The Border Lord

by Sophia James

  Lachlan held Grace’s ring in his hand and swore soundly as the warmth of his skin infused into the coldness of gold. His wife had left him. When Duncan had recovered from a knock on the head, he said that Grace had gone of her own accord, walking from the keep after dark into the forest to the west, the hood of her dark blue cape pulled up. Hiding truth. Not just Grace, either, but a dozen of his men and they had carried her clothes in a heavy trunk between them.

  Malcolm’s supporters!

  Could the mounting rumours about his brother’s re-emergence be true? And if Malcolm had lived after Grantley, why had he not come back to Belridden to claim his Lairdship?

  Two answers surfaced. He was ashamed at the discovery of his liaison with his brother’s wife, Ruth, and the repercussions that might bring, and he had often seen his Lairdship of Belridden as a trap. But why hide and why send Kenneth MacIndoe back to the Borderlands in his stead?

  Because of its connection to Grace?

  Anger and hurt consumed him. What sort of a woman had he married? How could he have been so duped? A liar? A cheat?

  He laid his face in his hands and breathed deeply, trying in the chaos to find a way forwards. There were many of the clan at Belridden who saw her now as a saviour, an angel, a woman who was becoming more and more like one of their own, and when he had left he was certain that Grace had been happy, the Elliots’ praise in front of everyone all that she had striven for since being here.

  Damn.

  Nothing made sense, but there was no sign of a struggle, no reason to believe she had not gone by choice. One of her shifts lay in a ball against the end board of their bed, dropped in the hurry of exit, he determined, as he picked it up. Delicate and lacy, it smelled of Grace. Flowers and the essence of woman. Swallowing hard, he dropped the thing in the fire where it went up in a welt of flame and smoke.

  Ephemeral and transient! The whole impermanence of his life suddenly overcame him; never a place or a home or a person that was truly his. Never trust or honesty or faith. Like these flames, burning bright and then gone, only smoke and soot left. Another thought made him stiffen. She had taken the dog, too, for it no longer hung in the room or about the Great Hall, its golden eyes watching his wife’s every move.

  He wished that there could have been a battle tomorrow, a skirmish where he could just leave his sword at his side and ride into oblivion.

  But there would not be.

  Nay, tomorrow he would have to face his people and tell them in the best way that he could why his wife of a month had packed up her things and left him. He did not even want to think about another of Malcolm’s betrayals.

  Grace shivered as she gathered up her hair with her one free hand, the dank wetness of it away from her neck making her realise just how cold she had become. Everything was wet. Her body, her feet, the blanket she had around her and the muddy ground beneath her. But at least there had been no sign of Kenneth MacIndoe and for that she was glad. Dexter hung in the shadows of the trees and away from the light. She heard him growl sometimes, a dark shape at the edge of the clearing and, although pieces of meat had been flung to him, he ignored them, his eyes glued on Grace. She did not know whether she wanted him to stay or go, because surely it would soon be obvious to those who held her that this was her dog, and then they might hurt him.

  Others had joined the party two nights ago, Englishmen, and the one who was their leader seemed increasingly interested in her person. ‘Lord Thomas’ was his name and she had seen him looking at her all throughout this day, the gleam in his eyes dangerous and undecipherable.

  Everything of value had been stripped from her, save her rosary and the stone deep in the pocket of her gown. Even her shoes had been replaced by rough leather brogans that were at least a size too big. Another woman now wore her shoes, though she had noticed the way the girl had hobbled before bedding down tonight, the sturdier leather obviously blistering her heels.

  A small revenge.

  The thought made her smile.

  ‘Ye seem happy, my Lady.’ The man they named Paul the Black sidled up next to her, placing his hand lewdly across the top of her thigh. This caused Lord Thomas to stand and join them.

  ‘She isn’t to be handled by the likes of you,’ he said, his hand on the hilt of the sword in his belt, and the growling at the edge of the clearing became louder.

  Others about him stood, a circle of bristling men. She was the only one who could not rise.

  ‘I’ve seen the way ye look at her, Thomas, the way ye notice the curves of her.’ Simon pulled out his own sword, waving it in the face of the other. ‘And if ye can’t control the itch you are beset with, then perhaps I can scratch it for you.’

  A torrent of Gaelic made some men laugh, and made the faces of others darken. Not an easy alliance then, Grace surmised, for what greed brought together it could also rip asunder.

  Without notice another man moved up behind her, blade out across the line of her throat. For a moment she thought that he might have actually cut deep, but then after a few seconds she realised that she still breathed.

  ‘Come closer and I will kill her,’ he shouted, pulling up her hair and snipping the length of it before holding it up. Like a trophy or a prize! ‘If ye let her womanhood seduce ye, the battle that is ahead for all of us will be lost. This is about the fight for land that is rightfully ours, you understand. Bickering amongst ourselves will bring our cause no further than the useless spilling of blood.’

  The shape of black leapt, followed by a quick flash of white teeth and a howl of rage from the man who held her, his blade now turned to Dexter, slashing into the space between them as Grace fell, her head whipped against the trunk of a tree and stars forming. Others joined to quell the dog, longer swords prodding at his hindquarters.

  Grace could not stop any of it. Her world turned in dizziness, the sounds fainter now as she tried to breathe, tried to help him, her dog who fought them all without a thought for his own safety. The rope bit into her wrists as she kicked out and her trophy of curls scattered in the mud where her attacker had dropped them.

  Tears of relief and fright blinded her as Dexter broke free and disappeared into the forest in that particular lolling gait he had. Not too hurt, then? She put up her one free hand and felt the short nothingness of hair plastered to her scalp. Uglier still, though the faces of those men who watched her suggested the opposite.

  Lizzie stood watching through the gloom and Grace looked away. If only Dexter could find his way home, then Lachlan would come. To save her.

  Lachlan cursed as he learned of the number of men massing on the border of his land. Englishmen and Scotsmen, though he had heard no whisper that his brother was amongst them. Was Grace there, too, or had she gone south to Grantley to meet Malcolm? It was all a puzzle; if, indeed, his brother was alive, he could not just walk back into Belridden and expect to rule it. Some here would support him, but there were three times as many who would not and there was no way he could claim Grace in marriage. Unless Lachlan was dead!

  I love you.

  Grace had said it to him whilst she slept once and he had held her until the morning light came, just them and a feeling unlike any other he had ever felt.

  She could not have lied. She could not have feigned that sleepily whispered promise.

  Two days since she had gone and he missed her more with every passing minute.

  Please God let her be safe. Let her live. Let Malcolm be kind to her if it was to him she had run. All he wanted was to see her again, to look into her eyes and know that she had chosen the path she had taken willingly, because what if…?

  What if she had been taken against her will? The bruises on her arm and legs were still not healed from the rescue at the river and when she was scared she stuttered more. Stuttered so much that some might lose patience? He made himself stop, swallowing back fear and panic. Nay, Duncan had seen her leave, walking from Belridden of her own accord and in the company of those who had remained loyal to his broth
er. She had left her ring and taken her clothes, and the notes in the jewelled box suggested she had loved Malcolm with a passion. It was that simple and to believe anything else was foolish.

  Lachlan readied his keep for war and sent riders to Edinburgh and David by way of Liddesdale and Kelso. And when that was done, he called his retainers together in the Great Hall, waiting for the noise of those before him to settle until he began to speak.

  ‘This castle has been divided by the wants of greedy men.’ There was silence. ‘Scotland has been divided by the wants of greedy men. Almost forty years ago forty Scottish nobles affixed their seals to a declaration promising freedom. Freedom against the lordship of the English. Do we have it now? Do we have it today here at Belridden where the echoes of the Bruce’s legacy still linger?’ He waited and tried to catch the eyes of those who would support Malcolm. ‘The English have amassed their own force on the border near Whitelee and they want to take the Borderlands into English ownership. Balliol’s supporters, the disinherited ones.’ His hand fell upon his sword, calling to arms those whose allegiances hung in a different camp from his own. There was silence. ‘I can tell you right here and now that unless we fight, Scotland will never be free. Unless we know that here in our hearts, in our hearths, in the land beneath our feet and our ancestors’ feet that it is an independent and strong Scotland that we seek, we shall never truly be Scots.’ He waited as the words distilled, a touch in the air of something he could only guess to be akin to kingship, of leading men where you may will them, and of seeing in the choices a right and proper path. ‘Are ye with me?’ He raised his sword high above his head, liking how the light from the arched windows fell upon steel, the shadow of war drawn upon the floor of his keep in a powerful image. Aye, he was enough of a diplomat to believe in the significance of turning the tide and enough of a soldier to treat the sentiment with caution. There was never certainty when one tried to bend the will of many and he waited.

  Simon McLeod was the first to challenge him. ‘Your brother ruled the keep for years. You have barely been here. If he is alive, perhaps his claim to the land is the rightful one.’

  ‘My brother ruled as a man who wanted the clans around us vanquished.’

  ‘Replaced with those who fought with Balliol more like,’ another shouted. Connor. Lachlan dipped his head in thanks.

  ‘If those who lost land under Bruce were to reclaim their lands, the English would have an easy route into Scotland. It would not just be the disinherited that we had as neighbours. It would be those from further south, those with the support of Edward the Third of England and with the strength of his army.’

  ‘And what of Stewart and Douglas? What of the strength of their armies if we throw our lot in with David’s court?’

  ‘They have interests only in the north and the west. Their power should not worry us here.’

  ‘I vote that we draw a line,’ Ian yelled across the conversation of those deciding just where their allegiances lay. ‘I vote that those with Lachlan stay on this side and those against cross over.’

  Lachlan nodded; taking his sword, he fashioned a mark, past the feet of the last retainer in the empty space at the end of the Hall. And deliberately stepped back across it.

  No one moved, swords in their scabbards and hands by their sides.

  ‘Verra well, then.’ His voice was softer now, filled with an emotion that was foreign to him.

  Home. Here. After all these years of wandering. ‘We will leave Belridden in the morning and make for England.’

  ‘Belleden,’ one voice cried, the battle call of the Kerrs resounding about the keep in the answer of all those present. A commotion outside caught their attention; when the doors to the hall opened, the Elliot soldiers filed in one by one and bereft of weaponry.

  ‘We are here to help you retrieve your wife,’ Alistair Elliot said finally when the procession had at last come to a halt. ‘A priest from Annan came to our lands yesterday and told us of her capture.’

  ‘Capture?’ Lachlan’s answer was weary and cold, a tight shot of suspicion edged in anger.

  ‘He saw her, the Lady Grace, ye understand, with her hands tied and her face marked in a camp to the south, and if he had not come down with the sickness he would be here telling you the same thing.’

  ‘Grace has been hurt?’ Lachlan’s bellow rattled the cups stacked on a table behind him. ‘Someone has hurt her?’

  The constriction that tightened his throat threatened to choke him. She had not gone willingly to the camp of his enemies? The pain of relief drew down upon him, scratching at the greasier surface of betrayal.

  ‘The priest tells me that your wife is alive, Laird Kerr. He tried to persuade them to let her go under the banner of Christian charity, but they would have none of it.’

  A vision of Grace injured swam into the red boiling wrath of his vengeance. She hated horses and was always cold, and without medicine the chafing of her skin would be much worsened. The rain outside slanted in from the north, a freezing icy blast that had taken hold of the Borderlands for almost three days now and it would be all of two more until he could reach her.

  An inconceivable impotence had him frozen to the spot, the beat of his heart pounding in his ears and ire making it hard to say anything.

  Grace. Hurt. Scared. Shocked.

  With care he raised his sword from its sheath and held it upwards. An answer to a prayer! The final absolution!

  ‘To England,’ he roared, all the hate and enmity in the words provoking a great shout as clans who had despised each other changed before his very eyes.

  Because of Grace and her goodness.

  The hilt of his sword was held so hard that his fingers began to shake as he calculated in the numbers that surrounded him, at least a chance to bring her back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  His brother was nowhere amongst the party. Lachlan could see that as soon as the line rode forwards, see it in the standards of the banners and the colours on the painted shields.

  More than two hundred men were behind the leading group of ten, and less than a hundred and fifty retainers grouped on his own side. Con, Ian, Marcus, Kenneth, Duncan. Alistair. Good men. His men. King David’s supporters for whom the Berwick Treaty had delivered only an empty promise of peace. Elliot’s words mirrored his own.

  ‘It seems someone has mustered English help and plenty of it. Half as many again as ours if I were to take a guess at the numbers.’

  ‘We have an advantage, coming from the higher ground,’ Lachlan returned and liked the way the Laird of the Elliot clan laughed.

  ‘Aye, that we have.’

  He turned then to raise his arm, and steadily the lines moved forwards, shields at the ready and swords honed sharp. Then they gave the horses their heads and raced into battle.

  A knife sliced away the binding of ropes at her hands and Grace was aroused from her dozing.

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘Hurry or they will be back, my Lady.’

  Lack of blood in her fingers had made them fat and numb and she shook them out and winced as pain replaced dullness. A soldier lay opposite, a streak of blood trailing its way through the darkness of his hair.

  ‘Is he d-dead?’

  ‘I dinna think so, but I cannae be sure, mind, for I hit him hard. What I do know is that when he awakens he will shout out warning.’

  ‘You would s-save me over th-them?’

  ‘I came only to help you and this is the first chance that I have had to do so. Now come, we must be away before they know us gone.’

  The trail they took ran into the woods behind them and then doubled up around the hill to a clearing. Thick bush lay to one side and to the other…the field of war, uneven battle lines drawn in the green and the true sharp aim of swords bright in the thin sun.

  Lachlan was there. Right there, his life as tied to deceit as her own. With a growing panic she gestured Lizzie to halt.

  ‘No. I cannot go on. Not yet.’

  �
�But we cannae stop either, my Lady,’ she returned, ‘for we need to get as far away as we can, otherwise everything I have pretended will be in vain.’

  ‘But if my husband is hurt…’

  ‘Then we will all be dead,’ the small woman said and grabbed at her arm.

  But Grace would not be budged. ‘Please, Lizzie, just give me a moment.’ She thought she might be sick, a wave of biliousness making her sweat, and she reached a shaking hand to her forehead. ‘I have to stop for a moment.’

  Watch and listen and know.

  Her glance again went towards the grouped opponents, the ring of swords and the shriek of horses, Lachlan’s red-and-green blazon fluttered above mayhem and bedlam and anarchy. Still aloft. She searched for his brother’s matching standard, but could not find it. Perhaps Malcolm Kerr had not come at all. Perhaps the rumours were only that. Perhaps her husband might win on that field of carnage even with such numbers stacked against him.

  ‘Please, please let that be.’ Her fingers passed across the face of the burnished Argus moth in amber and also the solid beads of her rosary. Pagan gods and Catholic incantations. She left no part of it to chance as she invoked her needed help from a divergent source of deities.

  For a while he held out against the flash of steel and dagger, the charge of his horse and the retreat of those about him. Aye, for a while she saw what made him the King’s champion knight, the only one who refused to partake in the tournaments and was not challenged for it. For a while the bodies about the destrier of the man riding behind the shield of red and green grew and grew. Unmoving. Ominous. But he could not fight them all, wave upon wave, and his voice was audible from where she stood.

  ‘Pog mo thon, a mhic an diabhoil!’

  From the reaction of those around him, Grace supposed this to be a serious Gaelic curse, for if anything the fighting intensified, as the ears of those he fought interpreted the slur in a way that she could not.

  Hope dashed as his standard fell, down through the cantons and pales and saltires of all colours, down through the mêlée of horses’ hooves, to the ground, mace and hammer and falchion prodding at his mail and armour, stopping only as the strapped wrapper of his coif ripped from the polished helm and dark black hair was strewn on to rolling green.