Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] (3 page)

As the guards grabbed him and began to hustle him away, Wat wrenched away from them long enough to turn back and say, “Pray, mistress, forgive me. I swear, I meant no offense to you.”

To his amazement, she gazed steadily back at him and replied in a calm and surprisingly low-pitched, musical voice, “I took no offense from your rudeness, reiver. I have less desire to marry you than you have to marry me.”

Her words did more than prick his conscience. They stirred the swift, impulsive response to challenge that had ruled much of his behavior since birth.

It was a pity, he thought as the guards thrust him roughly from the hall, that he would die before he could teach the wench to appreciate him.

Chapter 2

“A preciouser villain my tree ne’er adorned; Hang a rogue when he’s young, he’ll steal nane when he’s auld.”

D
etermined to put all thought of the doomed young man from her mind, Meg tried to concentrate on her breakfast. But her contrary imagination presented a vision of some of her father’s men dragging the reiver outside to the horrid tree while others threw a rope over a bough and prepared to hang him.

She stared unseeing at her trencher, grateful that her mother had sent Rosalie away. But she abandoned her pretended disinterest with relief when Lady Murray said, “I pray you, husband, be patient. Closer acquaintance with yon tree will persuade that young man more certainly than any words will.”

“Faith, one hopes so,” Amalie muttered. “He is too handsome to let our father hang him.
Say
something, Meg.”

Placing a warning hand on Amalie’s plump knee and shooting a quick glance at their parents, Meg saw that both were too intent on their own conversation to have heard Amalie or to scold her now. Sir Iagan had returned to his chair before Lady Murray spoke to him, and he sat glowering at her now.

Experience had taught Meg that despite her father’s bluster, her mother would prevail if she believed her course was right. So she kept her hand on Amalie’s knee, ready to pinch it if her impulsive sister dared to speak again. Amalie had a habit of saying whatever came into her head the minute it occurred to her.

Sir Iagan picked up his mug as if his only thought were for his ale. Quaffing deeply, he set it down with a thump and said, “Well, madam, I told you he’d refuse your daft offer. If I give him a second chance, he’ll just refuse again. I am better acquainted wi’ the Scotts than you are, so you would do well to heed me in this.”

“Mayhap you are right,” she said. “But pride carries no weight when a man faces death. Let him ponder his fate—and your tree. Then let him choose again.”

“Aye, well, I dinna mind giving ye your way, if only to prove ye’re as apt as anyone to be wrong. But when he refuses, I mean to make an end to it.”

She nodded.

With visible satisfaction, he got to his feet, finished off the last of his ale, and said, “I’ll be getting on with the business then, straightaway.”

Lady Murray also stood, whereupon her daughters, perforce, did likewise. Signing to the gillie behind her that she desired him to take her stool away, Lady Murray said, “We will accompany you, my dear sir. Doubtless, you are right, and these executions will provide a salutary lesson for your daughters.”

Distressed, Meg gave her a questioning look, but Lady Murray ignored it, her attention fixed on her husband.

He opened his mouth, then pressed his lips together briefly before he said, “Very well, madam. Doubtless it will prove salutary for ye, too.”

“We are to see the hanging, then?” Amalie said in astonishment. “But—”

“Be silent, Amalie,” her mother interjected. Letting Sir Iagan stride ahead of them, she said quietly to Meg, “I know you object, too, but do have the good sense to hold your tongue. He has taken his stand and will stick to it buckle and thong if pressed harder. However, he will give more thought to the true cost of this hanging if you and Amalie are present than if you are not. We must give him time to realize what can come of turning Buccleuch and the Douglas into our blood enemies.”

Meg winced at the thought. It was bad enough, heaven knew, to live so near the border between Scotland and England on land that each country claimed as its own without purposely inciting the wrath of truly powerful entities on either side of the ever-shifting line.

“With respect, madam,” she said, “why do you not just remind him of what the consequences must be?”

“Your father does not take well to such reminders. You know that as surely as I do,” Lady Murray said. “If you would learn anything from me, my dear Meg, learn that men cannot be driven by women any more easily than cats can be driven by even the best sheepdogs. One does better to choose one’s moments to guide than to be constantly nagging or reminding them of things they want to forget.”

Meg tried unsuccessfully to imagine herself guiding her father.

Outside, the reivers’ leader stood near the hanging tree with one of her father’s stout men-at-arms on either side of him. The rope already dangled over a thick bough, but if the victim worried about his fate, he gave no sign of it.

Sir Iagan stopped some yards from the little scene, crossed his arms over his barrel-like chest, and spread his feet a little apart. He had not spoken to direct his men or to address the prisoner. Nor did he glance back at his wife and daughters.

Lady Murray put out a hand to stop Meg and Amalie. Then she moved to stand beside Sir Iagan.

From her position behind and to his left, Meg saw her father’s jaw tighten, but he said nothing until the man adjusting the noose finished and looked his way.

“Be ye ready then?” Sir Iagan asked him.

“Aye, sir.”

“Then tell your lads to bring out the others. We’ll let this young chappie watch them each hang. ’Twill give him more appreciation for his own fate.”

Although the reiver did not move head or limbs, Meg felt his reaction to her father’s words as if his emotions had shot through her body instead. She was fifteen or more feet away, seeing only his profile, but she saw the color drain from his face.

She swallowed hard, wishing she could do something to stop it all.

“Poor laddie,” Amalie murmured beside her.

Glancing at her, Meg saw that her sister had squeezed her eyes shut.

Wat stared at the dangling noose, determined not to give Murray the satisfaction of seeing him react. He was definitely having second thoughts, but he would not let his kinsmen down by showing fear or behaving badly. Many Scotts had died before their time, and most had died bravely. He’d got himself into the mess. He would not disgrace his family by weeping about it.

His peripheral vision was excellent, and he had seen the women enter the yard behind Murray. Their presence gave him even more incentive to remain stoic.

The minutes crept by. He fixed his gaze on the rope until it stopped swinging.

Thanks to the high curtain wall that protected Elishaw, no breeze touched the yard, and no person in it made a sound. For once, the sky was blue without mist or fog, and the sun shone brightly. The day a man was to die ought to look sadder.

He heard the keep’s postern door open behind him, followed by sounds of shuffling feet and, moments later, by a hastily stifled feminine gasp.

Curiosity having been a besetting sin since childhood, he turned to face his men. At first, he saw only Tammy and Gib, because as tall and broad as Tam was, and as thick through the torso as Gib was, they made a human wall, concealing those who followed. Then he saw Dod Elliot behind Gib, and Snirk Rabbie of Coldheugh beside Dod, with Snirk’s brother Jeb on their heels.

Another of Murray’s men-at-arms followed them, and—

Wat stifled a gasp of his own, as much of anger as dismay, at the sight—now clear—of the wiry, redheaded laddie walking stiffly beside the guard. The top of the boy’s head was no higher than the man’s elbow.

Wee Sym Elliot had no business to be there, but Wat needed no explanation of his presence. The lad had formed the unfortunate habit of following his brother Dod and Dod’s friends whenever he could get away with it. Having been sternly ordered to stay at home the previous day, and thus denied a jaunt to the Langholm races, the lad had clearly managed to follow them on the raid instead.

Hearing murmurs from the Murrays, he looked that way next.

Her ladyship was speaking to her husband, giving Wat to hope fervently that she was urging Murray to spare Sym. Surely, the man could not be so cruel as to hang a lad of no more than eleven summers in front of his daughters.

Another, bleaker thought followed. What sort of man allowed his maiden daughters to watch multiple hangings? For that matter, what sort of mother and daughters would agree to bear witness to such a grim spectacle?

Having asked himself these questions, it was with slightly less surprise than otherwise that he heard Murray say curtly, “Hang the youngest one first.”

The lady Margaret cried out but clapped a hand to her mouth when her mother shot her a look of strong disapproval. The younger lass had both hands pressed to her own face, covering her eyes and her mouth.

Wat turned as the guard gripped Sym’s left shoulder and shoved him toward the tree, but Sym avoided Wat’s eye, looking straight ahead. His lower lip quivered, but otherwise, he gave no sign of fear. Wat knew he ought to be proud of the lad, but he wanted only to thrash him soundly and send him home to safety.

He had to say something, to try to prevent such a travesty.

To his astonishment, Murray said, “I’ll give ye one last chance, reiver, and to prove what a charitable fellow I am, I’ll even dower my lass. Ye can take back a half-dozen o’ your beasts if ye can identify them accurately as your own. I’ll even throw in a bull so ye can breed them. So now, will it be the priest or a coffin?”

Wat felt a stirring of relief but chose his words carefully, saying, “I’ve little stomach for it, but if I agree to your proposition, what will become of my men?”

“I’ll hang them, o’ course. Nae other amongst them be suitable to wed wi’ a daughter o’ mine, and they be proven reivers, every last one o’ them.”

“That lad you mean to hang first has not yet seen the eleventh anniversary of his birth,” Wat said, casting a glance at Lady Murray. “Would you hang him just for following us? I give you my word as a Borderer, he had nowt to do with reiving.”

“Aye, sure,” Murray said scornfully. “I expect ye’ll say next that none o’ ye did and that ye didna even ken the lad were there.”

“I did
not
know,” Wat said, feeling his temper stir. He was not accustomed to having his word challenged. “Nor did my men know that he’d followed us, because they’d have sent him back with a sore backside just as I would have.”

“Then, I warrant that by hanging him now, I’ll save myself the trouble later. With you lot to set him an example, he’ll be a true reiver in no time.”

Wat looked again at Lady Murray but could read nothing in her expression. Shifting his gaze to the lady Margaret, he wondered if she might wield influence with her father. Just as he had decided that she might, a new voice spoke up.

“Aye, I
will
be a true reiver one day,” Wee Sym said defiantly, glowering at Murray. “And your herds would be the first I’d take, for ye’re nobbut a blackguard to be hanging men what took nowt from ye whatsoever. I saw how it was! I saw your men jump out o’ the heather. And where your beasts were, that’s no your land at all. ’Tis the Douglas’s, and ye’ll answer to him for it just as all do hereabouts.”

“Enough, Sym!” Wat snapped, terrified that Murray would order the lad’s hanging without further discussion. When Sym looked ready to say more, Wat added in a measured, even sterner tone, “Not one more word.”

“Bless me, but I’ll be ridding the world of a right scoundrel,” Murray said. “Put the noose round his neck, lads, and let’s get on with this.”

“Wait,” Wat said.

“We’ve nae more to say,” Murray declared.

“If you release my lads—all of them—I’ll do as you ask and agree to marry your daughter,” Wat said, ignoring gasps from his men and Sym’s goggle-eyed stare.

Behind Murray, Wat saw Lady Margaret put a hand back to her mouth. Her sister’s eyes were as big as Sym’s, but Lady Murray revealed no emotion.

“I’ll release the boy,” Murray said. “That’s all.”

Wat drew a deep breath and let it out. A moment before, he might have taken the deal just to spare Sym, but a glance at Gibbie staring at his own feet with visible tension in his broad shoulders told Wat what he had to do.

To Murray, he said, “Releasing one is not enough. I’ll not save myself just to spare a foolish bairn who’ll likely throw his life away in just such another act of defiance. You’ll release the rest of my men, or we have no bargain.”

“I’ll do nae such thing.”

“Think you that after hanging half a dozen Scott vassals you can escort your daughter to Rankilburn and return here safely with nobbut a tail of your own men to protect you? Or will you let her fate rest with no more protection than that of a man whose word you do not trust, over miles of countryside rife with armed ruffians, poachers, and lusty men-at-arms, not to mention any number of rogue English raiders? Recall that despite Douglas’s orders, the area is hardly peaceful.”

He saw Lady Murray touch her husband’s arm.

Meg’s fingertips pressed hard against her lips to keep the words she wanted to speak from spewing forth at her father. How could he threaten to hang a child? How could he not believe the reiver, who clearly was willing to die with his men? And what had the boy meant when he’d said the reivers had stolen nothing?

She felt relief when her mother moved, for although she had not been able to see exactly what Lady Murray did, Sir Iagan made no immediate effort to reply to the reiver’s challenge. He turned to her ladyship instead.

“What is it?” he asked when Lady Murray did no more than gaze back at him. “Would you accept any terms to see your daughter wedded to this rascal?”

“It is not for me to accept or reject terms, my lord. As always, that must remain for you to decide. It does strike me, though, that Sir Walter speaks fairly. Were he to agree to marry our Meg only to save the neck of a child, one cannot imagine what use the child would be in seeing her safely to her new home.”

“Bless us, I’ll see her there safe enough with a large, well-armed escort.”

“I am sure you will, my lord, but at what cost? ’Tis not the money concerns me, of course, but did you capture every man who rode with Sir Walter last night?”

He hesitated as Meg nervously nibbled a fingertip.

“Even if you believe you did, one can never be certain of such a thing,” Lady Murray went on in her placid way. “Only consider that even Sir Walter did not know that the boy had followed them. In the uproar that usually ensues during such incidents, I should imagine that some of the raiders may easily have escaped. By now, I suspect that both Buccleuch and Douglas have heard about what happened.”