Knight's Blood (40 page)
Authors: Julianne Lee
Tags: #Kidnapping, #Science Fiction, #Fantasy fiction, #Married people, #Scotland, #General, #Fantasy, #Children - Crimes against, #Fighter pilots, #Fiction, #Time travel
Now she wore the thing beneath linens and silks from Alex’s wardrobe, and her Psalter tucked in between her tunic and sark. The tiny book was like a talisman she carried in hopes of gleaning whatever power it might hold. At least it might remind her of her connection to Danu, and that was something. Over Alex’s clothes she wore her own mail armor, and a surcoat of red and black bearing the stylized bald eagle element of Alex’s arms. Her shield, newly painted, bore the complete arms:
bordure, compony azure and argent; gules, bald eagle displayed or; sable, a lymphad sail furled, oars in action, or
. In other words, the shield had a border of blue and silver to indicate Alex’s ostensible illegitimate birth, a mythical bald eagle in gold against a red background, and below that a sailing ship in gold against a black background. The blue in the border was, of course, navy blue. To her, it seemed Alex had stopped just short of incorporating stars and stripes, and that amused her.
bordure, compony azure and argent; gules, bald eagle displayed or; sable, a lymphad sail furled, oars in action, or
. In other words, the shield had a border of blue and silver to indicate Alex’s ostensible illegitimate birth, a mythical bald eagle in gold against a red background, and below that a sailing ship in gold against a black background. The blue in the border was, of course, navy blue. To her, it seemed Alex had stopped just short of incorporating stars and stripes, and that amused her.
She stood among the men on the boat as it approached Cruachan. The deck was crowded, for Alex’s boats were small and few. Lindsay and Alex stood at the bow of the lead boat, the men taking every available space behind them. The deck heaved beneath their feet. Donnchadh and his fifty villagers rode the boat behind, carrying pitchforks and hunting bows.
When the knights of Eilean Aonarach had first seen Lindsay in her armor, ready to sail to Cruachan, there had been a bit of an uproar. Though those who had fought under Alex before Bannockburn recognized her as the knight they’d once known as Lindsay Pawlowski, some of them had personal objection to the idea of a woman in chain mail regardless of how well she might have proven herself in battle. The shock was compounded by very mixed reactions at finding their compatriot still alive but not nearly who they’d thought he’d been, and there was a thick feeling of betrayal in the group. Stares and grumbling made the hairs on the back of Lindsay’s head stand up. These guys seemed even less accepting of her than An Reubair’s rough men of the lower nobility. Lindsay had expected better of men pledged to her husband.
Neither she nor Alex addressed the issue to the men, but only presented her as Alex’s wife who would be accompanying them to Cruachan. Never mind that it was plain by her armor she intended to fight. Alex left it to the men to decide how to react and made it clear they were free to take their hired swords elsewhere. None left so far. It remained to be seen whether Lindsay’s presence on the battlefield would be deemed a benefit. Again she would need to prove herself, and she wondered if there would ever come a time when her reputation would be enough for acceptance.
Now, approaching the island, the stares quit as more important concerns took their attention. The knights under Alex’s command were no longer concerned about the moral weakness of the earl, and the earl’s wife who had apparently lost her mind, and were focused on meeting what might turn out to be obedient vassals or a wild enemy. Nobody knew which way this would go. Lindsay felt a little relieved her husband’s men had enough sense not to let their pride distract them from their job.
Like the rest of them, Lindsay hoped the change of regime would be peaceful, though a small corner of her balked at that hope. A tiny voice in the back of her mind niggled at her that she needed to demonstrate her ability to hold her own among the men, and this would be an opportune moment for it. Her pulse thudded in her ears as the boat landed at the tiny bit of rock on which the tower stood, and like the others she scanned the high, craggy horizon for greeters.
Alex looked out over the bow of the boat, also searching the shore for signs. Worry etched his face in ways only she would see. He’d arranged his face to be expressionless, and but for the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes and the one slightly raised eyebrow it would have been. His men could never know how he felt about anything, but she did.
Especially Trefor wouldn’t know. He’d brought his men along in support of the earl and stood with them at a distance from Alex, where they clustered and watched the shore. Alex was ignoring him. Had been ignoring him the entire trip. It was hard to tell whether the earl was merely focused on the task at hand, or if he meant to cut Trefor dead, and thereby put him in his place. Whatever place that might be.
Trefor made it plain it was a place he didn’t care for.
Lindsay watched him, taking glances to the side so he wouldn’t see her staring. He seemed focused, like Alex, but he had a sullen look about him she didn’t understand. An anger she found alarming.
It was hard to see him this way. Or any way at all, for that matter. She’d accepted this was the man her baby had become, but had no idea what that should mean to her. What had she ever been to him? What had she ever done for him that he should expect her to act like his mother? What on earth could she do for him now? What could it even matter to either of them?
Those thoughts sank her deep enough into sadness that she had to consciously pull herself out of it, take a deep breath, and peel her mind from it. This was not the time for wallowing in emotion, and she returned her full attention to the island and the tower. The MacNeils were armed, swords at their sides, prepared in case of attack once they landed.
The waiting keep was a fairly new structure. Tall and boxy, not like the crumbling, ancient tower in Lochmaben, and topped with a sharply crenellated battlement. It would shelter their men and horses, separating them from the possible dangers of the island, until they were ready to invade the island. At high tide the outcrop of rock on which it rested seemed like a tiny island, for the narrow arm that connected it to the main island was covered by a few feet of water. At low tide there would be a path from the tower to the island, rather less than the furlong Donnchadh had estimated, but still long enough to keep attackers at bay. A quay ran along the seaward side of the tower, where the boats would dispose of their cargo of men, horses, and supplies.
Lindsay looked to the horizon again. Still no clansmen to be seen.
Alex said, half to himself, “No welcoming committee. Not good.” Lindsay knew he was right, since at least some islanders would surely have spotted them coming by now and the lack of welcome suggested the natives were hanging back. Waiting. Alex would need to approach with caution.
As soon as the first boat nudged up to the quay on the seaward side of the keep, guards on horseback were unloaded and deployed to the island, wading across the isthmus through waist-deep water and posting along the shoreline in a semicircle. The rest of the unloading went quickly and without mishap, and mostly in silence, almost surreptitiously. Horses, weapons, supplies, and men filled the tower in an intense bustle and clopping of hooves on the stone floor. The earl’s men managed to unload all the animals and tack before a cry was heard from the pickets that an islander had been spotted.
Alex’s head went up, and he listened. All the knights stopped to listen. At that moment Alex was on the second floor above the horses, supervising the allotment of sleeping space, but when the alarm shout came he broke off speaking to Henry Ellot, heard the call, then hurried up the stairs to see. Lindsay followed, and she was likewise followed by Ellot and Gregor.
Looking across from the battlement atop the tower, there didn’t seem to be anything on the island but rocks and Alex’s pickets. Alex shaded his eyes and mumbled a wish for binoculars. The knights on guard down there were all moving toward a single spot, and Lindsay looked at that spot. There she found a cluster of men gathered along the rocky top of the nearest ridge. Hard to pick out, they were so still, but they seemed as wild as Donnchadh had characterized them. In midsummer they of course would not be burdened with heavy clothing. Lindsay had seen the way people dressed on Eilean Aonarach, where tunics were few, women went barefoot, and children often went entirely without clothing, but these men wore far less than the men she’d seen. Here there were no proper belts other than rope, no trews or tunics, few boots, and their sarks were unadorned with anything resembling plaid or surcoat. Armor would more than likely be a distant dream to them. Their pale, light linen garments revealed thin, hard, large-jointed frames, and flapped gently in the wind at knees and arms. Where the fashion for most Scots was to be clean shaven, these men wore full, bushy beards and long, unkempt hair. Lindsay had never seen anything like it, even in these times and even on Eilean Aonarach where the culture was decidedly rustic. But for all their lack of clothing, these men were armed more fully than even the knights from Eilean Aonarach. They held swords, maces, and pikes as well as farm tools such as those wielded by Alex’s vassals. The gathering bristled with armament.
Not good.
“All right,” said Alex. “Let’s get down there and introduce ourselves. Henry, gather the men, get them mounted, and we’ll take them all out to the shore.” He looked around for Gregor, but the boy was already off to ready the earl’s horse.
Henry hurried back down the stairs while Alex looked out across to the island again. The cluster of men had not moved.
“Do you see anyone else?”
Lindsay scanned the horizon but found nothing. Down by the shore . . . nothing. But then she spotted a cleft in the rocks to the west along the shore, where there was movement. A line of well-armed men were creeping to flank the MacNeil pickets. She patted Alex’s arm to get his attention, then pointed. Alex grimaced.
“Crap.” He removed his right gauntlet to blow a loud whistle to the men below. When the pickets looked up he waved them in the direction of the flanking movement, and they then saw the line of islanders in the distance. The knights adjusted their deployment accordingly, and the approaching line stopped. At that moment a file of Alex’s cavalry came riding from the tower and plunged into the water along the isthmus. Behind them walked the Eilean Aonarach villagers with their bows, scythes, axes, and pitchforks. When the islanders saw the numbers at hand, they backed off in a hurry, melting away and into the rocky hills like water soaking into the earth.
“You can’t attack them, Alex. They don’t know who we are yet.”
“Thank you, Jiminy Cricket. Who’s side are you on?”
“I offer it only as a data point. They don’t know who we are and don’t know you have a charter from the king. They probably think we’re random invaders testing their defenses.”
Alex sighed. “Yeah. And it doesn’t look like they’re eager to find out otherwise, either. We’ve got to follow them. Get to the village before they have a chance to gather themselves.”
“The men haven’t eaten.”
“Not a problem. Not with these guys. And with any luck we’ll catch the village flat-footed so they’ll listen, and they’ll be sensible about this whole change of guard thing.”
“Not if they’re MacDonalds.”
Alex bit his lip and shrugged, forced to agree. “So we’d better get going. Come on.”
They went back downstairs, mounted, and rode out across the isthmus to lead the knights across the island and to the village. The fifty infantry followed.
According to Donnchadh MacConnell, only about half the island was what anyone would have called populated. There was some farmland, little pockets of tilled land tucked between forest and rock. But the folks who lived here existed more by fishing and hunting than through the bits of land they put to plow. The hills the knights and foot soldiers moved through were granite with a veneer of soil like webbing, stretches of green punctuated by gray rock, sometimes rolling, but in the distance the riders saw sharp peaks rise from the grass. They jutted to the sky like thick fingers. Or like walls surrounding a dark realm. These pastures were interspersed with low, forested places dark with growth and deep soil. The track they followed wended narrowly, the knights moving single file between the thickets of trees and underbrush. From where she rode with the squires, Lindsay watched Alex, looking around at his new domain, and she could almost see him thinking. This place was rich with game, and there was arable land going unused. If the MacDonalds thought they had a claim to it, they would surely fight for it.
Alex would fight for it as well, and for more reason. Besides the farming and game, there was space here for the MacNeils of Eilean Aonarach to spread out. As clansmen, all MacNeils would prosper by resources and influence. Besides, the MacNeils’ historical claim to the
cairn
meant the return of control of this island to the clan would bring prestige to himself as well as his people over whom he was laird and earl. And finally, as land attached to the earldom, it was essential to his status with the king. His title wasn’t worth much without military control of the land and the people living on it. In personal terms, this place was worth far more to Alex than it would ever be to the MacDonald laird.
cairn
meant the return of control of this island to the clan would bring prestige to himself as well as his people over whom he was laird and earl. And finally, as land attached to the earldom, it was essential to his status with the king. His title wasn’t worth much without military control of the land and the people living on it. In personal terms, this place was worth far more to Alex than it would ever be to the MacDonald laird.
The company came onto an open area, tilled fields surrounding the village, and came to a halt just outside the tree line. The crop of oats was high and green, shimmering as the breeze blew across it. In the distance could be seen villagers gathering, their weapons waving this way and that as they milled about, waiting for the order from their leader. Lindsay wondered exactly who that leader was. Not that it mattered anymore. The group didn’t appear in a mood to talk things out.
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