The Border Lord's Bride (45 page)

"Yet you did not feel so strongly about Balgair MacArthur," he said.

"I thought I had killed him," Ellen replied, "and when I found I hadn‘t I almost died of fright. I shall never be able to visit the Highlands without fearing his enmity reaching out to touch me, to wreak his vengeance upon me. But Balgair is not likely to come down from his Highlands after me, husband. Sir Roger Colby is nearer, however, and surely he has proved to you that what he wants he can take, and that he has no respect for you, or for your lands, or your wife. I have delivered a mighty blow to his pride, Duncan. He never thought to have me outwit him. A woman. A whore and a slut."

"He has greater matters to consider right now than just the hurt you did his pride," the laird of Duffdour said.

"Aye, he does," Ellen agreed. "But if you do not seek him out and slay him now, he will go to ground again while he hatches his plot against our king. It will be more difficult to find him then, or to prevent his mischief."

The laird of Duffdour thought for several long minutes. She was right, of course. They could not waste any more time. "You should go home to Duffdour, and leave this to my brother and to me," he told her.

"Nay, I will ride with you. Until I have seen Sir Roger dead with my own eyes I will not feel safe at Duffdour. Our son has lived—thrived, according to you—these last months without me.

Knowing that, my own heart is at ease, but I will not be unless we ride for Colby Castle tomorrow," Ellen said stubbornly.

Duncan Armstrong laughed. It was obvious that he couldn‘t argue with her. "We ride tomorrow, wife," he said.

Ellen looked up at him. "Thank you," she said simply, and, leaning forward, she kissed his mouth. "You would not want some weak-as-water wife, now, would you, husband mine?" she teased him gently.

"I do not think I ever want to make an enemy of you, wife," he told her.

She slept that night within the comfort of his arms, but he wisely asked nothing more of her, and Ellen was relieved, for she was not yet ready to give herself to him. Still, had he asked she would have acquiesced, for she loved him. That he was perceptive enough to understand her pleased her more than she could say.

The lairds of Cleit and Duffdour rode out the next morning, Ellen riding between them, with their men prepared to do battle. They went the way Ellen had come, riding to David Ferguson‘s home first, and on the following morning to meet up with the laird of Aldclune. At St. Andrews monastery they waited out the tide, and then crossed the mudflats of the Solway into England, following the several miles along the beach to Colby Castle. Once there they discovered that Sir Roger and Ian Johnston had already gone, but Ellen begged mercy for the sergeant and his men, saving their lives.

"This man was kind to me," she said quietly. "For that alone, spare him, my lords. He did not ride into Scotland to harry our people. His place has always been here at Colby. And if he says he does not know where his master has gone then he does not lie. While he is loyal to Sir Roger, I do not believe he is a fool."

"Does my wife speak truth, man?" the laird of Duffdour asked.

"Aye, my lord, she does. I can tell you only that I suspect my lord has crossed over into Scotland, for he took the Scot with him and they rode northeast," Rafe replied.

"We cannot fire the castle, for we have not the means," Conal Bruce lamented.

"We‘ll come back," the laird of Aldclune said with a grin.

"What the hell do we do now?" Conal Bruce asked his brother as he and their men rode away from Colby Castle. The Fergusons had elected to return home across the Solway, for it was closer and easier for them.

"We have to find Jamie and tell him what is happening," Duncan Armstrong said.

"He‘ll be hunting at this time of year," Ellen told them, "but where he is hunting is, of course, another matter. He could be in the borders, or he could be with Huntley in the Highlands.

Wherever he is, we must find him quickly. Our only advantage is that Colby doesn‘t know where he is either."

"I should take you home," Duncan Armstrong said to his wife.

"There is no time," Ellen replied, "and I won‘t go. I owe the king a great favor for saving me from Balgair MacArthur and giving me a good husband who loves me."

"She‘s right," Conal Bruce said. "Time is of the essence."

And so they rode hard for Hailes, for they knew that Patrick Hepburn would know where the king was, and if Patrick was with the king, his brother, Hercules, would know.

The king, they learned, was hunting near Sterling. Hercules Hepburn promised them that he would personally ride to James, and advise him of what little Ellen knew. Even the merest rumor of an attempt on James Stewart‘s life needed to be noted.

"I can tell the king, and Patrick will certainly back me up in this matter, of how dangerous a man Colby is," Hercules said. "The king has been spending too much time on the matter of the young English king who is under his protection. We‘ll all be marching down into England sooner than later to support his cause, I have not a doubt."

Ellen could but imagine what Adair would say to that. She was still angry at the king for supporting the pretender, especially when James Stewart knew the truth. Still, Ellen thought, it had nothing to do with her. She was at long last returning home to Duffdour, but she was not content that Sir Roger yet roamed free. She knew she could not feel secure in her own home until she saw him dead. But the autumn was ending, and the winter was settling into the borders. She had to take up her life again no matter her fears, and she longed to hold her bairn in her arms once more.

"You‘ve surely gotten value for your coin by now, my lord," the Earl of Bothwell said to his king as he stood by his side in the great hall at Sterling. "It should soon be time to end this charade."

"Aye," James Stewart murmured as he sat watching the pretty boy who called himself England‘s true king graciously holding what amounted to his own royal court within the Scots court of James Stewart. "I wonder if the cost of irritating and frightening Henry Tudor has actually been worth all the good coin I have laid out."

"The fact that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella attempt to interfere is certainly proof that you have made your point, my lord," the earl said.

James Stewart chuckled softly. "I was determined to dislike the ambassador they sent me, but damn, I do like Pedro de Ayala. He has a way about him that reminds me of one of my island chieftains, but there is also that hawkish look of a Moor about him as well."

"Aye, he‘s a good man," Patrick Hepburn agreed. "Honest to a fault, which I find interesting, given his master. Is there a slyer man in all the world than King Ferdinand? Yet I believe every word that comes from de Ayala‘s mouth. There is, it would seem, no chicanery in him."

"I like the way his eyebrows and mouth quirk when he must deliver a message from Spain," the king said. "Especially one he doesn‘t believe himself. When he said that a marriage between me and one of the infantas was a consideration, I knew that he didn‘t believe it for a moment."

"Sooner or later," the Earl of Bothwell said, "you will have to take a wife, Jamie."

"Later," the king replied with a smile. "Spain will not give me one of their daughters, for they consider Scotland too barbaric a place for one of their pampered princesses. There are no available princesses in France, and my dear friend King Henry of England has turned me down.

Besides, his lasses are too young."

"For now," Patrick Hepburn said softly.

"Ah, Patrick, the only value in an English princess would be the peace between our two lands. I am content for now with a complaisant mistress."

Hercules Hepburn now came to join them, bowing to the king, murmuring low in his brother‘s ear. Both men were surprised to see him, for Hercules was not particularly a man for the court.

"Tell the king," the earl finally said as his brother finished speaking.

"My lord, you are aware that the wife of the laird of Duffdour was kidnapped by the English several months ago. Just over a week ago she managed to escape her captivity. She brought news of a very dire nature. Her captor, Sir Roger Colby, had a visitor from King Henry. Sir Roger has been much out of favor with his king since our borderers put a stop to his raids and inflicted serious damage on the English late last spring. But he can regain his king‘s favor, a messenger from King Henry told him, by removing the thorn from the paw of the lion. Sir Roger took that to mean that King Henry wanted him to assassinate you, and he means to do it. He has enlisted the aid of the traitor Ian Johnston. The lady of Duffdour did not know when or where such an attempt would be made, but she did want you know," Hercules Hepburn finished.

"How did she escape Colby?" the king wanted to know. "And where was he hiding her? For I know Duncan Armstrong could find no trace of her."

"Colby, it seems, has a small castle in northwestern Cumbria on the sea near the Solway. The lady escaped by taunting him into releasing her and trying to hunt her down like an animal. She managed to elude him, and crossed the mudflats of the Solway just before the tide turned. The monks at St. Andrews monastery took her in and brought her to Robert Ferguson, the laird of Aldclune. He shepherded her to safety at Cleit, which was nearer to him than Duffdour.

Armstrong met up with her there. They then rode back into England with a troop of Bruces, Armstrongs, and Fergusons to hunt down Sir Roger. But he was not at Colby Castle, and neither was the traitor, Johnston. We believe he has already crossed over into Scotland with his companion, and is even now finalizing his wicked plans. I sent them home, promising to come to you, my lord, and warn you."

"Do any of you know Sir Roger Colby?" the king asked. "Could you recognize him if you saw him?"

Both the earl and his brother shook their heads in the negative.

"Then, Hercules, you must ride to Duffdour, and as Armstrong has not already killed this Englishman, Ellen MacArthur must return with you to court, for she will be able to identify the assassin easily," the king said.

Hercules Hepburn looked uncomfortable at the king‘s request. "My lord, the lady has not been home in several months. She has a young bairn."

"Aye, my bonny will not be pleased that I take her from her border nest, but she will come, Hercules. She is like a sister to me, and she will not see me harmed if she can help. When she protests—and she will—tell her that I need her as she once needed me," James Stewart said.

Then he smiled to himself. Ellen would be irritated by those words, for he knew better than any that she did not need to be reminded of her debt to him and would gladly pay it a hundred times over. Still, those words would save his Hepburn friend from a long and futile outburst.

And they did when Hercules Hepburn uttered them to an angry Ellen at Duffdour several days later.

"He said that?" she demanded to know from the unhappy messenger. "He actually said just those words, Hercules?" Her look was grim.

"Aye, lady, he did," the big man replied nervously. This wee lass was actually making him very nervous as she paced up and down before her hearth, her skirts swaying and swirling about her ankles. "The king said it. I am to wait and escort you to Sterling."

"This will be the last time," Ellen said darkly. "The debt will now be paid in full," she muttered almost to herself. "I am tired of being dragged from pillar to post by men playing games!

Gunna!" she shouted. "Pack a trunk. We are going to court."

"Now, dinna ye fret, my dearie," old Peigi said. "We‘ll look after the bairn."

"William is coming with me," Ellen said in a fiercely determined voice. "I am barely home to a bairn who doesn‘t know who the hell I am. I will not leave my son again. If the king will have me at court, then he will have my bairn too! Have Laria pack what she will need for herself and for Willie."

Duncan Armstrong hid a small smile. "I‘ll come too," he said quietly.

"You most certainly will," Ellen told her husband. "I‘ll not be left without your good company and your protection, my lord. Settle yourself down, Hercules Hepburn, for it will be at least two days before I am ready to travel." Ellen turned to her husband. "Send a message to the king at Sterling that we are coming en famille, and I will expect that we are given accommodations that suit. I do not care that we are not a great name, or important. We are important to James Stewart‘s safety, and until that is assured I will expect to be housed comfortably."

Now Hercules Hepburn began to grin. He was more than aware of how tight housing was at court, and especially now, with Katherine Gordon and her royal husband taking up space. He wondered who would be pushed out to make room for the Armstrongs of Duffdour, en famille.

But he said nothing, instead settling in to enjoy the warm hospitality of Duffdour. And while he did he told the hall of what the king had been up to these last months, for news was slow in coming to Duffdour.

In the early autumn after the harvest had been gathered, King James, in the company of his earls and the young man who claimed to be King Richard IV, crossed the Tweed into England from the eastern borders. The true king had been assured by the Yorkists in exile that the English would flock out to his banner to greet him, to welcome him. Together they would then march south to displace the Tudor usurper.

But the invaders found an empty countryside, Hercules told them. The populace had fled to the stone towers built by their local lords to shelter everyone during such an attack. People and animals, the local harvest, the hay—all had been sheltered. Under ordinary circumstances the towers would have sufficed. But this Scots army brought with them siege guns, which, when fired, brought the towers tumbling down, and the people and animals streaming out in terror. The stock was driven off, the defenders slaughtered. It was at that point that England‘s true king protested the killing of his people, and decamped with his followers back to Edinburgh to rejoin his wife. The listeners in the hall hissed with their disapproval.