by Amanda Scott
Chapter 10
Jenny continued to glower at Hugh but to no avail. He just held on to her wrist and smiled. Light from the blanket of stars above pierced the canopy, making his strong white teeth glow. Faith, but it was hard to stay angry with the man, even when he had threatened violent retribution for a simple act of self-defense!
His strength was another point of confusion for her. It annoyed her that he was so much stronger than she was. But she had to admit that over the past days his strength had also provided comfort and security. Even when he had snatched her up and proven how easily a man might abduct her from the middle of a crowd of townspeople and protective minstrels, she had not known a jot of fear.
He would not harm her, and the safety she felt in his presence had naught to do with his being the brother of the man to whom she was betrothed. Indeed, the one certainty in her mind now was that marriage to Reid Douglas was going to be an even greater hardship than she had imagined it could be.
Clearly, Hugh did not mean to release her until she promised to behave. Determined not to make him any such promise, she said, “Why did you snatch me away like that?”
“I told you why,” he said, no longer smiling. “You put too much faith in your own ability to protect yourself. I thought it better that I show you how wrong you were before someone else did and terrified you witless.”
“You did not terrify me. You just made me angry.”
“If you are expecting an apology, think again.”
She grimaced. “We should get back before they come looking for us.”
“In a moment,” he said, but he released her wrist. “This is a good chance to talk, lass. Have you learned any more yet to lend credence to your suspicions?”
She shook her head. “But I’ve heard naught to prove the minstrels are planning a surprise for the performance at Threave, as you suggested, either, except perhaps your play. I must say, sir, Gerda suits her role. All that simpering and fluttering of eyelashes seems less ridiculous when it is supposed to be funny.”
He chuckled. “I’ll admit I’m enjoying the thing. If it weren’t for my fear that Sheriff Maxwell or someone else might recognize me, I’d be having a fine time.”
“You looked it,” she said, and was surprised to hear an edge to her voice.
Evidently, he heard it, too, because he looked more carefully at her. But he said only, “We must both take care whilst we’re here. I’d not be amazed if you should meet someone who knows you.”
“But I have never been to Dumfries before,” she said, suppressing the remains of her sharp reaction to his delight in playing opposite fat Gerda.
He was shaking his head. “ ’Tis not whether or not you’ve been here before that endangers you. ’Tis the likelihood that someone else from Easdale may come here and recognize you from home.”
She had not considered that, but it could certainly happen.
To avert Hugh’s telling her again that she must go back to Annan House, she said, “There must still be much snow in the hills all around Easdale. So I expect folks there will wait a few weeks before venturing forth to any large town.”
Nodding but clearly with his mind already on something else, he said, “Have you given more thought to the missing jewels? I had hoped concern for Peg might nudge your memory to recall something useful. As she has first-head privileges at Annan House and might easily have carried a small sack of jewels past the—”
“Good sakes,” Jenny said, annoyed with herself. Lest he think she was annoyed with him, she added hastily, “Sithee, sir, the knacker, Parland Dow, also enjoys such privilege. And he left Annan House that night just before we did.”
“Even if he did, lass, he is trusted everywhere. You won’t persuade me that he is dishonest or that he somehow managed to steal jewels from Dunwythie’s guests.”
“But recall that I told you someone struck him down. We came upon him straightaway afterward, but the attacker got away. What if someone, knowing that the guards would not search him, slipped the stolen jewels under one of his packs, then clouted him and stole the jewels back?”
“Retrieving such a sack would be risky,” he said. “But concealing it might not be. I warrant the stableyard and forecourt were full of activity at the time.”
“Aye, with people, horses, and mules milling everywhere,” she said. “I recall something else now, too. I saw Cuddy come out of the woods just after… Nay then,” she amended, frowning as the image came alive. “Men were searching the woods for Dow’s attacker by then. Doubtless, Cuddy was just one of them.”
“You seemed certain it was Cuddy’s voice in your dream,” he said. “But you told me you’d heard it only once before then, when Cath scolded him.”
“I only heard a bit of that scolding,” she explained. “They were just out of sight on the same path. When we met, he directed me to the Joculator’s tent. He has a certain musical quality to his voice that makes it particularly memorable.”
“I ken fine what you mean,” he said. Altering his voice, cocking his head, and plumping out his cheeks, he said, “Aye, sure I’ll tell ye, lass. His tent be just yonder.”
“That’s it exactly,” she said with a smile. “I don’t know how you do that.”
“I’ve mimicked voices and character traits all my life—and often suffered for it, too, I can tell you,” he said, smiling back. “Some are easier than others, though. Higher voices are more difficult, and women’s voices nearly impossible.”
“You did Gerda’s well enough when you mimicked her tonight,” she said.
“Aye, well, that was supposed to be comical,” he said. “I doubt I could make anyone think I was Gerda speaking in the dark. It is easier for me to mimic her facial expressions than her voice.”
She thought about that. “ ’Tis true that one knew you were aping her, and so paid less heed than one would just hearing that voice come out of the darkness.”
“Enough about Gerda,” he said. “I want you to think now, lass, because what I just did… the musical note you heard… was little more than the difference between Cuddy’s English Borderer’s accent and that of a Border Scot.”
“Sakes, is he English? Cath did not tell me that.”
“Aye, I’m sure of it,” he said. “Recall that minstrels travel far and wide, and come from many countries. And, you did have that odd dream at Lochmaben. Rather than talking to himself in it, might Cuddy have been talking to another Englishman?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “In troth, as time passes, it becomes harder to recall what any of it sounded like, but I don’t think my dream had aught to do with jewels.”
He sighed, and she felt as if she had disappointed him. “I wish I could remember it more clearly,” she said. “Or know why I reacted as I did.”
His hand grasped her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Nay, Jenny, don’t apologize. Better to be honest and accuse no one than to make a false accusation.”
Until she released her breath, she was unaware of holding it and unaware, too, of how much she had wanted him to understand her feelings. When he slipped an arm around her shoulders, she leaned into him. Then she promptly felt guilty, knowing she was seeking comfort from him when she should not.
As she started to step away, his embrace tightened, and she relaxed again.
“We should go back now,” he said, releasing her and urging her forward.
Her emotions in turmoil, she protested. “But we’re going the wrong way! I left my lute behind when you snatched me up. Faith, it’s not even mine!”
“Lucas will have collected everything,” he said. “Even your lute.”
“But he didn’t see us go. No one paid us any heed.”
“I hope you think hard about that, and learn a lesson from it,” he said, serious again. “But you may trust Lucas as I do, lass. He does not miss much that concerns me or anyone in whom I take an interest.”
“Very well,” she said, relaxing. “At least I can see where I’m putting my feet now. I don’t know how y
ou knew where you were going before.”
“I have good night vision,” he said. “And there’s plenty of starlight tonight.”
As they neared the encampment, Hugh suddenly put out a hand to stop her. “Who’s there?” he said quietly.
“It be only me, sir,” Bryan said as he stepped from the shrubbery onto the track. “The sheriff’s men be searching the camp. I thought ye’d want to know.”
Bryan vanished back into the shrubbery as soon as he had warned them, and they watched the sheriff’s men from the woods. But if they turned up anything incriminating, neither Jenny nor Hugh saw any sign of it.
“Do you think they are looking for the missing jewels?” Jenny asked.
“If they are, it means jewelry has gone missing from other houses, too, because your uncle said he would not report the theft at Annan House yet.”
When the sheriff’s men had gone, Jenny said, “Peg must be gey worried about me by now.”
“Nay, then, she won’t be,” Hugh said. “Lucas will have reassured her.”
He proved right about that, but Peg was clearly angry.
As she and Jenny settled at last into their sleeping places, Peg muttered, “A fine thing! Them sheriff’s louts pawing through our things, saying they be looking for jewels that they admit went missing afore this lot ever got to Annan House!”
“Did they?” Jenny said. She dared not tell Peg that jewels were missing from Annan House, too, because to do so would be to risk word of her own knowledge of that fact spreading to the others. Without a way to explain how she knew—
“As if Bryan and them would take aught!” Peg said. “But ye, wandering in the woods wi’ a man whose own brother ye’re betrothed to. Nobbut what Sir Hugh be a fine-looking man and a better one, I’m thinking, than the one you’re to marry.”
Jenny remained silent, hoping to put Peg on the defensive but knowing, too, that she could say little to defend her own actions with Sir Hugh, either, without revealing more than she wanted Peg to know.
Peg took the hint and said no more, so Jenny counted the few stars she could see through the canopy until she fell asleep.
Having left Jenny with Peg, Hugh had gone in search of Lucas to be sure the sheriff’s men suspected nothing and that he had collected everything.
“I did,” Lucas assured him. “Once they learned we’d joined these folks at Lochmaben, they took nae interest in our things, any road. Ye were a time though. I canna think what ye were about to abduct that lass as ye did.”
“I wanted to teach her a lesson about keeping her eyes open in a crowd,” Hugh said. “I don’t know that I succeeded. Did you find her lute?”
“I did,” Lucas said. “By, though, if ye’re thinkin’ ye’ll sleep now, ye should ken that t’ Joculator did say he’d like to see ye afore ye go to bed.”
“You do not think perhaps you ought to have told me that straightaway?”
“Nah then, the man’s no master of mine, nor yours, come to that. It does ’im nae harm to wait some for ye.”
Hugh frowned. Lucas’s instincts were sometimes better than his own. “You don’t like the man?”
“I dinna dislike ’im,” Lucas said thoughtfully. “ ’Tis just summat and nowt. He smiles much, and sometimes ’e does it in a way to melt lassies’ hearts, withal. Other times, he smiles and ’is eyes be like shards of ice. And, times when he smiles, he looks as if he’d weep instead of laughin’. I canna tell which be the man ’imself. And, sithee, I’m thinkin’ we ought to ken which one it be.”
Hugh nodded but had no other answer. Nor did the Joculator’s smile reassure him much when Hugh found him at the trestle table with other men of the company, including Cuddy and the two fools. Everyone looked pleased with himself and with the fact that the sheriff’s men had found nothing and had gone.
No one admitted knowing why they had searched the camp, but each man had a mug before him, and a tall pitcher sat near the Joculator’s elbow. He picked it up and reached for another mug. Pouring it full of ale, he gave it to Hugh.
“Drink up, lad,” he said. “Ye’ve earned it. They’ll be talking o’ your fine performance tonight from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright tomorrow. If our audience doesna double itself overnight, I’ll be that amazed.”
“Thank ye, sir,” Hugh said, drinking deeply. The ale was a little sweet for his taste, but he could not deny a strong thirst. Nor did he object when the Joculator topped it off again as Hugh took the seat beside him.
“We’ll rehearse again tomorrow after we break our fast,” the Joculator said. “D’ye ken your lines yet up through the marriage at the end o’ the second act?”
“I think so,” Hugh said.
“Aye, well, if it teases ye, Gerda can go over it all with ye afore we begin.”
Hugh hoped that would not be necessary. Gerda was beginning to get on his nerves. She simpered and fluttered as much when they weren’t acting as when they were, and he was not sure how to discourage her without giving offense.
Later, as he stood to make his way to bed, he realized he must have drunk much more than he had thought. The Joculator had rarely waited for his—or anyone else’s— mug to be empty before refilling it, and he had sent one of the lads at least twice to fetch more ale from the barrel. Hugh decided that he would not be amazed if a number of them missed breakfast.
Two voices, nay more than two—mayhap three or four sets of two. He could not remember. In fact, he could not think properly. Thoughts tumbled swiftly one moment and, the next, seemed to plow through muck to form themselves, or whatever it was thoughts did to make themselves known in one’s head.
How did thoughts think, anyway?
“Are ye sure?” a voice said close by, startling him a little.
“Aye, o’ course,” said another. “Ye can see that he’s no himself.”
That was true. He wasn’t, but how did his thoughts know it when he had not? Or were those real voices rather than just louder thoughts in his head?
In either case, how could he be other than himself? Mayhap all his pretending had done it. But if he was no longer himself, then who was he?
The puzzle proved beyond him at that moment to solve.
“Here, lad, sit up now.”
He felt himself smiling, although nothing funny had occurred. Then, numbly, he felt pressure on his arms, pushing or pulling him upward.
“Sleeping now,” he muttered. He thought he was still smiling, which was odd, because if nowt was funny, he ought to stop.
“Come now, do as ye’re bid,” the voice said. “Ye’ll be glad of it in the end.”
“The end of me?” he murmured.
“He looks daft, he does, and sounds it, too,” another voice said.
He opened his eyes and saw a face close to his own, a white face.
“Gawkus,” he muttered.
The face grinned at him, and the other voice said firmly, “That’s it, lad. Now, take this quill and write your name on the paper, just here, carefully—your full name, mind, just as ye always write it… that’s it, Hugo, and now the rest.”
Obediently, he wrote his name. His hand and arm felt as if they floated.
“Good lad,” the firm voice said. “Now again, just here.”
Again he obeyed, hoping they would then leave him be. He wanted to sleep. Indeed, he thought he was sleeping, but if this was a dream, it was an even odder one than Jenny’s had been.
The voices had stopped, and he did not miss them.
Jenny broke her fast with Peg Wednesday morning and then found her lute and took it to a nearby rock slab, where she could sit and practice her songs for that night’s performance. Sometime later, she saw Hugh making his way to the table.
He paid her no heed and seemed to concentrate hard on finding a place to sit, then clapped a hand to his head as he sat. When one of the lads pushed a pitcher of ale toward him, Hugh grabbed it and poured a healthy draught into his mug.
Jenny had lived an isolated life but not so isolated that she d
id not recognize a man who’d had too much drink the night before. The sight annoyed her. She had thought him an unlikely candidate for heavy drinking. However, Reid drank more than he should, so mayhap Douglas men simply liked their ale and whisky.
Later, though, when she found Gilly and persuaded him to give her another lesson with her dirk, she felt disappointment when Hugh did not follow them.
“Fix your mind on the knife,” Gilly said when she had missed the tree for the third time. “It’ll do ye nae good if ye dinna concentrate. Throw again.”
Biting her lip, aware that her feelings had betrayed her, she retrieved the dirk, put her mind to her throw, and struck the tree trunk dead center.
When she cast Gilly an exultant smile, he nodded, saying, “Throw again.”
When she had hit the tree five times in a row, he finally grinned and said, “Ye’ll do. But practice often, and recall what I told ye. Dinna think to use yon dirk to defend yourself. Like as no, some villain will just snatch it and use it against ye.”
Promising to heed his warning, Jenny thanked him, and they walked back to the encampment to find Gawkus waiting impatiently.
“I’ve had a notion for tonight,” he said to Gilly. “I want to discuss it wi’ ye.”
Parting from them, Jenny went to prepare for her own performance.
As the Joculator had predicted, their audience was larger, and the minstrels outdid themselves. Tumblers flipped and tumbled over each other, and the dancers danced more wildly, whirling and stomping their feet to the music. The audience began clapping and were still clapping when the jugglers ran in to the center.
All three juggled torches. Then the Joculator joined them, juggling axes with his. People shrieked whenever it looked as if he might drop one.
Gawkus and Gilly began with the jugglers, stood aside while the Joculator did his stint, and then ran back out with ten clubs flying back and forth between them. At the same time, the two carried on a seemingly naïve conversation about taxes and other duties of the sheriff that drew gusts of laughter from their audience but seemed most unlikely, that night, to amuse Sheriff Maxwell.
