Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy Two 02]

by Border Lass

  It was as well that no one challenged them, because Garth had no idea what he might have said after that. The gates swung open, and following Sym, he and his men rode into the cobbled bailey.

  As they dismounted, he quietly ordered his men to see to the horses and await events. Then to his young guide, he said dryly, “Do you call that string of blethers you were spinning out there ‘telling them nobbut the truth’?”

  “Aye, sure, I’m famished. Are ye no?”

  “And the lady Meg stitched that banner with her own hands?”

  “D’ye think she canna do such things?”

  “That is not what I said.”

  “Aye, well, she had it made or made it herself,” Sym said. “I demanded nae details from her, and nor will them mugs on the gate. Mayhap ye will, and then ye can say if I lied or no.”

  “You stay here with the men,” Garth said curtly. “I’m going inside.”

  “Ye might think on that again,” Sym said. “Look yonder.”

  Glancing in the direction of the lad’s nod, he saw a score or more of men emerging from the main entrance. Fife was with them, and looking their way.

  Simon had leapt to his feet when the men-at-arms rushed in, but Amalie saw that he had armed himself with only his dirk, and was not surprised when he stayed where he was as he exclaimed, “Are you daft, Boyd?”

  “Don’t act too hastily, Simon,” Boyd retorted. “Fife told me to treat you well, but he left me these men and he has given me his promise. You know he will keep it whether you live or die, and I think your little sister will quickly agree to marry me when she learns that your death will be the price of her defiance. As for your lady mother, I’ll deal with her just as easily.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Simon retorted, his temper clearly rising. “My brother, Tom, and likely Buccleuch and a large retinue will escort her. Moreover, Fife has gone, leaving you with just these dozen men against all here at Elishaw.”

  “I doubt you will see either your brother or Buccleuch with your lady mother,” Boyd said softly. “But in that unlikely event, I shall still hold you, your ungrateful sister, and her intrusive friend as hostages. Will your mother risk all those lives to resist the will of the Governor? I doubt it. I doubt, too, that Fife’s friend Archie Douglas will sacrifice his goddaughter to defy Fife’s will.”

  “Ah, but your priest will refuse to perform a forced marriage,” Simon said.

  “No, he won’t. Tell him, Father.”

  “Looks as if Fife’s leaving,” Sym said as Garth turned quickly away and bent to examine his horse’s near hind hoof, praying that Fife had not seen him.

  “We’ll wait for him to go,” he said.

  “Better if we can slip by them in the tumble and get inside,” Sym advised.

  The lad’s instincts were good, Garth realized. As large as he was himself, he rarely thought of sneaking past anyone. Still, his men could walk about without stirring alarm, and so could Sym. And, in the teeming throng, he himself might pass unnoticed as long as Fife did not look right at him. Also, if they waited for Fife and his men to mount their horses, anyone not mounted would draw notice at once.

  Garth nodded. “I’ll go,” he said. “But you should stay here.”

  “Ye’ll be more remarkable alone than with me, sir. Moreover, ye want to find the lady Amalie. Sithee, even if she’s inside, she mayn’t be in the hall.”

  “And you think you can find her more easily than I can?”

  “I can, aye. And, if she’s in the hall, I can find that out afore we enter it.”

  Garth realized that he had not seen Simon or Boyd with Fife.

  “How will you do it?”

  “I’ll show ye, aye, but come on. They’re fetching out their horses.”

  Accordingly, the two of them skirted the crowd of men shouting for horses, slipped in through the entrance, and hurried up the steps.

  “Sir Harald is right, sir,” the priest told Simon. “The Governor ordered my assistance and made it clear that further defiance will cost me my life.”

  Amalie said bluntly, “Simon, they will kill you whatever you do. That is why I came here, to warn you. Sithee, sir, Fife wants Elishaw more than any marriage.”

  “Be silent, Amalie; don’t stir the pot,” Simon said. But his voice lacked the note of curt irritation it usually held when he spoke to her.

  “Aye, keep silent, lass,” Boyd said. “You don’t know what you are prattling about. Fife values both of us equally, Simon, and counts on our aid. I’ve no wish to make an enemy of you, but neither will I let you stop what he has promised me.”

  “You hold me prisoner in my own hall, yet don’t want me as your enemy?”

  “Aye, although it is a pity you don’t have your sword or we could decide this easily. You have not won your spurs, but I’m told you’re a competent swordsman.”

  “I’ll send someone to fetch my sword, and we’ll find out,” Simon suggested.

  “I think not,” Boyd said, approaching the dais. “Not yet, at all events. Lady Amalie, pray step down here to me, and do not defy me again. I need only one of you for my purpose. And since I doubt that the lady Sibylla bears any real kinship to Archie the Grim, she is of small use to me. However, if you defy me, I’ll have two of my men seize her and see what use they can find for her upstairs.”

  “By heaven, sir,” Simon exclaimed, “you go too far!”

  “Do I? Seize the red-haired one, lads, and—”

  “Leave her, you villain; I’m coming,” Amalie snapped, getting hastily to her feet and hurrying round the near end of the table.

  “Seize the other lass anyway,” Boyd commanded when Amalie reached his side. Grabbing her arm, he yanked her hard enough against him to reveal the chain mail under his tunic and warn her that she would bear bruises from it later.

  Just then a piercing whistle shrieked from the stairway. Recognizing it, she quickly thrust two fingers into her mouth and whistled back as loudly as she could.

  Releasing her, Boyd whirled toward the stairs.

  Amalie glanced back to see Simon draw his dirk, put his free hand on the table, and leap across it to land between Sibylla and the men approaching her.

  “Stand away from her ladyship, you lot,” Simon snapped just as Amalie heard Boyd exclaim, “Westruther!”

  Her attention instantly diverted, she saw Garth cross the threshold with his sword drawn. In his wake, Sym Elliot followed, dirk in hand.

  “Seize the lad,” Boyd bellowed to his men. “The swordsman is mine!”

  “Nay, he is mine!” Amalie snapped. As Boyd shifted his sword to attack Garth, she struck fast and as hard as she could.

  Recalling the chain mail, she aimed high for his throat, and then, when his head snapped back, she jabbed his abdomen with her elbow for good measure.

  A strong arm swept her aside then as a gleaming blade slashed upward and clanged against Boyd’s, sending his sword to clatter against the nearby stone wall and fall with a vibrating crash to the floor.

  “Down, sir!” Garth snapped at Boyd, setting his sword point at the man’s chest. Both weapons were thrusting swords with points meant to pierce mail.

  “I yield, aye,” Boyd said, dropping to a knee.

  As Garth put the point of his sword to Boyd’s throat and told Sym to call his men, Amalie heard a horn in the distance. Then two familiar notes sounded from a second horn. She glanced at Sym, who had hesitated near the archway.

  Looking back, he grinned at her and shouted, “ ’Tis Himself!” Then he darted away and vanished down the stairs.

  The point of his sword still at Boyd’s neck, Garth roared without looking away from it, “You men, if you did not recognize those horns, learn to do so! The first was the Douglas, the second Buccleuch. Put up your weapons at once.”

  “Sheathe your weapons, lads, and lay them on the dais table,” Simon said. “There will be no more swordplay here tonight.”

  “There may be more trouble for them, though,” Garth said grimly.
“They’ll face Douglas justice for invading a Border stronghold, threatening its master, and imperiling noblewomen under his protection. Moreover, Lady Amalie is Buccleuch’s good-sister, and Buccleuch has sworn an oath to defend the Murrays of Elishaw.”

  “Westruther, you’d be wise to recall that if the Douglas is here, Fife has also returned,” Boyd snapped. “Also, Simon is Fife’s man, sworn to obey him. But you and I can settle this properly if you let me retrieve my sword.”

  “Properly?”

  “Aye, we’ll decide as knights should, in fair battle,” Boyd said.

  “To do that, we’d both have to be knights worthy of the name and have the same notion of ‘fair,’ ” Garth retorted. “By your actions here and before, you have proven yourself unworthy.”

  Hearing the sound of booted feet hurrying up the stairway, Amalie bit her lip, wondering if Fife or Douglas would appear first.

  To her relief, Douglas and Buccleuch entered together, accompanied by Tammy and a man she did not know, all four ushered in by a beaming Sym.

  By then, Boyd’s men-at-arms had yielded their weapons to Simon.

  Douglas paused inside the archway and scanned the chamber, frowning darkly. “By all the saints, what happened here?” he demanded.

  Beside him, the unknown man took a step forward and peered at Boyd. “That’s him, my lord,” he said, nodding. “That man is Ben Haldane.”

  Hearing the name, Garth flicked a glance at Douglas and his companion.

  As he did, Boyd struck his sword aside and dove toward his own, snatching it up and leaping lithely to his feet to lunge hard at Garth.

  Garth parried the stroke, but Boyd pressed harder at him, ignoring their stunned audience.

  Knowing that Amalie was behind him, Garth feared making any moves in that direction until she cried from some distance to his left, “I’m away, sir!”

  Immediately, he leapt backward to his right, then forward, slashing quick and hard, using both hands for his weapon and knocking Boyd’s sword high again. This time, though, it did not leave the man’s grasp.

  “Hold! Enough!” Douglas bellowed.

  Garth stepped back at once and Buccleuch moved quickly to stand by him with his own sword drawn.

  “Drop that weapon,” Douglas snapped to Boyd. “You will hang soon enough, but if you don’t do as I say now, I have them spit you where you stand.”

  “I cannot let you do that, Archie,” Fife said calmly from the archway. “That man serves me. If he has done aught to displease you, he will answer to me.”

  “Done aught? This gallous blackguard murdered my Will!”

  Fife frowned. “Have you evidence of that? I find it hard to credit.”

  Indicating the man who had spoken earlier, Douglas said, “This is Will’s own man, who was with him in Königsberg and Danzig. Will himself named Ben Haldane as his killer, and Will’s man says this foul miscreant is that same Ben Haldane, for all that he may call himself otherwise.”

  “Nonsense, this man is Sir Harald Boyd, who has served me loyally.”

  Simon, who had not stirred from his position near the dais table, said in a quiet but nonetheless carrying voice, “Even so, my lord, Boyd attempted to force matters here tonight by holding me, my sister, and the lady Sibylla hostage to his will. He likewise claimed that it was by your own order that he did so.”

  “Did he?” Fife frowned at Boyd. “If so, he has much to answer for, certainly. Nay, do not speak, sir,” he said sternly to the offender. With more intensity, he added, “I warn you, you can do yourself no good thereby. Now, what of this charge from Danzig? Did anyone see him commit the crime?” He looked at Garth.

  “Only Will Douglas,” Garth said. “Will did name him to me, however.”

  “He named Ben Haldane,” Fife reminded everyone. “This is Harald Boyd.”

  “Aye, my lord,” the man with Douglas said. “But I ken Ben Haldane fine, for I saw him many times up close, and this be him.”

  “I do not know you,” Boyd said. “Therefore you cannot possibly know me. Sakes, but I was never in Danzig.”

  “There, you see,” Fife said. “Still, I will look into this matter, and if there is anything to the crimes you believe of this man, I will see justice done.”

  “I mean to try him myself,” Douglas said. “I’d see him tried fairly.”

  “I’m afraid not, Archie,” Fife said. “I am Governor of the Realm, after all, so he is mine unless you choose to test my authority over this.”

  Douglas hesitated and then shook his head.

  Garth shot a questioning look at Wat. Receiving a nod, he drew a breath and looked at Amalie. Well aware of the pain he was about to cause her, and likely Simon, too, he said, “There is an additional crime to consider, my lords.”

  “By my faith, what else?” Fife asked, sounding bored.

  “Another murder and another accusation leveled at this man.”

  “You refer to Haldane again, I must assume.”

  “No, sir. This time the witness implicated Boyd himself. I’m sorry for this, my lady,” he said to Amalie. “My apologies to you, too, Murray. I had not intended to deliver the information to either of you in this way.”

  “Tom!” Amalie exclaimed softly. “Where is Tom? He ought to have come with you, my lord,” she said to Buccleuch.

  “Tom Murray is dead,” Garth told Fife. “He was on his way to deliver the news of his father’s death to Lady Murray at Scott’s Hall when Boyd and three of his followers hunted him down. A clumsy matter it was, too, I’m afraid, because Tom Murray had two of his own lads with him. All three are dead.”

  Fife said with a sigh, “Then I fail to see what evidence you can—”

  “One of them lived long enough to identify Boyd,” Garth said. “If you need testimony to that effect, I can give you the names of the monks who heard him.”

  “As I said,” Fife said curtly, “I will see justice done. At present, however, though I’d intended to stay here, I shall ride back to Jedburgh tonight. This place is too full to offer suitable accommodation for all of us. You will come with me, Boyd, but leave your sword here. It will be a good lesson to you.”

  No one suggested that they stay, but no one looked happy to see them go.

  Chapter 21

  He will see justice, eh?” Douglas muttered when the men-at-arms who’d aided Boyd had hurried after Fife and the sounds of their departure faded down the stairway. “ ’Tis more likely that he will reward Will’s murderer for his villainy.”

  “With respect, my lord . . .” Simon began quietly.

  Amalie, still stunned by the news of Tom’s death, glanced at him and saw that, for once, her always- confident brother looked uncertain.

  Sibylla was watching him, too.

  “What is it, Murray?” Douglas asked sourly.

  “Although I warrant Boyd thinks just as you do, sir,” Simon said, “I believe the Governor will keep his word to you.”

  Amalie agreed.

  Everyone was looking at Simon now, and she saw both Wat and Sibylla nodding as if they, too, knew what he would say and agreed with him.

  Douglas frowned. “Do you think he means to do away with the man then?”

  “His lordship does not tolerate fools or those who act without his orders, sir, and he did not order Boyd to kill my brother. He’d have had no cause to do so.”

  Simon seemed to have himself under rigid control, as if he were fighting strong emotion. Although it was hard for Amalie to imagine him having emotions other than annoyance, fury, or stiff-necked pride, she thought he might be sorry about Tom’s death.

  She certainly was, more than she had expected to be.

  Wat said thoughtfully to Douglas, “Experience does indicate that Fife will keep Boyd from speaking out if Boyd can connect him to any of this.”

  Sibylla nodded again.

  Amalie said, “Fife will certainly see Boyd as a risk to himself. And he removes risks and obstacles. He would have removed you, Simon. I am sure of it
.”

  Simon met her gaze but looked bewildered. “You said he would kill me, Amalie. I’m grateful that you rushed here to warn me, for I’d not have expected that of you, but Fife knows I am loyal to him.”

  “But don’t you see? Fife wants Elishaw just as he wanted other valuable places he has seized. Mayhap you were not in danger whilst you were willing to give him part of it and force me to marry Boyd . . .” She hesitated when she saw him wince. Satisfied though that he was listening to her for once, she added, “Will Fife be as certain of your loyalty after Boyd tells him you refused to sacrifice Rosalie?”

  “But you exaggerate the danger,” Simon protested. “I can see that you’re thinking of the Strathearn estates and that like others, who should know better, you see something fiendish in his just wanting to protect his niece’s lands for his family. Even if you should prove right about that, Elishaw is not nearly the size of Strathearn.”

  Douglas said, “Not as vast, but Elishaw is strategically more important to our safety than Strathearn, and a considerable Border stronghold withal. Go on, lass.”

  Before she could, Garth said evenly, “Art sure of all this, Amalie?”

  His tone disturbed her, but she met his narrowed gaze and said honestly, “I can tell you only what I thought, sir, which was that Fife might kill Simon. That did seem clear to me before I left Sweethope Hill.”

  “We will discuss that particular decision later,” he said in that same even tone. “Explain what you meant about Fife.”

  “He seizes things just to control them, I think,” she said slowly, trying to discern and isolate all the bits of thought that had fallen together so abruptly and sent her hotfoot here to Elishaw. “And, then too . . .”

  It was hard to think with him looking at her so sternly.

  “. . . there is also my father’s death, and Tom’s,” she said.

  “Do you accuse Fife of ordering their deaths then, when Simon does not?”

  “Mercy, sir, I cannot claim to know what Fife ordered or did not order,” she said, aware now only of him and paying no heed to the others.

  “But you did not know about Tom when you left Sweethope,” he said.