Page 27 of Flanders’ Folly (The Curse of Clan Ross #7)

27

ITS ALL ABOUT THE BANNER

* * *

T he sound of distant horns finally penetrated Brigid’s dreams and she woke. The panel covering a narrow window had been removed. The sky outside was only beginning to lighten.

Flanders was already up, buckling on his sword belt, his face grim in the light of a single candle.

"What is it?"

“Riders. I cannot tell from which direction.”

The horns blew a second time. "That means trouble, doesn't it?"

He cocked his head to one side. "Different pitch. The first must have been from the pass. The second from the west."

Chills raced through her when yet a third set sounded.

Flanders looked ill. "From the south now." He hurried to a trunk, flipped it open, and dug inside.

"The south? But Stephan's camp is to the south."

He closed the lid and came to her with two sheathed daggers in his hands and handed her one. "I'm afraid Gerts may have underestimated her husband’s ability to raise two-thousand. Take this."

She held up her hands. "I have a knife in my belt."

"Take it," he insisted. "Hide it beneath yer skirts, and if ye care for my sanity, hide. Don't so much as look out a window."

She shook her head. "We're past lyin' to each other, aye?"

His jaw flexed. He closed his eyes for an instant as if praying for patience, then he nodded. She took the offered dagger and as soon as his hand was free, he grabbed her behind the neck to pull her up to press a wild kiss to her lips before rushing to the door. He paused once to look back, winked without smiling, and was gone.

Another trio of blasts. The pitch of the horn lower still. What was left? The north? Who would be coming from the Red Hills?

She couldn't bear to sit and wait for word. She had to see for herself. But she did care for Flanders' sanity, so she went in search of an arisaid with which to cover her head. He'd never know...

* * *

Snorre was waiting for Flanders at the top of the stair and joined him in the descent. “Ye reckon he had more than two thousand, then?”

Flanders nodded. “It looks that way.”

“Not a chance it might be Stout Duncan?”

“There is a chance, but that wouldn’t explain the alarms from the east, south, and north.”

Every able-bodied man rushed to man the walls, along with some very capable women. The still-dark bailey and outer courtyard rumbled from a thousand feet rushing to their stations, while at the same time, the last of the mothers and children headed inside the two towers like so many ants rushing home.

Torchlight and fires made for a hopeful glow in each tower window, and for the tenth time in as many minutes, Flanders thanked God for the shrewd building skills of James Duncan.

When he and Snorre topped the gate, Rolf was there with a long vest of chain, which he held out to Flanders. He insisted Flanders bend so he could help him don the thing. And though he usually eschewed chainmail and armor in favor of fighting as James had taught him, he now had to consider someone other than himself. He had to stay safe so he and Brigid could go on together. A valiant death on the battlefield no longer held the glamor it once had.

Robert stood at the fore of the walkway like a bloody masthead. His chest was puffed with pride, but his hands shook.

Flanders slapped him on the back. “Ye’ve done well, Laird Duncan. We are as prepared as we can be.”

Robert’s wide eyes found his. “Aye, but did we prepare for an assault from all sides?”

“Aye, we did.”

“How did such a bastard win so many loyal friends?”

“Not friends, and not loyal. More likely they have been coerced. Stephan’s favorite pastime has ever been blackmail.”

Flanders turned to search in all directions. Nothing visible yet, even with the growing light. But they would soon know just how many they were up against. They could hold off thousands until Stout Duncan arrived. But tens of thousands?

Memories of Bannockburn flashed in his mind. They were victorious, aye, but Todlaw was small. Well trained, true, but well-trained armies could be overrun by sheer numbers.

Flanders faced south again. “Where is Stephan?”

“Just there, across the road.” Robert pointed, then smirked. “Looks as if he and Atholl cannot decide who is in charge.”

Further back from the bickering hens, a hundred soldiers were readying their war horses. If they expected to be handed Todlaw on a silver platter, why dress for battle? Was it all just for show?

Flanders looked west again, hoping in vain to see a banner of a black boar on a red field. But Robert’s father couldn’t possibly know what they were facing. He might only bring a handful of men, and they might well regret coming to Young Duncan’s aid.

The road remained empty.

“I don’t understand,” Robert said at his shoulder. “If the coming danger is evident, why do the horns not repeat? Riders from all directions, but where are they?”

Flanders had a thought. “Perhaps the watchtowers were taken first.”

“Perhaps.”

Both men jumped at three deep throated blasts from the north. They waited to see if they would repeat, and while they counted their breaths, the horn sounded again from the east. Someone had orchestrated carefully.

From all directions, all at once.

It sounded like something he and James would have planned with Stout Duncan.

Then another idea. Maybe no one was coming!

Flanders found Stephan again to see if the man were preening. If the bastard had planned to take the watch towers only to terrify them, he would be enjoying the chaos on the walls. But instead, Stephan and Atholl looked just as rattled by the alarms as they were.

He recalled Brigid’s vision from late in the night. Riders they weren’t expecting. Maybe the devil himself. Was the enemy not expecting them either?

The screams of horses brought all attention back to the south. All those warhorses were rearing and stamping, rejecting their riders and fleeing like the devil had come for their souls. But another sound caught his attention—a sound that was tuned, perhaps, only to his ear.

Brigid’s quiet whispering...

The sound didn’t last long, only enough to allow him to locate her. There, on the wall, thirty feet to the east. She watched the thrown riders with delight, keeping her attention on them as the last few men lost their steeds.

Though Flanders was compelled to go after her, to pull her from the wall before Stephan noticed her, he turned back to the chaos instead, looking for something... The last horse reared, eyes wide. It screamed and stamped…at the green leafy fronds reaching for its hooves, fronds that were encouraged by the barest wisps of swirling mist. The beast finally broke free and fled after its fellows toward the growing morning light.

The soldiers’ attention was on anything but the ground. The shouting and cursing would have embarrassed any leader.

When Flanders hurried onto the wall walk, the spot where Brigid had stood was empty.

“Flanders,” Robert called.

Though he glanced around, he could find no sign of her, nor that length of brown plaid that had covered her head. Not that he could have done anything about her when Robert clearly needed him.

Robert nodded across the road. The bickering wives had put their arguments aside and were headed to the gate with a dozen torch-bearing guards at their backs, including Atholl’s four. They’d chosen not to come on horseback. Or rather, Brigid had made that choice for them.

“It’s barely dawn,” Robert said.

"Aye, well, it seems our judge has as much honor as his cousin." Flanders checked his dagger and hoped Brigid had done what he asked and had hidden hers. For he feared, if the enemy got inside the walls, she would need it.

Atholl and Stephan came to a halt far enough away that they didn’t have to tip their heads back too far to see Robert.

The traitor’s spawn cleared his throat. “Laird Duncan! I've come to execute my judgment on The Regent’s behalf! I demand ye open yer gates!"

Robert leaned forward and rested his elbows on the barrier, as casual as you please. “My document reads noon. Perhaps ye made a mistake and wrote dawn on yer duplication. But I assure ye, these gates will not budge for the pair of ye this morn…even if the entrance to hell has opened and its occupants come at ye on all sides. Ye shall be offered no sanctuary here!”

As if Robert’s words had been a signal, the alarm from the west sounded once more. Judging by the way both men reacted, they had no idea who might be coming.

"I've reconsidered,” Atholl shouted. “Some of yer people will need more time to reach other destinations,” he reasoned. "Open yer gates now, and I'll ensure them safe passage."

"But David,” Robert teased, “I must refuse, for it seems ye cannot guarantee yer own safety, let alone anyone else’s."

Atholl showed his teeth, miffed at the use of his first name and the reminder that he and Robert were contemporaries. "Then I shall not guarantee their safety when we breach yer walls, Robert."

Robert grinned and turned to Flanders. "Do ye hear that? He believes he can breach our walls. These walls.”

Every Todlaw man within hearing laughed both loud and long—enough to bring the sun up over the horizon.

"Laird Duncan!" Atholl called again. "This is yer last chance. What say ye?"

Robert didn’t hesitate. "I say ye can wait until noon, or ye can explain to the Regent why ye attacked a loyal subject without provocation."

The hens resumed their bickering, but it ended abruptly when Stephan turned and stomped back across the road. But he paused when McInnes, Todlaw’s eagle-eyed scout, shouted from atop a wall turret and pointed west.

“Red banner!”

Red! That could be Stout Duncan! But it was also the color of the Comyn family. Had Atholl sent for his own reinforcements and not known the direction from which they’d come?

Hemming put a hand to his face and shouted back, “Is there a boar?”

“Something dark,” McInnes called. “Might be.”

Flanders exchanged a look with Robert. Both Stout Duncan and the Comyns sported a boar. The question was, was there any gold? He shouted the question to McInnes, then explained to Robert. “Comyn would have gold somewhere. Either sheaves of wheat or a gold stripe, boar or not.”

Riders came into view. Two dozen, perhaps more. Three bore banners. The red was visible even to those with poorer eyesight.

“No gold!” McInnes waved his arm over his head. The man obviously knew his banners. “Black boar, no gold!”

Air filled Flanders’ lungs without invitation. Stout Duncan had come! And it seemed Stephan’s men weren’t prepared to stop him at the moment. The small party need only reach the gates and they’d be safe.