“Aye, perhaps, mistress. If he will listen to ye.”
Sibylla smiled grimly. “I’ll make him listen, Jed. I must. But I must also know I can rely on you to keep all visitors at bay. Will you promise me?”
“I’ll do what I can, mistress. But ye should ken that if the Governor demands entrance or his grace the King does, I canna deny either man.”
“Then for mercy’s sake, say the gate is stuck!” Sibylla exclaimed, knowing that the King of Scots was nowhere near Elishaw, but fearing that Fife might already be near and awaiting his chance. “I do not care how you do it, Jed, but you must not let the Earl of Fife inside our wall with a force of his own men.”
He looked doubtful, but she could spare no more time for him or conceive of any argument that could make him hold firm against Fife.
She could only hope that Fife’s practice of keeping his own hands clean of any mischief he stirred would keep him in Edinburgh, and that anyone else he might send to seize Elishaw for the Crown would fail to make Jed open the gate.
Twenty minutes later she found her two escorts waiting in the bailey with their own horses and a fresh one for her. When she greeted them, big shaggy-haired Hodge Law firmed his lips into a stern, disapproving line and nodded.
But the lanky, towheaded man known as Willy the Horn grinned at her, revealing a mouthful of crooked teeth and a light of eagerness in his brown eyes as he said, “Jed said we’ll ride after the others, me lady. I been fair fidgeting for that!”
“Good lad, Willy,” she said as she mounted. “Hodge, I want to go as fast as we can, so I’ll rely on you to see that we don’t lose their trail.”
“Aye, mistress,” the big man replied.
As they rode out through the gateway, she signed to Willy to fall in behind and drew her mount close to Hodge’s.
“I suspect you think this poor payment for dragging wee Kit and me out of the river, Hodge,” she said quietly. “But I am glad to have you with me.”
“Sakes, mistress, ye could ask aught o’ me and I’d do it. But if ye’re thinking the laird will thank us for this, ye’re nobbut seeking your sorrows and mine own.”
“I know, but his life is at risk, Hodge, and he does not know it,” Sibylla said. “I cannot just sit at Elishaw and pray for him. That is not my nature.”
“Nay, mistress, I ken that fine, and so does he. Sakes, he said as much to me. Still, he’ll be gey fierce when he sees us, and I’m thinking ye’ve never seen him in full fury, or ye’d take the greatest care no to light that fire.”
Sibylla assured him she would do all she could to prevent setting the laird’s temper alight, but she knew as well as Hodge did that her likelihood of success was small. Simon was already irritated that she had refused to agree with him about Kit. He was also sure he could protect himself and manage the unpredictable Fife.
He would not thank her for following him. Most men, in her experience, were loath to accept even much-needed help from the women in their lives. And despite her confidence that Fife meant to seize Elishaw, she might easily be wrong.
That Fife had arranged all that had happened since the day she’d met Simon was impossible. That he had arranged for a man to pose as Cecil Percy at Elishaw after Percy had applied to visit was possible, though, however unlikely.
The Murrays had made no secret of the expected Percy visit. She had heard Rosalie speak of it at court and knew Lady Murray might have done so as well. And Fife was wholly capable of using such knowledge to gain entry to Elishaw.
But could he have acted quickly enough to be threatening Simon now?
Whether he had or not, the fact remained that Hodge Law was right about Simon’s likely reaction to their riding after him. Remembering comments Amalie had made about Simon at Sweethope Hill, she was wondering if he might do more than scold her when Hodge’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Sakes, Willy,” he exclaimed. “A bairn could follow these tracks!”
Looking from one to the other, Sibylla said, “Why should the laird and his men be hard to follow when they’d have no cause to cover their tracks?”
“ ’Tis no their marks that set me to wonderin’, mistress,” Hodge said. “Sithee, I were with Jock the Nose when the laird said to see if them Englishmen would be hard to track. We saw straightaway that one o’ their ponies had an odd front hoof, so Jock were right gleeful, and me, too.”
“Aye, sure, for it would make tracking them much easier.”
“It does, aye, but now I’m thinkin’ ye may be right in suspectin’ mischief. These tracks ha’ turned eastward, sithee, and south toward the line. If them Percys was ridin’ toward Edinburgh, why be they a-headin’ back toward England now?”
“Because they are not going to Edinburgh,” she said. “Aye, they’re devious, is what,” Hodge said. “But dinna tell me the man ridin’ that pony doesna ken the beast be easy to track. Nor his master neither.”
“They intended to let someone follow them,” Sibylla said.
“Aye, that’s what I’m fearing,” Hodge said with a grimace.
“Then I’m right, lads, and we must ride faster.”
Simon, too, had wondered about the shift in his quarry’s direction. For a time, the visitors’ tracks had led them northwest toward Hobkirk, just as he’d expected.
The shifts eastward and then south had come after they were beyond sight from Elishaw’s ramparts and before they’d left the forest for more populated areas where they’d have drawn notice. They were heading toward Carter Bar crossing and Redesdale, and had been for some time. The borderline lay less than a mile ahead.
He sent two lads on ahead to see what they might see on the other side.
From the outset, he and his men had asked the few folks they’d met if they had seen other riders, and if so, whether they had a child with them.
Most had seen the riders, but none had seen Kit, making Simon sure that he had been right and Sibylla wrong to think the visitors had abducted Kit.
He smiled at the thought. He was fond of her and hoped she was safe, but no matter what Sibylla had said, the wee lassock was not the heiress Catherine Gordon.
Whoever the lass was, the men he was following had behaved oddly.
He cast his mind back to the message from Cecil Percy, trying to remember if the messenger had said anything about his master being in a hurry or having in mind a more distant destination than Elishaw.
“He did not,” Simon muttered to himself, recalling that his mother had written later, telling Percy to bring his daughters and perhaps his sons with him.
Lady Murray would not have told Percy to bring his daughters if she’d had any hint that he was doing more than paying a family visit. Amusement stirred as he imagined how Cecil would react to meeting Sibylla after receiving what amounted to an invitation to present his two daughters as potential wives for Simon.
In any event, whoever Elishaw’s visitors had been, he doubted now that Cecil was their leader. Unless, his inner voice instantly suggested, Cecil and other Percy chieftains had been responsible all along for the raids into Scotland.
He rejected the thought at once. Northumberland, the Percys’ leader, was getting on in years and supported the truce. Moreover, his son Hotspur, the Percys’ finest warrior, had left England for adventure elsewhere. Without Hotspur to lead them, Simon doubted the Percys could have organized so many successful raids.
He would have liked to discuss his thoughts with Sibylla, because he had formed a deep respect for the wide range of knowledge her years with Isabel had gained her. He had a feeling, though, that she would say he was just coming around to what she had understood from the minute they reached Elishaw.
Faith, but she had made him angry! Having prided himself on learning to control his temper—indeed, to control all his emotions and thus avoid giving any man the satisfaction of disconcerting him—he found it especially irritating that she could stir his temper with just a look, a word, or a tone of voice.
That she could
stir other emotions and sensations as easily was a different matter and one he was willing to explore further. True amusement stirred then, and he realized he already missed her.
She could make him laugh, and it had been too long since anyone else had, but she did it easily. She was an excellent listener, and knowing that she was at Elishaw, he looked forward more than he had in years to going home again.
He felt guilty about letting his temper keep him from easing her concern about Kit, and for failing to explain clearly that Fife’s delight in their marriage had not meant he’d had anything to do with it. He hoped she did know that but wanted to be sure. Moreover, he had not spent nearly enough time in bed with her.
“Laird!”
Torn from his musing by the shout, he saw the two lads he had sent ahead riding toward him hard. Motioning his men to rein in, he continued toward the two.
“Laird, there be a large force o’ men just over yon hill,” one of the riders shouted as soon as they were within earshot.
“How many?”
“Three score or more, laird,” the man said as they reined in.
“Longbows?”
Both men shook their heads, as the spokesman said, “We saw nae longbows, sir, but they be armed, o’ course. And they be flying the Percys’ blue lion.”
Simon frowned. If Cecil Percy had wanted to draw him into ambush, surely he’d have found a simpler way. And why would he do it at all? Other Percys might be up to mischief, but the whole situation irritated Simon.
With a truce in force and his innocence and Percy kinsmanship to protect him, there was one sure way to find out if they were friendly. As he waved the rest of his men forward, he told the two with him to stay put.
“Conceal yourselves well and see what occurs,” he said. “Don’t show yourselves unless you hear battle raging or fail to hear from me within the hour. In either event, make haste for home and tell them the Percys attacked us. Then tell my lady wife to send for the Douglas and tell him what happened here.”
Watching the two men vanish into a nearby thicket, he said to his standard bearer, “You and I will ride ahead of the others, Rab. Recall that we are at truce and stay calm. You others will follow at a distance—not too near, nor yet too far. I don’t want to look like an army. Sithee, we merely follow cousins who paid us a too-short visit and then apparently missed their way to the Edinburgh road.”
One of the men stifled a snort, and Simon ignored it, turning his horse and urging it toward the hilltop.
From there, he could see the men-at-arms and horses below. It was a large contingent, but no one was mounted, and they gave no appearance of lying in wait.
“Wait here until we’ve ridden about halfway down to them and then follow slowly,” he said just loudly enough for the lads behind him to hear.
“Laird, that banner be a different color blue than the one our visitors had,” Rab said quietly. “The other was gey lighter, sir. And from here, it looks as if the lion on that one yonder be lying down. The other stood wi’ his forepaws high.”
“Hand me the pennant, Rab,” Simon said. “You fall back with the others.”
“But, laird—”
“Do as I bid you, lad,” Simon said.
As he rode slowly downhill, he heard a voice below shout, “There be those damned raiders now! Have at them, men!”
Ignoring the shout, Simon kept to his steady pace, eyeing the Percy banner. It looked just like one his mother had stitched on a cushion in her solar. She had also stitched cushions with the Murray crest, as well as Buccleuch’s and Westruther’s.
When a helmeted man whose bearing and light armor declared his nobility snatched up the Percy flag, flung himself on a horse, and rode alone toward Simon, Simon shifted his reins to the hand holding his own banner and took off his helmet.
Seeing the rest of the Percy men snatch up arms and run to their horses, he felt his stomach tighten and wondered if he was being a damned fool.
“The line lies just yonder, m’lady, ’twixt them two boulders,” Hodge said gruffly. “I’m thinking we should no cross it.”
“Sakes—” Willy began, only to stop when the larger man scowled at him.
“Don’t be foolish, Hodge,” Sibylla said with an understanding smile. “We’ve come this far, so the laird will be furious no matter what we do. But ’tis gey strange, I’ll admit. Why would someone stay overnight at Elishaw, saying he’d come from England, only to return to England?”
“I dinna ken, m’lady, but it canna be for any good purpose.”
“Just so,” she said. “And we may be the only help at hand. If the laird has ridden into a trap, we must learn how far he got and how many attacked him.”
Hodge did not argue, leaving her with her thoughts, which were of no comfort. Not only was Simon at risk, but she was sure now that Kit and the castle were in danger, too. And she still felt that, somehow, Fife lay behind it all.
She knew she might be putting her own life at risk by crossing into England. But, with the truce in place, she did not think any Englishman would harm a woman riding with two armed escorts, or consider her a threat to English peace.
Indeed, she thought with a wry smile, she might be safer meeting an Englishman than meeting her husband.
Simon was going to take a much dimmer view of her actions.
One thing was certain, and that was that the Douglas could not possibly arrive in time to be of use. The messengers Jed Hay had sent could not even have reached Ha-wick yet. Bitterly, she recalled the many times people had named her witch just for knowing something they thought she ought not to know.
She only wished she were one.
Her fear for Simon had increased with each mile and was much the same as his would doubtless be for her. But men who charged into danger without thought or care for consequence scolded their womenfolk just for putting a foot wrong.
The thought that someone might kill him before she could see him again—no matter how angry he was— terrified her. Telling herself she’d feel the same about anyone who might die in such a case did not help. Simon’s safety was an altogether more important matter than anyone else’s.
Examining these unfamiliar feelings, she muttered, “Faith, but I’ve fallen in love with the arrogant creature!”
“What’s that, m’lady?” Hodge said. “Beg pardon, but I were keeping a keen eye on them tracks ahead and I didna hear ye properly.”
“Is there something amiss with those tracks?” she asked, having no wish at all to repeat to him what she had muttered.
“I’m thinking those riders stopped here and bided a wee time,” he said. “Ye can see how the ground be churned up.”
“But they rode on.”
“Aye, yonder up that hillside,” he agreed, pointing. “Then we must go, too, and quickly,” she said, spurring her mount and trying to ignore the wave of anxiety sweeping through her.
The sun was setting, and from the crest of the hill, all she could make out milling round its base were men and horses, a large contingent of mounted, armed men flying a Percy banner. Then, riding toward them, she saw a lone rider carrying the Murray banner, with fewer than a dozen horsemen following him.
A half mile to the west, in a thickly wooded area beyond sight of the men below, she saw more mounted menat-arms—many more than she could count.
“Hodge, they’re going to attack him, just as we’d feared!” she cried. “Willy, blow your horn. If you care for the laird, make us sound like the King’s whole army!”
Willy put the horn to his lips.
Simon watched the man riding toward him and searched in the increasingly uncertain light for some hint of his identity other than the banner he carried. Not until the other reached up and swept the helmet from his head to reveal a weathered face, tousled coppery hair, and graying sideburns did Simon relax.
He waited for the older man to draw rein, letting him set the distance between them. Then he reined in his own horse.
“Identify yourself, si
r,” the other snapped.
“Simon Murray of Elishaw, sir. Are you Cecil Percy of Dour Hill?”
“I am, though I own, I’m astonished you’d guess it. If you are indeed Simon Murray, you’ve not clapped eyes on me for nearly a decade.”
“No, sir, I have not,” Simon said. He eased his mount forward. Noting the other man’s increased tension, he added coolly, “The last time I saw you, I believe, we were both at Alnwick during a brief truce. Your hair was redder then. That is the only time my lady mother has visited Alnwick—or I, come to that. You bear a strong resemblance to her.”
Cecil Percy rode closer then, but his stern look did not alter. “What the devil have you been up to, cousin, leading raids against honest English landowners?”
“That boot’s on the other foot, sir,” Simon said. “My people have suffered many losses since the snows began to melt. We suspect English raiders, Percys.”
“Then we must talk. But if you do not come a-raiding, why do you come?”
“To learn why you paid Elishaw such a hasty visit last night.”
Above them on the hill, a horn sounded the royal Stewart call to arms.
Snatching the horn from Willy’s hand, Hodge snapped, “Nay, ye daft fool!”
“But he must frighten off those villains, Hodge,” Sibylla protested.
“Ye told him to make us sound like his grace’s own army, m’lady. He did blow the Stewart’s call to arms, and— Ay de mi, look yonder!”
Sibylla followed his gaze and saw that instead of turning tail, riders in greater numbers were emerging from the woods to the west. Having thought them ambushers, she recognized the large red heart on the Douglas banner with a huge sense of relief. Then she turned to Hodge and saw that he felt no relief at all.
Reality struck hard when she looked back at all the men below with Simon, and realized how close together the Murray and Percy banners appeared.
“Mercy, but the Douglas cannot have received my message yet,” she exclaimed. “He must think that Simon is conspiring with the Percys.”
“Aye, and wi’ the Governor, too, thanks to Will here,” Hodge snapped.
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