“I beg your pardon, but the marriage vows have not yet been spoken.”
“A plea to Ulster will not work, I swear it.” Finovola grasped Anya’s arm and squeezed, her expression filled with suffering, her eyes swollen and red. “And ye do not understand the extent of my sin. I am ruined.”
“Och, nay,” Anya whispered, hugging her sister tightly.
But as they sat clinging to each other with Finovola’s sobs filling the chamber, the condemning significance of her sister’s words sank in. “Ruined did ye say?”
“Have mercy on my soul,” the lass cried. “W-we pledged our love. Chahir told me he could wait no longer—that he wanted me. And I was too weak to resist. I am nothing but a wretched jezebel!”
Scarcely able to breathe, Anya released her arms while Finovola curled over, and cried all the more.
“Is this why Lord O’Doherty is still in attendance at Carrickfergus so long after Saint Valentine’s Day?”
Gasping for air, the lass nodded while tears spilled from her eyes. Of course, the lordling had not stayed to assist Ulster’s efforts to find Anya. The man had stayed to woo Finovola. If Angus had waited to take her home, her sister might have received the proposal which she so desperately desired.
So many warring emotions coursed through her, and not all of them kind. By the rood, Anya had only been gone for a couple of months and yet in that time, her husband-to-be had courted her sister.
Had he mourned?
No.
His Lordship most likely never gave a fig about Anya’s whereabouts. And then he’d been so obsessed with wooing Finovola, he’d bedded her. A sickly feeling swirled in Anya’s stomach. Chahir O’Doherty had stolen her sister’s maidenhead without giving care to Anya’s plight. Adding insult to injury, the cur had never once tried to kiss Anya or hold her hand. At the countess’ insistence, they had once taken a stroll together atop the wall-walk and they’d barely spoken.
Yet the man had readily pledged his affection to her lovely, winsome sister.
After all, Finovola was prettier, lither, more gifted with embroidery, and, as far as Lady Ulster was concerned, was exceedingly more suitable to be the wife of a nobleman.
Anya hopped off the bed and paced, clutching her fists against her stomach. “I cannot marry the man ye love. Good heavens, ye could be impregnated with his child.”
Finovola responded with a heart-wrenching wail. “Nay, nay, nay! Ye deserve him far more than I.”
“But I do not want him,” Anya spat.
“How can ye say that? He is the sun and the moon and the stars.”
Anya stopped her pacing and stamped her foot. “I do not love him. I never wanted to marry him.”
With Anya’s every word, it grew harder and harder to breathe. She needed to leave this chamber and think. To clear her head, she needed the wind on her face. If only she could run for her alcove. Marching across the floor, she jerked on the latch but the door didn’t budge.
How the devil was she going to help her sister and wheedle herself out of this disaster when she was trapped inside this godforsaken room?
19
After days of meetings with the Bruce and his knights, spies finally arrived announcing Lord Aymer de Valence was marching his English forces to Stirling—exactly what Angus needed to win the king’s favor. Together with six hundred soldiers, the Scots hastened to Loudoun Hill, where it took three days for Angus and his men to dig trenches in the boggy marshland before the pass. Ever since Longshanks first invaded, the English cavalry had dominated most battlefields, making it nearly impossible for the Scots to defend. The Bruce’s army was still so poor they had no cavalry and their army of foot was lightly armored at best. Angus had seen for himself brave Scottish solders trodden to death under the hooves of the horses of English knights. And he wasn’t about to allow such barbarism to happen again.
“Dig it deeper,” Angus hollered, inspecting the third trench. “It will be your throat cut if we cannot stop their cavalry.”
Covered with mud, Raghnall hopped out of the hole. “With the thicket to the east and the enormous rock on the right, we’ll stop them.”
“Never allow overconfidence to mar your judgement,” said Angus, looking up the craggy hill that presided over the pass that led to the north. Loudoun Hill was a landmark, the top of which could be seen for miles to the south.
At the top, a soldier blew a ram’s horn. “The enemy is less than three miles out.”
“Cover the trenches with brush,” barked Angus, picking up an armload of rushes they’d cut to camouflage the ditches.
“Are they deep enough?” asked a sentry.
“They’ll have to be.”
James Douglas approached, riding one of the few warhorses in the king’s retinue. “Did ye hear?”
“Aye, and as soon as we have the trenches covered, we will stand in plain view as agreed.”
“After ye have words with de Valence, Campbell’s archers will fire from the hill and take out as many front men as possible. Once ye engage, I’ll lead the second regiment of foot and attack their flank.”
“We will be ready.”
Angus belted the orders for his army of nearly three hundred men to take their places behind the trap, Douglas and his army hid from sight, as did the archers above. If de Valence sensed the possibility of a quick victory, he would be more likely to give the order for his cavalry to surge forward with a head-on attack.
At least that was their plan.
Marching across the line of men, Angus thrust his sword above his head. “At last, this is the day for Scotland to reign victorious. We have favorable ground, men. We will render their horses useless and put their knights under our blades. Nay, not all of us will survive this day, but we will die knowing that the blood we shed was not lost in vain. God save the king!”
“God save he king!” boomed the men, thumping their targes and raising a hellacious racket.
As Angus stood ready with a sword in one hand and a dirk in the other, the thunder of the English approach shook the ground. On the wind, the boom of the enemy’s drums reached him before the sun glistened off the first soldier’s helm.
But all too soon, the enemy’s numbers multiplied until countless horse and foot stopped but fifty paces from the trenches.
“I am Angus Og MacDonald,” he bellowed, standing front and center. If these were to be his last words, he wanted to be damned sure everyone heard. “In the name of Robert the Bruce, the true King of Scots, I bid ye turn back now or face your doom.”
“MacDonald, is it?” De Valence walked his steed forward, first glancing to the top of the hill and then to Angus. “Another traitor come to take on the greatest army in Christendom. We will be happy to slay ye and your lot of bedraggled miscreants.”
With the slight, laughter resounded from the enemy ranks—laughter that served to make Angus hate them all the more. “Suit yourself but let no one say I did not give ye fair warning.”
Angus signaled to the only archer in sight atop the hill while de Valence gave the order for his cavalry to prepare arms.
“Look at them,” moaned a sentry no more than five paces away. “They outnumber us at least three to one.”