by Amanda Scott
“Phaeline, of course. I’d best tell you the rest now, sir. Sithee, Jenny took great interest in the minstrels. She wondered how they lived, and tried to imagine traveling about as they do. I told her I thought it must be a horrid way to live, but I don’t think she agreed. And now, Sadie tells me that Peg meant to walk just a short way with her brother. So I’m thinking…”
“… that your unhappy cousin went with them,” Hugh said when Mairi paused. “If she did, one can only think that Peg and her ladyship have no notion what such a life is like, or into what sort of company they are likely to fall.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mairi said. “But I am sure Peg did not mean to be gone long. And we must find her, sir, because before I came looking for you, I learned that some of our guests are missing valuable jewelry.”
Following the trail through dense shrubbery, Jenny paused at an icy-looking rill. Still seeing no sign of the Joculator’s tent, she tried to collect her thoughts.
The man clearly led the minstrels, and what she had seen of his juggling skill indicated a person worthy of respect. Although his extraordinary dexterity offered no clue to how astute he was, she knew she would be wise to tread lightly.
The other tents all stood near the cook fires. That his stood at such a distance from them suggested he had a particular fondness for privacy.
The woods were silent, the shrubbery muffling the murmur of conversation from people near the fires. The narrow rill chuckled low as it tumbled downhill to join the river Annan. A low-pitched voice, although speaking quietly from shrubbery on the other side of the water, was loud enough to startle her.
“They do say the King may be at Threave to see us,” a man said.
“I dinna want to talk about Castle Threave or the King o’ Scots,” a second, female voice retorted. “Not after being in such a fidget all through the night, me lad, wondering where ye might ha’ run off to this time. I expect ye were wi’ that—”
“Now then, Cath—”
Jenny cleared her throat loudly, hoping to prevent further such comments in what sounded like the beginning of a lovers’ spat, comments she knew would likely embarrass all three of them.
The man stopped speaking at once. She had not heard any other sound of their approach, over that of the chuckling water, before he’d spoken. But clearly, they were nearly upon her, so catching up her skirts, she jumped across the rill.
Despite her subtle warning, her appearance on the path clearly unsettled them, so she sought to put them at ease. Recognizing the gleewoman Cath, Jenny wished her a cheerful good morning. “ ’Tis a chilly one, though, is it not?” she added.
Plump Cath smiled then and agreed that it was very chilly. “But just now, any day without snow be a good one,” she added. “Ha’ ye missed your way to our encampment, lass?”
“Nay, for I’m to see the Joculator,” Jenny said. “I hope I’m on the right path.”
“Aye, sure, ye are,” the man said. He was smaller than Cath, in every way. With a gesture, he added, “His tent be off the path near that tall beech tree yonder.”
“I thank ye, sir,” Jenny said with a polite nod.
“This be my man, Cuddy,” Cath said. “Ye’ll be Jenny, if I remember right.”
“Aye,” Jenny said, wondering a little nervously if anyone in the company might yet remember, or recognize, her as Janet Easdale.
She had not worried about that the night before, in darkness, when she’d had her hood up against the chill. But morning light was more revealing, although she wore no headdress, had plaited her hair so soft wings drooped from its center part and nearly hid her high, shaved forehead, and although Peg had drawn eyebrows on her.
Nevertheless, it remained possible that by daylight the Joculator or someone else might recognize her. Cuddy did give her a searching look but then nodded and grinned when she smiled. She remembered hearing his name the night before and recognized him as one of the searchers she had seen after the attack on the knacker.
Bidding them both a good day, she went on. But as the Joculator’s green tent came into view, its very isolation suggested that Cuddy’s quizzical look might simply have been a reaction to learning her destination.
When Lord Dunwythie had agreed to Reid’s suggestion and Phaeline’s insistence that they hire minstrels for the betrothal feast, he had commented that, of all the folks who traveled to make their living—tradesmen, craftsmen, even beggars and such—only minstrels had developed a reputation for honesty. Nevertheless, Dunwythie had said, when one hired them, it was sensible to watch the men in their troupe, if only to preserve the dignity and virtue of one’s maidservants.
He had told his people, therefore, to stay vigilant. But he had treated the minstrels with the respect he showed tradesmen he trusted, such as the knacker Parland Dow, who enjoyed first-head privileges at Annan House and at Dunwythie Hall, the much larger Dunwythie estate to the north. Dow came and went as he pleased, especially when it was time to turn Dunwythie cattle into Dun wythie beef.
As Jenny neared the green tent, her uncle’s warning echoed in her mind, making her hope the Joculator would not insist that they talk alone inside. Her steps slowed, and she was contemplating the wisdom of shouting to him when the tent flap opened and he stepped outside, ducking considerably to do so.
He wore a long red-and-black striped robe that made him look even taller than he had looked the night before. His soft, flattened black cap tilted rakishly over one eye, and the shoulder-length hair that had looked golden by the light of the hall cressets, and silver-gray in the darkness afterward, was pale flaxen by daylight.
As he straightened, his gaze swept over her, piercing and shrewd. “So ye wish to stay with us, do ye?” he said.
“I do not ask to stay long, sir, but I’d not refuse an invitation to bide with your company for a few days,” she said, relieved to detect no indication that he recognized her as the young woman whose betrothal he had helped celebrate.
“Ye speak uncommon well for a maidservant, if so ye do be,” he said. “How does our Bryan come by a cousin wha’ speaks like a lady?”
Feeling heat flood her cheeks, Jenny said, “If it offends ye, I’ll keep to me old ways, sir, but ye should ken that I ha’ served the lady Mairi Dunwythie for many months past, and I do try to speak as she does.”
“I’ve nae objection, lass. I’ve made my fortune by learning to speak as my betters do whenever it will serve me, in this country and in others. Bryan tells me ye claim to play several instruments. That, I own, does interest me. Did he speak truly?”
“Aye,” Jenny said. “But I warrant ye’ll want to judge for yourself.”
He smiled then, the sweet smile she remembered from the night before. “I will, lass. I certainly will. Let me just fetch out my lute.”
He dove back into the tent and emerged seconds later with two lutes, one of which he handed to her. Moving to a rocky outcropping, he used the skirt of his robe to whisk off dirt and pebbles, then indicated that she should sit.
“Play whatever ye like and sing, too, if ye can,” he said. “I want to judge your skill, but ye needna try anything difficult. ’Tis not the nimbleness o’ your plucking that will impress me but your ability to entertain others.”
Nodding, she swiftly reviewed the songs she knew and selected the Border love song she had been playing the first time Phaeline had commented on her skill. As Phaeline rarely said anything kind to her, that moment had impressed Jenny. Moreover, the love song had been one of her father’s favorite tunes. But whether the song would impress this man, she could not know.
His lute was a fine one, its strings true of sound. Delighting in the instrument, she soon lost herself in the song. She was used to playing and singing for others, generally those she knew well, so she felt no self-consciousness now.
When she glanced at him and saw that his eyes had shut, an image of her father looking just so made her smile.
Opening his eyes, he looked as if he had detected the smile
in her voice. Then, nodding, he reached for the other lute, plucked one string, then another, and soon was playing along with her. When the song ended, he began another one that she knew, and she quickly joined him, thoroughly enjoying herself.
When that song ended, he said, “Ye play well, and ye’ve a pleasant voice. Ye’ll need to learn to flirt with your audience though, if ye would please them.”
“Flirt?”
“Aye, sure, for how else do ye think to stir listeners to throw their gelt to ye? We dinna entertain for nowt, lass, and the more ye impress your audience, the more they’ll fling. A tithe of all ye earn, by the bye, goes into the company fund to purchase aught we might need. Ye’ll keep the rest for yourself.”
She had not thought about making money, and the thought now stirred only discomfort. “Might not some listeners expect other things of me if I flirt enough to make them throw money at me?”
“They may think about such other things, lassie, but nae one here will expect ye to act on their thoughts. One of our gleewomen invites liberties, the others do not. It is all one to me. We’ll play only a short while here at Castle Moss before we depart for Lochmaben, so this be a good place for ye to show us your worth.”
“What about the hurdy-gurdy? Bryan did say that you have one.”
He smiled again, but this time she detected sadness in him. “I do have a vielle á roué that belonged to my son, but ’tis an instrument that requires two to play it. We’ll see after Castle Moss if ye’ll bide with us long enough to try that, or not.”
“I want to see Lochmaben,” she said. “But I am unsure what I should do about Peg. This was all my fault, but I fear she may lose her place if she returns alone.”
“She made a choice, just as ye did. Ye didna force her to come all this way.”
Jenny nearly corrected him, knowing that Peg would have refused to go back without her. But she knew she could not explain that without revealing who she was and why Peg would feel obliged to stay. Remorsefully, she realized that she ought to have thought it all through before deciding to accompany the minstrels.
She had acted on impulse, a fault she had thought she’d long outgrown. Her father had been quick to condemn her impulses whenever she had succumbed to them. She could almost hear him scolding her now from the high cloud on which, since the day of his death, she had often imagined him sitting.
“Take that lute with ye, lass, and practice whilst we make ready to go. Choose two songs—one to sing and the second to sing if they like ye.”
“How will I know to play the second one?”
“I trow ye’ll ken that fine, lassie, just as ye will if they don’t.”
In the Annan House stable, Hugh looked long at Mairi before he said, “How many of your guests are missing jewelry, my lady?”
“I do not know, sir. I heard our steward telling my father and Phaeline only that Lady Johnstone and her daughter had missed things. It did seem to me, though, as if they had been discussing the subject before I entered the room.”
“Surely, neither Dunwythie nor Phaeline would suspect a servant in their household of theft,” Hugh said.
“I know not what they suspect, sir. I do know Peg, though, and I am sure she would not steal from us or our guests. My sister, Fiona, was also present then, however, and she has a knack for making mischief even when she does not mean to. She demanded to know if our steward suspected Jenny of taking the jewelry.”
Although it was clear to Hugh that Mairi thought that unlikely, he did not know Janet Easdale. “Might she have taken it?” he asked her.
“She has no need, sir. Indeed, I should think it more likely that one of the minstrels, or even a servant, took it. But Lady Johnstone says she is nearly certain she put her necklace away before she went to bed. The minstrels had gone by then.”
“Sakes, lass, so had Lady Easdale and your Peg if you are right about them leaving the house with the minstrels.”
“I know that,” Mairi said. “I am merely repeating what I heard, sir. I do not have any notion what became of the jewelry. Nor do I know how much is missing.”
If the two young women were indeed with the minstrels, Hugh had no doubt that he would quickly find their trail, wherever they had gone. It occurred to him, though, that before he left, he should learn more about the missing jewelry.
Mairi might be wrong about when it went missing. But, even so, if anyone raised a hue and cry to find the women or the minstrels, it would considerably impair his chances of resolving anything quietly.
Leaving word with a lad to tell Lucas he would soon return, Hugh escorted Mairi back to the house and went in search of his host. With a gillie’s assistance, he found Dunwythie in a small chamber off the hall, looking over his accounts.
Gently raising his eyebrows, Dunwythie said, “Ye still here, lad? I thought ye’d be well away by now.”
“I expect to be away shortly, my lord,” Hugh said. “I just learned, however, that some jewelry has disappeared.”
“By the Rood, I learned that myself only twenty minutes ago. I am coming to believe that rumors fly through the air on their own wings!”
“ ’Tis only a rumor, then?”
“I wish it were. At least five people have reported missing items, most last night but others this morning, my own wife amongst them.”
“Phaeline has lost something?”
“Aye, her pearls, if she didna misplace them,” Dunwythie said with an affectionate smile. “She does forget what she’s done with her things, as I expect most of us do. But she nearly always has one hand on her pearls and is sure she put them away early this morning. She says she awoke, realized she had not done so, and got up to attend to them. I suppose she might have dreamed all that, but…”
“ ’Twould be a most coincidental dream, and Phaeline is not fanciful.”
“Nay, although she does seem more forgetful when she is with child.”
“Still, it seems unlikely that the minstrels or your Peg had aught to do with the thefts if things went missing after they left,” Hugh said.
“Aye, and minstrels do take care to keep their reputations clean, lest they lose all chance of plying their craft. My lads searched them even so, and I dinna want a fuss. I’ve told everyone who lost jewelry that I’ll investigate the matter, and each has agreed to leave it to me. Only one suggested reporting the thefts to the sheriff.”
“I trust you persuaded that person to wait,” Hugh said. “It makes no sense for me to act quietly if the Sheriff of Dumfries will be sending his lads out and about to make noises about stolen jewelry, minstrels, and missing maidservants.”
“I agree, and I did make it plain that I’ll take responsibility for the outcome. We must recover the jewels in any event. Much as I hate to think it, I fear we may have a thief here in the house. My lads wouldna ha’ searched one of our own.”
“Aye, well, I’ll see if I can glean any useful information,” Hugh said.
“You find Jenny,” Dunwythie said. “That she was unhappy here disturbs me.”
“Unhappiness is scarcely sufficient cause to raise such a dust,” Hugh said. “I’d say that what that young woman needs—”
“Now ye sound like Phaeline,” Dunwythie said. “But I dinna mind telling ye, lad, if this riot and rumpus causes her to lose our bairn, I may well take a strap to both of our missing lasses when ye find them.”
Hugh had been hoping for some such declaration, if only because he found it a damned nuisance to be going after them. But when the mental image presented itself—of Dunwythie beating the self-contained young woman who had refused to let Reid intimidate her—an unexpected stirring of sardonic amusement banished it.
As he and Lucas Horne rode away from Annan House, it occurred to Hugh that had anyone asked him to explain that amusement, he could not have done so, except by admitting a growing suspicion that the lass would deal as easily with Dunwythie as she had with Reid.
She would not, however, deal so easily with him.
Chapter 4
Castle Moss, Annandale
Jenny looked around the noisy, crowded courtyard of Castle Moss, more than half expecting to see a familiar face. Reid must, she thought, be on her heels by now with a large party of men. She had been looking over her shoulder all day. But would he know to follow the minstrels or look for their camp?
It was more likely, she told herself for what must be the hundredth time, that Reid assumed she must be returning to Easdale. But would he assume that?
Recalling her conversations with Mairi and Fiona at the high table and on the way to her bedchamber, she feared she had said enough so that Mairi at least would easily deduce what she had done. But even if Mairi had, would she tell Reid?
Reassuring herself that, in any event, he was unlikely to catch up with them before she and the minstrels were safely inside Lochmaben, she began to relax.
Nearly all the residents of Castle Moss had gathered enthusiastically in the walled courtyard, leaving a large area for the entertainers and an aisle to reach it.
Men-at-arms tried to keep a walkway clear around the perimeter but had little success. Music filled the air. Tumblers, including the two fools, tall Gawkus and wee Gillygacus, were trying to outdo each other with their antics. The festive atmosphere filled Jenny with the same excitement she often felt at a market fair.
Standing to one side of the intersection of the arched entryway to the keep, the perimeter walkway, and the aisle, she had a fine view of the tumblers and was amazed again at how easily they accomplished each acrobatic movement.
As they left the clearing, three jugglers darted past them to take their places there, sending colored balls into the air and to each other as they ran. The music quickened as a trio of dancers followed them, and Jenny suddenly wished the Joculator had asked her to play her lute with the three musicians strolling through the audience. Glancing toward them on the thought, she saw the flute player lean close to a pretty lass and wink, making her laugh. Nearby watchers laughed as well.
