by JR Tomlin
"Some must have been inside the keep then." Six lay bound and being treated for their wounds and fifteen bodies were being lugged to lie beside the gate to await burial. "Fewer than twenty. If the keep has been kept stocked they can hold out for a while."
"Supplies in the keep, food and such, I couldn't tell you, I'm afeart."
"But they have no water," his uncle said.
"There has always been wine and ale in the cellars. I wish we knew how much was still there."
But he didn't. He'd have to decide if they should try to breach the doors or starve the English out. The keep doors were ten inches thick, bound in iron inside and out. A ram to breach them would be no easy matter. Andrew rubbed the ropey scar on his thigh through his armor. They could solve this, but it would take time.
"Hamish, get a crossbowman on the parapet. If they get a shot through a slit... Have them take shifts for it. Robbie, we'll need guards for the doors."
"I'll take the first watch. I doubt they'll be in a hurry to rush us." Robbie scowled. "The men are weary, Andrew. Need food and rest."
Andrew grinned at the wiry, muscular knight. "You just hope they try to break out and you'll get all the glory."
"I'll keep watch with you," David said.
Andrew waited while Robbie leaned against the red stone wall near the door and pulled his sword from its sheath. He began slowly wiping clotted blood from the fuller with a cloth. David took a place on the wide step, propped his elbows on his knees and stared at the blank wood.
"Once the men have eaten, I'll find someone to relieve you," Andrew said. He put an arm around the smith's shoulder and urged him toward the gate. "Cathal, I want you to go to the town. Tell the elder--is it still Old Hew?--I've returned and would have words with him. And then we'll need a ram."
"Hew will be right glad to come to you, young..." Cathal stopped and turned to look into his face. "It's Sir Andrew, now. Or is it...lord?"
"Nay, my father still lives." He forced a smile. "It's Sir now. The king knighted me."
"Everyone will be glad o' that... Sir Andrew." Cathal frowned thoughtfully. "But I have to tell you, I've never had cause to build no ram. I'll have to think on how to do it."
Andrew patted his shoulder. "We'll figure it out."
Cathal gave him a look from under dark brows.
Andrew snorted a laugh. "Aye. I ken. You will figure it out and I'll take the credit." But maybe it wouldn't be necessary. He studied the wooden doors, blackened with age.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Andrew headed toward the barracks, a rough stone building with a shingle roof twice as high as a man. He hitched himself onto the top step and leaned against the edge of the doorway. In the yard beyond, a fire roared within a ring of stones where the plump, red-faced cook they'd found huddled in a corner of the garden turned a spit. He'd lined up neeps under the meat to cook in the drippings and Andrew's mouth watered at the scent of meat and vegetables and sweet wood smoke.
A crossbow bolt thrummed into a narrow window slit. "Good man," Andrew called up. "Keep them away from the windows for now."
"Aye," the man replied. "But 'tis hard to watch all the windows, only me."
"Do the best you can."
The man was right, but he didn't have enough who knew how to use a crossbow though it wasn't hard to learn. The three men with the skill would have to do for now.
"Sir Andrew." Cathal stumped towards him from the small, side postern gate. With him was a lean, gray man. His hair and beard were gray, what little there was of it to cover his spotted skull and thin cheeks. His tunic and breeches were a sturdy gray woolen and a short gray mantle hung from his shoulders.
The cook wiped away sweat that was dripping down his cheeks. Andrew said, "Bring us a wineskin." His mouth twitched. "Have a pull of it yourself on your way back."
The village elder leaned forward. Aged eyes scanned Andrew's face. "Old Hew," Cathal said as though Andrew could have forgotten.
"It's young Moray, right enow." He shook his head. "We were not sure we'd see you or your father again."
Andrew motioned to the steps where he sat. "It's nothing comfortable but sit yourselves."
The old man groaned as he lowered himself but Cathal squatted, hands draped between his knees. Andrew sucked on his teeth for a moment. There was too much he didn't know yet. Where to start?
"How do people fare?" He motioned towards the wall and the town beyond. "Tell me what I need to know."
Old Hew looked at him, eyes simmering with anger. "They had no need to bother us. We nae raised a hand to them." His mouth sucked into a narrow line. "The fat one in command--they said he was a cleric, but at Edirdovar Castle he took women to use. So did the others, his men. We got the women of Avoch into hiding. Anyone who argued, they killed. They stole the wool--all of it and said they had a right to it. The grain stores they took. What stock they could find, they butchered for food."
Shame flamed Andrew's cheeks. "I'm sorry." He cleared his tight throat. "We should have been here."
The old man gave a sharp nod. "'Twas your duty. You did nae defend us."
"Is there food? For the winter?"
"Some. Fish. A few cattle and sheep we hid in the hills. Some oats they didn't steal."
Andrew nodded. "I'll see what's in the stores once I take the keep. You'll have whatever is there if I have to raid to feed my men. I'll forgive all fees for the coming year in my father's name, except service." He gave the man a long look. "Service I must have."
The man's faded blue eyes studied him and then he nodded. "That you will have."
Andrew grasped the man's bony shoulder and he smiled at Cathal beyond. "Now for that ram. We need a tree trunk and wood to make it. Cathal, you'll need to make an iron cladding to cover the front and a frame for the chains to swing it."
Cathal frowned. "I've never seen such a thing, but if you draw me what you need, I'll do it."
"Hew, we need a pine trunk. It must be as big around as a man can reach and the branches trimmed. On the morrow."
The man stood. "Then you'll have it. I'm right glad to have a rightful lord back. Our women and bairns can come home now. We'll follow your father's son--that we will." He gave him a bob of the head in respect before he started toward the postern.
Andrew pulled a half-burnt stick from the fire. Using the charred end, he began to sketch on the step. "Of a truth, I've never seen a ram myself, but this should work."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Near noon the next day, Andrew strode through the opened gate followed by a dozen men hauling a huge tree trunk. The yard was full of noise and confusion. Boards were piled next to the steps into the keep; Cathal and an assistant were pounding on a frame; horses were being led from the stable and saddled; his uncle and the monks were in an uproar to be back to the Cathedral. The first snow of the autumn had fell in flurries.
Robbie Boyd was in the middle of the yard, shouting commands to the guards. He pointed towards a corner where a knot of men stood surrounding a loaded sumpter horse. "Your uncle has been seeking you." His mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Sometimes 'tis a mercy to be from a poor family."
"You'll make your family fortune yet, Robbie. Anyway, my uncle must wait." He raised his voice to shout over the clamor. "Cathal, show them where you want that."
"Is it wise for your uncle to leave before we take the keep?" Robbie asked.
"The English at the Cathedral mustn't have their suspicions raised." He put his hand on Robbie's shoulder. "I want all three crossbowmen on the parapet. Double the guards where the ram is going up, but keep them back and have the rest of the men spread out around the yard."
Robbie's lips twitched. "You want the English to know what we're doing."
Andrew clapped Robbie on the shoulder and then strode towards the steps where Cathal had the frame of the ram half-constructed, a big raw-wood frame from which the trunk could be hung by chains. He nodded. "Make as much noise as you can," he said, but considering the noise of the hamme
ring, the English inside should be easily able to hear the commotion.
Cathal raised his heavy eyebrows and hefted his hammer. "Nae hard. This will be done right soon--before nightfall."
"Even the cladding for the ram?"
"There's some iron already in a sheet that I was supposed to use for the English. T'will do. Just hammer it to fit. Won't take any time."
Two of his men joined the guards already standing on the steps. "Keep your pikes ready," Andrew told them as he started towards where his uncle stood with the brothers from the Cathedral.
"Andrew," his uncle said as he wended his way through the chaos of the yard, "the Grey Friars have agreed to stay with you. Mendicants won't be missed anywhere. But I must be off."
"I know." His uncle had to feel guilty about leaving or he wouldn't bother to explain himself. "You'll be better placed there to do what needs to be done." Andrew frowned. "I want word from Bishop Wishart what is happening in the South--if you can get a message to him. And one other thing. If there are any men you trust, to let them know I have raised my father's banner..."
David rubbed his big hands together thoughtfully. "I'll do those things, indeed. King Edward has forbidden any letters or ships to leave for Europe without his approval, but I believe I can excuse a ship for the Cathedral. And if there should happen to be armor amongst what returns..." He smiled. "Who better to use it?"
"Holy Mary knows we could use it. Pikes my smith can make, but we'll be hard pressed for armor. Most of it must be for infantry mind, not chivalry."
"Hoi there." A shout came from the top of the keep and Andrew squinted upwards. "Who is your leader?" a man yelled down.
Andrew put a hand on his uncle's shoulder. "Spread out."
David nodded and motioned the two lay brothers to move in away.
Andrew strode to the middle of the yard as silence fell over the place. The man was hidden behind the merlon atop the four-story keep. "I lead here," he shouted. "Sir Andrew Moray."
"Will you parley?"
"If you surrender, I'll spare your lives. You have my word on it."
"Not a good offer. Let us go in peace and we'll give you the keep."
Andrew smiled. "We'll take it without the giving. And I'll be in no mind to spare lives if you force me to it."
"You'll lose men. It doesn't look like you have them to lose."
"No English will hold my father's castle. Surrender it or I'll take it from you."
"Be reasonable, man."
"Your lives. My word on it. The decision is yours." He signed to Cathal to resume work. The man began pounding hooks in to hold the chains, the thuds echoing. The rest of the yard remained frozen in place.
After a minute, the Englishman yelled down, "Your word on it as a knight? You'll spare our lives? Honorable imprisonment?"
"Better than I received." Heat washed over Andrew and he took a deep breath. This was no time let his anger rule him. "You have my word as a knight."
Cathal stopped his pounding, looking to Andrew. He nodded.
Thuds came from beyond the door as it was unbarred. It was thrown open and a sword clattered on the stone steps.
Andrew pulled his blade from it scabbard as he stepped to in front of the opening. "Throw down your swords."
Robbie Boyd's sword scraped as he drew it at Andrew's side. The hall within was dimly lit, a couple of torches flickering in iron sconces. One by one, the dozen men dropped their blades at their feet.
Andrew motioned to his men and they followed him in. The Great Hall of Avoch Castle was hazy with smoke and heavy with the smell of sweating men and ale. It was a long room with a high vaulted ceiling and bench space for two hundred at its trestle tables. Its red walls were draped with banners: the white and crimson of St. George, the blue and gold that flew on the tower. Beyond the dais and lord's high table, a fire crackled on the enormous hearth.
A knight, helmed and armored under a blue tabard, came out from the stairway beyond the high dais. He drew his sword and reversed it. Through tight lips he said, "We are your prisoners."
With his free hand, Andrew took the hilt of the proffered weapon. Without answering, he spun on his heel and thrust his chin toward the prisoners. "I want them bound and stripped."
Already his men were gathering up the swords, jerking armor from their prisoners, and wrenching their arms behind them to bind them. One yelled a protest but it was cut off with a blow.
"You gave your word," the knight said.
Andrew stopped halfway to a dark opening. "Don't beat them, but if they resist..." He gave the knight a hard look. "You see they don't resist."
The opening led to a stairway of steep stone steps down into the dark. Andrew pulled loose a torch to light his way and motioned to Robbie to follow. They wended their way down narrow, steep steps to even narrower passages past closed storerooms. Sweat beaded Andrew's forehead and his stomach twisted as he walked into the dark.
His father had no need of dungeons and he'd emptied one of the storerooms to use if there was someone to keep secure until they were punished. He believed always in swift and sure judgment, yet Andrew smelled the fear and piss of prisoners in the air.
He threw a door open and realized his hands were shaking. A narrow beam of light came from high above from an airshaft into the room. A chill went through him. The room was ten strides long but narrow. It would do. "It's more than I had," he said softly. He shuddered as he limped back toward light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A smell of fish and sea salt washed into the market square. The day was bright and chilly, the waves of the firth rolled away to the horizon, the sky clear. Andrew had left off his helm the better to be seen and he tossed his head to get his blowing hair out of his eyes. Gulls mewed above a washing surf and masts of fishing boats bobbed beyond thatch roofs of the castleton. Men gathered around, shifted from foot to foot and talked in low voices, whilst behind them women looked on.
To his left, Hamish Macleod grasped a ten-foot pike with a fluttering blue Moray banner. Behind Andrew stood Robbie Boyd in full mail armor they'd taken from one of the knights. Friar Iain, with a breastplate over his robe, crossed his arms as they waited. More men pressed into the square.
Old Hew loudly cleared his throat and raised both his hands. "Whisht now!"
The talk died.
"We've much to think and talk on. Sir Andrew took back his father's castle from the invaders, you know. Our own is once again our own. More. In his father's name, he's forgiven our fees for the coming year in payment for our losses."
Amongst the nodded heads were mutters of worry.
"He is calling on all of us for our Scottish service to drive the English back to their own lands."
Andrew gave them a moment to take this in before he stepped in front of Old Hew. "Let me speak." He took his time to look into as many faces as he could. Red-heads and blonds, all fair-skinned like him although tanned from work on the sea or in the fields. Skin crinkled with exposure to the wind and the cold. Eoin mac Farquhar, a wiry redheaded man with a pug nose, scuffed a foot in the dirt and didn't look at him. They'd been playmates, running the stony coast and climbing cliffs for gulls' eggs.
Andrew frowned and took a deep breath. He must convince them. "We all know our duty. We are men of Moray and our fealty is to our king. We of Moray have never served any other lord. Our duty is to him alone and to each other." The anger of that day in Strathco Church flooded through him like a river of fire. He gasped with it. The king of the Scots on his knees. The Lion of Scotland ground under Cressingham's heel. "I was there the day they dishonored our king--and us with him. Stripped him like a felon. Ground the Lion of Scotland in the dirt. Dragged those who defended our land to dungeons and forced oaths from our leaders." His hands shook with a rage he had buried deep. He took a deep breath, then another, and reined himself in. "Have we men of Moray ever allowed a foreigner to rule us?"
"No!" someone from the back of the crowd yelled.
A lad stepped for
ward, younger than Andrew, copper-haired with a broad chest and strong looking arms. His blue eyes spat a challenge at Andrew. "We saw their army even if you have your castle back. Knights on armored horses who'd ride us down like scurrying rabbits."
Andrew gave the lad a hard thump on his shoulder. "You don't have the look of a rabbit, lad. What is your name?"
"Donnchadh mac Aoidh."
Andrew spun and jerked the pike from Hamish's hand. In both hands, his held it aloft and turned in a slow circle. "Do rabbits have pikes in their hands?"
"No," Donnchadh said, his face grimly drawn.
Andrew lowered the pike and looked into their faces. "We have always served our king, yet I can not force you to your service. But serve our king I do. To drive the English from our lands. They shall not stand. So I ask you: Will you follow me? Help me drive them out?"
They were free men and had a right to speak. Speak they did, and shout, and curse. An old man with a thin smile said that if they swore to the Sassenach king then they could serve him as their king.
An outraged roar drowned him out. "Coward!" Old Hew shouted.
"I'll not bow to the English," someone shouted.
Again the shouting started. Andrew looked Donnchadh's face, red with outrage, and knew that he had them. Never would the men of Moray bend a knee to a conqueror.
"MEN!" Andrew thundered. "Here is what I say to the English." He spat viciously into the dirt. "Edward Longshanks is nothing to me. Why should he rule over us and ours? What does he know or care of the people of Moray, or snows in the winter, the firth on the shore, or the sweet smell of heather?" He used the pike to point at the young man who had challenged him. "You? Are you with me?"
"I am!" Donnchadh said. "They can go back to their own country where they belong."
Andrew thrust the pike with its banner into the Donnchadh's hands. "Donnchadh mac Aoidh, you are my banner man." Andrew looked past Donnchadh to the crowd behind him. "The rest of you. Are you with us?"
Eoin shouted, "Yes! For Scotland!"
Another joined in. "Scotland!"
The shouts rang out: "Scotland!" "Scotland!"