by Susan King
He sheathed his broadsword in the holder looped onto his belt, and Mairi crossed the room to take his arm. "We are safe here. There is no need to go out to meet them."
"I'm preparing in case," he murmured, shoving a gun into his belt. Stepping back, he loaded a steel-tipped quarrel bolt into his latchbow and pulled up the bowstring to set the long metal trigger. "Go sit with Jean and Jennet and the bairns, and keep away from the door."
Hands shaking, she picked up his second wheel-lock pistol. "I'll stay with you. I've fought reivers before."
He sighed as if in acceptance. "No time to argue. That gun is loaded and spanned, and dangerous. Hold it more carefully—aye, like that. Do you know how to fire it?"
"I'll watch you," she said.
"Aim it, and pull the trigger only when you must. And do mind the recoil—it could knock you back hard." He went over to a window to peer through the parted shutters.
"Rowan Scott o' Blackdrummond!" Heckie bellowed now. "If you're in there—come out, man!"
Gripping the heavy pistol in both hands, Mairi went to the window beside Rowan to look out. He guided her out of the way and his broad back cut off her view. Instead, she peered through a gap on the hinged side of the shutter.
Weapons glinted in moonlight and several men sat their horses in the yard. Two riders held sputtering resinous torches. Rowan lifted his gun to the window and rested the barrel there.
"Come out, Rowan Scott!" Heckie called again. "We want what you are holding from us!"
"Be gone from here, Heckie Elliot!" he called. "There are women and bairns in this house!"
"Then save them, and come bring us what we want!"
Christie, carrying a loaded latchbow, went to another window, opened the shutter, and aimed his weapon. Rowan held up a cautioning hand to him.
"One chance, Heckie," Rowan called. "Be gone!"
Heckie lifted a gun, metal glinting—and Mairi saw a bright spark. The gunshot burst against the door, shaking it, but the lead ball did not penetrate the wood. Jean and Jennet, holding the children at the back of the room, gasped. Bluebell ran back and forth, barking furiously, and Mairi tried to shove her out of the way. She heard the children crying, and turned to see Jamie burying his head in Jean's shoulder.
Rowan gestured to Christie, who released a crossbow quarrel. Then splintering leadshot shook the stout oaken door.
"Rowan Scott!" Heckie shouted. "Give o'er the raven's moon! You have it—we know you got it from that wreck!"
"What in hell is he talking about?" Christie asked.
"Complicated," Rowan said curtly. He balanced his gun against his shoulder and aimed, pulling back the trigger.
The explosion was so loud, inside the room, that Mairi jumped and covered her ears. Behind her, Jamie and Robin wailed, and Bluebell leaped, snarling, at the door until Jennet dove forward to drag her to the back of the room.
"You caught that rogue in the shoulder, Rowan. Shall I try again?" Christie asked, sliding another bolt into his latchbow.
"I did not mean to kill him, nor will you, Christie," Rowan said. "We will not start a blood feud with the Elliots this night."
"Hey Blackdrummond! We are not gone!" Heckie taunted. "We'll burn you out if we must!"
"They have no principle against a feud," Christie drawled.
"Hey—bring that moon out, Blackdrummond!"
"Why is he asking for a moon? Is he mad?" Christie asked.
"Later," Mairi said distractedly as she peeked through a crack in the shutter. Men with torches rode across the yard.
"They mean to smoke us out," she said.
"Jesu," Rowan muttered, leaning his shoulder against the wall. "I'll go out," he said. "The children—"
"Rowan, nay!" She grabbed his arm. "They're waiting for you. They'll kill you!"
"We can shoot them down before they get to the thatch if we act quick," Christie pointed out, and let loose a quarrel. A cry rose above the howling wind. "Och, that was his leg. They refuse to take a good warning." He sent Rowan a flat smile.
Another shot rang out, chipping against the stone wall near the window. An arrow followed, thudding into the shutter, the edge of the wood banging into Mairi's head. She stumbled back and raised a hand to her temple, seeing a trickle of blood. Rowan grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the windows.
"I'm fine," she said. "Just a wee cut."
"It could have been far more," he said fiercely. "I cannot risk harm to you or the others."
Mairi took his arm to plead with him, but he shook his head firmly, set her aside, and turned back to the window.
Heckie bellowed again, the details of his threat lost in the wind. Christie released another latchbow bolt and Mairi heard another scream, followed by shouts and a flurry of arrows against the stone walls of the house.
"Got that one in the arm," Christie said wryly. "Told you I'm a careful shot, even in the dark. And no one dead. Yet."
Rowan chuckled softly and picked up his own latchbow to let loose a bolt that whistled past Clem Elliot's head. The man shrieked and raised his pistol, sending a lead ball slamming through the window to hit Christie, who fell backward.
Mairi ran to him, but Christie rose to his feet. Blood darkened his white sleeve. "It's naught," he muttered, shaking off her hands as he picked up his latchbow again.
Rowan swore under his breath as he reloaded the wheel-lock and wound the key. Then he picked up his helmet and shoved it onto his head, grabbed lance and latchbow, and went to the trapdoor to yank it open.
Mairi ran toward him. "Rowan, they only want the black mirror. Just throw it out to them!"
He took her hand, grasping her fingers. "If I let them have it, what then? If I live through the night, the English will be after me. I am obligated to apprehend these fellows." His gaze was dark and intense. "This is the better chance for all of us now."
He leaned down to give her a quick, firm kiss. "Hey, my lass," he murmured, "I'll come back. Naught could keep me away from you for long, hey."
"Oh, Rowan—" She gripped his arm, afraid that he would never return, knowing she could not convince him to stay.
"Let go, dearling," he said, and stepped away.
She watched as he dropped down the ladder into the byre. Reaching the bottom, he glanced up.
"Mairi—stand by the window and hold the gun high and ready. You'll know what to do. Jeanie Armstrong,"—he called out softly—"thank you for your hospitality. Tend to my wife's cracked pate, if you will." Then he was gone, pulling the trap door closed by a string.
Running to the window, Mairi lifted the loaded gun to the gap between the shutters. Warm blood licked down the side of her face from a stinging cut at her temple. She ignored it, aiming along the gun's metal barrel, looking past that cold glint toward the shadowy forms of the men out in the yard.
Nearby, Christie balanced his latchbow on the windowsill. He glanced at her, then turned his gaze to watch outside.
They waited. An eerie silence filled the small house. Even the dog ceased to bark and the children became oddly quiet. Mairi saw Heckie mutter to his comrades. Tension constricted the very air. Moments dragged past.
Then she heard muffled sounds from below. Rowan was leaving through the byre's outer door. She bit at her lower lip anxiously, watching Heckie and his gang, waiting for Rowan.
For an instant, she remembered another man who had gone out to meet reivers in the dark of night. Chills went through her as she remembered how Johnny Kerr had smiled and assured her that he would return. But he had ridden to his death.
Then Iain had gone out with Alec Scott to be arrested and imprisoned. Now she was terrified that she would never see Rowan again—and she was not sure she could help. She was not even sure how to fire the pistol, but she would do it if she must.
A moment later, she saw the men startle, gather their reins, shout and wave. A dark gleaming flash showed in the dark as a rider galloped past.
Rowan, on Valentine, riding furiously away from the house
—she saw him now. Heckie shouted and turned his horse, galloping after him, waving on his men.
"Now!" Christie yelled. "Fire now!" He released his latchbow bolt and reloaded quickly.
Mairi lifted the heavy gun to shoulder level, sighted along the barrel, and pulled back the trigger, finding it far stiffer than she expected. A whirring sound, a click, and the gun fired with a blue flash and an explosion with such hard, fast force that she fell back. She stumbled, shoulder jarred, ears ringing.
"Recoil," she muttered, and got to her feet. "The key!" she told Christie. "He did not give me the key! I cannot fire again!"
Christie closed the shutter. "No matter. Rowan is gone. They're all gone after them. He lured them away from the house." He shoved fingers through his golden hair, and sat on the bench, laying his latchbow on the trestle table. "He rode off so that they would leave us be."
Mairi sank down to the bench beside Christie, knees shaking, shoulder aching sharply from the gun's recoil. All she wanted to think was Rowan. "He's left us safe, but what of his safety?"
"I'll ride out after him. He'll need someone at his back."
"Devil," she said, touching his blood-soaked sleeve. "You're wounded."
"The ball only bit at me, it did not pierce the skin." They glanced up as Jean came toward them, quickly taking a bowl from a shelf and filling it with cool water from a bucket. She took some cloths from a wall cupboard and turned.
"Both o' you need tending," she said.
Within moments, she stripped Christie out of his shirt and swabbed at the gash in his upper arm. He winced as his mother wrapped his arm in strips of bandage linen. Then she turned to Mairi, bathing her forehead with a clean cloth.
"You'll be fine, just press this to your head to stop the bleeding," she told Mairi. "But Christopher will need a few bits o' silk thread to close the wound." The boy protested, but his mother scowled at him. "You will not ride out this night. Do not forget you're still recovering from the last time the Elliots came around."
"Rowan needs help," Christie muttered, and winced again as his mother removed the soaked bandage and began to prepare to stitch up his arm.
Mairi pressed the cloth to her temple, thoughts racing. She thought of Rowan with a gang of reivers on his tail, and her stomach constricted in fear. She could not wait here for the warden to show up with news that Rowan—her husband now—had been taken or killed.
She could not lose Rowan, too.
She stood. "I'm going after Rowan."
"What?" Christie said. "You cannot—"
Mairi ran to the wooden chest to fetch her leather jack. Pain struck through her shoulder when she shrugged on the heavy thing, but she ignored it, latching the hooks as fast as her trembling fingers allowed.
"You're daft," Christie said. "This is not a ride in moonlight chasing a messenger. Those are hard rogues out there."
Mairi picked up the cumbersome steel bonnet, looked at it with dismay, and set it on her head. "Rowan needs someone at his back. If naught else, I can ride to fetch the Armstrongs in the next glen, or head north to Blackdrummond for the Scotts." She grabbed Rowan's wheel-lock and shoved it into her belt. Though it was not loaded, the ball-butt was a sound weapon.
"I'll ride out you," Christie said, standing.
"You will not," Jean said, pushing her son down firmly. He sat, holding his arm and looking pale. "Mairi has ridden out before. She can do it again. Go east to Johnny Armstrong's house and fetch him and his kin," she told Mairi. "You can do this, lass. Jennet, help her saddle her horse. Quick now!"
Jennet laid the baby on the bed beside Jamie, asleep again, and ran to help. Mairi grabbed her black cloak and both of them climbed down the ladder into the byre.
The smell there, from various beasts separated by low wattle walls, nearly made Mairi gag for an instant. She found Peg in the darkness and ran her hand soothingly over the mare's dark muzzle. She and Jennet saddled the horse quickly and tightened the girth.
Jennet gave Mairi a quick hug. "God be with," she whispered. Then she opened the byre door.
Mairi led Peg outside, mounting swiftly. As she rode out, she drew up the cloak of her black hood against the wind.
She had done this before, several times—she could do it again, with more need than ever to make it right.
* * *
The moon was high and bright now, with clouds momentarily clearing. Rowan glanced back and saw Heckie and his lot riding pursuit across the moorland. And he saw that they herded with them a passel of cows and sheep, likely stolen from Jean's lands that night. That would slow them down.
Good. He smiled grimly, glad to have lured them away from Jean's house. He bent low over Valentine's neck, riding fast as he dared through the darkness. Icy winds buffeted him, and he ducked his head, never slowing.
If he could keep a good distance ahead of them, he could make it to the Lincraig road. Near there, he could ask assistance from his Scott kinsmen. Heckie and the others, driving cattle and sheep, would not catch him before he reached Will Scott's land. If they sent riders ahead, he would deal with them as they came.
For now, it was enough that Heckie and his gang had left Jean Armstrong's house behind them for the night.
He crossed a shallow burn in the darkness, its banks rimed with frost, then rode over a long moor. Cold drizzle pelted his shoulders. He looked up at the white glaze of moonlight.
Another glance backward showed him that they still rode steadily and were somehow closer. He saw dark silhouettes of riders, cows and sheep, and heard the beasts' disgruntled noises.
The Lincraig road lay a league ahead across open moor. To the right was a long, rocky slope that led down to the Lincraig road. Heckie and his men would have to drive the beasts the longer way, but Rowan could take the shorter route if he was careful for the horse's sake. Fording a stream in moonlight would be riskier than crossing open moorland, but he had to take the chance.
He turned Valentine for the slope. The bay slowed, nickering softly, as Rowan guided him down the steep, rocky incline. The way was treacherous in moonlight. At the bottom of the slope lay a wide, rapid stream, rushing loudly, its white-whipped surface constantly changing in the moonlight.
But the horses stepped well and faithfully, and they reached a fording place on the bank. But there, Rowan pulled back. The waters, swollen with recent rain, appeared too deep to ford. The bay balked and whinnied, and Rowan guided him along the slippery bank looking for another place to cross.
Rushing water filled the streambed to its brim, fast and deep. Fording at any point might be foolhardy. Rowan headed farther along the bank, which bent and twisted with the cut of the stream.
Valentine sidestepped nervously, and Rowan steadied him, glancing around. The whippy water rushed past, pale and eerie. Glancing up a long slope, he glimpsed Heckie and the others as they herded the beasts over the moor. He hoped they had not seen him head this way.
Unable to ford the stream easily, he knew of a quick, risky solution. The bank rose over the water, the opposite bank nearly as high, forming a chasm of two jutting crags above the surging water. The gap narrowed enough there that the banks were separated only by several feet.
He and Valentine had jumped here before, in the company of Devil Davy and Alec, once with a host of English troopers hot on their tails. Even in the dark, he knew the bay could clear the gap. He cantered Valentine back as far back as possible, then turned him, prancing, to face the stream.
As the wind howled, Rowan leaned low and pressed with his knees. The horse strode rapidly ahead and sailed over the crag's edge to land strong and sure on the other side.
"Good lad!" Rowan patted the valiant neck. "Good lad."
He spun then in a glow of moonlight, to see the silhouettes of Heckie and the others moving past. Seeing a commotion at the top of the slope, he stilled the horse for a moment.
In the bright swath of moonlight, Rowan saw someone else coming along behind Heckie and the others, riding the crest of the hill like
a black phantom. The reivers had seen this rider too, for Rowan heard their shouts even from where he sat.
The single rider turned, black cloak filling with wind. The dark hood slipped back, and Rowan saw an oval-shaped face in the scant light.
Mairi. He swore, the low curse lost in the sound of water and wind. He had never dreamed she was reckless enough to come after him—and alone. Rowan swore again as he watched her, feeling helpless in that instant, with a spating stream and a long slope and a wicked host of reivers between them.
The wind lifted her cloak as her horse sidestepped on the hill. Heckie approached, bellowing—Rowan heard the echo even over the rushing water—and rode hard for her.
Mairi saw Rowan then, and she gestured for him to ride on.
A frustrating blend of fury and fear rose in him. Steadying the bay beneath him, he judged the leap from this side. But the first bank projected higher than this one, and the horse would never make the jump back again.
Rowan rode Valentine along the bank, looking across the swollen stream and up the long slope. He saw the reivers surround Mairi—and one of them grabbed her from her horse as she was swallowed in darkness.
Galloping in tandem with them, Rowan scanned the treacherous water for a place to ford. His urgent need to follow Mairi was stronger and more ferocious than any spated stream.
Gathering the reins, apologizing to Valentine, he eased the horse forward and plunged into the chilly, rushing water.
Chapter 22
"He is either himsell a devil frae hell,
Or else his mother a witch maun be;
I wad na have ridden that wan water
For all the gowd in Christentie."
—"Kinmont Willie"
"Jesu! Look down there!" Clem Elliot said, pointing down the slope. "He's breaching the stream back again!"
Heckie turned. "By hell! He is!"
Mairi turned too, less easily. She sat her horse between Heckie and Clem, her ankles tied by a rope slung under the mare's belly, her hands on the saddle pommel, bound at the wrists. The restless clouds had blown past the moon again, and she peered through the darkness, past the riders and Jean's stolen beasts, and down the long slope to the rough stream.
