“Ye wouldn’t rather remain outside tonight?” he asked her.
“Nay,” Maggie replied. “While this should not be a night for raiders for the moon is dark, and most celebrate this night, I shouldn’t like to be caught outside my walls if someone decided to come calling uninvited.”
“Yer a practical woman,” he chuckled.
“Ye’ll like my bed better than a rocky hillside,” she promised him, taking his hand to lead him back up the hill. The Midsummer fire still blazed, but the trestles and benches were even now being carried back into the house as they walked slowly together across the drawbridge. The laird was nowhere to be seen.
“Let me make certain he is settled,” Maggie said as they climbed the stairs together. “Then I’ll come to ye.” Giving him a quick kiss, she turned to the door to Dugald Kerr’s bedchamber.
But Fingal Stewart reached out to draw his wife back to his side. “Listen,” he said softly. “I believe yer grandsire is well settled, Maggie mine.”
She listened, and then blushed furiously. From her grandfather’s bedchamber came several easily identifiable sounds; the bed ropes creaking rhymically, the happy giggles of a woman, and the satisfied grunts of the man laboring over a woman. “God’s toenail!” Maggie whispered. “He has a woman in there with him.” Then she chuckled. “The next time he pretends to be frail to gain his way with me, I shall remember this.”
“He’s setting us a proper example,” Fin murmured in her ear as he drew her into her bedchamber. Shutting the door, he backed her up against it, his big body pressing into hers, his mouth seeking and finding her lips. His hands came up to undo the laces of her shirt, pushing it back over her shoulders. His fingers tore at the fabric of her chemise as he kissed her over and over until his own head was spinning with the sweetness she was returning. His hand clasped about her waist, lifting her up so his mouth might clamp about the nipple of a breast. He groaned as his nose pressed against the silken flesh.
His lips! Holy Mother Mary, she had missed his lips! His mouth was big, but his lips were long and shapely. They knew how to give a woman pleasure so sweet that she would not care if death overtook her at that exact moment as long as his lips remained on hers. She gave herself over to his foraging mouth, kissing him back again and again until she was dizzy with the sweetness herself. When he had lifted her up to take her nipple in his mouth, Maggie gave a distinct cry of pleasure.
“Oh God,” she gasped, “I’ve missed ye so, Fingal Stewart!”
He suckled on the nipple but a moment before setting her back on her feet. Maggie’s legs felt like jelly, but she managed to retain her balance by clutching at him. As if guided by another, she tore at his shirt, ripping it open and licking at his flesh with long strokes of her wet tongue. His fingers found the tie holding her skirt up. He pulled it open so that the skirt fell to the floor. Her fingers found the buttons to his breeks, and undid them, pushing them off and over his hips. He ripped the remainder of her chemise away. She reached for his cock, finding it engorged and ready for play.
“Here!” he said, his hands beneath her buttocks as he lifted her up.
“Now!” she acquiesced, her hands guiding him.
He thrust hard, groaning as the heated silken walls of her sheath swallowed him whole. How long had it been? He struggled to control his unfettered lust.
She wrapped herself about him, legs around his torso, arms encircling his neck. “Oh Fingal!” she breathed hotly into his ear as his thick length filled her. She hadn’t realized until now how much she had missed this passion between them.
He began to move upon her, driving back and forth into her, but despite his great need, he found he wanted more and more of her. Holding her tightly in his arms, he turned and walked across the chamber to lay her upon the bed. Her legs fell away from him as he set her down, but reaching for those legs, he drew them up and over his shoulders. Then standing over her, he began to piston her once more with long deep strokes of his cock over and over and over again until they were both almost unconscious. Maggie screamed softly as each delicious thrust brought her closer and closer to perfection. Fin groaned at the incredible sweetness the possession of her body gave him. Finally he could contain himself no longer. His juices burst forth, sending them into a paroxysm of ecstasy that left them totally exhausted as incredible pleasure flowed through them.
Withdrawing from her, Fin fell facedown onto the bed, where he lay for some minutes. Finally turning over, he gathered her into his arms, breathing slowly, his face in her scented hair. He felt her hands caressing him gently. Together they fell into a contented sleep. When they awoke shortly before the early dawn, they were still where they had fallen earlier, and chilled by the night air. They crawled beneath the coverlet, Fin drawing Maggie against him, his hand clasping one of her plump breasts, her bottom pressed into his groin.
He awoke upon his back with the sun up and shining into the bedchamber to find his wife straddling him, playing with his upstanding cock. Maggie smiled wickedly down into his face; then without a word she raised herself up to sheath him. “I have always enjoyed a brisk ride in the early morning,” she said mischievously.
He grinned back, reaching up to take her two breasts into his hands so he might fondle them. “How alike we are, Maggie mine,” he said.
“Yer content to be my stallion?” she asked, jogging just slightly.
“I expect to see ye ride me at a full gallop, madam,” he told her.
“Gladly, my lord,” Maggie said.
Then she rode him hard until he rewarded her with his tribute, but not before turning her over onto her back, reversing their positions, and galloping her all the way home. They fell away from each other, gasping, and laughing.
“Oh, Maggie mine, how I love ye, lass!” he told her.
“And I love ye also, Fingal Stewart.” Then she grew serious. “Ye’ll keep yer promise to me? No more wars?”
“No more wars, love. I will only take up my sword in defense of Brae Aisir and what is our own,” he promised her. Then he sealed his promise with a deep kiss.
Maggie could have let him go on kissing her, but she didn’t. “We have to get up,” she said to him. “There is much for us to do today. I want to send a message to Netherdale that we are coming to fetch the bairns.”
“Aye, we’ll go tomorrow,” he agreed as he climbed from their bed. “I’m a selfish man, and I want one more day with just ye alone, wife.”
“Now that ye have yer memory back,” she teased him.
“Will ye never let me forget my sins, madam?” he asked, smiling.
“Nay, never!” she told him, and then Maggie laughed aloud.
Two perfect summer days in a row were a gift. Fingal Stewart and Maggie rode out after their morning meal with a party of their men-at-arms to explore their lands, making certain that the Hay was gone from them and that all was as it should be. They were relieved to find no trace of Ewan Hay, but disturbed to discover that a flock of sheep in the summer meadows had disappeared. At first there was no sign of the shepherds or the dogs, but then they found them in a wooded copse. Men and dogs had been slain.
The clansmen gathered up their kinsmen, returning to the village so the shepherds might be buried properly and mourned. The canines were buried where they had fallen.
Maggie shook her head. “I did not think raiders would strike on Midsummer, and without a bright border moon.”
“They were probably killed at dawn or close to it,” Fin said. “Neither dogs nor men were quite cold yet.”
“Our location has usually kept us safe,” Maggie said sadly.
“We need to get our bairns home,” Fingal Stewart said.
“I dispatched the messenger,” Maggie told her husband. “We go tomorrow.”
They departed before the sun was even up the next day, but the coming day was already bright. They had not yet reached the border when they saw Rafe Kerr riding towards them with a man-at-arms. Each man carried a boy before him on his saddle. The two lads waved
and called out to their parents.
“Rafe!” Maggie waved a welcome. “Ah, how good ye are, Cousin. Ye didn’t have to bring the boys. We were happy to come and fetch them.”
“ ’Twas better I brought them, and quickly,” Rafe Kerr told her. “Da was of a mind not to let them go. Aldis took him off to calm him. He grows stranger as each day passes, Maggie. This obsession to control the whole of the Aisir nam Breug is a sickness with him, and it grows stronger. I’ll do my best to keep him under control, but beware.” He held out his hand to Fin. “I’m glad to see ye returned safely.”
“He lost his memory for a time,” Maggie told her cousin. “Imagine forgetting me! I am not certain I can forgive such an oversight.”
Rafe Kerr laughed. “Aye, Cousin, I can’t imagine such a thing.” He winked at Fingal Stewart. “I hope ye’ve chastised him properly for it.” He lifted David Stewart from the front of his saddle and handed him to his father as the man-at-arms passed Andrew to Maggie.
“Ye came home, Da! That poxy Hay said ye were dead, but Mama said nay,” Davy Stewart told his father. “Our mama never lies,” Davy confided to his companions.
“Did ye kill the Hay?” Andrew asked.
“Nay, lads, we sent him back to his brother,” Fin told his boys.
Davy and Andrew looked disappointed.
“Yer da was very brave and captured the keep right out from under the nose of the Hay,” Maggie said. “When we get home, I’ll tell ye all about it,” she promised. She looked to her cousin again. “Thank ye, Rafe.”
He nodded.
“We were raided last night in the far summer meadows,” Fin told Rafe. “Two shepherds and their dogs were killed, and a flock of sheep stolen. There will be more raids back and forth, I’m certain. Keep a watch.”
“The sheep can be replaced,” Rafe said, “but the men and dogs can’t.” He shook his head. “It’s going to get bad. The travelers are falling off, which is always a warning sign of trouble. The gossip I’m garnering says that King Henry will have your little Queen Mary for his son, Prince Edward. He’ll not take no for an answer either.”
“French Mary, I suspect, plans a French marriage for her daughter. The French king’s heir is available. She will hold to the auld alliance, Rafe.”
“God help us all here on both sides of the borders,” Rafe Kerr said.
They parted, Maggie and Fin taking their sons home again. Their daughter had been brought up from the village by her new wet nurse while they had been gone. Annabelle Stewart was now almost three months old, and Fin was enchanted with this petite black-haired replica of his wife. The news Rafe had passed on to them troubled him. As he held the tiny girl in his arms, he felt more strongly than ever the great responsibility that Brae Aisir was. He couldn’t fail his family, his clan folk, or the laird.
The news as the summer progressed grew worse. The peace treaty that had been drawn up between England and Scotland lingered, waiting to be signed. A second treaty that would send little Queen Mary to England as Prince Edward’s bride when she was ten, and he fifteen, also waited for signatures. But Henry Tudor’s arrogance was badly eroding the pro-English faction in Scotland. Any child produced by a marriage between Mary and Edward would inherit Scotland’s throne. The English king was not treating Scotland as an equal, but rather as a vassal state.
Cardinal Beaton, released from confinement, welcomed back from voluntary exile in France the abbot of Paisley, who was the Earl of Arran’s bastard half brother, along with the Earl of Lennox. The pro-French faction grew stronger with the return of these two men. Feeling more secure than she had in months, the Queen Mother removed her infant daughter from Linlithgow to the better-fortified Stirling Castle protected as they traveled by twenty-five hundred horsemen and a thousand men-at-arms on foot.
On the ninth of September 1543, little baby Mary, seated upon her mother’s lap, was officially crowned queen of Scotland.
The year came to a close, and the English parliament had not ratified the peace treaty between the two countries. Nor had they confirmed the marriage agreement that would unite the two countries. It was at this point the Scots, directed by Cardinal Beaton and the Queen Mother, suggested that the queen, now a year old, be wed to the twenty-six-year-old Earl of Lennox, who now stood second in line to the throne behind the Earl of Arran.
At Brae Aisir, other than a few more raids that summer that were beaten off, the countryside was quiet as it waited for Henry Tudor to retaliate. The Earl of Arran, the little queen’s heir, was not pleased at the thought of the Earl of Lennox marrying her. Nothing, however, came of the suggestion. The Borders lay waiting for what would come next in this drama between their rulers.
The autumn and the winter came. Annabelle Stewart was toddling all over the keep after her brothers. Both Davy and Andrew could now ride by themselves. Fin was surprised to one day come upon his wife teaching their sons the rudimentary uses of a sword. The boys had been outfitted with wooden swords just their size. He watched fascinated as they parried and thrust.
Seeing him watching them Maggie called out, “Ye’ll soon have them to teach yerself. I thought it was time they started learning. After all, they don’t live in Edinburgh.” And she grinned at him.
“Tell me when ye think they’re ready for me,” Fin said.
“Watch me, Da!” Davy called, waving his wooden sword.
“Nay, watch me!” Andrew cried.
“I’ll watch ye both,” Fin told them, and he did.
Spring returned again and with it began Henry Tudor’s rough wooing of Scotland’s queen. Prince Edward’s uncle, Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford, came into Scotland with sixteen thousand soldiers, landing his men on the beaches of the Firth of Forth. A second English army even larger than Seymour’s crossed over the River Tweed, advancing forward and destroying everything in its path.
Newly planted fields just showing green growth were trampled over. Livestock was wantonly slaughtered or taken to feed the two vast armies. Farms and villages were burned to the ground, their inhabitants—men, women, children, the aged—murdered. The women as usual suffered the worst for the unfettered rape that was permitted by the English commanders.
Nothing in the path of the English invaders was spared, including the church. Along the border were some of Scotland’s greatest abbeys—Kelso, Dryburgh, Melrose, and Jedburgh. All were sacked and then burned to the ground; the monks slaughtered without mercy. Edinburgh’s port of Leith was in ruins. Edinburgh was attacked, and part of the city burned for two days. The castle itself could not be taken, but the English sacked both Holyrood Abbey and its adjoining palace.
Marie de Guise quickly had the little queen moved from Stirling north into Perthshire. They took up residence in Dunkeld Castle. The English who had been advancing on Stirling stopped upon learning their quarry had escaped them. They returned to England, leaving the southeast of Scotland in shock, mourning, and ruins.
Word of this tragedy was slow to reach Brae Aisir, but the lack of traffic both ways through the pass told them that something was very wrong. Fin doubled the watch and kept the cattle and sheep nearer to the keep as the summer progressed. Not until late July when a member of the Kira banking family came from Edinburgh to go south to England did they learn the extent of what had happened.
They were not located on the south side of the city, which had suffered the most damage, he told them. “Thank God for the Aisir nam Breug,” he said, “for I need to get to London to inform our family there of what has happened here. We must remain open for our clients, of course, but it is dangerous now, and likely to become more dangerous.”
“It’s begun, and God help us all now,” Fingal Stewart said. “We may not escape the ravages of the war that is not really a war. I will have to keep the drawbridge up now as the Hay did. It’s becoming too dangerous to leave it down.”
“No one has attacked us,” Maggie said.
“There is war all around us, Maggie mine,” he told her. “We cannot wa
it for an attack to come, but we must be ready when it does, for it surely will.”
And for the first time in her life Maggie Kerr was afraid. But she was not fearful for herself; she was fearful for her two sons, her daughter, and the new bairn she suspected she was carrying. If Master Kira was to be believed, the English had spared no one, even the littlest of children. The thought of their coming to Brae Aisir sent an icy shiver through her. She went to the keep’s little armory, and taking down her claymore, she began to carefully hone its dulled blade to a fine sharp edge. If the English came to Brae Aisir, Mad Maggie Kerr would be more than ready.
Chapter 19
Ewan Hay had returned home to find the older of his two brothers not particularly welcoming.
“Ye had yer chance,” Lord Hay told him. “ ’Tis over now.”
“Her husband returned,” Ewan whined. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Aye, her husband came back, but ye were outmaneuvered. I’ll wager ye still haven’t figured out how he got into the keep. There was probably some secret entry, but ye made no effort to befriend the Kerrs. Instead, ye walled yerself up with yer own men and gained no allies,” his older brother said. “Yer a fool, but then I always knew it. There’s nothing for ye here at Haydoun.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” Ewan demanded. Curse Mad Maggie Kerr and her husband. They had brought him to this ruin. He’d have his revenge on them somehow.
“Go to England,” Lord Hay advised.
“What?” Ewan Hay was astounded by his brother’s words. “Why would I go to England?” he demanded to know.
“For the coin they will put in yer purse, of course, ye donkey,” Lord Hay told him. “King Henry is determined to have our queen for his son. There is a strong pro-English faction here in Scotland. They are being paid in hard coin to support this marriage.”
“And how would ye know this, Brother?”
Lord Hay smiled archly. “Ye could become one of what the English call assured Scots, Ewan. Seek out the Earl of Hertford, and tell him yer my brother. That I sent ye to him. Ye’ll be welcome, and I’m certain yer firsthand knowledge of the Aisir nam Breug will be a great interest to him.”
The Border Vixen Page 38