Border Fire (34 page)

Riding south by way of Hermitage Water till it met the Liddel, they crossed the river at Whithaugh and continued toward Kershope, keeping to higher ground once they could see the merrily tumbling little burn and follow its course. They rode in a more westerly direction now, toward the meeting site at Dayholm on the flat bit of ground where the Liddel met Kershopefoot Burn.

Janet glanced at Quinton, remembering that it was not far away, across that burn, that Hugh’s men had trapped him. Thinking of Hugh reminded her that her brother might attend the meeting, but she did not think he would recognize Rabbie Redcloak in the richly garbed, clean-shaven gentleman who rode at her side.

If Scrope followed the pattern that Buccleuch had described, he would lead a cavalcade from Carlisle comprising Cumberland and Northumberland gentry and nobility, which certainly included Sir Hugh Graham. However, someone would have to act as Scrope’s deputy while he was away. As Buccleuch had suggested, that someone was likely to be Hugh, but Scrope did have other deputies.

It was as much to bolster her courage as for any other reason that she had taken such care with her dress. She would need courage if she did have to face Hugh. Having not seen or directly heard from him since the night Quinton had taken her away from Brackengill, she had no idea how he would behave. She had missed him, but her emotions were mixed. Perhaps he would not come.

Deciding that he would not, she dismissed all but a lingering tickle of worry and settled to enjoy herself, looking forward to seeing the first recognizable Graham face. If her kinsmen were not delighted by her marriage, at least no one would be in any hurry today to express his or her displeasure to her face. She had missed her family and friends and looked forward to seeing them again.

Half an hour later they topped a rise and looked down on the flat plain near the hamlet of Dayholm, which snuggled into the V-shaped area where Liddel Water met the little burn. Sir Quinton raised his hand to call a halt.

“Why have we stopped?” Janet asked.

“We’ll wait here for Scrope and his men to show themselves,” he said.

“Should they not already be within sight?”

He smiled. “Buccleuch warned me how it would be. Scrope will want to know that we are here so that it will not look as if he let us keep him waiting. It is all part of the little dance we do,” he added. “Doubtless someone is watching from that hilltop across the way, and Scrope is below the crest awaiting his signal.”

The singing and laughter had stopped, and now the chatter died away to muttered comments. It was, Janet thought, as if a cloud had slipped across the sun.

Five minutes later, across the way, a flutter of colorful banners preceded the appearance of a wide array of horsemen lining the crest of the hill.

“We’ll wait a bit longer,” Quinton said. “See how many they are.”

Hearing an unfamiliar note in his voice, Janet glanced at him again, but there was nothing to read in his stony expression.

As trumpets sounded on both sides, Quin tried to remember everything that Buccleuch had told him during the past ten days. All he could recall just then, however, was his cousin’s admission—astonishing at the time—that he always felt nervous in the moments just before a wardens’ meeting. That had been, Quin realized now, a vast understatement of the reality. The awesome appearance of the armed horsemen across the valley, heralded by the martial notes of the trumpets, stirred tingling up and down his spine and tightened every muscle, making him wish that his followers numbered a thousand more.

The distance between the two forces being less than a quarter mile, he recognized a host of familiar banners, even a few familiar faces. Many of those lined up on the other side were enemies who in times past, when not in the actual heat of battle, had proved more friendly than hostile. He had probably drunk ale or wine with half of them in the taverns of Carlisle and Kelso.

Instinctively he estimated the number of lance points, considered the bearing of the riders, the weight and deadliness of their arms.

“I’d guess they be five hundred or so,” Hob the Mouse muttered beside him.

Quin glanced at him. “Buccleuch said we could expect that many. Scrope likes to make a grand display, and we have nearly as many ourselves, after all.”

“Aye, counting our lasses, but them yonder ha’ none,” Hob pointed out.

“’Tis likely their women wait behind the hill,” Quin said. “Only a few of the men carry themselves as if they were here for anything but common ritual, and I’ll warrant they do that out of habit.” He glanced again at the big man beside him.

Hob was still scanning the opposition force, but within moments he visibly relaxed. “It is so,” he said. Looking over his shoulder as if to take stock of the men behind them, he added, “Our lot looks much the same, and none here seeks war. Still and all, master, Truce Days ha’ been known to end in blood.”

“Aye,” Quin agreed. Both sides had been guilty of transgressions. Only ten years before at Cocklaw, Scots had murdered the English Lord Russell. On that occasion, Buccleuch had said, the English had made the mistake of taking assurance before they had seen the Scottish force, which they later claimed was unusually strong and drawn up in battle array. Quin would not make that mistake.

“Hob, tell the women and other unarmed folk to stay back till we have met for the embrace and taken our seats at the wardens’ table,” he said, still scanning for known troublemakers in the group across the way.

“Aye,” the big man said, wheeling his mount to carry out the order.

“That is not Scrope’s banner,” Jenny exclaimed suddenly, drawing his attention. Leaning forward on her saddle, she muttered, “Godamercy, it’s—”

“There are many banners, lass,” he interjected, trying to follow the direction of her gaze.

“The central one,” she said impatiently. “That is Brackengill’s banner, sir, or I am much mistaken. May heaven help us—it is Hugh leading them, not Scrope!”

Suppressing his own dismay, he forced calm into his tone as he said, “Scrope must have learned that Buccleuch was sending a deputy and decided that it was beneath him to meet with an inferior, so he has sent his own. You may stay at my side until they have demanded assurance, Jenny, but then I want you to withdraw and wait here with the other women until we know they mean no mischief.”

“Look, he’s sending his men now.”

Indeed, two riders had separated themselves from the others and were cantering down the hill toward the burn. The Scots watched as they splashed to the Scottish side. Moments later they drew rein in front of Quin.

The elder of the two said formally, “In the name of Thomas, Lord Scrope, England’s warden of the west march, Sir Hugh Graham requests assurance that you and yours vow to keep the peace until sunrise tomorrow.”

“In the name of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, warden of the Scottish west and middle marches, and Keeper of Liddesdale, I vow and declare that there shall be peace until sunrise tomorrow,” Quin said loudly enough for his followers to hear.

The two visitors nodded, then wheeled their ponies and trotted away.

When they had reached the hurrying little burn, Quin said, “Hob, tell Gaudilands and Todrigg to ride across now and demand Graham’s assurances.”

“Why did you wait for Hugh to request the truce first?” Jenny asked.

“It is the tradition,” he said. “Buccleuch said that generally the meetings take place on the Scottish side and the English request first assurances. When any war betwixt us ends, he says, the Scots must first demand peace, but during peacetime, at meetings like this, the English make their demand first.”

“But why?”

“He said that long ago a Scottish warden, one Robert Kerr, was murdered at a meeting on the English side. After that we Scots swore we would never again seek justice on English ground.” His men had reached Sir Hugh. “Go now, Jenny, and join the other women until we know that all is safe.”

“I believed before that Hugh would not recognize you, but do you not fear that he might if the pair of you sit cheek by jowl all day?”

“I doubt that he will know me without a beard and in these trappings,” Quin said, hoping he was right. “I will take every care nonetheless, lass, I promise.”

The two Scottish riders were taking longer than he had expected. Recalling Buccleuch’s strict instructions, Quin resisted his natural inclination to watch them and continued to scan instead for signs of trouble among Sir Hugh’s followers. He could see nothing amiss.

“Here they come,” Jenny said on a note of relief.

“I told you to get back, lass. Now, go!”

Obedient for once, she backed her pony and began to turn away.

Satisfied, he turned his attention again to the opposite side.

Minutes later, Gaudilands and Todrigg cantered up to him, and before they drew rein, Quin knew by their expressions that a hitch had occurred.

“What is it?” he demanded.

Sardonically Gaudilands said, “Sir Hugh Graham, leading an easy five hundred armed horsemen, presents his compliments to Sir Quinton Scott and requests that your ‘embrace’ with him take place midstream.”

“It seems,” Todrigg said, adding his grim mite, “that Sir Hugh Graham demands such a meeting so as not to have it thought that an English warden is under any obligation to go into Scotland but crosses over of his own volition.”

“He said,” Gaudilands added, “that when you raise your hand, he will accept the gesture as your agreement to make the embrace of peace midstream.”

Jenny said anxiously, “What does he mean? Is this some sort of trick?”

“You know your brother better than I do,” Quin said, smiling to give her reassurance that he did not feel. In the presence of the others, he refrained from demanding to know what the devil she meant by defying his orders again.

“It is not the normal way,” Gaudilands said curtly. “Buccleuch would not accept such terms, nor would Scrope be such a jackanapes as to demand them.”

Although his preference was to tell Sir Hugh Graham to take his notions of an embrace and fly away with them, Quin knew that his cousin would demand his head on a platter if he did any such thing. Stifling annoyance, he backed his horse enough so that he could see his men without looking away from those on the other side. Raising his hand, he said clearly, “I hope I need not remind any man here of his oath to keep the truce. Anyone who creates trouble or attacks without the unavoidable provocation of a breach by the other side will answer to me and then to the Laird of Buccleuch. Do you all hear and understand me?”

A chorus of ayes answered him.

“On your word as Borderers?”

“Aye!”

“Then we ride. I shall meet the English deputy midstream. You will all remain on the bank, but keep a path clear for us to the wardens’ table.”

His attention was focused so sharply on the approaching English that he did not realize until they had nearly reached the river that Jenny rode beside him again.

“Damnation, lass,” he muttered. “Fall back as I told you to do.”

“He is my brother, sir,” she said firmly. “I will remain at your side, and no one will harm me. My position as your wife protects me from the Scots, and my close kinship to Hugh and many others protects me from the English.”

“And do you think it protects me from them as well?” he growled.

“Aye, it should.”

“And that your kinship to them will protect you from me?”

She looked sharply at him then, and he gave her look for look, but it was too late now to insist that she fall back, and he could see that she knew it. Moreover, he knew that, at this point, her sudden departure to the rear would look as if he feared an attack, which would considerably undermine the peace before it had begun. Resigned, he faced forward, reining in his temper and fixing his full attention on Sir Hugh Graham.

Beside him, Hob said, “Ye willna really embrace that scoundrel, will ye?”

Surprised by a bubble of laughter, Quin glanced at him. “Buccleuch said that on rare occasions the wardens actually do embrace, but I think we will not.”

Despite what he had told Jenny, it seemed impossible that Graham would not instantly recognize him as Rabbie Redcloak, which left him nothing to do but to take a high hand. After all, he told himself with increasing amusement, it was what Rabbie would do. Straightening and haughtily raising his newly bared chin, he reminded himself that Sir Hugh had never seen him in bright daylight or without his beard. Nor had the man seen him in attire that befitted his station. The man had seen him only in darkness and by torchlight in a dark stable. He tried to recall the faces of the men who had surrounded him, and found to his relief that he could not.

His cloak had covered his figure then, and he had made no attempt to stand upright or to look his captors in the eye. Indeed, and most uncharacteristically, he had kept his eyes downcast. At least, he hoped he had. He had a niggling suspicion that he was unlikely to have submitted to his fate as completely as it seemed now that he had. He knew himself well enough to suspect that he had taunted Sir Hugh at least a little, perhaps even laughed at him. Moreover, even if he could maintain the demeanor of a stranger who knew Sir Hugh only as his opposite deputy, he would still have to take care that his voice did not betray him. As Rabbie, he generally affected the broadest of Border accents, but knowing that occasionally he was apt to forget, he could only hope that such a lapse had not occurred at Brackengill.

The most nerve-racking detail, of course, was that many on the Scottish side knew exactly who Rabbie Redcloak was, and Grahams lived on both sides of the line. Indeed, many Grahams had followed him on occasion, because the Scottish ones were broken men—abandoned or evicted by their clan—who had taken up residence in the Debatable Land and would serve any master who could keep them in order. He did not readily reveal his true identity to such men, and he doubted that his more faithful henchmen had given him away intentionally. Still, far too many people on the Scottish side knew his dual identity for him to remain comfortable as he watched Sir Hugh’s approach. Face to face with the man, discerning no sign of recognition, Quin felt a surge of welcome confidence.