Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy Two 02] (12 page)

A backward glance revealed no further sign of him.

Hearing a clash of swords, he drew his from the sheath on his back.

He could see shadowy figures ahead now, engaged in fierce battle. As he ran, he saw two of them fall. The others scattered, one set chasing the other.

Knowing before he reached the intersection that a second road lay perpendicular to the one he was on, he saw that the second road led over a bridge to his right and disappeared into blackness. There was more light to his left, where the road ran down to the sea, enough for him to see two running figures.

He would have run after them had a groan not reached his ears.

The first body he came to showed no sign of life. The man’s throat had been cut. Although a stranger, he bore a Douglas device on the sleeve of his light mail. A second man, also dead, sported a different device, identifying him as an Englishman loyal to Lord Clifford.

Hearing another groan, he moved onto the bridge to an area deep in shadow and found what, from the start of his search, he had feared he would find.

Bending, carefully feeling his way to one muscular, mail-clad shoulder, he said urgently, “Will, is that you? Speak to me, man!”

“Gar . . .” The recumbent figure moved a hand, tried to lift it.

Shouting for help, he dropped to both knees beside Will Douglas and gripped that hand, a hand he remembered as strong and firm of grip.

No longer was it so. It rested limply in his.

“Bring a torch, someone!” Then, uncertain if he had shouted in English or German, he shouted again in both languages and with equal fluency, bellowing epithets in both when he heard no response.

All the while, and oddly in much better light, he searched for Will’s wounds but could find none. There was no blood to stanch, no opening in what was suddenly full and heavy armor rather than light mail. But he had been sure . . .

“Haldane,” Will murmured. “Ben Haldane, Gar. Find the bastard and send him to . . .” He gasped, something gurgled in his throat, and he said no more.

Tears streamed down Garth’s cheeks. . . .

The tears were still there, and his throat still ached with sorrow when he awoke at Sweethope Hill in the tiny chamber that was temporarily his own.

Unable to remain in bed any longer while his mind reeled with scenes of Danzig and his soul ached from the memories they stirred, he got up. Dressing quickly in breeks, boots, and a leather jack, he splashed cold water on his face from the washstand ewer without bothering to fill the basin. Then, after drying briskly with a rough towel, he went outside to fill his lungs with bracingly chilly morning air.

Gray dawn had banished the stars, but a half moon rode high above the dark western horizon. The eastern sky was lighter but showed no other sign of sunrise.

He strolled to the stableyard through a garden evidently providing kitchen produce although hedged with thorny roses. The scents riding the air were familiar from his childhood, reminding him of his mother’s garden until he neared the horse pond where odors of the stables and the chicken yard beyond them began to prevail.

He would not take his own horse out, not after a four-and-a-half-day journey. Although they had rested a full night at Linlithgow and again at Dalkeith, his mount needed more rest. But the princess’s stable could easily provide a fresh horse.

Inside, he found Angus Graham, the stable master, whom he had met the day before, busy with harness and tack. Middle-aged and whit-leather tough, Angus greeted him with respect but without obsequiousness, clearly knowing his own worth.

Returning the greeting, Garth said, “I am glad to find you here, because I’d like a fresh horse if you have one, for a morning ride.”

“Bless ye, sir, we’ve no lack o’ horses. As for being up, I’m always awake well afore Prime and back in my bed of an evening soon after Vespers. As for that, two o’ me lads have been away already this past half hour and more.”

“Two of your grooms?”

“Aye, sure.”

Garth had expected to be first out by at least an hour or so. “Who took them out, Angus? Surely, none of the ladies can be riding so early.”

“Aye, well, they are, though. Leastways, the lady Amalie—”

“Where did she go?” Garth demanded, not waiting to hear who else had gone with her. Collecting his wits when the stable master frowned, he said more calmly, “Being newly charged with the ladies’ safety, and Lady Amalie being the youngest, I am concerned, Angus. Does she often ride out so early?”

“The princess has stayed here only a night or two afore now, sir, for she were having the place put in better order, which took nearly a year’s time. So I canna say what her young ladyship’s normal practice may be. But I
can
tell ye I ha’ seen none o’ them afore now ride out the morning after a days-long journey.”

“Saddle that horse for me,” Garth said. “And show me which way she went.”

Without argument Angus obeyed, and Garth rode out of the yard feeling much the same tension he had felt throughout his dream. He knew he would not relax until he saw for himself that no Border raiders on their way to or from a raid had decided to enjoy some sport with her. If any had, two grooms could not stop them.

Amalie breathed in the fresh air and savored the peace of the low, tree-dotted hills around her. The two grooms trailing behind had chatted at first, then fallen silent. The only noises now were the low, rhythmic croaks of bullfrogs in a nearby pond and the muted clip-clop of their three horses on the grassy hillside.

A mile earlier, they had forded Eden Water, splashing across it and easily negotiating the pebbles, sand, and gravel deposits that formed its sloping banks. Less than a mile ahead, the much larger river Tweed wended its way through the low hills.

Sweethope House sat on its gentle hillside two miles behind her, and she was in no hurry to return. After a sennight of feminine chatter, forced civility, and constant awareness of social necessities, the almost forgotten sense of peace and freedom that accompanied an early morning ride was intoxicating.

Isabel would not mind if she was late returning, because Isabel also enjoyed her own company and understood Amalie’s need for occasional solitude.

Today she needed solitude to think.

The meadowland ahead provided a view between two large thickets of hazel mixed with willow and aspen all the way to the river. To the west, woods of oak, elm, and hornbeam trees blocked her view of a river bend. To the east, hills and meadow shrubbery provided other obstructions. But straight ahead, through a dip in the landscape, the river beckoned. She responded by urging her horse to go faster.

When she heard hoofbeats closing the distance behind her, she paid no heed. It was the grooms’ duty to keep their eyes on her and follow where she went.

The sun was barely peeping over the eastern hills, and she could hear the first blackbirds and song thrushes calling to each other in the woods. The pleasure of being there as they began their day delighted her.

The hoofbeats grew louder, a single horse now. The lads must be racing, and if the nearer one did not take care, he would fly past her.

A little startled to catch a glimpse of his mount’s head very near to her right, she glanced back to see Sir Garth Napier on a fine-looking bay, matching pace with her. Kicking her gray and leaning forward, she raced on, but he kept up easily, moving up beside her as they pounded down the gentle slope toward the water.

When he held out a hand, signaling her to slow down, she had already begun to ease back and tighten rein. She knew better than to gallop any horse right up to the water’s edge.

Only when she looked back to see how far behind them her grooms had fallen, and could not see them at all, did a shiver of apprehension tickle her spine.

Controlling her expression and tone with the ease of long practice, she said, “What have you done with my lads, sir?”

“I sent them home,” he said. “You are perfectly safe with me.”

“Am I? I’ll expect you to have more care for my reputation if you mean to go on serving the princess. She would not approve of any knight riding alone with one of her ladies, let alone a knight who ordered her grooms away.”

He had the grace to look rueful. “Is that why you ride with two lads, my lady—so as not to be alone with just one? I should think you’d be safer if you rode with one groom and one or two of the other ladies instead.”

“Perhaps so, sir, but being always with one or two of the other ladies grows tiresome. As for riding with two grooms, I just prefer it.” At that, she pulled off her right glove, put two fingers in her mouth, and produced a shrieking whistle.

Sir Garth looked astonished, but as she had expected, her grooms emerged at once from the woods midway down the hillside.

“What the devil?” he exclaimed. “I told them to go home!”

“Aye, sure, but I’ve told them never to leave me alone, no matter what orders anyone else gives them. And Isabel pays them well to obey me.”

To her surprise, he smiled and said, “In troth, lass, I was feeling guilty for sending them away. I did it without thinking because I wanted to talk to you where no one else would overhear us.”

“To browbeat me into telling you what you want to know, I expect.”

For a moment he looked bewildered, as if that thought had not crossed his mind. Then he shook his head, rueful again. “I don’t suppose you’ll believe I did not intend to do that, so I won’t bother denying it,” he said. “But I hope you
will
believe that I’m glad they did not ride all the way back to Sweethope Hill.”

She could not bring herself to say she believed every word he’d said, or tell him that his thoughts registered on his face clearly enough for her to read them.

To admit the first would not be at all good for his character. Nor would it be right to let him to imagine even briefly that he had persuaded her that he always told the truth. One truth did not mean anything of the sort.

“I will acquit you of following me to bully me . . . unless—” She looked narrowly at him. “You are not going to be one of those tiresome men who are forever preaching that women ought never to do as they like, are you?”

“Do you expect me to promise that I’ll never advise you to do other than as you choose? Because if that is your object, you will fail to achieve it.”

“Then you
will
be tiresome. I feel sorry for your daughters.”

“If I had any daughters, I would doubtless keep them close to home, but you are not my daughter. And I should look like a fool if I ordered you back to Sweethope after trying to send your grooms away just to talk with you.”

“You certainly don’t
approve
of my behavior,” she said.

Garth had all he could do not to grin at that statement. Approval or disapproval had nothing to do with the matter.

“I don’t approve of listening at doors,” he said, trying to sound stern and knowing he’d failed. “Certainly not at the doors of dangerous people. As to your ride this morning, I have no right to give you orders without first knowing what the princess expects of me, and of you. Moreover, I do understand your impulse to ride. The Tweed is a beautiful river, and this part of it is particularly so.”

She looked into his eyes as if she would see into his mind. “Did you truly want to talk privately with me?”

“I did, aye,” he admitted, glancing at the two grooms, who had tactfully reined in some distance away.

“They won’t trouble us,” she said. “We can ride along the riverbank if you like. It is flat on top, even through the trees, so we can ride side by side there.”

“I’ve never ridden along this particular stretch of the Tweed,” he said. “I fished a good stretch of it near Melrose during my childhood, though. I have kinsmen there and spent a month with them every summer until I was twelve.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

The blunt question—just the sort he liked to ask, himself—caught him off guard, making him feel uncharacteristically tongue-tied. He had wanted to talk to her again, and when the stableman said she had ridden out, the urge to follow had been overwhelming. His primary reason had been to protect her, but he’d also felt an unusual impulse to tell her about his dream. Now he couldn’t imagine why.

He glanced at her, searching for a response that would explain his earlier words without baring as much of himself as a description of his dream might.

“You do keep popping up, and it is still gey early,” she said. “Are you sure you did not tell someone to wake you if I left Sweethope Hill?”

“Nay, lass, I ken fine that I’ve no right to do that unless Isabel commands it. In troth, I woke early because I’d had a bad dream.”

“A nightmare?” Her expression revealed instant sympathy. “Bad dreams are horrid, but I’ve never before heard a grown man admit to having one.”

Wondering if her sympathy indicated that she, too, suffered from nightmares, he said, “I doubt there is a man alive—anyone who has seen battle, at all events—who has
not
had them. Most men just keep such things to themselves.”

“But not you?”

He smiled. “I had decided to keep this one to myself.”

Without consulting her, he’d turned west along the riverbank so they would keep the rising sun behind them. She had not commented on his choice, and she remained silent now, her gaze fixed on the track ahead. His sister or mother would have urged him to go on, to explain why he would have kept the dream to himself, and then either would have pressed him to tell her exactly what it was about.

He would have resisted their efforts strongly, even angrily.

Memory of his dream stirred, the images of the dark Danzig streets returning in a rush as they so frequently had ever since the dreadful night.

“I was with Will Douglas when he died,” he said.

She was still gazing ahead, but he saw her catch her lower lip between her teeth, hold it for a moment, then let it go before she looked at him.

“I see,” she said. “How awful that must have been.”