Disorderly Knights - Dorothy Dunnett [192]
Mistress Nixon’s steward opened the door and after a while Johnny Nixon went down, in his nightrobe and in no very good temper. Philippa, her braids dangling over the banisters, could see that Sir William Scott, far from being nonchalantly superb, was covered with muddy chain mail and cattle slavers, and in a state of stupid, boisterous hilarity which she put down to drink, but thought later was just ignorance.
Shamed and furious, she heard Master Nixon giving cold permission for the crew outside to sleep in the yard, while Will Scott and two or three of his cousins tramped in along with a burly, slick-haired man with a cheerful face, referred to as ‘Bell’. She heard them hammer up the tower stairs to the little rooms where Mistress Nixon kept her folding beds, and a little later a servant passed on his way up with hot water and meat and a jug of wine. Shortly after that, there was silence, even from the weary animals outside, although beyond the walls the starlight glimmered, now and then, on the helmet of the sentry Scott had posted there. Philippa went back to bed.
After almost no time at all, or so it seemed, another battering began at the front door; this time even more urgent and prolonged. With imprecations embroidering the air, both outside the castle and within, the Keep heaved awake. Leaning over the stair rails again, Philippa saw Johnnie Nixon, his face scarlet, himself march to the door, while a red shock-head and a rattling sword debouching from the newel stairs to the tower proclaimed Will Scott’s vigilant presence.
It was another cousin of his, a man he had left behind ‘at the Turnbulls” with five others and someone called Adam Blacklock. That meant as little to Philippa as it did to Johnnie Nixon, but the newcomer was heaving like a white whale in calf, and was the bearer, obviously, of sensational news. A moment later, they had it. Francis Crawford had arrived at the Turnbulls’. (Philippa drew back.) The herd of stolen animals for which the Kerr tribe were looking had been found butchered, for which the Scotts would be blamed. By now the Kerrs would have located the animals and would be following Will Scott’s trail to the Keep, there no doubt to fight the Scotts to the death.
Lymond had sent orders. Will Scott and his men were to retire inside the Keep and draw up the ladder, taking with them as much water as they had time to carry. All weapons were to be taken inside. Anything that might be used as a battering ram was to be taken inside. They were to carry inside also as much fuel and inflammable material as they could. The horses and the herds were to be abandoned to their fate. And at the earliest possible moment, Philippa Somerville and all those normally resident at Liddel Keep, under the guidance of Nixon the owner, were to be mounted on the fastest possible horses and sent back to Philippa’s home at Flaw Valleys, near Hexham, to await news to return.
The reason was, said Will Scott’s cousin, coming to the end of his recital and his breath at much the same time, that Graham Malett and the whole company of St Mary’s was hot on the heels of the Kerrs. Provided the Keep could hold out against assault, fire and battery for an hour, the most perfectly trained army in the island would relieve them.
Will Scott asked two questions. ‘Do the Kerrs know that Gabriel is behind them? And where’s Crawford of Lymond?’
‘The Kerrs ken,’ said his cousin, and choked. ‘That’s why they’ll try anything to break in here quick. Crawford and the rest of us stayed to see to the Turnbulls, but they’re coming straight on here after. They’ll have a race with the Kerr clan, I doubt.’ His face was green and running with sweat, but in the big, simple eyes there shone a terrible joy. ‘Man, if ye’d clapped eyes on thae beasts. There wasna ae part of a coo that was next tae its usual. Cessford’ll wet his breeks when he sees them.’
‘Aye, aye,’ said Will Scott drily. ‘It’ll be a grand fight.’ And, raising his stentorian voice, roused the household to war.
When Francis Crawford and the five Scotts arrived, riding