Chapter Seventeen
At the first clang of the warning bell, Harcourt was immediately awake.
He leapt out of the bed and yanked on his clothes.
As he prepared for battle, he watched Annys wake to the continuing alarm, watched the fear come alive inside her, and wished he could chase it away.
She was going to have to learn to push it aside, however.
Sir Adam had caused her to feel that fear, forced her to face it and try to be strong.
For that alone, Harcourt wanted the man dead.
“Sir Adam has arrived?” she asked as she slipped out of bed and began to quickly dress, pulling on her shift.
“Aye.” He pulled her into his arms causing her to drop the gown she held and gave her a fierce kiss. “Keep safe.”
“Ye as weel.”
Annys watched him hurry out of the room and sighed.
Fear was a tight knot in her belly but she was determined not to allow it to rule her.
There were a lot of people inside the keep now, every one of them as afraid as she was.
She needed to show them only calm and an absolute certainty of victory.
That was one of the things she had been taught that the lady of a keep was expected to do.
It was one of the few things that had always made complete sense to her.
Before she left the bedchamber, she looked around.
The lovely hot bath she had savored was now no more than a tub of cold, soapy water, but the memory of that pleasure remained.
On the table in front of the fire sat the sad scraps of the hearty meal she and Harcourt had shared, the jug of cider empty now, but she could still smile over the teasing and flirting they had indulged in as they ate.
The bed was a mass of tangled covers and her body warmed at the memories that sight stirred up.
It had all been almost perfect. The only shadow was the lack of any declaration of love, from Harcourt for her, or from her for him.
Harcourt had spoken of how he wanted them to stay together, even brushed over the word marriage, but the one thing that firmly stood between them, was where they each had to remain after the battle was over, had not been banished.
The laird of Glencullaich could not leave it and, as his mother, neither could she, and Harcourt needed to return to Gormfeurach, not only out of duty to the people living there, but to his brother.
A part of her was grateful that he would give her no false promises when he had no answers to their problem yet, while another part would have liked to hear them anyway.
Shaking her head, she hurried out of the room.
The best thing she could do now was to bury herself in all the work that needed to be done.
It would keep her from thinking too much on what had not been said between her and Harcourt as well as help her keep her fear tucked away deep inside her.
First she needed Joan, or any other grown woman, to correctly braid her hair so that it was out of her way while she worked.
Passing by David’s bedchamber, Annys could not resist stepping inside for just a moment.
Her first thought when she entered was that Glencullaich was going to need a lot more cottages than it had now.
There were ten cradles with infants in them and three more ready for the three very pregnant women there, ones due to go to the birthing room very soon.
Since the children were all busy playing and running around, it was difficult to count the number of very young children but there were twenty pallets on the floor.
The three women heavy with child had four older girls and three aged women plus Mary, whose new infant slept in one of the cradles, to help them.
She saw Benet being introduced to the infants by a boy who had to be close to his own age. Benet suddenly looked up, smiled, and waved at her. Annys returned the wave.
“Look at all the bairns, Maman! ” he said.
“I see, Benet. There will have to be more cottages built soon.” She grinned when he laughed and nodded. “Remember to be verra gentle with them, love,” she added and turned to leave only to come face to face with Mary.
“This is a wondrous thing to do for us, m’lady. For the bairns, for us, for the old ones,” Mary said.
“T’was Sir Nathan’s idea, Mary,” she said.
“And we have all thanked him. But, we ken weel he had the idea, aye, but ye and your ladies put it all in place. Now we willnae be underfoot, aye?”
“That was the purpose, aye. The sad thing is that ’tis also so we can move ye all, verra quickly, if the need arises.” She was surprised when Mary smiled for the knowledge should have served to remind her of all the danger they were facing.
“I ken it, m’lady. ’Tis true, I am frightened but kenning that we are here, easy to gather up and move, is a comfort. Sir Nathan showed us where to go when the time comes.”
“Good, but ye will have to be certain to stay together as ye go down to the ledger room.”
“Oh, we dinnae have to leave here. There is a way down to the cellars right in that lovely wee privacy room.” Mary pointed to the garderobe David had as part of his bedchamber. It was to the left of the huge fireplace and a room with his writing table was to the right.
Annys shook her head. “I believe my husband kept a lot of secrets, such as how this keep is fair riddled with holes.”
Mary laughed. “I heard t’was from his days as a randy young lad with verra pious parents.”
“It was. He did confess that. I just wish he had made some map of all the ways he found to slip away from their watchful eyes.”
“M’lady!” Gavin called as he ran into the room, stumbling to a halt in front of her. “Ye are wanted at the walls.”
“Why?” she asked as she followed him out only to tug him along with her so that they could use the way to the walls in her bedchamber.
“Sir Adam has demanded to speak with you.” Gavin’s eyes widened as she opened the way to the stairway that went up to the walls from her bedchamber. “I didnae ken about this.”
“Ye would have been told when ye reached the age to take a turn at watch on these walls.”
Annys moved as quickly as she dared. She knew Sir Adam was going to offer her a way to halt the battle they faced, but one that could give him all that he wanted and leave her with little or nothing.
Yet, it would also halt the bloodshed that was to come.
She had to force herself to be strong, to not think on saving her people from the trouble at their gates now, and think only of saving their futures.
There was a part of her that desperately wanted to escape all of this but she had to keep it caged.
“Weel, that is a bigger force than I had hoped to see,” said Harcourt as he looked out at the army gathered before the gates of the keep.
Bear the blacksmith paused in his self-appointed rounds of inspecting everyone’s weapons, occasionally replacing a sword he thought inferior with one of the ones he had with him in a leather sack strapped to his back. “His clan has given him a lot of coin. Wagering on a big prize.”
“You up on the walls,” bellowed Sir Adam as he rode closer. “Where is Lady Annys?”
After winking at Harcourt, Bear stepped up closer to the wall to peer down at Sir Adam. “Inside the keep doing things the lady of the keep is supposed to do.”
“Weel bring her to the walls!”
Bear looked around and then back down at Sir Adam. “Why? She cannae wield a sword or shoot an arrow. Nay useful up here. This be men’s work.”
Harcourt joined the others in laughing. He knew what Sir Adam saw.
A huge, shaggy-haired oaf. It was Bear’s best weapon.
Bear was a head taller than him, and very muscular which, for reasons Harcourt did not understand, appeared to make people believe the man had to be witless as well as if somehow having a body that big and strong stole something from the man’s mind.
Harcourt had been guilty of thinking the man some slow-witted overgrown fellow himself when he had first seen him, an opinion that had changed the moment he had looked into those sharp green eyes.
“I wish to parlay with her, fool. Now, fetch her.”
“Nay sure she wants to speak to ye what with ye coming here with an army and threatening her and all.”
“Get her!”
“As ye wish.” Bear just stared at Sir Adam for a moment before saying in a low, hard voice that somehow carried down to the knight and all his men. “I am thinking ye would be wise to back away a wee bit ere one of us gives in to the temptation to end this here and now.”
Sir Adam backed away as did his men and Bear nodded. “Wise lad. Now we will see if our lady is inclined to talk to you.”
Harcourt signaled to a waiting Gavin and the boy scrambled off the wall to go find Annys.
He had known Sir Adam would want to offer something to try to gain the keep without raising a sweat.
He also knew that, no matter how badly Annys wanted to avoid a fight that could cost some of her people their lives, she would not simply hand over Glencullaich.
She would refuse to do that, not just for herself or Benet but for the people.
It was one of the reasons he loved her, he thought, and was startled by that realization. It was a very poor time to have it.
“She willnae give us up,” said Bear.
“Nay, I ken it, although her heart will break with every drop of blood her people lose.” He looked at Bear. “This is what her people want, aye? To fight?”