Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy Two 02] (11 page)

Isabel and her ladies spent the night in Stirling Castle, where she had rooms of her own. The men in her party found lodgings below Castle Hill, in the town.

Thanks to the steepness of the track leading up to the castle, the ponies arrived later than the women did. But the princess’s people were efficient. By the time they had finished their supper, their most necessary belongings were in their rooms.

The weather stayed fine for the next two days, and the long ride from Stirling to Linlithgow, then Dalkeith, four miles south of Edinburgh, passed without incident.

The princess being eager to get home, and Douglas of Dalkeith not yet returned from Perth, they spent only one night at Dalkeith Castle.

Departing early Thursday morning, the princess’s party rode on ahead of the sumpter ponies, following the ancient Lauderdale Road into the Borders.

In general, the two older ladies, Averil and Nancy, took turns riding beside the princess, leaving Amalie to ride either with the one not doing so or with one of the princess’s other two ladies. She liked Lady Sibylla Cavers better than Lady Susan Lennox, who believed herself far superior in rank and was quick to take offense when Isabel was kind to Amalie. Even Susan was carefully civil though, knowing that Isabel would dismiss anyone in her service who was not.

Amalie had been riding silently beside Lady Susan for some time. But in the village of Lauder, as they passed below the high stone wall of its famous fortress, built a hundred years before to protect that important approach to Edinburgh from English invaders, Susan said, “I want a word with Sir Kenneth.” As she said the words, she abruptly turned her mount out of the line of riders.

Amalie sighed, knowing that Susan, thin and lanky with a long, horsy face, and still unwed at the ripe age of five-and-thirty, harbored hopes that Sir Kenneth Maclean, an unwed knight of similar age, might be on the lookout for a wife.

Still, Amalie was glad to ride alone for a while, because she found it trying to carry on sensible conversation with a woman who made no secret of her disdain.

She would prefer to rip Susan’s hair from her head and stuff it into her—

“Good afternoon, my lady. ’Tis a fine soft day, is it not?”

Giving Garth a sour look, she said, “
Must
you always sneak up on a person?”

He grinned, easing his mount alongside hers as he said, “If you think anyone can creep about whilst riding a horse like this one, you’re daft!”

Lady Nancy, ahead of them, turned to look at him with strong disapproval.

“. . .
if
you will pardon my saying so, my lady,” he added hastily to Amalie. Lowering his voice considerably, he said, “In troth, lass, you must have been lost in thought. I hope you were deciding to tell me what I want to know.”

Since she could hardly tell him what she
had
been thinking, especially when Lady Nancy might hear, she said, “Why are you not riding with the other knights?”

“Because I was riding with Maclean and Lady Susan ordered me to ride elsewhere,” he said, still smiling. “I think she is laying siege to Castle Kenneth.”

Unable to suppress a smile at his turn of phrase, Amalie, too, kept her voice down to say, “It has been a long one, too. But so far she has failed to breach a wall.”

He chuckled. “I have observed her for only a few days, so mayhap I have much to learn about her. But she chatters enough to drive a man to distraction.”

“I wonder that he allows it,” Amalie said.

“Mayhap he considers it part of his duty to keep her from annoying the princess,” he suggested.

“She doesn’t chatter when she is with Isabel.”

“Then doubtless Isabel has told her it annoys her,” he said with satisfaction, as if he had proven his point.

Giving him another look, Amalie said, “It is also possible that Lady Susan is nervous when she is with Sir Kenneth, and chatters because he does not talk much himself . . . or so I have found. I think he has the wits of a stick.”

“ ’Tis just as well you don’t like him,” he said. “ ’Twould be unseemly if all the princess’s ladies laid siege to her defenseless knights.”

“It would be daft even if they
were
defenseless,” she retorted. “Isabel keeps two—soon to be three—knights with her only so she has experienced men to protect her, to lead her men-at-arms when she travels, and to keep them in order at home.

“Before James Douglas died,” she added, “Isabel always rode with an armed tail of her own, because he provided one. Afterward, Fife ordered her to dismiss those men, saying it was unseemly for her to travel with so many. But Isabel did not trust Fife. She knew he just wanted her to live under his thumb at Stirling.”

Realizing she might have said too much, Amalie tried to judge his reaction with another quick glance.

He was frowning, but when he caught her gaze, the frown vanished.

He said, “It is most unusual for any woman to travel with a tail that rivals that of many barons. But somehow . . .”

“Somehow it does not seem strange for Isabel,” she said when he paused. “Moreover, her knights have always been loyal to her.”

“I should hope so,” he said, giving her a narrow look. “They serve her, after all. Therefore, they owe her their loyalty.”

“Are you loyal to her, sir?”

“Aye, sure, I am,” he said. “ ’Twould be dishonorable to be otherwise.”

“But you are friendly with Fife,” Amalie said. “Mayhap you are not aware that she believes he murdered her husband.”

“Lass, her husband is Sir John Edmonstone of that Ilk,” he said gently.

“You know I meant James Douglas—or you should know it. It is true that Isabel has been married to Sir John for the best part of a year now. But I have seen him only twice, because she spends almost no time with him. Surely you know that when she says she means to stay at home now that the renovations there are finished, she means she will be staying at Sweethope Hill House, not at Edmonstone.”

“What I know is that you have succeeded yet again in diverting me from the subject,” he said. “I want to know why you question my loyalty to the princess.”

“But I told you,” she protested. “Because you are friends with Fife.”

“And I told you, I am
not
friends with Fife. Moreover, whatever else one may believe of him, he did not murder James Douglas. Fife was with Archie in Cumberland when James died, at least ninety miles away from him.”

She regarded him scornfully. “You must know that a man does not have to be at hand to end another man’s life.” Leaning closer, she muttered, “You should know, too, that Fife
never
dirties his own hands.”

“Sakes, did Isabel tell you that?”

“Aye, she did, and others did, as well.”

“What others?”

“Why would I tell you when you are friends with him?”

“Lass, even if I
were
friends with the man, it would not lessen my loyalty to the princess whilst I serve her.”

She began to protest, but he raised a hand, silencing her as he added, “Nor would I repeat aught that you say to me without your leave, to him or to anyone.”

“And you never lie?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t believe that, so why should I believe the rest?”

Once again, he looked as if he wanted to murder her, but she could not help that. Everyone told falsehoods from time to time. That was just plain fact.

His emotions now visibly under tight control, he said, “You can believe me when I say that Fife is not my friend, and never was. When you saw us talking, he had approached me. I explained that before.”

“How did you come to join us?” she asked. “Do you know Sir Duncan Forrest? Did he send for you to replace him?”

“He did not. I know who he is. I’d heard his name at tournaments, but I made his acquaintance only Monday, as we left Scone.”

“Then how came you to enter Isabel’s service?”

“A mutual friend arranged it,” he said, visibly uncomfortable now.

“Who?”

“That is not for me to say,” he replied. “I told you I do not lie, and I will not. But neither am I obliged to answer every question you put to me.”

“True enough, although I cannot imagine why you won’t answer that one.” She eyed him hopefully, but he remained silent. “Oh, very well then,” she said. “I expect you’ll be glad to learn that Sweethope is just two or three miles from here.”

“I should think it is more likely to be five miles or so,” he said.

“Faith, do you know Sweethope, then? Have you been there before?”

“I know Sweethope Hill lies ten miles from Lauder and rises above Eden Water,” he said. “I also know we’ve traveled no more than half that distance.”

“Isabel did say it was ten miles from Lauder,” she admitted. “But how would you know that? Did she tell you, too?”

“She did not need to. Sithee, my home lies near Lauderdale. I’ve known about Sweethope Hill since I was a bairn, before Jamie Douglas settled that estate on the princess when he married her. The place suffered a good deal of damage, though, during the last English invasion and in English raids before that.”

“Aye, and Isabel told me the Douglases were annoyed when James settled Sweethope on her, because they thought he should keep all the Douglas estates. But doubtless, he expected everything they both had to go to their son one day,” she added. “If he’d ever had time to sire a son.”

“He had time to sire many sons,” Sir Garth said. “He just kept so busy that he never stayed long enough in one place to be sure of siring one. In any event, that is how I know that Sweethope is ten miles from Lauder.”

“It is also ten miles from Melrose Abbey,” she said. “And you may be sure that if we are going to stay long at Sweethope we will visit the abbey often.”

“Because James Douglas is buried there,” he said.

She nodded.

“Before then, lass, you must tell me what you know,” he said, still speaking quietly but in a tone that told her he meant what he said.

“I’ve already told you all I can,” she said, looking straight ahead. “I did not hear what they were saying.”

“You lied about that, though. And lying helps no one.”

“Giving information to the wrong person helps no one, either,” she retorted.

“I wish you could bring yourself to trust me,” he said with a sigh.

“I told you, I trust no man.”

“Sakes, but who can have hurt you so, to bring you to such a state?”

She could not answer, although just hearing the question brought tears to her eyes. Fortunately, Lady Susan rejoined them, ending for Amalie the need to think of an answer to his question that would not tax her own emotions even more.

He fell back to ride with Sir Kenneth, and the rest of the journey passed in a fog as Amalie fought the images that kept rising to trouble her mind.

She would not remember. She could not. When they rode into the stableyard at Sweethope Hill, she swung her off leg over to dismount by herself as a handsome man appeared from the nearby stable and strode to meet the princess.

“Good day, madam,” he said with a bow to Isabel. “You were expecting me, I believe, from Edmonstone. I am Harald Boyd, and wholly at your service.”

Garth studied the newcomer, noting as he did that the lass was studying him, too. However, Boyd seemed to have focused all his attention on the princess, who greeted him politely but without enthusiasm. Clearly, Garth thought, if the Douglas did not choose her knights, she preferred to choose them for herself.

He had little time to think about Boyd though, because gillies were attending to the horses. And Sir Kenneth Maclean was issuing a string of orders.

A man and woman who were clearly the princess’s housekeeper and steward had hurried out to meet her. Soon, they, too, were issuing orders.

Thereafter, a bustle of activity took place that lasted until they had all had their supper and were too tired to do anything more. By then Garth had oriented himself to the large house and its environs.

After finding his bedchamber in the north wing, where male guests were housed, he learned that his duties pertained generally to training the men-at-arms to meet any trouble that might arise and to protect the princess and her ladies.

It had been a long five days since Scone, and everyone was tired. As they relaxed in the great hall after dinner, he met Amalie’s sleepy gaze. His cock stirred, and the image of Buccleuch loomed in his mind’s eye, glowering at him.

Smiling back at the lass, he banished his cousin from his thoughts.

Chapter 6

T
he Danzig night, damply overcast, was as dark as the devil’s dungeon.

He heard men singing lustily in a tavern up ahead, sounding so merry that he felt an urge to step in and have a mug of ale with them. But tension gripped him at the thought. He had to keep searching.

Fortunately, the ambient glow from the tavern’s tiny front window let him see his way well enough to avoid stepping off the graveled footpath into the noisome drainage ditch flowing beside it. Such ditches guided the whole town’s drainage downhill to the German Sea.

Heaven alone knew where Will and the four lads with him had gone. He felt as if he ought to know, and as if he’d been searching for an age, rather than just an hour or so. Danzig, although a busy seaport, was not so large that it should take hours to search. He would look inside the tavern, but then he must go on.

As that thought struck, he heard cries up ahead and the tavern door opened, spilling more light onto the footpath. He heard footsteps running toward him.

“Vandals!” a man’s voice roared. “Murderers! Run!”

A short, solid-looking woman stepped from the tavern and, turning toward the shouter, shrieked,
“Was ist los?”

“Räubers, mit messern! Mörders! Ausreissen!”

He understood perfectly, for the shouter had simply expanded on what he had yelled before: “Robbers with knives, murderers! Run for your lives!”

The woman from the tavern stood where she was, gawking.

As he ran past her toward the noise at the bottom of the street, the woman jumped back into the doorway. The man who had shouted the warning leapt across the ditch into the empty roadway and kept going.