The Raven's Moon (13 page)

Rowan glanced up sharply. "How so?"

"Alec is a broken man now, an outlaw," Jock answered. "The English want him in their custody. Lang Will said the English warden is looking for the child in hopes of flushing out the father. They mean to find the bairn and take him hostage."

"A pledge against Alec's good behavior?" Rowan asked. "That is Scots law, not English."

"Aye," Jock answered. "They will not pledge wi' signed papers and agreements. They will take him and hold him hostage for Alec's surrender. The lad could be harmed."

"Even if Alec gives himself to the law to protect his son, we might not see our Jamie again," Anna said. "The English keep hostages for years and years."

"No Blackdrummond Scott will be raised in England," Jock growled.

"I am English," Anna reminded him.

"Aye, and you taught our lads your English instead of good braw Scots, and you gave them clerky skills. But they are Scotts and Scotsmen. Alec's laddie will not be English!"

Anna looked at Rowan. "You fetch our Jamie," she said. "Bring him back to his kin."

"I'll ride wi' ye," Sandie said. "We'll give 'em a taste o' Blackdrummond law, hey!"

Rowan felt heat fill his face. He felt his grandfather's hard stare as well. He sighed. Maggie's child. He steeled his jaw against the thought. His own hope of a wife and family had been shattered when Maggie had wed Alec soon after Rowan was put in English confinement. The shock of that betrayal lingered in his heart. And here they sat, talking of Maggie's child.

Alec's child. Rowan clenched his fist in silence, aware that his grandparents and Sandie watched him.

He sighed again. "Where is this bairn?"

"In the Debatable Land," Jock said.

"Jesu," Rowan muttered. "You expect me to ride through that nest of vipers to fetch a babe in arms?"

"He's no babe in arms. He can run, and has several words now," Anna said proudly. "And he's taught to the jordan pot."

"What a fine riding comrade," he drawled. "This is madness."

"Sandie will go wi' you," Jock said.

"He knows less of bairns than I do."

"Jamie knows him," Anna said.

Rowan nodded. "Very well. But first I need to fetch back my horse and gear. And meet with Simon Kerr."

"You must hasten," Anna said.

"He's the Black Laird," Sandie said, grinning. "He'll have his gear back and take down the Lincraig riders in but an hour. He'll yammer what Simon Kerr wants to hear and be off to the Debatable Land by sunrise."

Rowan threw back the last of the sherry and stood. "Let me wash up a bit first, at least." He left the room, with his three kin grinning behind him.

Chapter 9

"As for your steed, he shall not want

The best of corn and hay;

But as to yoursel, kind sir,

I've naething for to say."

—"The Laird of Knotington"

Mounted on a dappled horse from Blackdrummond's stable and wearing an old doublet and boots borrowed from his grandfather, Rowan passed Lincraig Hill at a canter. The castle looked lonely and deserted. Ahead, cattle and sheep grazed slowing over the hillsides.

The dale supported tenant farmers who raised herds and lived in stout bastel houses, the fortified stone and thatch buildings so common in the Borders. Most of the farms had been settled generations ago, still rented from the Blackdrummond laird. The tenant families took their living from cattle and sheep, since the hard, scrubby land yielded few crops.

The better part of many livings, Rowan knew, came from reiving in the night. Furtive and often violent trading of beasts and goods was the accepted custom of the Borders. Most of the Blackdrummond tenants engaged in some form of reiving, and defended their own goods and homes against both Scottish and English riders as well.

Now a deputy, he was obligated to discourage such activities. But he understood the custom and had ridden out more times than he could count.

Rowan watched tendrils of hearth smoke rise into the sky from the few squat, thatched-roof houses scattered over the hills. He was not here to harry anyone, but only to find the house of his tenant, Iain Macrae, and Macrae's bonny wee sister.

The laird wanted his gear back. That was all—for now.

He rode across the moorland. His recollection of the last time he rode through here on a rainy night were dim, but his memories of Mairi were clear enough.

That lass was a blend of contradictions, peace and torment whirled together like a wild sea: stormy or serene, astonishingly beautiful, equally capable of danger or succor. He had no doubt she would try to stir the tide if she saw him again.

Well, he would do so first. He fully intended to take her down, but it needed the right time. He owed her a few nights on a cold stone floor—although he would generously forgo the crack on the head. He had decided to leave Devil's Christie Armstrong be. The lad's father had been a good riding companion, and Rowan owed this favor to his son. And he guessed that Christie was under the charm of the lass.

He was not interested in helping Mairi act as a pledge for her brother. Turning her over to Simon Kerr had no appeal for him. It was a mad scheme and he wanted no part of it.

He wondered if Mairi truly understood the risk she took in riding the Lincraig highway. She would be taken down, if Rowan did not teach her a hard lesson first, to save her from Simon Kerr and Border justice.

He thought of Mairi's blushing cheeks, her soft gray eyes. He could not allow any reiver or rough Borderman to touch her.

Besides, if she was linked to this circle of spies, he wanted to find out before others did. Holding her at Blackdrummond Tower for a bit would give him time to find out.

He reined in his horse and looked south. At the top of the nearest slope, a square stone house sat beside a stand of trees.

In the yard, a bay horse, reddish coat gleaming, nuzzled at the grass. Valentine lifted his head, whickered in recognition, and stepped about, held by a tether.

Rowan rode forward.

* * *

"Much trouble will come of this," Jennet said, as she stacked wooden bowls after the breakfast meal. "Do not ride out again, Mairi, I beg you."

"Trouble, aye, now that you've freed the Black Laird," Christie said. "Here, leave that," he said hastily, grabbing an oatcake from a wooden platter.

"Could I stop Rowan Scott when he walked out, and he twice my size?" Mairi asked irritably. She shifted her infant nephew in her arms, and sat on the bench beside Christie. "I had no weapon. And he had given me his word."

"Listen close to a Border promise next time." Christie passed a bit of oatcake to the hound resting under the table. "Gone back to Blackdrummond Tower. And now what!"

"Do not fret at Mairi," Jennet said. "I'm grateful to you both for risking your lives for Iain's sake. So far, Simon has had no word from the council."

"That we know about," Christie amended, his mouth full. "Is there any roast mutton left?"

"You ate the last of it," Jennet said. She looked at Mairi. "'Tis an amazement to me that you took down the Black Laird at all, from what is said about that one."

"He was not so hard to take down," Christie said, licking his fingers.

"Rowan Scott is bonny, braw man, as I recall," Jennet said.

"What does bonny matter?" Christie asked. "He's free now, and knows who the Lincraig riders are. He'll take us down. He's laird and March deputy. If he says so we'll be tried and hanged."

"I hoped he would help us free Iain, since his brother is involved too," Mairi said. "But he said me nay."

"There's no love lost between Alec and Rowan Scott," Jennet said. "That may be why he refused you."

"Why so?" Mairi asked. The babe squirmed restlessly in her arms, and she shushed him gently.

Jennet wiped crumbs from the table. "There was some betrayal between them, and Rowan went to an English prison." She shrugged. "A reiving crime, March treason. There was some word o' murder."

Mairi rubbed Robin's warm little back while he settled against her shoulder, and she wondered what had happened between the brothers. She knew little of Alec Scott except that he was handsome and a bold reiver, and trouble followed him. But she knew the grandparents at Blackdrummond, too, and they were good and kind.

This Rowan Scott was a complicated man, like his brother, she thought. She wanted naught to do with him now—but even thinking of him made her cheeks go hot.

"If Blackdrummond will not help his brother, who would blame him," Christie said, and slipped another bit of oatcake to Bluebell, who looked up at him with pleading eyes. "You great greedy lass."

"Mairi, did you ask Simon when we can see Iain?" Jennet asked.

"He said it would be soon," Mairi answered evasively as she handed the sleepy infant back to his mother. She did not want to tell Jennet what Simon had said.

"I hope so," Jennet said wistfully. "He has not even seen his son yet." She walked over to lay the child in his cradle, then picked up a shawl to drape it over her head and shoulders. "Mairi, will you watch the bairn for me? He'll sleep for a bit. I need to take the sheep to the far hill to graze."

"I'll come wi' you," Christie said, as he accompanied his sister from the house.

Mairi went to the open door as they left the yard. Nearby, Rowan Scott's bay horse, tethered, grazed on sweet grass. The sun was warm, and a soft autumn breeze blew gently past.

Bluebell, padding to the doorway, barked abruptly. Mairi glanced around and caught her breath.

A horse cantered toward the house. The rider's black hair whipped out in the wind. Mairi knew that raven hair. She had smoothed it with her own hands.

"Easy, Bluebell," Mairi murmured. "He will not harm us." But suddenly she was not entirely certain of that.

But her usually keen intuition seemed to have lost its usual clarity. She hoped Scott was only here to fetch his things and his horse. But he could arrest her. Not, she hoped, with the babe asleep here—he could not do that. Or perhaps, she thought suddenly, he had decided to help her after all.

Inside, Robin awoke, crying out, and Mairi ducked inside to scoop up the child. Returning to the door, she stepped into the sunlight.

Rowan Scott halted his horse at the edge of the yard. Somehow his eyes were as piercing from there as if he stood a handspan away. She walked toward him.

* * *

He could have watched her endlessly. She moved with such grace, and sunlight glinted on the dark, thick braid that draped over one shoulder. Again Rowan felt the haunting sense that he had seen her somewhere. But the time and place eluded him.

Mairi stopped, patting the bundle at her shoulder, and stared toward him. The breeze lifted her hair, stirred her skirt. Neither spoke.

He wondered if the infant was her own, and he realized how little he knew about her. Sudden jealousy went through him at the thought she might have a husband or a lover, and it surprised him. He cleared his throat.

"Madam," he called.

"Master Scott." She walked closer, strength and grace and nimble ease in every step.

Walking in the Highlands must have taught her to move like that, Rowan thought, like wind rocking the heather. Then he scowled. He need not dwindle from a deputy to a poet just because the lass's hips swayed like heaven, and made his body go hard as he watched.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

"My family is well acquainted with you," he said. "They told me where you live. My grandmother assumes you showed me generous hospitality when I was set upon by thieves."

She blushed. The scrap inside the swaddling mewled and moved against her, and she patted the tiny back. Rowan remembered how forcefully that sweet hand, wrapped around a pistol butt, had struck him. Bonny, but a lass to beware.

"Is that yours, then?" he asked, gesturing toward the babe.

"My brother's bairn," she said. "My sister-in-law has gone to tend the sheep." She came closer. "So, are you here to take me down, or take me as a pledge?"