Border Storm

by Amanda Scott

  “Aye, sir, I do.”

  She understood him very well, but she intended to talk with May just as soon as she could be sure they would enjoy an hour’s privacy.

  Since Bridget slept in an alcove adjoining Isabel and May’s room and Isabel was a very light sleeper, Laurie did not seek May out until early the next morning.

  Then, knowing that Bridget would be up and about, helping the other maidservants, and intending to bring May to her own bedchamber to talk, Laurie crept silently in and went to May’s bed.

  It was empty.

  May was not in her room, or anywhere else in the castle.

  Recalling her sister’s claim that, left to herself, she would have flung herself into the Liddel after Martin Loder, and terrified that May intended to kill herself rather than face a wardens’ meeting, Laurie went at once to Sir William.

  “May’s gone, sir,” she told him, “and something she said yesterday when she was so distraught gives me to fear that she might do herself an injury. She was terrified of having to answer to such a charge.”

  Rather distraught himself, Sir William sent for Blanche and told her the terrible news.

  She paled but answered with her customary calm, “I am certain that she must be somewhere about, husband. She would not go outside the wall alone.”

  When they discovered that Bridget was missing, too, Blanche grew calmer still. “Depend upon it,” she said, “they will both return soon.”

  Mistrusting her confidence, Sir William sent men out at once to search the dales, but they found no sign of Bridget or of May. One of the men said that Bridget’s sister had come for her again, but when Laurie asked Bangtail Willie, he said he had seen no such person and that Nebless Sam had sworn no one had passed through the postern gate.

  Blanche retired to her chamber and would speak to no one for days. When she emerged at last, she seemed as calm as usual, but she refused to discuss May.

  The wardens’ meeting loomed before them, only days away, and still there was no sign of May.

  Twelve

  Yett was our meeting meek enough,

  Begun wi’ merriement and mowes…

  Truce Day, Lochmaben

  “FROM A GRASSY HILLSIDE above the site set for the wardens’ meeting, just as dawn was breaking, Hugh Graham surveyed the landscape below with narrowing, speculative eyes. He and fifty of his men awaited Thomas Scrope’s arrival, but Hugh was in no hurry. The activities would not begin without them, and there was no sign yet of Sir William Halliot of Aylewood with the Scottish party.

  Horses shifted, pawed, and occasionally whinnied. Men chatted quietly. At Hugh’s right, his captain, Ned Rowan, sat alertly on his black gelding, his restless gaze scanning the countryside and the surrounding hills.

  On Rowan’s right, Meggie’s Andrew sat proudly on his gray pony. The lad’s behavior having been unexceptionable since his run-in with the captain, Rowan had suggested and Hugh had agreed that he should accompany them to Lochmaben. At least a few other children would attend the proceedings, and Hugh thought it would be a good experience for the lad.

  Borderers enjoyed few opportunities for recreation, and Hugh knew from experience that folks from both sides of the line had been looking forward to the occasion with lively anticipation. At least, those who had a comparatively clear conscience and did not expect to find themselves too actively engaged in the proceedings looked forward to it. He realized cynically that despite evidence to the contrary—not least of which included the events succeeding the last meeting—most people believed that the truce guaranteed them safe passage until the next day’s sunrise. They wondered only what today would present for their entertainment.

  The appointed meeting place was a Scottish field about a mile east of the point where the Water of Sark flows into the Solway. Some three hundred yards from the water’s edge stood a tall stone that was once—or so men said—part of a prehistoric circle. Nowadays, they called it simply the Lochmaben stone.

  Already spectators from far and wide were converging upon the field, giving it the appearance of a holiday fair. A distant murmur of their voices drifted up to Hugh, punctuated occasionally by barks of laughter, as they picked their way over the moors and fells and along riverside tracks.

  Some walked; others rode shaggy ponies.

  Peddlers, tinkers, and other itinerant merchants already were setting up their stalls for business. Hugh knew that many of the men below would make wagers on the miscreants’ chances, and particularly on the fate of the unfortunate young woman the Scots were bound to present for trial. Doubtless word of the complaint against her had traveled on the wind by now to every cot and tower in the Borders.

  The field soon teemed with groups of men, a few of their women, and here and there, a child or two, all gossiping and perhaps bargaining over horses or sleuth hounds. Everyone wore his or her Sunday best, although Hugh was certain that every man carried arms.

  Once or twice in the past, someone—usually an English warden—had suggested banning weapons on such occasions. But never had the suggestion gone beyond the wish. Few Borderers on either side felt fully dressed without their weapons, since danger was part of their everyday lives.

  A stiff, sea-scented wind was blowing toward them from Solway Firth, fluttering banners and causing more than one person to grab for cap or skirt. But winds usually blew through the Borders, even in summer, so although it meant the peddlers had to stake their tents firmly, no one else paid it much heed.

  “Master, they come,” Ned Rowan muttered beside him.

  Andrew nudged his brown pony closer, leaning near to hear Rowan and to see what he had seen.

  Hugh saw at once that the Scots had arrived. Against the northeastern horizon, their cavalcade lined a hillside. Sunlight glittered on arms and armor.

  “Them be the bluidy Scots,” Andrew said sagely. “Be they thinking they’ll attack us, then?” He sounded as though he relished the possibility.

  Hugh turned to him with a quelling frown. “You are here today so that you can observe what takes place on a Truce Day, my lad, not to stir trouble.”

  “I’ve seen Truce Days afore,” Andrew said, his tone irritated but civil.

  “Not with my permission, you haven’t. If you want to continue to serve me when you grow up, then you must learn to follow orders and to pay attention now.” With a straight look, he added, “I thought you had learned your lesson, lad.”

  “Aye, I have, and all,” Andrew said in a smaller voice, shooting an oblique, resentful look at Ned Rowan.

  Satisfied, Hugh turned his attention back to the Scots. He knew that Rowan had skelped the lad, but he knew, too, that the big man cared more about Andrew than other men might. Rowan was nearly as hard a man as Hugh was, but Hugh knew that Andrew would learn from him, and he hoped that those lessons would permit the lad to live long enough to enjoy at least a few adult years in the always treacherous Borders.

  “Will they attack us?” Andrew asked curiously.

  “That has been known to happen,” Hugh admitted, “but they have little cause at present to stir trouble, and I do not believe that Halliot is an aggressive man. He certainly is not as belligerent as Buccleuch.”

  “What’s ‘belligerent’ mean?”

  “Likely to make war,” Hugh said, still watching the Scots.

  “Aye, well, I ken the Buccleuch,” Andrew said wisely. “He and all his bluidy reivers need hanging, me da said, but Mistress Janet—”

  “Likely your father was right,” Hugh said, cutting in because he did not want to hear what his sister thought about Buccleuch. Another thought followed that one, and he wondered if Buccleuch would attend the proceedings. Dismissing the thought as it formed, he realized the Border leader was unlikely to attend just to watch others wield power. Hugh hoped he was right. A meeting between Buccleuch and Scrope just now, the truce notwithstanding, was likely to stir coals.

  Curiously, Andrew said, “Who’s Halliot, then, and what’s he like?”

 
; “He is acting warden of the Scottish middle march,” Hugh said. “King James of Scotland appointed him to take Buccleuch’s place in that role. I’ll wager he’d have liked to make him Keeper of Liddesdale, too, but he dared not.”

  “The man would ha’ been a fool to accept,” Ned Rowan said grimly. “Few men ha’ the strength or power to rule Liddesdale.” A brief silence fell before he added, “They be waiting for us, master.”

  “Let them wait,” Hugh retorted. “We don’t move until Scrope arrives.”

  “What the devil are they waiting for?” Sir William Halliot growled testily.

  “’Tis likely they wait for Scrope,” the tall, broad-shouldered rider on Sir William’s left said. “Buccleuch says that Scrope enjoys making folks wait. You must have learned as much, just trying to get Scrope to agree to a date and a site for this meeting. He prefers delay over action, Buccleuch says.”

  “Aye, ’tis true,” Sir William agreed.

  Laurie, sitting quietly nearby on her horse, had been watching the two as curiously as she had watched the scene in the open field at the foot of the hill. Her father’s companion was Sir Quinton Scott of Broadhaugh, the very man the English had arrested during the previous truce and husband, besides, of Janet the Bold.

  Sir Quinton had served as Buccleuch’s deputy warden and now served Sir William in the same capacity.

  When Blanche had refused to attend the proceedings, Laurie had been able to persuade her father to let her accompany him only because he had expected Janet to accompany her husband and thought Janet would enjoy her company. Not until the two parties joined did they learn that Lady Scott had been taken by sickness of late, and her husband had decreed that she should stay at home.

  By then it was too late to send Laurie back to Aylewood without sending a considerable escort with her. Since Sir William wanted to make as grand an impression of power on the field as he could, he kept her with him.

  Laurie observed that her father seemed nervous and decided that he had cause for concern. With two cavalcades of armed men facing each other across a field alive with interested spectators, the scene resembled battle lines drawn up on either side of a holiday fair.

  Gaily colored tents dotted the field, and people wandered about, seeming to pay no heed to the heavily armed riders converging on them from two directions.

  Laurie felt increasing excitement tempered only by her deep concern for her sister. No one had laid eyes on May since her disappearance, nor had they heard a word from her. She had vanished like a puff of smoke before the wind, and Bridget had vanished with her.

  Sir William had questioned every man and woman at Aylewood, and every single one had insisted that he or she knew nothing about May’s disappearance.

  Knowing that May had escaped the castle’s confines once before, Laurie nonetheless found it hard to believe that she had done so again, even with Bridget’s assistance. She had spoken to Bangtail Willie again, but the only new thing she learned from him was that Nebless Sam, who had guarded the postern through the night, had gone off to visit kinsmen in Liddesdale and had not yet returned.

  Recalling that Willie had also once told her that Nebless Sam had an avid interest in Bridget, Laurie wondered if Sam might have helped them. Willie said that the man had sworn to him that no one had passed through the postern gate all night, but she knew that May and Bridget had not flown from the ramparts.

  Turning away from her father and Sir Quinton, Laurie observed movement on the far hillside. “There are more of them there now,” she said.

  Sir William nodded. “That will be Scrope,” he said.

  “Aye,” Sir Quinton said. “’Tis his banner flying beside Hugh Graham’s.”

  “We will go to meet them, then,” Sir William said.

  Sir Quinton cleared his throat, then said quietly, “I’ll not be telling you how to manage your business, sir, but ’tis ever Buccleuch’s way to await the exchange of assurances. ’Tis safer so, he says.”

  “Aye, perhaps.”

  “One avoids fatal misunderstandings, Buccleuch says, by following strict procedure. If you will recall, an unfortunate riot occurred at Redeswire some years ago, and many died, due to confusion over the assurances.”

  “I’ll be happy if this lot simply observes the truce,” Sir William said bleakly. “I had hoped that I might be dealing with Hugh Graham. I’ve met the man, and you said he served honorably and well when you dealt with him.”

  “Aye, he did.” Sir Quinton’s eyebrows arched. “I wish I might say the others had been as fair-minded. I might just add, though, that Hugh Graham is not always to be trusted either, sir. You’d do well to guard your back whilst we’re here.”

  “I will.” Sir William looked narrowly at him. “Do not forget that you must serve in my place when they present the bill of complaint against my daughter.”

  Sir Quinton nodded, and Laurie looked away again, unable to face her father’s wretched unhappiness over May’s disappearance. He clearly believed that she had run away or killed herself rather than face her accusers and trust him to see her safe from them. His disappointment in her was nearly palpable.

  He had not questioned Laurie at any length about her sister’s disappearance, and for that she was deeply grateful.

  Even Blanche had not questioned her beyond asking rather vaguely if she had any idea what had become of May. Laurie had feared that Blanche would recall the night that she had found her missing from her bedchamber, but by the time Sir Hugh Graham presented Scrope’s grievance to Sir William, Blanche apparently had forgotten the incident.

  For all that she tried to insist that someone had sneaked into the castle and stolen her elder daughter away in the night, it was clear enough to everyone that Blanche, like her husband, believed that May had run away. Laurie believed she was the only one who suspected that Blanche herself might have had a hand in May’s departure.

  The sight of four riders and one of the banners separating from the cavalcade across the way and galloping toward them diverted her from her thoughts just then. She watched their rapid approach with increasing tension.

  Sir William and Sir Quinton remained where they were, flanked now by the captain of the guard at Aylewood and a huge man of Sir Quinton’s who was known—absurdly, Laurie thought, considering his size—as Hob the Mouse.

  She noticed that, below, the people in the field had seen the riders and were watching them. Although the brightly colored banners continued to wave in the breeze, she could see her tension reflected in the stiff way people stood, and she felt it emanating from the men who made up the rest of the Scottish party.

  The hoofbeats of the riders’ horses sounded clearly now. One rider led the others, and Laurie’s interest heightened when she recognized him. Sir Hugh Graham rode very well, as if he were part of his horse.

  When the riders drew near, Sir Hugh raised a hand, signaling the others to stop. They slowed their ponies to a walk, then drew rein.

  Sir Hugh rode forward a few paces, saying clearly, “Greetings, Halliot. We come in the name of Thomas Lord Scrope to seek assurance that you and your people have come to this place for the sole purpose of seeking justice and agree to keep the peace until sunrise tomorrow. Do we have your promise, sir?”

  “Aye, you have it,” Sir William said.

  Laurie, watching them, knew that it was vital that both sides agree to the truce, because that would enable everyone to reach home in safety before it expired. Suddenly encountering a direct look from Sir Hugh, she felt heat rush to her cheeks and to the core of her body. She could not tell what he was thinking.

  He looked grim, and his eyes were as gray as hard steel, but he had looked that way while demanding the assurance. Perhaps he did not approve of women attending Truce Days. Many men did not approve, particularly since they knew that violence could break out at any moment.

  She wanted to look away but found it impossible to do so. He broke the contact at last, turning his pony hard and riding away at a gallop, not s
eeming to care whether his men followed or not.

  “Wait till they have passed the halfway point, then follow them, Quin,” Sir William said. “You should go with our lads, since Scrope sent his deputy to me.”

  “Aye,” Sir Quinton said. “He’ll not embrace you afterward, though, sir. Do not expect it.”

  “I won’t.”

  Sir Quinton grinned boyishly, and Laurie felt her tension ease. “When I acted for Buccleuch, Graham insisted on meeting in the middle of Kershopefoot Burn,” he said. “Said he didn’t want to look as if he’d entered Scotland as a supplicant. Scrope can’t do that here, though. He will be content to meet where you will.”

  Sir William nodded. He was still watching the riders. “Go now, Quin.”

  Hob the Mouse, the captain from Aylewood, and one other man rode with him, and they repeated the ritual across the way.

  Within moments of their meeting with Scrope, the other warden held up his hand and Sir William did likewise, signaling for the benefit of everyone watching their mutual agreement to the terms of the truce. Then, shouting at his men to keep the peace or answer to him and King James, Sir William gave the sign to ride forward. The entire Scottish party rode en masse to meet the English.

  Hugh wondered what had possessed Sir William to allow Mistress Halliot to attend the day’s proceedings. Was the man mad? Apparently Quinton Scott had forbidden Janet to attend, so Sir William could have no good reason. And where had he concealed his younger daughter, the one who was to answer to a charge of murder? Surely he had not consigned her to wait with the men he had brought to answer complaints laid against them.

  Ruthlessly, Hugh forced himself to focus on the day’s business. He still knew little about Sir William Halliot of Aylewood, but he did not trust the Scots on general principle. He knew that Scrope wanted no trouble, and he knew, too, that if any started, it had better begin with the Scots.

  If it began with the English, Scrope was likely to blame the Grahams for it whether they were guilty or not. Hugh knew he could speak for his men, but he could not speak for all Grahams. No one spoke for all Grahams.