Early in the afternoon, Rob held up a hand to halt the horses, listening. A horse stomped damp ground and swished his tail. The wind rustled live leaves and dead. And something in the sound of the water had changed.
He motioned them to dismount and they crept towards the stream, alert for anything other than birds and squirrels. Staying in the shelter of the trees, he looked at the water. The river made a sharp turn here and narrowed. And there, stretching from the English side, was a construction very similar to the one he’d built.
But in this one, fish scales flashed, shining like sunlight underwater.
He smiled.
When Rob rode into the courtyard, Stella was the first thing he laid eyes on. She had Wat next to her, nestled on a bench in the last corner of sunshine, and she seemed to be trying to teach him to count on his fingers.
Foolish waste.
Swinging off the horse, he grabbed the sack of precious wriggling silver and walked over to her. ‘Here’s fish for you,’ he said, dropping the overflowing bag in her lap. Some of them flopped and wiggled, as if they had a little life left. ‘May you choke on them.’
Wat laughed and bent to pick up the ones that had fallen out of the bag and into the dirt.
With the bag of smelly fish on her lap, Stella could not rise, but her eyes flashed at him and he thought she would reach for one and slap his face with it.
‘Take the bag to Beggy, Wat,’ she said, still looking at Rob. Then she scooped the fish back in and guided the boy’s fingers tightly around the opening. ‘Can you carry it?’
He nodded, proud, and dragged it across the dirt to the kitchen.
Stella stood. ‘So we’ll be eating Storwick fish tonight?’
‘They had no names on them.’ He had, somehow, expected her to be pleased. Instead, he faced the same angry woman he had left. ‘We’ll have fish in our own trap soon. Worthy of a Brunson.’
‘What makes a Brunson so worthy?’
Her very question a challenge he’d never had to answer. ‘I’m a Brunson.’ He knew what that meant. He was rugged and strong and steadfast as the First Brunson, whose tale was told in the ballad. The man who had been left for dead by his enemies, deserted by his friends. The man who was loyal to this land and his people above all. That’s what Rob Brunson was. That was what any Brunson must be.
She tilted her head, as if ignorant of all the name entailed. ‘And I’m Stella Storwick,’ she answered.
Not just a Storwick, an individual. Well, if he were a Storwick, he would separate himself from the rest, too. ‘And who are the Storwicks but a bunch of savage killers?’
‘And what are the Brunsons but the same?’
‘Brunsons have been here longer than the kings. We’re descended from a Viking.’
‘Yes. I’ve heard of your precious brown-eyed Viking.’ She rolled her eyes.
Nothing he said could impress this woman. ‘He was more than that. He and his men came from far across the sea.’
‘No women?’
He shrugged. What was there to say of women? He had never been easy with them. ‘These were warriors. They fought their way up to this valley before one of their own betrayed them and they were slain, almost every one. And the rest left him for dead.’ Deserted him. Bastards.
Not family. Family wouldn’t desert you.
‘But he was not?’
‘He was too stubborn to die. Even the enemy left him for dead. But when he woke, recovered enough to walk, he staggered away, hoping to find his people.’
She raised her brows, showing no proper respect for his story. ‘Near death, alone, unarmed, he rises like Lazarus and walks away?’
‘Aye. Exactly.’ He had never questioned the truth of it. ‘And he vowed he would never leave this valley. That’s the will that makes a Brunson.’ He carried that strength in his blood. ‘Can the Storwicks top that?’
Something flickered in her eyes, like sunlight under water.
Chapter Seven
No, she wanted to say. But I can.
But her story was the one she wanted to escape. Here, finally, she could.
‘Well,’ he asked again, ‘have the Storwicks no stories?’
‘Of course we have stories.’ Every family had stories.
‘What kind?’
His question took her back. When she was a child, her mother would tell her tales of brave heroes and heroines as if handing her a platter of sweetcakes, waiting for her to pick one. As if she could somehow discover in those tales the reason she had been saved.
There were stories of men who rode on quests or laid in wait to ambush raiders and save the Storwick lands, but her favourite tale was none of those.
It was the story of the Lost Storwick.
Her mother had not learned that one from the monks.
‘The story is told,’ she began, ‘of a Storwick woman long ago.’
‘A woman?’
Damn his look of shock. ‘Yes. A woman.’ She paused, waiting for him to subdue his surprise.
He nodded and she went on.
‘Long ago, perhaps in the time your Vikings came to this valley, this woman’s husband cast her aside, for he believed she was a doer of magic who had caused the son of his first wife to fall ill and die.’
‘Wasn’t he afraid she would work her magic on him as well?
She frowned to be interrupted. The tale must be told a certain way. ‘There was never any proof, nor any accusations that she had worked ill on anyone else.’ Some thought he had invented the story because he was tired of her, but Rob Brunson thought little enough of her family as it was. ‘Still, his son had fallen ill and died and he wished for someone to blame.’
‘And the family allowed it? Or had she committed a sin?’
She put her hands on her hips. ‘Did I interrupt your tale? Would I grab your tongue if you were singing the Ballad of the Brunsons?’
The muscles in his cheek moved, as if he had clamped his teeth against future words.
‘So, this woman withdrew to a hut on the settlement’s edge and barred the door. Her family brought her food and left it outside, where she could reach it from the window, but for many days, they would bring fresh food and find she had not touched what they brought the day before.’
His expression was angry still, but she thought she glimpsed a touch of sadness, too.
‘Finally, one day, after her family had seen their pile of offerings grew untouched for a week, they pounded the door, trying to get in. She must have heaped rocks against it from the inside, for they pushed and shoved and the door would barely budge.
‘And then they pounded on the shutters that shielded the window, but still they could not break in and they heard no sound from within.’
Rob leaned closer and seemed to be holding his breath. ‘Then what?’
She held back a smile. ‘When they finally pushed through, the hut was empty.’
‘Empty? Where was she?’
‘No one ever really knew. Some said God had snatched her and sent her right to Heaven. Some said she had run away and made a new home for herself on the other side of the fells, where no one knew who she was. But they never found a body, neither in the hut nor in the hills.
‘And some claim her ghost still haunts the hills, looking for home.’
Stella liked the story because she understood that woman. She was not cast aside, no, but she was set apart. Stared at. Held at arm’s length. As if everyone was waiting for her to do … something. Finally, like the Lost Storwick, she wanted to disappear from the burden that had been placed on her. Was God going to snatch her, too, from the earth some day? If so, she was ready.
Something in the wistfulness of her face touched him. He fought it. He cared nothing for Storwick legends and lore. He wanted only to know who they were today and how they might threaten his family.
‘Who runs your family now?’
Her eyes cleared and she looked at him again, as if she were coming back from wandering in those hills like the Lost
Storwick. ‘Who?’
‘Yes, who?’ He should not have asked so bluntly. She was probably wise enough to realise that the information alone was valuable. More so if he tried to bludgeon her with words.
‘My cousins.’
Two words after a long pause. The first hint of who was in charge of the Storwicks and why they had been so quiet.
Cousins. No single leader. No successor, named or natural. That meant quarrels. And that explained much of what he had seen, or not seen, from across the border since they stole Hobbes Storwick away.
For some reason, that angered him. ‘Yet they do not demand your return.’ He held the daughter of their head man and they could bestir themselves to do no more than plead that he treat her kindly. ‘Are they not men?’
‘Of course they are men. We may have legends of women, but women do not rule our family any more than they do yours.’
That was not what he meant, of course. He meant they were not the men they should have been. The kind of man his father had raised him to be.
Wat returned from the kitchen, ending the conversation, but he thought, as he left her, that she might be wrong. Brunson women held a wider sway than many he’d seen.
Marriage. The idea came to him of a sudden. Yet he was no good with women. Nor they with him.
His father had been right, all those years ago. He was head man. That’s all he was. No one would ever love him for himself.
The King’s notice arrived the next week. King James would be coming to the Borders himself in June to see that justice was done and to punish the guilty.
Rob stared at it after Johnnie read it to him. Then they looked at each other, silent for a moment.
He had known this day would come. Known it every step of the way he had chosen. And chose it anyway.
‘He’ll have a list to choose from when he brings justice for the Brunsons.’ There was some pride in saying it.
‘Aye,’ Johnnie said, trying to smile. ‘No doubt the herald chapped his lips putting us to the horn.’
Three blasts to announce a man as rebel, traitor, outlaw to all of Edinburgh. Aye, the horn would sound long and loud.
The King named each of them for a different reason. First, he had sent Johnnie home to bring the Brunson men to fight at the King’s side. They sent none.
Then, Rob refused to swear the King’s Great Oath against his enemies. And when the English Storwick swine disappeared, well, he blamed the Brunsons for that, too.
Worst of all, for love of Bessie Brunson, the Scottish Warden refused to bring in the Brunsons and instead of holding the Truce Day promised by treaty, rode with them across the border to pluck Hobbes Storwick from his home.
Aye, even Carwell, at the end, had defied the King for love of a Brunson.
Johnnie looked at the message again, smile gone. ‘He’ll come. And he’ll bring an army with him.’ Into their valley. ‘And then he’ll find out we’re holding the Storwick wench—’
Rob shook his head. He did not need to hear the rest. By the end, the Brunsons would be dangling from the trees above a valley burned to ash. Whether they held the Storwick woman or not, he doubted that would change.
Side by side, the brothers pondered, silent.
‘He might not kill us,’ Johnnie said, finally. ‘Maybe he’ll hold you, warded, for our good behaviour.’
Rob shook his head. ‘He tried that with Bessie.’ For all the good it did. He would know now there was no use in that.
‘He’ll come for Carwell, too.’
Carwell, Scottish Warden, King’s man, who had been tasked with bringing a hostage to the King and fell in love with that hostage, Bessie Brunson, instead.
‘Rob, you need to forgive her, forgive both of them. The King thinks—’
‘The King may think Carwell is a Brunson.’ And he had already charged Thomas Carwell to arrest them and bring them in. Carwell had refused. One thing the man had done right, Rob was forced to admit, grudgingly. ‘I don’t.’
‘We could disappear. Ride into the hills and the King would never be able to find us. He’ll get tired. He’ll go home—’
‘I won’t run. Not from anyone.’
‘Well, then,’ John said, ‘I guess that means King James will be in for a fight.’
Rob looked at him. ‘You’re the one who said we should reconcile with the King.’
‘I reconciled with you instead.’ His quick grin disappeared and he put a hand on Rob’s shoulder ‘We’ve some time. Maybe there will be another way.’
Johnnie at his side. Family. A comfort. All.
I want to see my father.
Aye. Family meant something to Stella Storwick, too. Should he take her to her father, then? Before the King came, certainly, if he were to do it. Would she even thank him if he did? No, she’d think it no more than her due.
She was different from what he expected. Certainly different from Bessie, who had always worked silently in the background.
He looked at Johnnie, wanting to ask what it was like, to have a woman. Of course, he’d seen the way Johnnie looked at Cate. The way he had protected her, but of course, any man would do that for his family. But this was more.
Different.
And Carwell had done the same for Bessie, he had to admit. Protected her even when it put his own position at risk.
If he had a good strong woman at his left hand, well, that might make everything easier. But perhaps it was just as well. A head man must think of all his clan, not just his woman.
And he must certainly not think of a Storwick woman.
Yet later, Rob found himself standing outside her room, leaning against the stone wall, hitting it with his fists. He did not know what to do with this woman, nor with the feelings and doubts she raised.
Suddenly, he looked down and there was Wat, staring up at him admiringly. Ah, the little lad, looking like a cherub. Looking at him as if he expected … what?
He and Wat studied each other for a moment, silent. Then, Wat turned his back, went to the door of Stella’s room and knocked.
Stella opened it, looking down as if she had known from the height of the knock who would be there.
‘Gudein, Stella. Time to play?’
Ah, this was the monster he had unleashed. Telling her she could look after the boy.
She crouched down so she could speak directly to the boy, not sparing Rob a glance. ‘What would you like to do today, Wat?’
‘Fish!’ he said with a squeal.
She glanced up at Rob. ‘If the laird will let us leave the walls.’
‘Did you not get your fill of fish last week?’ Yet the Storwick fish had been long eaten.
Her damned green eyes accused him, though her lips smiled. She knew exactly what she had said. If he refused the child here and now, the boy would think him nothing but cruel.
Hell. Let her run back across the border if she must. Then he’d be rid of her.
‘Go.’ He started down the stairs, but looked back to see Stella and Wat hugging. ‘I’ll expect fish to eat tonight!’
And their obvious affection made him feel even more alone.
Rob was both relieved and chagrined to see fish on his plate that evening.
She spoke not a word about it, but seemed to smile with every bite. Waiting. Waiting, dammit, for him to admit she had done it. That the special princess and her halfwit had managed to put Brunson fish on the table.
Well, he spoke none of it either until he had finished the last bite and fed his pride, as well as his stomach. Black Rob Brunson was a proud man, and a stubborn one, but the woman deserved her due.
Little Wat had spent the meal spinning in happiness, tugging at the men’s tunics, begging them to smile. And they did, many of them. Those that had not given him a glance before. Those who had dismissed an idiot boy.
Those like Rob.
But even he smiled to see the child so happy.
He pushed the plate away. She lifted her brows, waiting.
‘The fish f
illed the stomach.’
‘I helped Beggy. Cooked as well as caught it.’
Grudgingly, he said more. ‘Tasty.’
For the first time, she looked abashed. ‘Thank you. I wasn’t really sure I could do it.’
He wished she had not said it. It made her human, somehow. He did not want to think of her as human. It was easier when he just thought of her as ‘Storwick.’ Or as a dragon.
‘The weir was filled with fish aplenty.’
‘We’ll eat well, then.’
‘As long as …’
‘As long as the Storwicks don’t rebuild?’
She shook her head. ‘My cousins can’t agree on whether the sun will rise.’ She bit her lip, realising she had said too much.
‘They can’t what?’ Quarrels, then. More than he’d suspected.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember.’
He was not a subtle man. What he wanted to know, he asked. Who heads the clan now? What kind of men are they? Why have they not acted?
But she knew what she had said. And now she would say no more, particularly if he tried a frontal assault. Sometimes, in a raid, it was better to ride the longer way around and come from the unexpected angle.
He pushed the empty platter aside and rose. Wat’s mother collected him for bed and Beggy took the dishes away.
‘Would you walk with me, then?’
‘I should help Beggy.’
He motioned one of the other girls, who scurried to carry dishes. ‘She’ll have help. I’ve …’ He hated to say he had rearranged the household because of her. And it wasn’t true. Not exactly. ‘Come.’
Daylight lingered longer now and they wandered up to the top of the tower. He looked over his valley with the same satisfaction he always felt. The clouds were tinged with pink and he strained his eyes, wondering whether he could pick out some of the sheep at the edge of the hills.
Danger could still lurk there, over the border, but tonight, with a woman beside him, he could almost believe in a peaceful life that included a wife who loved him and not just the head man.
Maybe even a son …
She leaned on the edge of the wall, gazing south. Was she looking towards her home? Was she wondering why they would not come for her?
Taken by the Border Rebel Page 7