Insurrection by Robyn Young

knee, making him wince, then handed him the stick. ‘Take him to the woods, Brigid. He knows his way home.’ Her eyes bored into his. ‘Don’t come here again,’ she said fiercely. ‘You, or any of your family.’
    Robert let himself be led by the girl out into the dusk. The air was fresh after the oppressive heat inside and he shivered as he passed beneath the oak, adorned with its slow-turning webs. His head felt clearer and the cold of the herbs had numbed his knee, although every step still felt like a needle in his bone. He glanced at the girl, walking in silence beside him as he limped up the hill. ‘Is she your mother?’
    ‘My mother’s dead. I came to live with Affraig in the winter. She’s my aunt.’
    ‘Is she a witch?’
    Brigid lifted her shoulders in answer.
    Robert was about to ask if she thought her aunt had been lying about what she had said, when he heard shouts in the distance. He caught his name in the calls. ‘That’s my instructor,’ he told the girl.
    ‘Why do you need an instructor?’
    ‘He’s teaching me to ride. For war.’
    The girl’s lips split in a grin. ‘You should find a better one,’ she said, skipping away across the grass.
    Robert watched her go, then headed into the woods, answering the calls with a shout of his own.
    With Yothre in the search party were several servants from the castle and Robert’s brothers. Niall saw him first. He gave a cry of relief and ran towards him, then came to an abrupt halt, looking shocked. Yothre came striding in behind, thrusting branches out of his way.
    ‘Where’s Ironfoot?’ Robert asked, as his instructor put a thick arm around his waist to support him. He kept hold of the stick.
    ‘We found him wandering loose near the village,’ said Thomas breathlessly, coming over with Alexander and the servants. ‘We’ve been searching for hours. What happened?’
    ‘I fell.’
    ‘But where have you been?’
    ‘Come on,’ said Yothre brusquely, ‘let’s get him home. No doubt his mother will want the physician to look at him.’
    All the way back to the castle, Robert’s head was filled with the old woman’s revelation. He was certain it was a lie, although he didn’t see what purpose it would serve her to speak false, except perhaps to be cruel. But wasn’t that what witches did? Toyed with men’s emotions and preyed on their weaknesses? Robert’s speculations were cut short as they neared Turnberry and saw a company trailing in through the castle gates.
    The men had returned from war.
    Robert, trying to walk faster, grimaced in pain and frustration as his brothers ran away ahead of him, calling out in joy. Some of the men looked round at the boys’ shouts, their faces weary and sunburned. There were two carts drawn by oxen behind them. Robert let out a breath of relief as he caught sight of his grandfather in the midst of the host. Some way ahead of the Lord of Annandale rode the Earl of Carrick on his white mare. Robert felt a confusion of emotions as he saw his father, then was distracted by one of the carts that was trundling past. He and Yothre stopped, seeing ten or more men on the back.
    Robert’s eyes moved over their soiled clothes and bandaged limbs. One had a wad of cloth bound over his right eye, his cheek below crusted with blood. Another had a stump where his left hand used to be, the bulb of his wrist swaddled in linen, his face waxy white. Most were sitting hunched against the sides of the cart, lolling listlessly with the motion. Three were laid out in the middle, one of whom was covered over with a blanket, only his bare feet, livid and swollen, visible. Huddled there, decorated with their ugly wounds, they had a strange blankness about them, as if, like their bodies, their souls were no longer whole. Robert couldn’t take his eyes off them, even as Yothre led him away and the cart rumbled on, taking the injured men towards the castle. He had seen mutilated bodies once before: outlaws strung up in cages