Tamed by a Laird (5 page)

“But ye’ll no be wanting to walk five miles, me lady,” Peg protested.

“Don’t talk so loud,” Jenny said. “And do not address me so when we are with them, Peg. I think I should be your cousin—and
gey common, remember?”

“Aye, me la—” Clapping a hand to her mouth, Peg fell guiltily silent.

They found the minstrels milling in the stableyard, chattering and laughing as they piled things in carts or lashed them to
loudly braying mules while Dunwythie men-at-arms tried to see what they were doing and what they meant to carry away.

“Do you see your brother?” Jenny asked, raising her voice so Peg would hear it above the din. She wished she had not done
so when she saw the itinerant knacker, Parland Dow, passing by.

A tradesman of many skills, Dow had butchered beef and lambs for the feast. He served many noble families in Dumfriesshire
and Galloway, and had first-head privileges with most of them, meaning he could come and go as he pleased. One reason for
his great popularity was that he cheerfully shared gossip with everyone he met. He knew Jenny well, and she did not want him
to see her with the minstrels.

When he rode past her, leading his laden pony toward the gate, she was sure he had not recognized her. In her old clothes,
with her hood up and her hair in plaits, she doubted that anyone could who did not look her right in the face.

Peg, still eagerly scanning the scene, was quiet a little longer before she pointed and said, “There he is, near the bell
tower. Bryan!” Shouting, she waved.

As the knacker passed through the gate, one of several young men standing nearby waved back to Peg and hurried to meet her.

“I’m glad ye came,” he said, giving Peg a hug. “I ha’ scarcely seen ye!”

“Aye, so we were thinking we’d walk with ye for a time,” Peg told him. “Ye dinna all ride them mules, do ye?”

“Sakes, no, we’ll walk ahead and they’ll follow us— the carts, too,” he said, chuckling but casting a curious glance at Jenny.
“Who’s your friend, lass?”

Peg gaped but recovered herself when her gaze met Jenny’s. “I’ll tell ye true, Bryan,” she said. “But only an ye promise ye’ll
tell nae one else.”

“Why should her name be a secret?” he demanded, frowning.

“Because I will it so,” Jenny said quietly but with a mischievous smile. “If you cannot agree that whilst I stay with you,
I am your cousin Jenny, then Peg must tell you no more.”

Bryan looked at his sister, then back at Jenny.

“I dinna ken who ye be, mistress, but I ken fine that ye be nae kin o’ mine.”

“Will you not accept me so, just for a short time?”

“Dinna be mean, Bryan,” Peg begged. “Let her come.”

He shook his head. “These be my friends, lass. I canna tell them lies.”

“I shan’t ask you to
tell
them anything but only to accept what I tell them myself,” Jenny said. “Many of my own people call me Jenny, and if we tell
the minstrels who I really am, I fear they may not let me go with you. But, indeed,” she added earnestly, “I mean them no
harm.”

“Who are ye then?” Bryan asked. “I warrant I should call ye ‘me lady.’ ”

Meeting Peg’s anxious gaze, Jenny nodded.

“She’s me lady Janet,” Peg said. “She just wants to ken more about the minstrels and them that she saw tonight, and mayhap
enjoy a wee adventure.”

Bryan stared at Jenny, his eyes wide with astonishment.

“Sakes, my lady, was it no
your
betrothal feast where we performed?”

“Aye, sadly,” Jenny said. “ ’Tis why I yearn for adventure now. Sithee, I’ll have no time for it when I’m married, and that
will happen in three weeks’ time!”

“But what o’ your betrothed man? What will
he
say about this?”

“He can say naught,” Jenny said firmly. “He is not yet my husband.”

Bryan hesitated, clearly reluctant.

Peg said, “What harm can it do? We want only to walk wi’ ye for a bit.”

Jenny kept silent, fixing Bryan with a somber but hopeful look.

He sighed. “Come along then,” he said. “But mind, ye’ll both ha’ to turn back afore we reach Castle Moss.”

“Castle Moss?” Jenny said. “ ’Tis an odd name, surely.”

He chuckled. “ ’Tis named for the Water o’ Moss on which it sits. They say the castle’s walls be fourteen feet thick, but
I dinna ken if that be right, ’cause we camp in the laird’s woods. But tomorrow night, at Lochmaben, they’ll let us sleep
inside
their
wall. I warrant they dinna trust us in their woods, minstrels or no, nobbut what their castle be surrounded mostly by water.”

“Lochmaben!” Jenny exclaimed. “But the English hold Lochmaben Castle. They have held it all my life. Do they not still occupy
it?”

“Aye, sure, for all the good it does them,” Bryan said with a shrug. “The Annandale folk keep them pent up inside and sell
them their food and supplies. So they welcome us to entertain them every year when we come by.”

Peg nodded. “ ’Tis true, me lady. Minstrels, fools, and players can go almost anywhere, even places other folks cannot.”

“But you said only that this company was going to Dumfries, Peg,” Jenny reminded her. “You never mentioned Lochmaben.”

Peg shrugged. “I didna ken they’d go there, but it be nae great surprise. Even Englishmen like to laugh and hear music now
and now.”

“Faith, but I’d like to see that castle,” Jenny said wistfully. “Lochmaben was the Bruce’s own seat, was it not?”

“Aye,” Bryan said, his attention clearly wandering back to his friends.

Peg eyed Jenny with mistrust visible even in the dim light provided by the high crescent moon and the stableyard torches.
“Ye’re no thinking we should—”

“Not another word, Peg,” Jenny said with a laugh. “I think the others are ready to go now. Are they not, Bryan?”

“Aye, mistress, although them guards do still be a-searching yon carts.”

“Cousin Jenny,” she reminded him gently.

“Aye, cousin,” he said with a resigned smile.

He made no further objection and apparently saw no need to discuss his two companions with any of the others, most of whom
engaged in conversation and merrymaking as they went. Despite their long performance, they did not seem to be at all tired.
Strung out along the narrow track, with carts and sumpters lumbering behind, the minstrels seemed to number at least a score
if not many more.

Some sang, and Jenny heard much laughter, turning their procession into an adventure by itself, because she had never traveled
in such rag-tag company before. Nor had she ever walked outside at night before for such a distance as five miles.

The moon and stars lit their way, and the air was clear and crisp. The track they followed descended toward the river from
Annan House until they could no longer see the sparkling water of the Solway Firth.

They forded the river south of town. The crossing took time, because the water, although shallow there, was still too icy
to ford on foot.

The mules and high-wheeled carts transported the company’s baggage, while those afoot used a footbridge purposely made too
narrow for horses and too wobbly for more than two or three people to cross safely at a time. On the west bank of the river,
they followed another, hillier track toward the northwest.

Soon, the castle and town of Annan had vanished behind them, and the moon lit only the narrow track and the tree-laden hills
flanking the long, flat expanse of Annandale that lay to the north of them. Moonlight reflected from the many silvery streams
that tumbled down the hills to join the wider, twisting ribbon of the river.

Whenever the road crossed such a stream lacking a footbridge, as most of them did, men laid boards for a makeshift one so
those on foot could cross. Jenny knew that one rarely found any bridges in the Scottish Borders, because Borderers viewed
them as open invitations to English raiders and invaders.

Ever conscious of Peg’s frequent glances but enjoying the minstrels’ antics, Jenny watched them and listened to their songs
as she tried to think how she might contrive to stay with them long enough to see Lochmaben.

She had hoped to retain her freedom just long enough to feel that she had enjoyed one small adventure. But to see Lochmaben,
the chief seat of the Bruces, would be a special treat. The Bruces had been lords of Annandale for nearly two centuries before
Robert the Bruce became King of Scots.

The English had occupied Lochmaben now for nearly ninety years, with only one brief interruption. Therefore, few Scots living
in the dale had ever been inside the castle. For one seeking adventure, to learn that the minstrels could enter was simply
too great an opportunity to ignore.

They soon came to a wider road that Bryan explained was one of many ancient Roman roads in the area. It was more heavily wooded
there than the east bank of the river, and less populated, but they had not gone far when they saw that folks ahead of them
had stopped to gather around something in the road.

A saddled horse and a pack pony stood nearby. Some distance ahead, a man sat on a white horse in the middle of the road and
watched as other members of the company, some with torches, scattered into the woods on either side of it.

Jenny saw then that two of the men who had stopped were helping another man to his feet. Although he held a hand to his head,
she easily recognized him.

“What’s happened here?” Bryan asked.

“ ’Tis the knacker from Annan House,” the tall, thin fool—still in whiteface—told him. “Someone clouted him when he dismounted
to take a piss, he said, though he never saw who it was. The scoundrels must ha’ been hiding in the woods.”

Jenny glanced at the sumpter pony as Bryan said, “His packs dinna look as if they’d been disturbed.”

As the knacker walked unsteadily to his pony, Jenny avoided his gaze but watched nonetheless closely as he checked his packs
and lashing.

He looked bewildered when he’d finished. “I dinna think they took nowt,” he said. “I ken fine that I lost me senses for a
wee while, but I heard you lot laughing and singing behind me before then, so the villains must ha’ run off straightaway.”

“Likely they heard us, too,” Bryan said.

“Aye, sure,” murmured the tall fool. But he was not looking at Bryan.

Following his gaze, Jenny saw two men she recognized as members of the company step out of the woods. As they strode toward
the others, their colorful cote-hardies showed beneath the long dark cloaks they wore over them.

“Did ye see anyone, Cuddy?” the fool shouted.

“Neither man nor beast,” the smaller of the two searchers shouted back.

“Any tracks?”

“Nay, the ground be all mucky from snow melt,” Cuddy shouted back.

“They’d be gone now, in any event,” the fool said.

The knacker agreed, but he traveled with them a half hour longer, until they came to a side road leading to a farm where he
said the owner expected him.

The air had grown colder by then, and Jenny knew the hour was late. When the road headed uphill again, Bryan said, “Ye’d best
be turning back now, the pair o’ ye. As it is, ye’ll be gey late by the time ye reach Annan House.”

“Much too late,” Jenny agreed. “The moon is sure to set soon, and I do not know the way back well enough to find it in the
dark.”

“Well, I warrant our Peg kens how to—”

“Nay, I do not!” Peg exclaimed. “Hoots, but I never meant to walk beyond sight of Annan House!”

“That was my fault,” Jenny said. “However, I am sure, Bryan, that if we go on to Castle Moss with you and stay the night,
we can easily find our way back by daylight. Mayhap the laird of Castle Moss will even be kind enough then to—”

“Mistress, ye canna stay overnight wi’ the likes of us,” Bryan protested. “What would your people—especially your man—think
o’ that?”

“Only that you were kind enough to look after me,” Jenny said glibly. “Unless you’d like to ask two lads from your company
to guide us back to Annan House…”

“I knew it,” Peg said with a sigh. “Ye
want
to stay, and that be the truth of it, me lady. Be that not so?”

“Aye, sure,” Jenny said. “I’m having more fun tonight than I have had for a very long time. You cannot be so cruel as to make
me abandon my adventure now.” With a beseeching look at Bryan, she added, “Just listen to them singing up ahead!”

Bryan shot a look at his sister that Jenny feared boded ill for Peg, but he said only, “I canna make that decision myself.
I must ask the Joculator.”

Having no idea what a joculator might be, Jenny thought it wise to keep quiet. She doubted that any reasonable person would
send her back to Annan House with only Peg to escort her, or send any of his own people all the way back with them. She would
at least, she hoped, get to see Castle Moss.

Well aware that Bryan would make a poor advocate for her, she took care to stay with him and kept Peg at her side as he led
them to the front of the company. There, singing in a pleasant tenor voice with the others, was the man on the white horse
she had seen earlier. Although he had removed his whiteface, she recognized him as the juggler who had astonished everyone
with his ability to juggle daggers.

Gaining his attention, Bryan said, “Sir, with your permission, my sister and… and her friend would stay the night with our
company. They meant only to walk a short way with us, but what wi’ talking and all, the time sped by. Now, they fear they’ll
miss their way back in the darkness and crave permission to stay—”

“Stay the night with us, aye; ye said that,” the rider said, casting a swift glance over Jenny and Peg. “Ye were foolish to
come so far,” he said to them sternly. “Did ye hope to join my company as a pair of fools?”

“Nay, sir,” Jenny said hastily before Peg could speak—if she had meant to. “Being a fool, as we ha’ seen, takes more wit than
we ha’ shown tonight.”

His stern expression relaxed into a peculiarly sweet smile. “Ye show some sense now, at all events. What be your name, lassie?”

“Jenny, sir,” she said, smiling back.

“A bonnie name for a bonnie lass… And your friend be Bryan’s sister?”