Chapter Eight
Toby wasn’t sure how long she had been awake, staring at half of a pillow with the other side of her face buried in it.
Only one eye was able to open. She blinked, having no idea where she was and finally lifting her head to look about.
Still, she did not recognize the place. It was a larger chamber, dusty, with a broom and a pile of debris in one corner.
The fire in the hearth was faded to hot cinder, radiating some heat into the room.
As Toby looked around, disoriented, her mind became more lucid and her memory unmercifully returned.
Ailsa. The remembrance of her sister’s name hit her in the chest like a hammer and she visibly winced, tears springing to her eyes and a sob to her lips.
Everything tumbled upon her and she remembered the day before, the fall, the horrific grief when she saw her sister lying still at the bottom of the stairs.
She wept as she remembered Tate picking the child up reverently, his expression stricken with shock.
She remembered him bringing her sister back to this very chamber, to lay to rest in this very bed.
Weeping softly, Toby touched the coverlet that her sister had been laid upon.
She could still see her there, lifeless and pale.
It was a crushing grief, not like the same sorrow she felt for her mother and father.
This was different. It went beyond sadness to physical pain.
She remembered, clearly, when Tate and Stephen had separated her from Ailsa but little after that.
She knew, in hindsight, they had done what was best for her.
Ailsa needed to be put in the ground and if Toby had any say in it, she would still be holding her dead sister’s corpse.
The knights had known better. She wasn’t angry at them; she was too caught up in sorrow to spare the energy.
Wiping at her eyes, she struggled to compose herself. She wasn’t weak by nature but the past few days had repeatedly crushed her. She was laboring to get hold of herself. She had to find out what the knights had done with her sister and make arrangements from there.
Someone had brought her things up during the night; she noticed two large trunks and a variety of loose items stacked neatly against the wall.
Wiping at her eyes again, she made her way to the trunks with the intention of finding something to bury her sister in.
But she passed by the lancet window on her way to the trunks and a waft of smoke caught her attention.
A glance out of the window caused her to do a double-take; from her perch on the third floor of the keep, which was situated on a motte, or large hill, in the center of the bailey, she was several dozen feet above ground level.
From there, she could see the walls of Harbottle and the green fields beyond.
Only the fields were covered with men and as she watched in shock, she could see two large siege towers being rolled towards the walls.
Dozens of men were towing them. Arrows flew over the walls, some flaming, some not, and the men upon the walls of Harbottle were doing their best to fight off the siege.
But she could see that the siege towers being rolled into position would soon change all of that.
Toby forced her grief aside in favor of the current situation.
She was, frankly, terrified, but she managed to keep her wits as she went in search of her shoes.
Her long hair was hanging limp and uncombed and she grabbed a scarf from one of her trunks, tying her hair back and out of her way.
Yanking on her shoes, she bailed from the chamber.
The deadly stairs were tricky to navigate but she did so ably.
Once on the second floor, the great hall loomed to her left and she stopped in horror at what she was witnessing; more than two dozen men were strewn about across the floor with a myriad of battle wounds.
Some were screaming; some were simply lying still.
Toby swallowed the bile in her throat as she witnessed the rivers of blood on the floor, pieces of limbs and flesh strewn about.
It was ghastly. She could see the majordomo and an old male servant struggling to render aid, but it was clear they were overwhelmed.
Although Toby had never worked on an injured man in her life, she knew she was about to have her first taste of it.
She could not simply stand by while people suffered; all else in her mind, her own grief and suffering, would have to wait.
Toby walked up to the majordomo as he hacked at a man’s nearly-severed limb in an attempt to amputate it. When the limb broke free, he caught a glimpse of Toby’s shoes and looked up to her with a start.
“Lady,” he barked. “What are you doing here?”
Toby was struggling not to become ill at the sight of so much gore. “I am here to help. Tell me what I can do.”
Wallace shook his head. “Go back to your room. This is no place for you.”
“If you will not tell me what I can do then I will just figure it out for myself,” she snapped. “I can just as easily walk to the next man and do what I can.”
Wallace glared at her. “Battle is not for womenfolk.”
Toby growled with exasperation. “Good lord, man, I shall not be the first woman who has ever tended battle wounded. You have more than you can handle. Why must you argue with me?”
The old man’s glare intensified and he stood up, hoping to scowl her to death. But Toby stood her ground. She wasn’t one to be bullied. Finally, Wallace indicated the man whose arm he had just amputated above the elbow.
“I assume you can sew?” he asked irritably.
“Of course I can.”
“Then sew up this arm so the man will not bleed to death,” he gestured to a dirty length of gut and big bone needle on the ground. “Get to work.”
Toby was sickened by the suggestion but she was not going to shy away; she had asked to help and he was going to give her a very dirty chore in punishment.
Yet there was no way she would admit she could not do it.
Without another word, she sat next to the unconscious man, collected the gut, and went to work.
Wallace pretended that he wasn’t watching her but he really was.
He could see her out of the corner of his eye, struggling with the bleeding flesh and he felt wicked pleasure in making her suffer.
He knew she would not be able to handle it and he took fiendish satisfaction in knowing that she would more than likely give up.
Then he would send her back to her chamber and be rid of her.
But as he waited for the inevitable to occur, a funny thing happened.
Toby didn’t give up. She struggled with the hacked limb but managed to sew up the end moderately well.
The old servant, taking some pity on her, brought wine for her to clean the wounds with and all of the extra rags he could find.
There wasn’t much by way of medicine but he brought her what he could.
It took Toby some time to realize that it was the same old servant that had given Ailsa bread with honey.
The next time the old man brought her some boiled rags, she smiled gratefully at him.
Toby didn’t even ask Wallace what more she could do; there were so many wounded in the hall that she simply moved to the next man and began working.
It became easier with time to forget her squeamishness, but still, with each new gory injury, she had to steel herself again and again.
She began to wonder where Stephen was, given that he was a Hospitaller, but she suspected his fighting abilities were needed more than his healing.
It was evident, as time passed and more wounded were brought in, that the battle was intensifying.
Toby lost count of the men she had worked on.
Some had nothing more than a big gash that needed sewing, but some came in with their torsos split open and guts falling out.
Those were the worst. Wallace usually tended those as they came in the door, sparing Toby the horror of it, so she focused on the men she thought she might be able to help.
The blood on her hands turned black, staining her nails and coagulating on her surcoat, but still, she pressed on.
She was bent over a man with an arrow imbedded in his shoulder when she noticed a pair of massive boots standing very close to her.
She glanced over; from the boots to the legs to the heavy mail and armor, to finally the head.
Kenneth was standing over her, an enormous man in full battle protection.
Toby sat back on her heels, brushing stray hair from her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Sir Kenneth,” she said. “Are you injured? Do you require help?”
He shook his head, his ice-blue eyes fixed on her. “I brought in an injured man,” he regarded her a moment. “Why are you here?”
She stood up to face him. “Because there is a battle going on and these men need help.”
Kenneth’s gaze lingered on her for a moment before turning away. But Toby reached out a hand to stop him. “Where are Tate and Stephen and the king?”
“In the heat of battle.”
“Is everyone all right?”
“So far.”
“But I saw towers from my window being moved towards the walls. Has the fortress been breached?”
“We managed to burn down the first one that came close enough,” he replied. “The second tower is still a threat.”
She didn’t know what else to say. As she turned back to her patient, Kenneth started back across the hall when the entry door suddenly burst open and a soldier raced in.
“The wall has been breached!” he shouted.