by Border Lass
“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
The 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 exp
anded 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.
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 groo
ms 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.
