Chapter Sixteen #2
“We got word that Sir Adam has joined his men so we are preparing ourselves for the attack that is certain to follow soon.” Harcourt leaned against the bars and studied the man. “I am here to talk to you and decide if I can trust ye enough to let ye join our side.”
“And how do ye think ye can make such a decision? And why would ye want to?”
“One can always use another mon in a fight such as we are facing but I think ye may have a skill we have a particular need for. First, I need to ken why ye have no clan name. Ye were outlawed?”
“Nay, just tossed out of the clan. Laird said any of them could kill me without fear of punishment, though few would even try, but I am nay outlawed.”
“What did ye do?”
“Put an arrow through the arm of the laird’s son. Bastard was beating on a wee lad and ye could see he wouldnae stop ’til he had killed the boy. He had that look, ye ken.”
Harcourt nodded. “So, ’tis true. Ye are an archer.”
“Aye, though the lad took my bow and all. Only got a sword and a knife or two from, er, collecting them as I wandered about.”
“Did ye kill for them, Geordie?”
“Killed only one mon because he had the urge to kill me.”
“What are ye doing with Sir Adam then, for I have heard naught yet to mark ye as one of his ilk.”
“Mon has to eat, doesnae he. Only skill I have is fighting. Once my laird made me a broken mon I couldnae just walk o’er and join another clan’s fighting men. Jaikie took me along with him when he decided to sell his sword.”
“But ye didnae tell them ye were an archer?”
“Didnae have my bow but I had a sword.”
“How good an archer are ye?”
“Weel, I havenae seen too many better than me, but a lot who be worse.”
For reasons Harcourt suspected he could never adequately explain that not quite humble statement decided him. “Weel, best we get ye cleaned up and give ye a bow then,” he said as he unlocked the cell.
“Ye are done deciding then?” Geordie asked, stepping cautiously out of his cell as if he expected a hasty killing rather than freedom.
“They have verra skilled archers. Near twenty of them. I have about a dozen adequate ones.” He watched as Roban unfolded himself from the cot, jumped down, and sauntered over to them, only to walk out of the open cell through the bars.
“He does that to taunt me,” grumbled Geordie.
“How does that cursed animal still get into these places?”
“He comes out of there,” said Geordie, pointing to the storage room across from his cell.
“It! ’Tis a cat, nay a person,” snapped Harcourt as he grabbed the torch from the wall outside Geordie’s cell and followed the cat.”
“’Tis a he-cat, isnae he? Got balls. Makes it a he.”
Harcourt sighed. “Calling an animal a name or he or she makes it more than just something to keep the rats out of the meal or put in a stew and that leads to trouble.” He ignored Geordie’s chuckle.
The cat slipped around an odd stack of old trunks.
Harcourt looked at the torch he held and saw the flame move as if there was a breeze in the cellars.
He moved closer to the wall, looked behind the trunks, and then swore.
There was a door there and whoever had used it last had not shut it all the way thus giving Roban a way in.
Somewhere at the end of the passage would be another opening and Harcourt needed it shut.
“I believe we have just found one of the tunnels David used to leave the keep for a tryst. He was a randy fellow cursed with overly pious parents.” He handed Geordie the torch. “Ye go first.”
“Ah, and here I thought ye trusted me.”
“Nay,” he said as he followed Geordie into the passage. “I need an archer. Need doesnae require trust. That takes longer.”
At a few places they had to bend a little to clear the ceiling, but it was a sturdy, well-built tunnel in all other ways.
It curved upward near the end leading to a set of stone steps.
Harcourt got to the top, moved up next to Geordie who had opened a rough slat door, and looked into the stables.
One of the slats was broken at the bottom, leaving just enough room for Roban to come and go as it pleased.
He stepped farther inside the stable, startling Dunnie so badly the man fell back against one of the stall doors.
“Where did ye come from, sir?” asked Dunnie as he struggled to compose himself.
Harcourt showed the man the door, realizing that it was cleverly situated at the far back of the stables and blocked from sight by worktables and old blankets. “How long have ye worked here, Dunnie?”
“Near all my life, sir. My da was the stable master before me though. He died nay so long after the old laird did.”
“Ah, and obviously held fast to this secret, taking it to the grave with him.”
“Is it a bolt-hole?”
“In a way. David liked the lassies but his parents were verra strict and pious.”
Dunnie nodded. “Ye think he met with the lassies in here?”
“Nay, too great a chance of being caught. There has to be another door.”
It took all three of them an hour to find the hidden way out of the stables.
Just before they were about to give up, Harcourt carefully walked in a straight line from the door he had come through to the opposite side of the stable.
It was not easy due to a vast array of obstacles from buckets to tools but the last and largest obstacle was an ill-tempered gelding in a stall who quickly revealed why he was called Biter.
Dunnie managed to get the animal moved into another stall without injury so the three of them could work to clear away the straw covering the floor.
In the far corner was a hatch in the floor.
Harcourt had to scrape out years of debris from around the edges before he could open it.
Beneath it was a set of worn stone steps, not steep but definitely leading down and toward the wall the stable had been built against.
“This wasnae built by David,” he said. “Torch, Geordie.” As the man worked to relight the one they had brought with them, Harcourt carefully studied the sloping, narrow steps. “This is verra old.”
“Weel, Glencullaich is verra old,” said Dunnie.
“There has been something on this place e’en before folk began to keep records.
But dinnae ken why this is here.” He shrugged.
“Though stories told let one ken that the lot who lived here back in that time wasnae always made up of good men. Looks to me that, if ye follow that, ye will end up in the burn.”
Dunnie proved right. With a grumbling Geordie leading the way with torch in hand, they followed the sloping tunnel all the way down to a small cave on the banks of the burn.
Not certain if anyone was watching the keep from this side, Harcourt stood at the back of the cave with the two men.
It was big enough to stable a horse, he realized and shook his head.
David must have found an ancient bolt-hole and used it to enjoy a few secret trysts.
Few of the men on the walls watched this side of the keep for the bank of the burn was high, solid stone, and the tall walls of the keep were built nearly to the edge of the banks.
It was going to be difficult to secure but he knew it would be the height of foolishness to destroy it.
As they returned to the stables he decided to confer with the others.
For now, simply replacing Biter in the stall would be good enough.
He wandered back through the tunnel leading into the cellars, Geordie right behind him.
By the time he reached the great hall it was to catch Callum and Tamhas about to leave for the night.
Harcourt hoped he was not about to ruin a fine night with a bonnie lass, especially when there was a battle on the horizon.
Every man deserved what could be his last night in the arms of a woman. It was how he planned to spend his.
“Found another bolt-hole,” he announced and smiled at the way Callum swore.
“Where is this one?” Callum demanded. “And will it mean that I will have to wash again before going to see Peg?”
“Nay, washing will nay be required,” Harcourt assured him.
“’Tis a verra weel-built, surprisingly clean tunnel from the cellars to the stables and from the stables down to the burn.
” He handed Callum the keys. “It opens in the castle behind some old chests in the storage area opposite Geordie’s cell.
That is the part that leads to the stables.
In the stables, Dunnie can show ye where the second part is and ye will need him.
The guard o’er that part is a mean beastie of a gelding called Biter. ”
“Do ye wish it closed?”
“Nay as ye mean. I want it sealed against anyone entering from the outside, nay at least without sounding some alarum of some kind. Ye will understand when ye see it.” He pushed Geordie toward them.
“Now that I think on it, just take him. He kens the way and then settle him with Nicolas. Geordie here is our new archer.”
Annys stepped into her bedchamber, her body aching from all the work she had done, but she was completely satisfied with, even proud of, all she had accomplished.
Then she caught sight of the large bathing tub set near the fireplace, steam rising from the water, the soft lavender scent from her bathing herbs filling the air, and large drying clothes hung on a rack near enough to the fire to make them warm for when she was ready to use them.
Someone had even set her best lace-trimmed night shift and robe at the end of the bed.