Page 61 of Highland Guard

“Ye will rest until at least the morrow,” she told the young man. “Ye lost a lot of blood and need to replenish it. Agnes,” she said to the young girl, “ye will take young Auley here to the kitchens and feed him.”

“Aye, m’lady.” Agnes took Auley by the arm as he sat up straighter and began to cautiously stand up.

“But,” Auley began only to sway and need Agnes’s arm around his waist to steady him.

Annys nodded. “As I said, ye have bled a lot and need both rest and food. Off ye go and dinnae e’en think of climbing back on those walls until the morning.” As she watched the couple leave, she felt Joan move to stand beside her. “How many?”

“Two dead. Could be four soon although they are doing weel enough so there is hope. Bad wounds though and bled a lot. Five who are wounded badly enough that, unless this lasts a fortnight which I pray it will not, they will nay be fighting again. Six, including Auley, who will return after they rest and eat. Except for a few wee bruises and scrapes, none of the ones who went out to fight the fires got hurt. It helped that Geordie was lessening the numbers shooting those wretched things.”

“Anything burned badly?”

“Nay. Everything was too wet to catch quick and the ones who rushed out were quick to fair drown any of those arrows that landed. Big Mary quietly picks up every arrow and takes them up to Geordie, the only truly skilled archer we have, and, I am thinking, a mon our Big Mary has decided will be hers.”

“Let us pray he remains uninjured then.” She looked around. “I have ne’er actually hated anyone before. Disliked, disrespected, mayhap. Just wanted to avoid, aye. But, I hate Sir Adam MacQueen. Loathe him and want him dead. Something else I have ne’er wished for anyone.”

“And ’tis certain ye will ne’er feel wither way ever again so I wouldnae worry on it.” Joan shook her head. “If that mon fell into the hands of the people here right now, he would be torn apart. Do ye think they would e’er do that to anyone, ever?”

“Nay!”

“Exactly. But they would do it to him in a heartbeat, so dinnae fret o’er how ye feel. Right now all these people see is that that swine out there is killing and hurting their men, their husbands, sons, and lovers.” She patted Annys on the arm. “We all feel it now.”

“Strangely, kenning that I am nay the only one thinking of tearing the mon apart is oddly comforting. Of course, I meant to use a sword.”

“Weel, aye, of course ye did. Ye are a lady.”

Annys could barely believe it when she choked on a laugh. She clapped a hand over her mouth but made the mistake of looking at Joan. Then they both started giggling.

Their brief moment of laughter ended abruptly when a badly wounded man was carried in by Bear. Annys waved him over even as she hastily worked to wash off the table. When Bear put the man down on the table and she took a look at the wounds, she sighed. He would have to fight hard and long to survive. She began to wash away the blood as Joan readied a needle and thread. It was going to be a very long day.

Chapter Eighteen

And so begins the third day, Harcourt thought as he made his way down from the walls. At least it was quiet for now. After a dawn attack that had come close to succeeding, even Sir Adam’s men needed to rest and regroup. He spotted Geordie and Big Mary collecting up arrows and shook his head. Who would have thought the tall, broad-shouldered woman who cared for all the fowl of the keep would be attracted to someone like Geordie, a man neither handsome nor as tall as she was.

He stood by the well set in the center of the bailey and gathered the strength to pull up a bucket of water. Harcourt groaned in relief as he poured the cool water over his head. Every muscle and bone in his body ached. And he smelled, he thought crossly as he wiped the water from his face. He hated to smell bad and Harcourt decided it was yet another crime he could add to the list of ones Sir Adam deserved to die for.

“No one else will say it, so I will,” said Ned as he stepped up beside Harcourt and got some water for himself.

“Must ye? If no one else will say it, mayhap that is because no one really wants to hear it.”

Ned poured the water over his head and then shook himself like a dog would, ignoring Harcourt’s complaints about being splashed. “Ye are wet now. A wee bit more willnae kill ye.”

“Aye, but with clean water. I dinnae think what ye just shook all over me is too clean.”

“This is nay looking good for us, Harcourt.” He looked at Harcourt after wiping the water from his eyes, and did not even try to hide his concern. “That bastard is wasting his men but it still looks bad for us. He throws his men at the walls and loses some but has more. We push them back and lose some of our own, but dinnae have more. Soon, nay matter how hard and weel we may fight, he will still have more and we will nay longer have enough.”

“I ken it,” Harcourt reluctantly admitted. “Worse, the men fighting on those walls can see it, but we have no choice.”

“Mayhap nay right now, but soon.”

“Ye mean for us to all flee this place.”

“Aye. Ye said ye didnae believe in fighting to the last mon, woman, and bairn. I believed you.”

“I meant it. But, we still have some time left us.” He held up his hand when Ned opened his mouth to speak. “Nay much, but just a wee while more. I can see the time coming when we will have to leave if we mean to live, but a lot can happen between now and when it is time for us to get out, short though the time for a miracle might be.”

“My thought was that we start now to get out those who cannae walk or run because of age or wounds or e’en a bairn in her belly. We ken no one is making an assault on the burn side. Too difficult to get the men there, to put the ladders up or e’en set up some archers. We put a few of our archers on the wall o’er there and begin taking out all the ones who would slow the rest of us down. Give them a head start. At night. We do it at night. After ye found that tunnel down to the banks of the burn we put a few wee boats in the cave there so that we can use them to carry some of the wounded or infirm and some could just walk until they need the help.”

Harcourt slowly nodded. It was a good plan, a very good one. It was not only the aged, wounded, or infirm who needed help to escape. Women carrying a bairn in their arms, or e’en two, very small children, and, of course, the women carrying a bairn in their bellies, simply could not move as fast as others. Right now Sir Adam’s full attention was on breaching the walls of the keep, or even the gates. Letting some of the people slip out now would give the slower ones more time to get out of the man’s reach before the keep fell to him.