Well, Bonnie thought, tears rolling down her cheeks, he was welcome to them. If he wanted to turn his back on her, if her friendship and her trust meant nothing to him, then he must go and find renown on the battlefield. She wanted no association with a man who thought killing was a good idea, that violence was good!
“Bonnie?” she heard him calling from outside the door. “Are you there..?”
Bonnie stiffened and shrank back against the wall. She didn’t want him to know she was there. She didn’t know how she would respond, if he was face-to-face with her, so she stayed where she was, breathing shallow, and listened to him calling her.
“Bonnie…och, lass?” he called through the door. She heard him tap, then sigh, then the sound of booted feet, retreating over a stone path.
Good. She waited until he had gone completely, and then slipped out of the barn and back into the warmth of the kitchen.
“Bonnie! I was just thinking that we should dye some wool. You’ll be needing new things too, and…lass?” Barra stopped mid-sentence. “What’s the matter? Have you got something wrong with your eye?”
“Some dust,” Bonnie demurred, dabbing at her eyes. She turned to look into the fire, not wanting her friend to see the tears, covering her face. She drew in a steadying breath.
Arthur Radley! If you go and die there, you’ll take my heart with you.
It was only after she thought the words that she realized something she had never considered before. She was falling in love with Arthur, and she hadn’t known until this very moment.
To The Field Of Battle
Arthur sat up on the pallet where he slept in the barn, his blanket sliding to the floor as he moved. Something had woken him. He leaned back against the wall and drew in a soft breath as he listened to the sounds of the night – the soft sigh of wind, the drip of rain from the roof tile. Somewhere, he could hear the steady sound of Bonnie, breathing.
He sighed. It was early morning, he guessed. He heard a rooster call again and realized that was what had woken him. He glanced over at Bonnie, who was still asleep.
I will miss you, lass.
He felt his heart clench with the thought of riding away from her. He couldn’t go away! However, he thought sorrowfully, he had to do it. There was a resistance forming, a group dedicated to driving the English from Scotland. With them, he could strike a blow at all those who would dare to harm a lass like Bonnie. He would be making the country a safer place, for her.
Would he, though?
As the thought came to him, he closed his eyes, biting his lip. There were just as many felons living in Scotland – Miller, the people who had raised her, the villagers who’d cast her out – as there were in the invading forces. His warmongering mindset wasn’t all that different to their violence, was it?
You’ll drive yourself mad, you fool.
He chastened himself harshly. He was doing the right thing. He wasn’t harming Bonnie! She was happy here. He was leaving her in the best hands. He hadn’t meant to stay here, had he?
“You fool,” he whispered to himself.
He stood and tiptoed to the corner where his cloak lay, draped over the bags of grain. He shook it out slowly, not wanting to make any sounds that would alarm Bonnie. She would wake soon, and he wanted to leave before she did so.
I cannot say goodbye.
A lump blocked his throat and he cleared it, furiously. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t going to doubt his decision. He was doing the right thing, making the only sensible choice.
Walking as lightly as was possible on the hard ground, he slipped out through the door. Shutting it firmly behind him, he walked through the clear morning air, feeling it cold on his cheeks. His heart was heavy.
Walking away from her is the hardest part of it.
He swallowed hard, trying to ignore the lump that blocked his throat at the thought of her. He was going away to fight the invaders! Spending his time weeping about a lass was not a sensible way to go about it.
Even though, he thought with some sadness, the lass is the greater part of why I'm was going.
“Hey?” a voice called, low and even, from the woods. “Who goes there?”
“Alec?” Arthur greeted the man, as he realized who’d called him. “It’s me. Arthur. Are we ready?”
“I am,” Alec chuckled lightly. “And so’s Bert here, and Camry. I brought you this. Had breakfast?” He slapped a parcel of bread and eggs into his hand. “And these.” He indicated to Camry, a dark-haired man who was standing in the clump of trees, and he passed him a pair of boots.
“Thanks.” Arthur stared. Breakfast, and new shoes. The prospects of the resistance went up in his mind. Any group who had sufficient capital to shoe their soldiers was a group worth joining, in his mind.
Stuffing the parcel of bread and other food into his belt pouch, he bent to change his shoes. They fit well, and the relief, after wearing holed and bent ones, was remarkable.
“They’re good, aye?” Alec asked, with a knowing air.
“Like walking on feathers,” Arthur declared, feeling a little light-headed. He had never been part of a group before, never been accepted. Now, he had friends who were eager to make his acquaintance, a supply of ready meals. As well as new shoes. Which, he thought as he stepped onto his boots, feeling the softness and ease of the soles under his stride, was more than he’d had in ages.
“I’d like you to meet the rest of the lads,” Alec said. He was, it seemed, in charge of this troop of men. “These here are Bert and Camry, and Brodgar. Over there are Red and Lewis.”
Arthur nodded, glancing sideways at the last man. He was sure he recognized him. After a few glances, taken from out of the corner of his eye as they marched through the woodlands, he realized with some shock who it was. Miller!
They walked on. Arthur glanced over at Miller once or twice more, trying to fathom whether or not the fellow recognized him. As far as he could see, he didn’t. He watched him carefully, feeling the hair on the back of his neck start to stand up. If he did recognize him, all he needed was for him to start telling stories about a witch and Arthur and Bonnie would be in danger again.
He tried to forget about him and turned his attention to the group leader.
“So,” Alec informed happily. “We’re off to join the wing of men with the resistance. There’s a man, I’ve heard tell, who’s gathering us all together in Inverness. He’s training the knights himself, but of course us poor ass scratchers won’t be seeing the high-and-mighty likes of him!” he grinned ingratiatingly at them all. Arthur nodded. Miller chuckled.
“Where will we stay?” Arthur wanted to know.
“Farms,” Alec shrugged. “Many men are loyal to the resistance. Of course, if they’re not, we won’t go there. Or we’ll just pretend we’re a party of traveling singers. Myself, I don’t think that’ll hold water long.” He chuckled amiably.
Arthur felt his teeth clench. He was in no mood for humor right now. It seemed like Alec was, though, for he kept it up all the way through the brightening woodlands – laughing, joking and generally making the men laugh. Arthur marched with his new boots on and tried to ignore the emptiness that settled in his heart.
I wonder if I will ever see her again.
The thought was so wintry, so sorrowful, that he tried not to think it. He would come back, and Bonnie would still be there. He prayed that she would be, at any rate. He wished he could write, so that he could have left a note for her. He shook his head at the notion.
Men like you don’t write. Writing is for priests, and for landowning men. Even some of them couldn’t write.
He grunted as his foot slipped on the mud, and he stepped out of the line a moment and the back in. The men were moving at a fast pace across country, and the sky was already lighter than it had been. Soon, the day would be on them. Birds sang overhead, and the patches of sky that showed in between the leaves were a pale blue like mountain heather. He guessed that Alec wanted to lead his party to shelter
and move at dusk and dawn, to avoid detection by patrols.
“How far until we find other men going to Inverness?” he wanted to know.
Alec shrugged. “Two days?” he looked peaceful. “Hard to tell. We’ll stop at taverns and listen to the word. Somebody will know where they’re collecting.” He walked briskly, his voice tight as he breathed. All the men around them were walking briskly, too, the march swift and directed.
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Arthur wanted to know. “I mean, if we know, can’t the English?” It seemed ridiculous to spread around the fact that they were resistance fighters! If there was so much as one English soldier nearby, they’d be captured and brutally tortured and the entire uprising would be in ruins. He stared at Alec in some surprise. He hadn’t thought he would do something so foolish.
“English don’t have spies everywhere,” Alec said lightly. “And most around here aren’t loyal to that cut throat. Not now.” He spat.
Arthur guessed he meant following the massacre at Berwick. He frowned, as a thought occurred to him.
“Wouldn’t it make things faster if we went to Dunbar?” he asked. “We could sail from there to wherever is close enough to Inverness. It would be safer. And we could take other men along too.” He was thinking aloud, planning it in his head. His captain, he was sure, would agree to such a venture.
Alec stared at him. “Dunbar?” he asked. He had the strangest expression on his face, and Arthur wondered what he’d said that was so odd.
“You mean…” Camry asked. Bert hushed him with a well-aimed shove as Alec answered.
“Dunbar was overrun. Two days ago.”
Arthur stared at him in horror.
It felt as if his world was swimming, turned upside-down. Dunbar, overrun? Images of the town flowed through his mind. Prosperous, filled with merchants, bustling. It was impossible to imagine it as anything other than a hive of action. It was taken over by the English? He shook his head. It made no sense.
“Why?” Arthur whispered. He imagined the thousands of townsfolk, the sailors, the people fleeing from the destruction of their homes elsewhere. All of them would have fled, or been cut down. He knew enough from Bonnie’s account to know that they would have been shown no mercy.
“In reprisal,” Alec shrugged. He had a bitter expression on his face, as if the world was always like this and one was foolish to expect anything else of powerful kings. “The people have fled – those that were not killed or maimed.” The men were silent as he spoke, their sorrow shared.
“Oh, for…” Arthur felt his stomach heave and almost threw up into the grass. He looked around at the grim-faced men around him. None of them seemed surprised at his revulsion, which at least made him feel less shame. He straightened up and looked at all of them.
“We go north, towards Inverness.” he said raggedly.
Nobody said anything, but he noticed Camry and Bert nodding. It was clear that they felt as he did. This horror had gone too far now. They had a duty to stop it.
The men fell in around him. Arthur joined up with them and they marched up the hill, his calves aching from the brisk pace. The morning was cold and he shivered as they carried on through the woods and then over open country, the rain squelching in his shoes.
“About time for a break?” Alec called back to the men as they rose up on the slope. Bert chuckled.
“What’re you thinking, man? We’re hardly half way.”
Alec turned to face him, his smiling face challenging, one brow cocked. “You want to only stop when we’re half way? Fine. But don’t blame me when your feet drop off.”
The rest of the men started laughing. Arthur couldn’t help his own amusement, but if he tried to laugh his side ached with a stitch, so he stopped. They ran on. The morning was brighter now, and he could see fields in the distance. They ran on.
“You know,” Alec said, as they fell into a brisk walk beside one another, “these men are a loyal lot. I didn’t expect to get half so many good men as this.”
“Oh?” Arthur looked back at them, wondering why Alec was being so unguarded with him. He was a newcomer, but he spoke with him as an equal. The men, he thought, were a mixed bag. Some, like Bert and Brodgar, he would instantly trust, while the others were less easy to read. Miller, he thought, he’d never trust.
“Aye,” Alec said. “And they have to be loyal, because if the English garrison at Dunbar hears about this, we’ll die terrible badly.”
“I believe it,” Arthur murmured. Thinking of an English garrison at Dunbar shocked him. Thinking of what would happen, should any of the men turn back, was even more horrifying, in its way.
“That’s why I’m saying that, if any of the men sneak off, I’ll kill them myself,” Alec said, and his smile had disappeared. “If any of these blighters are working for two masters, I’ll cut their throats and not lose sleep about it.” He grinned, but he had cold eyes.
“Oh,” Arthur nodded. “Yes.”
Inside, he felt as if a boulder had fallen in his path, closing off any way back he might have had. If he ever wished to leave this band before they reached their destination, he had no doubt whatever that Alec would send men to find him, and kill him.
Beside him, the group leader had fallen silent again, and their pace had slowed as they walked under a cluster of trees. He breathed deeply and tried not to think about Alec, Miller or the future he was running to. He tried especially not to think of all he left behind him.
“Come on,” he called to the other men, who were lagging behind himself and Alec. “We need to keep up.”
Alec looked around at him and nodded appreciatively. Arthur felt a mix of pride and fear. Pride, for the acknowledgment. Fear for whatever future he was writing for himself and for the one other person he had met and learned to care about.
Alec fell into step beside him and they carried on.
The fields were damp and Arthur looked around him. He could hear the thud of the men’s feet and he listened to the rasp of their breaths. He could hear Miller running beside him, now, too, the steady rasp of his breathing loud in the morning silence. Arthur glanced at him sidelong, feeling mistrust. He had no idea if the man recognized him or not, and nor did he particularly care. He wished he could hit him hard in the face for how he’d spoken of Bonnie.
He looked around to feel someone’s gaze on him. Bert was beside him, a grin on his face that looked as if he wanted to talk.
“A good run, eh?” he asked. “That’s quite a slope. And we’ve still got two weeks’ march ahead.”
“Two weeks?” Arthur stared at him in surprise.
“I reckon.”
Arthur considered that for a moment, but he knew he was right. Inverness was as far North as he could imagine, the furthest northern point one could go before entering the Scottish Highlands. The thought struck him with surprise. The Highlands was where Bonnie must have come from! If they were going all that way, why had he not thought to bring her, at least that far?
“What?” Bert asked. Arthur blinked.
“Nothing. I was just thinking that perhaps…well…never mind.” He paused. He didn’t want to mention Bonnie anywhere around the men – mentioning her anywhere that Miller was seemed dangerous to him. He glanced sideways and noticed that the man was still close. He decided to keep his idea to himself. If he had to go back, he would leave before the end of today.
“We should stop a moment, men” Alec called back to them. “Take some breakfast.”
“Breakfast?” a man grumbled. “Who brought anything for breakfast?”
“I did,” Alec said.
They stood around and shared whatever they had brought with them for breakfast. While they did so, Arthur moved to the edge of the group, feeling the need to be alone.
He had been foolish, he thought, as he considered for the first time what he had truly done by leaving when he did. It had been pride that drove him – a need to prove himself and be like the other men. A need to get away from Bonnie and her ne
w friends before the gulf between them grew even wider and he could not step over it.
Now that he had abandoned her there, he discovered he could have taken her to the Highlands where she’d be safe. He’d left her there, but he knew now that this part of the country was no longer safe. If Dunbar had fallen, how much longer before the English roamed the countryside, killing and maiming as they went? He’d left her far too close to danger.
“Arthur?” Alec called, disrupting his thoughts. “What are you doing there?”
He sighed and turned around, walking the ten paces back to the group. “Nothing, Alec,” he said loyally. He was here now, and – when even stepping away from the group for too long was seen as suspicious behavior – he couldn’t walk away.
Not without risking death.
Friendship
The spring weather was still unseasonably cold, Bonnie thought. From where she sat in the kitchen, the sound of rain sluicing down the roof, all she could see was gray. Not that, she thought with some sadness, she would have noticed had there been anything but gray in the wintry vista.
“I don’t understand.”
All she could think of was the shock at finding Arthur gone. Nobody – the farmer, his daughter, the workers – had imagined he would simply disappear. Bonnie herself would never have expected that. Of all the people in the world, she had trusted Arthur.
“Serves me right.”
She looked away from the window, realizing she was staring out at nothing. Her heart felt as leaden as the sky outside. There was no speck of joy in the landscape, and there was none inside her. The worst part of it all, she thought sadly, was that she was the cause of all this sorrow.
Hard lessons learned throughout her life should have taught her, she thought miserably, to trust nobody. Now, what did she go and do? She’d trusted somebody and look where it had left her.
“Bonnie?” a voice called from the door, making her look up without much interest. In the doorway stood Mr. Hume. He saw her and smiled, then came limping over to the fire, to sit down by the warmth. “There you are,” he nodded affably. “I had a mind to ask you how the spinning was going.”
The Highlander's Honorable Savior (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 4) Page 13