Chapter 15 #3
“We are close to ending this, Ilsabeth. Verra close. And then ye willnae have to fear either mon again.”
Ilsabeth hoped he was right. She was tired of being afraid. Part of her saw it as a weakness but she knew that was foolish. She had good reason to be afraid and it would keep her wary and alert.
“I pray ye are right, Simon, but dinnae let concern o’er me take up too much of your thoughts. I am safe here and weel ye ken it. Go and finish this.”
It was a little awkward but Simon gave her a kiss through the bars and then walked away.
There were plans to be made. He intended to make more than the one plan to capture Henry and Walter as they tried to sneak back inside through the old bolt-hole.
Simon knew that, no matter how good their trap was, how well it was set, there was a chance the men they wanted could escape.
He wanted to be absolutely certain that there was a second plan ready to be set in motion immediately.
Simon cursed long and viciously as he looked around at the dead and wounded men, most of them Walter and Henry’s men.
He recognized a few men from Lochancorrie.
Many of the others looked like men who wielded their swords for anyone with coin enough to pay for their skill.
Two days of planning and lying in wait and all they had were the soldiers hired or coerced by the traitors.
“More of your clan?” asked Gowan, studying the six battered men huddled together against a wall.
“Aye. I suspect they are more men like that lad Wallace I told ye about, who did such a poor job of trailing after the children. I will talk to them but they have all probably been forced into this in the same way Wallace was. None of them put up much of fight, did they?”
“Nay, although ye think they would fight rather than get caught and chance being tried and excuted as traitors. That would scare many a mon into fighting to the death.”
“Henry probably scares them more. This way he will be thinking they were killed here and, if Henry holds a sword at the throat of their loved ones, it might ease now. Or that is how they will think. I dinnae think many of those at Lochancorrie believe anyone can do anything to rid them of Henry.”
“Weel, I will leave ye to decide what to do with them.”
“Thank ye. I will speak with them.”
Gowan looked around. “Most of these others are naught but swords for hire although I can see a few from houses I ken weel and have been watching for a while. They dinnae have the look of hopelessness your lot does so I am thinking they didnae disagree with what was asked of them. Some men think much akin to the laird they serve. But, we didnae get Sir Walter or your brother.”
“Nay. I suspicion they sent their men in first to test the water and have left now that they ken the way in was discovered.”
“Think they kenned the lass might have guessed about the bolt-hole?”
Having talked to Ilsabeth several times, Simon believed he now had the whole truth about all that had been said between her and Walter, and her and Henry.
“Not Sir Walter because, fool that he is, he would ne’er think she had the wit to ken it, being a mere female and all that.
” He nodded when Gowan snickered. “My brother, however, would have anticipated the possiblity after talking to her for a moment. He might think her unnatural, for Henry thinks verra little of women, but he would have quickly guessed at her intelligence.”
“So the men we set outside will have caught no one or will be dead.”
“Aye, I fear so. Henry may be mad enough to think he can kill the king and set his arse on the throne, but he is sharp-witted and a fighter to be wary of.”
“I want this mon, Sir Simon,” Gowan said in a hard, cold voice. “Him and that fool Hepbourn. I want them to pay full toll for this plan against the king.”
Simon was a little surprised by the vehemence in Gowan’s voice, but nodded. “Oh, ye will have them soon. Weel, if my brother doesnae kill Hepbourn first.”
“What do ye mean Ilsabeth told them of the way in?” Walter slid off the winded mount he had been riding hard for miles. “How could she have any idea about that old bolt-hole?”
Henry dismounted and stared at Walter. “Ye ne’er really kenned her, did ye? I said I wanted a lass to dangle before Simon, one he would feel the need to protect. Ye decided to play your own game and try to rid yourself of the Armstrongs. Wanted their lands, too, didnae ye?”
“And why not? They abut mine.”
“Of course. Weel, if ye had looked a little more closely instead of praising yourself on your cleverness, or trying to get beneath her skirts, ye might have seen that the lass has a verra sharp wit.”
“A sharp tongue, most assuredly. I cannae believe I didnae see that, but she was probably just on her best behavior so that she could catch me as her husband.” He screamed when Henry slapped him so hard he fell to the ground, and stared at Henry in fear.
“Dinnae be any greater a fool than ye have to be,” Henry said.
“That lass is quick, and nay just with her sharp tongue. She kenned something was wrong and she thought on it. It didnae take long for her to realize we had come in the wrong way, unguarded. If ye had kenned her as ye claimed, I would ne’er have made such a mistake. ”
“Weel, we have more men.” Walter cautiously got to his feet.
“And we had best get to them.”
“Why?”
“Because, ye fool, my cursed brother will be right behind us. He set up that trap because he had the sense to heed his woman when she told him something wasnae right about our being there. He will also have a plan ready to come after us because he wouldnae have set all his hopes on catching us as we tried to get back into the dungeon.” He looked back in the direction they had just come from.
“Simon is coming and this time I will kill him. And then I will take his woman.”
“I thought she was going to be my woman.” Walter stepped away from Henry when the man stared at him. “Weel, she is yours then, although after feeling how deep her sharp tongue can cut, I cannae see why any mon would want her.”
“If I find her sharp tongue too much of an irritant and cannae beat it out of her, I will simply cut it out. Did that with my first wife.”
Walter stared at Henry as the man watered his mount at the small burn and then got back in the saddle.
He hurried to do the same but he could not shake something Ilsabeth had said out of his head.
She had warned him that Henry would get what he wanted and then kill him.
Walter had scoffed at such a foolish statement but he did not feel like scoffing anymore.