Taken by the Border Rebel

by Blythe Gifford

  Everywhere else, they were enemies.

  How could she have thought that would change?

  ‘If you’d let me, I would stay a little longer,’ she said, grateful she had kept her silence. No good to speak of love that could never see sunlight. No good for him to know of a child whose blood he’d despise. Better that he brought her to this spot and warned her before she confessed it all.

  Yet she could not go back to a home where nothing, not even her past, was certain. Perhaps she was destined to roam the hills as the Lost Storwick did, at home on neither side of the border.

  ‘Just …’ she stumbled over the words ‘… a little longer.’

  ‘How long, lass? How long?’

  She swallowed, speechless.

  Without another word, they turned back to the horses.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When they returned, Stella saw the tower brimming with activity. The courtyard was being raked, the tower scrubbed, pots were clanging in the kitchen.

  The King will be here soon.

  A royal visitor. Of course, there would be much to do.

  Rob had been tugged away as soon as they entered and she caught a glimpse of Bessie, directing Beggy Tait with an ease Stella had never felt.

  She stood, letting the work swirl around her. Well, the least she could do would be to help.

  But first, she would be sure her chamber was empty and ready for a visitor. More of those three thousand men the Brunsons could raise had arrived. She would sleep in a corner of the corridor, if necessary.

  She had virtually nothing to collect, she realised, as she looked around the room. Even her rosary had slipped away when Rob had brought her here. She had nothing of the Storwicks but the clothes that covered her skin and the cross around her neck.

  A rustle of skirts and she turned to see Bessie at the door.

  ‘I was clearing the room,’ she said. ‘In case it is needed. How else can I help?’

  Relief edged Bessie’s smile. ‘A hand with the washing would not be amiss.’

  Working in silence, they stripped the bedclothes. ‘When does the King come?’ she asked, finally.

  ‘A week. Maybe less.’

  ‘And he’ll be housed here?’ She could not envision it. The tower was strong, but not fit for a king.

  ‘We do not know what will happen.’

  The King is not happy with me.

  And then she realised. Food stocks, sharp weapons, all prepared the tower for an attack or a siege as well as for guests. And she’d be trapped here, in a war that was not hers.

  Do you want me to go? Rob had not said yes. But he had offered her a chance to escape.

  ‘You, Cate, all of you have been more kind than I had any right to expect.’ In fact, virtually nothing about the Brunsons had been as she had expected. ‘I am grateful.’

  ‘He’s my brother.’

  Simple words. But the implication warmed her. Because I care for him and he cares for you. Was that what Bessie meant?

  Yet the caring, even the loving, wasn’t enough.

  Stella carried her small bundle, borrowed comb and chipped looking glass, to the top floor and tucked them in an out-of-the-way corner. In the corridor, Thomas Carwell suddenly appeared, windblown from the parapet, frowning.

  She stepped back. She had exchanged few words with the other men of Rob’s family, particularly this one. But his frown seemed specifically for her and she raised her chin, determined to address it. ‘Is there something you would say to me, Lord Carwell?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Rob tells me you have chosen to stay.’

  She nodded. ‘For a while.’

  ‘Do not let the King see you. Not if you care for him at all.’

  He turned away and went down the stairs.

  Suddenly, it was all clear. The King would assume she was a captive, no matter if she argued otherwise. And though it was not true today, it had been true, once. That, on top of what was no doubt a multitude of other sins, would be enough to hang him.

  But did she love him enough to leave him?

  And could she leave him knowing she carried his child?

  As if her thoughts had conjured him, Rob appeared before her. She tried to read his face now, to understand what lay behind his eyes, but all the softness she had glimpsed was gone.

  He was Black Rob again. And a Brunson.

  ‘Come.’

  Rob clenched his hands to keep from touching her as he led her to a corner of the parapet out of sight of the man on guard.

  A little longer, she had begged. Just as she had tried to hold him at the Storwick Tower. Which of them was the weaker? She for asking, or he for agreeing?

  Well, he must be the strong one now.

  And the bravest thing he did was to look into her eyes when he spoke.

  ‘I took you home.’ Like cutting out his heart, but a decision he had made with his head. ‘Thinking your kin would keep you safe.’

  Her eyes darkened. No, not safe. With scars he had yet to discover, scars that might never heal.

  Once more, words he had said to her too often. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She shook her head. ‘You could not know. I thought it was for the best, too.’

  ‘But when I learned …’ The next decision, for good or ill, had been made from the heart. Now, he must keep the anger at bay, along with the love. ‘About what they did, I came to take you back.’

  Had that been a better choice? It had put them in limbo, that place at the edge of Hell reserved for unbaptised infants, not together, yet no longer enemies.

  ‘And I thank you.’ She reached towards him, but he stepped back.

  He must not touch her. Not if he was to finish.

  She sighed. ‘And that has brought fresh danger, for you this time.’

  ‘You are not safe with your family.’

  ‘And I put you in greater danger here.’

  Relieved, he watched her look away, giving each of them a moment to think.

  ‘There is only one place I can think of to go.’ She looked back at him. ‘Will you take me?’

  A few days later, astride a sturdy Brunson pony, Stella watched the red stone abbey glowing hellish in the reflected sunset. Around her, the horses galloped much too quickly. She was almost there.

  Rob had brought a small group of men. Enough for protection and enough so that they had not a private moment.

  And what would she have said to him if they had?

  He held up a hand to stop the group, still far enough from the walls that an arrow could not reach them. Even God’s houses were ready to defend themselves on the Borders.

  ‘You’ll be safe here,’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘We’ll stay until we see you inside.’

  He had taken risk enough, to bring her back over the border. Not home, but to this small abbey, where a few holy brothers and sisters still prayed for the salvation of men’s wicked souls. Where she would be safe, at least, from the worst that Storwicks could do to her. And he would be safe from the crime of holding her.

  A little longer, for ever, both were no more. Her gaze clung to his and she searched for a word that was not farewell.

  ‘You’re a good man, Rob,’ she said, finally. ‘Even if you be a Brunson. I’ll be praying …’ She would not cry. ‘I’ll be praying that the King spares you and yours.’

  He nodded, never a man generous with thanks. ‘God be with you.’

  Did she hear tears in the words?

  She turned her horse towards the abbey’s gate and heard the other horses retreat as she entered the courtyard.

  A white-robed monk greeted her. She gave him her name, too weary to say more.

  His eyes widened. ‘Stella, daughter of Hobbes? Your mother has just arrived. She did not tell us you were coming.’

  She was not given a choice, but was ushered immediately to her mother’s room.

  Her mother knelt on her prayer bench, smaller and more frail than only a few weeks ago.
/>
  She rose, her back to the door, not knowing who came, but when she turned to see Stella, she dropped back to her knees, eyes wide. ‘Another miracle. God saves you again. We went to the hut, the stone was rolled away, as if you might have risen.’

  ‘You put me in that place, that awful place.’ Anger nearly throttled her words. ‘How could you?’

  ‘I thought, we thought …’ Her mother looked around the room, as if expecting the angel to appear. ‘It was time. Time for you to find your reason. The reason you were saved. And then, God performed another miracle and you were gone—’

  ‘There was no miracle, Mother!’

  ‘Blasphemy! Of course there was. The hut was empty—’

  ‘No. There was not.’ This time, she would make her mother hear. ‘There was only a Brunson who came to save a Storwick.’

  At the simple statement her mother’s face froze. Shaking fingers formed the sign of the cross. ‘God did not forgive me. All the prayers and still He holds me to account.’

  An answer, at long last. ‘For what, Mother? God holds you to account for what?’

  She shook her head, tears speaking what words could not.

  ‘There was no miracle all those years ago, was there?’

  Fear, shame, guilt, relief—what were the emotions flickering across her mother’s face?

  ‘Tell me the truth, Mother. What really happened?’

  A lifetime of lies, finally, not strong enough.

  ‘The fault was mine.’ Her mother’s words, muttered like a prayer for forgiveness. ‘All mine. I did not watch you as I should have. You wandered off, disappeared …’

  She could feel the fear, even taste it. Had she not suffered the same way when Wat was lost? Regret, guilt, thinking if only …

  ‘I was young and tired and careless and I fell asleep. I didn’t even know when you had gone.’

  Forty days and forty nights. For ever. All the same to a fearful mother.

  ‘What happened then?’ She had to creep up on the story, cautiously as she had approached the hole in the ground, for the truth of this would be deeper and still dangerous.

  ‘I had to find you, but I couldn’t ask for help. Everyone would have known then what I had done, how bad I was. So I went alone.’

  ‘Did I even fall down a well?’

  ‘Oh, yes. That’s where I found you. I lay on the ground and tried to reach you, but you were too far away. You cried, oh, how you cried, and I was crying, but I couldn’t reach you and God was going to snatch you away from me because I had been a bad mother.’

  Long-buried pain played over her face, fresh as if she lived it still. And then, beatific peace smoothed it all away. ‘That’s when he appeared.’

  ‘Mother! There was no angel!’

  ‘No, not an angel.’ Her mother faced her now. ‘A Brunson. A Brunson saved you.’

  At the words, Stella’s very skin seemed to lie differently over her bones.

  A brown-eyed angel. No wonder her mother had not wanted her to remember. ‘What Brunson?’

  ‘I don’t know which one, I never saw him again, but I knew those eyes and the way he carried his spear. He was a Brunson, all right. He must have heard me crying. All of a sudden, he was just there, tall and strong enough to reach down and pull you up and place you into my arms.’

  No reason for a Brunson to ride alone on Storwick land in daylight. Or perhaps no more than for a Storwick to cross the border looking for her father.

  ‘So you told a different story.’ One that would hide her guilt and the Brunson’s goodness.

  ‘And I’ve spent the years since praying for forgiveness.’ Her mother nodded, not meeting Stella’s eyes.

  All those days and nights on her knees, and still … ‘But did you confess? To a priest?’ Penance, absolution. Such were the church’s blessings.

  ‘How could I? Even your father never knew.’

  Stella saw it all now. The years had passed, and the longer her mother stayed silent, the greater her sin. By avoiding the confession of this, her most grievous act, she now stood in danger of being cast from the church altogether.

  Then, as if admitting the truth, finally, had released her, she grabbed her daughter’s hands, all eagerness again. ‘You see, don’t you? If an angel saved you, if God answered my prayers, then no one would blame me for letting you wander away. It would all be part of God’s special plan for you. But to admit that my neglect had put you into a Brunson’s hands …’ She shook her head. ‘No. That I could never do.’

  Stella turned her head, unable to meet her mother’s eyes. Instead, she looked around the small, barren room, as unfamiliar as the truth she had just learned. No miracle, then. Or not the one she had been taught. Just a small child wandering too far from home, lucky to have the help of a kind stranger who just happened to be an enemy.

  No expectations. No reason God had saved her. Just Stella, an ordinary woman, free to follow her own destiny.

  Free.

  Once, she had believed that the miracle gave her power. Now, she could see it had made her powerless. She had been at the mercy of everything her mother or her family or the priests or her own fears had made of it, her life wasted, waiting for God to tell her what to do. She would wait no more.

  She would make her own miracles.

  She rose and placed her hand on her mother’s bowed head, and bent to kiss her head. Benediction. Forgiveness.

  And turned to leave.

  Her mother scrambled to her feet and grabbed Stella’s hand. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Twice now, I’ve been saved by a Brunson. That’s a debt that wants repaying.’

  ‘You won’t tell them. Please, don’t tell them.’

  Her mother was still trapped by the truth. She was not. ‘Tell them? Tell them what?’

  ‘That God did not save you.’

  ‘Did He not?’ She smiled. ‘Who is to say, Mother, that an angel might not come to earth disguised as a Brunson?’

  Her smile came with her as she left the room to cross the border once again.

  She had little more of a plan than before. And this time, she would need a miracle.

  Rob felt the earth shake before he heard the hoofbeats. Coming from the east at a gallop, still too distant to make out the colours, but he did not need to see the banner clear.

  King James had come at last.

  No talk, no conversations among them now. They had decided what to do and each man moved into his position: his second-in-command atop the tower, the other above the gate. The men stretched out around the tower, clear that they were there to defend and not attack.

  Cate and Bessie stayed inside the walls, though Cate had grumbled at it until Johnnie reminded her that Bessie was with child.

  And Stella … He pushed the unwelcome thought away. She was safe. It was done. Better, perhaps. He might be a dead man by day’s end. Rob mounted Felloun, surprised to see Johnnie and Thomas flank him as he rode towards the gate.

  ‘I do this alone,’ Rob said. ‘If something happens, I need you here.’

  ‘Save your breath, Brother,’ Johnnie said.

  ‘Johnnie and I know the man. You’ve never dealt with him. Do you think we would let you go alone?’

  He started to argue, then realised it would be futile. And as they rode out together, he felt surrounded by a shield stronger than any armour.

  Below the King’s castle, so Bessie had told him, stretched a field near as large as the valley where men dressed in armour and sword and fought each other for fun. And died anyway.

  If the King chose to make this a battlefield, he was ready to die, but not to sacrifice the rest of the Brunsons. They could defend the tower, if need be, for a long, long time.

  Rob pulled his horse to a stop close enough to shout at the King. For a few moments, they all sat, silent. No man smiled.

  Rob was the only one of them who had never seen the King. Tall, red haired, and still sporting the gangly limbs of a boy, the King rode a destrier, dec
ked in horse furniture as fancy as French armour.

  Shifting his gaze from the King, Rob assessed the men around him. Dressed for hunting game or men, the garb was the same. And the numbers? Not eight thousand, then, but enough.

  He looked to Johnnie and Thomas, and they nodded. He urged Felloun one step forwards. ‘I am Rob Brunson. Welcome to my valley,’ Rob began.

  ‘It’s not your valley,’ the King snapped. ‘It is mine. I rule here as surely as I rule the rest of Scotland.’

  You cannot rule soil you’ve never even seen. This land belongs to the Brunsons and has since the First.

  At Johnnie’s warning look, he forced his unruly tongue to silence.

  The King did not wait for an answer. ‘Thomas Carwell, Warden of the March, for the last time, will you bring me this outlaw?’

  ‘And what charge would you have me make of him?’ Carwell, beside him, called back.

  ‘There are so many to choose from,’ Rob muttered.

  ‘First, he disobeyed my summons to bring men to war against my enemy.’

  ‘Ah,’ Thomas said, ‘a misunderstanding. He was defending Scotland’s border here. So his men were still riding in your service.’

  ‘Not where I had asked him to be,’ the King answered.

  ‘But where your Grace would have sent him had you known the threat here.’ The King scowled.

  ‘Why doesn’t he punish you?’ Rob muttered to Thomas. ‘You’ve disobeyed his orders near as often as I.’

  ‘He may still. But last time someone other than a Carwell was Warden of the March,’ Carwell said, ‘chaos ensued.’

  The King’s voice echoed again across the field. ‘Carwell, since you have been too busy to call a Truce Day, as the treaty requires, I have done it.’ He looked to the south and waved his hand.

  The herald beside him raised a long hagbut and fired into the air.

  As if they had been waiting for his signal, a new army rode out of the hills.

  Beside him, Carwell spat a curse. ‘It’s Lord Acre.’

  And the English Warden was followed by every Storwick who could mount a horse.