Return of the Border Warrior

by Blythe Gifford

  No. She would not let that happen. She would run him through first.

  She held out the dirk and rushed down the stairs, blade poised to hit a man in the belly.

  But just before she reached him, a hand grasped her wrist, tight as a manacle, and jerked her arm up, pulling her closer. ‘What the hell are you doing, Cate?’

  Her body still carried the dream’s fear. It took two breaths, three, before she recognised John Brunson. And then, pressed against him, his lips close to her cheek, she felt something she had never thought to feel for a man.

  Desire.

  The dog pushed himself between them, sniffing John in greeting. ‘Traitor,’ she muttered.

  John let her go quickly, and she pulled away, back against the wall, still clinging to her dirk.

  Holding his hands up and well away, he spoke. ‘I didn’t know it was you, I swear. I only touched you to save my skin. Don’t run me through.’

  Shocked and disorientated, she stood shaking, slow to recognise his light, coaxing tone. Her fingers tightened about the hilt of the blade.

  He leaned forwards. ‘Are you all right?’

  Surprised he had dropped anger so quickly, she jerked her head, not sure whether she signalled no or yes.

  ‘Did you hear something? An intruder?’ His hand hovered over his own dagger now.

  ‘No, no.’ She found her hand on his arm, trying to quiet him before the whole tower waked. ‘You just startled me.’

  ‘Then why were you prowling the stairs?’

  She exhaled her pent-up breath. ‘I had a bad dream and could not close my eyes again.’

  The sound of his breathing next to hers in the dark was oddly intimate. In this bend of the stairs, they were hidden from view and for the first time since she woke, she breathed easily. An unfamiliar feeling. One she barely recognised.

  ‘And you,’ she asked. ‘Did dreams rouse you?’

  Even in the dark, she sensed he shook his head. ‘Worries, not dreams.’

  The moon Rob had warned of cast faint light in through the opening in the wall. She sat, taking her favourite perch. Belde moved to the step above her and settled, warm and familiar at her back. John sat two steps below, not asking permission. His position, so close and in the dark, seemed more intimate than a touch.

  She struggled for distance. ‘We’ll send no men to the king. At least, not until we kill Scarred Willie.’

  ‘And when you kill him, the Storwicks will kill a Brunson and we’ll strike back and it will go on until after all of us have been gone for as long as that Viking on Hogback Hill. Is that what you want?’

  She shifted on the hard step and glanced away from him. She spouted fine words about family, but she had thought of Willie’s death only in terms of what it meant to her.

  At her silence, he pushed again. ‘Will his death be enough?’

  She faced his eyes again. ‘Yes.’ It must be. It must be enough to make her into a different person. She must probe this man now, not let him ask more of her. ‘And you. How can you choose king over kin?’

  She listened to the silence, sensing his struggle.

  ‘The king chose me,’ he answered, finally, ‘when kin did not.’

  Harsh words. But so, too, were the ones his brother had hurled. ‘And if we do not bow to your king’s command? What then?’

  ‘I cannot return to court.’

  She shrugged. If he did not go back to the king, he would stay on the Borders, where he belonged. It did not seem such a hardship.

  ‘Is it a place so much better than here?’ She knew this valley and its hills. The rest—Stirling, Edinburgh, Linlithgow—were as foreign as London.

  He was silent for a long time. ‘For me it is. There, I’ve a place. Or will.’

  ‘And for that, you would betray your family?’

  ‘Betray!’ The harsh word sounded like a shout, echoing off the stone wall. ‘Haven’t the Brunsons broken every law, betrayed every agreement of God and men?’

  ‘What would you have us do? Let them take our sheep, our cattle, our...’ She could not say it. ‘Take our very lives without lifting a hand?’

  ‘I would have respect for the king and his rule.’

  ‘The king has not punished Willie Storwick.’ The king’s law had not saved her. Only the strong arm of her family could do that.

  ‘Is this the way you want to live?’ he asked. She couldn’t see his expression clearly, but she sensed the earnest question in his tone. ‘Ever in fear?’

  She opened her mouth, but no words came. How had he seen her so clearly? No one else had. War or peace, the fear never left. If she were walking the very halls of the palace, surrounded by the king’s soldiers, the fear would walk beside her, grabbing her each time an unfamiliar man came into view.

  ‘Whether I want it or not,’ she said, ‘I think that fear is our lot.’

  Yet for these few moments beside him in the dark, she had not been afraid.

  It seemed impossible that she could respond to a man again. She had thought those feelings lost for ever in that dark and ugly hour two years ago. And now, this man had come in and she felt—alive.

  She rose. ‘I’m going back to bed.’ Where she would lie with her eyes wide open until the dawn.

  ‘Have your dreams faded?’

  ‘Enough.’ But she did not say yes, for the truth was those dreams would never fade. They had stalked her for two years and would stalk her until the day she died.

  Or the day that Willie Storwick did.

  * * *

  John watched her disappear up the stairs, the echo of her question still ringing in his head.

  And if we do not bow to your king’s command?

  What then?

  Her question. Rob’s. Forcing him to confront the fact that he might fail.

  How arrogant he had been to think he could sway her, simply because she was a woman. It was not only the men of the Border he did not understand. Cate had seemed curious as she listened to him, but without a thought that she might be wrong. Stubborn as any man. And despite her dark sorrow, she was more a part of his family than he had ever been.

  What would it be like to have a strong family and a faithful woman beside him? The husky, tempting timbre of her voice echoed in his head, coaxing him to visions of a bed he would never share.

  At court, he’d had no shortage of bed partners, but he’d learned they sought him out thinking their next bed might be the king’s. If a few months with Johnnie did not lead her to the royal favour, a woman would drift off to the next man.

  And he to the next woman.

  Is that place so much better than here?

  The valley of his boyhood spread out before him, lapped by the dark hills edged by moonlight. She had been roused by dreams, he by worries.

  Worries. A pale word for his thoughts. In the place that should be home, he was an exile facing a brother who would not bend and a woman who would not yield.

  In a few weeks, the king would expect him to deliver a band of Brunson fighting men. Instead, it looked as if those men would be riding the hills, chasing Willie Storwick.

  In a few weeks, it would be prime riding season. Cattle and sheep would return from the hills to huddle near the tower. The bogs would dry, the ground harden. Then, with the moon to guide them, the riders could criss-cross the hills as if they were flat as a chapel floor.

  Men as skilled as his father did not even need the moon.

  His father had known this vast emptiness well. His ponies knew every trail, every burn and rivulet. Where the trees used to be and where the stumps were now. Where the sinkholes were dangerous and where the heather grew. His father, his brother, they could ride blindfolded through these hills, trusting their memories and their ponies to guide them out of the valley and home again.

  Even he had recognised the rise and fall of the earth under his pony’s hooves today. A harsh land, but theirs.

  Not the king’s. Theirs.

  He should not be thinking Cate’s tho
ughts. Yet tonight, something called to him, like a voice on the wind... Silent as moonrise, sure as the stars... It was as if during all his time away, the land had waited for him like a faithful lover, now ready and eager to seduce him all over again.

  Standing, he braced against temptation. The land wanted him no more than Cate Gilnock. He had not come home. He had come to carry out the king’s command.

  He turned from the window, heedless of the dark. As a boy, when everything became too much, he had taken off to the hills, to the only place where he had felt as if he, too, were descended from the Viking. And he’d gladly accepted his father’s heavy hand in exchange for those precious hours of escape.

  Perhaps on the bay pony he could find the way there again.

  Chapter Six

  ‘What do you mean, Johnnie’s gone?’ Cate asked.

  Cheerful sun flooded the courtyard, belying the ominous words. Bessie picked up a damp shirt and draped it over a rope to dry. A furrow between her brows marred her normally calm forehead. ‘No one’s seen him since yesterday.’

  What if something had happened to him? The thought bothered Cate more than she expected. ‘I did.’

  ‘When?’

  She looked away. ‘I’m not sure. Late. I couldn’t sleep. We...passed on the stairs.’

  Where had he gone after they talked?

  After he left her without a touch.

  ‘That’s half a day ago.’

  Cate shrugged, not wanting to care. But it did not take half a day for a life to change. It did not take half an hour. ‘Why tell me? Ask Black Rob to find him.’

  ‘Rob’s in the hills, helping bring the cattle down. And, despite being prickly as a thistle, you’re a sensible person. More so than either of my stubborn brothers at the moment.’

  Cate blinked. Bessie said little, but saw much. Had she seen Cate’s own troubles?

  ‘But finally,’ Bessie concluded, ‘because you’re the one with the sleuth hound.’

  Cate rubbed the dog’s head without thinking. Yes, she’d trained Belde to track swiftly and silently. When the time came, Scarred Willie would not escape. But her fingers shook as she scratched behind his ears. If she went too far, alone, something could happen...

  Might have already happened to John.

  No, she would not be afraid. Belde would be with her.

  ‘Bring me something John has worn,’ she said before she could change her mind.

  ‘Here.’ Bessie dug into a basket of clothes near the washing kettle and pulled out a linen sark. ‘I was going to wash it for him.’

  Cate took it, hoping his scent had not been muddied when it was mixed with the other clothes. Yet once in her hand, knowing it had touched his skin, she wanted to hold it close, to pray that he was safe.

  ‘You’ll take one of your men with you,’ Bessie said.

  She shook her head, resisting the temptation. ‘He’ll be embarrassed enough that two women were so worried about him. He’ll be furious if I bring a brace of men. If I find him quickly, no one else will be the wiser. Including Rob.’

  John would hate that. She wondered how she knew.

  ‘I don’t like you going alone. You’ll be careful?’ Bessie said.

  Cate raised her head and donned her fearless look. ‘If I don’t find him quickly, I’ll come back for help.’

  Her fingers shook, clumsy, as she saddled the pony and put Belde into his tracking harness. Knowing what was to come, the dog jumped with excitement. Finally ready, she knelt beside him and held the shirt to his nose, glad she had named John a friend last night. Belde might pick up his scent more easily.

  ‘Fetch! John!’

  Belde tugged at the leash, ready and eager. Cate mounted her pony, shaking. The dog would run aside, silently, as she had trained him.

  So the prey would not hear them come.

  * * *

  Daft as he had been to ride into the dark alone, John and Norse had found the circle of ancient, carved stones on Hogback Hill. No one knew where they came from. Or how long they had been there. Some said they were tombstones of the ancestors. Some said the place was haunted by primeval spirits.

  That was certainly the story they spread on the English side of the border. It was enough to frighten most away from this spot.

  And enough to give him pause every time he stepped into the circle.

  It was a circle no longer. Over centuries, most of the stones had disappeared. But the ones he remembered still waited for him. Broad at the base, smoothed to a peak, they were just tall enough for him to rest against while he looked over the valley.

  Many a day he’d sat here, looked to the east, and wondered what lay beyond their valley. Now, he knew.

  John took his favourite seat, hoping to summon the feeling of peace he remembered. He liked to imagine the stones had been put there by the First Brunson. Liked to imagine talking to the man as if he were the father John’s was not.

  And during those imaginary conversations, John felt as if he, too, were a Brunson—something he did not feel today. He had ridden off without a word to anyone, sure no one would notice, or care if they did.

  He sat in the midst of the Viking stones, watching for first light to glimmer over the hills, and pondered his fate. The future that had seemed so certain when he rode into the valley had dissolved. What was he to do now?

  And as his eyelids grew heavy, the only answer he heard was a woman’s husky voice, whispering secrets in the dark.

  * * *

  Cate had trained Belde, yes, but he had not tracked before, at least, not when it mattered. Yet with only a whiff of John’s scent, he took off as if the trail were a bright red ribbon, near tugging Cate’s arm out of her shoulder in the process.

  ‘Slow!’ she called.

  But he was doing what she had asked, what he was bred to do, and he didn’t pause, pulling her, and the pony, straight north into the hills. Blessedly, in the opposite direction from the border. She pictured John a thousand ways. Lost. Fallen. Hurt. Dead.

  Then she recognised where Belde was leading her. Straight to Hogback Hill. Where she had lost her father. And everything else.

  Good land for grazing, yes, but full of dangers, even before that night.

  Watch for the ravine. You might fall. Don’t go near the stones. There be spirits.

  Yet she could not stop now because Belde was taking her straight to the stones carved with strange symbols.

  She did not want to see this place again. She saw it often enough in dreams, but there was no turning back and as she came closer, a figure with a drawn sword rose from behind one of the stones.

  She gasped and tried to pull the horse back, but it was too late. Belde tore the leash from her hand and loped ahead, jumping with happiness to have found his man and sniffing John head to toe in greeting.

  Relief left her limp and she did not examine it closely. It could have been relief that the man with the sword was not an enemy. Or it could have been joy that John was safe.

  ‘Good dog,’ she said, sliding off the pony.

  John pushed the dog aside, playfully, trying to sheathe his sword, and then looked at Cate. ‘What are you doing here?’

  His smile was for the dog. His tone of irritation was for her. Well, she could match it. She had barely inhaled the whole way here, battling fears he knew nothing of because she had been worried that something had happened to him. Yet here he stood, alive and well, with all his parts in working order. ‘You disappeared. Your sister was worried. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I used to come here, when I was a boy.’

  Safely outside the circle, she still shivered. ‘Why?’

  ‘To think.’

  She looked around the stones and back to him. ‘All day?’

  He looked away, a tinge of embarrassment colouring his cheekbones. ‘I came last night after we talked. And then I fell asleep.’

  Anger surged at his carelessness. She had subjected herself to this horrible hill again because he had napped?
>
  ‘Be grateful I didn’t bring my men to find you dozing.’ She reached for the dog’s harness and pulled him safely beyond the stone. ‘Enough, Belde.’

  ‘Well, you’ve found me. Now turn around and go back home.’

  She shook her head. ‘Bessie will have both our heads if I come without you.’

  He shook his head and sighed. ‘A woman as stubborn as the rest of us.’

  Cate had to smile. Those who didn’t know Bessie mistook quiet calm for meekness. ‘Next time, tell her where you are going.’

  She hung back, still outside the circle, wondering that he treated the ancient stones as if they were ordinary rocks.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Sit.’ He held out his hand.

  She looked at the stones, not moving.

  There be spirits there.

  Yet it was full day, and the only spirits here, it seemed, were the ones that haunted her. ‘Is it safe?’

  He grinned. ‘No safer place on the border.’

  She put her hand in his, still reluctant to step across the imaginary line. ‘My father said the spirits of the old ones haunt this place. He told me never to come here.’

  * * *

  John barely moved, afraid to remind her she had given him her hand.

  That her cold fingers still rested comfortably on his.

  ‘So did mine,’ he said with another smile, hoping to distract her. ‘But most of my father’s warnings turned out to be false.’

  ‘I cannot say the same,’ she said, her fingers trembling.

  But she stepped across the imaginary line and settled beside him, looking around, cautiously.

  ‘You look like him,’ he said.

  She looked back at him. ‘Who?’

  ‘The first of our family. The brown-eyed Viking and his kin.’

  ‘There was only one. He had no kin.’

  A lucky man.

  John searched his memory. He had heard the story many times before he went to court and not once since. ‘So what is the story?’

  ‘It is all in the song. Do you not know it?’

  The wonder in her voice was condemnation. ‘It’s been years. Tell me again.’

  ‘The First Brunson came with his fellows, across the North Sea to the Northern Isles, down through the High Lands, and all the way to the West Sea.’ It was a tale she knew well, but no boredom touched her