by Tessa Murran
‘Giselle, you came.’
‘How could I not? You look thinner,’ she said, in a rush.
‘Aye, so do you.’ he replied.
‘Your face?’
‘Cormac laid me flat, to stop me racing here to free you.’
‘He was right to do it.’
‘No, he wasn’t. Forgive me, Giselle, for leaving you in that bastard’s hands so long.’
Lyall went to take her in his arms, but she backed away.
‘Stop. Don’t.’
‘Giselle?’
Her face was stricken. ‘I know you mean to comfort me, but you cannot, Lyall. Stay away from me, please.’
‘What is this? Giselle?’ He took hold of her, and she flinched. ‘What is wrong with you?’ Anger flared when she would not look at him. ‘I came to tell you that I will free you, I swear.’
‘You cannot free me, and I should not have come here today.’
‘Do you not care for me, now you are Lady MacGregor?’
Giselle tore from his grip and walked away from him, wrapping her arms around herself. ‘I wanted to see you one last time to say goodbye.’
How cold her voice was.
‘This is not you, Giselle. No one is listening, you can speak to me freely, he is gone. I saw Banan ride out myself.’
‘It is not that I fear for myself, Lyall.’ She took a deep breath. ‘See here, I am wed now and reconciled to it. I wish you happiness and love in your life, but it cannot be with me. That is all over now. It is best we forget each other. I wish you good fortune in the war to come. If you would do one thing for me, survive it, please.
‘Stop this. Don’t speak to me as if we are strangers. We don’t have much time, and you must talk to me, for I love you. I love you, Giselle.’
‘Much good it has done either of us,’ she replied. ‘I am done with love.’
‘No, you are not.’
Lyall took hold of her by the arms and kissed her hard, but there was no response. Giselle’s lips were unmoving and cold as if she did not feel anything. His chest tightened with hurt and disappointment.
‘Take your hands off me,’ she said, and he did.
‘What has Banan done to bring such coldness towards me, Giselle?’
‘You know what he has done.’ Her voice was a sob. ‘Do not torture me by making me say it aloud.’
Tears, hot and filled with rage, pricked his eyes, and he fought them back.
‘He will pay for it when I make you a widow.’
‘No, Lyall. It will not bring back what he has taken, and I’ll not have you damn your immortal soul with murder, for my sake.’
‘This is not damnation, it is my soul’s redemption, for all the wrong I have done you, taking you for myself. In that, I have been as bad as Banan. I should not have done it, tried to own you like that. I told myself I was protecting you, but I haven’t even done that. I wanted you for myself, all along, though I did not know it. I seduced you, I held you captive, and all because I thought I had a right. No man has that, especially not Banan, and now, he will die for it.’
Giselle just shook her head at him, with tears streaming down her face.
‘Lass, if I don’t come back from Berwick, Cormac will get you away, somewhere that bastard cannot find you. He has sworn this to me.’
‘No, if he does that, all his own family will be in danger. Tell him, no. Lyall, do what you have to do to survive, but don’t come back to me. Please.’
‘I can’t believe you are saying this to me. You love me still. I can see it on your face, no matter how hard you try to hide it.’
Giselle looked away from him, clutching her arms about her. He had to know.
‘Why wed him, Giselle? Why did you do it?’
‘You think I had a choice?’ she said. ‘Banan said if I did not wed him, he would turn his men around and butcher every last man, woman and child at Beharra. He had a written order in the King’s own hand that gave him leave to take me. I was his reward, he said, for doing the King a great service. It was only later, when I got to Urquhart, that I realised what that service was.’
‘Aye, condemning his own father to a hideous, traitor’s death.’
‘I was told there would be worse in store for you if I defied the King’s command and refused his hand in marriage. I did not want to wed him, Lyall, I swear.’
‘I know. Forgive my anger.’
Lyall tried to take her in his arms again, but she leapt away from him and shrank into herself.
‘Don’t, Lyall.’
‘God, Giselle, I love you. Let me comfort you.’
‘You will not want to, once you know what I have done, what I was forced to do to survive. Can you even bear to imagine it?’ Her voice became a whisper.
‘It is my fault, so I must bear it.’ A muscle twitched along his cheek with the effort of hiding his emotions. ‘You suffered him to have you to stay alive.’
‘Yes. At first, I thought Banan just wanted to steal me to cause you pain. He did not lay a hand on me for several days as we travelled to the MacGregor stronghold in the north. All he did was stare at me, with a strange look on his face, while I got more and more frightened. That was bad enough, and then, when we got to that awful place, I thought he would just lock me up. How foolish I was to think that it was that simple, that revenge on you was all he wanted.’
‘Giselle, I am sorry.’
‘He wanted revenge on me too, you see, for spurning him. The first night there, I discovered how truly awful Banan is. He is a monster. He worked himself up into a rage, and I thought he was going to kill me.’
‘I am so sorry that he hurt you, that he forced you.’
‘He has shamed me, Lyall, over and over.’
‘There is no shame in it, Giselle. What else could you do but stay alive?’
‘I thought I’d never see you again, that was the worst of it, Lyall.’
He rushed to her and held her close, and this time she did not resist. Her sobs rent his heart in two, but Lyall held back his own. He had to be strong and find a way out of this trap before it killed them both.
‘I will kill him for this,’ he said.
‘That is what he wants, Lyall. Or he wants you to try. Then he will have the excuse he needs to have you put to death, for disobeying the King’s command.’
‘He won’t always have the King’s favour and, when it wanes, I will cut him down.’
‘Who knows when that will be? You cannot wait that long, and nor can I. For your sake, I can bear him, but not when I see you. I cannot be near you, for then it is too much, and it breaks my heart to think of what we could have been. Lyall, for both our sakes, I want you to go. Everything between us is tainted, and I cannot see you again.’
‘Giselle, no, I will get you back, I swear it, or I will die trying.’ Lyall felt her slipping away from him. ‘I love you, Giselle, with all my heart. I love you, so whatever happens, promise me you will bear it, and survive his cruelties. I can’t ever give you up. I won’t, so you must swear it now.’
He shook her when she did not answer.
‘Please Giselle. Please trust in me to make this right.’
‘I…I want to so much…but I am ruined, spoiled…’
‘You could never be such things to me. You are my pride, my happiness, my life, since the very first moment I laid eyes on you. I love you, and I know you love me. Banan wants to take that from us. Please, Giselle, don’t let him.’
He pulled her close and kissed her, and this time, she kissed him back, clutching at his back, digging her nails in, as if she would never let go of him. Lyall tasted her tears as they ran down her cheeks into his mouth. He felt her anguish in the desperate way her mouth claimed his. More than anything, he felt relief that she could still care for him, that Banan had not killed the passion between them.
‘Hold on to me, Giselle,’ he cried.
‘Lyall, Lyall.’ She gasped his name into the darkness. He buried his face in her neck as his hands roamed over
every inch of her. She had to be his still, he would make her so.
‘Do you still want me,’ he growled into her hair.
‘Yes, yes I do,’ she gasped, and he was lost. He pulled up her skirts as she tore open his braies, and he lifted her up and against the wall.
‘Do it, Lyall. Do it, and wash him away, please. I want to feel you, only you. I fear I may never see you again.’
He entered her quickly, and there were no words spoken as they made love. It was primal, dangerous and beyond all reason, the desperate coupling of two people on the brink of death, wanting to feel alive.
Just as Lyall reached his release, Giselle cried out his name. A body could not contain such pain as he felt at that moment. He pressed his forehead to Giselle’s as he slid her down the wall, and she pulled down her dress. Lyall waited for his breathing to slow and the turmoil inside him to calm enough to speak.
‘I’ll get you back, I swear it, my love.’
‘I would do anything for you, Lyall, but I will not let you die because of me.’
‘If we can’t be together I am a dead man anyway. He put his hands to her cheeks. ‘I will free us from this hell, and we will be happy again, we will be together. I swear I will come back for you. Tell me, you want me. Say it.’
‘If you still want me,’ she sobbed.
‘Want you? Of course I want you.’
Lyall’s brought his lips to Giselle’s in one last, desperate kiss.
‘I have to go before I am missed,’ she said, pulling away.
Lyall grabbed onto her and hugged her hard enough to break her in two. Giselle peeled his hands away and stepped into the shadows, where he could not see her face.
‘Stay alive, Lyall, I beg you. If you can do one thing for me, do that.’
Chapter Thirty
The smell of burning pitch and smoke, drifting across the field, stung the back of Lyall’s throat and made his eyes water. With a deafening thump and a whooshing sound, the trebuchet sent death over the walls of Berwick. A huge rock soared through the air and crashed into a flanking tower with deadly speed. It crushed a wooden structure atop the stone tower, which was shielding the town’s archers. Splinters of wood flew out in all directions, large enough to skewer any unlucky souls who hadn’t dived for cover quickly enough.
Screams echoed through the half-light of dawn, muffled by the choking mist rising from the damp ground. From further along the field, came the sound of another trebuchet firing and hurling a fireball skywards. It blazed a path across the pink sky, landing amidst the thatched roofs of buildings just inside the wall, setting them alight with a hiss and a crackle. A mournful ringing came from the bell tower deep within Berwick, warning the townspeople of the Scots’ latest attack, much good it would do them.
Lyall hoped the whole town would not catch alight before they could subdue it. Fire could get a strangle-hold, scorching everything to ash in a town close-packed with thatched-roofed buildings.
They needed just enough force to show the English, garrisoned within that they were fighting a lost cause, not destroy their prize before they had won it. And what a prize it was. Squatting at the border between Scotland and England, Berwick was of great strategic importance, which was why its townsfolk had been the subject of brutal assaults, such as this one, as it had changed hands many times over years of fighting. The river Tweed flowed along one side of Berwick, and out into the ocean, making it a perfect garrison for those with conquest in mind. Men, arms and horses could be brought by sea quickly, from England, before being sent north to harry Scotland.
Since the English had taken it, eight years ago, they had not bothered to raise its walls higher, so confident were they in their mastery of the Scottish borders. The town could not hold out against a determined siege forever, and no reinforcements were likely to come from King Edward, presently locked in a power struggle with his cousin, the Earl of Lancaster.
With that feud simmering to boiling point, England was teetering on the brink of civil war. The Earl’s boot on Edward’s throat meant he was too beset with squabbling nobles to launch any serious counter-attack against a Scots king intent on sealing his place as ruler. Ever the chancer, Robert the Bruce was determined to take Berwick, and he did not want to do so in a long drawn out, torturous siege, reaching into winter. This thing would be settled in weeks, or not at all.
Lyall hoped to God his brother was safe. They had arrived three weeks ago, passing through war-ravaged countryside scoured of provisions – livestock, grain, all taken into the town, so as not to provide succour for an invading army. Some days ago, Cormac had been given charge of men assaulting the town from the river side. It was by far the best defended, with a massive barbican and flanking towers to rain down arrow fire.
Lyall had been sent to the east of the town which was fringed by fields and rolling hills. He had spent days on open ground, running the constant assault of trebuchets, which had been hauled miles overland, and assembled in haste. A constant bombardment, day and night, was yielding few results, with the town’s thick, defensive walls and flanking towers taking hit after hit, but holding, so far. If the townspeople’s resolve was crumbling, Lyall couldn’t see it, and their walls certainly were not.
Berwick’s defenders had hit back, time and again, hurling missiles at the Scots from their own smaller slings and ballistas, perched high on the walls. Ballistas were the worst of it. They flung thick wooden arrows or heavy bolts hundreds of yards, quick and sure as a lightning strike. Unlike those of a sling, which followed a high arc through the air, with time for avoidance, the missiles from a ballista followed a straight path and seemed to come out of nowhere. Lyall had witnessed countless men get skewered where they stood.
High-pitched screams drew his gaze to a massive siege tower, pressed up against the curtain wall. It had fallen victim to fire arrows, despite being soaked in mud and water, and was now well ablaze. Men were hurling themselves off the top, some burning alive as they fell, adding their screams and the smell of scorched flesh to the hellish morning. Others ran away screaming, aflame, like living lanterns, sending panic through the men like a pox. Ladders were being pitched against the wall, concentrated in one section only.
As for Banan, Lyall had not seen him yet, but in his heart, he knew his enemy was close. Banan would relish all this carnage and mayhem and would be waiting for his chance to kill him. Lyall was a marked man, and he knew it, so he slept with one eye open, and his dagger in his hand. He surrounded himself with men he trusted, including Owen, who would guard his back when the fighting got to close quarters. That was about to happen at any moment.
Word had come that Lord Douglas had found a way into the heart of Berwick. He had bribed an English man within to weaken the defences of a section of wall on the landward side. It was a risky, and very slim, advantage, which could allow enough Scots to scale the walls and get inside. With fighting breaking out inside the town, men would be diverted from defending the river side and rush to the aid of their comrades. The Scots would then storm the castle en masse, from both ends at once.
The only problem with this plan was that it relied on the word of a traitor. If a man could betray his own kind, he could betray the Scots too. Even if they did make it over the walls Lyall’s men would be on their own, and cut off from the rest of the Scots forces. To succeed they would have to survive against hundreds of English soldiers, rushing to seal the breach in the wall, while the river assault took place. They might be long dead before the town was taken. Was Lord Douglas sacrificing men in order to cut short this siege? He was ruthless enough to throw away lives in a diversion without a second thought.
As one of the first men onto those walls, Lyall knew he could be the first to fall to arrow fire or have his skin scorched off with boiling pitch. A ladder pushed back off the wall could send him to a crushing death twenty feet downwards, or a sword thrust to his throat as he hauled himself over the wall’s edge could end his part in this great war. If this tower went up in flames, l
ike the last, an excruciating death awaited him.
Clinging to the upper level, Lyall felt his siege tower bounce, and then sway dangerously sideways, as men below grunted and heaved it into position. The defensive ditch which protected the town wall had been filled in with rocks, earth, piles of heather and gorse, and even the bodies of the fallen, to provide a narrow bridge to get the tower close enough.
A rock hit his platform a foot from his head, just a glancing blow but it tore off one edge of the tower, splintering wood and sending a man flying. When he peered down, he could see the poor fellow writhing in agony in the ditch below. Moments later, burning straw rained down from the walls, setting him ablaze.
Only covering arrow fire, and the relentless pounding of the trebuchets from the Scots forces protected those pushing, and those cowering in the tower. The sound of a horn rang out, assaulting his ears and setting his heart to pounding. Lyall crossed himself.
Amid the roar of men facing their maker, Lyall clung on for dear life, as the tower banged up against the walls and came to a standstill. He braced, along with his men, a sword in his right hand, a war hammer in the left, as the ramp was lowered down onto the wall, and all hell broke loose.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lyall ran for his life, crashing into the man coming at him and felling him with a sword thrust to the belly. He cut down the next with a sweep of his axe to the knees. All around him came the thud of crossbows firing and the clash and scrape of swords. Some of his men barged into him, tipping him forward and into a wall. He pushed back off it, slashing right and left as if possessed by the Devil himself.
This close-quarters fighting had been going on for hours. They had despatched the soldiers on the town walls with relative ease, as they had been spread too thin. The traitor had done his work well and weakened the wall’s defences to a point where it could be overrun. Already, Lyall could feel the tide turning as Berwick faltered.
A black plume of smoke was rising from the direction of Berwick’s main gates, turning the day to dusk. Groups of townspeople were running towards him and away from that part of the town. From the panic on their faces, Lyall dared to hope that Cormac’s men had broken through.