Chapter Nineteen #2
“I ken it, Andrew, but I was attempting to ignore it.” His lips twitched when he heard Kerr and his other men start to chuckle.
“This is Roberta,” said Benet as he patted the lamb and then he added in a fierce voice, “and she is not for the pot. That is Roban on her back. He likes to ride.”
“Ah, not for the pot. Understood.”
Before anything else could be said, Joan hurried up to them and began to instruct them on where they could go to bathe.
Harcourt watched Nigel disappear with his men and turned to speak with Annys only to find her hurrying back inside the keep with Joan, both of them discussing how to quickly ready the hall for a meal, what that meal would be, and how to sort out enough beds for Nigel and all those men with him.
There would be no time to talk to her until much later, he realized.
He sighed and, with his own men, headed toward the bathing house that had been prepared for Nigel, his men, and any other who fought for Glencullaich and wanted to scrub the stench of battle off himself.
“He kens who fathered Benet,” Annys said to Joan as they spread a cloth over the newly scrubbed head table.
“Ye cannae be certain of that,” Joan argued as she smoothed down a few wrinkles in the cloth.
“I am certain. T’was there to see in the way he looked from Harcourt to Benet. Then he looked at me and I could see that knowledge in his eyes. He kens the truth.”
“Weel, I wouldnae fret o’er it. Nigel kenned what happened to David before he left, didnae he.
Will ken that, with us thinking him dead, there was, and ne’er would be, an heir.
Suspicion he now kens verra weel what David did and will nay give ye any trouble o’er it.
” Joan looked at Annys. “And, doesnae this solve the problem that ye believed would mean ye and Sir Harcourt could ne’er be together? ”
“Does it? If Nigel accepts Benet then Benet remains the heir.”
“Dinnae go borrowing trouble, lass. Wait. Stay calm and just wait a wee while. It will all be discussed, I am certain, and then, only then can ye truly ken what faces ye now.”
Annys knew that was the sensible thing to do but it was not easy to be sensible.
Although it would indeed solve a lot of problems if Nigel stepped into place as the laird and pleasantly wished her weel in whatever she chose to do, there was still a chance that it would solve nothing at all.
There would also be an extremely uncomfortable confrontation to come.
Even though David had been immensely pleased with his plot to get an heir, as well as the results, that did not mean that Nigel would be.
Far worse would be if Nigel did not believe that it had all been David’s idea, if he saw her as no more than an unfaithful wife who was trying to put her bastard child into a laird’s chair he had no right to.
She pushed all her concerns aside and forced herself to think only of getting a hearty meal set out for the men who would soon fill the hall.
There was also a lot of work needed in order to put the keep back to rights, from getting the returning wounded brought back and on their way home, right up to and including preparing the dead for burial.
She both grieved for their loss and rejoiced over the fact that there had been so few killed.
The people who had sheltered in the keep worked hard and quickly, putting the rooms and hall back to rights with an admirable speed.
Then they began to leave, eager to get back to their homes.
She was pleasantly astonished to find that even David’s bedchamber had been returned to what it had been before it was used as a nursery.
It was now ready for Nigel who would, without question, become the laird of Glencullaich.
Assured by Joan that the meal was ready, Annys hurried to her bedchamber to clean up.
Away from all the work, her worries returned, but she fought to shake free of their hold.
This was a time for celebration. Sir Adam was gone, the threat to Glencullaich ended.
Nigel, a man thought lost to them, had returned and Glencullaich had a laird again, one who was battle-hardened and well able to keep his people safe.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she started back down to the hall.
The one thing she refused to think about, determinedly pushed deep down inside her mind, was what Harcourt would do if she did find herself freed of all ties to Glencullaich.
Harcourt sat on Nigel’s left when the man asked him to.
When he then turned to have a quiet word with his second, Andrew, and that man left the seat on Nigel’s right empty, Harcourt knew who was going to be seated there.
The head table was separated from the others enough that more private conversations could be held.
Considering all that needed discussing now that Nigel was seated in the laird’s chair, Harcourt had a feeling that this could prove to be a very uncomfortable meal.
Annys came in and the look on her face when Nigel stood, waving her on to take the seat at his side, told Harcourt that she, too, saw the potential for a very uncomfortable confrontation.
Nigel’s smile for Annys showed no hint of that possibility, however.
What it did show was pure male appreciation for a beautiful woman and Harcourt abruptly experienced a new, even sharper concern.
The simplest solution to the matter of Benet being named heir by David was for Nigel to claim the boy as the heir as well, but, perhaps the man would not mind claiming the heir’s mother, too. She had once been promised to him.
“Nigel, how is it that Adam could keep us from kenning that ye were alive for all these years?” Annys asked as a page filled her plate with the foods she chose but doubted she would be able to eat.
“Coin and a lot of it, freely given,” Nigel answered. “He paid to have me and my men tossed into a prison in a remote keep in the French hills. I believe he meant for us to die there. Two of my men did.” He paused. “Are ye certain ye wish to hear this as we eat?”
“I doubt anything ye can tell me can be too harsh for me to listen to now.” She looked around. “A few more days of seeing the hall returned to this, to what it should be instead of what it was but hours ago, and, aye, I might be shocked. But now? Nay.”
“Weel, the mon holding us wouldnae simply kill us and I am nay sure why,” he said, “but Adam may have hesitated to actually request aloud that it be done. Howbeit, they did naught to make certain we lived. Think on the worst of dungeons, little food and that bad enough to make a mon sick, little water and often foul, and, aye, ’tis a near miracle we didnae all die.
And any attempt to get away, any sort of rebellion, nay matter how small, was punished harshly. ”
“How did they get hold of all of you?” asked Harcourt.
“A trick. Thought we were to be hired to guard the keep. Sat down to a meal, woke up in a hole.”
“How did ye finally escape?” asked Annys.
“The keep was attacked and when the ones who won came down to free their companions, they released everyone, us as weel. All they asked from us was that we go home and dinnae fight their countrymen anymore. Or e’en fight for them as many used such as us to attack their own people and nay the enemy.
They didnae like all the hired swords running free about the country, nay e’en the ones who wanted to kill the English as badly as they did. ”
“They sent ye off sick and weak?”
“Nay. They allowed us to stay a wee while.” He smiled a little.
“We were a pitiful lot and the mon who had taken the keep was disgusted by the reason we had been caged, e’en more so by how it was done.
Once strong enough to ride, we left. By then we were friends of a sort and he readily replaced all that had been stolen from us.
Nay free, for he asked us to promise that we would return to help him if he e’er needed it.
For free of course. He didnae like hired swords in France but clearly had no trouble if they came to work for him if he had need. ”
She looked at all the other men he had brought with him, scattered around the hall, sharing tables with the men of Glencullaich. “Ye return with more men than ye left with.”
“Aye, most are the remnants of other groups that went o’er there to fight, gain some coin.
” He smiled at her. “And, aye, I have some. Hid it weel enough that it was ne’er found and, luck was with us in that small way at least, for the mon who caged us kept all our saddles.
They held our treasure. On the long journey home we did keep our word and didnae hire out our swords, but we did have to defend ourselves a few times and collected some wealth from those we defeated.
A few were prizes we ransomed for handsome sums.”
He frowned. “Then I drew near home and heard the rumors of a battle at Glencullaich. So, all the way here we gathered as much information as we could. ’Tis how I kenned my brother was dead,” he said, emotion making his voice unsteady. “Tell me.”
Annys did but was as vague and gentle as she could be in the details about David’s death.
There was no need to dwell on the painful horror of it all.
She could see by the grief darkening his eyes that Nigel knew it had been a hard death.
It was much easier to tell him about Biddy and how she had paid for her crimes, despite the lingering sting of that betrayal.
“One of our own,” he muttered, as shocked as everyone else had been. “Hard to believe.”
“Aye, but e’en her sisters admit that Biddy thought of little more than of becoming a lady, someone who would have rule o’er others. I suspicion Adam and his mon Clyde recognized that greed inside her and were quick to use it. The ones who used her, killed her, and it wasnae an easy death.”
Nigel nodded. “I dinnae believe in torturous punishments but cannae find any sympathy for what happened to her.”