The Border Lord and the Lady (14 page)

Mistress Marjory bustled forward. “My lady, I was not expecting you,” she said.

“The queen sent me to seek lace and ribbons for her child’s christening gown,” Cicely said with a smile.

“Is the bairn born then?” Mistress Marjory asked anxiously. “I had not heard it.”

“Nay, ’tis another two months, but the queen is anxious to have everything all ready,” Cicely replied.

“Och, then, you’ve wasted a trip, my lady,” Mistress Marjory said. “I sent my apprentice this very day down to the docks to pick up our new shipment. ’Tis fine French lace from a convent near Paris, and beautiful silk ribbons sent overland from the East. It will take me a few days to unpack and check my inventory. Can you come back then?”

“Her Highness will be disappointed,” Cicely said, “but happy to know that you will have what she requires here in a few days’ time. Will you send to me at the palace when the goods are ready for sale, so I may come and inspect them?”

“Of course, my lady,” Mistress Marjory said with a curtsy. “Is there anything else I may help you with today?”

“Oil of lavender,” Cicely said. “Where may I find some?”

“The apothecary shop on the far side of the High Street. You passed it on your way here,” Mistress Marjory replied.

“Thank you for your time,” Cicely responded politely. Then she and Orva left the shop. The street urchin looked to her anxiously as he returned the reins of their horses to the two women. Cicely dug into her purse and drew out a small silver penny. “Here you are, lad,” she said, flipping it to him.

He caught it easily and, bobbing his head, dashed off as the two women rode away.

Inside the shop Mistress Marjory watched them go. Then she called to one of her apprentices to come to her. “Watch the shop,” she said, gathering up her cloak. “I have an errand to do.” And she hurried forth from her establishment. Making her way from the High Street and through a maze of narrower streets, she finally arrived at a small, nondescript tavern. Reluctantly she entered it, clutching her cloak about her so it touched nothing that might soil it. To her relief the tavern room was empty but for a lone man. She shivered when he looked at her, for he had but a single eye. His other eye, having been
gouged from his head, was no more than a hollow of scar tissue. “I have a message for the Douglas of Glengorm,” Mistress Marjory said.

“I’ll see he gets it,” the one-eyed man said. “What is it?”

“Tell the laird the item he seeks will be at my shop in three days’ time,” Mistress Marjory said.

“Best to make it four days,” the man said. “ ’Tis not a short ride here to there and back, mistress. And this day’s half gone already.”

Mistress Marjory nodded. “Four days then,” she said, thinking she must send word to the palace. Then, turning abruptly, she quickly left the dark little tavern.

When she had gone, the one-eyed man called out, “Davy, to me, lad!”

“Aye, Da, what is it?” the young boy who answered him asked.

“Take the horse the laird left us and ride to Glengorm. Tell him Mistress Marjory says the item he seeks will be at her shop in four days’ time. Go quickly, laddie, for the laird will barely have time to reach Perth if you don’t.”

The boy dashed from the room and hurried to saddle the horse in the ramshackle shed behind the little inn, then he rode off and out from the town. He rode south for several hours until the moon was high. Then he stopped for two hours to rest the beast and let him graze and drink from a nearby stream while he ate an oatcake from his pouch and drank some water from his flask. Leaning back against a large rock where he had sheltered, the boy closed his eyes and dozed briefly. Then, taking advantage of the bright full moon, he rode on until almost dawn, when he stopped to rest his animal once again. He rode through the next day and night, halting at intervals for the horse’s sake.

Dawn was just breaking when, a day and a half later, the innkeeper’s son reached Glengorm. Beneath him the horse seemed rejuvenated. His ears perked up. He tossed his head and neighed a loud whinny. His step quickened as he brought his exhausted rider through a treed glen and up a hill to a large stone house, where he finally stopped.
The boy half fell, half dismounted and, going to the large oak door, knocked loudly upon it until he finally heard the locks being unfastened and the door swung open.

“What is it you want?” an elderly woman in an apron asked.

“I have a message for the laird from Perth,” Davy, the innkeeper’s son, said.

“Come in then, lad. Are you hungry? You look like you’ve ridden all night,” the old woman said.

“Two nights, mistress,” the boy told her.

“Blessed Mother, you must be fair worn! Is the horse still alive?”

The boy grinned. “Aye, but as tired as I am, I fear. But I know better than to run a good animal into the ground, mistress.”

“Come into the hall, lad. The laird is just up, and having a bit of breakfast,” the woman said, leading him into a stone-and-timber chamber. “Here’s a lad wi’ a message for you from Perth, Master Ian.”

Ian Douglas waved the boy forward. “You’ll be Ranald’s son, eh?”

“Aye, my lord,” Davy said with a brief bob of his head.

“What message do you have for me then?”

“Mistress Marjory wants you to know that the item you seek will be at her shop in four . . .” He stopped. “Nay, that’s not right.” Then his brow lightened. “Two days’ time!” he said triumphantly. “ ’Twas four the day I left Perth, but ’tis two this morning.”

“Tell your father you did well, lad. You’ll travel back to Perth with me in two hours’ time. Go with Mab to the kitchens to get something to eat, and rest yourself by the hearth,” Ian Douglas instructed the boy. He turned to a serving man who loitered nearby. “Go and find my brother. Tell him we’re going to Perth this day.” Then he returned to his breakfast.

Fergus Douglas came into the hall. “Why are we going to Perth?” he demanded to know. “Marion doesn’t like my being away when her time is so near.”

“We’re going bride stealing, little brother,” the laird said with a grin. “Glengorm will very shortly have a new mistress.”

“What have you done?” Fergus asked his sibling suspiciously.

“Before we left Perth last spring I made the acquaintance of a little lass who serves in Scone Palace. We spent a very pleasant few hours together. She happened to tell me that my lady Cicely goes into town to a certain shop for the queen now and again. I made the acquaintance of the shop’s proprietor, one Mistress Marjory. She is a widow, and inherited her husband’s lace-and-ribbon establishment when he died. Her daughter was with child and without a husband. I found the young man in question and saw the couple firmly wed. And I’ve paid for a tutor so her son may learn to read, write, and do his sums in order that he can one day take over the shop.

“In return Mistress Marjory was to send to me when my lady came to visit the shop next. She would claim the items my lady sought were not available for several days, and dispatch word to me. I intend bride-napping my lady Cicely as she browses among the lace and ribbons. Then I will bring her back to Glengorm. Once she comes to know me she will be glad to be my wife. I told you that the Gordons would not have her. She is mine!”

“They’ll come after her,” Fergus said gloomily.

“First they must learn where she has been taken,” Ian said with a wicked grin. “I met her formally but once, and have been gone from Perth for months now. Why would any suspicion fall on me?”

“What of the shopkeeper?” Fergus wanted to know.

“She’ll claim we broke into her shop from a rear alley, snatched the lass, and were gone as quickly as we came.”

“But why didn’t she run screaming into the streets, calling for the watch?” Fergus asked.

“Because she was hit upon the head and rendered unconscious when she began screaming upon our entry,” the laird said. “They have to take her word for what happened. And why wouldn’t they believe her? Who else is there to say otherwise? I’ve told her to say she heard the intruders saying that the lass was an heiress. It will be thought at first that she was taken for ransom,” Ian Douglas explained to his brother.

“But when no ransom demand is made, and the girl doesn’t reappear?” Fergus queried. “What then?”

“By then we’ll be safe home and my lady and I will get to know each other better so we may wed,” the laird said. “The lass will come around. They all do eventually, Fergus. You know I have a way with the lasses. But I’ll not seduce and leave this one. I will make Lady Cicely Bowen my lawful wife.”

“What if they find her before then, Ian? What if the king decides to punish us for your temerity? What will happen to Glengorm?”

“By the time they discover where she is, Cicely will be mine, little brother,” the laird said assuredly.

“But what if the Gordons come after her?” Fergus wanted to know.

“Do you think Andrew Gordon will want my leavings?” Ian replied harshly. “Once I have her and she is here at Glengorm, no one can take her from me.”

“You would risk offending Lord Huntley and his Gordons? Not to mention the king and his wife?” Fergus said.

“I would risk offending God himself to have Cicely Bowen for my wife,” the laid said quietly. “From the moment I saw her I knew she was meant to be mine, and she will be, brother. She will be!”

Fergus Douglas shook his head. There was nothing he could say or do but help his brother in this madness. Ian was in love.
Ian!
He found it difficult to believe, but there it was. The laird of Glengorm was in love with a lass who didn’t really know that he even existed. “God help us all,” he said, crossing himself. “I hope we don’t get hanged for this.”

F
our days after her initial visit to Mistress Marjory’s shop, Lady Cicely Bowen returned to purchase the delicate French lace and the silk ribbon for the expected royal heir’s christening gown. Orva had gone off to the apothecary for more lavender oil, for the queen had slept better than in weeks after having her feet rubbed with it. Cicely fingered the beautiful lace with a sigh.

“It’s exquisite. Her Highness will be delighted. She sews wonderfully well, you know, and the gown she has fashioned for her baby is beautiful. I will take all of it, for the lace that decorates the gown of Scotland’s heir must decorate no other.”

“Indeed, my lady,” Mistress Marjory said approvingly.

“The ribbon?”

“Did I not bring it out?” the shopkeeper said. “Oh, dear! Let me go into the storage room and fetch it for you, my lady.” She arose and disappeared into the back of the shop.

Suddenly Cicely heard a scream, and she jumped up, startled, as two masked men burst into the room. “Where is Mistress Marjory? What have you done with her?” she demanded. She bolted for the door, but one of the men caught her by her arm, swinging her about and hitting her on her jaw. The girl collapsed into his arms.

“Jesu, Ian, did you have to hit her?” Fergus Douglas asked.

“She was about to shout for the watch, damn it,” he said. “Come
on now, quickly, brother. We need to get her into the cart and out of the gates before she is found missing, and an alarm is raised.”

Together the two men returned through the rear of the shop, where Mistress Marjory lay unconscious upon the floor. Ian felt bad about the need to render the shopkeeper helpless, but it would certainly validate her story of what happened, and her outrage would be more convincing. Exiting the building, they carefully put the girl into a sack, its top open so she could breathe, and laid her in the bed of the small wagon. Then they covered the sack with straw to conceal it. Climbing upon the seat of the vehicle, they drove from the back alley and onto the High Street, moving with the local town traffic towards the gates. Fergus Douglas prayed silently as they went that they would not be caught.

Perth had been a town for centuries. Once it was unwalled, but Edward I had attempted to wall it; then Robert the Bruce had torn the half-built walls down. Edward III, however, had forced the Scots clergy to bear the cost of building stout stone walls with towers and fortified gates less than a hundred years before. The gates numbered four. Red Brig Port was at the end of Skinnergate in the district populated by the town’s tanning industry. While the artisans of this area made shoes and gloves, hides were also exported, along with timber and fish shipped down the River Tay, for Perth was a busy inland port.

The other gates were Turret Brig Port, at the end of the High Street past St. John’s Kirk; Spey Port, at the end of Speygate; and Southgait Port, at the end of South Street. There was also a small minor gate that led to Curfew Row. But it was the Southgait Port that the brothers sought now as their wagon moved along. The wagon turned from the High Street into Horner Lane, where craftsmen worked in shops and open stalls fashioning spoons, combs, and inkwells from cow and goat horns. As they got closer to the River Tay they could smell the wet wool being fulled before being beaten to thicken it, and then pounded with wooden hammers worked by water mills on the river.
Finally they turned onto South Street, lumbering through the Southgait and onto the Edinburgh Road. Several miles from the town, out of sight in a grove of thick trees, their horses waited for them.