The Battle for Duncragglin (23 page)

Rhua settled into a leisurely plod, the cart groaning and swaying behind him. The two travelers strode alongside, exchanging stories as they trudged down the muddy road. Don-Dun led the ox by a rope attached to a large ring in its nose, and Alex learned that the cart and the ox were all that Don-Dun had. From the farms up and down the coast, Don-Dun bought hay and produce that he sold at what higher price he could fetch from the cooks and stablemen of the castle lords and earls. Sometimes, Don-Dun said, he would end up being paid less than it cost him to buy. At best, he made a meager living off the difference. “Ah well, enough to buy an ale or two with dinner some nights. It would be nice, though, to save up a bit and buy a piece of land and have a missus and together have a few wee bairns … but I don't see how that's possible, the way things are these days.”

The last time Don-Dun had saved up a bit of silver, he was robbed by soldiers. Two held swords to his throat while others searched for his purse. They tipped over his cart, laughing as they rode away. It took him half a day to right his cart and reload it. That was a year ago, and he had yet to earn enough to replace the silver pieces he lost that day.

“Oh, aye, they were Hesselrigge's men alright, but there's naught to be done about it. Who's there to complain to? Soldiers? They'd laugh in my face. It's no right, but what's to be done?”

For his part, Alex told Don-Dun about having come from
the future, where people could fly in big metal ships with wings, some of which could hold over eight hundred people.

Don-Dun smiled politely. “That's more than all the folk in Duncragglin Castle.”

Alex knew Don-Dun didn't believe a word he said, but he didn't care. This was the day that nothing mattered, nothing except the mission he was prepared to die for – and he was getting closer: he actually had a way to get into the castle now! He didn't even have to use the caves.

Don-Dun shared his dry, crusty stick of bread. It took a lot of chewing for each bite to go down, but Alex was not complaining, far from it. The afternoon sun was beginning to dry their clothes, and Alex was able to pick some dried clumps of mud out of his hair. He felt better than he had in days.

T
he traveling produce merchant with his dumb nephew, plodding ox, and cart full of the best greens this side of the Forth crested a high hill. Off in the distance were the imposing towers and walls of Duncragglin.

That was where he was going to die.

Alex felt a cold shiver pass through him. Each step was bringing him nearer. He closed up his jacket below his neck and shifted his crossbow from over his shoulder to under his arm.

“I suggest ye keep that thing under the hay,” Don-Dun said. “That's where I keep my lance. If ye carry it out in the open anywhere near the castle, soldiers will take it away.”

Alex reluctantly took his suggestion. The road was getting busier, with farm and trade folk going about their business, and he did not want to attract attention. They overtook a man who hobbled along, bent forward under a tremendous bundle of firewood. Coming the other way was a woman with a large basket of eels on her back, which were poking out from under the cover. The basket looked heavy.

Don-Dun gave a pleasant hello to those who passed. Some replied with a nod or a small wave, others ignored him. No one gave Alex a second glance. He was nothing but another dirty urchin – not an unusual sight on this road. Alex was careful not to speak when people were within earshot. To help him remember, Don-Dun suggested he think of his mouth as being sewn shut, “'Cause that's what might happen if they think ye're a foreign spy.”

“Do they leave a little gap for food?”

“Only if ye're unlucky – ye live longer that way. Now
wheesht,
before someone hears ye babbling away in that strange way of yours.”

They fell in behind a box cart drawn by a pair of oxen and led by a tall thin man in black. Alex noticed that although the man's clothes were black, they had not been black originally. And what looked like black gloves were not gloves at all; they were the man's own hands. Jumping up to see over the sides of the box cart, Alex saw it was full of coal.

They plodded along behind the coal cart in a silent convoy. Together, they rounded a bend and arrived at the arched gates of Duncragglin's outer walls. Beyond them, Alex saw numerous stalls and shops lining the castle's outer courtyard. Armored guards blocked the convoy's passage. Don-Dun pulled back on Rhua's rope for him to slow up and stop.

A guard slowly circled the coal cart. The blackened driver watched impassively as the guard knelt to look underneath, then climbed the back end to prod into the coal with his lance. The guard then leapt to the ground, scowling and clapping black coal-soot from the front of his tunic. The sooty driver handed him something small.

The guard glanced at it and jerked his head. “Get on with ye,” he growled. The driver calmly urged his oxen on through the open gate.

The guard turned to Don-Dun. “Move on up here,” he barked. “What have ye got?”

“Hay for the stable master and greenery for the lord's kitchens,” Don-Dun sang out. He stood stiffly, with Rhua's rope in his big hands as the guard slowly walked around him, eyeing him suspiciously.

Turning to the cart, with its towering mound of hay topped with a crown of green vegetables, the guard asked, “What else is in this cart?”

“Nothing,” Don-Dun replied. “Just a few crusts of bread and a blanket to cover me at night.”

Without warning, the guard stabbed his lance through the hay. Over and over, he stabbed at it, seeming disappointed that the lance point came out yet again with no blood on its end.

The guard turned to Alex. “Name.”

“Alex!” Don-Dun shouted. “
Er,
his name is Alex.”

“Let the boy answer for himself. What's your name, boy?”

Alex opened his mouth, but he thought about his lips being sewn shut and no sound came out.

“Answer me!”

“Nnnaahhaa,”
Alex croaked.

The guard angrily turned back to Don-Dun, who raised his hands apologetically. “The lad's been struck dumb at an early age,” Don-Dun said. “That's the most I've ever heard him say.”

The guard pointed to the cart. “Unload it.”

“Oh, please, no!” Don-Dun fumbled for his purse. “Wait. Forgive me, did I forget about the toll? Here, I have a penny.”

“A penny?” The guard eyed the coin coldly, making no move to take it.

Don-Dun pulled out a second penny. “It's the best I can do. I'm but a conveyor of hay. Sometimes I dinnae make more than a few pence for all my efforts.”

“That's no my problem.” The guard hesitated. Scowling, he snatched the pennies from Don-Dun's hand and jerked his head for them to move on.

Once clear of the gates, Don-Dun pounded his fist into his palm. “Damned robbery. The way it works here, m'lad, is either ye pay them a bribe that ye call a toll, or they make ye spend the day unloading and reloading your cart. I couldnae have that. My hay would've gotten all muddy … besides, they would've found your bow.”

“Does everyone pay them a toll?” Alex felt guilty.

“
Oc
/i
,
no. They'd be too afraid to seek a bribe from the powerful. It's only poor folk like me who have to pay.”

Grumbling, Don-Dun led Rhua past ramshackle market stalls that took up every available space bordering the courtyard. All manner of goods spilled out from under their crowded awnings. One had a pile of animal skins, each with earflaps and eyeholes. The thick cream-colored ones would be sheepskins. Alex thought they would make great Halloween costumes. “What are you?” a startled lady would ask, when opening the door to “Trick or treat.” On her doorstep, she'd find a sheepskin-covered boy peering at her through the sheep's
eyeholes. “I'm a wolf – a big baaaaaaad wolf,” the boy would reply, with a
heh, heh, heh.

Further down was a shop with large clay pots brimming with floury powder that made Alex think about baking bread, scones, or maybe even cake.
Ah, to have a bite of chocolate cake!
Alex suddenly felt hungry. He hadn't had anything to eat except for a few chunks of Don-Dun's dry crusty bread.

On the other side of the open courtyard was an imposing blockhouse, so large that most of the castle was hidden behind it. Alex could see only one way in and that was up a ramp, over a drawbridge, and through a large archway. He wondered why the drawbridge was up in the daytime. He hoped it was not because Hesselrigge had somehow got wind of William Wallace's intention to attack, which was planned for first light tomorrow. He worried that Hesselrigge had forced Katie, Annie, or Willie to tell what they knew of the rebels – their number, position, or plans. Horrible images of how Hesselrigge might do this kept crowding his mind.

Alex shut his eyes tight, trying to force the nightmarish images to stop. Surely his friends were merely locked up somewhere – cold and hungry perhaps, but otherwise okay. He doubted it. All he could do was hope and pray they were still alive and try to get to them as quickly as possible.

“How do we get into the castle?” he asked anxiously.

“Wheesht.”
Don-Dun raised his finger to his lips. “We cannae have people hearing ye.” He gave Rhua's rope a gentle pull. “Come.”

They walked past a stall with skinless, bloody sheep hanging by their hind legs. Flies buzzed about, squiggling on
the meat, crawling over lidless eyeballs. Alex lost his appetite.

Don-Dun stopped at a big wooden building at the far end of the wall, with double doors opening into a dark dank interior. Inside, the back ends of horses protruded from narrow stalls. All was quiet, except for restless thumpings against side boards and the occasional snort or neigh.

A tall boy stood vigorously brushing a horse. A younger lad was holding the horse's leg bent, picking at the underside of its hoof with a curved knife. Another was passing with an armload of straw or hay; Alex couldn't tell which until the boy deposited it at the back end of a horse.

“Ye, over there, where be the stable master?” Don-Dun called.

The tall boy took one look at the muddy and disheveled Don-Dun and Alex in the doorway and scowled. “Be gone; we have nothing here for ye.” He went back to brushing the horse.

“I said, WHERE BE THE STABLE MASTER? Answer me, boy!”

The boy scampered to the other side of the horse and peered uncertainly at Don-Dun. “We havenae lodgings or food here – terribly sorry.”

“I don't want to be eating and sleeping with the
horses.
I want to have a word with your stable master.”

“That's me.” The voice came from deep within the dark stable. Stepping out from the gloom came a man with long black hair tied back in a ponytail, a brown vest, and strikingly tall leather boots with cuffs. He stopped and slapped a loosely held leather glove onto the palm of his hand. “State your business.”

“Outside is a cart full of the richest and greenest hay that can be bought on the coast. Hay that's fit for the king's horses … only seeing how the king is no here, I suggest it be for the castle lord's horses instead.”

The stable master looked skeptical. “Show me.”

He followed Don-Dun out of the stable, eyes widening as he saw the mountain of hay. He rubbed some ends between his fingers and gave them a sniff. “Is it the same the whole way through?”

“I'm no trickster,” Don-Dun said, an edgy note creeping into his voice.

The stable master ignored him. “And what manner of greenery is that on top of your load? Horse feed?”

“Oh, no.” Don-Dun laughed. “Those are the finest fresh vegetables, fit for the castle lord's dinner. They were grown in a valley well in from the coast with the best soil north of the River Forth. I aim to sell them to the master of the kitchen.”

“I can take care of that too. Let me have a look.”

Alex climbed the cart slats to where the vegetables lay perched high up on the hay and tossed down a leafy bundle. Don-Dun caught it and held it up proudly.

“Take note of these turnips, plucked from the ground not when they are the fattest, but when they are the tastiest. And what about these right braw cabbages? Have ye ever seen anything like 'em? The castle lord will sing the praises of any cook that presents him with a plate of these – they're the tastiest variety known to mankind.”

The stable master gave one a squeeze. “Lord Hesselrigge is not in the habit of singing anyone's praises,” he muttered.

“But how could he not? Let's not forget these fat fresh
beauties.” Don-Dun split open a long green pod and scraped out a row of beans.

The stable master popped them in his mouth and chewed slowly. “How many have ye got?”

“There's ten twenty-pound sacks of beans, thirty-two heads of cabbage, and forty-three bundles of turnips.” Don-Dun smiled broadly. “That's two hundred and twenty-six individual turnips, if ye wish to count them that way.”

“Three groats,” the stable master said abruptly.

Don-Dun's smile faded. “These fine vegetables are worth more than that….”

“Three groats for the whole lot. Everything on your cart.”