Page 60 of Highland Guard

“Thank ye, Bear. ’Tis good to hear. And, dinnae worry, I ken what this is about. ’Tis nay just me. Nay e’en just about Benet. ’Tis about holding fast to what we all have. ’Tis for Glencullaich.” She was surprised to hear a ripple of hearty agreement go along the walls as each man there heard what was being said.

Straightening her shoulders, Annys stepped close to the wall and stared down at Sir Adam. He looked quite handsome on his horse but she knew that handsomeness truly was only skin deep. Below that covering, in his heart and soul, he was vain and greedy.

“Good morning, Cousin,” she said, infusing as much cheerfulness into her voice as she could muster. “I hear ye have something ye wish to say to me.”

Sir Adam rode a little closer again. “This can end here and now,” he said. “There is nay a need for your people to be harmed or the property damaged in any way. Hand over Glencullaich to the rightful heir and ye can leave unharmed, as can your hired swords.”

“Hired swords?” She looked around. “I have no hired swords, sir. That appears to be your way, but it isnae mine. I have merely friends who seek to aid a poor, defenseless woman against someone who wishes to take what isnae his.”

“I am the rightful heir! Nay that boy! We all ken David wasnae the sire.”

“We do? I believe ye are the only one who keeps saying that.”

“Because ’tis the truth! We all ken that Sir Robert MacLeoid gelded him years ago.”

Annys stared at the man, an icy chill flowing through her body. David had once said that he always wondered how Sir Robert MacLeoid and his men had come to hunt him down, that he was almost certain he had never bedded the man’s wife. He had doubts only because he knew he had been a randy fool, often drank too much, and did not have the best recollection of what women he had bedded. Despite that, he had never been able to dismiss an unease about the attack. Now she knew why. Sir Adam had set MacLeoid on David. It was entirely possible that David had been brutally punished for a crime he had never committed. It was also now evident that Sir Adam had been trying to rid Glencullaich of heirs for a very long time.

“Gelded?” she asked, and tapped her chin with one finger as if considering the possibility. “Being that I am a lady and cannae use certain words, let me just assure ye of your error with the assertion that David was a mon. Fully, completely, and utterly a mon. As his wife, I believe I would be the best one to ken that fact, aye?”

“Ye have two choices, woman. Ye freely give o’er Glencullaich to me or ye watch your people die.”

“Actually, there is another choice. I could say nay and watch ye and your army fall before my walls.”

“Ye think ye can win this battle?”

There was no hint of her fear or uncertainty in her voice when she replied, “Aye. So I give ye two choices now, sir. Ride away home or die. Here. In a vain, foolish attempt to steal this land.” She turned and started to leave only to turn back, glare down at Sir Adam, and point to the gravestone visible at the top of the hill overlooking them all. “And look there, Sir Adam, for there lies the mon ye had murdered. He will be watching, waiting to see ye pay for what ye have done and now try to do. And I mean to let him see ye die, here, on this ground while he watches over it all!”

She turned and marched away, stumbling only a little when the men on the walls cheered and banged their swords on their shields. Just as she stepped inside the door, out of sight of the men on the walls, she felt the first tear slide down her cheek. It would begin now. There was no way every man on those walls could survive and she had to find a way to accept that, to not bury herself in blame for it all. She gave a start when a piece of linen was placed in her hand and she looked up to find Joan watching her.

“Dinnae ye dare take this on your own shoulders, Annys,” Joan said as she took her by the hand and led her down the steps. “’Tis all on that bastard’s head. We heard him. T’was him that got David hurt, although I would wager his plan was for David to die. I also suspicion ’tis him that prevented us from getting Nigel back or e’en kenning his fate. And it wasnae just the men on the walls cheering when ye said our laird will be watching him die. We all did.”

Everyone was so fierce in the defense of Glencullaich, Annys thought. She needed to share that strength. Stopping when they reached her bedchamber, she patted her hair to make certain it was not too windblown and brushed down her skirts. Bellowed commands and a clatter against the walls of the keep made her tense but she shook aside the urge to go look.

“Best we get to work then, Joan,” she said. “It has begun.”

Harcourt watched Adam ride back to his men and start yelling orders. He cursed when he saw that the man had armed other men with bows, increasing the number of archers he had. The twenty hired archers were still the ones who needed to be taken down first, however. For now, their job was to stay alive until the rain of arrows about to descend upon them ended. The moment he saw the archers pull back on their bowstrings, he yelled out the command to take cover. Even as he crouched next to the wall and held his shield up to cover himself, he watched Bear get down off the walls with a grace and agility that was astonishing in a man of that size.

“Bastard needs killing,” grumbled Nathan from his side. “Needed it years ago if I am guessing the full meaning of what he was yelling at your lady.”

“Aye. I believe he set the jealous husband on David.” He winced as a cry from farther down the walls told him someone had been injured already. “Suspicion he thought the mon would just kill him.”

“Ladders up,” Nathan murmured when the clatter of wood on stone echoed all around them.

“Be ready. The moment the rain stops, on your feet with sword in hand,” he said to the man on his right. “Pass it down.” He could hear Nathan saying the same to the man next to him.

The sound of the deadly fall of arrows faded away minutes later. Harcourt used as much speed as he dared to rise to his feet, sword in hand. He had barely adjusted his shield to cover his chest when a man began to scramble over the wall. The man swung his sword but was in too awkward a position to be a real threat. Harcourt knocked the man’s sword aside and slammed him in the face with his shield. The man’s scream as he lost his balance and fell to the ground brought Harcourt no joy.

Cries from the men on the walls as well as from the ones they were sending to the ground filled the air. Harcourt could not afford to check on the men who fought with him, however, as Sir Adam was sending his men to the walls without pause. Considering the number of them plummeting to the ground to die or who were dead before they got there, Harcourt had to wonder why the men did not just stop no matter how much Sir Adam yelled at them. They were not MacQueens and he doubted Sir Adam paid that well. Then he saw Clyde on a horse, riding back and forth behind the men, his sword out, and several equally armed, grim-faced men riding with him. Clyde was driving the men forward like cattle to the slaughter.

Then he saw the arrow fly over their heads, the arrow’s tip a ball of flame, and cursed. “Geordie! Skewer those bastards!”

“Trying!”

Harcourt watched as the women and young boys, even some of the older girls, poured out of the keep to make sure no fire got a good start. Although he had to admire how efficiently they worked together, his heart clenched with dread. They were now in reach of the arrows. Refusing to let that prey on his mind, he turned back to the fight to keep the enemy from clearing the walls.

Annys tied off the bandage on the arm of the man who looked far too young to have been fighting on the walls, swinging a sword as he faced the enemy. Since the wound was not in his sword arm, he was already talking about getting back into the fight causing the girl who so plainly adored him to weep. Annys felt like doing the same.

Actually, what she truly wanted to do was become some great warrior, grab a sword, march out to confront Sir Adam, and start slicing off pieces of him until he was dead. Then she would put all of the pieces in a sack to send it to his father. It would be a message that man would not scorn or ignore. One he would fully understand, as would the other MacQueens who were helping Adam.