Border Storm

by Amanda Scott

  Then she thought about the English raid and the people who had died. There were many, many people whose lives were much sadder just now than her own.

  Mentally scolding herself for thinking too much about her own life and not enough about the lives of others, she undressed, said her prayers, and went to bed.

  Morning would come soon, and the sun was bound to make everything look much more promising.

  But when morning came, although the sun shone with August brightness, nothing seemed to have changed for the better. Many of the men and women who worked at Aylewood received word of deaths in their families, all at the hands of the hateful English.

  Agreeing that such loss and sorrow demanded attention, Blanche did not question Sir William’s decision to do everything they could do to help the people of Liddesdale and its environs recover from the devastation. She insisted, too, that their daughters do what they could to help.

  Laurie and Isabel were perfectly willing, and when May realized that neither of her parents was aware of her escapade, she quickly recovered her customary good spirits and agreed to ride out with her mother and Laurie to visit tenants and see what could be done for them.

  Sir William still had much to do to prepare for the forthcoming Truce Day, but he encouraged tenants to approach him with their needs, and he met those needs whenever he could do so. Many people insisted that he file a grievance against Scrope for the terrible invasion, but he soon had other things to think about.

  Four days later, Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch returned to Hermitage and declared his intent to “shake the bones out of that pestilential malt worm, Scrope.”

  Ten

  Thou bold border ranger,

  Beware of thy danger.

  Brackengill Castle

  “SHALL I JUST INFORM any of your men who ask about you that you intend to return shortly, my dear Sir Hugh?” Lady Marjory asked ten days after the raid, as Hugh pushed the remains of his breakfast away and stood up.

  An increasingly familiar tension tightened his jaw. He said evenly, “You need not concern yourself so with my comings and goings, madam. My men will not ask you about them.”

  “I suggested it only because I would be of service to you, my dear sir. You must make good use of me whilst I am here.”

  “I would be unwise to become too dependent upon you, madam, for I doubt that you will want to stay through the winter. Life at Brackengill cannot be what you are used to. You will soon miss your London comforts.”

  “Ah, but I cannot bemoan them when I see you living like this,” she said with a sweeping gesture. “Brackengill needs a woman’s touch, sir. Anyone can see as much. And if there is one thing at which I excel, it is in being a woman.” She fluttered her eyelashes in a way that made him want to run from the room.

  Suppressing the impulse, he said, “Your comment makes me wonder why you did not come to us after my father died, madam. You never accompanied your husband, for that matter. Nor did either of you see fit to remove my sister to London or to provide a gently reared female companion to look after her here.”

  “Oh, my dear sir, if only you knew how I longed to come to you then! But Brampton would not hear of it. Only recall, if you will, how volatile this region was! You were but twelve, and your sister, Janet, some years younger than that, so I did suggest that he bring you both to London, but he refused to do that.”

  “Perhaps because duty demanded that I stay here and look after Brackengill,” Hugh said crisply. “My uncle made annual visits to us afterward until I came of age. Otherwise, he left me in the hands of my steward and tutor, and Janet in the hands of local women who would serve in a castle that lacked a proper chatelaine. It was no upbringing for her, or indeed, for any girl of her rank. If you were willing to care for her, surely my uncle would have taken her to you.”

  “He did suggest bringing Janet by herself,” Lady Marjory admitted. “But I could not allow him to separate her from you, my dear sir. Only think how miserable she would have been, carried off to live with two cousins and an aunt whom she had never so much as clapped eyes on before!”

  “Aye, well, she might not have liked it, but it would have done her good,” Hugh said grimly. “Had she lived in London, ’tis unlikely that she would have married across the line as she did.”

  “You cannot know that, dear sir, and you should bethink yourself instead of her certain misery in London. She is practically Scottish, after all, living as close to them as you do here. And I must tell you, Londoners are not always as charitable as they might be. I try to rise above such common prejudice, of course, so you need not bother your head about me. Once we have improved Brackengill a trifle, I believe I shall be quite comfortable here.”

  “I have done much to modernize the place over the years,” Hugh said stiffly.

  “Oh, and indeed, my dear sir, anyone can see that. Pray, do not take offense! Why, that Meggie woman in the kitchen told me that she remembers when the castle wall was naught but an enclosure of timber posts! And when I tell you how ruthless I had to be with myself during my journey to keep from recalling things Brampton had told me about Brackengill—for I was determined to sacrifice all, if need be, to see to your comfort… But…”

  She fell silent, clearly struggling to reclaim her train of thought. Then, brightly, she added, “You must tell me what foods you enjoy, Sir Hugh, so that I can see to it that your people serve them to you often.”

  “I care little what I eat, madam.”

  “Oh, that cannot be, for gentlemen, in my experience, care a great deal about such things. They just do not realize that they do if their people take proper care of them. And that is just what I mean to do for you.”

  “Thank you,” he muttered, despising the apparent weakness that made it impossible for him to send her packing. Despite the strong interest she took in his household and his need for a good housekeeper, he did not like her. But that only made him feel guilty, since she clearly cared about his comfort.

  “You need not thank me,” Lady Marjory said earnestly. “And, indeed, sir, if you do not wish to make a list of your favorite foods just now, perhaps that Meggie can tell me what they are. I do not mean to plague you with questions. But where are you going?” she added on a note of surprise when he turned away. “We have only just begun our little chat.”

  “I have work to do,” Hugh said curtly, feeling desperate again and wishing again that he could just tell her to take herself back to London. He knew perfectly well that generally he was capable of such ruthlessness. He even smiled a little when he realized that his sister, if she were to hear of his problem, would wonder at it. Nevertheless, to order the fragile-looking, well-meaning Lady Marjory back to London less than a fortnight after her arrival seemed heartlessly cruel.

  Keeping these thoughts to himself, he left the hall, retiring instead to a small chamber between it and the stairs to the kitchen, where he hoped he could enjoy some privacy. The chamber was small and contained numerous coffers, where he stored his personal wines and other things away from his men and the maidservants—when Brackengill had maidservants.

  The coffers also contained some of his personal arms, and others decked the walls. A small fireplace sat in the middle of the wall opposite the door. The room was a bit cramped for a man of Hugh’s size, and there had never before been a need to put a lock on the door, but it contained a small table on which he could work. Even if Lady Marjory presumed to disturb him, surely she would see that the room was too small for two.

  Had anyone asked him what she had done to stir him to such dislike, he could not have explained it. Indeed, he had seen blessedly little of her since her arrival, for not only had his prediction about Buccleuch returning soon from Blackness come true, but his own duties as deputy warden kept him busy.

  The Laird of Buccleuch had wasted little time before exacting revenge for Scrope’s Liddesdale raid. Within two days of returning to Hermitage, he and Scott of Hawkburne invaded Tynedale—in the English middle march—w
ith a hastily gathered army. They left nearly as much death and destruction in their wake as Scrope had in Liddesdale.

  Receiving word of the raid and knowing that Buccleuch’s daring and disregard for the law were even more expansive than Scrope’s, Hugh and his men had ridden at speed to offer Lord Eure, warden of the middle march, any help he might require. They soon learned, however, that Buccleuch and Hawkburne had invaded and gone again so swiftly that Eure had not lifted a finger against them.

  “I felt utterly helpless, Hugh,” Lord Eure said, venting his feelings as soon as the two were face-to-face. “I had not six able horses to follow the fray! I tell you, I wish I had never come to serve in such a place, where men obey neither Her Majesty nor her officers. I mean to submit my resignation to the Privy Council, and I shall plead with them to provide more support to my successor. If Her Majesty’s forces do not assist us here, Buccleuch and his ilk will lay waste to the entire region.”

  Hugh sympathized, knowing that the Queen shamefully neglected her wardens. Lacking men, horses, and money enough for their purpose, they frequently were helpless against the Scots, which encouraged the raiders to greater boldness.

  Although he doubted that either Eure’s letter or resignation would achieve much, he knew they would have to provide a new warden for the middle march soon and wondered if that poor chap would fare any better than Eure had.

  Hugh had been home only two days since meeting with Eure, only five days in all since his aunt’s arrival. But his notion that he would enjoy having a competent housekeeper again had not survived his first supper with her.

  The plain fact was that Lady Marjory was nice. She was thoughtful. She was one of the nicest, most thoughtful people it had ever been his misfortune to meet.

  She hovered over him, leaping to her feet if he so much as glanced around, believing that he was searching for something she could fetch for him more quickly than he could fetch it himself.

  If he told her that he was thinking, just gazing blindly into space, she would ask what he was thinking about. “For if you are mulling over a problem, my dear sir,” she would say, “pray, remember that two heads are better than one.”

  If he went out, she asked whither he was going and when he would return, assuring him she would be sure that his people had food ready for him when he did so and would tell anyone seeking him where to find him. Her demeanor was always kindly, her attitude sweetly interested.

  Although he wondered at his apparent incapability to deal with her, it did not require much thought to understand it. Lady Marjory was of a gender and age that his mentors had taught him must demand respect. Therefore, even when he yearned to bellow at her, he could not bring himself to do so. Thus it was that in the short time she had been at Brackengill he barely recognized the man he had become.

  He had noted a change in his men’s behavior, too. Hitherto, at mealtimes, they had surged into the great hall with noisy good cheer. But Lady Marjory had ended that by gliding like a wraith among them, gently explaining that the din they made disturbed their master. The result was that the men tended to glance curiously at him, clearly wondering if he was ill.

  On the other hand, when the hall was quiet, she would chatter like a magpie, certain that he must be bored and required entertaining.

  He missed his sister sorely, having persuaded himself that had Janet been there Lady Marjory would not have troubled him one whit.

  It was not the first time since Janet’s departure that he had missed her. Upon discovering that she had left Brackengill, he had ranted and raved—in a perfectly reasonable way, of course, considering the circumstances and the fact that Janet could fire his temper more easily than anyone else. Whenever he thought about their many battles, he realized that he and Janet probably were both happier with her living in Scotland, but it took no more than a kind word from his aunt to make him yearn anew for his sister’s return.

  He was too busy, for one thing, to play the gentle host. Since Scrope preferred trips to London and visiting friends at their great houses—where gambling and other favored activities took place—to his more mundane warden’s duties, many of those duties fell upon his deputy. With the next wardens’ meeting rapidly approaching, Hugh had much to do to prepare for it.

  The march wardens enforced what little law existed in the Borders at periodic meetings, where an English warden met publicly with one or another of his Scottish counterparts to settle grievances that had arisen between their marches since their last meeting. On such occasions, known locally as Truce Days, everyone with an interest in the proceedings gathered at a previously agreed-upon site. There, each side aired its grievances against the other before a carefully selected jury.

  The next Truce Day between the English west march and the Scottish middle march was soon to take place at Lochmaben. Scrope had already passed on several packets of grievances to his deputy that he had received from the Scottish warden, Sir William Halliot of Aylewood.

  Hugh did not know Aylewood, but he was certain the man would be a vast improvement over his predecessor, Buccleuch. Buccleuch had had a reputation—according to Scrope, at least—of delaying meetings and then of wreaking havoc at them when they finally took place. Hugh had never dealt with Buccleuch, because he had acted in Scrope’s place only once, when he had faced Buccleuch’s deputy and his own brother-in-law, Sir Quinton Scott.

  Much as Hugh disapproved of Janet’s marriage across the line, he realized that some of his attitudes toward the Scots in general had altered slightly because of it. For one thing, he had enjoyed sitting at the wardens’ table with Sir Quinton, who was his age and had displayed a sense of fair play that seemed to match his own.

  It was helpful if one could deal dispassionately with one’s opposite warden, since such meetings were always fraught with peril. Juries, claimants, and defendants were notoriously unpredictable.

  Presently, Hugh’s official duties included making a list of appropriate jurors. That posed several problems, not least among which was his legal obligation to seat only respectable men. Even on the English side, it was not always easy to find six Borderers who answered that description.

  Since English jurors tried the Scottish bills of grievance against English defendants, and vice versa, in order to determine who the best men were, he first needed to understand exactly what grievances the Scots had filed. That meant that he had a great deal of reading and thinking to do.

  Within days, the little chamber near the hall began to feel uncomfortably claustrophobic, and Hugh decided that it was time for a change.

  The following morning, an hour after he had broken his fast, knowing that Lady Marjory was engaged in rearranging her bedchamber with the help of her companion and Meggie’s little daughter Nancy, he took his work to the hall again.

  He had no sooner sat down and spread out his documents on the high table, however, than his aunt appeared, seeming almost to materialize out of thin air.

  “My dear Sir Hugh, here you are,” she said in a tone of great satisfaction, as if she had been searching for him for hours. She wore a gray silk gown, her thin torso stiffly erect above skirts that billowed over her wide farthingale, and wisps of her bright red wig fluttered like avian plumage with each graceful step.

  She said, “You look busy, my dear sir.”

  “I am busy,” he replied evenly. “Did you want to ask me something in particular, madam?”

  “Oh, no, for I am quite content. I shall just run back up to my chamber and fetch my needlework, so that I can keep you company. Then, if you require anything, I shall be right here at hand to fetch it for you.”

  “I shall not require anything,” he said, striving to keep his annoyance from his voice.

  Evidently he succeeded, for she said brightly, “But you cannot know when you will, my dear sir. Why, Brampton was used to insist that he needed nothing and then find that two minutes later he required ink, or his spectacles, or had neglected to order his ale. There is always something. You will see.” />
  He pressed his lips together to stop the harsh words that leapt to his tongue.

  Without waiting for him to find more tactful ones, she turned toward the doorway to the main stairway.

  “Wait, madam,” he said, fairly hurling the words after her.

  She turned with a knowing smile and a look of expectant inquiry. “I told you how it would be, sir,” she said. “Did you already think of something?”

  “I need nothing but quiet,” he said. “I have much to do and little time in which to do it. I know that you mean well, but if you want to sit here in the hall rather than in your bedchamber, I must go elsewhere to work.”

  “But I would not dream of putting you out of your own hall, sir! Think nothing about my comfort. I own that I do find it a trifle inconvenient that Brackengill does not possess a ladies’ parlor or even a proper solar, but I shall do well enough without them. My chamber is nearly habitable now, I promise you. Brampton frequently required time to himself, too. He was a very busy man. He—”

  “I know he was,” Hugh said, cutting her off without compunction, well aware now that she would chatter until he stopped her. “I thank you for your understanding, madam. I would like to work undisturbed until dinnertime.”

  “Certainly, my dear sir. Just shout then when you need me.” Her agreeable smile still firmly in place, she left the room.

  Feeling as if he had just won an enormous victory, Hugh applied himself for the next half hour to drawing up a list of eligible jurors, trying to think of men who did not bear a grudge of some sort against any of the Englishmen against whom the Scots had filed grievances. Since more than one defendant was a Graham, the task was not easy.

  Grahams spent as much time fighting among themselves as they did feuding with the Scots, and since many Grahams lived on the Scottish side of the line, he had to consider the unfortunate possibility that a feud between a juror and one of the defendants could lead to an international incident.