Chapter Nineteen
Kirkmuirhill, Hamilton, Cumbernauld… Falkirk.
Fortunately, whatever happened in Moffatt seemed to be isolated because they had been traveling for four days and no one had followed them.
But the rain that had started when they were in Moffatt had indeed followed them, and the four days of travel to the outskirts of Falkirk had been wrought with some of the worst weather any of them had ever seen. It had been positively hellish.
The wind had been vicious, blowing from every direction, consequently, most everything was soaked, even in the wagon bed where Diamantha and Sophie huddled together with the animals and tried to stay dry.
Cortez had fortunately been able to find shelter every night so they could at least sleep beneath a roof and with bedding that wasn’t soaked, but the days of never-ending rain, mud-slicked roads, and misery weighed heavily upon them. It made for wretched travel.
On the fifth day since departing Moffatt, the party finally arrived on the outskirts of Falkirk.
There was a small settlement to the northwest of the battlefield, a three-street town with many crudely constructed homes and a stretch of road that contained several businesses including a one-storied tavern.
It was raining buckets when they finally arrived in the sodden village and Cortez made no secret about the fact that he intended to take over the tavern to house his men.
In fact, the entire column came to a halt in front of the tavern and Cortez sent his knights in to roust whoever was inside, clearing the way for him and his men.
He didn’t care if it were bad manners, either. He was tired of being wet.
Fortunately for all concerned, there was hardly anyone in the tavern and Cortez allowed those few patrons to remain, as all of his men poured into the structure to get out of the elements.
Cortez carried Sophie inside while Drake helped Diamantha.
The tavern’s common room was rather small, but it was warm and dry, and twenty-five men, six knights, a little girl and her mother quickly filled it up while the stable boys in charge of the mounts of tavern visitors took the horses away to be sheltered in the livery across the street. The wagons went with them.
The tavern keeper was a short, bald man who was surprisingly handsome and clean-appearing.
He had been in the rear of the tavern, making an inventory of the ale barrels, when Cortez and his men had taken over the place.
He came out into the room of drenched, weary men, and was directed towards Cortez by one of the soldiers.
The man approached Cortez, seated with Diamantha and Sophie, and introduced himself.
“Me name is MacInnis, m’laird,” he said. “Am I to assume ye want me tae feed the lot of ye?”
Cortez was cold and wet. He looked at the man. “An excellent assumption,” he said digging into the purse in his tunic and pulling out six gold crowns. He slapped them on the table. “This should pay for the meal.”
MacInnis scooped the coinage off the table quickly, eager to be of service with a good price paid.
Unlike the innkeeper in Moffatt, MacInnis didn’t care if these men were English.
As long as they were paying a handsome price, he didn’t care who they were or why they were there.
He had been present during the battle of Falkirk those months ago and he found that the English were much more respectful than the Scots had been during those difficult days.
The Scots had stolen from him while the English, although they had absconded with items, too, had at least paid for what they had confiscated.
Therefore, he held no issue with the Sassenach crowd.
“Indeed, m’laird,” he said. “I have a good mutton stew and enough bread fer all.”
Cortez nodded wearily, waving the man on. “Bring it to everyone,” he said. “Fill them full of it. And all the ale they can drink.”
The tavern keeper nodded. “Aye, m’laird.”
“And my wife and I require a room if you have one available.”
MacInnis nodded his head eagerly. “I have two rooms,” he told him. “They’re both small, but they’re clean.”
“I will take them both.”
The tavern keeper fled into the rear of the tavern and Cortez could hear the man shouting instructions to his staff.
Soon enough, two women and a boy were scrambling, and pitchers and cups soon began to appear on the tables.
The boy went to stoke the hearth, producing a rather bold blaze that launched live embers into the room and onto some of the soldiers.
They were so wet and cold that they hardly cared.
At the sight of the big blaze, Diamantha began pulling off Sophie’s little cloak, drenched, as well as her own.
“I am going to hang these by the fire to dry them off,” she said as she stood up from her seat. “You should probably have your men do the same. They will all catch their death as wet as they are.”
Cortez nodded wearily, watching her walk over to the blazing hearth and hang her cloak on a peg next to it.
She did the same with Sophie’s. Sophie, meanwhile, was sticking her fingers in the animal cage, which was resting upon the table and covered in a big oiled cloth to keep the creatures dry.
The kittens, the puppy, the rabbit, and the fox were perhaps the driest travelers out of the entire group.
As Cortez watched his wife, warming her hands by the fire, his knights, most of whom had been either scattered around the room or out in the back where the privy was, headed to his table and began to sit down around him.
A pitcher of ale and several cups appeared on their table and Cortez asked for watered-down ale or milk for the child from the wench who brought the pitcher.
As the woman scurried away, Cortez turned to his men.
“Great Bleeding Jesus,” he exclaimed gruffly. “Get out of those wet clothes before you rust. At least go try to dry off near the fire.”
Keir and Michael were already reaching for the ale. “ ’Tis too late,” Keir said. “My armor is already rusted shut. Your squire is going to have his hands full tonight cleaning all of our armor.”
Cortez glanced over at the table where young Peter Summerlin was.
The lad had been a mounted soldier on this journey and a sometimes-squire, a silent operator who kept himself out of trouble.
Along with Merlin and the knights, the lad was never out of the sight of Cortez.
He was a fixture. Cortez accepted a full cup from Keir, snorting softly before he drank.
“No doubt,” he said. “But he’s young and strong. It will be a simple task for him.”
Drake pulled off his helm, setting on the bench next to Sophie, who found great interest in it.
“I will clean my own,” he announced, watching the little girl play with the visor. “I do not want my armor away from me for too long, given what happened in Moffatt. That was a lesson learned.”
Keir looked over at him, cup at his lips. “What lesson is that?” he asked. “To sleep in full armor? That could have been the only possible lesson learned.”
Drake scratched his face casually. “You of all people should have learned the lesson,” he joked.
“A man fighting nude could get something quite valuable hacked off if he is not careful. Then your wife would have to find a new husband. It would be of little pleasure to her to be married to a eunuch.”
Michael and James began to laugh while Keir simply made a face. “Any man that seeks to hack my manroot from my body had better get the biggest sword he can find,” he said. “It will take a sword the size of a tree to cut my manhood off.”
“That’s not what I saw,” Michael teased.
Now the entire table was laughing at Keir’s expense, who was halted from delivering a stinging retribution on Michael by the simple fact that there was a child sitting across the table from him.
But he was going to give it his best try, anyway, when Diamantha suddenly appeared and sat down next to her daughter.
“What is so funny?” she asked innocently.
The knights looked at each other knowingly as Cortez shook his head. “It would not interest you,” he told her, quick to change the subject. “Why not take the cage over to the fire and warm the animals? They are probably quite cold.”
Successfully diverted, Diamantha peered in at the little animals in the wooden cage.
“They are huddled together so I am sure they are warm for now,” she said, accepting the cup of ale that Cortez handed her.
“Moreover, I simply want to sit on something that is not moving for a few moments. I know it is far more difficult for you men to travel and my complaints seem foolish, but my backside is sore from being bumped around in that wagon. It feels good to sit on something still.”
Cortez reached out and collected her hand, holding it on the tabletop. “We are finally at our destination,” he said, “so there will not be much travel in the foreseeable future, I hope.”
Diamantha squeezed his big hand. “How close are we to the location of the battle?”
Cortez’s gaze was warm on her but in the back of his mind he was trying to gauge her mood.
Finally, they were at Falkirk, the site of the great battle where her husband had lost his life.
Knowing how grief-stricken she had been with Robert’s death, he wondered if finally being at the location where the man met his end would bring about fits of sorrow again.
So far, her demeanor didn’t seem to be affected and he was grateful.
He had hoped that these weeks of travel, and the weeks of bonding between them, had helped her heal somewhat.
That was his hope, anyway. He prayed it held true.
“We are north of the battle site by a mile or two,” he said quietly. “There is a great wooded area to the southeast and the battle took place to the south side of those woods.”