Taken by the Border Rebel

by Blythe Gifford

  Praying while a little girl waited, alone and in a dark well.

  ‘Did they search for me while you prayed? Father? The others?’ There was an answer somewhere. One she had missed all these years.

  Her mother waved her hand. ‘It matters not. It was the Virgin who saved you.’

  Stella sighed. If there were truth beneath the tale, it seemed to have been lost long ago. ‘So the Virgin told you where I was?’

  Her mother nodded, smiling now. ‘She gave me a vision and I went to the well and there you were, in the arms of an angel.’

  The same words, the same story. ‘If you knew I was in the well, why did you go alone? Why didn’t you take someone with you to help get me out?’

  ‘The vision was clear. The angel had saved you.’

  ‘What if there had been no angel? What if you had been wrong?’

  What if God had decided I didn’t deserve a miracle?

  ‘The vision was clear. I was to go alone. Now come, child.’ She stretched out her arms. ‘We have both suffered these past weeks. We must ask for God’s guidance again to lead you in the right path.’

  And she reached for her mother’s outstretched arms, knelt beside her and buried her head in her lap.

  She had come home. Home to the confusion, expectations and isolation that had dogged her all her life. And now, to questions she had never asked before.

  In contrast, life at Brunson Tower seemed simple. Caring for Wat. Catching a fish. Simple things that connected her to the earth and to other people.

  But in coming home, she felt lost again.

  She raised her head, cheeks damp with tears she did not remember shedding. ‘Tell me the story of the Lost Storwick, Mother.’

  And so she listened to her favourite tale of the woman isolated and alone, who defied all their expectations and escaped.

  ‘What do you think happened, Mother?’ she asked, when the tale was through. ‘To the Lost Storwick?’

  Shaking her head, her mother smoothed Stella’s hair and wiped her tears away. ‘No one knows. Some say God took her. Others say it was Satan. And a few think she escaped on her own two legs and wandered into the hills where she met another lost soul and married him.’

  Wandered into the hills, just as she had done. And met another lost soul. One like Rob Brunson, perhaps.

  But Rob was never lost when it came to his family. He had never doubted his duty, nor questioned what he must do as she was doing.

  She sighed and pulled herself away. Standing, she brushed her skirt and scrubbed cheeks with the back of her hand. Duty, that’s what Rob would say. Miracle or no, this was her duty.

  ‘If God saved me to select the next head of the family, that’s what I will do.’ She would not fear that. No more than she feared a pit full of gravel. ‘But I will do it in my own time and in my own way.’

  Perhaps God could deliver another miracle. There was someone, anyone, more worthy than these two.

  Yet as she left the room, she wished that, like the Lost Storwick, she could simply disappear.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rob had regretted leaving her before the stone walls of the Storwicks had disappeared behind him.

  There was nothing else to do. She was with her people. Safe.

  Blood was all. Family was all. Generations of Brunsons knew that. No Storwick’s fate could be more important than his duty.

  Why did he doubt it now?

  And as he rode through the gate to Brunson Tower, he told himself anew that he had done what he must, what was needful, what was best for them both.

  Until he saw Wat, running up to him, eyes full of hero worship. And then he saw that Rob was alone.

  ‘Where is she? Why didn’t she come back?’

  He did not wait for answers, but screamed and howled as if he knew without being told that Stella would come no more.

  Rob dismounted into a flurry of kicks and fists, as if Wat thought he could punish Rob for his own sorrow. Rob let them bounce off and scooped the boy into his arms, rocking him as if he were a baby still and could be comforted simply by being held.

  He put his forehead close to Wat’s and whispered, as he knew she would want him to do, ‘She told me to tell you she loved you.’

  If only she had told me the same.

  His brother, when he settled to talk, looked little more content than Wat.

  ‘You took her home, then.’ Johnnie’s expression seemed too knowing.

  ‘With her father’s corpse.’ Rob tried to sound appropriately gruff, but the vision of Hobbes Storwick, laid in the ground unsung, made him shiver.

  ‘Cate liked her.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  There was the smile. ‘She’s me wife. I’m sure.’

  ‘And why do you tell me this?’

  ‘She would not have minded. If you had brought her back with you.’

  Too late. Too late to fill that gaping hole where his heart had beat a few weeks ago. ‘She was no good to us once he was dead.’ In truth, it seemed they had never needed protection against the Storwicks. Once Hobbes Storwick was gone, they were helpless. ‘One less crime for the King’s list.’

  ‘What will happen to her, do you think?’

  He frowned. His brother’s question was the very one he did not want to consider. ‘It’s nothing to me.’

  A lie. Yet he must make it true.

  Johnnie sipped his ale and stretched his legs under the table. ‘She’ll marry, I suppose.’

  There was Johnnie, needling around the edges, smiling without saying exactly what he meant. But the spectre of Stella in another man’s bed was more than he could bear.

  Gritting his teeth, Rob put down his mug and stood. ‘Well, so must I. It must be the Elliot lass, then. A wedding and an alliance before the King rides will give extra strength to the Elliots who ride with us.’

  And end this lunatic moping over a woman he could never have.

  After only a few days at home, Stella was ready to run to the hills again.

  Once, her family had given her respectful, though lonely, distance. Now, not an hour went by without Humphrey or Oswyn or her mother approaching her expectantly. Sometimes, they asked about the defences of the Brunson Tower. More often, they questioned her about her current intentions.

  No one was waiting for God’s miracle now. They had decided what it was to be, and instead of blessing it she was standing in the way.

  Yet the longer she watched the household, the more she was convinced that to marry either man would mean the end of the Storwick family.

  She had seen how the Brunson Tower was run and though she had chafed at the lack of luxuries, it seemed that now, that was all she saw. Decadent food and sumptuous fabric covering crumbling walls and dull swords. Mundane necessities, repairs, defence, all languished. Even the weir that Rob destroyed had not been rebuilt. Ashamed, now, to think how she had chided him, when protecting his flock, human and animal, was always his first concern.

  Would that the Storwick family had a leader as strong as Rob Brunson.

  Aye, that would take a miracle.

  Or, maybe, something else …

  I’ll marry someone special, she had said, when he taunted her. And then, ignorant and naïve, she had decided her sacrifice was to marry him. Before she knew all that loving entailed. Before she knew they were flame and tinder.

  Before she knew that Rob would let nothing dissuade him from his duty. Even Stella Storwick.

  ‘Stella?’

  She looked up, startled to see her mother, Humphrey and Oswyn standing together. Uneasy, she looked from one to the other. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It seems, daughter, that you have been unable to hear God’s guidance for you amidst the noise of daily life.’

  ‘You can’t even remember how many men defend the Brunson Tower,’ Humphrey added.

  ‘I told you I was a prisoner.’ She licked her lips, praying God to forgive her lie. ‘They did not allow me to roam freely, no more than you let Black Rob d
o.’

  ‘We’ve been patient long enough. You must choose or—’

  ‘Your mind has been clouded,’ her mother said. ‘We must take you somewhere quiet where you can hear His voice.’

  ‘Perhaps I should retire to the chapel until the Virgin sends me a vision.’ Bitter words. Words she’d never thought, let alone spoken aloud.

  Her mother gasped, as if she’d been slapped.

  ‘We’ve some place better in mind,’ Oswyn said.

  And his fingers dug into her arm, deep enough to bruise, as he dragged her away.

  The King must be on his way.

  That was Rob’s first thought when the messenger arrived to let him know Thomas Carwell would be arriving before sundown.

  His brother-in-law always announced his coming, the better to prevent Rob from shooting him off his horse before he reached the gate.

  Still, sometimes his finger still quivered on his laich.

  But this time, he recognised Bessie’s flaming hair beside the man and found himself wishing that there was fish in the larder.

  ‘Is it the King?’ he asked, before Bessie could even dismount to hug him.

  She looked at her husband, leaving him to answer.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Cate and Johnnie rushed out and there was a flurry of greetings.

  ‘Then what brings you?’ They had not ridden for two days because the weather was fine.

  Bessie looked down and then at him. ‘We’ve heard something. About Stella.’

  The pit of his stomach dropped and he swallowed, wondering why his ears seemed to be ringing. Too late to pretend he did not care. They knew better or they would not have come.

  ‘When I left her, she was home. Safe.’ That was why he had left her. So she would be protected by her kin.

  Next to him, Cate put her hand in Johnnie’s. ‘No one is ever safe surrounded by Storwicks.’

  She said it as if Stella were a Brunson, too.

  Johnnie glanced at him, but spoke to Thomas. ‘Why would you have heard anything of the Storwicks?’

  ‘I am still Warden of the March,’ Carwell said. ‘The English Warden and I exchange … information.’

  ‘Can you trust his?’ Rob growled. He resented Carwell’s closeness to the English Warden, though he was grudgingly grateful at this moment.

  ‘Hear it first,’ Thomas said. ‘Then decide. He tells me the family has barricaded Stella in a sheiling hut until she agrees to marry.’

  ‘Marry?’ As if he had not known she must. ‘Until she agrees to marry who?’

  Thomas raised one eyebrow, the gesture of a man who knew too much of hidden motives. ‘Either Humphrey or Oswyn Storwick. Whichever she, or God, chooses.’

  ‘That’s no choice at all! They are bigger idiots than Wat Gregor!’ Nothing but weaklings left.

  ‘No doubt. But the burden is hers to choose one of them. And the one she marries will be leader of the Storwicks.’

  Why would the Virgin save me? To choose the next Storwick head man, apparently. And he would marry for the power and the position. Not because he loved a stubborn, headstrong woman who was afraid of the dark. No, the only special thing about her to that man would be her position. The only thing most women had ever seen in him.

  The four of them, Bessie and Thomas, Johnnie and Cate, even Cate’s beast Belde, stood in a tightening arc, looking at him. Watching. Waiting.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Jaw tight. Muscles coiled. ‘What do you want me to do?’ He knew what he wanted to do. If he let himself go for one minute, he would be on Felloun and riding for the hills.

  His father would have killed Rob himself before he allowed his son to sacrifice his family to save a Storwick.

  The others exchanged looks, but it was Cate who spoke. Cate who had suffered more at the hands of the Storwicks than any of them. ‘Go after her. She shouldn’t be forced to wed. No woman should.’

  Could Cate mean it?

  He looked at his brother, who nodded. She would not have minded, Johnnie had said, if you had brought her home with you.

  ‘It’s a Storwick family matter. None of ours.’

  ‘It’s not the rest of the family we’re worried about,’ Bessie said. ‘Only Stella.’

  Had they all gone mad? Was he the only one who knew what a Brunson’s duty must be? He battled temptation with another argument. ‘Why should we trust the English Warden? He’s betrayed us to the Storwicks before.’

  Thomas frowned at the reminder. ‘He told me because I asked.’

  And why had Thomas Carwell cared? Had the man become as womanish as the rest of them? ‘Well, Lord Acre won’t take kindly to my kidnapping her. And neither will the King.’ As if the King’s opinion had ever held him back.

  Thomas smiled and took Bessie’s hand.

  ‘If we had feared the King’s opinion, we would not have come at all.’

  If they had feared the King’s opinion, they would not be wed.

  No. He was the one his father had trusted to hold the clan together. He had been chosen because, unlike Johnnie and Bessie, he put the family above any weakness he might have for a certain dark-haired, green-eyed Storwick wench. It was selfish to even consider his own happiness.

  And yet, as he saw them, each united with a loving partner, they seemed to have found something that had eluded him. Contentment. Peace. Happiness.

  Love.

  Weaknesses he had avoided. Things he had never been selfish enough to want. Things he had never believed he deserved.

  Before …

  And neither had Stella. Both of them chosen by their parents for some higher purpose more important than personal sentiment. Well, he did not know what Stella’s purpose was, but he was certain it did not involve marriage to Oswyn Storwick.

  They all looked at him, expectant. Cate nudged the dog forwards. The dog who had found Stella one long, dark night not too long ago. ‘Bring her home, Rob.’

  All the tightness seemed to leave his body. And he knew what he must do. What her father, God rest his soul, would want. He nodded. ‘I’ll not let her be shackled to one of those weaklings.’

  What consequences would he spark? Well, he would consider those when they came.

  There was no well hole in the middle of the dark, dank sheepherder’s hut where they took her, but Stella choked on her fear even so.

  Her mother had pressed a crucifix and rosary into her hands as Humphrey and Oswyn stood out of earshot.

  ‘God will guide you,’ her mother said, with a grip tight enough to crack her fingers. ‘We are waiting.’

  Stella looked down at the boxwood beads draped across her clawed hands and felt nothing.

  They put some food on the floor and closed the door on her. The roof sloped low and steep. The stone walls were barely tall enough to stand and the holes to let light in were small.

  In prosperous times, a shepherd would be sleeping here only during the few, dark hours of summer. Otherwise, he would be out with the sheep.

  And when she heard them drop a bar across the door, she could barely stifle the scream.

  And then she was grateful for the beads, for they allowed her to pray to God, not for guidance, but for deliverance.

  Rob’s first instinct was to storm the Storwicks’ stronghold. He had seen enough of the layout to know where they could enter and had seen enough of the Storwick fighting men to know that, without Hobbes, they had become soft and lax.

  But he was not willing to put his men at risk for his personal desires. No. Once again, only the closest of family would do. He and Johnnie and Thomas Carwell would do this alone.

  They, to taunt the Storwick men and cause a diversion.

  And Rob? Rob would find Stella.

  Stella had lost track of the days.

  Outside the sliver between the stones, light came and went. Once a day—or was it every two days?—someone opened the door and came with food. When it opened, the light almost blinded her.

  Once, her mother had come to pra
y outside her door. ‘Has God sent you any visions, Stella?’

  She laughed at that one. Aye, God had sent her visions. Of Rob Brunson. Of being in his arms, of taking him inside her.

  In fact, she was sure now. He was inside her still.

  No woman’s time had come to her since her father’s death. The babe she had always wanted was growing inside her. And when, if, they ever let her out, she did not think they would believe that God had visited her like the Virgin. The child would be in danger if her sin were discovered.

  Yet what could be a bigger miracle than a babe made between the heads of Brunson and Storwick? What could be a larger purpose than to bring peace?

  The old thought, of marrying Rob, took root amid the dark days, clinging like a plant that clutched a stone.

  Was it from God? From the delusions of loneliness? Logic? Or just a stubborn heart? She wasn’t sure. But it comforted her in the dark hours.

  If only she could sneak away and cross the border as she had done before. But she could not be certain Rob would have her. Certainly Cate and Bessie would not. And Rob would never choose her over his family.

  And so, another day passed. And another night.

  Rob followed Belde into the hills as the sun disappeared. The June night was short. He had not much time.

  Her scent still clung, faint, to the handkerchief, thankfully not destroyed by his own. Belde had caught it and Rob took him back to the place they had crossed the border and picked up her trail from there. If he was lucky, the dog would catch the fresher scent from the direction her family had taken her.

  If not, he might end up squarely in front of the castle, in a perfect position for Storwick target practice.

  Fortunately, Belde veered higher into the hills, tracking a small stream as if it had been her footpath, leading him into pastureland that should have sheltered a flock. But if Storwick sheep were grazing in the hills, it was on another slope.

  Belde quickened his pace. Seeing by starlight, Rob could make out three huts, normally sleeping quarters for the shepherds. The dog ran immediately to the centre one, sniffing around the door, tail wagging, impatient for Rob to rejoice in the success of the hunt.

  Rob dismounted slowly. No guards. No light. No sound. Nothing to indicate anyone was within.