It was full dark by now, and Cassie threaded her way to the outer bailey by the light of fifty torches. The armory lay by the outer gatehouse. The second bailey was even more crowded than the first, what with so many retainers and hangers-on who needed a place to sleep tonight.
Then a drawling voice said, “Well, well … what do we have here?”
Cassie felt herself spun around, her wrists clamped so tightly she had to drop her bow and quiver. The Cunningham boy, Gerard, buttressed by two of his friends, grinned at her as he pressed her to the stone wall of the armory.
Cassie looked past him, searching for anyone she knew. Nobody paid them the least attention. Cassie tried to keep herself composed, even as she struggled to free her wrists. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want.” Gerard hauled her around the corner to a narrow space between the armory and the blacksmith’s works. The alley smelled of wet hay and manure. And fear.
Cassie drove her knee towards Gerard’s groin, but one of his friends was quicker and jammed his leg between her and Gerard, putting the full weight of his body into her side. “Now, now,” Gerard said. “We can’t have that.”
Real panic rose in Cassie now, along with a blinding rage that this could be happening to her. She wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to be so alone in such a crowd. But if anyone had seen the men grab her, they might have thought nothing of it. Everywhere men went, whores followed. Cassie kept up her struggles, but even though Gerard was the same height as she, he was stronger and had two friends to assist him.
“Help—!”
Gerard cut off Cassie’s cry with a hand clapped over her mouth. “Let’s get her under cover—”
And then suddenly Gerard was grabbed from behind and thrown—literally thrown—ten feet towards the blacksmith’s works. The man to Cassie’s right took a gloved fist in the face, and because the second friend was backing away, not looking at her, Cassie was able to stab at his knee with her foot. Callum stepped in to finish him off with an uppercut to the jaw.
“My God, Cassie!” Callum pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her so tightly she almost couldn’t breathe, even as her breath came in gasps.
“Is there a problem, my lord?” One of James’s soldiers came hurrying up.
Callum loosened his grip on Cassie enough to turn to the man. “Do you know who I am?”
“The Earl of Shrewsbury, sir.”
“These men were assaulting my betrothed. I want them locked up until Lord James decides what to do with them.”
“Y-y-yes, my lord!” If the man had been a modern solider, he would have saluted. As it was, he waved an arm at four members of the garrison who’d followed him. Callum urged Cassie back around the corner and into the bailey. He held her head between his hands and kissed both eyes, her cheeks, and then her lips. “What could have happened—”
Cassie started to shake with delayed shock. Callum held her in a full embrace, rubbing at her back and arms to warm her. Cassie’s heartbeat began to slow. “I’m okay, Callum.”
“I’m not,” he said. “And you might not have been.”
Which was only too true.
“Let’s get you out of here.” Still with his arm around her, Callum turned to head back across the bailey.
“Just a second, Callum.” Cassie shrugged out of his arm so she could pick up her fallen bow and quiver.
Callum stared at the weapon. “Christ, Cassie! What were you thinking?”
Cassie clutched the cloth of his tunic at his breastbone. She found that she couldn’t speak, couldn’t get mad at him like he was mad at her.
Callum glared at Cassie. She could feel the force of his gaze even before she lifted her head to look at him. “You were running away. Away from me.”
“I actually wasn’t, Callum. But you have to know that what … almost happened has shown me again how much I hate this world and what I have to be to fit in it. That I needed you to save me …”
“I didn’t save you from those men because you’re a woman,” Callum said. “If three men had jumped me, I would’ve need saving too!”
“Yeah, but—”
Callum cut her off. “Just because you need a little help once in a while doesn’t make you a lesser person. Believe me, that wasn’t what was going through my head when I saw those men surrounding you. David Beckham never won a game all by himself. You’re good at some things and I’m good at some things. Why can’t we be good at them together?” He wiggled the tip of Cassie’s bow, which she held with the quiver in her other hand. It was probably how Gerard and his friends had noticed her in the first place.
“How’d you end up in the bailey?” Cassie said. “Weren’t you supposed to be in a meeting?”
“The council adjourned for the night,” Callum said. “I might have met you before you left your room, but as I left the hall, David’s pigeon man at Stirling, Rhodri, came to find me. After I sent him off with a message for David, I again intended to return to my room, but before I could, I saw Gerard leaving the inner bailey. I followed him. Cassie, why—?” Callum broke off and looked away from her, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.
“I won’t lie. I was thinking about leaving,” Cassie said. “I hadn’t yet decided to. I wanted to restock my quiver.”
Callum’s brows drew together, but his gaze wasn’t directed at her. He looked over her shoulder, towards the entrance to the armory.
“What is it?” Cassie said.
“You need arrows. I agree that we should do something about that. Come with me.” He moved towards the steps that led up to the building behind them.
“You’ve lost me,” Cassie said, taking two steps for every one of his. “What are we doing?”
“I could have sworn I just saw Red Comyn and … well … Kirby enter the armory.”
“Really?” Cassie said. “If it is Kirby, what are you going to say to him? Are you going to confront him?”
Callum shook his head. “I can’t. I promised James that I wouldn’t until he could speak to the other Guardians. I certainly wouldn’t do it on my own—not until we’ve ferreted out more of his plan. As James pointed out, Kirby is a bishop and England’s representative to Scotland, and if I expose him, I call David’s power and authority—and wisdom—into question.”
“James is too cautious,” Cassie said. “Kirby is responsible for the death of dozens of men, whatever his overall plan might be.”
“James knows the nobility of Scotland better than I do, and because of that—and because I think James is a good man—I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, though what he’ll say when Kirby shows up in the council chamber, I don’t know.”
“You have to get to James first,” Cassie said.
Callum nodded. “For now, I will be polite to Kirby and lie through my teeth if I have to. We don’t need him punished today. I know where to find him when the time comes. I’d rather lull him into a sense of complacency.”
“You like it when people underestimate you, don’t you?” Cassie said.
Callum just looked down at her and took her hand without replying. They went up the steps and through the doorway, but the barracks were dark. With no light switch to flip, the torchlight coming through the open door was their only light. Callum turned on his heel, looked outside, and then back into the main room where the armor and weapons were kept. “Huh.” A stairway went up to his left, but no sound came from the floor above.
“Where did they go?” Cassie said.
“Maybe I was hallucinating,” Callum said. “I’m tired enough. We can at least get those arrows while we’re here.”
An unlit candle rested in a holder on a barrel by the door. Cassie lit it with the fire steel left beside it and brought it with her, weaving among the storage crates after Callum. In a far corner near an open door into another room, he bent over a barrel containing a stockpile of arrows. Cassie was glad they had something to distract them from what had happened to her. It was a relief
to talk about casual things, even if what was going on between them was fast becoming the elephant in the room.
“This is a pretty meager collection,” Callum said. “The MacDougalls and Bruces had archers among them. Why aren’t there more arrows here?”
“Archery takes years of practice and good arrows aren’t something just anyone can make,” Cassie said. “We saw that at Duncraggan. Nobles use swords, and if the men they recruit don’t know how to shoot—”
“You end up with a single barrel as Stirling Castle’s entire stash of arrows,” Callum said.
Cassie gazed with him at the arrows he’d found—a hundred at most. Two bows leaned against the wall. She glanced around. In contrast, an entire wall was given over to spears and poleaxes. Swords, axes, helmets, and armor of various sizes and kinds were stacked in trunks or lined the walls. “Let’s hope Stirling Castle doesn’t have to defend itself any time soon. It would be in trouble,” she said.
“They haven’t had a king here for a long time. William Fraser’s a bishop and probably doesn’t think about having to defend Stirling or about war at all, other than how to avoid a fight.” Callum reached into the barrel, pulled out a handful of arrows, and presented them to Cassie.
“Let’s talk in here.”
Cassie swung around at the voice in the same instant that Callum blew out her candle, tugged on her arm, and whispered, “This way.”
They ducked behind the door to the adjacent room. “Is it—?”
“Red and Kirby, yes,” Callum said. The two men stood three feet from the front door, thirty feet from Cassie and Callum.
“What is our position?” Kirby said.
“Better than it was, but not good enough,” Red said. “Lord Callum has not revealed himself sufficiently for me to judge what he plans, though I feel certain that the positions of both Bruce and Balliol have been weakened.”
“For all that he’s a jumped-up earl, Lord Callum is not a fool,” Kirby said. “When did he arrive at Stirling?”
“Today. He’s already met with the other lords in the council chamber,” Red said. “I would have thought you would have been there too.”
“I needed to determine the lay of the land, first. I owe Robbie Bruce that much,” Kirby said.
“Is that regret I hear in your voice?” Red said. “What we do, we do for the good of Scotland.”
“I have come to admire the boy and his father,” Kirby said. “I regret the deaths of Robert Bruce and Alexander MacDougall, even if they were necessary.”
Cassie gasped and then immediately clamped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. They’d heard her.
Kirby swung around to peer towards the back of the room. “Who’s there?”
Cassie stepped into the room, already pulling an arrow from her quiver. Callum was there too, however, shaking his head no and pressing down on her arm so she’d lower her bow. Cassie gritted her teeth but assented as Callum strode towards Red and Kirby, who held up his lantern so he could see further into the room.
“My lord Callum!” both men spoke in unison, followed by a low bow.
“Save it,” Callum said. “I overheard you speak of Bruce and MacDougall. They’re dead?”
“They were both wounded in battle, my lord,” Kirby said. “I have been given to understand that neither can survive.”
“And it had nothing to do with you,” Cassie said, under her breath, in American English.
“What was that?” Kirby peered past Callum.
Cassie came forward into the flickering light, which was enough to illumine everyone’s faces. Callum rubbed his chin. He had said that he wasn’t ready to accuse Kirby of treason, and Cassie could see the merit in saving what they knew until both Callum and Kirby could stand before King David and tell him the whole of it. But she didn’t have to like it.
“Why have you come, Kirby?” Callum said. “I thought you’d thrown in your lot with the Bruces.”
“I come to Stirling on behalf of Robbie Bruce,” Kirby said. “He fears retaliation for his father’s actions against the Comyns. He asks for peace and forgiveness for all parties, including the MacDougalls, though they do not deserve it.”
“What of John Graham?” Cassie said.
“Who?” Kirby said.
“Patrick Graham’s son,” Callum said. “He was taken captive along with James Stewart and my friend, Samuel.”
Kirby and Red exchanged a glance and both shook their heads. “I don’t know anything about him,” Kirby said. “He was not in our party on the road to Stirling.”
“I know that,” Callum said. “What would MacDougall have wanted with him?”
“Why would I know anything about how Alexander MacDougall thinks?” Kirby said. “I have never met the man.”
Kirby kept his eyes wide and they didn’t skate away. He was doing everything in his power to put on a mantle of innocence. Didn’t he realize that Callum and Cassie had overheard the earlier part of his conversation with Red? Didn’t he realize that they knew his story about the ambush was full of holes big enough to drive a truck—or perhaps a carriage—through?
Cassie had dozens of questions she would have asked him, but Callum stepped past Kirby and Red and looked out the door of the armory. As they’d been speaking, a great tumult of noise had arisen in the bailey.
“What is it, Callum?” Cassie said.
Callum turned back to Kirby. “Now that you are here, it’s time you did your job. Bring your message from Robbie to the Guardians.”
Kirby gazed stonily at Callum. “I have done nothing to betray King David’s trust.”
Whatever, Cassie felt like saying, but again, didn’t.
“If you achieve what we set out to do,” Callum said, “I will put in a good word for you with the king. He might just name you Archbishop of Canterbury when Peckham dies. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Kirby maintained his poker face, but from Red’s expression, Callum had gotten it exactly right. Callum didn’t wait for Kirby’s answer. He tipped his head towards the door, asking without words for Cassie to leave the armory with him. Cassie slid past Red and Kirby and followed Callum outside.
“Something’s happened,” Callum said.
Samuel stood underneath the inner gatehouse, looking this way and that. At Callum’s raised hand, he raised his own and then steered his way across the bailey. “You said to come find you if I had news,” Samuel said. “Well, I do.”
“Is it the council or—”
“Erik of Norway has come. He has sailed his fleet up the River Forth and his army is marching on Stirling Castle as we speak.”
Chapter Nineteen
Callum
“That’s just what we need.” Callum headed under the inner gatehouse to the keep, holding Cassie’s hand, with Samuel hustling to keep up.
“Maybe it is, at that,” Cassie said.
“What do you mean, Cassie?” Callum said.
She tugged him to a stop at the top of the steps to the keep. “None of the Scots will take kindly to Erik of Norway’s attempt to grab the throne by force. Along with their hatred of England and fear of King David, it is one of the few causes that could unite them.”
“She’s right, my lord,” Samuel said. “They just need that fact pointed out to them.”
Callum turned around and saw Kirby and Red crossing the bailey, thirty paces behind them. He lifted a hand and made a ‘come here’ motion at Kirby. The man was cowed enough to quicken his pace. “Yes, my lord?”
“I am counting on you to be the voice of reason,” Callum said. “Erik of Norway has come, and all these bickering Scots need to pull themselves together and throw him back into the sea. I want you to be the one to say it.”
Kirby gazed at Callum for a count of five and then nodded. “I would argue that it would be better coming from you, but I appreciate your confidence in me.”
Callum tipped his head in the direction of the council chamber adjacent to the great hall. The acrimony in the room wa
s such that shouts could be heard through the closed door. Kirby marched towards the noise, Red in his wake.
“Why are you trusting him?” Cassie said.
“I’m not,” Callum said. “I don’t trust him at all.”
“But—”
“Look,” Callum said. “I can’t control Kirby, but I can keep him busy. Whatever his grand plan, Erik of Norway is in the way. It is in Kirby’s best interests to do as I ask.”
“I gather Bishop Fraser and James didn’t reveal everything yet?” Cassie said.
“No, not yet,” Callum said.
“So, the other barons might actually listen to Kirby,” Cassie said. “You and James were right to delay exposing him.”
Callum eyed Cassie, unsure whether her tone was approving of him or disappointed that she’d been wrong. “Besides, getting these noblemen to agree to anything is going to take days,” Callum said. “I hate meetings and the three of us have more important things to do.”
“Excuse me, my lord?” Samuel had been staying close, waiting for instructions.
“Saddle up the horses,” Callum said. “We’re leaving immediately.”
“We’re going to flee Stirling before the fight?” Samuel was shocked.
“Of course not,” Callum said. “We’re going to find the Grahams and the MacDougalls and whoever else doesn’t want to see Erik of Norway as king of Scotland and get them to march together to Stirling.”
Cassie openly laughed. “That’s brilliant. Knowing the MacDougalls, they’re already halfway here.”
“Exactly.” Callum pointed a finger at her. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
“Yes, sir,” Cassie said, though she smiled as she said it.
Even with midnight approaching, James Stewart had seen the merit in what Callum was suggesting and had gathered a mixed company of men to ride with them. Before they left, Callum related to James what he and Cassie had witnessed in the armory and the apparent alliance between Kirby and Red. James promised to keep an eye on both men. With Erik of Norway about to surround Stirling, they weren’t going anywhere.
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