Devil's Moon

by Amanda Scott

  “Certes, you may have leave to see if aught is amiss. Look in at Scott’s Hall on your way back, though, and see if Wat Scott can spare men for Hermitage. If he does not want to lead them himself, he can appoint you to do so.”

  “Aye, sure, I’ll talk to him,” Dev said. He knew that Walter Scott, Lord of Buccleuch and Rankilburn, just two years older than himself, would likely agree and have men to spare. However, he also knew better than to say so before discussing it with Wat.

  Taking the earl’s nod as dismissal, Dev left the chamber. When he spied his squire at a nearby table with some of his other lads, he nodded toward the door and kept walking. Coll and the others quickly followed. They had already taken the gear and weapons to the yard, and their horses were ready and waiting.

  Mounting Auld Nick, Dev set a fast pace, and an hour and a half later, Jedburgh’s six bastille towers loomed into view. The towers had taken the place of Jedburgh Castle two decades ago, after the Scots had routed the castle’s English occupants and razed the fortress to prevent further English occupation.

  Skirting the town and heading toward Jedburgh Abbey, Dev and his men forded Jed Water in the shadow of the abbey’s arches to the accompaniment of its hundred-foot clock-tower bells, pealing the midday hour of None.

  Continuing northeastward along the Teviot, they reached the village of Eckford an hour later and forded the Teviot before its confluence with Kale Water, which flowed into the river from the south. A short time later, the Teviot curved sharply northward toward its own convergence with the river Tweed.

  Ormiston Mains lay straight ahead. Its tall peel tower perched atop a grassy knoll overlooking the Teviot to the east and south. In the distance behind them, the riders could still see the village of Eckford edging the Teviot’s south bank.

  At Ormiston, they dismounted in the yard. Leaving Ormiston’s grooms and his own men to attend to their horses, Dev headed for the tower entrance. Before he reached it, his sister Fiona, her long dark hair flying loose in tangles, ran from the nearby kitchen annex and flung her arms around him.

  “I feared you were never coming home again, Davy!” she exclaimed, hugging him.

  Nine years his junior, thoughtful, often still childlike but with a mind of her own, she was his favorite of his two sisters. Gellis was three years older than he was and had always been too bossy and self-absorbed to please him. But Fiona was sweet and generous.

  “You look like a shaggy bairn,” he said, holding her away to look at her. “How are you going to attract a husband if you don’t keep yourself tidy?”

  “Faith, sir, if you came home only to scold me, you may take yourself off again,” she said. “I heard naught save criticism from Kenneth and Lucas when they were last here, although they, like you, are too lazy to present eligible men to me. I don’t want to hear the same song from you, Sir Knight. As for Father—”

  “David, come in,” his father called from the doorstep, interrupting her. “It is time to dine. One of the lads told us you were coming, so we have waited for you.”

  Setting Fiona aside, Dev strode to meet him. Shaking hands, he said, “ ’Tis good to see you, sir. I hope your summons doesn’t mean that aught is amiss here.”

  “Nay, nay,” Ormiston said, urging him toward the stairs. “We’ve seen you too rarely of late, that’s all. Moreover, my son, I’ve decided it’s time that you married.”

  The English Borders, Near Alnwick

  Old man Jamieson coughed and coughed, gasping after each bout until Chukk thought he’d cough his innards out. When he lay back at last, Chukk mopped his brow with a wet cloth.

  “Can I fetch ye summat else, Da?”

  The only reply being a slight shake of the gray head, Chukk shut his eyes, wondering if God had time to listen to prayers from the likes of him. After all, God had said, “Thou shalt not kill,” and he had killed so many times he’d long since lost count.

  “Lad.” The word wafted to him as no more than a breath through the stillness.

  Opening his eyes, Chukk saw that the rheumy gray eyes had opened, too, showing more awareness than they had for two days or more.

  “Aye, Da, I’m here.”

  “Ye… mun get home… to Hjaltland.”

  “Northumberland’s been our home for most o’ me life,” Chukk reminded him.

  “I put by some… gelt for ye.” The gasping voice grew stronger. “I’m spent, lad. I’ll niver see Lerwick again. But ye’ll find our kin and tell them wha’ happened. Tell them… we didna drown. That we niver… made Bergen.”

  “I dinna ken how to get there,” Chukk protested. “Nor do I speak the Norn.”

  “Wi’ gelt, ye can do as ye please.”

  “Aye, but we ha’ nary a farthing to spit on.”

  “I do… nae farthings, b—” The word caught in the old man’s throat, making him cough again. The bout was shorter. Chukk wrung out the cloth and laid it gently on the old man’s clammy brow.

  “Da, rest now. There’d be nowt for me in Lerwick even an I could get there.”

  “ ’Tis Percy gelt… good silver. I’ll tell ye where it be. But ye mun promise me… here at me deathbed… ye’ll go… home.”

  As sure as he could be that the old man had lost his senses, Chukk promised anyway. He spoke the words that would bind him before Shetland Jamie said what he needed to say and exhaled his final breath.

  Chapter 3

  Where ye going, Beany?” Benjy demanded, running to catch up with her. Tigtow, Rab’s black-and-white sheepdog, loped at his heels. The dog had attached itself to Benjy after Rab’s death, as if it knew that its master was gone forever.

  “I’m going for a ramble as I do each fine morning,” Robina replied. “But I cannot take you with me today.”

  “Cannot or will not?” the boy asked, raising his eyebrows in the same way that Rab always had when he’d asked her such questions.

  Fighting an unexpected urge to cry, she said, “You may decide which it is, but I need time to myself today. My temper is uncertain, and I think better when I’m alone.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t fratch with me now, laddie,” she said firmly. “I’ll take you with me tomorrow. We can go wherever you like then.”

  Benjy looked at the clouds overhead, thicker than they were at this time the day before. “It will likely rain tomorrow,” he said with a frown.

  “If it does, we’ll do something else and go for a ramble together Wednesday or Thursday. Meantime, you think about where you’d like to go.”

  “I know where,” he said quietly.

  “Tell me.”

  “I want to go up Sunnyside Hill to the graveyard. I… I want to visit Rab.”

  The tears welled in Robina’s eyes then, and an ache captured her heart, but she ignored both. Looking past her little brother to the open gateway, where Ratch stood watching, she knew that taking Benjy with her would be unwise.

  English raiders were unlikely, but it was likely that the Turnbulls of Langside might be looking for two missing cows and four and a half woolly sheep. She would go alone today if only to reassure herself that no danger lurked.

  She knew their estates and she knew their people. She would soon know if anyone had seen strangers in the area or aught else of interest.

  Barring a full-scale raid, no one would harm her. But Benjy was now Laird of Coklaw, and any enemy able to recognize the boy might view him as a useful pawn, political or otherwise.

  Such likelihood was small, but she dared not ignore it.

  “We’ll go tomorrow if we can, I promise,” she said, giving Benjy’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze. “But you must go back now.”

  “If it is dangerous for me, then it’s dangerous for you, too, Beany.” Before she could assure him that she could look after herself, he added in the firm tone that always made him sound older than his years, “You had better take Tig with you.”

  “I will, thank you,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like to visit the stable and see the beast
s we lifted last night. Don’t make a song about the lifting, though.”

  He gave a boyish snort at that. “You say that as if I would.”

  She grinned. “I know you won’t, but you should know that Dev left two of his men here to guard us. They know about the beasts, and so does he.”

  “But they let you come outside the wall?”

  “They have no authority here, Benjy, not over us.”

  He gave her a speculative look that, from an adult, she might have thought mocking, but he did not argue. Instead, he held the flat of his palm out to the dog, and said, “Stay with Beany, Tig. Guard her.”

  Then, squaring his shoulders, he walked back to the gateway.

  Ratch stood aside to let him in, waved again at Robina, and shut the gate.

  “You’d best hope you don’t run into trouble, Beany. Tig can be fierce, but he’s no proper escort. Sakes, you may be putting him at risk.”

  Ignoring Rab, she eyed Tig thoughtfully.

  The shaggy sheepdog sat looking at her alertly, his mouth slightly open as if he smiled. His dark brown eyes sparkled with his anticipation of a run.

  “All right, Tig, let’s go,” she said with a sweeping gesture westward.

  The dog dashed ahead of her and then ranged back to be sure she was coming. As they set out toward the hills separating Coklaw from Slitrig Water, she sighed and felt herself relax for the first time since Dev’s arrival the night before.

  The midday meal at Ormiston Mains was noisy and plentiful. Servants and the Ormiston men-at-arms ate at trestle tables in the lower part of the great hall, but screens on the dais provided some privacy at the high table for Ormiston, Dev, and Fiona.

  “Where is your maidservant, Fiona?” Dev asked her.

  “Eating with the housekeeper,” Fiona said. “I wanted you and Father to myself today. You are all the protection I require, Davy, so do tell us all you did whilst you were away. I know about that dreadful ambush at Chesters and that Rab…”

  She paused, her cheerful demeanor faltering.

  Recalling that Rab had enjoyed a light flirtation with her, Dev said quietly, “We all miss him, Fee. I visited Coklaw yestereve and saw his sister and their little brother. They are alone there now but for servants and their steward.”

  “It is so unfair,” she muttered. “I recall thinking how sad it was that both of his parents had died, leaving him with such heavy responsibilities for his years.”

  Remembering that Rab had left most of those responsibilities to others while he honored his duties to the Douglas, Dev said, “He was gey young to die, to be sure, but the lad who just inherited those responsibilities is only nine years old.”

  “Mercy,” Fiona said. “Rab’s sister is his twin, is she not?”

  “Aye,” Dev said, suppressing a sudden urge to smile when an image of the scowling Robby flashed into his mind’s eye, hands on her hips, furious with him. “Her name is Robina. Rab called her Beany.”

  “I don’t think we have met,” Fiona said. “Tell me about her.”

  “She is grief-stricken at present. I expect she worries about the future, too.”

  “Faith, I would,” Fiona said. Looking from Dev to her father and back, she said, “Losing Mam was horrid. One’s grief never goes away, either, not entirely. I cannot imagine losing all of my family save one brother. Especially if it was Kenneth,” she added with a wry twist of her rosy lips.

  “Fiona,” Ormiston said sternly. “You know better than to speak so.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said automatically. “I apologize, but Kenneth is not my favorite brother. I do not think it is solely my fault that that is so, either.”

  “I expect I’m your favorite,” Dev said, winking at her.

  She raised her dimpled chin and said, “Aye, perhaps, for today. Unless you lose your temper.”

  “Have I ever lost it with you?”

  Fiona laughed. “Mercy, I’m not going to answer that with Father sitting here, having just taken me to task for speaking disrespectfully of Kenneth. But I will say that I’d rather have you roar at me, Davy, than lecture me to death and then declare that it is your duty to report my transgressions to Father.”

  “Sakes, is that what Kenneth does? He used to call me an odious scruff, but other than that, he rarely spoke to me.”

  “Well, I am glad he lives up near Peebles, and I hope Father lives forever.”

  Both men chuckled at that statement and their conversation continued amiably.

  When Ormiston had finished eating, he said, “You have your duties to attend, Fiona, so we will excuse you. David, we can talk in my chamber.”

  Thus dismissed, Fiona stood, grinned at Dev when he stood up beside her, and then, on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said. “I know you can’t stay long, but do come again soon.”

  “I shan’t leave before morning at the earliest, Fee,” he said with a teasing smile. “Douglas gave me leave to see to family matters, so the length of my stay must depend on why Father sent for me.”

  Smiling again, she took her leave, and Ormiston gestured toward the end of the dais, where a stout, carved door led into his private chamber.

  Robina strolled in the hilly forest with Tig for a peaceful hour and then spent the rest of her morning attending to her usual chores. By midday, her bedchamber door boasted a new latch and a strong bolt, and Corinne assured her as she helped Robina tidy herself for the midday meal that she had asked Shag to fix it.

  “He did it straightaway, too, mistress, and asked me nae questions.”

  Nor would the usually stoical Shag ask her any, Robina knew. It was not the first time he had fixed something for one of the twins without a word said to anyone.

  She spent the afternoon with Ada Greenlaw, Coklaw’s plump, gray-haired housekeeper, who had decided that it was time to begin spring cleaning.

  “We’ll must air mattresses soon, mistress, and turn out every kist and cupboard,” she said firmly when Robina entered the small room near the kitchen, where the housekeeper discussed household matters with her minions and her mistress.

  “I am sure you have everything in hand, Ada,” Robina said with a smile. “What would you like me to do?”

  The housekeeper remained sober. “I did ha’ a list for ye, m’lady, but I been a-watching our young master still moping about. I’m thinking now that the best thing ye could do wi’ your time is to keep that wee laddie busy.”

  “Benjy won’t take kindly to supervising housework,” Robina said. “He is aware that he is the new laird, you know.”

  Mistress Greenlaw did smile then. “Aye, he’s a one. I fear he thinks being Laird o’ Coklaw be superior to being King o’ Scots.”

  “Aye, well, Rab felt the same,” Robina said.

  She listened for Rab to deny her statement or at least to comment. When he did not, she became aware that Mistress Greenlaw had spoken.

  “I’m sorry, Ada,” she said. “I let my thoughts wander. What did you say?”

  “Only that we miss our young laird fierce, m’lady. I expect ye were feeling it then, too. Our Rab could be a bit capernoited, time to time, but he bade fair to become as fine a man as your dad and your granddad.”

  “Perhaps,” Robina said, aware that her twin could certainly be impulsive, even reckless, but unwilling to agree with anyone else regarding either trait. “I know that everyone misses him, but together, we can look after things at Coklaw until Benjy is old enough to take charge here.”

  “Aye, sure, we can,” Ada said. But even a listener with weaker insight than Robina’s would have discerned the doubt in her voice.

  “I think Benjy might enjoy relaying some of Greenlaw’s orders to the stables and yard,” Robina said. “He would learn much by doing so, too. I shall ask Greenlaw if he will do that, unless you think he might object.”

  “He’d be glad to teach the laddie all he kens,” the housekeeper said. “Our Benjy mayn’t be as willing to learn, though.”

  “Pe
rhaps, but I think Greenlaw should begin teaching him. I wish he would teach me more, too. Then, I could help teach Benjy.”

  The housekeeper’s lips tightened. “Good sakes, m’lady, ye ken fine that Greenlaw doesna think it suitable for a woman to take charge of a castle, especially one as close to the line as we be and wi’ so many estates to look after.”

  “I don’t want to take charge,” Robina protested. “I just want to know.”

  “Ye should be looking for a proper husband then. Mayhap ye’ll choose one who will teach ye such things.”

  “I don’t want a husband either, Ada,” Robina said tersely. “I know that Greenlaw thinks a husband would keep me out of trouble, for he has told me so. But I think a husband would create trouble. He’d want to run everyone and everything here. How would Greenlaw like that after being in charge for twenty-five years?”

  “Truth be, m’lady, I think he’d welcome someone else taking hold here. When your da were alive, although he and your mam were at Gledstanes as much as they was here, and sometimes more, Greenlaw knew that if he were doubtful o’ summat, he could ask your da. Wi’ the young laird, he could talk things out and sort them in his mind whilst he did. Even when he had to persuade Master Rab that his way were best, he said talking to Master Rab helped him think.”

  “Talking to me could also help, then,” Robina said doggedly.

  “If ye mean to discuss Master Benjy wi’ him, ye might tell him how ye feel, too, then,” Ada said reasonably.

  “I’ll see him at once,” Robina said. “Then I’ll collect Corinne and some of the other maids and begin turning out kists. With clouds gathering overhead, as they are, I doubt we’ll be putting mattresses or pallets out to air for a while.”

  No sooner had Lord Ormiston shut the door to the inner chamber than he said, “I meant what I said about marrying, David, but I thank you for not mentioning it at the table. It is not a suitable subject for us to discuss with Fiona.”

  “She should be thinking of her own future, should she not, sir? Have you anyone in mind for her?”

  “I am not ready to part with that lassie yet,” Ormiston admitted with a rueful smile. “However, you are fast gaining age, my lad, and I’ve decided on the perfect wife for you. Kerr’s youngest, the lady Anne, is of a suitable age and should make you an amiable wife.”