by Amanda Scott
At thirty-two, he was eight years older than Wat, although his regular features and tousled hair gave him a deceptively boyish look. Of slightly less than the usual Stewart height, he had dark, watchful eyes and a serious demeanor. He also possessed the broad, muscular shoulders of an experienced swordsman, was well proportioned, known to be extremely agile, and was a notable wrestler.
His gaze now became surprisingly direct, Wat thought as he met it. He felt as if the King were peering past his eyes, straight into his mind.
Except when swearing fealty, no Border lord knelt to the King of Scots, as the more feudal English did to their king. Wat simply returned the King’s gaze.
“If you will permit me, your grace,” the abbot said, “I would present Walter Scott, the new Lord of Rankilburn, Murthockston, and so forth.”
Wat nodded politely then, murmuring, “Your grace.”
“ ’Tis glad I am to find ye here, m’lord,” James said. “Father Abbot told me of your father’s untimely death, so I offer my condolences. I’ve also heard of your prowess on the battlefield and your relentless pursuit of English raiders who dare to invade our realm,” he went on without pause. “Nae doubt, ye’ve inherited your father’s lands and responsibilities along with his titles, but one prays that ye’ll no refuse to aid your King. In troth, I had meant to visit your father and request your service for a particular task I have in mind.”
“I am yours to command, sire,” Wat said. He wondered if the task his grace had in mind might be one that could lead to his long yearned for knighthood.
The abbot placed his hand on the back of a two-elbow chair near the only window in the parlor. “Prithee, take this chair, your grace,” he said, “unless you prefer to warm yourself here by the fire.”
James frowned at the wee fire. “I’m warm enough, Father Abbot, and ’tis a good thing, I’m thinking. This place is as cold as an icehouse. Even so, after all the freezing castles I lodged in during the nineteen years I was captive in England, I’ll take the comforts and discomforts of Melrose or any other religious house over one o’ my strongholds. At least, here, nae one locks me up, or could if he wanted to.”
Wat had heard of the King’s antipathy to his royal castles and knew that Jamie rarely spent a night in one.
“How may I serve your grace?” Wat asked him.
“D’ye ken aught o’ one Gilbert or Gil Rutherford?”
“Aye, sure, a notorious and ruthless reiver,” Wat said. “He raids throughout the Borders, not just in England but here, as well. He’s never been caught.”
“He also kills people,” James said grimly. “Women, bairns, and other innocents. I told the Douglas to find and capture him, and he agreed. But he’s done nowt. I do ken fine that the earl is your liege lord, but I’m sorely tempted to arrest him, either for defiance or sloth. Nae doubt, though, if I do, trouble may follow.”
“Aye, it will,” Wat agreed, wondering how he had managed to say the words calmly. “The Douglases would rise all together and in fury, I fear.”
“ ’Tis likely, but your father was an assistant march warden. Since ye stand in his stead now, I’m asking ye to find this Rutherford chappie as fast as ye can. He plagues many powerful men on both sides of the line, and I want to avoid war breaking out over the antics of one iniquitous scalawag. Can ye do it?”
Delighted to meet his grace at last, and determined to prove his worth, Wat said, “I can, sire, and I will. I give you my word as a Borderer.”
“That is good enough for me,” James said with a nod.
“Moreover,” Wat added, dropping to a knee and extending both hands, “I, Walter Scott, styling myself Lord of Buccleuch and Rankilburn to give proper honor to our first landholding, would hereby swear fealty on mine own behalf and that of my kindred to you and to yours for as long as we both shall live.”
“Stand up, stand up, my lord,” Jamie said as he clapped both of his own hands around Wat’s. “I do accept your styling and most gratefully accept your oath. With God’s grace and the help of men like you, we will bring law and order to these unruly Borders and to the rest of Scotland. But this demon Rutherford has too long wreaked havoc, and it must stop. Such behavior imperils all that I strive to do.”
Dismissed soon afterward, Wat returned to his room, thinking that he had handled his business with the abbot and the King’s surprising behest with ease.
He entered his room to find Jed packing the few items they had carried in.
Looking up at him, Jed said, “I suspected we’d be off again after the midday meal, laird. What wi’ the King here and all, they’d no thank us for lingering. Do we return to the Hall or make for Hawick?”
Recalling that he’d meant to pay his respects to the Douglas and be sure the earl knew of his father’s death, Wat saw an unexpected pitfall awaiting him now.
Not only did it make him reconsider his handling of events at Melrose, but in reviewing the culmination of his talk with the abbot and his brief discussion with the King, he realized that other, greater dangers also loomed ahead.
Jed, watching him, cocked his head. “Be aught amiss, master?”
With a grimace, Wat said, “Nobbut that I, who pride myself on my prudence, loyalty, and sense of honor, have just made promises to the abbot and to his grace that will almost certainly conflict with each other. I also recklessly promised to perform a task that my own liege lord has evidently ignored or refused to perform.”
“Hoots, sir, ye’re niver so daft,” Jed said, eyeing him more narrowly. “Such doings would land ye in the suds soon or late, and nae mistake.”
“Then it will likely be soon,” Wat said with a sigh. “If we leave at once, we should make the Black Tower by midday. Fortunately, unless I anger Douglas at once, he will give us a much finer meal than the monks would, and will treat us to no prayers other than the grace before meat.”
Chapter 6
Molly had feared that she might feel bereft and dangerously vulnerable after Walter left the Hall for Melrose. In truth, she barely noticed his absence.
Bella and Janet were delighted to have a new companion, and Molly liked them both. She only wished that her parents had blessed her with such sisters.
Being with the Scotts was more than pleasant but also made her realize how lonely she had been at Henderland. At home, her life was simply her life, one that she had had no choice but to endure. Now, living briefly with three generations of women who were kind to her, and equally kind men who treated them respectfully, she realized more than ever what a loss her grandmother Marjory had been to her.
That morning, as if the Scott women had not done enough by offering their friendship, Janet gave Molly a smooth leather girdle to go with the kirtles Janet had lent her. Depending from it were a sheathed eating knife, a tinderbox and flint, a needle case, and a pair of wee silver scissors.
“It is my old kirtle,” Janet said with her warm smile. “But you should have your own eating knife and sewing things.”
“This is much nicer than the one I have at home,” Molly said, thanking her.
Lady Meg seemed especially determined to make friends with her.
Lady Scott, her actual hostess, was harder for Molly to read. Although she could tell that Wat’s mother was truly grief-stricken by the loss of her husband, her ladyship seemed unusually content to attend to her exquisite needlework and let her good-mother run her household and look after her daughters.
The women, except Lady Scott, spent the morning after Wat left preparing for the arrival of Lady Rosalie Percy, whose arrival they expected within the week.
“Did Aunt Rosalie take an entourage to Elishaw after Great-grandame Annabel died?” Bella asked as she and Molly helped Lady Meg count linens.
“She originally had an armed escort supplied by her husband’s heir,” Meg said. “But they returned to Dour Hill, England, after seeing her safely to Elishaw.”
Turning next to Molly, Bella said, “Remember, Aunt Rosalie married into the powerful English Pe
rcy family. Men say that the Earl of Northumberland, Great-grandame Annabel’s cousin, is the most powerful man in northern England.”
Molly met Lady Meg’s dancing eyes just as Meg said, “The Percies do say that he is, Bella, but other English nobles do disagree. In England, a man’s power is measured by how nearly connected he is to the English throne. The English king wields more power over his nobles than our King of Scots does wield over his.”
“Aye, but the Percies are gey powerful,” Bella said stoutly.
“They are, to be sure,” Lady Meg agreed. “But in England, your grandaunt Rosalie is a ‘mere female’ and has few rights of her own. Moreover, since she and her husband had no daughters and only two sons, both of whom were fostered at the age of eight, she scarcely knows either one of them.”
“What does ‘fostered’ mean?” Bella asked.
“Noblemen in England often send their sons and daughters to other families to raise. The children go when they are young and usually stay with their foster parents until they marry unless their birth fathers prefer to arrange their marriages.”
“Mercy, why?”
“Nobles in Scotland do it, too,” Meg told her. “Your father did not, nor did his. But others do. A Scotsman is more likely to send his sons to foster than his daughters, unless he hopes to marry his daughter into another noble family, mayhap one of greater stature. Then, he might arrange such a fostering. But fostering of any kind is more common in England than it is here.”
“Well, I am glad that Father did not foster me or Janet,” Bella said. “I like it here. As for marriage, I have never met a laddie I could bear to live with, except Wat, and he is not a laddie. Stephen is too bossy. So are most men, I think.”
Lady Meg smiled. “Now, my dearling, you sound just like your aunt Rosalie did when she was your age. It was just a year or so later that she began scheming to marry an Englishman. She thought that living in England might be interesting.”
“Was it?”
“You will have to ask her,” Meg said. “For now, though, I am sure we have enough linen to provide for her and any number of others, so you may go and sit with your mother and attend to your stitching.” When Bella’s face fell, Meg added gently, “I want to talk privately, dearling, with Lady Molly.”
Bella nodded then and turned with a smile to Molly. “I will see you at the table for our midday meal,” she said. “I’m glad that you came to us.”
“I am, too, Bella,” Molly said sincerely. Watching the child dart away, she realized that she was looking forward to learning more from Lady Meg but hoped her ladyship would not press her to talk of things she’d rather keep to herself.
The sun had risen in a clear sky at last. But the day grew cloudy again and colder in the hours that it took Wat and his men to ride from Melrose, on the river Tweed, south to the town of Hawick on its high, narrow ridge of land in the sharp angle that the river Teviot formed with Slitrig Water at their confluence.
That angle between the two swiftly flowing streams, and the steep banks of both, made the town so easy to defend that it had served for years as a stronghold for Borderers, especially for the all-powerful Douglases.
They passed first through the haughs and woods of Branxholm, on the north bank of the river Teviot. Wat now owned half of that estate, thanks to his father’s having traded half of their Murthockston estate for it.
The Branxholm ford was the nearest safe place to cross to the south side of the river, and since one had to approach Hawick from the southwest, where the town’s sole entrance lay, Wat opted to cross the Teviot there.
As they neared the ford, stern images of his father and the older image of the gentleman that Wat had always visualized as his grandfather rose in his mind. It was as if they were reminding him to guard well what they had left him.
Gazing over the verdant, forested landscape and the river beyond, he reminded himself that his capable father had trained him well.
“I’ll not let you down, either of you,” he murmured.
“What’s that, master?” Jed asked.
“Nowt,” Wat said. “Water’s flowing fast, lad. Keep to the center.”
It was nearly midday when they topped the steep hill at Hawick’s open stockade gate. As they rode into the town, Wat took a deep breath to steel his nerve.
He had known Archibald, fifth Earl of Douglas, for less than two years and could not say that he knew him well. Archie was more than twenty years Wat’s elder, so Wat had simply done whatever Archie’s captains had told him to do.
Even so, he had long since learned that the earl had no taste for battle.
Some years before, Archie, then Lord of Wigton, had followed his good-brother to France to support its king against encroaching English. After the costly victory of Beaugé, Wigton had come home and persuaded his father, the fourth Earl of Douglas, to join the French cause.
Meantime, Wigton, pleading ill health, had stayed home and thus missed the gruesome Battle of Verneuil. His father, good-brother, his brother James, and many other Scots had lost their lives. Wigton had become fifth Earl of Douglas.
Clearly, he also had little taste for tracking down ruffians, because Wat had heard naught of any hunt for Gilbert Rutherford.
Wat and his own men had tracked many English raiders and a few Scots. But none had been men of Rutherford’s ruthlessness. Even so, and despite the King’s behest, he could not seek Rutherford without at least telling Douglas about his agreement to capture the vicious reiver.
What Douglas might reply was what concerned him now. The Douglases’ Black Tower loomed ominously on the east side of the high street, shadowing nearby buildings. Dismounting in front of the tower entrance, Wat handed his reins to Jed and said to the captain of his tail, “Get food into all of you, Geordie, as soon as you stable the ponies. I doubt I’ll stay long.”
“We’ll be returning to the Hall then, laird?” Jed asked, shooting an oblique glance at two Douglas guards flanking the tower entrance.
Aware that the two could hear their exchange as easily as his own men did, Wat said evenly, “That must be as the Douglas commands.”
Nodding, Jed led his horse and Wat’s toward the nearby yard. When the others began to follow him, Wat strode to the tower entrance. Acknowledging the nod of the guard on his right with a nod of his own, he passed through the doorway.
Inside, he took the steps two at a time to the tower’s noisy great hall at the second landing.
Just inside, the earl’s steward said with surprise, “M’lord, we didna expect ye. His lordship thought ye’d linger longer wi’ yer family in yer time o’ grief.”
“I wanted to be sure the Douglas had learned of my father’s death,” Wat said. “If he is here, I would request a few words with him.”
Nodding, the steward said, “He’s here, sir. He be taking an hour’s solitude, but if ye dinna mind waiting, that hour be nearly up.”
“Certes, I’ll be grateful for the warmth of your hall fire,” Wat said. “It’s devilish cold out today.”
“I’ll fetch ye m’self when Himself will see ye,” the steward assured him. “We dine at noon, so I’ll give orders to feed your men, too. I should just mention that his lordship ha’ been a wee bit out of sorts. But he’ll want to see ye, sir.”
Wonderful, Wat thought sourly, turning toward the big crackling fire.
Molly followed Lady Meg to her sitting room but paused in the open doorway to collect herself before following her ladyship inside.
“Shut the door, my dear, and take a seat,” Meg said. “I’d like you to be comfortable, although you must be discomfited by this awkward situation of yours.”
Obeying, Molly forced calm into her voice and said, “It would be more awkward, madam, were it not for the kindness that everyone here has shown me. I feel as if I have entered a new world.”
Sitting on the cushioned bench in the window embrasure, Lady Meg said, “You make me wish more than ever that I had had the courage to confront your father
and claim my rights as your godmother straightaway.”
“I doubt he’d have heeded you,” Molly said.
Meg sighed. “I was certain he’d refuse to believe me. I also feared that, with Marjory gone, your father’s priest might refuse to support my claim.”
Grimacing, Molly said bluntly, “Father Jonathan ignored the law and pronounced me married despite my struggles and my inability to speak. So you were right to mistrust him. Rankilburn was always kind to me, but he revealed no awareness of a relationship between our families other than his with my father.”
“I did not tell Robert, either,” Meg said. “My son had a knack for making friends and a determination to avoid conflict, so he’d have been even more reluctant to fight your father. You see, Robert’s primary goal was to join his estates together and add to them, to increase the power of Clan Scott. He therefore exerted himself to be friendly with his neighbors, especially those with whom he disagreed politically. He also kept on good terms with the Douglas and, of course, with the King.”
“That cannot have been easy,” Molly said. “I know my father disagreed with him about the King’s new laws and many other matters.”
Meg nodded. “Maintaining friendships is also a risky business,” she said. “Rather than risk his with Piers Cockburn, I think Robert would have strongly resisted any attempt I made to interfere between Piers and you. Had I thought you were in danger, I’d have acted differently, but I never heard that you were.”
“I was not,” Molly said honestly. “My father is not a loving man, my lady. Perhaps he was before my mother died—”
She broke off when Meg shook her head.
“I see,” Molly said. “Even so, he has never been cruel, but he has seemed angrier since the King’s return. As you must know, my father is strongly opposed to his grace’s interference with his nobles’ hereditary rights.”
“I do know that,” Meg said. “I don’t take sides in such matters, myself, and I have not met the King. What one hears of him is mostly rumor, of course, but I’ve no objection to his desire for laws that everyone knows and must follow, noble and common alike. That seems only fair to me.”