Chapter Seven

 

 

It stabbed Andrew in the heart to see the hall of his childhood in ashes, scorched into the earth as if it had never been. The only thing left standing was a single doorway that once led into his bedroom. It looked like a perverse monolith, like it had been spared by God when all around had been burned.

He had seen many buildings burnt and replaced in his lifetime but never one that meant so much to him. The corridors he had run down as a bairn, pretending he was laird of a kingdom full of dragons and princesses.

Or the later times, seeing his father planning the castle, that cough wracking him as he leaned over the parchment, calculating figures in his head, trying to work out how he was going to pay for all the work that needed doing. All that was left was in his memory. All because someone wanted to start a war.

Was it Duff MacLeish? He looked at him, a space of open ground between them. Following the age old ritual, he held his sword aloft for a moment and then tossed it onto the ground. Duff did the same and only then did the two lairds dismount.

Duff had fifteen years on Andrew, his beard turning gray, his hair thinning. He still carried himself as tall as ever. Or did he? Was there just a hint of a slight stoop as he walked into the middle of the clearing.

“You called me out to parley,” MacLeish said, his voice cold. “You bring me out from the warmth on a chill enough night to freeze a cat’s arse. You better have good reason.”

“Aye, that I have,” Andrew replied. “Let us break bread together.”

The ritual completed, they each collected their swords and waved to their men. Soon a circle of seated figures was in place on the grass. Andrew remembered watching many meetings take place this way.

He had asked his father why they were not held inside. “Would you want to sit in the hall of an enemy with no easy escape route?” was his answer. “The outdoors suit all highlanders for such purposes. It has always been this way.”

Andrew sat opposite Duff, meeting his eye, not looking away, wanting to see how he reacted when the accusation was made. “You see the remains of my father’s hall behind you.”

“Aye.” MacLeish’s face gave nothing away. Next to him, his men watched closely, their hands too near their swords for Andrew to let down his guard.

“The men who burned the hall and the village wore your tartan.”

“Did they now?” MacLeish said, sounding surprised. “And I suppose you think if I were responsible, I’d be foolish enough to send them out wearing it?”

“Are you saying you dinnae have any part in this?”

“Come on, Andrew. I like a straight fight like any man. I’m not a MacKenzie. I’m no coward who burns the homes of serfs to make a point. I’d rather take a castle with honor same as you.”

Andrew saw the subtext clear as day. “Is that a threat?”

“Your temper’ll be the death of you, laddie. I’m not the one accusing another of burning a village. You impugned my honor first, you dragged me out from my fireside because you had something vital to discuss according to your letter.

I come and I find I’m here to be accused of this? And then you accuse me of threatening you? If you want peace, this isnae the way to go about getting it.”

“You swear on the Lord that you had nothing to do with the blaze?”

“Aye though that’s not the question you should be asking.”

“What is the right question?”

“You might ask me who else might want to provoke a clan war between the MacLeishes and the MacIntyres. Who stands to gain most if we’re battling each other.”

It came to Andrew in a flash. “The English.”

“Aye, laddie. The Normans have been testing the border all along my land for months. What’s to stop them putting on my tartan to get us nice and distracted by our own feuds? Did you catch any of them?”

He thought of Beth before shaking his head. “No, not one.”

“Really? I heard you’d caught a lassie with a torch in her hand.”

He shook his head again. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Duff.”

“It could be the MacKenzies of course. They’ve sent plenty enough of their bairns to the Norman court this last year. I wouldnae put it past them to be working with the English.”

“But why? No highlander would ever…”

Duff managed a cold laugh. “The innocence of youth. So trusting. If we’re at war, they join up with the Normans and sweep the north clean, take my land and yours for themselves and divide it up with the English.”

Duff took a bite of the bread he’d been given. Andrew did the same. The meeting was over.

All the men were on their feet a second later, backing slowly from the clearing, watching each other intently.

Andrew did not turn his back until he was sure the MacLeishes were gone. Only then did he relax, breathing out heavily as his men muttered amongst themselves.

“What now?” Gillis asked as Andrew mounted his horse.

“We go home. I dinnae trust him not to ambush us in the dark. We ride fast. Keep a keen ear out for MacLeish archers.”

“And what of the words he spoke?”

“I dinnae ken. You think he spoke the truth?”

“I only ken he has more to lose from clan war than us.”

The men mounted up while Andrew turned his horse toward the castle. He rode as swiftly as he dared in the dark. Though he knew the route well, he dared not risk his horse falling in one of the many potholes and ruts that littered the road. Making the surface of better quality was just one more thing on his list for the future.

He needed to decide what he was going to do next. It did look as if Duff MacLeish was telling the truth. If that was the case then bigger problems were just around the corner. The castle was in no fit state to defend itself against the might of the Norman forces.

He remained lost in thought for most of the return journey, only brought out of his reverie when he spotted bright lights ahead of him. “Are there torches on the walls?” he asked, squinting and trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

“Aye, looks like it,” Gillis replied.

“Did you order them lit?”

“Nay, my laird. I said nothing before we went. Rory perhaps?”

Andrew kicked the sides of his horse, sending it ahead of the group until he could make out what was happening. He came to a halt about fifty yards from the gate. The place was a hive of activity and none of it made any sense. People were milling around the portcullis, a pile of stone beside them. To the left, part of the wall had been torn down and more was being tossed down from one laborer to the next, stone by stone. Had there been a battle? If so where were the dead? Why was the portcullis still open?

In the earthworks people were digging out stones and handing them up the steep sides to others stood by carts. What was going on?

He rode up to the portcullis and had to slow to make his way through, the crowd too thick to notice him until he was on top of them. “Make way for your laird,” Gillis called from behind him.

He was already through them before they even knew what was happening. Was he no longer in charge of his own people?

Calling out for a stableboy, he jumped down to the ground and caught sight of Rory in the distance, the torch in his hand lighting his face in the darkness. “Rory,” he called, waving him over.

“My laird,” Rory replied, scurrying across. “I expect you have some questions.”

“Perhaps you might explain why my walls are two feet lower than I left them.”

“About that-”

“Then you can explain why men are digging in the earthworks.”

“Well, you see-”

“And then after that you can tell me why the portcullis is wide open and lit up like the noon day sun. Are we no longer taking precautions at night?”

Rory began to talk but Andrew wasn’t listening. He was staring in disbelief at a tent that had been set up at the base of the walls. Out of it a woman had just walked and she was lit by the orange and yellow glow of the torches, making it look as if her hair was on fire.

It was her.

He silenced Rory with a wave of his hand. “Why is my captive over there with a line of men listening to every word she says?”

Rory at least had the decency to look sheepish, not meeting Andrew’s eye. “You might want to come and meet your new master mason.”

Andrew almost laughed. Then he saw the look in Rory’s eyes. “You are jesting, are you not?”

“Nay, my laird. She may be a woman but she knows more about building methods than any man I have ever met. Every question I asked, she could answer. I tested her well but she knows far more than me. Some of her ideas are...well, they're quite revolutionary. She said the walls were on the verge of collapse and I had no reason to doubt her. I thought you would want us to set to work fixing them at once especially if your talk with MacLeish fared ill.”

“She said they were on the verge of collapse?”

“Aye.”

“And you believed her just like that? A woman with no apprenticeship behind her and no tools of the trade brought with her?”

“Aye, my laird.”

“Rory. I am going to wash and you are going to send her to me for a wee chat about this. And go find Derek while you’re at it, I need a word with him too.”

He walked across the courtyard. More scaffolding had been set up against the wall of the keep. Of course. Why not? Even the chapel had sounds of wood sawing coming from it. He thought about ordering all to cease but knew at once it would make him look weak, as if he were not in charge of his own people.

She would have some explaining to do when she came in. First, he needed to wipe the dirt of the trail from his face. He walked up the stairs and into the keep, passing into the great hall, the rushes rustling as he kicked through them. Few were asleep in there. It seemed as if most of the castle were working. How was he expected to pay for their labor?

He felt suddenly very tired and the last climb up the few steps to his solar above the great hall was hard work.

Once there he poured water from the ewer into the bowl beside it. All he could hear was the sound of hammering and talking outside.

Pulling his baldric from his body, he folded it and laid it on the bed. Kicking off his shoes, he stood on the rug and leaned on the table for a moment, gripping it in his fists.

How dare she tell them to pull down his walls and how dare they just do it as if he didn’t matter anymore.

He felt furious with her in that moment. Splashing water onto his face, he rubbed his skin, scraping away the dirt from his chest with a strigil.

He heard a knock behind him and turned to find her standing in the doorway. The fury left him in an instant, replaced by a warmth that spread from his heart to his very fingertips, sweeping away the tiredness and making him feel very awake indeed.

“You sent for me,” she said. “I expect you have a few questions.”

“Aye lass,” he said, beckoning her inside. “More than a few.”