Border Fire

by Amanda Scott

  “Poor laddie,” Janet said sympathetically. She had heard much about the Earl of Morton, who was now, she believed, mercifully deceased.

  “Aye, Morton was a hard man,” Margaret said. “Indeed, one reason that Buccleuch has enjoyed the King’s favor—most days, at all events—is that they shared a similar upbringing and each had to fight to control his birthright. Jamie is but a year younger than Buccleuch, and he spent his youth at Morton’s mercy, too. Buccleuch wants better for his son. Unlike Buccleuch, who fought his tutors every step of the way, Quin enjoyed book learning. He was educated at home and at the university in Edinburgh, and Buccleuch says he is a very knowing man.”

  Janet had rarely spent much time with other women, and she enjoyed her week at Branxholme, especially the long conversations with its mistress. To her surprise, she found that she did not miss Brackengill nearly as much as she had feared she would. She wondered only two or three times a day about how well her brother was getting on without her.

  Had anyone asked Sir Hugh Graham on the morning that he discovered his sister’s disappearance if he would miss her, he would have declared categorically that he would not. His fury carried him into the following day, assuaged only by thoughts of what he would do when he finally laid hands on her. Monday morning, however, when he descended to his hall in anticipation of breaking his fast, he discovered that all was not as it had been at Brackengill.

  Even from the stairwell he noticed that the place seemed strangely silent. It took him several moments to realize that what he missed was the sound of maidservants singing and laughing as they tended to their chores. He also missed the odors of roasting meat and baking bread, and despite the season, he had expected to be greeted by the savory smell of the two grouse he had shot as they turned on a spit in the kitchen. Perhaps, he told himself, it was still too early to start them.

  Entering the hall, he found it empty. No preparations had been made to serve his breakfast. Shouting for a servant, he soon heard clattering footsteps on the stairs leading to the kitchen, and a moment later a lad appeared, looking frightened.

  Hugh bellowed, “Where the devil’s my food?”

  “Beg pardon, master, but Sheila and Matty and them didna come the day. Geordie said their menfolk told them they b’ain’t to come here again till Mistress Janet returns. Me da says it isna safe for ’em here without her.”

  Sir Hugh gaped at the lad in shock, but by the time Buccleuch’s envoy arrived at Brackengill that afternoon, he had seen for himself just how much had been stolen from him, and he was ripe for murder.

  Buccleuch had schemed well, and his emissary was both smooth of tongue and skilled in the art of diplomacy, but Sir Hugh saw to it that persuading him to agree to any marriage took several days and a good deal of money.

  Buccleuch and Sir Quinton arrived at Branxholme late the following Thursday evening, surprising Margaret and her guest. The two women were sitting companionably by a roaring fire in the hall when the men strode in, and Margaret leapt up to hug her husband.

  “We can hold the ceremony on Sunday if you like,” Buccleuch said matter-of-factly as he welcomed her into his arms, speaking over her shoulder to Janet.

  Janet reacted with astonishment. “Hugh agreed?”

  “Aye, he did,” Buccleuch said, releasing his wife to let a servant take his helmet, gloves, and cloak.

  Sir Quinton turned to the fire as he pulled off his gloves. Tucking them inside his doublet, he held his hands out to warm them, apparently deaf to the exchange and not eager to take part in the conversation. Janet had caught one darting look as he entered, but she had been unable to read his expression.

  “What did Hugh say?” she demanded.

  Buccleuch shrugged. “What can it matter, mistress? He has agreed to permit your marriage and therefore will make no legal objection to it.”

  “If it please you, sir, I should like to know exactly what he said. Did he not send any message to me?”

  “Nay, lass, and as to—”

  “He said that I am welcome to you,” Sir Quinton said without turning.

  “Then he does not suspect that you are Rabbie Redcloak,” Janet said.

  “He does not,” Buccleuch said, adding smugly, “You can thank me for that.”

  “I am sure that I can, sir,” she said, “but how can you be so certain?”

  In a near growl, Sir Quinton said, “Because his envoy told your brother that I rescued you from Rabbie Redcloak.” His voice took on a hard edge when he added, “His man went so far as to suggest that I am willing to overlook the way you entered Scotland, that because I took a strong liking to you, I would marry you despite the damage done to your reputation.”

  “Did Hugh believe that?”

  “Who can say what he believes?” Buccleuch said, eyeing Sir Quinton with disfavor.

  Sir Quinton turned then, and to her surprise she detected a flash of amusement in his eyes. He said, “It doubtless will come as no surprise to you that your brother seems to have decided that both Buccleuch and Buccleuch’s idiot cousin are hand in glove with the reivers.”

  “Never mind that,” Buccleuch said. “We’ve details to arrange now, so listen well, all of you. For the booking, mistress, I’ll send my own men to wait on the session clerk in Hawick, to inform him that you and Quin have agreed to a betrothal. My men will likewise inform the parson. I trust that you’re not a popish lass, or if you are, that you’ll not insist on having a priest. Priests are not in good odor these days, and no priest-spoken marriage would be lawful hereabouts.”

  “I am not popish,” Janet said, feeling overwhelmed and remembering what he had said upon entering. “Surely all this cannot happen by Sunday!”

  “There’s naught amiss with marrying on a Sunday,” he said.

  “But what of the banns?”

  An impatient gesture dismissed the banns. “A single reading will suffice,” he said, “and we’ve our own chapel here at Branxholme. Parson can marry you directly after the service.”

  “For a fee,” Sir Quinton said.

  “Which you’ll pay, my lad, and without any fuss over it,” Buccleuch told him. “You can afford it better than I can just now. You’ll also pay the betrothal fee and give my men ample funds to lay down the pawns in Hawick.”

  Confused, Janet looked to Sir Quinton for enlightenment.

  “Yet another fee,” he explained. “Laying down pawns guarantees that our marriage will be solemnized. The session clerk will keep the money until we can show that a proper cleric has married us. Then he’ll return it. He will not, however, return the fee that I’ll pay for sending others in our stead to attest to our betrothal.”

  “I don’t understand this,” Janet said. “Need we not hold a proper betrothal ceremony to sign papers and make all legal?”

  Buccleuch said, “Here in Scotland you need only speak the words of the marriage rite before witnesses, mistress, after which you’ll each moisten your right thumb with your tongue and press them together. We count the violation of any contract so consecrated tantamount to perjury.”

  “I see. Did…did Hugh happen to mention my dowry?”

  “Aye, he did,” Buccleuch said, his gaze evading hers.

  “Well?” She looked from one man to the other.

  Buccleuch grimaced, still refusing to meet her gaze, but Sir Quinton looked sympathetic. “I’ll see that you have no need for a dowry, lassie,” he said quietly.

  “’Tis just as well,” Buccleuch said before she could protest such a ridiculous and humiliating notion. “Your pig-headed megrim of a brother said you could be married in your smock, mistress. He’ll do naught to prevent the marriage, he said, but neither will he do aught to make anyone think that he favors it. He also said that no respectable Englishman would take you after such time as you had spent in the reiver’s clutches. ’Twas then that he said Quin were welcome to you.”

  Margaret Scott said indignantly, “Husband, have pity! What a dreadful thing to say to her!”

 
; “Aye, but she wanted to ken the truth,” Buccleuch said.

  “Nevertheless you need not have flung it at her like a hurling of stones,” retorted the wife of his bosom with a look of grave displeasure.

  He moved toward her, murmuring coaxingly, “Dinna be wroth with me, sweetling. ’Tis sorely I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ll wager you have, locked up in that great pile of rocks with naught but a hundred loud, filthy men to bear you company, but you’ll soon be thinking their company preferable to mine if you do not treat my guest with kindness.”

  Stunned by the knowledge that Hugh intended to keep her dowry, Janet paid them little heed. She realized that the laws of both countries would support her brother and that she had no recourse against him. For the first time, she sympathized heartily with the reivers. She would have liked nothing better than to ride to Brackengill with an army to retrieve her rightful property at sword point.

  Chapter 10

  “Her girdle show’d her middle neat

  And gowden glist her hair.”

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, JOINING Margaret in her parlor to break her fast, Janet said ruefully as she sat down at the table, “I wish Hugh had at least had the kindness to send some of my clothing to Branxholme. Everything has happened so quickly, and I possess no finery to wear to my own wedding. Were it not for your generosity, madam, I would have naught but the clothes I wore when I arrived. I thank you most sincerely for the clean smock your woman provided me this morning.”

  “You need not thank me,” Margaret said with a smile as she poured ale into a goblet for her guest. “’Tis my pleasure to help. You will soon have gowns of your own. Quinton is a generous man, despite his complaints about money.”

  “Nevertheless—”

  “Do not bother your head about such things now,” Margaret interjected. “We’ve much that we must think about. Trust Buccleuch to declare that all can be arranged in a twink, and then leave me to arrange it.”

  “Indeed, I do not know how you will manage.”

  “It will all sort itself out,” Margaret said placidly. “He will invite everyone for miles, and gentry from as far as a day’s ride away, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “I do not understand how he contrived any of this,” Janet said. “He cannot have got the Queen’s permission in so short a time. I doubt that he had time even to obtain Lord Scrope’s.”

  “As he explained it to me, he required only your brother’s. Doubtless the merchet will be high, though.”

  “Pray, madam, what is the merchet?”

  “’Tis yet another marriage tax,” Margaret said. “When I married Buccleuch, my father explained that the merchet dates from the Scottish feudal system. It is a tax that a superior exacts from a vassal on the marriage of the vassal’s daughter. Proceeding on the principle that giving a daughter in wedlock deprives the overlord of her services, a knight or baron levies merchet from his bondsman, then pays it to his sovereign.”

  “But how can that affect me? Neither I nor my brother are vassals of your King, and Hugh will certainly refuse to pay any such tax to Queen Elizabeth.”

  “Buccleuch kens that fine, but someone will expect to receive his due. Presently, the King grants such merchet from persons of opulence to individuals in reward of service. In my view, since Buccleuch or Quinton will pay the King, they do it more to persuade Jamie to side with Quinton if Elizabeth makes a fuss over your marriage. But you need not tell Buccleuch that I suggested as much.”

  “No, of course not. Do you think the Queen will bother her head about me?”

  “Buccleuch says ’tis ever better to be safe than sorry, since one cannot know which way any sovereign may hop. She may dislike your leaving England, he said, but he said also that she cannot express too much rancor when she still insists that after her death we will all be citizens of one country.”

  “She does not believe that day is near, however,” Janet pointed out.

  “Nay, of course she does not, but she is aging and has little eagerness to quarrel with Jamie, or so Buccleuch told me.”

  Janet had noted shortly after her arrival at Branxholme that her hostess had a habit of quoting her husband frequently, and of believing that he knew best about most things. She had noted a similar tendency among Englishwomen she had met, and wondered if it was customary with Scottish wives. She hoped that it was not, for she could not imagine herself assuming that Sir Quinton was the only one whose opinion mattered in her life. She had not allowed Hugh to reduce her to a mere cipher. She certainly would not allow Sir Quinton to do so.

  Janet’s wedding day dawned in a gloom of heavy fog, but the walls of Branxholme Castle fairly vibrated with its many guests. The bridegroom’s feast, which Buccleuch had informed Sir Quinton the latter would pay for, had lasted well into the small hours of the morning, and when the maidservant woke her, Janet was by no means certain that she wanted to arise.

  “It cannot be morning already,” she muttered into her pillow as she burrowed deeper into the cozy featherbed.

  “Aye, but it is, Mistress Janet,” the maid said in her soft voice. “I’ve brung ye hot water, and the mistress will come along shortly t’ help ye dress.”

  When Margaret arrived, a number of other ladies accompanied her, and Janet’s dressing ceremony proceeded with pomp and circumstance. To her astonishment, Margaret produced a lovely gown that she declared was brand new.

  “But how—?”

  Margaret silenced her with a laugh. “’Tis Quinton’s doing, of course. I told him that my woman could easily rework one of my gowns, and that since it would be new to you, it would satisfy tradition, but he would have none of that.”

  “It is beautiful,” Janet said, touching the soft, creamy velvet skirt when Lady Gaudilands, a plump, graying gentlewoman with some forty-five years to her credit, held it out for her inspection. “I do not understand, though. How could he contrive this in such a short time?”

  “He bullied Francis, the tailor in Hawick, of course. Francis had finished cutting this gown for Lady Roxburgh who had ordered three dresses from him, and when Quinton told him he required a wedding dress, Francis told him—eventually and doubtless after much argument and persuasion—that he could have this one. He kept his seamstresses up two whole nights to get it finished.”

  “But how could the tailor know my size?”

  “He did not, but Quinton said he told Francis that you were so high and that his—Quinton’s—hands could nearly span your waist. That, he said, was enough for Francis to say this gown would suit you. You may ask him to alter it after the wedding if it does not fit perfectly, but tradition forbids any alteration today. Everything you wear to your wedding should be new, so we’ll have no argument. Quinton even thought of corsets.” She held up a pair of ivory silk bodies with matching ribbon laces and trim.

  “’Tis a good thing ye be slender, Mistress Janet,” said Lady Gaudilands. “The dress wouldna fit if ye had to depend on the corset to make you slim enough, for we canna make any knots the day.”

  “Nor will Quinton be allowed to knot his laces,” Margaret said with a grin. “’Tis a tradition that’s led to many a merry moment, I can tell you, for I’ve known folks who have nigh lost their clothing during the ceremony or afterward.”

  Dismayed, Janet said, “I’d swoon if such a thing happened to me. Surely, we can pin things together so I need not fear baring myself to the company.”

  “Ye need ha’ no fear, my dear,” Lady Gaudilands said. “I ken a few tricks to prevent disaster. The rule says no knots. It says nowt about twisting ribbons round one another. Here, I’ll show ye. Slip out o’ that smock and into the new one that Margaret be holding for ye.”

  Before long, Janet stood ready to don her gown, and Lady Gaudilands had made good her promise. Even the corset felt as if it would stay in place, for she had twisted the ties round each other and tucked in the ends. Despite the lack of knots or pins, Janet no longer feared that she could lose her clothes if she dared to move.


  The rich, ivory velvet, open-skirted gown boasted a train and hanging sleeves of ivory velvet over a petticoat of matching silk taffeta. The velvet bodice had narrow crossbands of gold and silver bobbin lace, and the golden satin undersleeves were slashed and trimmed with bands of the same metallic lace. The hems of both petticoat and dress, and the hanging sleeves, were also trimmed with lace and lined with scored and pinked gold satin.

  When she was dressed, all the ladies except Margaret and her personal servant left, and the three of them waited patiently until they heard firelocks discharging outside the castle walls to announce the parson’s arrival.

  “’Tis the feu de joie,” Margaret said, looking out a window. “Come and see.”

  Janet obeyed, feeling a thrill of pride at the huge procession that accompanied the parson. She felt sad that her family could not be present, but it warmed her heart to see that the people of Liddesdale and Teviotdale intended to show Sir Quinton’s bride great honor. The procession was a merry one, and that amazed her, too. A number of guests had arrived the previous night and had enjoyed the groom’s feast with its attendant imbibing, so she had expected many of the men who had attended those festivities still to be lying abed, nursing the effects of too much drink. Evidently, however, the Scots had heads of steel.

  “Do I not wear a headdress?” she said.

  Margaret smiled. “Would you do so at home?”

  “’Tis the first time you have asked me what customs would pertain at home, and they are somewhat different,” Janet said with a smile. “For one thing, I doubt that Hugh would have allowed me to have a new gown. The cost of fine cloth and trimmings is too great, and fashionable dresses take vast amounts of both.” She looked down, fingering the luxurious velvet with delight. Then, meeting Margaret’s gaze, she said, “As to what I would wear on my head, I have heard of brides who wore golden coifs or even floor-length veils. In spring, I should doubtless wear a chaplet of roses. However, since there are none blooming yet, I suppose any wreath would have been woven of dried rosemary or gilded wheat-straws.”