Wedgewick Woman (4 page)
Chapter
7
As was his custom, Lord Carmichael rose long before his men stirred. Knowing Ross had not yet slept, he let him off-watch and took his place. Ross knew his Laird did not have to perform the duties of watchman.
“Sleep well, then?” Ross asked quietly.
“Did, at that. Drink now and lay while you can. The sun will be upon us before you have twenty winks.”
Standing with his backside to a tree, for without Ross’ protection at his back, he was easy prey, he gazed out with eagle’s eyes over the horizon, now becoming clearer with each minute as the sun made it’s way toward the new day.
Barely into his watch he heard the familiar whistle and before he knew what was about, felt the arrow enter his left forearm. He shouted and the camp was awake.
Ross, Fergus, and Ewan were at his side instantly, his sword having been shoved into his right hand by Cameron.
“I see the little twit. I’ll have him ready to skin alive.” Ewan, the lightest and fastest runner shouted.
Within minutes a lad hardly more than a wee child stood before him.
“What say you boy?” Lord Carmichael asked quietly, his face muscles twitching, as the physician studied his Laird’s injury planning the quickest way to remove the arrow, which had pierced his arm, but had not gone through owing to the weak-armed attempt of a mere child.
The boy, his bones showing through his filthy skin and dressed in ragged cloths, watched as the physician yanked the tip of the arrow from the man’s arm. Blood poured out. Tamping down the bleeding with a clean cloth, the physician applied a smelly yellow salve, tied up the arm and predicted that all would be well.
Huge brown eyes stared fearlessly as he openly admired the injured man. He had not even flinched when the physician yanked the arrow from his arm.
“Laird, what would ye have us do with him?” Ewan held the boy’s bony arm in his fist.
Laird? He had shot the Laird of the clan?
He straightened his shoulders and prepared to die.
Fergus grabbed the boy by the other arm and yanked him forward taking the child’s bow from the filthy hands.
“You will answer for your deed.” He jerked the boy again and forced him to stand before the Laird.
Lee sat quietly and waited. He noted the fear that came across the young boy’s face when he’d realized he’d shot their leader. And how he’d straightened his back when he knew the punishment meted out for such an offense would be certain death.
“If you know what’s good for ye, you’ll spend your words now and be truthful about it.” Fergus warned.
The boy did not flinch, but took a step closer to the head of the clan and lifted brown eyes upward. “I am truly not sorry for my deed. I was only protecting my land.”
Laird Carmichael’s eyebrows lifted slightly and he put up his good arm to quiet Fergus who pounced upon the boy ready to lay a well-deserved blow alongside his ear.
“And who’s land would that be?”
“Why the Campbell’s of course. Ye are upon their lands.” He informed the Laird gravely, lifting his small chin.
“I beg a pardon. We are on the road east of the Campbell’s are we not?”
The boy turned at the sound of horses approaching.
“Ah, the Campbells.” Laird Carmichael seethed. “The confrontation I had hoped to avoid.”
The men drew their swords, the sound of their thin metal blades leaving their scabbards, breaking the morning’s quiet.
“Aye, we have the wee one at war again.” The Campbell leader sighed and laughed rudely. “So what has happened here that a wee lad has gotten you all at the ready?” He sneered.
“The boy has shot an arrow into our Laird, that’s what this be about.” Fergus spoke as he moved forward menacingly.
Laird Carmichael let him speak, hoping his man would hold his temper. Since that was not likely, he himself stood and walked past Fergus.
“I am Laird Carmichael.” He said by way of introduction. “Son of…”
“I know your father well…Laird Colin Charles William Carmichael. He was a good warrior. ‘Tis a sorrow he had to die.”
Carmichael noticed the man’s eyes narrow as he looked around nervously. The three Campbell riders heeled their mounts forward in warning.
“What say you about your young one?” Carmichael changed the topic quickly to avoid a calling out.
A booming laugh caused a stir again throughout the camp. “Mine? This mere runt, who has no family, has been taken in the Campbell camp. He is not one of us.” The man sneered.
The boy’s head drooped slightly.
“Then he is not a Campbell?”
“No. He is a Mulhannon whose clan thought they would have a go at one of our little villages. That is to say not one Mulhannon that attacked our village lived to tell about it except the wee one you see here.” He pointed. “He is now a wayfarer who steals our food and makes a nuisance of himself thinking to join us as a Campbell. What are we to do with him?” He shrugged his huge sheepskin covered shoulders.
Carmichael saw fists form at the boy’s side.
“Then you’ve no use for the boy?” Carmichael asked gazing at the man atop the horse.
“None.”
“Then I say he becomes my servant…as payment for my injury.”
“Nay. I rather like the boy inasmuch as he gets my ale for me and runs an occasional errand. He is quite worthy in that regard.”
The silence was palpable. “Then shall we pay you 20 lira for him and be done with it?”
The man’s face held a moment’s surprise before he caught himself and shrugged, “As you wish it.” He held out dirty hands immediately.
“Cameron, see that he gets the funds and write out the papers.” The Laird ordered. “Aye, we shall be on our way afore you have reached your home.” Laird Carmichael said as he moved away.
The transaction finished, the Campbell men rode away quickly, should the foolish Laird see his error and call them back
.
“The boy is a dirty Mulhannon, nothing but a babe. Now he shall have to feed the waif
.”
He laughed and his men with him
.
The Four could hear the Campbell’s crude laugh as he galloped away. Awaiting a good scuffle, the guards wanted to club their own young Laird for his seemingly insistent manner of being overly generous to enemy clansmen.
Thankfully Carmichael had not heard the grumbling as his men went back to work. For all rights and purposes, their Laird should have picked up his sword and done the Campbell in, instead of paying a large sum for a child who had just shot him. To their way of thinking, the Laird had been made to look the fool.
“Another mouth to feed.” Fergus grunted.
“The Laird is a good man.” Ewan owned.
“We shall be about our business and see to the boy.” Cameron said quietly breaking up the group. “Aye, we will see to it he becomes worthy of his vittles.”
“Boy, bathe yourself…” The Laird ordered. “You deceive our noses. It smells as though there is a dead animal within the camp.”
The boy ran to do the Laird’s bidding, his heart brave, but still shaking inside. He’d only shot the man and now he belonged to him.
Before he was ten steps gone the man bellowed, “Boy, you forget your manners.”
Turning, his mind running wild, the boy wondered what he had forgotten.
“You owe me an apology. I would have it now.”
“Sir, yes, I…I am sorry for shooting you. I intended to protect…” his voice wavered, “the Campbells.”
“And your allegiance will be with me now?” He boomed. “I will have your word.”
“You have my word, Lord Carmichael.”
“You speak my name.”
“I heard the Campbell speak it.” he said quietly.
“What age be you boy?”
He watched as the boy stood a little taller, “I’d be eleven, Sir.”
Carmichael looked away for a moment, then spoke. “You’d be nine and no more.”
The boy’s face reddened considerably. “How’d ye know it?”
“I was as narrow as you at that same age.”
“Oh.” The boy looked at his new Laird with a renewed appreciation for he was tall, wide shouldered and looked to be very strong.
“Go now.”
The boy shot down the hill toward the lake and was gone out of sight in a mere moment, so short was his body.
Carmichael smiled. The boy remembered his name. Perhaps he, too, could use the boy to some advantage, teach him to be a good soldier. Then the ache in his arm reminded him just what sort of task he had recently brought upon himself.
Chapter
8
With the day’s delays and the Laird’s inability to use his left arm to its full purpose, the entourage headed north and finally cleared the woods and wound its way down a slight incline reaching Greenoche before the sun had set.
Greeted by the guards, they were treated to a simple meal of oatcakes and boiled vegetables.
Afterward the tents were set up; for the cottages of the Bothwell clan were pitifully small and barely capable of withstanding the elements.
“’Tis unfortunate we did not respond to the missives the Bothwells sent us.” The Laird uttered as he and Ewan retired to the tents.
“Aye.” Ewan agreed. “The coverings at the windows are threadbare, the children have no shoes and even the dogs look weary.”
“They will not want to leave their lands.” Laird Carmichael discerned at once.
“Indeed not, Sir, for they are a proud people.”
“Well, proud or not, something must be done. This is a shame to the name of Carmichael.”
“Aye. Have you any theories?” Ewan prompted.
“Only one.”
Ewan waited.
“I should marry the red-haired young lady … for her Mother was flaunting her young daughter like a horse at the market.”
Laughing aloud Ewan joined in, “Yes and you too, could have shoeless, red-haired children running with the dogs.”
“It is a grave affair, is it not?” The Laird quieted.
“Aye, that it is.”
“We’ll discuss the matter come morn.”
Morn brought a light rain and the dirtied streets turned to mud-splattered byways through which children continued to play. Clothes that had been tossed over bushes to dry the last eve were now blowing hither and yon, some landing in the mud.
Immediately the Laird took charge and commanded. “Pick up these garments.” His voice was heard over the rain. The children stopped their running, stood wide-eyed for a moment and slowly began to do his bidding.
“And afterward, get these piles of sticks picked up and put them next to your cottage. Out here they are a hazard as one walks through the streets. And, they will be good for your mother’s firewood.” He added by way of teaching.
Two of the females curtseyed slightly and the boys just stared. “Get to it.” he shouted and watched with a slight smile as the barefoot youngsters scurried in every direction. That done he returned to his tent where this day they would meet with the chief of the small clan and decide what could be done.
“We are sorry for your father’s death.” Several of the men repeated. “It has been four years since we’ve seen a Carmichael.”
“For that I ask your forgiveness. Your missives had come to my attention more than once but I was so busy…” he started to say “chasing his wayward wife,” but decided that would not sound proper…”that I am only now realizing the error of my decision to put other things first. You have my attention.”
For two hours the Bothwells spoke, first the men, then the women about the trials of living so far north of the Carmichael’s to whom they now belonged. They would not, however, consider moving to Dunbeernton Castle. This was their land and if they left it, the Campbells would take it as their own. They would even now run them off if they were any weaker.
“The Campbells are not all bad people.” Carmichael reminded them. “Some of the sects are evil men; but then there is evil and good in every camp, aye?”
They nodded in agreement.
“But Sir, if you will allow me, the sect that is closest to us is one of the most evil. Should we need protection will you offer it?”
Affronted by the mere question, Lord Carmichael stood to his feet. “It is the way of the Laird to protect his people. Do you not know it, man?”
Silence.
“They killed your own father, mi’lord.” One woman’s voice came from the back.
The Laird turned an angry face. “Who spoke?”
Silence.
“It was I.” A female voice quivered.
“Stand and be seen.” He ordered. “Come forward.”
The mother of the red-haired daughter stepped from among the people. A hush came over the crowd for it was not seemly that a woman should be heard before a man. The elder Laird Carmichael would never have addressed a woman in such a meeting.
Laird Carmichael heard the whisperings about his father’s ways.
“I will not return to what is past. My father was his own man and I am mine. Too many centuries have passed with one clan fighting another. Must I remind you of the blood shed at the Glencoe Massacre, and the Catholics fighting the Covenants, need I say more?”
“No.” her voice barely was heard.
“Then let it be known now that I am not my father. He wished to attain lands at any costs, even his own life. I will give my life for my people, but not for needless purposes. We have enough lands and people, that if we work together in some semblance of peace, we will be strong. Wars can sometimes be won with words of peace and not the sword.” He concluded, at which time a small round of “ayes” could be heard.
“Let us begin here. This day. I will send you Carmichaels and Muldoons … those that are willing,” he amended, “and they will stay with you for one year, helping with your crops. I will send sheep and goats and tools to get you started. After such time you will either strengthen yourselves or ye will join us on our lands to the south. Is it agreed?”
Laird Carmichael waited patiently while the people talked amongst themselves.
“Could we have two years, in the event that the elements fail us?” One said.
The Laird looked to his men, Ross and Ewan, who had accompanied him to the meeting while Cameron and Fergus walked the lands with others.
“What say you?”
“Aye.” Ewan agreed as did Ross.
“Tis done then. We shall return on the morrow after looking at your grounds to see what can be raised in your fields and where sheep can be fed. Build some protection for the animals and get them out of the cottages that are ready to fall in upon you and your children. Share accommodations until we can return and build new homes.”
“We will do it.” One stood.
“Aye.” Others followed.
“Allowances will be made for whatever we can provide that you do not already possess. Men come forward.”
“Leave us and go make your lists. Bring the children if they wish to attend.” He said to the women. We will speak with you later.”
“He wishes to speak with us and the young ones?” Excited whispers traveled among the womenfolk as they hurried to their meager dwellings, a bit of hope shining from their eyes.
By afternoon the lists had been assembled and decisions made as to whom would be coming back with the Laird. “I shall appoint three men to ride back and bring you immediate relief. Have you any suggestions?”
Three names were quickly called out and the men were dismissed to ready themselves for the journey. Each of The Four spent the day riding the lands in each of the four corners. The Laird, trusting his men to do their duties, stayed in the village and spoke to the women and children.
“Boy, what is your name?” he asked the waif who had shot him.
“Cork, Sir.”
“Cork, come and see to the cleaning of me muddy boots but before you do, run to my tent and get me other pair.”
The boy was out the door before he could blink. He heard a loud thump and realized he had slipped in the mud and taken a fall. He smiled for the lad did not utter a sound. Perhaps the boy
would
earn his place.
The small cottage was full of females of all ages who wanted their say with the handsome Laird. Babes cried at their mother’s hips and the young ones, thankfully, were mostly quiet. Still the noise made his head ache.
A small goat wandered through the front door. The boy called Cork reappeared, muddy, but with the clean boots held high in the air.
“Thank you. Now if you would clean these.” He pulled off his muddy ones and put on the dry boots.”
In the next moment, just as he looked up, a loud bawl issued from the goat as a toddling boy was trying to ride it. Before he knew about it he had a small female child thrust into his left arm, which pained him greatly. While the mother chased the goat and the young boy, he found himself staring into the roundest pair of blue eyes. Bright copper red hair covered the miniature head and the wee lass was smiling at him. He moved the chubby child to his good arm, hardly knowing what to do with it while the other women giggled, not a one offering to lend him a hand.
Still seated, he decided that holding his burden was tiring out even his good arm. Could a babe be so heavy? He wondered. Setting her upon his lap, he felt a strange warmness dampen his trousers. Snatching her up again, he lifted from the chair and stared at his wet leg…to which now there arose such a laughter within the small cottage that he felt his face flame.
“Where is this child’s mother?” he boomed.
The entire house stilled, until someone called the name Rose and the woman came back in from outside and retrieved her fat little wet bundle. Not wishing to make another issue, he ignored his wet trousers and tried to regain his position, but it was useless.
Every face in the room was about to break out in another fit of giggling. “Dismissed.” He announced sharply and shooed them out.
Had he been a fool to address
the women while his men worked?
He passed Cork who was sitting on a large log cleaning his boots and said not a word, but saw the boy look away and pretend not to have heard the calamity inside.
“Tis not the job for a Laird.” He mumbled rushing back to his own tent to rustle for a clean pair of trousers.
With clean dry clothes he sought his physician for a change of bandage. The wound was bleeding again.
“Tis as I hear it? We are leaving on the morrow?” The physician asked.
“Aye. Are ye anxious to see your wife?” he spoke laughingly.
“Aye. We are due a babe and I want to deliver her of the child myself.”
Laird Carmichael looked up sharply. “And why did ye not tell me this before we departed?” he commanded.
“My duty is to you, my lord.”
“Your duty is to your wife.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Don’t thank me. Next time inform me and I’ll bring Devin or Keir along.”
“Thank you for your kindness. This is our third child…another lass no doubt.”
Laird Carmichael envied the man.