Chapter Nineteen
Covered in sweat, dirt, blood, and a few things he preferred not to look closely at, Harcourt stood and watched the man on the gray gelding dismount and walk up to Sir Adam who was encircled by men who had ridden with him.
The man tore off his helmet and tossed it to the ground.
Sir Adam paled and staggered back a step.
Harcourt had to stiffen his legs to stop himself from doing the same.
It was David, he thought, and knew that was impossible.
Either Nigel was not as dead as people had thought, or David had at least one other close kinsman who was willing to avenge him and stand by his family.
“Ye were supposed to die in France, ye bastard!” screamed Sir Adam and he charged the man.
Sir Adam did not lack skill with his sword, but he was clearly allowing his emotions to control him.
The man who looked so much like David was coldly enraged but was not allowing his obvious loathing and fury at Sir Adam to cloud his mind and steal any of his impressive skill.
It was not long before Sir Adam was bleeding from several wounds, struggling to stay on his feet.
“Ye should have died in France,” Adam repeated, his tone that of a child deprived of some sweet he wanted. “It was all planned and it was a good plan.”
“I ken it. Seven years, ye bastard. Ye stole away seven years of my life. I escaped two years ago but it has taken me this long to heal and get home.” The man easily knocked aside Sir Adam’s attempt to cut him with his sword.
“I lost two good men, two friends as close to me as brothers, in that hellpit ye had us thrown into. And when I arrive home, it is to discover that ye had the world thinking I was dead, made certain no message from me e’er reached my brother.
Ye left me to doubt him, to e’en blame him for what was happening.
” He glanced up at the gravestone on the hill.
“Then I discover that ye killed him ere I could apologize for those disloyal thoughts.”
“Aye! And I saw to it that the fool would ne’er produce an heir!”
“Actually,” said Harcourt, “I believe he was trying to get him killed but was probably nay so unhappy by what he got for his troubles.”
The man spit at Sir Adam’s feet. “Ye filthy bastard! Ye sent that crazed fool after David?”
“This should all be mine!”
When Sir Adam lunged at the man who looked so much like David, that man easily deflected his strike and ran his sword into Adam’s belly.
He then gripped Sir Adam by the shoulder and yanked out his sword.
Harcourt could not be sure, but he strongly suspected the man had twisted it a few times as he did so.
Sir Adam fell to his knees, clutching his belly in a vain attempt to hold himself together.
“It was ne’er to be yours,” the man said.
“David and I came before all others. Ye die here, Adam, on the land ye thought to steal and in full view of the grave of the mon ye had murdered.” He stepped back, turned toward David’s grave, and saluted it with his raised sword, a gesture his men repeated with an admirable precision.
Then, with one graceful twist of his body and a swift swipe of his sword, he took off Adam’s head.
Harcourt looked around at the once beautiful fields.
They were torn up by foot and hoof. Groups of survivors from Sir Adam’s army, guarded by either his men or their new allies, sat in the middle of it all.
The ground was strewn with bodies, thankfully those of the enemy, and not all of them whole.
He looked at the man who had killed Sir Adam only to find that man aiming his sword at him.
Harcourt’s companions moved to flank him as did men from Glencullaich much to his surprise.
If this was Nigel or another close kinsman of David’s he could be their new laird.
“Who are ye?” he asked the man.
“Sir Nigel MacQueen of Glencullaich.”
“Ah, so ye are nay dead then.”
The flicker of a smile touched Nigel’s mouth. “Nay. Now, who are ye?”
“Sir Harcourt Murray.” He indicated with a wave of his hand each of his men as he introduced them.
“Lady Annys sent for us after David died and when Sir Adam began to cause her a lot of trouble, thinking she was weak and badly protected.” He looked around at all the exhausted men.
“Mayhap we can discuss all of this inside.”
“Agreed.” Nigel sheathed his sword.
Harcourt ordered the men to clear the field as best they could.
Nigel informed him that a few of his men had already cleared Adam’s camp and were collecting anything of value.
The two of them began to walk toward the keep when one of the dead rose up from the ground and stood in their path.
Soaked in blood, one eye gone, it took Harcourt a moment to recognize Clyde.
The man had a knife in his hand and Harcourt could only wonder which of them would end up with that knife in their flesh even as they drew their swords.
There was no way for them to stop the man from throwing that knife but the one still standing would make certain he did not throw another ever again.
Then Clyde grunted and the knife fell from his hand.
Very slowly he sank to his knees. Even his subsequent fall face down on the ground was slow.
An arrow stuck out of the man’s back and Harcourt looked up at the wall.
There stood Big Mary and Geordie and Geordie pointed at her. Harcourt saluted her with his sword.
“Ye have a woman on your walls?” asked Nigel as, after staring at Big Mary for a moment, he resumed their walk to the keep.
“Nay to my liking to have a woman on the walls instead of tucked safely inside the keep during a battle but”—he glanced down at Clyde as they walked past him—“nay fool enough to send away one with such skill when defeat was banging hard at the gates.”
“Ye thought all was lost?” asked Nigel.
“Didnae just think it. Kenned it for certain. I was already getting the slowest of us out and stripping the place of all that was valuable.” Harcourt turned to Callum who walked on his other side.
“Best tell everyone ye can find that they dinnae have to leave and get back any who already have.” After Callum ran off, he turned back to Nigel.
“If I didnae have plans for taking Glencullaich back from Sir Adam later, I think I would have burned it down as weel, nay even leaving the bastard the buildings.”
“I begin to think there was a great deal more going on here than just that fool deciding to kill David and take Glencullaich from my brother’s widow.”
“Aye, a lot happened, but it all led back to that base greed the mon suffered from.”
Nigel looked around at the men who had fought so hard for Glencullaich, even glancing up at the ones on the walls.
“My family worked for their whole lives to prevent this from happening here,” he murmured, sadness weighting each word.
“For doing this, for bringing back what had become naught but stories of the past, for that alone Adam deserved to die.” He looked at Harcourt.
“But, ye got the men here to fight, trained them to do it weel, too.”
They entered a very crowded bailey. Harcourt almost smiled.
All the people of Glencullaich who had gathered were staring at Nigel as if he was a ghost. He was certain he had looked just as stunned as they did when he had first seen the man’s face.
Then Joan pushed her way through the crowd, stood before Nigel, and stared at him.
All the attention turned to her as people waited for her to confirm what they were seeing.
“Ye have a few new scars, Sir Nigel,” she said, “but ye are looking verra hale for a dead mon.”
“Ah, Joan, if I wasnae covered in filth and gore, I would hug ye,” Nigel said and grinned.
“Then we shall get ye cleaned up and gather in the hall to feast and hear your tale.”
As Joan was busy ordering everyone to do what was needed to get Nigel and his men clean and ready to have a meal, Annys hurried out of the keep.
She looked at Harcourt and did nothing to hide her relief to see him standing.
Then she saw Nigel and went so pale that Harcourt rushed toward her, thinking she was about to swoon and take a dangerous fall down the stone steps.
She held up her hand and he stopped, watching as she visibly gathered her strength. By then he and Nigel stood before her.
Annys could barely believe her eyes. Nigel had the look of David with the same brown eyes and black hair, even possessing a similarity in his features.
When he had ridden away he had looked enough like his younger brother to have a few thinking they were twins.
Now, however, there were a few strands of silver in his thick black hair, his features had grown harsher, and there was a steeliness in his gaze that had never been there before.
“Annys?” Nigel asked cautiously when she gave him no greeting.
“I was just thinking that Sir Adam might nay have been as bad at plotting and planning as we thought,” she said. “He is why we have been allowed to believe ye were dead for years, aye?”
“Aye. ’Tis a long tale and I will tell it. I am eager to hear all that has happened to ye as weel.”
“Maman!” Benet rushed out to stop by Annys’s side with Roberta trotting behind him and Roban sitting on the lamb’s back. “Ye look like my fither,” said Benet as he stared at Nigel.
“I am your uncle,” said Nigel, glancing between Benet and Harcourt several times and then looking closely at Annys.
“I believe there is a lot your mother has to tell me about what has happened while I was gone.” Smiling at Benet, he said, “’Tis a fine thing to meet ye at last, Benet.
I did hear a whisper or two about David’s son as I traveled here and was eager to see him. ”
“Sir,” murmured Nigel’s man who had kept his back covered every step of the way from France, “there is a cat sitting on a lamb.”