Tempted by a Warrior

by Amanda Scott

  “Rob is just behind me and Sir James, as well,” Hugh said.

  “Good!” Kirkhill caught sight of Rob Maxwell in the increasing crowd of horsemen filling the yard just as Rob dismounted and strode toward them.

  “Your man said you’d met Nan, so we all hurried,” Rob said. “Then we met Nan herself. She said that Fiona’s captors were English raiders. Can that be so?”

  “Aye, and I’ve just learned that they were here earlier. I don’t know yet how much earlier, but recall that someone diverted Archie’s messenger and sent him on to the Hall to find me, before he reached Spedlins.”

  “And that Old Jardine did side more than once with England,” Hugh said.

  “What if they did not know that Old Jardine and Will are dead?” Tony asked. “What if they believed they would once again find allies at Spedlins?”

  “Everyone knows that Old Jardine has scarcely stirred from here these two months past,” Hugh pointed out. “They would not expect him to ride with them.”

  “Nor would they expect Will to,” Rob said sourly. “As far as I know, the English have never dealt directly with Will. Old Jardine ran everything. Still, the English may have expected to find men here willing to support them.”

  Kirkhill nodded, but his thoughts had taken a side track. “What if they sought something else, as well? Are you sure Archie still has spies on the other side, Hugh?”

  Smiling slightly, Hugh said, “Being out of that game myself, I cannot be sure. But, knowing him as I do, I’d say Archie has spies wherever he needs them.”

  “I need to think more of this, but if you two and my uncle will collect the rest of our men here, I’m going to follow Fiona.”

  “By my troth, I don’t know what to say about that lass,” Hugh said. “She eloped with Will despite her father’s enmity toward the Jardines, so she can be rash. But you said only that she’d followed Nan from the Hall. Why would she?”

  Tony said grimly, “Doubtless to spare Nan from my wrath and Dickon’s.”

  “She may have had other reasons for leaving without a word to me,” Kirkhill said. “Some are private, I’m afraid, but I think she fears your brother, Rob.”

  Rob clapped a hand to his head, exclaiming, “Those damned rumors!”

  “Aye, and worse,” Kirkhill said. “Sithee, she dreamed that she buried Will in a hole that sounded like a grave to me. So I had my lads dig up a grave dug for another chap the evening Will went missing, and they found his body in it.”

  “Good sakes!” Rob exclaimed, gaping at him. “Do you mean to say that Fiona did murder Will and fears that the sheriff will arrest her?”

  “I’ve never believed that she killed her husband,” Kirkhill said. “But it is possible that she fears arrest.” He explained what had happened that night. “I met her for the first time a fortnight later, and she still moved gingerly, thanks to the injuries he inflicted on her that night. If he weren’t dead, I’d kill him myself,” he added.

  “With such injuries, and still with child, I doubt that she could have dragged him ten feet,” Rob said thoughtfully. “How far were they from the graveyard?”

  About to tell him, Kirkhill saw Joshua coming with the destriers just as Tony said, “Dickon, look yonder. There’s old Evart rushing toward us.”

  “’Tis glad I am to see ye, laird!” the elderly steward exclaimed. “At first, I didna think ye’d come, but he were so fierce… See you, all your men camped hereabouts will join ye shortly, for Jeb’s Davy did tell me ye’d be needing them.”

  “He did, did he? And when did you see Davy?”

  “He were following her ladyship, he said, laird, but he galloped his pony here after he saw them English raiders take her and the lady Anne. He said the lady Anne had got away, but not our lady Fiona. I could do nowt, m’self, but he said ye’d be coming and would want all the men ye could gather to fetch her back.”

  “He was right. How long ago was this, and where is Davy now?”

  “I dinna ken exactly but it may be nigh an hour now. Davy’s still behind them, though. Another thing, laird.” Kirkhill was taking Cerberus’s reins from Joshua but nodded, so Evart went on, “Them English had already been here, inside the tower. That Hod were wi’ them, and they broke up Old Master’s bed… your bed, laird.”

  “Did they?” Kirkhill said, deciding he had been right to suspect a reason for the so-called raiders to pass by Spedlins other than just to seek Jardine aid. “Did they take anything?”

  “Aye, sir, that Hod and another chap took sacks out wi’ them. But they—”

  “I’ll look into all that later,” Kirkhill interjected. “I mean to go at once to fetch the lady Fiona back. When those other men are ready, tell them we have ridden on and they are to obey Sir James Seyton’s orders and do all that they can to catch up with us. If we turn off the road, we’ll leave signs.”

  Turning to Rob and Hugh, he added, “I expect that you agree with me.”

  When they both nodded, he reined Cerberus toward the Roman road and urged him onward at a distance-covering lope that the destrier could maintain for hours.

  Rob and Hugh fell in beside him after ordering their men to follow his. The three leaders had been riding in near silence at the head of them all for some time when Rob said, “You know, Dickon, I’ve been studying these tracks we’re following, and one set keeps always just behind another. The second one could be a sumpter pony, but that would be an odd encumbrance for a raiding party in enemy country. I think someone is leading it.”

  Kirkhill, eyeing the tracks, agreed. When he looked up moments later, he saw something else. “That’s Jeb’s Davy just ahead, lads. Easy now.”

  Signing to those behind to slow, he reined in near the boy.

  “They went that way, laird,” Davy said, pointing. “I rode to the top o’ yon ridge but didna think I should go farther, lest ye missed them turning off the road.”

  “Good lad,” Kirkhill said. “Don’t try to ride back alone, and don’t follow us. You wait here until Sir James comes with the rest of our men, and keep out of sight until you recognize someone you trust.”

  “Aye, laird. But ye’ll find her, won’t ye?”

  “I will.” The sense of urgency that had nagged him the whole way turned to a chilling tension that he could not shake off. He fought to think logically. If they were making for England and had turned southeast at this point…

  “They are making for Riggshead Cleuch as Mairi suspected,” he said. “Tony, take some of these lads over the hills to meet Archie. Tell him to hie himself to the Sands near Eastriggs village. If the tide is out, he and his men can intercept these lads where the cleuch runs into the Firth east of the point. He’ll know the safest way.”

  “Art sure that’s best?” Hugh asked. “This might be nowt but a ruse to draw us and Archie into a trap.”

  “Aye, it might be,” Kirkhill said. “I’ve been trying to think why English raiders would take Fiona. My first thought was that they’d hoped to hold her for ransom. But if they got what they came for at Spedlins and seizing her was just an impulse, they’d have little reason to fear pursuit yet or to travel at such speed. Hod may have taken her for devilment, and they are just trying to get out of the way of a larger force on its way to challenge Archie. Or they may be expecting to join it.”

  “Using the cleuch explains how they slipped into Annandale without exciting a hue and cry,” Rob said. “Northumberland’s army may come the same way.”

  “They may, aye,” Kirkhill said. “But we’ll give them a surprise if they do.”

  With approaching darkness, the cleuch had filled with dusky gloom. There were a few clouds, but moon-glow edging the cleuch’s east rim promised moonlight. If clouds obscured it, riding through the cleuch in the dark would be madness.

  But then, according to most Scots, the English were all mad.

  Fiona, still mounted, was near the front of the waiting cavalcade now, with Hod and the man who had led her horse. They had asked no more questions.


  As they waited, a stillness fell upon the company, so that all she heard was a noise now and again from horses and gear—a stamp of hoof, a metallic tinkle, or an occasional grunt. Whether that last sound came from man or beast, she could not tell.

  Clearly, they had prepared to wait quietly for their unknowing prey. Hod had promised to kill her if she so much as squeaked, and she’d believed him.

  With a sudden rattling sound that made her jump and her horse sidle nervously, a man ran toward them, apparently unheeding of the treacherous terrain.

  “Sir,” he cried. “They be a-coming! ’Tis an army they bring and gey more—”

  “How many?” Hod demanded.

  “Sakes, I didna wait to count them! There be riders as far as I could see.”

  “Then we’ll lead them into the others,” Hod said. “They’ll not be hurrying through this cleuch.”

  They moved on, but slowly, wary of those following and of the gathering darkness. Fiona was just glad that her mount was sure of foot. The narrow, rocky streambed and numerous boulders made dangerous footing for any horse that stepped off the path.

  For a time, the vagaries of the cleuch kept them in darkness, but at last, as they rounded a curve, she saw the flat gray-white Solway Sands still well ahead of them glittering in the moonlight. The tide was out.

  In the distance, she could see the dark English coast outlined between the Sands and the moonlit sky, although the moon was not high enough yet to see it from inside the cleuch. The view was eerily beautiful, though, and frightening.

  She wondered how long the tide had been out.

  A full moon meant a spring tide, which swept in fast and high. As a child, she had often watched from Annan House as it rushed into the ever-narrowing, pie-slice-shaped Firth with spray flying high and a roar that people could hear for miles.

  Would her captors have time to cross before it swept in again? Sakes, would they have time even to reach the Sands before the Scots caught up with them?

  Just then, a shout echoed from atop the wall of the cleuch. The sound startled the men around Fiona as much as it startled her. Flickering lights drew her attention upward to the south rim. Torches were alight there… and on the north side as well.

  “Ride for the Sands, lads,” Hod shouted. “Hang on, lass!”

  Fiona held on for dear life, and prayed. One moment she prayed they would leave her behind, the next that they would not leave her alone in the cleuch.

  “A Douglas!”

  The Douglas cry echoed through the cleuch and stirred the English riders to speed. “Won’t they be waiting for us at the Sands?” someone shouted to the leader.

  “Nay, there be cliffs all along this side hereabouts. They’ll no touch us unless they want to leap to them from the cliff tops.”

  Fiona knew that the cliffs were not high along that part of the Firth, but she knew of no track down from them that was suitable for horses bearing armed men.

  Then she heard cries, shrieks, and whistles behind them in the cleuch.

  The raiders behind them were shouting now, and she was glad to be near the lead but frightened, too, that men behind her might ride over her in their panic.

  Through the shouting, she heard one voice bellow, “There be thousands o’ them, above and behind us. ’Ware arrows from above!”

  Hod galloped on, and the man leading Fiona’s horse rode faster, trying to keep up with him. Fiona had all she could do to hang on and pray that her horse would not break a leg. The Sands, and likely pitched battle, lay fifty yards ahead.

  Kirkhill led his men through the cleuch at a pace that would tax the best among them. Hugh had sent some of his lads along the southwest rim with torches, and Rob had taken most of his onto the east rim.

  The result was all they’d hoped it would be, as the English fled headlong out of the cleuch, across the river Esk channel, and on to the glittering Solway Sands.

  “It will be grand if Archie is there to meet them,” Hugh shouted to Kirkhill.

  But Kirkhill shook his head. He knew that Tony would meet Archie at the village of Eastriggs just about the time they reached the Sands. His thought darted back to Fiona. He had scarcely stopped thinking about her since they had met Nan.

  He was sure now that the English had taken Fiona and Nan, hoping to lure him and his men into ambush. That meant that Hod had likely identified the two young women, and that the English had let Nan escape on purpose.

  That thought sent another jolt of unease through him. If they had taken Fiona only as bait, what would happen when they did not need her any longer? Even if Hod or one of the raiders saw her as a sexual prize, he would abandon her when battle loomed. If the man realized that she might fetch a good ransom, then he might try to get her safely to England, but—

  Men above him on the rim were shouting; however, with pandemonium echoing through the cleuch, he could not make out their words. Beside him, Hugh had heard them, too. They exchanged glances.

  “Either they see Archie coming or Northumberland,” Hugh shouted, reaching back to seize the great sword from its sheath on his back.

  Although Kirkhill also carried a sword, he kept a Jedburgh axe in a loop on his saddle. Like most Borderers, he preferred the axe to his sword for close work.

  Thoughts of Fiona settled into the back of his mind where he kept personal thoughts when he needed all his wits for battle. A familiar sense of focused concentration took their place.

  When they emerged from the cleuch onto the shore of the Firth, he saw that the so-called raiding party had forded the river Esk’s narrow channel through the sand and was in all-out flight, spurring their mounts across the open Sands toward England. Approaching them from the other shore was an endless army of mounted Englishmen, thousands—doubtless with four times as many foot soldiers following.

  The English army engulfed the raiders. As it did, Kirkhill thought he saw moonlight gleam on shining, long black hair amidst the sea of helmeted men.

  Bellowing, “A Douglas, a Douglas!” he spurred Cerberus on, thirsting for battle and hungering even more to reclaim the lass he had come to love.

  Fiona screamed at the sight of the vast army galloping toward them. For as far as she could see by the full moon’s light, a sea of horses and men surged across the Sands. In minutes, the tide of riders engulfed them. As it did, she heard men screaming all around her, screaming that the Scots were coming, that the Black Douglas had raised an enormous army, many more men than Northumberland had.

  Assuring herself that the English leaders must know how long the tide had been out and must believe that they had time to ride across the Sands and back, if necessary, she fought to stay calm despite the chaos on all sides. If the Scots were behind her, shouting the Douglas war cry, then Dickon must be with them.

  She needed only to think of some way to make him see her.

  For a time, her captors hauled her on toward England. But she soon lost sight of Hod, and the panicked voices soon led to more panic until she could no longer be certain which way her horse was going. Other riders pressed too close for her to see the English coast or the Scottish one, and men were wrenching their mounts around so abruptly that they reared and pawed the air. Panic threatened to overcome her, too, until a narrow leather strap snapped sharply across her right cheek.

  Catching hold of it awkwardly with her whip hand, she stared at it for what seemed an eternity but must have been a split second before it began to slip away, and she recognized it as one of her reins. Her horse was plunging like so many others, but she had grabbed a fistful of its mane long since and managed to keep her seat.

  Taking a breath, she realized that the poor beast’s terrified plunging had made her captor lose his grip and that no one else was paying her heed. The panicked men behind her had panicked those coming toward them. The Douglas name and general pandemonium were having a potent effect. Every Englishman there seemed to believe that Archie the Grim was riding down on him with as many men as Northumberland, or more
, chasing the English army back to England.

  Moonlight glinting on steel ahead of her told her what to do. Glancing upward, noting the position of the moon, and recalling that it had risen in the east, she knew she must keep it on her right to get back to Scottish soil.

  Leaning into her horse’s neck, she flailed about with her whip to find the other rein. Catching it and talking to the poor, frightened horse, trying to steady it as the sea of men and horses swept past them, she fought to guide it against the flow.

  Feeling the horse tremble under her as it withstood the press of men and other horses, she held it steady until she detected a gap in the onslaught ahead.

  The moon was on her right. Scotland lay ahead.

  She kept her head down at first, fearing that if she looked any man in the eye, he might try to seize her reins or bridle. But she could not trust her sense of direction without keeping the moon in sight.

  The tide! The thought flamed through her mind, threatening to ignite her panic again. Suppressing the fear, she peered ahead, seeking the Scottish coast.

  In the mass of teeming horseflesh, she had drifted off her course.

  Mentally scolding herself, focusing on where she wanted to go, she looked again toward Scotland and saw, straight ahead of her, a tall, broad-shouldered rider like so many of the others, but a man who was unmistakable on the powerful black destrier with its flashing teeth. The horse was equally unmistakable.

  Dickon, on Cerberus, carved a path straight toward her through clashing swords, lances, and other weapons—lashing murderously about him with the largest axe she had ever seen, as Cerberus nipped at and kicked the English horses, forcing them to clear the path for him.

  Confidence surging, Fiona kicked her horse, urging it on with a touch of her whip. Her gaze met Dickon’s as an iron fist from behind clamped tight to her left arm.