Chapter Eighteen
And so begins the third day, Harcourt thought as he made his way down from the walls.
At least it was quiet for now. After a dawn attack that had come close to succeeding, even Sir Adam’s men needed to rest and regroup.
He spotted Geordie and Big Mary collecting up arrows and shook his head.
Who would have thought the tall, broad-shouldered woman who cared for all the fowl of the keep would be attracted to someone like Geordie, a man neither handsome nor as tall as she was.
He stood by the well set in the center of the bailey and gathered the strength to pull up a bucket of water.
Harcourt groaned in relief as he poured the cool water over his head.
Every muscle and bone in his body ached.
And he smelled, he thought crossly as he wiped the water from his face.
He hated to smell bad and Harcourt decided it was yet another crime he could add to the list of ones Sir Adam deserved to die for.
“No one else will say it, so I will,” said Ned as he stepped up beside Harcourt and got some water for himself.
“Must ye? If no one else will say it, mayhap that is because no one really wants to hear it.”
Ned poured the water over his head and then shook himself like a dog would, ignoring Harcourt’s complaints about being splashed. “Ye are wet now. A wee bit more willnae kill ye.”
“Aye, but with clean water. I dinnae think what ye just shook all over me is too clean.”
“This is nay looking good for us, Harcourt.” He looked at Harcourt after wiping the water from his eyes, and did not even try to hide his concern.
“That bastard is wasting his men but it still looks bad for us. He throws his men at the walls and loses some but has more. We push them back and lose some of our own, but dinnae have more. Soon, nay matter how hard and weel we may fight, he will still have more and we will nay longer have enough.”
“I ken it,” Harcourt reluctantly admitted. “Worse, the men fighting on those walls can see it, but we have no choice.”
“Mayhap nay right now, but soon.”
“Ye mean for us to all flee this place.”
“Aye. Ye said ye didnae believe in fighting to the last mon, woman, and bairn. I believed you.”
“I meant it. But, we still have some time left us.” He held up his hand when Ned opened his mouth to speak.
“Nay much, but just a wee while more. I can see the time coming when we will have to leave if we mean to live, but a lot can happen between now and when it is time for us to get out, short though the time for a miracle might be.”
“My thought was that we start now to get out those who cannae walk or run because of age or wounds or e’en a bairn in her belly.
We ken no one is making an assault on the burn side.
Too difficult to get the men there, to put the ladders up or e’en set up some archers.
We put a few of our archers on the wall o’er there and begin taking out all the ones who would slow the rest of us down.
Give them a head start. At night. We do it at night.
After ye found that tunnel down to the banks of the burn we put a few wee boats in the cave there so that we can use them to carry some of the wounded or infirm and some could just walk until they need the help. ”
Harcourt slowly nodded. It was a good plan, a very good one.
It was not only the aged, wounded, or infirm who needed help to escape.
Women carrying a bairn in their arms, or e’en two, very small children, and, of course, the women carrying a bairn in their bellies, simply could not move as fast as others.
Right now Sir Adam’s full attention was on breaching the walls of the keep, or even the gates.
Letting some of the people slip out now would give the slower ones more time to get out of the man’s reach before the keep fell to him.
The thought that, if Sir Adam won, he would find himself the owner of a completely deserted keep and lands was a pleasant one even though he knew that deprivation would not last all that long.
What would hurt Sir Adam, and his purse, would be the loss of the highly skilled people of Glencullaich whose goods not only brought people from miles around to their market but put a lot of money into the coffers of the laird.
“Do it,” he said. “Start tonight as soon as the light fades ye can start. If that bastard gets in here I want him to find it empty of all but the dead, and if I could think of a way to move them, too, I would, but I think we will need what time we have left to just move the living out. Anything ye can move, do it. Be sure to take the most valuable things first.”
Ned slowly grinned and nodded. “I will find a few lads too young to fight but old enough to help me and will start the minute that sun dips low enough in the sky to cast more shadow than light.”
“We will keep them busy near the gates. Ye might have your brother go with ye to have a look about, see if there are any of Sir Adam’s men on the banks of the burn watching for an escape. If there are, silence them. Then take two archers but leave us Geordie as we need him.”
“Aye, he is the best.”
Ned trotted off to the keep and Harcourt was confident everything would be well planned and efficiently carried out.
If anyone could find a way to get the more vulnerable of Glencullaich’s people out of Sir Adam’s reach it was a MacFingal.
Ned would also have a keen eye for what goods to take that would cause Sir Adam the most annoyance and the deepest cut to that fat purse the man was seeking.
The sound of geese and ducks coming from the upper floor had Annys turning around and running back up the stairs.
She feared it was a sign that someone had found an opening and they would soon be attacked from inside as well as outside the walls.
As she neared the ledger room she watched a line of ducks disappear inside.
Cautiously she followed the birds all the way down into the cellars and found Big Mary leading her flock down the shadowed hall toward the cell Geordie had once occupied.
“Mary,” she called, refusing to use the name Big Mary when there were none of the other Marys around, “what are ye doing?” She watched in amazement as Mary made a few tsking noises, then made a few odd signals with her surprisingly elegant hands, and all the birds stopped, not moving even when Mary walked away from them.
“I willnae let that bastard have my flocks to fill his evil belly,” Big Mary said.
“But where can ye possibly take them?”
“Near a mile down the burn is a wee bothy. I have used it before when I wished my flock to have a time of eating something besides grain. Doing their own food hunting now and then keeps them strong, healthy for them, I think. I willnae be gone long.”
“How do ye plan to get them out without being seen? Or heard?”
“No one watching the burn side. Why would they? They think ’tis naught but a cliffside what with the walls going right down to the rock which already rises out of the water a fair height.
I think that fool has also wasted so many men that he doesnae have the ones needed to watch such a place he doesnae think we can escape from anyway. ”
“Weel, if ye are certain it is safe, then I wish ye luck with it.”
“Oh, I will be back once I get this lot settled and hide this somewhere.” She pointed to the heavy sack slung over her back.
“Sir Ned is making verra certain that as many of the things that are worth some coin are being taken out of here. It gets a wee bit darker and they will start moving some of the people.”
“Have we given up then?” Annys had known it might happen for Sir Adam had them badly outnumbered yet no one had come to wake her from her rest and even ask her about it.
“Och, nay.” Big Mary frowned. “Weel, aye, in a way. It doesnae look good for us, m’lady.
” Big Mary stepped closer and patted Annys on the arm.
“Aye, we havenae lost too many men because your mon trained them weel in how to protect themselves against arrows and fight off a mon trying to get o’er our walls, but we do have a lot of wounded, some we may yet lose.
That filth kicking at our walls has a lot more men than we do and Sir Nathan said the mon could probably get e’en more if he felt he needed them. ”
“Even more? We will all die here,” she whispered and then struggled to throw aside her fear.
“Nay we willnae because your mon doesnae believe in that. Says if we die, Sir Adam gets it all and we willnae be able to do anything about it. But, if we survive, we need but work to get it back. So, Sir Ned said we need to get the slow ones out now, start moving out the wounded, the old ones, the bairns who need carrying and anyone who cannae run and keep running. We will start as soon as the sun sets.”
“And the valuables?” Annys wished someone had just taken a minute to waken her and tell her they were making such important decisions, if only because it was a little embarrassing to be told something so important from the goose girl.
“Sir Ned and our men decided they wouldnae let the mon fill his coffers with the selling of such things. They also sent a lad to the drovers and herders watching o’er most of our livestock and Sir Harcourt sent word with the lad to tell those men where they needed to head for.
Then we found ourselves a few boats and are making some litters for the wounded who cannae walk.
” Big Mary paused in her listings and shrugged.
“Ye ken who needs more time to flee an enemy. Then if the able ones see that all is lost at the walls, they will run but, when ’tis all said and done, we will be leaving that filth with naught but empty buildings. ”
“’Tis really quite brilliant,” Annys said. “The more I hear, the more annoyed I get that someone didnae come and awaken me so that I could have been of some help.”
“Nay, m’lady, ye needed the rest.”
“Aye, I ken I did, but I hate having missed something so important.”