The Border Hostage (2 page)

Two brawny men with fists the size of hams grabbed Heath Kennedy and began to drag him from the tower room. Heath cursed himself for an impetuous fool. If he had still been in possession of his blade, he would have taken on all six.

“I'll fetch the knife,” a third said with avidity.

“Ye'll fetch more than the firkin' knife; ye'll fetch the corpse too. We can no' leave one of our clan behind, ye thick-skulled clodpole … it would identify us, do ye ken?”

Heath's mind flashed about like mercury as he tried to identify the raiders and their intent. Their blunt, heavy features, dark complexions, and burly bodies stamped them as Borderers. Most probably penniless English Borderers, since they had no weapons save their brawn. Kidnapping the powerful Lord Ramsay Douglas would bring them a large ransom, but thick-skulled and lack-witted they must be to risk bringing down the mighty wrath of Douglas upon their entire clan.

One of the raiders threw the corpse over his shoulder while the other five forced the swarthy Kennedy down the castle stairs. Heath did not fight them; he wanted them away from Tina, and decided to preserve his strength and energy rather than squander it here and now. He was wildly curious about who was behind this kidnapping and assumed he would soon learn the man's identity. Whoever it was would be sadly disappointed when he learned there would be no money forthcoming. Though Heath's father was the wealthy Lord of Galloway, Rob Kennedy would not pay one silver penny to ransom his Gypsy bastard. The irony of it made Heath smile.

The chaos outside Eskdale Castle, however, turned his
face grim. Douglas guards and grooms littered the bailey, beaten unconscious or dead by the marauders, a dozen of whom were reiving the horses. To a man they were mounted on shabby ponies, and his captors shoved him toward one they had tethered.

“Tie his hands behind him,” the leader ordered.

“Have ye a bit o' rope, Mangey?”

“Rope costs money,” came the terse reply.

Heath thought the nickname most apt; their leader looked as if he had a dose of mange. Then Heath felt the leather thong that secured his shoulder-length hair being ripped from his head, and his wrists were bound tightly behind his back. The thought of these swine stealing Douglas horses, along with his own precious mares, made him want to cut off their balls, and he swore he would do it, given half a chance. He gripped the pony with his knees and leaned his body low over its neck. Years of riding bareback enabled him to keep his balance and prevent him from falling. Though it was early May, the night was briskly cold against Heath's naked chest and back, but years of sleeping outdoors had weathered him, just like the horses he had brought south.

The raiders halted at Langholm, where Eskdale joined Ewesdale. Heath Kennedy watched helplessly as the horses were driven east. His six captors, however, stayed with him, heading south. As they urged their ponies across the River Esk, one of them suggested, “Why don't we drown 'im here?”

“Ye brainless sod! We have tae take him across the Border; we'll use an
English
river.”

Drown? The whoresons are going to drown me?
Suddenly jolted to the marrow of his bones, Heath Kennedy quickly reassessed his captors. They were the lowest of the low, the dregs of the earth, driven by grinding poverty to commit the foulest deeds no others would undertake. Someone was paying them to murder Ramsay Douglas and make it look like a drowning accident. Since the dreadful defeat of
King James Stewart at Flodden, the power of Scotland was held by Clan Douglas. So these orders came from England, Heath reasoned. Yet something at the back of his mind kept pricking him.

Heath took a deep breath and allowed his mind to expand, invoking his sixth sense, which seldom let him down. From the deep recesses of his memory he recalled terrible tales of a
Scottish
clan so bereft of morals that they drowned their victims because it was the most frugal method of murder. Every instinct told him these were Scots Borderers, being paid by England, yet cunning enough to commit the foul deed in the enemy's country, so the finger could never be pointed at them.

Though the actual Border was invisible, Heath knew the moment they crossed it. The land had been marked by violence for four centuries. Feuds between and among the Scots and English here were long-standing; the people along the Border lived by despoiling each other. Robbery, raiding, kidnapping, blackmail, and extortion were a way of life. But when Scot murdered Scot for English money, Heath Kennedy realized the lowest point of degradation had been reached.

Heath was familiar with the landmarks as they passed by a peel tower, and knew the first English river they would encounter would be the River Eden. His hands were completely numb from the tight ligature of his own leather thong, and his upper body had been robbed of most of its feeling by the cold night air. When they drew rein and hauled him from the pony, Heath lashed out with a booted foot, kicking the first man full in the groin, then when he bent double with a scream, Heath brought his knee up sharply beneath the lout's chin, making him bite off the end of his tongue.

Two hulking brutes jumped him and felled him to the ground, where he could clearly hear the river was in spate. The threat of the water made Heath double his efforts to free himself. He butted his head into one man's gut,
knocking the wind from him, but the other one picked up a small boulder and crashed it down on Heath's skull. The force of the blow drove him to his knees, and the pain shot all the way down his spine.

“Stop playin' aboot—get 'im in the bloody water.” The leader was losing all patience. It took three of them to haul Heath Kennedy into the river, but still they couldn't hold him down long enough to drown him. “Help us, fer Christ's sake!” they admonished their companions.

Heath wrapped his iron-hard thighs about one of the men and dragged him beneath the water. Then he wrapped his legs about the swine's throat and clung to him doggedly. If they were going to drown him, he vowed to take one of them with him. In the end it took four of them to hold him down while their hulking leader stomped brutally on the captive's back with the heel of his boot, then sat on him until the thrashing quietened. Even then Heath Kennedy did not release the man he held underwater.

Gradually, Heath's strength ebbed away into the flowing river. He held his breath until he felt his lungs would burst. Slowly a feeling of euphoria stole over him and he began to relive events from his childhood. He saw his beautiful Gypsy mother, Lily Rose, and recognized her instantly, even though she had died giving birth to him. Although it was the middle of the night, he was suddenly enveloped in a brilliant white light and he experienced a feeling of joy.
So this is Death, then
, he thought with wonder, and then there was nothing.

When the five Borderers finally released their victim, his body rose to the surface. Another body bobbed up beside him, and the two floaters were taken by the current. The murderers splashed after them and hauled them up onto the riverbank. The leader removed the thong from Heath Kennedy's bound wrists, then turned him face up with his boot. He shook his head in disbelief, “Christ, they said Black Ram Douglas was tougher than boiled owl an' they were bloody well right.” He cast a baleful glance
over the other drowned body and cursed, “Another firkin' corpse tae carry home.”

Raven Carleton entered the stables silently in the predawn darkness, yet the hunting birds in the mews above immediately sensed her presence and set up their raucous welcome.

“Peste,” she muttered, trying her best to ignore them as she stroked the nose of her pony, Sully, and led him from the stable without a saddle. She felt a stab of guilt as she pictured the hawks moving restlessly on their perches, some wearing their little hoods. Raven, however, resolutely cast away the guilt, knowing she must ride away her feelings of resentment that had banished sleep, before she attended her birds. Training raptors required patience, coupled with an inner calm, and Raven hoped that a ride along the shore at sunrise would restore her tranquility.

Because Raven preferred the freedom of comfortable clothes for riding, she wore a divided skirt, topped by a loose shirt that belonged to her brother. The moment she mounted her sturdy Border pony he began to run. Sully needed little guidance to the River Eden, which emptied into Solway Firth. Raven never tired of riding along the shore of the Solway, for it divided England from Scotland and offered magnificent open vistas of the sea and the purple mountains beyond. When the constraints of Rockcliffe Manor and the strictures of her parents closed in to make her feel trapped, Raven's need for freedom was almost always restored by a gallop along the seacoast.

It had been the usual bone of contention that precipitated the argument between Raven and her mother. Breeding hunting birds, in Katherine Carleton's opinion, was downright unladylike. “In fact, it borders on scandalous!” she had told Raven last night.

“Then what would you like me to breed?” Raven challenged.

“That is precisely the problem—a lady should not be involved in
breeding
anything whatsoever.”

“Then how did you manage to have three children, Mother?” Raven asked with wide-eyed innocence.

“That is enough, young lady. Lancelot! Can you not hear the defiance and mockery in your daughter's voice? Mark my words, she will end up a spinster if she persists in her odd behavior.”

“But my brother Heron breeds hunting dogs, and you never find fault with him,” Raven pointed out.

“We have been over this a thousand times, Raven. If you had been born a male, you could breed whatever you wished.”

A passel of bastards?
Raven thought wickedly. “My gender should have nothing to do with it. If I did it badly, I could understand your objection, but I do it well.”

“In theory, she is right, Katherine,” Lance Carleton remarked.

“Lancelot, how can you continually undermine me? Raven should not be spending her days in Rockcliffe Marsh, flying those wretched hawks; she should be polishing her social skills and learning how to run a household. Why, she is like some wild creature!”

Sir Lance Carleton winked at his daughter. “In theory, she is right, Raven. Your mother wants me to clip your wings. When you go to Carlisle and visit the Dacres, you will have to
pretend
to be a lady, at least until we get you safely betrothed.”

“Christopher Dacre likes me the way I am!” Raven declared.

I'll just bet he does
, thought Carleton as he observed his beautiful, black-haired daughter.

“We do not want him to
like
you, we want him to
marry
you. No gentleman wants a wife with a sharp tongue and a defiant, willful nature. If you do not change your ways— and your attitude—your sister Lark will make a good marriage long before you do.”

“I love Lark; don't pit us against each other.”

“What a wicked accusation. Seek your room!”

As dawn turned the sky to pale gold, Raven felt her spirits begin to lift. She breathed in the salt tang as if it were the elixir of life, as Sully's galloping hooves dug into the sandy shale along the shore. The pique she felt toward her mother melted away, and the corners of her generous mouth lifted. Raven knew she was willful, with a temper of fire, and admitted that her mother only wanted what was best for her. Her mother had been plain Kate Heron until she made a good marriage and became the wife of Sir Lancelot Carleton, the constable of Carlisle Castle. The Herons were an English Border clan, and it had been nothing short of a miracle to Kate when she had snared an English gentleman in the matrimonial trap. Now Katherine expected both of her daughters to “marry up” and elevate their social status, as she had done. She never tired of warning her girls about Borderers. “Look at my brother and male cousins, uncouth uncivilized louts the lot of them! All Borderers are alike: dark, dominant, overbold, swaggering swine, and a danger to every female they encounter!”

Raven knew her mother would be ecstatic if a marriage could be arranged with Christopher Dacre, son and heir of Lord Thomas Dacre, Head Border Warden of the English Marches. Christopher had been educated in London and had come north less than a year ago to fight with his regiment at Flodden, where the uncivilized Scots had been brought to their knees once and for all.

Raven smiled her secret smile. The union did not displease her; moreover, she would be in Carlisle next week as a guest of the Dacres. She lifted her head and exulted in the feel of the wind whipping her hair about her shoulders and her skirt about her bare legs. Anticipation bubbled up inside her—she would lead Chris Dacre on a merry chase!

H
eath Kennedy opened his eyes and saw the stars above him fading with the dawn.
So, I am not dead after all
, he thought,
only half dead by the feel of it!
He lay still, drawing power and warmth from the earth into his hard, well-muscled body, and willed himself to stop shivering. Earth healing was an old Celtic belief. He moved his long, powerful legs apart and stretched out his arms with the palms flat on the ground so that his body formed a pentagram, or five-pointed star. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and tried to merge with the earth's energy. He sensed its pulsations and matched his breathing to the rhythm of nature. Slowly he became one with the earth and rocks upon which he lay, taking the power of nature into his own body and absorbing the beat of life.

Heath did not know how long he lay there, but gradually he felt the pulse strengthen until he could actually hear it pounding. He opened his eyes and rolled over onto his stomach as he suddenly realized that it was hoofbeats he could hear!

Heath Kennedy caught his breath as he saw a girl riding like the wind along the shore. As he focused his whole attention upon her, the aches and pains of his body diminished. The girl's beautiful black hair streamed out behind her like a proud banner, and it was obvious that she had a free spirit and loved nature as much as he did. She rode bareback and seemed not to know, or care, that her skirt had ridden up to expose her long, bare legs. He took her for a Gypsy girl, yet he was sure he did not know her. Such a female would be unforgettable.