by JR Tomlin
The man's mouth worked, a babbling sound coming out. Andrew shoved him away. "On your knees, all of you."
Waltir trotted up sword in his hand as their prisoners dropped, one by one. "You let a few get away," he said.
"Were you able to stop them?"
"Oh, aye. That rope across the road did wonders." He held it in his off-hand.
Andrew smiled "Hard to see at a gallop--and it will do well to tie our prisoners."
A horse whinnied helplessly as Boyd stood bent to give it a death stroke with his dirk.
An injured Englishman lying nearby groaned. One of the friars was bandaging a slash on Gil's arm.
"How many hurt?"
"A lay brother dead. None of the rest so badly they can't move," the friar answered.
"Good." Andrew raised his voice to a shout. "Gather the animals. Strip the English of their armor and get them tied to trees. Put the injured animals put down. Then we're off while there's still light. We won't wait for company."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They were all weary to the bone and Andrew rubbed his aching thigh when no one was looking. Downy clouds cushioned the white peak of Cairngorm until the dipping sun was a golden coin amidst the blazing sunset.
Andrew pointed down the gentle slope of the strath. They needed food and rest. In the two days since the attack, they'd made good time to the River Spey that wound its way below. Besides, he had an idea and he wanted to discuss it with Waltir and his uncle. If it would work... It would give them their first real victory and a foothold for winning back the north of Scotland.
As his men built a campfire, the first they'd risked since the attack, and taking the panniers off the horses to water them at the edge of the river, Andrew paced, occasionally clicking his tongue against his teeth and rubbing a long triangle of cloth with his thumb. At last, he crouched beside the rippling blue water as it caught the last rays of the sun. To the north and, distant, unseen, lay The Black Isle. It was finally time to go home.
Robbie Boyd dropped a hand on his shoulder and he started. "Come to the fire." Boyd's mouth took on a cocky slant. "Some of those horses carried wine."
Weight mainly on his good leg, Andrew stood up and shoved Robbie's shoulder. "You would find the wine."
"Aye, and I mean to drink my share of it. There is too much on the horses to take back to the caves." The grin dropped from Robbie's face. "And your uncle opened one that was full of patens, chalices, and altar cloths. They've been stripping churches."
Gil thrust a wineskin into Andrew's hands and he tilted it for a long drink. It was dark and strong and tasted of oak. He'd never had a wine taste so fine. Taking back from thieving English improved it mightily. He handed it back. "Two skins amongst us," he said. "I'll not risk anyone drunk."
Hamish grumbled under his breath but nodded when Andrew told him to take the first watch. Hamish took another long pull before he walked into the dark. The curve of the river would protect their backs. Still, he wasn't going to take any chances. A goodly pile of deadwood was crackling and spitting in the middle of the camp, but the high branches of the beech woods would break up the smoke and the thickly spaced trunks hid the glow.
He took the slice of ham and hunk of cheese that one of the men handed him and jerked his chin for David and Waltir to join him. "You too, Robbie. I want to hear what you think." Under his cocky grin and jibes, Andrew suspected there was a mind he'd be able to put to use.
The men settled to lounge around the fire, one of the monks tending to the few wounded. The horses were tethered in a string near the river where they'd been watered, the tack and panniers stacked next to them. He nodded to himself.
"If I'm not wrong, this is Cressingham's pennant." He held out the silver pennant with three black swans embroidered on it.
Waltir wrinkled his forehead in a heavy frown as he took it. "He wasn't with those men. I'd recognize the fat devil and he'd never travel with so small a tail."
"No, of a certainty he wasn't there, but that had to have been his supplies we helped ourselves to, no doubt on their way to his treasury. Even better, we got our hands on his banner. I'm thinking that we can put it to good use."
Boyd propped up a huge tree trunk with his shoulder. "You're thinking of moving against Avoch Castle."
"Are we ready for that?" Waltir asked, still scowling.
David just crossed his arms, looking thoughtful.
"When will we be more ready? Even though we're few, with the sumpter animals we'll make the impression of a larger party. Even if they aren't expecting supplies at Avoch, who will question when a supply train arrives flying the High Treasurer's banner?"
His uncle nodded slowly. "That will get us in the gate. You have the right of it. But we'll be badly outnumbered once inside."
"We'll have the surprise." He rubbed his thigh, more a habit than because it was aching, as he looked over the camp. He'd already had the men don the armor they'd stripped from the English. Yes, it would do. Risky. What wasn't? "Anyone have any thoughts? What have I missed?" He tore into the chunk of ham with his teeth and chewed.
"Most of Father David's men are not used to fighting on horseback," Robbie Boyd said. "Have them leading the horses on foot. The six of us mounted should be enough to look all right riding in. The brothers will need to change out of their robes."
Waltir nodded. "We have enough pikes for everyone. They'll be better with those than with swords."
Andrew swallowed the ham and wondered if there was still a mouthful of the wine. "We'll follow the Strathspey north then and turn west. A day will put us at the Black Isle." No isle at all but a narrow peninsula that thrust between Beauly Firth and Moray Firth, black because when the rest of the land was snow bound in winter, the Black Isle huddled dark amidst the warmth of the sea. Home. It gave him an ache in his chest. He had been gone too long.
"You could call on the caterans, raise them. They'd follow you," his uncle said. "This small a number to take the castle is too much of a risk."
Andrew shook his head. "There's no way we could get them into the castle. No, it will have to be done in secret, a sneak attack. Afterwards... Then I'll call out our men and we'll train them." He put a hand on Waltir's shoulder. "I count on you for that. First, though, we must take Avoch Castle. It's an oath I mean to keep. I shall have my father's home. I shall raise his banner there."
Robbie Boyd looked frowning at the two injured men who were wrapped in cloaks and huddled near the fire. "Perhaps you could send them to the Cathedral while we go on? They're in no state for a fight."
"No, it's too closely watched," David said. "Cressingham forced three English canons upon the bishop. Worse, the bishop is ailing. They'll try to make us elect an English bishop on us when he dies." He looked up, thin lipped.
Church problems were out of Andrew's ken but he chewed his food, thinking over what to do about his injured men. "We could leave them behind at a camp. It's two days until we reach Avoch. I'll see how they fare when we're near."
The next day they traveled from dawn to dusk through woods golden with autumn, the dusty smell of grass in breezes that rattled, blowing leaves like pennants. When they climbed the other side of the Strathspey, they faced waves of undulating spruce. Come dark, they camped under a frigid sky and ate cold by the light of a harvest moon. Andrew set watch though they had seen no sign of other travelers. The next day at noon, the Black Isle stretched before them, a patchwork of greens and grays and heather hills, all set in a bed of opalescent seas. A road wound like a brown snake toward Avoch, out of sight beyond the hills the braes. Cots, thatch roofed, dotted the land, spaced with stubbly harvested fields. High overhead a school of mew gulls moaned, sailing high on a wind.
He pointed to dense spruce woods where they would camp for the night. Those would put them only a day's ride from home. The day after, it would begin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Andrew let one hand rest, relaxed, on the hilt of his sword as they rode the wide track up the he
athery hill towards the gate. Banners snapped above its red stone towers, one the Cross of St. George and the other green with a boar device that meant nothing to him. Beside him, Robbie Boyd shifted his hold on the staff that bore Cressingham's swan banner, whipped by a breeze that mixed the smell of sweet flowers with dead seaweed. The only sound was the clatter of hooves and rattle of harness and the slap of waves from the firth behind them.
The road was strangely empty. In the distance from a cot, a tendril of smoke rose. A man fled at the sight of them leaving a couple of long-horned, shaggy cattle to fend for themselves.
Two guards paced the parapet, crossbows over their shoulders, half-hidden by the tooth-like square merlons.
"Greet them," Andrew said in an undertone. "And try to sound English."
Robbie laughed with a choking sound and cleared his throat. "Ho, the gate!" he called.
Andrew flicked his reins and drew up short of the green-streaked water of the moat. Wisps of fog drifted, and the dark wooden drawbridge was firmly closed.
"Who goes?" yelled down one of the guards.
Andrew cupped his hand to his mouth. "Do you want these supplies or do I return them to Master Cressingham with your regrets?"
An eagle sailed lazily overhead while the man stared down. At last, he said, "I've no orders. Hold while I get Sir Nicholas."
Andrew motioned to Hamish. "Have Iain and Rorie hand off their animals as soon as we're through the barbican. Pretend they need to piss... They must be next to the stairs to the parapet and take out those crossbowmen when I give the cry."
Hamish ducked his head and rode slowly back along the line of laden horses to the last two men in the line.
Another figure appeared on the parapet. Andrew called up, "I'm of no mind to wait all day, man. Open the gate or the supplies go back to Master Cressingham."
"Open the gate," someone said and wood groaned as the drawbridge began its slow descent. Behind it, the iron portcullis was cranked up, chains screeching. A soon as the drawbridge slammed onto the ground, Andrew kneed his horse and clattered across, Robbie beside him. He resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder at the clatter of hooves. They had their orders. He must trust them to follow.
He plodded through dark tunnel of the barbican, flexing his shoulders and trying to look relaxed in the saddle. Robbie softly hummed a tune. Narrow shafts of light from the murder holes broke the murk. His horse's hooves raised puffs of dust as he entered the inner bailey. Across the yard, a stableman was leading a horse from the long wooden stables. The doors of the keep were closed. A man in blue tunic and hose under half armor, a fur cloak whirling around him and sword belt at his waist, strode down the stairs from the parapet with a man-at-arms at his back.
"We weren't expecting another supply train," he said.
"You're the Sir Nicholas?"
"Of course." The man scowled up at Andrew.
Andrew sighed loudly. "I have my orders, Sir. If you don't want the supplies, tell Master Cressingham, not me. I'm to return with any wool or other goods that you have for my lord's treasury."
The man walked closer. "Don't talk rubbish. I'll take the supplies, but I have nothing for Master Cressingham until the spring shearing."
"And then?"
"What do you mean? At his orders, all the wool will go to him in Glasgow." The man stopped a stride away, forehead wrinkled and eyes narrowed.
Iain and Rorie were in position at the foot of the steps that led up to the parapet. The guards looked outward over the wall, having apparently lost interest. Andrew caught Robbie's eye and nodded.
Andrew jerked his sword free, but Sir Nicholas had his drawn at the same time. "On them!" Andrew yelled as he hacked at the man's blade, shoving it aside. With a downward slash, he caught Sir Nicholas at the angle of shoulder and neck, blade biting deep into flesh and bone. Sir Nicholas's blade fell to the ground. The yard was shouting chaos.
The keep doors flung open and half a dozen men rushed into the yard, blades in their hands. Andrew winced as a bolt thudded into the dirt at his horses hooves. It snorted and danced. He threw a quick glance, but his men were already on the parapet. The sumpter horses whinnied in panic and backed up, looking for some way to run but fighting was all around them. Andrew jerked the reins on his skittering, snorting animal and turned to the attackers. His next victim fell, arm cut off at the shoulder in a welter of blood. Two more came at him abreast but he had the reach on them from his horse and soon felled them. Further fights broke and faltered as the English rallied. A dozen more had rushed from quarters across the yard.
Andrew hauled on his reins and rode toward them, his sword ready and showing its silver edge through the clotted blood. An onrushing soldier skewered one of his men, his scream of agony weaving together with their opponents shouts of rage.
"To me!" he shouted. "A Moray!"
Boyd jerked his horse into a whinnying turn and hacked down one of the English. Trusting the men at his back and their ready pikes as they thrust and stabbed at the dodging soldiers, Andrew kicked his horse forward, careful not to outstrip the others. He cut and sliced and parried.
The enemy was quick to react to the counter-attack, forming into a wedge, blades raised. A battleaxe scythed at his head. He ducked the blow. The man ran past him. Andrew cursed. They were forcing their way toward the door of the keep. "Get to the doors," Andrew shouted to his uncle but David had an opponent grasping his reins and thrusting at his face. These were no warhorses accustomed to bloody battle, and David's horse neighed in terror, bucking, so that both men struggled as much with the animal as with each other.
"Keep them from the doors!"
Robbie was beside him, sword in his hand, David with him having killed his opponent. They used blade, shield and fist to stop the fleeing opponents. They couldn't stop them all.
Already half-dozen opponents had reached the stone steps and sprinted toward the open doorway. Another thrust the lifeless body of one of his men into his horse's face. The animal reared, snorting and sweating. Hamish flung himself off his horse to hack the fleeing man through the legs. He staggered to his knees in a flurry of blood.
The door slammed closed. There was a heavy thud and then another. It was barred from the inside. Andrew ground his teeth. The keep was built to stand off an army.
"Damn them to the devil." He slammed his sword into its sheath. "Curse and damn them."
Andrew turned his horse in a tight circle, surveying the damage. The soldier on the steps rolled over, his groan turning to a whimper; another crawled toward the gate. The ground of the bailey was bloody mud, churned by hooves and fighting.
"Tie any prisoners. Take care of our own and then bandage them if they live." He kneed his horse and wended his way through the bodies lying askew to the stairs of the parapet. "And catch those horses before they bolt out the gate."
He slid from the saddle, ran up the stairs, to the corner tower, past a body lying atop a crossbow, and dashed up the inner stairs. He threw open the cover and climbed up. At the top, surrounded by the tall merlons, fluttered the white banner of England with its cross of St. George.
Andrew grabbed it with both hands, growling, and jerked the staff free. He glared at the hated thing. Then like a spear, he hurled over the edge. It hit the green water of the moat. For a moment, the white and red of the banner spread across the water before it sank out of sight.
Turning in a slow circle, all of the Black Isle spread out around him and beyond stood the mountains like a shadow. Sea birds wheeled over his head in a steel gray sky whilst below his men claimed the bailey and dragged away bodies. As a lad, Andrew had perched here for hours watching everything: men drilling with steed and steel in the yard, servants hoeing in the vegetable garden behind the kitchen, girls talking as they carried water in from the well, a shepherd herding sheep in the nearby fields. He hadn't known how precious it all was.
He opened and closed his hand, sticky with blood. He stank of it. The castle stank of blood and the loosed b
owels of dying men then a breeze came off the firth sharp with the smell of the sea and he breathed it deep.
He was saddle weary, dirty, fouled, still half-lame from his wound and his chest aching with grief. But no one else would put things right again. He took one more deep breath of the sea air before he turned to go back down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hamish clapped him on the shoulder, a wide grin splitting his round face. "You'll make a knight yet."
Already the bailey yard was gaining a semblance of order. The last sumpter horse had been cornered by a couple of men as the other horses were led to the stables. A dozen wounded lay silent except for an occasional moan, where they'd been hauled next to the wall. One of the lay brothers knelt bandaging a man's leg. A broad, unshaven face peered around the wall of the smithy. A man with a chest like a keg of ale and arms to match stepped out of the doorway, staring at Andrew.
Delight shot through Andrew like a drink of strong ale. Suddenly, he was grinning, too. Holy Mary, this was a man he'd known all of his life.
Cathal of Myll walked toward him, slowly shaking his head. "Young Andrew?" the armorer said. "It's truly you?"
"It is." A laugh shook Andrew and he wondered how long it had been since he'd laughed. "And glad to see you, man. To see you alive and walking."
His uncle was scowling at the man. "And you hid in your smithy instead of aiding him."
The smile faded from Cathal's face and he flushed. "How was I to know it was young Andrew? Or you, Master David? I thought 'twas the cursed English fighting and I left them to it."
"Hold. Both of you." Andrew beamed at Cathal. "Of a certainty, you'd let the English kill each other. I've no reproach."
A stableboy approached, open-mouthed. Andrew gave him a smile. The lad looked like he was like to bolt from fear.
"How many English were here, Cathal?"
The smith rubbed the dark stubble on his chin. "Forty or thereabouts. Not counting the servants a'course."