Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] (10 page)

The conversation continued amiably while he dressed. By asking about his horses and dogs, and then about how he had won his spurs, she led him naturally to tales he could tell about Douglas in the field.

By the time a servant arrived to tell them supper was about to be served, he had relaxed and was in a much more cheerful humor.

That her husband was well pleased with her and with himself by then gave her confidence that she was doing the right thing. The feeling lasted until she stepped onto the dais and her hostess greeted her with chilly civility.

Chapter 7

Now Meg was but thin, an’ her nose it was lang; And her mou’ was as muckle as muckle could be . . .

W
at led Margaret to the place of honor beside his mother and noted with relief that Amalie had found her own way to the great hall. It occurred to him only when he saw her that he ought to have made an effort to find her and perhaps even to have invited her to come downstairs with him and Margaret.

Instead, he had found himself taking time with his dressing and describing for Margaret adventures that Jamie Douglas had enjoyed while following his father, the first earl, and then leading the Scots himself in the continuing struggle to keep England from conquering Scotland.

Margaret was an attentive listener, but Wat remembered as he was moving to take his place beside Jamie—now looking his usual self again—that Margaret’s mother was English. She had said nothing during their talk to remind him of that.

Recalling a few of the things he had told her made him wonder if he ought to have said so much. She was extraordinarily easy to talk to. He could not remember ever feeling quite so comfortable talking with anyone else.

His better self suggested that perhaps it was just that no one else listened to him with such fixed and total attention. His brothers and friends were more likely to interject witty, disrespectful remarks. His sister listened but had little interest in the things that interested him. And his father, with the duty of training him to take over Buccleuch, Rankilburn, and other holdings, tended to dismiss his ideas and suggestions, advising him instead to listen more and talk less.

Talking with someone who listened was a heady experience. He would take more care in future, though, to tell her nothing she should not know.

Conversation at the table drifted in the polite, desultory way of such talk. Douglas and Buccleuch spoke quietly to each other from time to time, and Wat gleaned from what he could overhear that Douglas meant to use the forthcoming meeting of Border wardens to discuss tactics and strategy for what was looking more and more like an impending confrontation with a very large English army.

“I’m told Fife means to take a hand,” Douglas said at one point.

“It is most unlike him to risk his own neck,” Buccleuch said.

“Aye, but now that he is ruling Scotland openly in place of his aging father and has taken to calling himself Guardian of the Realm, he cannot stomach letting anyone else command the Scottish forces,” Douglas said. “Not whilst King Richard of England has taken command of his own army, at all events.”

Buccleuch frowned. “If Richard manages to gather a force like he had three years ago, we could be facing as many as seventy thousand men. If so, you won’t want Fife taking command. He’s a much stronger ruler for the country than his father is or his brother will be, but he’s a terrible soldier and a worse tactician.”

“Aye, and a physical coward withal, but I’ll arrange to keep Fife and his ilk out of my hair by offering to see that Hotspur stays out of theirs. Sithee, I mean to leave Fife to command his good friend the Lord of Galloway,” Douglas added, speaking of his cousin Archibald Douglas, whom many called “Archie the Grim.”

As warden of the west march, Archie the Grim was a proven leader and a man wholly loyal to his chief and to Scotland. Yet Archie had somehow become friendly with Fife. Wat knew that wiser heads than his had puzzled long over Fife and his complex motives. He barely knew the man, but what little he did know of him he did not like. He would take good care not to annoy Douglas any further if only to avoid being ordered to serve under Fife and Archie the Grim.

“We’ll talk no more of my plans just now,” Douglas went on. “’Tis better to wait until we are all at Hermitage, where we can be private.”

“I’ve heard that your countess has threatened to make Hermitage more homelike for you,” Buccleuch said then with a chuckle.

“Aye, she threatened and more, for she has already sent me a minstrel as a gift to entertain us at mealtimes. ’Tis a foolish notion, although ’twas kind of her. The chappie sings well enough and plucks his lute strings with wondrous skill.”

“Next it will be linen table coverings and maidservants,” Buccleuch said.

“Nay, it will not!”

Revealing that she also could hear them, Wat’s mother turned and said, “Forgive me, both of you, for pointing out that Hermitage could do with some comforts.” To Douglas, she added, “I have heard much of its
dis
comforts, my lord. Surely, a bit of music and a woman’s touch there would not come amiss.”

“One hesitates to contradict you, my lady, but I can think of few things less comfortable than having women swarming over Hermitage, clucking about dust and trying to hang curtains. It is a stronghold, a fortress, a place for warriors. Sakes, but few of its chambers provide suitable habitation for the fair sex. Indeed, the minstrel thinks himself ill-used. The fellow is something of a prickmedainty,” he confided.

“But you must miss your wife,” she said, ignoring the minstrel. “To spend as much time apart as you do must be a penance, especially as you do want an heir.”

“Enough, madam,” Buccleuch said with the warm smile he reserved just for her. “If you are right, you torment him. If you are wrong, he’ll disappoint you. In any event, I forbid you to reveal a word of this conversation to his countess.”

Wat was watching his mother when movement beyond her caught his eye.

Margaret’s expression was sober as usual, but as his gaze met hers, he felt as if she knew his thoughts. Such an irreverent notion ought to have disturbed him, he knew, but although he could not have explained what he did feel, he smiled.

To his astonishment, her soft, dark-lashed eyes began to twinkle, and while he could not claim that she smiled back, her lips twitched as if she nearly had.

He found himself looking forward to talking with her more after supper. But when they had bade farewell to Douglas, his father drew him aside to say that he wanted to talk more with him before he retired.

“To discuss matters closer to home,” Buccleuch said. “We’ll stay here in the hall, but you should know I’ve had new reports of reivers or their ilk in the area.”

“Mayhap ’twas more of Murray’s lads,” Wat said. “I’m nigh dead on my feet, sir, but if I can keep my eyes open, I am at your disposal. I do hope you don’t mean to read me another lecture, though.”

“Only to say that ’tis an honor and a compliment to your abilities in battle that Douglas still expects you to ride with us, so see that you deserve it. What is done is done and I’ll say no more about it, so tell your lass you’ll be along shortly.”

Wat did tell her, and she nodded and said she would wait for him. But by the time he had heard all his father had to say and was able to retire to his bedchamber, she was sound asleep on the far side of the bed, against the wall.

He undressed quietly and got into bed without disturbing her.

When Meg awoke Saturday morning, her husband was out of bed and nearly dressed. He wore a clean white shirt, brushed leather breeks, and soft-topped rawhide boots. “You are up early, sir,” she said. “What are we going to do today?”

“You may lie abed if you like,” he said, slipping on a leather jack. “I must be off within the hour for Raven’s Law, and I cannot be sure when I’ll return.”

“Must Amalie and I stay here?” she asked. “I know you’ve said your tower is not suitable, but I would like to see where I am to live and take up residence as soon as we can make it more so. I feel as if we impose on your mother here, and I shall feel that all the more whilst you are away.”

“You’ll quickly grow accustomed to the Hall,” he said. “Raven’s Law would be devilish uncomfortable for you right now.”

“Do you mean it is like Hermitage?”

“You
were
listening to their conversation last night then.”

“It would have been hard to shut my ears to it,” she said. “I was sitting next to your mother, and no one made any attempt to keep that discussion private.”

“Well, Raven’s Law is not at all like Hermitage, for it is just a peel tower, not a fortress. Still, the tower has housed only men for as long as I can remember, so in that respect I suppose it is the same.”

“But surely, I should see it unless you mean for us always to live apart.”

“I don’t, but I am no housekeeper, lass, nor are my men tidy. They keep their gear in order and the night soil from burying us, but that’s all I can say for them.”

“I could help you put things in order,” she said mildly. “I should like to do that, because then I’d not be such a stranger to the place when I do go to live there.”

“When I can arrange suitable accommodations for you, you can do as you like. Until then you’ll be more comfortable here. As for your fear of imposing . . . Sithee, I am my father’s heir, and this will all be mine one day. So as my wife, you have as much right to live here as anyone does.”

“Even so—”

“Ettrick Forest is a dangerous place these days, Margaret. The reason I came to bed late last night was that my father kept me to discuss the increasing danger. I’m not the only one who’s lost beasts, or other things for that matter, odd things.”

“Mercy,” she said. “I know that you and my father both said that kine of yours had somehow found their way to Elishaw. But he did not explain it to me, and he does not encourage us to question him.”

“My purpose in going to Elishaw was to reclaim my own beasts,” he said. “Your father’s men lifted them whilst I was at Langholm. They took kine, horses, and the two dogs that accompanied us home yesterday.”

“But he said he caught you trying to . . . to ‘lift’ beasts from his herd,” she said, using his term instead of any of the harsher ones her father had used.

To her surprise, he looked rueful. “I can swear we’d not touched one of his beasts before he captured us, but I’ll not lie to you,” he said. “Rather than waste time trying to sort them, I’d have taken any that stood with my own. But we had no chance to do other than try to defend ourselves against the score or more of his men who rose up around us out of a field of blooming heather.”

“He said he’d suspected you’d be coming,” she said. “I own, though, I’m surprised that so many were lying in wait. Are you sure they were not just guards?”

“Had there been guards in sight, we’d never have got close,” he said. “Sakes, I had only a half-dozen men with me, and you saw the lad he wanted to hang first. Although,” he added with a grimace, “young Sym was nowhere in sight when we reached Elishaw. I didn’t think to ask how they caught him.”

She had wondered about Sym from the beginning, shocked that her father could threaten to hang one so young and even more shocked that the reivers had brought him along. It had been the child’s fierce words, though, that had made her doubt her father’s account of the so-called raid on his herd.

“You believe that my father ordered the taking of your herd.”

“I ken fine that he did, for not only did we follow their tracks right back to Elishaw, but your father admitted it, said he knew I would follow, so he set a trap.”

“Surely you don’t think he meant that trap to force you to marry me?”

“I did suspect that, but he assured me he did not. His reason, he said, was that whenever the English invade, they seize crops and cattle from those in their path. He thinks it only fair that others share his losses. Sakes, though, there will be no losses if we can just stop them before they can come at us again.”

Knowing she might regret pressing the subject, she said, “You couldn’t stop them last time.”

“Nay, but it is different now. Three years ago, Jamie’s father, the first Earl of Douglas, had just died and Jamie was new to the title. Men knew him for a fierce and skillful warrior but not for the brilliant tactician he has proven himself since. Older lairds had less confidence in him then than they’d had in his father.”

“You said others had lost things,” she reminded him, knowing he could talk at length about Douglas, whom he clearly much admired. “What sort of things?”

“They’ve felled trees, stolen chickens and other livestock, and poached game. Since they don’t seem to be ordinary reivers, I’m thinking English raiders may already be seeking supplies to cache for their approaching army.”

“If you suspect my father, sir, I can tell you he would not steal chickens. I cannot speak for his men, but they would not be acting on his orders to do such things. And for them to ignore his orders or act on their own would be most unusual. Indeed, your complaints sound much like those we hear from the other side of the line after Douglas has harried Redesdale or Tynedale on one of his forays and his men have herded English beasts back across the line to Scotland.”

“Sakes, you don’t mean to accuse him—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Nay, I can see you’re not suggesting that Jamie steals chickens or poaches game. Nor does he often allow his men to slow him down by rounding up cattle to take home. But if such things are happening on both sides, mayhap someone is using the Douglas raids on the English dales to cover a similar mysterious motive there.”

She nodded, relieved to discover that she had not misjudged his intelligence. That was both a relief and a warning, though. She’d have to tread carefully with him. “You mean someone may be gathering supplies on both sides,” she said.

“Aye, and ’tis likely they are English because having ordered peace amongst the Scots, Jamie would not encourage his supporters to take from other Scots to supply his army. When he wants folks to provide supplies, he simply orders it. We travel with less than the English, too, with their long trains of baggage.”

“If English raiders
are
scavenging in Ettrick Forest, I’d think the more people we have living at Raven’s Law, the safer it would be for all of us.”

“Not until I have caught the rogues and put a stop to their raids. But that’s enough about that,” he added with a note of finality in his voice. “I do mean for us to live at Raven’s Law, lass, but I must deal with one thing at a time. Recall that, unlike a usual bridegroom, I did not know I’d need to make such arrangements.”