Border Storm (13 page)

Keeping these thoughts to himself, he left the hall, retiring instead to a small chamber between it and the stairs to the kitchen, where he hoped he could enjoy some privacy. The chamber was small and contained numerous coffers, where he stored his personal wines and other things away from his men and the maidservants—when Brackengill had maidservants.

The coffers also contained some of his personal arms, and others decked the walls. A small fireplace sat in the middle of the wall opposite the door. The room was a bit cramped for a man of Hugh’s size, and there had never before been a need to put a lock on the door, but it contained a small table on which he could work. Even if Lady Marjory presumed to disturb him, surely she would see that the room was too small for two.

Had anyone asked him what she had done to stir him to such dislike, he could not have explained it. Indeed, he had seen blessedly little of her since her arrival, for not only had his prediction about Buccleuch returning soon from Blackness come true, but his own duties as deputy warden kept him busy.

The Laird of Buccleuch had wasted little time before exacting revenge for Scrope’s Liddesdale raid. Within two days of returning to Hermitage, he and Scott of Hawkburne invaded Tynedale—in the English middle march—with a hastily gathered army. They left nearly as much death and destruction in their wake as Scrope had in Liddesdale.

Receiving word of the raid and knowing that Buccleuch’s daring and disregard for the law were even more expansive than Scrope’s, Hugh and his men had ridden at speed to offer Lord Eure, warden of the middle march, any help he might require. They soon learned, however, that Buccleuch and Hawkburne had invaded and gone again so swiftly that Eure had not lifted a finger against them.

“I felt utterly helpless, Hugh,” Lord Eure said, venting his feelings as soon as the two were face-to-face. “I had not six able horses to follow the fray! I tell you, I wish I had never come to serve in such a place, where men obey neither Her Majesty nor her officers. I mean to submit my resignation to the Privy Council, and I shall plead with them to provide more support to my successor. If Her Majesty’s forces do not assist us here, Buccleuch and his ilk will lay waste to the entire region.”

Hugh sympathized, knowing that the Queen shamefully neglected her wardens. Lacking men, horses, and money enough for their purpose, they frequently were helpless against the Scots, which encouraged the raiders to greater boldness.

Although he doubted that either Eure’s letter or resignation would achieve much, he knew they would have to provide a new warden for the middle march soon and wondered if that poor chap would fare any better than Eure had.

Hugh had been home only two days since meeting with Eure, only five days in all since his aunt’s arrival. But his notion that he would enjoy having a competent housekeeper again had not survived his first supper with her.

The plain fact was that Lady Marjory was nice. She was thoughtful. She was one of the nicest, most thoughtful people it had ever been his misfortune to meet.

She hovered over him, leaping to her feet if he so much as glanced around, believing that he was searching for something she could fetch for him more quickly than he could fetch it himself.

If he told her that he was thinking, just gazing blindly into space, she would ask what he was thinking about. “For if you are mulling over a problem, my dear sir,” she would say, “pray, remember that two heads are better than one.”

If he went out, she asked whither he was going and when he would return, assuring him she would be sure that his people had food ready for him when he did so and would tell anyone seeking him where to find him. Her demeanor was always kindly, her attitude sweetly interested.

Although he wondered at his apparent incapability to deal with her, it did not require much thought to understand it. Lady Marjory was of a gender and age that his mentors had taught him must demand respect. Therefore, even when he yearned to bellow at her, he could not bring himself to do so. Thus it was that in the short time she had been at Brackengill he barely recognized the man he had become.

He had noted a change in his men’s behavior, too. Hitherto, at mealtimes, they had surged into the great hall with noisy good cheer. But Lady Marjory had ended that by gliding like a wraith among them, gently explaining that the din they made disturbed their master. The result was that the men tended to glance curiously at him, clearly wondering if he was ill.

On the other hand, when the hall was quiet, she would chatter like a magpie, certain that he must be bored and required entertaining.

He missed his sister sorely, having persuaded himself that had Janet been there Lady Marjory would not have troubled him one whit.

It was not the first time since Janet’s departure that he had missed her. Upon discovering that she had left Brackengill, he had ranted and raved—in a perfectly reasonable way, of course, considering the circumstances and the fact that Janet could fire his temper more easily than anyone else. Whenever he thought about their many battles, he realized that he and Janet probably were both happier with her living in Scotland, but it took no more than a kind word from his aunt to make him yearn anew for his sister’s return.

He was too busy, for one thing, to play the gentle host. Since Scrope preferred trips to London and visiting friends at their great houses—where gambling and other favored activities took place—to his more mundane warden’s duties, many of those duties fell upon his deputy. With the next wardens’ meeting rapidly approaching, Hugh had much to do to prepare for it.

The march wardens enforced what little law existed in the Borders at periodic meetings, where an English warden met publicly with one or another of his Scottish counterparts to settle grievances that had arisen between their marches since their last meeting. On such occasions, known locally as Truce Days, everyone with an interest in the proceedings gathered at a previously agreed-upon site. There, each side aired its grievances against the other before a carefully selected jury.

The next Truce Day between the English west march and the Scottish middle march was soon to take place at Lochmaben. Scrope had already passed on several packets of grievances to his deputy that he had received from the Scottish warden, Sir William Halliot of Aylewood.

Hugh did not know Aylewood, but he was certain the man would be a vast improvement over his predecessor, Buccleuch. Buccleuch had had a reputation—according to Scrope, at least—of delaying meetings and then of wreaking havoc at them when they finally took place. Hugh had never dealt with Buccleuch, because he had acted in Scrope’s place only once, when he had faced Buccleuch’s deputy and his own brother-in-law, Sir Quinton Scott.

Much as Hugh disapproved of Janet’s marriage across the line, he realized that some of his attitudes toward the Scots in general had altered slightly because of it. For one thing, he had enjoyed sitting at the wardens’ table with Sir Quinton, who was his age and had displayed a sense of fair play that seemed to match his own.

It was helpful if one could deal dispassionately with one’s opposite warden, since such meetings were always fraught with peril. Juries, claimants, and defendants were notoriously unpredictable.

Presently, Hugh’s official duties included making a list of appropriate jurors. That posed several problems, not least among which was his legal obligation to seat only respectable men. Even on the English side, it was not always easy to find six Borderers who answered that description.

Since English jurors tried the Scottish bills of grievance against English defendants, and vice versa, in order to determine who the best men were, he first needed to understand exactly what grievances the Scots had filed. That meant that he had a great deal of reading and thinking to do.

Within days, the little chamber near the hall began to feel uncomfortably claustrophobic, and Hugh decided that it was time for a change.

The following morning, an hour after he had broken his fast, knowing that Lady Marjory was engaged in rearranging her bedchamber with the help of her companion and Meggie’s little daughter Nancy, he took his work to the hall again.

He had no sooner sat down and spread out his documents on the high table, however, than his aunt appeared, seeming almost to materialize out of thin air.

“My dear Sir Hugh, here you are,” she said in a tone of great satisfaction, as if she had been searching for him for hours. She wore a gray silk gown, her thin torso stiffly erect above skirts that billowed over her wide farthingale, and wisps of her bright red wig fluttered like avian plumage with each graceful step.

She said, “You look busy, my dear sir.”

“I
am
busy,” he replied evenly. “Did you want to ask me something in particular, madam?”

“Oh, no, for I am quite content. I shall just run back up to my chamber and fetch my needlework, so that I can keep you company. Then, if you require anything, I shall be right here at hand to fetch it for you.”

“I shall not require anything,” he said, striving to keep his annoyance from his voice.

Evidently he succeeded, for she said brightly, “But you cannot know when you will, my dear sir. Why, Brampton was used to insist that he needed nothing and then find that two minutes later he required ink, or his spectacles, or had neglected to order his ale. There is always something. You will see.”

He pressed his lips together to stop the harsh words that leapt to his tongue.

Without waiting for him to find more tactful ones, she turned toward the doorway to the main stairway.

“Wait, madam,” he said, fairly hurling the words after her.

She turned with a knowing smile and a look of expectant inquiry. “I told you how it would be, sir,” she said. “Did you already think of something?”

“I need nothing but quiet,” he said. “I have much to do and little time in which to do it. I know that you mean well, but if you want to sit here in the hall rather than in your bedchamber, I must go elsewhere to work.”

“But I would not dream of putting you out of your own hall, sir! Think nothing about my comfort. I own that I do find it a trifle inconvenient that Brackengill does not possess a ladies’ parlor or even a proper solar, but I shall do well enough without them. My chamber is nearly habitable now, I promise you. Brampton frequently required time to himself, too. He was a very busy man. He—”

“I know he was,” Hugh said, cutting her off without compunction, well aware now that she would chatter until he stopped her. “I thank you for your understanding, madam. I would like to work undisturbed until dinnertime.”

“Certainly, my dear sir. Just shout then when you need me.” Her agreeable smile still firmly in place, she left the room.

Feeling as if he had just won an enormous victory, Hugh applied himself for the next half hour to drawing up a list of eligible jurors, trying to think of men who did not bear a grudge of some sort against any of the Englishmen against whom the Scots had filed grievances. Since more than one defendant was a Graham, the task was not easy.

Grahams spent as much time fighting among themselves as they did feuding with the Scots, and since many Grahams lived on the Scottish side of the line, he had to consider the unfortunate possibility that a feud between a juror and one of the defendants could lead to an international incident.

This Truce Day, being the first to follow the breaking of a truce and the raid on Carlisle, simply had to go well. If it did not, Hugh knew that Truce Days in general might soon cease to exist.

He had decided upon two men who seemed safe enough—at least, they did unless he received a new batch of grievances that proved otherwise—when the clicking of feminine heels on the main stairway warned him that his aunt was returning. He looked up in resignation as she entered the hall.

“I thought that perhaps I should just look in on you and see if you had thought of anything that you require,” she said.

“Nothing, thank you,” he said curtly and without bothering, this time, to conceal his irritation.

“Perhaps a mug of ale, or a crust of bread,” she suggested, clearly oblivious of his tone. “Meggie baked some fresh bread this morning. Surely, that delicious odor has wafted up from the kitchen to tempt your appetite.”

“I am not hungry, nor am I thirsty,” Hugh said, goaded almost to snapping. “If I require anything, madam, I have only to shout for a lad to get it. Pray, do not disturb yourself again on my account.”

“Oh, it does not disturb me,” she said, her customary brightness unimpaired. “It is the sole reason I bide here, after all, my dear sir. Whether you will admit it or not, you need a woman to look after you, but I do see that you are still busy. That task is taking a tiresome amount of time, is it not? I’ll leave you to it, though, and perhaps you will be finished soon.”

She left, but this time he did not delude himself, merely wondering to himself how long she would stay away. When she returned less than twenty minutes later with a suggestion that it really was not good for him to stay so long indoors on such a splendid day, he snatched at the opportunity her words presented.

“You are right, madam,” he said, standing and gathering up his papers. “I shall go out at once.”

“Oh, but surely you would like me to help you tidy your table, sir. Or perhaps I should call a manservant to put those documents away for you.”

“I’ll take them with me,” he snapped.

“Well, of course, if you think it is wise to do so,” she said doubtfully. “I cannot imagine where you will take them, though.”

He did not enlighten her but gathered up the documents with such speed that bits of red sealing wax went flying.

“Take care that you do not rip one of those,” she said. “You would be quite vexed with yourself if you did. In any event, I do not see why you want to take them from this room if you have not finished with them. Would it not be more convenient if I were just to sit here and watch to be sure that no one disturbs them whilst you take a turn about the bailey?”

When he did not reply, she added with a laugh, “You can scarcely sit on a hillside and read them, my dear sir. Perhaps I was wrong, after all, in advising you to go outside.”