CHAPTER NINE
The sight of Castle Dar rising on the ridge overlooking Loch Dundragon stole Maggie’s breath. It was large and magnificent, hewn of stones that glittered silver in the sunlight. The ramparts were high and crenelated; two turrets rose on either side. Banners, bearing the iconic family crest, a fierce dragon, flapped in the wind.
As they’d followed the track in, past the crofts heavy with summer wheat, signs of prosperity were everywhere. Fat villeins, numerous chickens and healthy shaggy cows. The crofters all raised a hand to them and called greetings.
They’d turned the corner on the top of the hill and the plains of Dar spread out before her. The little village, nestled at the base of the hill and there above it, the castle, framed by blue skies and puffy clouds.
It could be a postcard, had they been invented yet.
Maggie gusted a sigh. It was beautiful. It felt like home.
As they passed through the village, everyone waved. Tall, braw lads and lasses dressed in the kirtles of the day. They were her people, far-removed, of course. But they were her people.
They crossed the moat and rumbled over the bridge, beneath the gaping portcullis. Maggie tipped back her head and soaked in every detail. The well-oiled chains and the pulleys. The murder holes built into the passage. All exactly as she’d expected it to look. It was fascinating.
The bailey of the castle fascinated her as well. They passed the guard house, the dove cote and the smithy. She could see the gardens and what looked like an apiary on the far side, and the stables to her left. Men and women of all ages bustled about their work. She took it all in with delight.
But apparently, she was not to be allowed delight.
The cart stopped and Ewan hopped out. “Come along, you,” he growled, grabbing her ankles and dragging her from the cart by her feet. As unseemly as this treatment was—and his continued use of her tether—Maggie tried to hide her outrage. She’d come to terms with the fact that these men didn’t trust her. It was the consequence of her situation and hardly their fault. They were simply trying to protect their people.
Ewan took her arm and led her toward the north tower, but before they reached the steps, a horn blew. The activity in the bailey shot from busy to frenetic, like a beehive, nudged too hard.
“What is it?” she asked, but everyone ignored her. Really ignored her. Ewan and Harry ran back to the portcullis, leaving her standing in the yard. They gestured madly at the villagers who were now streaming into the castle.
One old woman bustled past her, with a basket of vegetables. Maggie grabbed her arm. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s happening?”
“’Tis the Camerons,” she said. “They are approaching from the east. “It looks as though they’ve brought an army.”
And that quickly, her delight at finally seeing her ancestral home deflated.
They were under attack.
As the last of the villagers scuttled into the keep, the portcullis rolled down in an ominous clank and the men pulled up the bridge over the moat. Men and women—farmers and milk maids, scuttled to the armory and began carting arrows and spears up to the ramparts.
It seemed well-ordered and practiced. Dominic had, perhaps prepared his people for such an event. Or it had happened before.
Pushing through the crowd making their way into the castle proper, Maggie headed for the rampart steps; she took them two at a time.
The men stationed on the wall shot her odd glances, but said nothing as she made her way to Ewan’s side. She watched in silence as a wave of armed and mounted men in blue plaids swept across the plain.
It was a breathtaking sight, but not in a good way. They pounded closer and then halted, about three hundred feet from the castle wall.
“What do they want?” she asked in a whisper.
Ewan frowned down at her. “You shouldna be here.”
“Why not?”
She expected him to spew some nonsense about women being helpless and frail, but he just said, “The Macintosh would no’ like it. He wanted me to keep you safe.”
“I’m perfectly safe.”
His nostrils flared. “This is an attack, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“I have noticed. I’ve also noticed they stopped out of range.” While the Macintosh arrows could not reach them, the enemy, in turn, could not hit the broad side of the castle…at least, not from that distance. “Besides, I’ll have you know, I wrote an entire chapter in my Masters thesis on siege warfare tactics of the Middle Ages.”
“The middle what?” His brow rumpled. “I have no idea what that means.”
“It means I can help. So quit bugging me and let me think.” She thrust her hands out. “And untie me.”
He frowned at her, but he complied. Then he turned to his men and began barking orders for them to finalize their defense. Maggie studied the movements of their enemies, as they surrounded the castle in a semi-circle and started setting up camp. Several large carts followed them at a distance. One carried the familiar lines of a trebuchet and another, with a domed wooden roof, was undoubtedly their battering ram machine.
It was the beast that followed that made her heart lodge in her throat. These Camerons were serious. An enormous siege tower rolled onto the plain. It moved slowly on lumbering wheels, but that didn’t make it less ominous. She knew the damage a siege tower could wreak on a castle.
As menacing as the battering ram and the trebuchet could be, the tower was the real threat. They had to incapacitate it at once.
She turned to Ewan. “Do you have a ballista?” Like an overgrown crossbow, a ballista had tremendous force and could catapult lethal bolts much farther than a bow and arrow. It was usually used in offense, sapping walls and taking out castle defenses. But a weapon was a weapon. She would use everything they had to fight off this incursion.
“Aye.”
“Excellent. And a marksman with very good aim?” At Ewan’s nod, she pointed at the siege tower. “Have him target the wheels.” They were large, to carry the weight of the wooden tower.
“The wheels, my lady?”
She ignored the fact that he’d accidently granted her a title of respect. There was hardly time to gloat about winning him over. “Yes. If we can send several bolts straight on into those wheels, they won’t be able to move it. The tower will be useless to them.” As useless as a booted car in impound. “And get some more oil up here. We’ll need it when they drop their ladders.” They would likely be dampened, or covered with wet hides, but oil burned through hides. Men burned too. If they tried to breach the walls, she had no compunction about giving them a hot oil treatment.
She scanned the woods in the falling evening, mentally calculating distances between targets and cover. “Ewan, do you have escape tunnels?” Most castles did. Escape tunnels, sapping tunnels and secret sally ports.
He gaped at her. “Do you want to escape?”
She snorted a laugh. “No. But we can send our best archers out once it gets dark. They can hide in the woods around the enemy encampment and then, upon our signal, send flaming arrows into their camp.”
“Flaming arrows?”
“Tell them not to aim for the men,” she said. They were far too easy to miss. “Aim for their tents and supply stores.” Demoralizing the enemy was rule number one in warfare, according to Richardson. She was so glad she’d read his book. “And target their trebuchet and their battering ram as well.” All those weapons were made of wood. It was probably folly to imagine a few arrows could destroy them, but it didn’t hurt to try. A pity it was too dangerous to send a man into their midst to douse the weapons with oil first.
But then an idea blossomed. She snapped her fingers and grinned at Ewan.
“What?” He stared at her, thoroughly bemused.
“A Molotov cocktail.”
“A what?”
“We send the archers in with jars filled with oil, which they launch into the weapons store, and onto those machines. Then follow with flaming arrows.”
Ewan’s nostrils flared. “You are a fierce lass.”
“Oh, and I want oil poured on the moat as well.”
“On the moat?”
“If we need to, we can light it. No doubt they’ll try to breach the walls with ladders.”
Ewan shook his head. “Where did you learn all this?”
She merely smiled sweetly in response. “Oh, and one more thing. Was that an apiary I noticed by the garden?”
He blinked. “Aye.”
“I would like to speak to your beekeeper.”
His brows knit, but he nodded.
She clapped her hands. “Well? Come on. Let’s get moving.”
She had a castle to save.
* * *
Bluidy hell.
They were too late.
The Camerons were already here.
Dominic peered over the rise at a sight that curdled his blood. The enemy had his castle surrounded. Their bluidy blue banners snapped merrily in the wind. Thank God it was nearly nightfall and they weren’t quite set up for an attack. Torquil would most likely wait until dawn. For now, he had his drummers playing and his men chanting and pounding their spears in an attempt to frighten the castle denizens.
He’d trained his people, warned them what tactics an enemy might take. He hoped they remembered his exhortations. He also hoped that Angus was fleet of foot. That he would bring reinforcements from the other clans. Judging from the army Cameron had amassed, they would need help fighting them off.
For now, he had to get into the castle.
It was a damn shame he had his best strategists with him. Between Declan and Liam, no one was better.
“Come on,” he whispered. Voices carried on the night air. “To the sally port.” It would take them a while, as he knew they had to go on foot, and circle the valley. If they were lucky, they’d get there by dawn.
As they made their way through the woods, parallel to the enemy’s camp, campfires flared and the Camerons settled in for the night. Dominic knew it was far too soon to feel relief, but he was glad they had not elected to attack at once.
No doubt, they felt confident that their presence would be intimidating enough to keep their prey on edge all night.
To his surprise, he saw an arrow, one lone flaming arrow arch from the ramparts and through the sky. It landed woefully short of the enemy camp, thudding impotently into the dirt. His chest clenched. Who the hell was running things on the ramparts? Did they not know the range of an arrow?
But then, to his surprise, other arrows began to fly—and not from the castle. From the woods. A fiery rainstorm of them. And they kept coming. He watched in shock as the blazing arrows landed on the Cameron tents throughout the camp, on their supply carts and their war machines, wreaking havoc.
One arrow hit their trebuchet and it exploded into flames.
Cries rose and men scattered, batting at flames and running for water.
Dominic bit back a smile.
Brilliant.
Brilliant strategy.
Who was running the defenses from the ramparts?
Whoever it was, they would be joining his elite team of warriors…if they all survived this.
With the Camerons distracted, Dominic and his men raced through the woods toward the sally port, the secret gate that led into the castle. Dawn was just breaking as Dominic pulled a stone from the wall and pulled out the hidden key. He fit it in the lock. It creaked as he turned it.
The door had not been used for decades and the gate had rusted. There was a mound of dirt blocking its path. Dominic set his weight against the bars and pushed it open. It took a while to create a passable gap.
He eased through and his men followed.
Liam was the last through. He set his shoulder to the grate to push it closed. It resisted. “I’ll lock it,” he said. “You go on.”
Dominic nodded and sped up the stairs, through the second and third gates, which opened and locked using a series of hidden levers.
They emerged in the larder, behind a shelf of crockery and raced through the castle halls into the bailey. Then they bounded up the rampart steps.
Dominic stopped short.
Maggie—glorious and fierce, with her hair streaming out behind her—stood by Ewan, barking out commands.
And his men were obeying her.
It took a moment for this to sink in.
He cleared his throat.
She whipped around. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. Damn, she was beautiful in the soft morning light. A flush rose on her cheeks. “Dominic.”
“Maggie. I…what are you doing?”
Apparently she did not care for his tone. She set her fists on her hips and snapped, “Mounting the defense of your castle.”
He glanced at the small trebuchet, one they kept for defense and target practice, and then at three small bundles wrapped in rags. Oddly enough, they…hummed. “Ah… What…what are these?”
She grinned. It was a heinous, evil, wicked grin. “A wake-up call.” She turned to Ewan. “Are we ready to launch?”
Ewan glanced at him for guidance—Dominic shrugged—and Ewan nodded. “Let’s do it.”
The trebuchet released its first strange missile. As it flew through the air, the rag wrapping it whipped away. The missile fell dead center in the enemy camp. But before it landed, Maggie was already repositioning the catapult and placing the second missile gently in the cup.
A yowl rose from the camp below. Dominic glanced that way and his eyes widened. Camerons scattered, hither and yon, howling and batting the air around them.
“Fire two,” Maggie warbled. Her tone held far too much glee.
She quickly re-sighted and fired the third and final missile. In short succession, those missiles landed on either side of the camp with similar results.
“What, may I ask, did you send them?” He had to ask. Whatever it was, it was ingenious and evil. The Camerons were in chaos.
“Just a little something sweet.” Like her smile. He longed to kiss her but this was hardly the place.
“What?”
“Beehives,” Ewan said.
Dominic looked out at the field again and his lips quirked. A chuckle rose up within him, and then a laugh. It rang across the ramparts and over the bee-infested lea.
Below, Torquil Cameron glared up at him. And then he shook his fist.
And then, of course, he howled and swatted at his neck. But it was far too late. The bees had found him.