Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] (31 page)

“Here?”

“Yes, here. I’ve ordered one of my men to put bolts on the door, outside.”

“You’re locking us in?”

“Just until Douglas and Fife arrive tomorrow or Friday,” Simon said.

Meg was shocked. Simon had never been her favorite brother, but she would not have believed he could act so despicably.

Chapter 20

The parties were shouting, the kye they were routing, Confusion did gallop, and fury did burn.

W
at had expected their journey to be slow. But thanks to the small number of men wounded badly enough to need litters, the Borderers traveled swiftly by taking short turns carrying them. In this manner, they covered the fifteen miles to Carter Bar in less than three hours, crossing into Scotland just before midday on Thursday.

He did not intend to go any farther with the others, most of whom would accompany Douglas’s body to Melrose Abbey. Seeking out the Earl of Dunbar, he reminded him that Carrick was expecting to meet Douglas at Hermitage.

“Sakes, I’d forgotten all about the man,” Dunbar admitted. “In all the upset, I thought I’d done well to send a messenger to Dalkeith to inform the countess. Still, I expect we ought to tell Carrick, too. He’ll want to attend his lordship’s burial.”

“You may also recall that Fife—”

“The devil fly away with Fife and all Stewarts,” Dunbar snapped. “We’ve yet to get a reply to the last message I sent him. Heaven kens what mischief he’ll try when he learns Douglas is dead, but by God, before then Moray and I mean to do as Douglas would want, not Fife.”

“I can take word to Hermitage,” Wat said. “I mean to head home from here in any event. For as much as my lord father would like to go to Melrose, his wound troubles me enough to insist that he return at once to Rankilburn to recover.”

“Aye, that’s a good notion,” Dunbar agreed. “We’re guessing that those retreating cowards, the English, must have greatly exaggerated our numbers and ability to their reinforcements when they met, because they’ve all turned back. So it looks to be just as Jamie predicted. If so, their border folk won’t want to see us again soon. I’ll wager ’tis the same in the west for Fife and Archie, since the last message we had from them indicated that the royal army had turned back as well.”

Other men waited to talk to Dunbar, so Wat took his leave, and told Buccleuch of his decision. When the latter made no objection, he quickly, albeit quietly, ordered two of the laird’s own men to ride to Ferniehurst and escort Lady Scott to the Hall.

“The Kerrs will provide as many other lads as you need for an escort,” he told them. “Don’t frighten her, because he is not at death’s door, but do make haste. He will recover more swiftly if she is with him.”

The men needed no further urging.

Wat lost no time then in giving orders to his own men, to Buccleuch’s, and to Nebby Duffin. He also informed the other leaders they had recruited that they had his leave to choose for themselves whether to go home or ride on to Melrose.

The first hitch occurred when Buccleuch announced that he would ride.

“Sir, you should not,” Wat protested. “Not only did you clout your head when you fell, but that wound—”

“Get me a horse,” his father said. “My head aches like the devil and my leg like ten thousand devils, but the wound is bound up, and we’ll get home much faster if I ride.” When Wat hesitated, Buccleuch growled, “Don’t try me, damn you.”

Wat grinned at him. “I was much more worried when you seemed not to care about anything. If you’re strong enough to snarl at me, I’ll not fight you. You should know this, though,” he added, still smiling. “I’ve sent for my lady mother.”

Buccleuch grimaced, but he made no protest, so Wat left well enough alone. A short time later, their party of nearly a hundred men left the main army behind them.

Being back in Scotland stirred the exhilaration in him that such a return always produced, but before long he realized that despite his grief—and his concern for Buccleuch, which continued despite his father’s steady seat in the saddle—the image paramount in his mind was not Douglas, Buccleuch, or Raven’s Law.

It was Meg.

He kept seeing her in his mind’s eye, imagining himself telling her all that had happened, discussing the trials in store for the Borders now with Douglas dead.

He knew she would listen. And he realized he looked forward to hearing her thoughts. He had recognized her sympathetic ear from the day they met, but it was more than that. He liked to talk with her.

They had talked much in the sennight they had worked together at the tower, discussing repairs he wanted to make and improvements she suggested. He thought about those discussions and about other, even more intimate discourse with her.

When he realized they were only a couple of miles from Elishaw, he said lightly to Tam, “Mayhap we should call on my good-father.”

“Aye, and tell him all be safe, so he can come out again,” Tam said dryly.

Wat chuckled. Murray had not shown his face at Southdean, or contributed men for the army. Wat hoped that when the old man learned how many captives the Scots had taken, most of whom would fetch heavy ransoms, he’d wish he
had
gone. Only men who had taken part in the battle would share in the ransoms.

Behind the riders, some of Neb’s lads were herding a squalling mass of the lifted cattle. Thanks to the din, when the leaders—Wat, Buccleuch, Tam, and Neb—rounded a bend at some speed minutes later, and nearly ran onto the heels of a much smaller herd of cattle, mixed with a few horses, they did so without warning.

Reining in sharply with the others, Wat recognized two of the horses as his.

“Bless us, ye’re a wizard,” Tam exclaimed. “Ye’ve conjured up Murray!”

“Not just Murray,” Wat replied, looking beyond the beasts and herders at the leaders. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s our Sym riding beside him.”

Amalie was not well. Swelling and a bruise already showed on her forehead, where it had struck the floor, and she was curled on the bed, holding her lower abdomen as intermittent, visible waves of pain jolted through her.

“Meggie, it hurts!” she cried, tensing and turning pale. “I’ve never felt anything like this. I thought it was just cramping because my flow is overdue, but it’s much worse than—” Her words ended abruptly in a near scream.

Meg had tried pounding on the door, but if Simon had left anyone to guard it, the guard had not responded to her pounding. Hearing no sound from him at all, she suspected Simon had not bothered leaving anyone, trusting the bolts to hold them.

“Meg, what if I’m dying! Where
is
everyone?”

Drawing a deep breath, Meg said, “We are locked in. I cannot change that, so you must calm yourself. I know you are suffering, but wailing about it can do you no good. Think of murdering Simon if it helps, or Tom.”

“I’m hot!”

“I’ll pour some water on a cloth to put on your head. That will help, I think, but then you must try to relax.”

To Amalie’s credit, she tried. Meg could see the effort she made and tried to help her find a more comfortable position. But Meg could also see the way her hands trembled when she held herself against the waves of pain.

Whatever was happening was no normal monthly cramping. Moreover, if Amalie had not had her flow since mid-May, she was a full two months overdue.

Having caught sight of Wat and the others before Sym did, Murray greeted them cheerfully. “We heard ye’d routed the damned English. Well done! But meantime, lad, as ye can see for yourself, I’ve found summat that belongs to ye.”

“Master Wat! I tried to tell this auld”—Sym broke off when Wat frowned, then continued innocently—“
gentleman
that I had to get to ye straightaway!”

Feeling suddenly chilled to his bones, Wat exclaimed, “Her ladyship? What’s amiss, lad? Tell me quickly!”

“I’m trying to, aye. She sent me to find ye, to tell ye to come at once!”

“Here now,” Murray protested. “Ye never told me that. I swear, lad, he said only that he was going to find you. I thought he was doing as he’d done before, following where he was not wanted. He gave me no explanation, just sputtered a lot of claptrap about what you’d do to me unless I let him go.”

“I’ll acquit you, but let him speak,” Wat said curtly. “Why you, Sym? Where were Dod and the others?”

Looking bewildered, Sym said, “They be at Raven’s Law, o’ course.”

“Then—?”

“Me lady be at Hermitage.”

“Hermitage!” Wat heard the shriek in his own voice and tried to speak more calmly. “What is she doing at Hermitage?”

“She and the lady Amalie went there wi’ the countess—”

“Not the Countess of Douglas!” Icy dread replaced the earlier chill.

“Aye, o’ course. Me lady went with her to help get things ready for me lord Carrick, but there’s nowt in any o’ that,” he added. “’Tis today I’m talking about. She were up at the screech o’ dawn, sithee, because there be a spy at Hermitage.”

Sym glanced at Murray.

“Go on,” Wat urged.

“Aye, but why I didna tell the . . . this gentleman, is because the spy said he’s a-doing it for the family—‘
our
family,’ he said.” He looked warily again at Murray.

Murray frowned, exchanged a look with Wat, and said, “We’ve no spies in our family. Who was the man who said that?”

“His name be Giles Gilpin,” Sym said. “He were the countess’s minstrel, sithee, and he sings pretty enough. But he’s a fool ’cause he said Scotland and England should be nobbut one country. That be plain daft.”

Wat glanced at Buccleuch, who had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout. Although he looked pale, Wat knew better than to ask after his health, so he said quietly to him instead, “What do you think, sir?”

Watching Murray, Buccleuch said, “I think you’d do better to ask your good-father that question, but we’re riding to Hermitage in any event.” He drew a deep breath and then looked at Wat. “Whatever comes, you will give the orders. I’m fit enough to hold my own in a fracas, but you’re
young
and fit, and she’s your wife.”

“Aye, and my daughter,” Murray said fiercely. “I’ve no notion who her spy may be, but we’d do well to put our heads together on the way, lad.” Without waiting for a response, he said to Sym, “What else did our Meg tell you?”

“Just to find Master Wat. But I did hear summat else,” he admitted. “She did say he were spying for the damned Percies.”

“That cannot be true,” Wat said. “Hotspur was as eager for the fight as Douglas was, and just as chivalrous. He spoke of Douglas’s honor as something he valued, scarcely words of a man who’d set spies to aid his cause. Moreover, he had no idea how many men Douglas had raised, and we’d made no secret of the numbers as we learned who would follow Douglas. Any self-respecting spy at Hermitage must have known that only a small force would cross the line at Carter Bar, whilst the main mass of the army entered England from the west.”

Murray looked thoughtful, but Sym said stoutly, “Me lady said he spied for the Percies, and he didna deny it. He said their family be half English and that no Englishman trusts the Douglas. Damn fools, the English are, if you ask me!”

Amalie’s agonies continued, and Meg’s sense of helplessness increased, making the afternoon crawl by at a snail’s pace. Meg knew, too, that there would be no respite or help for them until suppertime. Simon would send food up eventually, but she knew he would make no effort to do so until he was good and ready.

She felt wretched. All she could do was try to help Amalie bear her pain. To that end, she retold stories she had told her as a child and reminded her of memories they shared. But although Amalie had intervals of lesser pain, they were growing fewer and farther apart. She was sweating and frightened, and Meg was certain that nothing they were doing was having much effect.

Learning that Murray was on his way to Hermitage to leave Wat’s cattle and horses there as a last-ditch thumbing of his nose at the decision of Douglas and the wardens’ court, Wat said, “You meant me to drive them home myself, I expect.”

“And why should ye not?” Murray asked. “Ye were bound to travel wi’ Douglas back to Hermitage. Why should I have had to drive ’em to Rankilburn?”

Wat wanted to ask about Meg’s dowry, but he had already realized that there were half again as many beasts in the herd as Murray’s men had taken.

It was hardly a great dowry, but at that moment, with Buccleuch, Tammy, and Neb there to hear everything they said, he had no wish to fratch with the man.

Uncertain how far he could trust him, Wat agreed warily to ride with him at least to that part of Liddesdale nearest the side glen where Hermitage stood.

“I’m thinking we should waste no time,” he said to the others. “If Sym’s spy has friends, they may all be inside the castle now. Sakes, if there are enough of them, they may have taken control of it.” He still did not believe that Hotspur was behind whatever was going on at Hermitage, but he could think of at least one man who had long resented the Douglases’ control of the fortress. “We’ll go faster if we leave the herd behind with enough men to drive it, whilst the rest of us—”

“Wi’ respect, sir,” Neb Duffin said. “If ye’re uncertain o’ your welcome when ye reach Hermitage, have ye considered what a grand diversion a herd o’ squalling cattle makes? I’m thinking o’ sheer numbers and nuisance, mind ye.”

Wat grinned and looked at Murray, whose eyes began to twinkle. Even Buccleuch took more interest as they formed their plan.

By the time they reached Hermitage, the only banner flying was Murray’s, and Murray rode in the lead. Sym rode with the herdsmen, while Wat, Buccleuch, Tammy, and their other men scattered themselves among the men from Elishaw.

Buccleuch, deeming himself the only one likely to be easily recognized by any spy, had wrapped a filthy rag, generously donated by Neb Duffin, around his head.

Although Wat had approved the final plan, he still had little faith in Murray but hoped he cared enough to help Meg and Amalie, if they did need help.

If Sym was right and a Murray already controlled things inside Hermitage—if, in fact, anyone but Sir Ralph Lindsay controlled aught there—the likelihood was that Sir Iagan would cast his lot either with the Murray or with no one at all. After all, to Wat’s own knowledge, the man had never cast it anywhere but with his own.

The drawbridge across the great ditch began to come down when the riders emerged from the trees after fording Hermitage Water and turned uphill toward it.