Chapter Three
A warm, summer dawn was seeping into the darkness outside, but Giselle could not seem to get close enough to the fire to stop her shivering.
‘Lady, I must speak.’
‘Don’t, Agnes. Please.’
‘I will say my piece. Look how Edric treats you, striking you like that. Lady, you cannot marry that nasty, fat oaf.’
‘I must, and I should not have been seen like that on the tower.’
‘Don’t make excuses for him, Lady.’
‘Agnes, he was angry and lashed out. I will be more careful around him next time or appeal to Sir Hugh to intervene. Besides, we have bigger concerns than my marriage.’
‘God save us, the Scots will slaughter us all if they get in. I have heard it say they are devils in human form, brutish animals who rape and pillage and are barely men at all. Ugly, hairy barbarians, all of them. They torture their prisoners, boil them alive in lead, throw children from castle walls, carry women off to their hellish land, never to be seen again.’
‘I am sure those are just stories told to frighten us, and perhaps they were just bluffing. It’s been two days, and they have not attacked.’
‘I know what those heathens will do to us, Lady, if we are captured. They have no mercy and no honour. It will be rape and murder for us all. They will take your virtue in an instant, for it means nothing to them. Those Scots animals will make whores and slaves of us. I heard the servants whispering. They say news came of a band of Scots villains raiding on Sir Hugh’s lands, and burning and pillaging, so he sent out his best fighting men to cut them down. Where are they now? Dead - all of them. You said that devil’s tunic was covered in blood, and Black Douglas is said to be the worst of them all. He has no mercy. It is said he even burned his own castle down just to stop King Edward getting his hands on it, and what they found in the well afterwards was monstrous.’
‘What did they find?’
‘Bodies, Lady, well, bits of them at least. Headless corpses, dismembered horses, all rotting down the well, so it was ruined and…’
‘Agnes, stop. Enough. This is not helping. Can you not try to get some sleep at least, it will be dawn soon.’
‘Sleep, so they can murder us all in our beds! I cannot.’
Giselle was out of patience with her servant. They had been talking for hours about their predicament and were no closer to a solution. Giselle was still reeling at Edric’s treatment of her and, sooner or later, she would have to face him. Beyond that, there was the threat of the Scots lurking in the woods, threatening to kill them all.
‘If you cannot sleep, Agnes, at least have mercy on my nerves. Go to the kitchen and get some food, it will help take your mind off our plight.’
A dull thump reverberated around the castle walls, and the sound of shouting rose up from the yard, soft at first, but turning to a rising wave of screaming and horses neighing in panic. Giselle locked eyes with Agnes and rushed to the window. When she flung open the shutters, all was in chaos.
A pile of hay was on fire with the flames licking up against some wooden outbuildings, sending acrid smoke wafting over. It bit into the back of her throat. Flaming arrows hurtled over the battlements landing indiscriminately inside the yard, one seating itself in the chest of a man running with a pail of water to douse the fire. He went down, clutching his chest as the water spilt out onto the dirt, and the flames licked higher.
A white horse had pulled free of its tether, bright against the flickering darkness. It was rearing and running around frantically, knocking men over as they tried to get to the battlements to mount a defence. A group of men braced the gates as another heavy thump shook the big oak doors and sent them heaving inwards and then out again. Surely the Scots could not hope to break through it?
From all around came shouts of anger and panic and the thud of more arrows, landing everywhere. Giselle strained her ears to try and make sense of what was happening. The scrape and clatter of sword on sword was growing louder, and dark shapes were pouring over the walls. One of them sped down to the yard and started firing arrows all around. Why did no one cut him down?
If the Scots had managed to breach the walls, they were doomed. Panic tightened her throat.
‘Agnes, find something, anything we can use as a weapon.’
The servant’s eyes were wide and staring in fear. ‘Sir Hugh will send men to protect us.’ She clutched on to Giselle’s arm, digging her nails in. ‘We must hide in here until the Scots are gone.’
‘Agnes, no one is coming to protect us. We have to fend for ourselves. Listen to me.’
A stray arrow sent fire through the window, inches from their heads. It caught on the drapes around the bed and took hold. Within moments, the fabric was fully ablaze, filling the room with smoke. Giselle tried to douse it with the contents of the piss pot and a water jug but to no avail.
They could not stay here.
Giselle grabbed hold of Agnes and steered her from the chamber in the direction of the stairway.
***
Lyall crouched under the scant protection of his shield and tried hard to protect the head of Owen Sutherland, who had his shoulder against the cart and was pushing it hard, towards the gates. Lyall had to keep his friend alive long enough for the battering ram to do its work, which was not to break the gates, they’d be picked off before they could accomplish that. The ram was merely a diversion to draw men away and leave the weaker parts of the walls vulnerable to the scaling ladders. He prayed Lord Douglas would succeed in getting enough men over the walls soon because they were in mortal danger trying to ram the gates.