blow to the head. Numb and confused, he allowed himself to be marched away. They came to the far side of the sprawling camp, where iron manacles hung from a log lashed high between trees.

A scrawny, hunched man with long greasy hair emerged from a small lean-to. “Captives!” he cackled, breaking into a nearly toothless grin. He rubbed his gnarly hands together. “It's about time someone brought me some captives.”

Chuckling gleefully, he snapped manacle irons tight around their ankles. He roughly raised Alex's and Craig's arms and snapped manacles onto their wrists, leaving them standing with arms stretched uncomfortably high over their heads.

The guard rubbed his big nose on his sleeve. “Keep a close watch on these two, Jack. They were caught trying to force their way into Wallace's chambers. If they babble any lies about soldiers and the like, make sure they regret it.”

A second, older guard spoke up: “But don't get too
excited, Jack. No decision has been made on what to do with 'm. They came into camp under Sir Ellerslie's protection, so ye'd best not start flogging 'm yet.”

A look of disappointment spread over Jack's face. “What? Am I to just sit here and watch 'm, then?” He pulled back clumps of hair with his dirty fingers. “We're fighting a war with Hesselrigge, and this is the best ye can bring me by way of captives?”

“Patience, Jack, patience,” said the older guard. “We'll get ye more captives before long. Wallace may want a confession flogged out o' these two yet. But lower those wrist chains so they can lie down. I don't want to get into trouble with Sir Ellerslie. We'll have to wait and see what the morn may bring.”

Jack turned to the other guard for support, but he scowled and looked away. Reluctantly Jack climbed onto a crate and cranked long spokes that stuck through the log. The log turned, slowly unwrapping the coiled chains.

“A wee bit more, Jack,” the older guard ordered quietly.

Cursing, Jack cranked the spokes until the wrist chains almost reached the ground. “That does it!” he grumbled, as he stiffly stepped off the crate. “That's as far as it goes. I hope ye bring me better news the morrow. I didn't become a jailer to be sitting about with bairns. I suppose I'm to feed and water them and give 'm blankets too?
Bah.”
Jack spat.

The ratty blanket Jack threw them stank. When Alex looked at it closely, he could see tiny bugs scurrying about in the dirty weaves. Still, it was a cold night and he and Craig had little choice but to use it, lying back-to-back for warmth, their manacled hands dangling a foot off the ground.

They chose not to touch the moldy dried chunk of bread Jack flung at them, nor did they drink the dirty water he placed barely within reach in a battered metal bowl. Alex shifted his weight to avoid a rock that was digging into his side. He hoped it would not rain, doubting very much that Jack would give them shelter.

The night passed slowly. Alex heard the sounds from the camp gradually die down until there was only the occasional snort of a horse and far-off snores. His head lying awkwardly in the dirt, Alex hoped Sir Ellerslie would come to help them. He wished very hard to try to make it happen. Sometimes, when playing cards, wishing very hard would make the right card come up. Someone once told him if you want to win, you have to learn how to wish.

Alex could feel Craig's back shaking and knew he was crying. He wanted to console him, to say something anything – that might cheer him up, but nothing came to mind. Wishing someone could hear his wishes, he thought the night would never end.