That did not keep him from thinking about her, however, or constantly wondering how she was spending her time. It did not occur to him that she might defy him. He had given an order, and his orders generally were obeyed.
At first, daily exercise was enough to satisfy Laurie’s need to escape the confines of Brackengill, but when Sir Hugh sent word that his siege still had failed to bring the men in Tarras Woods to their knees and would continue indefinitely, even the daily rides began to seem restrictive.
Days when Andrew rode with her were not so bad, for she could ask him questions about the countryside and about his erstwhile mistress. It was in the course of such a conversation that she came to believe that she was closer to Tarras Wood than she had suspected.
The journey from Aylewood to Lochmaben had been long, requiring an overnight stay with friends. Because the trip from Lochmaben to Brackengill had been shorter, and because Sir Hugh had not returned from his siege even for brief visits, she had assumed that the castle was a long way from Tarras Wood.
To learn that Brackengill lay nearer than she had thought to the Moss presented undeniable temptation, particularly since she strongly suspected that Andrew frequently crossed the line to visit Janet Scott.
Laurie could not pretend even to herself that Sir Hugh would permit her to ride into Scotland. But the more she told herself she must not the more she wanted to do so, and Sir Hugh was, after all, in Tarras Moss, creating difficulties for her friends and family.
Her opportunity came at last, at the start of the third week of the siege, when Small Neck Tailor did not appear as usual to saddle her pony and ride out with her.
Only Andrew was there when she walked into the stable.
“Where is everyone?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “Geordie took Small Neck and some others to Bewcastle, because Sir Edward Nixon sent word o’ yet another raid into Redesdale. They think it must be Rabbie Redcloak, that he’s leadin’ all these raids, but the men watching along the line ha’ seen naught o’ him or his Bairns. Geordie were a bit worried, like, ’cause he’s got all them cattle Sir Hugh marked afore he left, pasturin’ over Haggbeck way. He’s set a guard on ’em o’ course, but still…”
“Who is in charge here, then?”
“Asa Gibbs,” the boy said.
Laurie nodded. She knew Gibbs. “I have bread to take round,” she said.
The boy nodded. “Aye, then, I’ll bring out our ponies.”
Laurie smiled. “You will have to serve as my man-at-arms today, then.”
Andrew squared his shoulders. “Aye, I’ll look after ye.”
Hoping that she was not about to get him into serious trouble, Laurie watched him run into the stable to get their horses. Then, realizing that if she sent him for the loaves he would brag to Meggie that he was to serve as her sole escort, she hurried to the kitchen to fetch them herself.
“We’ve just these four today,” Meggie said grimly. “That feckless Sheila were t’ watch them, but she got t’ nattering wi’ one o’ the lads and forgot to shift ’em. The others be black—useless even as trenchers. I’ll ha’ to mix ’em with the hog slop.” She sighed. “At least them hogs’ll eat anything and be glad of it.”
“We’ll take these, then, and the other folks will just have to wait until next week,” Laurie said, taking the cloth sack that Meggie held out to her.
She had not decided what to do about the bread if she succeeded in her plan, so it was just as well that she did not have eight or ten loaves. No one in the Borders looked kindly on wasting good food.
“’Tis a fine, fresh day,” Meggie said. “Ye’ll ha’ a good ride.”
“I will,” Laurie agreed.
Hurrying back outside, she found Andrew ready with the horses. Handing him the sack to tie to his saddle, she let one of the older lads give her a leg up, but she did not breathe easily until they were alone outside the gates.
Then, when Andrew skirted the wall and headed toward the low, sloping hillside that edged the area she had come to know as Bewcastle Waste, she said casually, “When you ride into Scotland, how do you go?”
He glanced at her, measuring her, as if he wondered whether talking to her about his adventures would get him into trouble.
She smiled. “I know you must do so. You talk so much about your Mistress Janet that I realized some time ago that you must ride over the line frequently to visit her. Does Sir Hugh not know about your visits?”
“Nay, and ye mustna tell him—nor Ned Rowan, neither. Ned skelped me good the once for staying away all night and worrying me mam, and he promised he’d do it again, too, but he’s no caught me since.”
“But you’ve been to Broadhaugh since then, have you not?”
Glancing at her obliquely, his expression answered her question, but she waited to hear what he would say.
At last, reluctantly, he said, “Ye’ll no split on me, will ye?”
“Never,” Laurie said. “I’ve secrets enough of my own, laddie.”
He relaxed visibly. “We’ll ride through yon thicket to reach Granny Fenicke’s cot,” he said. “Then we go to Job Withrington’s widow woman.”
“Is not Granny Fenicke the one whose granddaughter lives with her—a lass about your age?”
“Aye,” Andrew said, rolling his eyes. “She’s that daft, Clara is.”
Recalling the way the girl had followed him about during a previous visit, Laurie had no trouble translating this declaration. Smiling, she said, “I was thinking that perhaps Clara would not mind delivering the other loaves. They go to Job’s widow, to Mistress Dunne, and to Mistress Hedley, do they not?”
“Aye, Mistress Hedley’s ailing a bit, me mam said, so she would get the last one,” Andrew said wisely. “But why would we give them to that daft Clara?”
“Because,” Laurie said, lowering her tone confidingly, “I want you to take me a short way across the line today.”
“I canna do that! Sir Hugh would… he would…” He fell silent, his eyes wide, clearly at a loss for words to express his dismay.
“Sir Hugh will not know,” Laurie said. “I want only to ride on Scottish soil for a bit. Think how you would feel if someone kept you at Broadhaugh and you could not get back here to your own land and family.”
His brow creased as he thought about that. “I wouldna like it,” he said at last. “But still…”
Laurie said, “Just how far is Tarras Moss from here?”
The boy shrugged. “I dinna ken the miles,” he said.
“How long does it take you to ride to Broadhaugh, then?”
“A good part o’ the day. Wi’ Ned Rowan awa’, I can tak’ supper there and slip back across the line afore sun-up. I tell me mam I’m awa’ to Haggbeck, and if I’m in the kitchen when she wakens, she doesna ken I’ve been awa’ the nicht.”
“Do you not pass through Tarras Moss? Do you know how to ride there?”
“Oh, aye, I ken the way. ’Tis nobbut an hour and a bit if ye ride hard and if ye ford Liddel Water at Caulside, or so Ned Rowan says. I dinna go that way, though. I stay well east o’ that plaguey forest where Sir Hugh’s tower be.”
Laurie did not even try to conceal her amazement. “They are really as close as that? I thought Tarras Moss must be miles from Brackengill, especially since we have not seen anything of Sir Hugh since this siege began.”
“It’s no so far as all that,” Andrew said. “He sends messages, ye ken.”
“What do you hear about the siege?” she asked.
With another casual shrug, he said, “The men dinna say so much, but Mistress Janet says it doesna prosper. She says folk in Tarras Wood ken its ways cleverly, so they go and come as they choose. But I canna tell Sir Hugh or his lads the things she says.” He nibbled his lower lip.
“Aye, for they’d be bound to guess you had been to Broadhaugh, and then Ned Rowan would find out,” Laurie said. “Now, tell me, which way do you go?”
“By Kershopefoot, where the wee burn runs. ’Tis the easiest way, and no one pays me any mind. I ride toward Hermitage and across the fells to Broadhaugh.”
Laurie knew that route, and it would never do, for it led through the heart of Liddesdale. “Do you know the crossing west of Rowanburn, near the castle there?”
“Aye, I’ve been that road a time or two.”
“Well, suppose we ride there? I know that countryside better than I know Liddesdale, and it’s safer, I think. I do not suppose that anyone will heed a lone woman and a bairn thereabouts, do you?”
“I’m no bairn,” he said indignantly.
“No, of course you are not. You are my man-at-arms.”
“Aye, that I am. Just look here.” To her shock, he reached down beneath his baggy netherstocks, struggled a moment with something attached to his saddle, and then pulled out a large wheel-lock pistol similar to the one she had taken with her the night she had followed May. He waved it triumphantly in the air.
“Godamercy, Andrew, how came you by that?”
“’Twas me da’s,” the boy said. “Them villains o’ Scrope’s flung it into the thicket by Granny Fenicke’s, but Clara found it and give it back t’ me. If we meet any Scots reivers the day, I mean to shoot them. Lady Marjory said I couldna protect ye on me own, but I can, mistress. They’ll no harm ye whilst I’m about!”
“They would not harm me, in any event,” Laurie said gently. “You forget, laddie, they are my people.” Repressing the thought of deadly feuds that reared their heads from year to year, feuds that could make her people as dangerous to her as any English Borderer, Laurie held his gaze. “You must not shoot anyone unless I say that you may. Promise me that you will not.”
“Oh, aye, then. Mistress Janet said I was no to shoot it till I’m growed, but I’m nearly growed now, I think.”
“So you are,” she agreed, hoping that he understood the workings of the wicked looking weapon better than she did. “Perhaps one day you could show me how to shoot that thing.”
“Aye, sure, perhaps,” he said. “Where will we ride when we cross the line?”
“To the west side of Tarras Wood,” she said. “If folks are slipping in and out at will, we may meet someone I know. I’d like to hear news of my family.”
“News o’ that sister o’ yours, I’d wager,” Andrew said with a grimace.
She looked at him. “Andrew, do you understand why I stay at Brackengill?”
“Aye, sure,” he said, clearly surprised by the question. “Ye’re Sir Hugh’s lady, ’cause ye pledged yourself in your sister’s stead. She killed a land sergeant, but the master didna like him, any road, so he’s nae too wroth wi’ ye, I think.”
“That’s what you think?” When he nodded, she said, “You seem to know a great deal for a”—he looked accusingly at her—“for a man-at-arms.”
He grinned. “I ha’ big ears, Ned Rowan says. They do say that no one kens where she is, but Mistress Janet says, like as not, she threw herself into a river like that maid o’ hers, or your family be hiding her.”
Laurie’s heart lurched. “They found Bridget—my sister’s maidservant?”
“Did ye no ken? Some men found her dead, lying in some muck on the Scotch side o’ the Liddel.”
The lady fair being void of fear,
Her steed being swift and free…
L
AURIE STRUGGLED TO KEEP
from revealing the extent of her dismay. Surely, if they had found May’s body, along with Bridget’s, Sir Hugh would have learned of it and set her free. Even Scrope would not demand two lives for that of his land sergeant, not with so little evidence to present a jury comprised of Scots.
That she had not heard more from her father seemed increasingly odd. She was finding it increasingly easy to believe, as Janet Scott did, in a conspiracy to keep May safe at her expense. Forcing calm, she said, “What else do you know?”
“I ken that the laird o’ Buccleuch did get free o’ Blackness Castle, where your Jamie treated him like a prince and no like a prisoner. But then our Queen made your Jamie send the laird to Berwick where he’s in prison again. I ken that Sir Quinton Scott—Mistress Janet’s husband, ye ken—be acting Keeper o’ Liddesdale whilst Buccleuch be awa’, and deputy warden to somebody else, as well.”
“Sir William Halliot of Aylewood,” she said, adding gently, “my father.”
“Aye, sure, I kenned that fine, too.”
He did not look at her, though, and she could tell that he was feeling unsure of her motives again.
“I’m not trying to run away, Andrew, I promise you. When you return to Brackengill later today, I will be with you.”
He looked at her then, and she met his gaze easily. If she felt guilt, it was not because she intended to harm Andrew. She would not let him suffer for her deeds any more than she would have let Bangtail Willie or Sym do so.
After a long moment, he said, “They do say that Rabbie Redcloak be leading all them raids against Tynedale and Redesdale. They say that he leads his Bairns against England at Buccleuch’s command.”
“Did your Mistress Janet say that?”
“Nay, then, she says that Rabbie’s nae more than a… a…” He frowned, men said, “What d’ye call it when he’s no a ghost but summat that’s only a story and doesna exist at all?”
“A legend?”
“Aye, that’s it. Rabbie’s a legend, she says. I dinna think she can be right, though, ’cause Ned Rowan and the master say he’s real. They ken it fine, for they caught ’im once and locked ’im in our dungeon at Brackengill. Still, he must be old Clooty hisself, ’cause he slipped out wi’ the cell door and the dungeon door locked tight and Geordie a-guarding ’im wi’ the keys in his pocket.”
He looked around as if he expected the devil to pop out of the shrubbery, making Laurie smile again.
They rode on, talking desultorily until they had forded the Liddel. As she had hoped, they looked harmless and no one paid them any mind. It was not unusual for people to cross over, after all. Even armed men rode back and forth across the line almost at will, as likely to take a drop of ale in an English tavern as in a Scottish one. Since folks from both sides intermingled at markets, race meetings, football matches, and days of truce, no one looked twice at a young woman riding astride with a child on his pony beside her.
A short time later, the forest loomed ahead to their right.
“You’re certain that Sir Hugh’s fortress is not on this side,” she said.
“Aye, I’m sure. It be a place called Corbies Nest.”