“Caisteal DHOON!” Ian bellowed, and swung his sword over his head and flat down on the head of an attacker. It hit the man a glancing blow, but he staggered and fell to his knees, where Big Georges seized him by the hair and kneed him viciously in the face.
“Caisteal DHOON!” Jamie shouted as loud as he could, and Ian turned his head for an instant, a big grin flashing.
It was a bit like a cattle raid but lasting longer. Not a matter of hit hard and get away; he’d never been a defender before and found it heavy going. Still, the attackers were outnumbered and began to give way, some glancing over their shoulders, plainly thinking of running back into the wood.
They began to do just that, and Jamie stood panting, dripping sweat, his sword a hundredweight in his hand. He straightened, though, and caught the flash of movement from the corner of his eye.
“Dhoon!” he shouted, and broke into a lumbering, gasping run. Another group of men had appeared near the wagon and were pulling the driver’s body quietly down from his seat, while one of their number grabbed at the lunging horses’ bridles, pulling their heads down. Two more had got the canvas loose and were dragging out a long rolled cylinder—one of the rugs, he supposed.
He reached them in time to grab another man trying to mount the wagon, yanking him clumsily back onto the road. The man twisted, falling, and came to his feet like a cat, knife in hand. The blade flashed, bounced off the leather of Jamie’s jerkin, and cut upward, an inch from his face. Jamie squirmed back, off-balance, narrowly keeping his feet, and two more of the bastards charged him.
“On your right, man!” Ian’s voice came suddenly at his shoulder, and without a moment’s hesitation Jamie turned to take care of the man to his left, hearing Ian’s grunt of effort as he laid about with a broadsword.
Then something changed; he couldn’t tell what, but the fight was over. The attackers melted away, leaving one or two of their number lying in the road.
The driver wasn’t dead; Jamie saw him roll half over, an arm across his face. Then he himself was sitting in the dust, black spots dancing before his eyes. Ian bent over him, panting, hands braced on his knees. Sweat dripped from his chin, making dark spots in the dust that mingled with the buzzing spots that darkened Jamie’s vision.
“All…right?” Ian asked.
He opened his mouth to say yes, but the roaring in his ears drowned it out, and the spots merged suddenly into a solid sheet of black.
—
He woke to find a priest kneeling over him, intoning the Lord’s Prayer in Latin. Not stopping, the priest took up a little bottle and poured oil into the palm of one hand, then dipped his thumb into the puddle and made a swift sign of the cross on Jamie’s forehead.
“I’m no dead, aye?” Jamie said, then repeated this information in French. The priest leaned closer, squinting nearsightedly.
“Dying?” he asked.
“Not that, either.”
The priest made a small, disgusted sound but went ahead and made crosses on the palms of Jamie’s hands, his eyelids, and his lips. “Ego te absolvo,” he said, making a final quick sign of the cross over Jamie’s supine form. “Just in case you’ve killed anyone.” Then he rose swiftly to his feet and disappeared behind the wagon in a flurry of dark robes.
“All right, are ye?” Ian reached down a hand and hauled him into a sitting position.
“Aye, more or less. Who was that?” He nodded in the direction of the recent priest.
“Père Renault. This is a verra well-equipped outfit,” Ian said, boosting him to his feet. “We’ve got our own priest, to shrive us before battle and give us Extreme Unction after.”
“I noticed. A bit over-eager, is he no?”
“He’s blind as a bat,” Ian said, glancing over his shoulder to be sure the priest wasn’t close enough to hear. “Likely thinks better safe than sorry, aye?”
“D’ye have a surgeon, too?” Jamie asked, glancing at the two attackers who had fallen. The bodies had been pulled to the side of the road; one was clearly dead, but the other was beginning to stir and moan.
“Ah,” Ian said thoughtfully. “That would be the priest, as well.”
“So if I’m wounded in battle, I’d best try to die of it, is that what ye’re sayin’？”
“I am. Come on, let’s find some water.”
—
They found a rock-lined irrigation ditch running between two fields, a little way off the road. Ian pulled Jamie into the shade of a tree and, rummaging in his rucksack, produced a spare shirt, which he shoved into his friend’s hands.
“Put it on,” he said, low-voiced. “Ye can wash yours out; they’ll think the blood on it’s from the fightin’。” Jamie looked surprised, but grateful, and with a nod skimmed out of the leather jerkin and peeled the sweaty, stained shirt gingerly off his back. Ian grimaced; the bandages were filthy and coming loose, save where they stuck to Jamie’s skin, crusted black with old blood and dried pus.
“Shall I pull them off?” he muttered in Jamie’s ear. “I’ll do it fast.”
Jamie arched his back in refusal, shaking his head.
“Nay, it’ll bleed more if ye do.” There wasn’t time to argue; several more of the men were coming. Jamie ducked hurriedly into the clean shirt and knelt to splash water on his face.
“Hey, Scotsman!” Alexandre called to Jamie. “What’s that you two were shouting at each other?” He put his hands to his mouth and hooted, “GOOOOOON!” in a deep, echoing voice that made the others laugh.
“Have ye never heard a war cry before?” Jamie asked, shaking his head at such ignorance. “Ye shout it in battle, to call your kin and your clan to your side.”
“Does it mean anything?” Petit Philippe asked, interested.
“Aye, more or less,” Ian said. “Castle Dhuni’s the dwelling place of the chieftain of the Frasers of Lovat. Caisteal Dhuin is what ye call it in the Gàidhlig—that’s our own tongue.”
“And that’s our clan,” Jamie clarified. “Clan Fraser, but there’s more than one branch, and each one will have its own war cry and its own motto.” He pulled his shirt out of the cold water and wrung it out; the bloodstains were still visible but faint brown marks now, Ian saw with approval. Then he saw Jamie’s mouth opening to say more.
Don’t say it! he thought, but, as usual, Jamie wasn’t reading his mind, and Ian closed his eyes in resignation, knowing what was coming.
“Our clan motto’s in French, though,” Jamie said, with a small air of pride. “Je suis prêt.”
It meant “I am ready” and was, as Ian had foreseen, greeted with gales of laughter and a number of crude speculations as to just what the young Scots might be ready for. The men were in good humor from the fight, and it went on for a bit. Ian shrugged and smiled, but he could see Jamie’s ears turning red.
“Where’s the rest of your queue, Georges?” Petit Philippe demanded, seeing Big Georges shaking off after a piss. “Someone trim it for you?”
“Your wife bit it off,” Georges replied, in a tranquil tone indicating that this was common badinage. “Mouth like a sucking pig, that one. And a cramouille like a—”