The Highlander's Virtuous Lady: A Historical Scottish Romance Novel

by Fiona Faris

  “And what makes you think Margaret and Mother will be at Neidpath?”

  “Because there is nowhere else they could be held. There is no suitable accommodation at the King’s Castle, where the sheriff is lodged, or anywhere else in the burgh. Moult is a gentleman, after all, and he would not have ladies of their station thrown into the King’s Castle donjon alongside the serfs and villeins. That would send a dangerous message to the lower orders.”

  “But will they have been ill-used?” Joan persisted anxiously.

  Patrick hesitated.

  “Think not of that,” he counseled. “Think rather that, before the morning is out, they shall be free, and we will all be on our way back to Dryhope.”

  “It is not how Margaret had imagined her return to Neidpath,” Joan observed wryly.

  Patrick gave a grim chuckle.

  “I dare say not,” he concurred, reaching out into the darkness and pulling Joan into an embrace. “But, believe me, they – we all – will soon have a happier return, once Gilbert and King Robert have cleared the realm of this pestilence.”

  Joan gazed into the darkness, towards Peebles and to Neidpath beyond.

  “I pray only that it will not be spoilt for them.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  By dawn, a crowd of people had gathered outside the burgh wall by the Eastgate: peasants with their wagons laden with vegetables, small flocks of sheep and goats, and pigs and cattle; peddlers with their high backpacks and overburdened asses; skulking urchins and cutpurses and doxies, moving shiftily through the throng, their eyes glinting and alert to any opportunity that might come their way.

  A few hundred yards away, behind a knoll on the edge of the woods that rose up the steep slopes of Venlaw to overlook the Eastgate, the Scotts waited on their horses. The horses pawed the ground, impatient to be off.

  The church bells rang the end of the curfew, and the Eastgate was opened. A squad of pikemen in mail and round helmets filed through the gate and began to inspect the wagons and collect the tolls from the people who filed through. The urchins and other vagabonds lurked around the scene, dodging through the gate whenever the gatemen’s backs were turned to avoid paying the tax.

  “Let the wagons through first,” Wat instructed in a low voice. “The last thing we need is an obstruction.

  The wagons lumbered through, one by one, their sides barely clearing the gateposts. They took their time, the oxen that pulled them having to be goaded all the way by the waggoneers with their poles and switches. Women with simple headdresses covering their hair followed on, trailing the clutches of small children who clung to their skirts. The reivers’ ponies pawed the ground and snorted angrily.

  As soon as the gate was clear, Auld Wat heeled his horse and the band burst from the copse.

  “The Scotts are out!” he cried, leaning forward over his pony’s neck and leveling his short lance as he galloped towards the gatehouse.

  The pikemen were taken by surprise. They scrambled clumsily, trying to form a defensive schiltron before the gate, but they were still half-asleep and half-drunk from the night before. Before they could ground their long pikes, the reivers were on them, running them through with their lances and slashing at their heads and shoulders with their short broadswords. Those who survived the charge were roughly scattered by the horses’ chests as the phalanx of riders tore past them and poured through the gate.

  Inside, around the market cross, the peasants and traders fled in every direction. Wagons were abandoned, and packs shrugged off and discarded as their owners scampered into the adjoining narrow lanes and closes to escape the danger. The walls of the jerrybuilt tenements rang with screams and shouts. Some of the packs burst open beneath the hooves of the prancing ponies, and silks and threads, pots and pans, potions and relics were strewn in the muddy road.

  Mary stood in the stocks, awaiting the abuse of the populace before her noon appointment with the hangman. Her days in the jail beneath the cross had taken its toll. Her kirtle was a filthy rag, her gray hair hung in damp and soiled rats-tails about her face, and her face was swollen with bruises and cuts. Her son, William, rode over to the stocks, and pulling a short club from his belt, smashed the padlock and hasp away with a single blow and lifted away the half-board that pinned her neck and wrists. She staggered to the side before Wat swept her up in his arm and drew her onto the horse’s back behind him.

  “And where the Hell have you been,” she reproached him. “I was beginning to think ye werena coming.”

  Auld Wat sniggered.

  “That’s ay been your worst fault, Mary, my sweet: nae bloody patience. Dae ye ken the bother I’ve had finding you?”

  He heeled his horse and set off in pursuit of his men, who were already halfway along the High Street, knocking down awnings and tipping over stalls with their lances for devilment.

  Within seconds, they had reached the gates to the King’s Castle. Here they met stronger resistance. The sheriff’s men had formed a compact phalanx across in front of the gatehouse, blocking the entrance. On the turrets on either side of the gatehouse, archers were forming up under the command of the sheriff’s officers.

  Patrick scanned the battlements; there was no sign of Moult.

  The reivers were confronted by a bristling wall of pikes and shields. William, who now headed the attack, with Wat at the rear of the band, encumbered by his wife, pulled his horses to a slithering halt and held up his hand. The rest of the reivers pulled up around him.

  “There’s nae joy to had, throwing oursel’s against that hurcheon,” William observed grimly. “And we’re reivers, no’ besiegers. What do we dae, Faither?”

  “Rab! Jaimsie!” Wat commanded the two men nearest him. “Take a turn around the castle walls and see if there’s another way in.”

  “The women won’t be here anyway,” Patrick cried. “We should ride on to Neidpath. And quick, before word gets to them there that we’re here.”

  Wat considered it for a brief moment.

  “If we’re going, Faither, we maun go now, before they seal the Bridgegate,” William said.

  That spurred Auld Wat’s decision.

  “To Neidpath, then,” he cried.

  The band set off through the streets to the north of the castle. Sure enough, they found the sheriff’s men pushing the heavy wooden gates closed. They charged headlong into the knot of men before they had time to form up into a tight schiltron and cut them down with sword and lance. Two of Wat’s men slid from their mounts and hauled the gates open. The band pushed through and set off at a gallop along the Neidpath road.

  As the road twisted and turned through the forest, the men caught intermittent sight of a party of riders ahead of them. They too were bent low over their horses’ necks and riding pell-mell towards their goal.

  “Shite!” Patrick swore, turning to Joan who rode beside him, her mount matching his pace for pace. “That will be Moult. We must not let him bar the gate to us. As William says, we’re reivers, not besiegers. If he can close and man the courtyard gates, we will never breach Neidpath.”

  As if spurred on by Patrick’s words, Joan leaned lower over her pony and heeled it on faster still. She began to outstrip the other riders and Patrick struggled to keep pace with her.

  Moult’s men were about a quarter of a mile ahead of them, riding furiously, and the reivers were only slowly gaining on them – if at all.

  “On, girl,” Joan urged her mare, her cloak flowing out behind her in her slipstream, her jaw set in grim determination beneath her steel helmet.

  She heard her father’s voice in her head, urging her on, as he had as they had raced across the moorland above the Castle Braes in pursuit of a darting hare or a slinking fox. She had to make the gate before Moult’s men could close it in her face, or else all would be lost. Margaret and her mother would be trapped and remain hostage to the sheriff’s designs for them.

  Joan was still just ahead of the band when they rounded the last bend and saw Neidpath ris
e through the trees ahead of them. To her despair, Joan saw the sheriff’s men passing through the gate, and the large wooden doors begin to close behind them. She still had two hundred yards to go. She urged her horse on across the open ground in front of the courtyard wall, reaching over her shoulder to draw her staff from the belt that strapped it to her back.

  One hundred yards to go, the opening between the doors growing narrower and narrower, she raised the staff above her head like a spear. Twenty yards; she launched the staff towards the gate with all her strength. It spun through the air, sunlight glinting on its four-foot blade. She reined her horse to a skidding halt only yards from the metal-studded doors. A sliver of light still showed between them. Her staff had wedged between them, preventing them from being barred.

  A howl and a cheer went up behind her, as the rest of the party arrived hot on her heels. The men dismounted, almost before their mounts had come to a halt and rushed the gate. They slipped fingers and lance tips into the aperture and strained to pry the gate open again.

  On the other side of the gate, hands gripped the lances and pushed and pulled in an attempt to win them free. Broadswords swiped at the men’s fingers and hacked at the wooden lances. Buckets of piss and excrement were emptied over the reivers from the gatehouse parapet, but still, they pried and wrenched at the doors. The doors gave slightly, and Joan’s staff was dislodged; then, with a great wail of despair from the reivers, the gate slammed shut, and the bar rattled in the hasps on the far side.

  Arrows began to rain down on them from the courtyard walls, most of them bouncing harmlessly off the reivers’ steel helmets and jacks of plate.

  Wat called a retreat, and the party hurriedly remounted and withdrew back to the road and into the trees beyond. There was no point in trying to beat the heavy doors down.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Anyone hurt?” Wat enquired, as his men threw themselves down on the grass beneath the trees, breathing heavily from their exertions.

  “Aye,” came a voice from the forest gloom. “I got a skelf frae the bastardin’ doors!”

  The chorus of low laughter went around the men.

  “A splinter?” Wat exclaimed. “I’ll gi’e ye a splinter, lad. You’ll get my broken lance up your arse if I get any more lip from ye.”

  “So,” Patrick asked. “What do we do now?”

  Wat gazed through the trees at Neidpath’s walls and tower. He turned to Joan.

  “I hate to say it, lass, but your faither built himsel’ a grand redoubt,” he observed. “The Devil himself would have a bother getting in there, had he no’ been invited.”

  “But we need to get in,” Patrick insisted. “Because that’s where Moult has Margaret and Lady Maria.”

  “There is the postern gate,” Joan informed them. “That’s where Margaret and I used to sneak in and out when we were supposed to be doing our lessons or chores.”

  Auld Wat smiled.

  “I would imagine Moult will have it nailed shut to keep unwanted visitors like our good selves out. But I’ll send a couple of men down to take a look anyway, just in case.” He fell into a thoughtful silence. “Where do you reckon he’ll have the ladies lodged?”

  Patrick gazed up to the top of the tower.

  “In the solar. The turret staircase is the only route in and out of the solar. A good lock on the stair door that lets in to the solar, and it would make a canny prison.”

  “It’s a pity we cannae fly,” Auld Wat observed. He turned and winked at Mary, who was crumbling some hard tack between her gums. “Ye should hae brought your besom, ye auld witch.”

  She shook a fist at him and returned to her biscuit.

  “I could climb the rock from the meadow on the riverside,” Joan offered.

  Auld Wat turned to her.

  “Away and dinna be daft!” he said glibly.

  “I could,” Joan insisted. “I could climb it under cover of darkness, over the courtyard wall where it joins to the keep and unbar the gate from the inside. Then you could creep in and fall on the garrison before they knew what was happening.”

  Patrick looked at Joan nervously.

  “Don’t be silly, Joan. It’s far too dangerous.”

  But Auld Wat stayed him with a flap of his hand.

  “No, no, Patrick, lad. I like the way your wife is thinking. It could be done.”

  He took Joan’s arm and turned her towards him, searching her eyes with her own, as if he were trying to read something there.

  “Could you really climb the castle rock?”

  Joan shrugged her shoulders as if it would be nothing for her to do so.

  “I’ve climbed the cliffs in the gorge hundreds of time, after birds’ eggs.”

  Auld Wat followed the line of her finger as she pointed west towards the Tweed gorge. He stood silently, calculating.

  “Alright, then.”

  Patrick protested.

  “I forbid it. You are my wife, and I forbid it.”

  Joan turned to him and fixed her eyes on his. She stared him down with a hard look. She was resolved, and she was willing to defy her lord and master.

  “Patrick,” she said in a voice that would brook no argument, “how else are we going to gain entrance to the castle? I am the only one here capable of scaling the castle rock, and I am confident I can do so.”

  “Even in the dark?” Patrick objected. “Sid you scramble up the cliffs after birds’ eggs in the dark? And,” he added, “there will be more than birds’ eggs waiting for you when you get to the top.” He shook his head vehemently. “No. It is far too dangerous. You are not going.”

  Joan looked him up and down with a mixture of disdain and disgust.

  “So, you are just going to abandon my sister and my mother. Is that what your chivalry amounts to? Leaving damsels in distress just because it’s too difficult or risky to scale the tower to rescue them? For God’s sake, it’s only the sheriff and a handful of men I’m asking you to fight, not a dragon.” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Well, if that’s how you feel, get away home to Dryhope and tremble with the women. But don’t expect me to join you, hiding under the covers of your bed. I’m going to save my sister.”

  “Well said!” Wat cried, shoving Patrick contemptuously on the shoulder. “Where’s your adventure, man? I didnae have you down as a feartie.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Patrick protested, shoving Auld Wat back and nearly landing the slight man on his backside. “At least, not for myself. I’m afraid for you, Joan,” he added, turning to the long, lithe figure of his wife in the growing dark. “I’m afraid of losing you, my love and mother of my child.”

  “We all must risk ourselves if we are to win this fight,” Joan replied softly. “Gilbert is risking himself in the field with King Robert, we risk ourselves with every raid. Mary has just risked being hanged because of us, and goodness knows what Margaret and my mother are risking at this very moment at the hands of Walter Moult. I am willing to take this risk to set my people free,” she concluded. “Do not, I pray you, stand in my way. I would never forgive you.”

  Patrick stepped forward and pulled her into an embrace. His heart spilled with emotion, a mixture of pride and love and worry.

  “Go, then, my love,” he whispered in her ear. “May God guide your steps.”

  Moult was fuming. He strode up and down the confines of the solar, raging with anger.

  “A gang of ragged outlaws!” he shouted. “Just who do they think they are, challenging the might of the king’s sheriff, the king’s authority.”

  “Free men,” Margaret replied. “True men, who are willing to take on bullies like you and your king in defense of themselves and their kin. Honorable men… But ‘honor’ is something you would not understand.”

  Moult struck Margaret a savage blow across the cheek with his gloved hand, which sent her sprawling to the floor.

  Lizzie, who had been cowering from Moult’s wrath in the corner, scuttled out to where Margaret lay dazed and
stunned. She lifted Margaret by the shoulders and laid her head on her lap. A trickle of blood ran down Margaret’s chin from the corner of her mouth, where her lip was split.

  “Leave her alone, you monster!” she screamed, a look of murderous reproach contorting her features.

  Moult aimed a desultory kick at her but missed. He spun around and took a few casual steps towards the door,

  “No matter,” he said in a quieter tone. “The swine won’t be able to get me here. The traitor, Fraser, built a formidable keep. We need just to sit tight until my men rally in Peebles or Pembroke sends help. One thing is certain,” he added, casting a sneer at Margaret. “She is going nowhere, and neither is the old bitch out there.”