Brenda Joyce - A Rose in the Storm

Alexander MacDonald had been forthright. If they did not surrender, he would defeat the castle and spare no one.

She hugged herself, chilled to the bone. Should she have surrendered? And dear God, why was such a decision hers to make?

She inhaled and set the cup down. “Is it possible he is telling the truth? Is it possible that Red John is dead—and that Robert Bruce has seized the royal castle at Dumfries?”

Sir Neil was pale and stricken. “Bruce has always claimed the throne, but I know nothing of this plot!”

“Even the Wolf would not make up such a wild tale,” Malcolm said. “I believe him.”

She could barely comprehend what might be happening. “Is Bruce seeking the throne of Scotland? Is that why he attacked Dumfries?” And did that mean that Sir Guy was there with his men? Sir Guy was in service to King Edward. He was often dispatched to do battle for the king. Was that why MacDonald had claimed no one would come—because Sir Guy would be occupied with his own battles for King Edward?

Sir Neil shook his head. “Bruce is a man of ambition, but to murder Red John? On holy ground?”

“If the damned Wolf is telling us the truth,” she said, “if Red John has been murdered, Buchan will be furious.” The Comyns and Bruces had been rivals for years. They had fought over the crown before—and the Comyns had won the last battle, when their kin, John Balliol, had become Scotland’s king. “A great war will ensue.” She was sickened in every fiber of her being—these events were too much to bear.

“Lady Margaret—what matters is that if this is true, Red John will not be coming to our aid. Nor will Sir Guy.”

Margaret stared at Malcolm as Peg cried, “We can still surrender!”

She ignored her maid. “But Argyll will come to our aid if he can.”

“If the land is at war, he might not be able to come,” Sir Neil said grimly. “And MacDonald claims he has the means to stop him.”

She looked at Sir Neil and then Malcolm. “I am frightened. I am unsure. So tell me, truly, what you think I should do?”

Malcolm said, “Your mother would die defending Castle Fyne.”

Sir Neil stood. “And I would die to defend you, my lady.”

God, these were not reassuring answers!

“But, my lady, if you decide you wish to surrender, I will support you,” Malcolm said.

Sir Neil nodded in agreement. “As would I. And no matter what MacDonald has said, you can decide to surrender at any time—and sue him for the terms he has already said he would give you.”

But that did not mean the Wolf would give her such terms. He had been very angry when they had last parted company.

Margaret closed her eyes, trying to shut out the fear gnawing at her. She tried to imagine summoning MacDonald and handing him the great key to the keep. And the moment she did so, she knew she could not do such a thing, and she opened her eyes. They all stared at her.

“We must fight, and pray that Argyll comes to our aid,” Margaret said, standing. If they were going to fight, she must appear strong, no matter how terrified.

The men nodded grimly while Peg started to cry.

* * *

MARGARET DID NOT sleep all night, knowing what would begin at dawn. And because Peg kept telling her that she must surrender, and that she was a madwoman to think to fight the Wolf of Lochaber, she had finally banned the maid from her chamber. Now, she stood at her chamber’s single window, the shutters wide. The black sky was turning blue-gray. Smoke filled the coming dawn. The sounds of the soldiers and women above her on the ramparts, speaking in hushed tones as they stoked the fires and burned pots of oil, drifted down to her.

She could not bear the waiting, and she had never been as apprehensive. She heard footsteps in the hall on the landing, and she picked up her mantle, threw it on and hurried out. Sir Neil stood there, holding a torch.

“Are we ready?” she asked.

“As ready as we can be. If they think to scale our walls, they will be badly burned, at the least.”

And that was when she heard a terrible sound—a huge and crushing sound—accompanied by the deep groaning of wood.

“It has begun,” Sir Neil said. “They are battering the first gates on the barbican.”

“Will they break?”

“Eventually,” he said.

Margaret hurried past him, heading for the stairwell that went up to the crenellations. He seized her arm from behind. “You do not need to go up!” he exclaimed.

“Of course I do!” She shook him off and raced upstairs, stepping out into the gray dawn.

Smoke filled the air from the dozen fire pits, as did the stench of burning oil. The sky was rapidly lightening, and Margaret saw men and women at the walls, but no one was moving. “What’s happening?” she asked.

Malcolm stepped forward and said, “They are just moving their ladders to our walls.”

Margaret had to see for herself, and she walked past him.

She stared grimly down. Dozens of men were removing ladders from carts drawn by horses and oxen, pushing them toward her walls. She could not tell what the hundreds of men behind them were doing, and she glanced south, toward the barbican. Several dozen men were pushing a huge battering ram forward. She held her breath as the wheeled wooden machine moved closer and closer to the gates, finally ramming into it.

The crash sounded. Wood groaned.

In dismay, she realized the gates of the barbican would not hold for very long. A slew of arrows flew from her archers upon the entry tower, toward those men attacking her barbican. Two of the Wolf’s soldiers dropped abruptly from their places by the battering ram.

Instantly, other soldiers ran forward, some to drag the injured away, others to replace them.

“It isn’t safe for you to remain up here,” Sir Neil said, and the words weren’t even out of his mouth before she saw more arrows flying—some toward the men below, who were erecting the ladders upon her walls, and others coming up toward her archers and the women on her ramparts. Sir Neil pulled her down to her knees, arrows flying over them and landing on the stone at their backs.

“You are the mistress of this castle,” Sir Neil said, their faces inches apart. “You cannot be up here. If you are hurt, or God forbid, if you die, there will be no one to lead us in this battle.”

“If I am hurt, if I die, you must lead them.” Just then, the arrows had not hit their targets, but she was not a fool. When the Wolf’s archers were better positioned, they would strike some of her soldiers, and perhaps some of the women now preparing to throw oil on the invaders. And as she thought that, she heard a strange and frightening whistling sound approaching them.

Instinctively, Margaret covered her head and Sir Neil covered her body with his. A missile landed near the tower they had come from, exploding into fire as it did. More whistles sounded, screaming by them, rocks raining down upon the ramparts now, some wrapped in explosives, others bare. Two men rushed to douse the flames.

Margaret got onto her hands and knees, meeting Sir Neil’s vivid blue gaze. “You must tell me what is happening—when you can.”

* * *

THE SOUNDS OF the Wolf’s siege became worse, and did not cease. The battering of the front gate, the screams of missiles and explosives, the locustlike whirring of arrows. But other screams accompanied these sounds—the frightened whinnies of horses, the cries of the men who were shot, and worse, the screams of those in agony as boiling oil scorched their heads, shoulders and arms.

Margaret now stood in the south tower, not far from the entry tower and the barbican. From her position at the uppermost window on the third floor, she could watch the battle. Thus far, no MacDonald soldier had made it over her walls, and the gates of the barbican were holding. Her archers were great bowmen, she now knew, and a great many of the Wolf’s men had been shot by them, both as they climbed the ladders and as they wielded the ram.