by Julianne Lee
She was released from her bonds and came to help keep him upright.
Hector bent toward him to talk straight into his face, too close for comfort, and it took all of Alex’s restraint to look him in the eye and not back away. “Alexander MacNeil is your name?” Alex nodded. “Do you know who I am, lad?” Lindsay murmured near his ear in case he missed an important word. Neither of them wanted to risk misunderstanding just then.
“Hector MacNeil?” Then realization struck. “The MacNeil Laird of Barra.”
“Indeed I am. I’m also your half-brother. It seems my father when he was alive littered the countryside with bastards, and I must say the ones I’ve met have been a sorry lot. I’ve no patience for any of you, and if you give me aught for grief I’ll cut your throat myself. Do ye understand?”
Alex nodded, and trusted wholly in his sincerity.
“Good. Now, restore your clothing and hauberk, and bring your squire to my camp. Have you any horses?”
Alex realized the horses he’d had, as well as the helmets that had been tied to the saddles, were now seven years gone, and shook his head, and Hector made a disparaging noise.
“Och. Do as I say, and be quick about it.” With that, Hector left the stone hovel. The crowd began to disperse, and Roger and John moved toward the door. For one moment of madness, Alex had an intense desire to snatch his sword from the floor and whack Kirkpatrick across the back of his head with it. Alex’s fingers gingerly touched the welts on his belly that raged fiery pain, and his gut clenched in anger.
Left to their own now in the little stone house, Lindsay retrieved the T-shirt from the floor and shook out some of the dirt from it, as Alex stood and pulled the upper part of his flight suit back on, then picked up his mail shirt he now gathered was called a “hauberk.” Lindsay murmured over the T-shirt, assessing the damage, “It’s torn only along the seams. I can mend this if you’ve still got that survival kit in one of your pockets.”
Alex nodded, and knew she’d have to mend it no matter how badly shredded, for he had nothing else to wear. He climbed to his feet and pulled himself together as best he could with the zipper seam ripped at the front of his flight suit, restored his hauberk, and retrieved his belongings, then left the house with Lindsay.
The cathedral across the way dominated the town, all gothic arches and spires in brown stone, facing the little gray house of torture as if presiding over what went on there. Alex stared across at it and wondered. As he watched, ladders were raised against the cathedral walls. Men climbed them, and they set to work dismantling the roof and shoving huge pieces of metal from it onto the ground below. Someone shouted something about Robert wanting the altar to be spared, and the work proceeded. All organized, all strictly business.
Alex glanced around for the Kirkpatricks, and found them attending to business a few yards down the slope, near the enormous building. Carefully he watched them as he circled around toward a cluster of peat houses standing around the mud hollow at the foot of the rise on which the cathedral stood. There would be a fight, but he would choose his time. His account with Kirkpatrick would be settled when he was ready.
Lindsay asked around among the soldiers milling between the houses and found Sir Hector’s camp farther down the slope, by the river. A path wended its way past the hollow and to the bank, where the MacNeil laird was surrounded by a couple hundred men. A few of them were knights, but most of them were foot soldiers, relaxing around cook fires here and there among the trees. Women and boys worked around the camp while men lounged in clusters and talked. They seemed no less boisterous than the privileged cavalry Alex had known under the king, and they all seemed very happy to be there. Snatches of conversation Alex caught were about recent battles and the rewards gained from them, and speculation about prospects to come. The fighting had brought a fair amount of glory and wealth, and everyone sounded as if they anticipated more of both. Alex found himself caught up in the enthusiasm, wondering if he might see some action after all, what with the conflict heating up over the past seven years.
He presented himself to the laird, and his elbow twitched to salute even though the sight before him was as unlike every commanding officer he’d ever had as anything he could imagine.
Sir Hector lounged against a fallen log before his tent, with his plaid cloth draped around him like a cloak, and he more resembled a dining Roman as he reached over to the fire to tear a leg from the game bird roasting there. A wooden plate stacked with small, round loaves of bread sat to the side. “Alasdair,” he greeted, and gestured that Alex and Lindsay should sit and partake of the food.
“Sir Alasdair, if you please.” Alex corrected as he seated himself and tore a chunk of meat from the bird with his fingers. The heavy eyebrows went up, and the conversation continued through Lindsay. “I was knighted by the king himself last...uh, seven years ago. Shortly before the coronation.” Also with his fingers, he tore open one of the loaves of bread and stuffed it with the meat. Lindsay followed suit.
“And have you done anything of merit with your knighthood, wandering around as you have been?”
That put Alex at a loss for how to respond, so he took his time chewing and gingerly pulling his clothing away from his bloodied and drying, injured belly. The pain was subsiding to a dull throb, and the blood-soaked flight suit was sticking to his skin. Finally he sidestepped the question. “I’ve been in battle.” Never mind his weapon had been a jet airplane and not a sword.
“When? Where?”
Alex plundered his brain for a lie, but went with truth instead. “Not recently, but on the Continent when I was younger. In the mountains. The Balkans.” Quite true. “I was squire to my foster father.” A lie.
“His name?”
“Pawlowski. Uh...Igor Pawlowski.’
Lindsay coughed, and it sounded like a disguised laugh.
Alex gestured to her. “My squire is his son. Lindsay.”
Hector eyed her, then addressed Alex again. “Lindsay is a Scottish surname. Does his father have ties to Scotland?” Alex and Lindsay both said nothing, then Hector peered at Alex. “I’ve never heard of this Pawlowski.”
Again struggling for words, Alex stammered some on his reply. “I’m told...I...apparently your father’s encounter with my mother was...brief. My foster father was her distant cousin.”
“And where is your mother now?”
“She died in childbirth.”
“While bearing you, I sincerely hope, and not bringing forth yet another brat from a...brief encounter.”
Alex’s cheeks burned at the insult, though he’d brought it on himself. He responded, “Aye. I never knew my mother, any more than I knew my father.” He thought of his real mother back home, and was ashamed of his lie. Neither of his parents deserved this. Despair crept in that he might never see them again. But he raised his chin and persisted because he had to. “My only brothers are you and yours. Even my foster father is dead, and aside from my squire I’m quite alone in the world.” He swallowed, cleared his throat, and made himself add, “I’ve come here to learn what it is to be a MacNeil.”
The light in Hector’s eyes changed at that. Alex didn’t know whether it was good or bad, any more than he knew why he’d said that last, but the man’s voice did soften after that. “Well, then. Settle yourself among the men. I’ll have horses and armor sent to you, and you’ll repay me for them once you’ve captured some of your own.”
Alex nodded and thanked his new brother, then said, “What’s this I hear about the king being exiled?” He took another large bite of his bread.
“Och, it was a terrible thing. Not long after the coronation, the English caught him unawares at Methven while under a flag of truce, so he thought, and his forces were beaten and scattered. His queen, his young daughter, and the other women were seized at the sanctuary of St. Duthac. For four years the other women were held in iron cages like animals, immodestly displayed at Berwick and Roxburgh.”
Alex’s imagination took flight at
what might have been meant by “immodestly,” and he quickly decided he didn’t really want to know. He didn’t ask, but cut a look at Lindsay, who raised her eyebrows in a told-ya sort of glance.
Sir Hector continued, “The queen yet remains in the Tower of London, and the king’s daughter is held in a nunnery. Though the king struggled mightily against the forces loyal to Longshanks, he had no recourse but to leave Scotland for a short time. But he’s returned and now owns a greater part of the Highlands.”
“Where is he now?”
“We have word he’s with Angus MacDonald, bringing the Isle of Man into the fold. Over the past several years he’s marshaled his forces, and taken Edward’s garrisons at Perth, Dumfries, Dalswinton, Buittle, and Caerlaverlock. They’ve all been razed.”
“He destroyed the castles?” That surprised Alex. Castles were the seats of military power in these times.
Hector laughed. “The better to not let them fall back into English hands, for he hasn’t the men or money to garrison them himself. After the betrayal of MacDowall, he could do naught else, for there are few for him to trust as he does James Douglas. He holds the Highlands, for we Gaels have no love for the English king, the English people, or aught else that is English.”
Alex glanced at the adamantly English Lindsay, great-great-granddaughter of a duke, who was picking crumbs from the end of her sandwich and eating them very, very slowly.
Hector continued, oblivious. “Now we’re off to Stirling, to join up with the king’s brother in his efforts to purge the area of the English. He’s surrounded the castle there.”
“A siege?”
Sir Hector grinned. “If I know aught about Edward Bruce, we willnae be there long. He has no patience for sieges and would rather face the Sasunnaich in battle. He angers his cautious brother, who knows the English have more knights and more money than we Scots and are likely to overwhelm us if we fight on their terms.”
“So Robert likes sieges?”
“He likes to be where he’s least expected, and I think we would all prefer to take the castle and move on. But Sir Philip Mowbray, the garrison commander, is entrenched and stubborn.”
“So Robert’s strategy is the hit-and-run?”
That brought a short bark of a laugh and a fit of chuckling. “Aye. Hit-and-run. Excellent turn of a phrase. Hit-and-run. Also the destruction of the English garrisons, but we’ve not the siege engines King Edward has, either. It makes for a long, tiring effort to convince the English they’re no longer needed here and to move along.”
He emitted a long belch, then said, “Now, off with you. Rest yourself, for we move on in the morning.” Dismissed from the company of his ostensible half-brother, Alex took Lindsay to look for a place to build a fire and pitch the parachute.
The river wasn’t far, and some in the camp were washing linen garments that looked like drawstring drawers, then draping them over bushes to dry. “Bath,” said Alex, smiling and savoring the idea as if it were food. “It’s summer; we can take a bath.” The thought lifted his heart and took the edge off the pain of the wounds from Sir Roger’s chain.
Lindsay looked around at the woods crowded with people. “We’ll need better privacy than these fellows are likely to give us.” She took his hand. “Come. This way.” They continued up the river until the voices of Sir Hector’s encampment faded. Then they chose a flat, grassy spot in the midst of tall oak trees, Scotch pine, and thick underbrush where the water eddied behind some large rocks. She jerked a thumb toward the camp back the way they’d come and said, “You keep watch while I bathe, then I’ll be your lookout.”
For the briefest moment Alex wondered why he would need modesty in a camp filled with other men, and opened his mouth to ask, but then he remembered what Lindsay had said about circumcision. He shut his mouth, and nodded. “Of course.” He sat on a rock and posted himself with all the knightly chivalry he could muster, elbows on knees and facing away from the water. He bent to remove his chain mail, then let it thunk to the ground at his feet, and reached inside his torn flight suit to poke tenderly at his wounds. Anger rose again, and he imagined going after Roger Kirkpatrick with a chain. Let the sonofabitch see how it felt.
But there was no place for that anger to go. Alex was not yet ready to reply to this injury, so there was nothing to do but think other thoughts.
Lindsay. She was naked behind him, and the image that knowledge brought to mind leached the pain from his body like magic. His ears perked to hear every splash she made. Every little moan of pleasure at coming clean after more than a week of nothing better than hands washed in an icy stream. It would be so fine to be able to watch her. He imagined her wet, her breasts swaying as she moved, and savored the memory of her throwing away her bra. Her broad shoulders, her long, shapely arms, her very long neck atop which perched her most graceful head. His groin began to ache, as it hadn’t when she’d slept beside him, and he knew he was in trouble.
To distract himself from his distraction, he talked. “So, what’s this King Edward supposed to be like? How are we going to beat him?”
She thought for a moment, then said, “Well, by now it’s got to be Edward II. Longshanks is surely dead, and that would explain Robert’s recent successes. To the best of my recollection the second Edward wasn’t nearly as formidable an enemy as his father.”
“Is it true he’s homosexual? He was the prince in that movie, wasn’t he? The one whose boyfriend got tossed out a window?”
“Oh, yes. Definitely homosexual, though not at all the nancy boy. His preference of his boyfriend over others in his court is what will get him killed. They’re going to murder him. The king, I mean. Rather horribly, in fact.”
Alex found that intriguing. “Really? His own court?”
“Indeed. To the best of my recollection, his queen is going to have him abducted—”
“That French girl? The one who made it with William Wallace?”
She chuckled. “Yes, except that she was eleven years old when he died and more than likely never met him, let alone slept with him. And...” Her voice faltered. “Where was I?”
“The plot to murder the king.”
“Oh. Right. They’re going to kill him by shoving a pipe into his anus then running a red-hot poker through it into his guts.”
“Oh!” Alex on reflex shifted his seat. “Ow! You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. Some think it was merely a way to kill him that would look like a natural death. No obvious marks on the body, you see. Others think it was considered a poetic justice.”
“Very weird, sick poetry.”
“People here don’t think like you and I do. They were probably more concerned about being guilty of treason and regicide, and not so very queasy about how they went about it.”
Alex knew she must be right, but fell silent, turning the image of such a murder over in his mind. What a horrible way to die! Then he shook off the thought and returned his attention to the splashing sounds behind him. There was a far better image to occupy himself, even if it did make him ache with wanting to look.
The temptation was too great. He ducked his head and peeked around his shoulder to find her laid back on the surface of the eddy near the shore, scrubbing her scalp under the water with her fingers, her breasts standing straight into the air, her nipples knotted with the cold. A sigh escaped him and he nearly moaned at the sight. Her torso floated on the water, and the surface lapped at a spot a few inches below her navel where he could see the dark patch of hairs just break the ripples. It riveted him.
She sighed, and her breasts rose and fell with unutterable magnificence. Each nipple was a tight, pink rosebud. He touched his tongue to his lip, then looked away as she righted herself and climbed from the water. He imagined her emerging from the water, dripping wet and glistening all over.
Once she’d pulled on her flight suit she said, “Your turn.”
No way could he stand up just then. He pretended to search his pockets for something. “Whe
re’s that kit?”
“I’ll just find it while you’re bathing.” There was a moment’s pause, then she added, “And I assure you the water is quite cold enough to dispatch in a hurry any hard-on you may be cultivating.”
He threw her an irritated look. “Turn away.”
She chuckled, and obliged, and only then could he stand and undress. But she was right about the cold water. All warm, fuzzy thoughts of Lindsay fled as soon as he stepped into the river. It was so cold, he thought he might never exhale again.
Nevertheless, it was heaven to scrub the filth from his body and dig his fingernails into his hair and wash away the blood smeared across his belly. Huge, black welts swelled beneath the cuts left by Roger’s chain, and other, smaller purple spots from his roll down the faerie knoll made him think he must resemble a bad banana. The cold water was soothing, but it didn’t take long to put a chill on him, so he returned to the shore and his clothes where it was warm. Though they didn’t dare wash the clothes and be caught out without them, he felt pounds lighter once he was dry and dressed.
That night they slept back to back inside the parachute tent, for Alex didn’t dare roll toward her. Or even to lie on his back next to her. The relatively clean scent of her made his head swarm with ideas, his blood running persistently a little too fast for comfort, all of it wanting to collect in his groin. For hours, it seemed, he listened to her breathe before he finally was able to sleep.
Chapter Five
Stirling Castle didn’t look like much. Square towers and a battlement perched atop a rocky hill. Plain and blocky, as strictly utilitarian as a mid-twentieth-century grammar school and no more aesthetically pleasing. It appeared to have been torched not long before, then repaired, for there were patches of new gray stone amid blackened expanses. The thing looked like a burn victim with skin grafts. A square gatehouse faced the town on the hillside that sloped to the valley floor. Along that slope, between the castle and its town, and on an arm of the hill that poked out to the east, Edward Bruce’s army had erected earthwork ramparts topped with wooden barricades, behind which he set up the vigil.
