Authors: Susan King
Isobel sighed, fingers touching gritty stone. She had been born here, and might die here. But not so soon, please God, not so soon.
"Come away from the wall, Isobel." Eustace Gibson, the castle baillie, stepped out of the shadows, stretching out his hand toward her.
"Stay back," she warned. "They will shoot if they see you."
He smiled grimly. "They have tried, and I am still here. Come inside the keep." He guided her toward the steps, and Isobel heard the familiar whine and thwack of an arrow bolt hitting the outer wall where they had stood moments earlier.
Isobel turned back, determined, returning to the wall-walk. She pulled her white silk veil from inside her sleeve and leaned deep into the embrasure opening. With an exaggerated motion, she wiped at the fresh scar on the outer stone wall, shook the stone dust from the cloth and stood back. The breeze caught the black length of her hair again.
Cheers and shouts rose from the English troops. Isobel lifted her head regally and turned to descend the steps. Eustace smiled.
"Och, Sir John would be proud to see such wit in his daughter!"
"My father would not have surrendered, and neither shall I." She walked down the steps calmly, but inside she trembled. The wit might be there, but she had learned to hide her fear.
"Eustace, last night I dreamed that we walked out of here into freedom."
"Is that a prophecy?" Eustace asked.
"Just a hope," she answered. She looked up at the sky, where the sunset faded into indigo. The dream was not prophetic—the blinding burden of prophecy had not come over her, nor had it come for a long while. Yet a small, strange shiver rippled through her.
She frowned, sensing a compelling new presence somewhere nearby. Fatigue was overtaking her, she told herself. She set a hand to the wall, paused.
"There is some soup left," Eustace said. "Come eat."
"I will." She had eaten little for three days; the thin soup of barley had to feed all of them. When the last of the grain was gone, they would face an enemy stronger than any. She could already feel the effects of starvation in a lingering dizziness and dull headache.
"Isobel." Eustace sounded grim. "You must give the final order to surrender."
"My father would not want that."
"He would not want us to die."
She glanced at him. Eustace Gibson had been part of Aberlady's garrison since Isobel had been a small girl. She had come to rely on his skills and his steadfast nature. She sighed.
"Sir Ralph will be here soon—before the siege, he went to find my father. He will return soon with Sir John." She heard the brittle note of doubt in her voice.
"We will not see that one soon," Eustace muttered. "Surrender, girl. The English will not harm you."
"But they will harm you, and take all of us prisoner as soon as we set foot out of the gate. Aberlady will be made into a Southron stronghold."
Eustace sighed. "We must put the torch to Aberlady as we leave. Then the Southrons cannot take it."
"Torch Aberlady!" She stared at him.
"Isobel, we cannot stay. We cannot defend this place."
Silent, she stared at the darkening sky, unsure what to say—or what to do.
Then Eustace exclaimed softly. "Look there!" He grabbed the hilt of his sword. "In the far corner of the yard."
She gasped. A group of men—four, five, she counted hastily—emerged from the shadows beneath the back wall of the enclosure. They walked boldly into the bailey and came toward the steps where Isobel and Eustace stood. On the battlement, the few men of the garrison lifted their bows and held them ready. Eustace lifted a hand to hold their attack.
"Who are they?" Isobel whispered.
Unkempt and wild in appearance, the approaching men wore simple tunics, leather hauberks and worn cloaks, but carried good broadswords and bows. One man moved ahead and dropped back the hood of his long brown cloak.
He was taller than his companions, shoulders wide, legs long and lean. His clothing was shabby at the edges and his tangled brown hair and beard needed trimming. HIs features were handsomely shaped despite grime. His strong, agile stride and his very presence seemed to charge the air like lightning.
Then Isobel realized that she had sensed his arrival moments ago.
He gripped his unstrung bow like a staff and halted near where she stood. A broadsword was slung across his back. Nodding to Eustace, he looked at Isobel.
"Are you the prophetess of Aberlady?" he asked. His voice was quiet, with a deep richness that carried well.
"I am Isobel Seton. Who are you?" She clasped her shaking hands tightly. "How did you get inside her?"
He smiled, inclined his head. "We came to rescue you."
She stared. The stranger possessed a wild beauty and an aura of power. His eyes were deep blue, like the indigo twilight, his hands on the bow graceful and strong. He seemed beyond the ordinary realm, a man out of the mist and the legends of an ancient race.
And Isobel felt almost bespelled. His steady gaze held hers, assessed her from the top of her head to the roots of her soul.
In turn, she saw the spark of purpose in his eyes and sensed a current of danger. She pulled in a breath and lifted her chin. "You know my name, but I do not know yours," she said calmly, though raw excitement thundered through her. "How did you get inside our walls?"
"Through the postern gate in the north wall," he said.
"But that small door is hidden by scrub and rocks, and overlooks a cliff more than a hundred feet high. How did you reach it?"
He shrugged. "That took some time."
"Who are you?" Eustace asked abruptly.
"James Lindsay," he replied. "Sometimes I am called the Border Hawk."
"Jesu," Eustace breathed out. "I thought as much."
Isobel gasped. She knew the name—the Border Hawk was a renegade Scotsman who hid from English and Scots alike in the vast lands of the Ettrick Forest. His arrival inside Aberlady could mean salvation—or defeat. His loyalties were known only to himself.
She had even heard rumors that the Border Hawk was a sorcerer who changed his form at will; that he was alive, that he was dead, that he was possibly immortal, born of the fair race. And it was said that he had done some heinous deed against Scotland.
She had mentioned him in one of her prophecies, but she could not recall the prediction. Now she wished that she knew the whole of it, though Father Hugh had once dismissed it.
"James Lindsay," Eustace said, "I hope your purpose is fair-minded. We still outnumber you by a few." He indicated the parapet, where men trained bows on the newcomers.
"Why would you climb up here to rescue us?" Isobel asked.
"I came here on another matter," Lindsay said. "We did not know about the siege until we approached the castle. We bring assistance—and some food." He beckoned, and one of his men stepped forward, pulling three limp rabbits from a sack. "I assume this is welcome."
"Aye!" Eustace said. Lindsay's young comrade turned to run toward the stone-walled keep that towered over the center of the bailey yard, where the meat could be prepared.
"Did you bring an army ready to attack the English?" Isobel asked then.
"We are but five," Lindsay said.
"There are a hundred English outside, and you bring us five men?"
He arrowed his brows together. "We will bring you to safety."
"I have heard that the best knights fly with the Border Hawk," Eustace said.
"'Twas once said of us," Lindsay remarked. "We will leave here soon."
"How? By the north face cliff?" Isobel asked, astonished.
He nodded. "Aye, after you have eaten, and the darkness is deeper."
"The English will take the castle if we abandon it," she said.
"'Tis Scottish practice to render castles unavailable for Southron use. Either a castle is held by force of arms, or destroyed."
"But—" Isobel began.
James Lindsay brushed past her to climb the steps. Eustace turned to follow him. Isobel lifted her skirts and ran up the steps behind them both.
Eustace turned. "Go to the keep, Isobel."
"He means to ruin Aberlady!" she hissed.
"This is necessary."
"We cannot trust this man to help us! You know what they say about him now!"
Eustace sighed. "He brings hope, where we had none."
"Aberlady will be destroyed!"
"I would have set fire to these walls myself when we left. It is our chance."
She stared at him, stunned. He hurried away to join Lindsay, who stood behind a merlon stone, scanning the English garrison. Isobel hesitated, then ran after them, pausing by an embrasure in full view of the English soldiers below.
Lindsay grabbed her arm, pulling her behind the merlon. "Are you a dimwit, to stand there?" he asked.
"The English will not harm me," she said with certainty.
"If you believe that, you are not much of a prophetess," he snapped, as he held her fast.
"Watch this," Eustace said to Lindsay. "Each day, the English fill their ditches with bracken to smooth the incline for their siege engines. Each night, we set them afire, see."
Just then, two men on the wall-walk lit arrows wrapped in cloth and pine pitch, touching them to a torch. They loosed the flaming arrows to sail toward the lower ditches, setting them ablaze.
Held fast in the iron curve of Lindsay's arm, Isobel watched the fires spark and blossom. She saw Lindsay's men mount the steps and arrange themselves along the battlements.
"When I let go of you," Lindsay murmured in her ear, "I want you to crawl along the wall-walk to that corner tower over there."
"When you let go of me," she said between her teeth, "I will go where I please."
"Do as he says," Eustace pleaded, as he loaded a crossbow. An English arrow whined overhead and slammed into the wall-walk. Two more clattered on stone and fell aside.
Lindsay released her. "Go! Keep down!"
Isobel rose up boldly to face the embrasure gap, sure that the English would stop when they saw her there. But an arrow slammed into her upper arm with tremendous force, and she spun with the blow.
Lindsay grabbed her, pulling her down. Isobel curled forward in searing pain, and he supported her with one arm.
"Isobel!" Eustace called. "Dear God, she stood too quick."
"It is not serious." Deftly, Lindsay cracked the long shaft protruding from her arm, leaving the broadhead arrow embedded in the muscle. "Can you bear it for a while?"
She nodded, wincing. Arrows fell around them in a cruel rain, smacking against stone and wood. Within seconds, an arrow whooshed through the crenel and glanced past the back of Lindsay's leather hauberk.
Another broadhead bit hard into her left ankle. The shaft fell aside. Isobel flinched, grabbing her leg. Lindsay pulled her to him roughly, shielding her.
"You will be killed out here," he growled, grabbing her closer. While arrows whined and clattered around them, he carried her toward a small corner tower, kicked the narrow door open, and brought her inside.
He set her down on the stone floor of the tiny room and hunkered down beside her. He then examined the wound in the dusky light that came through the arrowslit window.
Without asking her leaven, he lifted the hem of her skirt—she gasped at that—and tore a wide strip of linen from the hem of her chemise. He wadded cloth around the seeping, throbbing wound in her right arm. Isobel drew the silk veil from inside her sleeve with a shaking hand, and pressed it to the bleeding cut above her ankle.
"Arrow wounds are painful," Lindsay said. "I have had several myself. But these will heal well enough." He shook his head. "Foolish to stand up on a battlement like that."
"They will not fire if I am on the wall. But they did not see me then."
He took the cloth from her hand and wrapped it around her ankle. "Do you have some agreement with them?" He glanced at her sharply.
She sucked in a breath at his tone. "Their king wants me brought to him. And that has helped us in this siege. I stood up because I hoped to halt a battle."
"Heroic," he muttered. He rose to his feet and gazed down at her as if angry.
"Why are you here?" she asked. "What do you want here?"
"I came," he said softly, "to find the prophetess of Aberlady." Something in his tone sent a shiver along her spine. "We have matters between us, you and I."
"I do not know you, though you seem to know me."
He shrugged. "You are widely known. Let me make a prediction, Black Isobel," he said in a low voice. "You will come to know me well. And you will come to regret what you and yours have done to me and mine."
She gasped. "I do not understand."
He turned toward the door. "I will come back to look after your wounds. You will be safe here." He stepped through the doorway into a hail of falling arrows.
Isobel stared after him, and wondered just how safe she was.