Knights of de Ware 02 - My Warrior (3 page)

She couldn’t help but wonder who would defend them against
him
, but she swallowed her pride and the urge to rail against the powerlessness that gripped her.

“I suppose I should go prepare for our English…guests,” she bit out.

Laird Angus kissed her on the forehead. Then she turned and marched toward the gates of Blackhaugh.

Katie, the steward’s wife, entered the kitchen and gasped at the chaos before her.

Like the first light snow of winter, fine white flour dusted everything—the flagstone floor, the iron pot swinging perilously on its hook over the fire, even the quivering black beard of the enraged cook. Broken bits of crockery littered the tables, and an ugly brown substance oozed down one wall where it had splattered.

Through the midst of the maelstrom paced Cambria Gavin, sending up tiny clouds of flour as she barked out demands to the cowering scullion lads, her stormy eyes flashing in an ill temper. While Katie watched with raised brows, Cambria cornered the Hamish the cook, haranguing the man with impossible requests. When Hamish’s hand began to tighten around the handle of the enormous knife he held, Katie decided it was time to step in. She took her charge’s elbow and tugged her out of range.

“Come, lass,” she soothed, clucking her tongue. “The kitchen’s no place for a battle. It’s as hot as Hades in here.” She lifted the corner of her apron and dabbed at the dusting of flour across Cambria’s nose.

Katie supposed she was as near a mother to Cambria as anyone. She knew the lass’s quicksilver moods and the volatile temper that could be the dread of many a servant. But she’d also seen the girl cry when she thought no one was watching, sobbing soundlessly into her sleeve as if her heart would break.

“What does he mean, he can’t make more cheese for tomorrow?” Cambria demanded, scowling at the cook.

“Lass,” Katie explained gently, steering her away from the red-faced man, “cheese must be aged.”

“Will it be ready the following day?”

“Nay, lass.”

“How old must it be?” Cambria ground out.

“It won’t be ready till winter, my lady.” She chuckled.

Katie wondered at times what Cambria would do without her. For all her ability to read and write, to wield sword and longbow, the lass was useless when it came to household affairs. Cambria had once told her that preparing the household for guests was more painful than taking a lance blow to the stomach.

If the present state of the castle were proof, Katie could believe it. More than a dozen pallets had had to be tossed out, having become a haven for rats and fleas, and they lay like dead cattle in the courtyard. Chambers unused for weeks had proved a nightmare of cobwebs. Fresh rushes had been mistakenly spread atop the old in the great hall, and so all had to be swept out. Cambria had completely tangled the needlework crest she’d meant to repair on her father’s finest tabard and, in a fit of anger, had run her dagger through the cloth. Consequently, the poor white hawk of the Gavin appeared to have been mortally wounded. Already this morning the cook looked ready to spit and roast his young mistress.

Katie sighed. She’d be up half the night repairing the fruits of Cambria’s labor. And now the lass was glaring coldly at her, as if she were to blame for the physical properties of cheese.

Her look was wasted. Katie never let Cambria’s nasty temper bother her. The lass’s rages usually blew over quicker than an April storm.

Tucking Cambria into a relatively safe corner of the kitchen, she bubbled merrily about, shooing some of the grateful scullery lads out.

“My lady,” she sang, dipping a huge wooden spoon into a pot of thick stock, “there’s no shortage of good food. We’ve fowl and hare aplenty and even fresh trout today.”

“I see no reason to deplete our stores of meat for visitors when pottage and cheese will do,” Cambria snapped.

Katie laughed and blew on the spoonful of broth. “Why, lass, what grudge do you hold against our visitors? Your father wishes to show them every courtesy. Pottage and cheese indeed!” She ignored Cambria’s scowl and sipped at the spoon.

“Mmm, you’ve outdone yourself, Hamish,” she crooned.

The cook grunted, pacified for the moment.

Katie glanced at Cambria. The poor girl’s fingers were worrying her surcoat to rags. She’d never seen her quite so distraught.

All at once, the reason thumped her on the head like an iron pot. “You know, your father has been quite mysterious about these visitors,” she confided. “Is it possible he’s arranged a match for you?”

All the color drained from Cambria’s face. Horror shadowed her eyes. “Not that,” she choked out. “Never that.”

Then Cambria fled, leaving behind the relieved cook, a handful of bewildered kitchen-boys, and one foolish steward’s wife who wrung her hands, wishing she could take back her careless words.

Cambria pulled at the neck of her dark madder surcoat. The heavy wool was stifling in the crowded great hall. The greasy smell of the mutton stew congealing in its doughy trencher turned her stomach, so she only picked at it. The familiar sounds and smells of supper had taken on a sharper cast somehow, making her strangely sensitive to every taste, every word, almost as if it were her last meal.

Her father spoke quietly with Malcolm about the size of the brook trout. Two ladies further down the table discussed remedies for aches of the head. The chatter at the lower tables was raucous and indiscernible. Hounds growled at her father’s feet as he tossed them bones to gnaw on. The pungent smells of robust ale, onions, peppery mutton, and mustard assailed her nostrils.

Today, Cambria felt the hardness of the worn oak bench beneath her cushion, smelled the delicate meadowsweet strewn among the rushes, heard every smack of lips, every swallow of ale. Her nerves stretched taut in anticipation. Each dagger that clattered on the table made her flinch. As she perused the walls along the length of the hall, where the faded shields of the conquered were hung, she wondered how many enemies her father was about to make and whether she had the strength to lend him convincing support.

Finally, rising and banging on his pewter cup with the haft of his knife, the laird commanded everyone’s attention.

“We are all Gavins,” he began, his voice as strong and comforting as honey mead on a winter night, “those of you sprung from the loins of the clan and those of you who’ve chosen to abide within these walls, under the clan’s protection. There is nothing—“he banged his fist on the table for emphasis, and Cambria’s heart leaped into her throat—“nothing more important than the survival of the clan and its claim to this land.”

A few isolated cheers arose at his words, but most waited breathlessly for the crux of his speech.

“I’m a man of little politic. I freely admit I care not who is by rights the king, only that he who rules is just and fair.”

“And distant!” someone cried out.

Chuckles circled the room. The laird smiled. Then he held up his hand for quiet.

“War is imminent between Scotland and England. Those of us in the Borders must choose who we will support.” He cleared his throat and stroked his grizzled chin. “A fortnight ago we lost many fine lads to a battle cry their foolish hearts could not resist. They chose their lot. I bear them no ill will.”

Cambria knew otherwise, but was silent.

“I have chosen as well,” he continued, resting his fingertips on the table before him. “I have done so not from the leanings of my heart, but from the dictates of my head.” He paused a long while, studying the faces of every clan member. “I’ve chosen to ally with the English and Balliol.”

A collective gasp filled the hall, and a low rumbling of exchanges began, which seemed to Cambria like the thunder before a summer storm. The laird needed her now. Glancing nervously about, she rose on quaking legs, acknowledging her father with a formal nod.

“Good folk,” she began tentatively.

No one heard her.

“Good folk!” she bellowed, the sound this time like a chapel bell ringing in a garderobe. The murmuring ceased instantly. Cambria folded her hands before her and tried not to fidget. “Like most of you, I do not wish to see Balliol take the throne.”

Several people nodded in agreement, and she continued in a surer tone. “But neither do I wish to see our clan destroyed and our land divided. The English…will win,” she bit out painfully. “They have greater strength and number, and they have unity, which the Scots do not. Because of the…deserters, our own forces have been diminished. We do not have the option of resistance. They are already upon us, and there is no Scots army to deliver us from siege.”

The voices rose again, some contemplative, some indignant.

“Our only hope,” the laird added, his eyes glowing with pride as he glanced at Cambria, “is to ally with the English. But on our terms. I’ve agreed to the alliance only on the contingency that our holdings remain in the name of the Gavin.” He paused and winked at Cambria. “And they’ve accepted my demand. They wish only to use our fortress and our knights. When they’ve quelled the rebellion, they will go home.” He added with a grin, “They will have to go home. Their lily-white English skin could not endure our winter.”

Everyone in the hall chuckled at his jest. Even Cambria felt the tension ease as a grin stole across her face. She stared in wonder at the twinkle-eyed, gruff-voiced bear of a man who willingly bore the weight of his clan’s troubles on his sturdy shoulders. She was truly proud of her father, and the light that shone back from his eyes proved that he felt the same way about her. Suddenly inspired, she raised her goblet.

“To the Gavin!” she cheered, and all about her lifted their cups. “May the clan forever endure, and may it be the fault of the English that we do so!”

Good humor rang out in the hall long into the night. It was with relief and hope that Cambria ascended the winding steps to her chamber much later to go to bed. She snuggled under the furs to sleep soundly by the crackling fire Katie had laid, alas too soundly to prevent the tragedy that lurked but a few dark hours away.

Sir Roger Fitzroi massaged the stubble on his cheek as he squinted through the pines toward the distant slumbering castle. He hadn’t slept well, unlike the other knights of his company, who snored comfortably on the sod around him in the chill light before dawn. His bitterness toward his new overlord, Holden de Ware, festered like an untended wound.

King Edward had turned his favor not upon Roger, but upon the Wolf, despite the fact that, for all intents and purposes, Roger was the king’s own uncle. Once again the king had ignored the blood tie, slighting his grandsire’s bastard and giving Holden de Ware command over the forces in the north. Then he’d let the Wolf lay siege to the best, most formidable keep, granting him lordship of it.

The siege on Castle Bowden, if one could rightly call it that, had lasted no more than three days, and the newly made Lord Holden de Ware settled into his grand accommodations with relative ease. It had been with great zeal, then, that Roger embraced the opportunity to claim a similar victory at nearby Castle Blackhaugh.

That was until he learned there was a special provision for this keep. Apparently, the Border laird had willingly agreed to its use by the English and pledged to sign support for Balliol as long as the castle and its property remained in its present owner’s name. And that damned Holden de Ware had approved the conditions.

Roger spit on the ground in disgust at this ridiculous coddling of the enemy. He’d sooner sell his own mother as a whore than let a Scotsman hold property while he remained landless. Curse the Wolf! King Edward had promised the victors the spoils. Roger would be damned if he’d be cheated of his.

Suddenly eager for the fight in spite of the early hour, he nudged his half brothers with his boot.

“Hugh. Owen. Get up,” he grunted, ignoring their drowsy protests. “Let’s storm a castle.”

The denizens of Blackhaugh had likely never seen so impressive a display of knights, Roger thought with satisfaction as he slowly removed his gauntlets. Nearly two score of them strutted through the great hall in full mail with tabards bearing proud English crests. Even his own, branded with the bar sinister that proclaimed him a bastard, was finer than any of the threadbare rags he saw on the Border knights.

Servants only recently jostled awake rushed about, lighting wall sconces, heating porridge, trying in vain to keep the knights’ tankards filled. Though Roger towered above them all like a golden god, it amused him to play at humility. He graciously accepted the silver chalice of ale his host, the Gavin, pressed into his hands.

Pushing back his steel coif, Roger sipped politely at the brew that he would ordinarily guzzle. He was playing the role of Holden de Ware’s courteous mediator to perfection, and he knew it. Only one small flaw to his plans niggled at the back of his mind.

Roger had been misinformed about the number of knights in residence at Blackhaugh. He’d asked three different maidservants if all their men were present, and they’d told him aye. But the dearth of defenders still disturbed him. His entire plan hinged on his ability to make it look as if the Scots had put up a fight. Their lack of armed men would almost certainly cast a shadow on his credibility.

Hugh and Owen were being difficult, as usual. Roger wished he didn’t have to bring his stupid brothers with him everywhere he went. But their mother would have it no other way. One did as one was told, or the royal stipend would be cut off. Roger grimaced, praying they’d keep their mouths shut and let him handle things his own way.

Impatient to begin, Roger shoved his empty cup into Owen’s hands.

“Laird Angus,” he announced, “my brothers and I…”

The laird looked dubiously back and forth between the three men. Roger was used to that. The three brothers looked no more similar than whelps born of a promiscuous bitch, and so they were. Owen was small and dark like their mother, Hugh was tall and thin, with stringy blond hair. Only Roger could boast of a royal sire and the stature and golden good looks that went with it.