The Border Vixen (34 page)

“Jesu, Da! Will ye have that man’s death on your conscience then?”

“I will do what I must to control all of the Aisir nam Breug, and not just a scant eight miles of it, Rafe,” Edmund Kerr told his eldest son. “And if ye attempt to stop me, I will slit yer throat myself. Ye have six legitimate brothers, and I am not without heirs.”

“Sons who have been taught unquestioning loyalty to me as yer heir,” Rafe countered in a hard voice. He had no doubt his father was capable of killing him.

Edmund Kerr laughed harshly. “I could slaughter ye before their eyes, and not one of them would lift a finger to save ye, and do ye know why? Greed, Rafe. Greed! My second born would become my heir, and the others would live in hope of his displeasing me and moving them a notch farther up.”

“I never said I would betray ye, Da,” his eldest son said. “And do ye know why? Loyalty. Loyalty to the father who gave me life and has treated me well. But I do not have to agree with yer actions, and I do not. Send Ewan Hay to Brae Aisir in yer name, as yer surrogate, and ye will come to regret it. He’ll betray ye in the end, though he uses ye now to gain what he wants. He’s a treacherous Scot, and he thinks ye a duplicitous Englishman. Neither of ye can trust the other, and that is a poor foundation on which to build this arrangement,” Rafe concluded.

“I’ll have ye oversee him and his actions,” Edmund Kerr said, nodding. “Ye’ll protect the Kerr family’s interests.” Reaching out, he cuffed his son’s head. “I know yer loyal, Rafe, and I trust ye. I’ve raised ye to be strong, and ye are. It cannot be helped that the old bull and the young bull lock horns now and again. On the morrow tell Ewan Hay that if his brother will give him the men and arms he needs to hold Brae Aisir for me, I will agree to his plan. I don’t wish to speak with the fellow again.”

“I’ll take care of it, Da.” His father had asked him to protect the Kerr family’s interests—and he would, Rafe thought. He would protect it for Mad Maggie, his cousin, and for her lads, in the event—
God forbid it!
—that Fingal Stewart had been among those killed at the battle now known as Solway Moss. Managing eight miles of the Aisir nam Breug was more than enough for him.

The next day he sent Ewan Hay on his way. The Scot carried with him a parchment upon which Rafe Kerr himself had written the following words:

On this sixteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord 1542,

Ewan Hay has been appointed by Edmund Kerr, Lord of Netherdale, to oversee the interests of the Kerr family at Brae Aisir.

And Rafe Kerr signed his father’s name to the brief document, then pressed his father’s signet into the hot wax he poured onto the parchment. If Fingal Stewart returned, Rafe would explain his father’s concern for his elderly kinsman, Maggie, and her family. He would explain that his father thought a Scotsman preferable, and more acceptable to the folk at Brae Aisir. Lord Stewart was no fool, and he would know what Edmund Kerr was really about, but hopefully as long as old Dugald, Maggie, and the children were healthy and safe, he would pretend to be grateful for the Lord of Netherdale’s concern. No harm would be done in the matter. He intended to send his own messenger to the warden of the West March in Carlisle and learn if Lord Stewart was among the prisoners taken up for ransom. Possibly he could facilitate his release if he was. There was more than one way around his father’s foolishness and greed.

He saw Ewan Hay off and was glad to see him go. Did Ewan Hay think the Kerrs of Netherdale so stupid that they didn’t realize he wanted control of the Brae Aisir Kerrs’ portion of the Aisir nam Breug for himself? Rafe shook his head. If it had been up to him, he would have refused Ewan Hay’s suggestion and sent him off yesterday. But it wasn’t his place. At least not yet. His father, he suspected, would live for many more years. Rafe wondered if Edmund would gain any real wisdom by the time he was Dugald Kerr’s age. He somehow doubted it.

Chapter 12

“
B
obby! Bobby! ’Tis my lad, Bobby!” The old woman ran alongside the litter on which the unconscious man lay.

“Nah, nah, Old Mother,” the man-at-arms said. “ ’Tis one of the Scots we picked up from the battlefield. He doesn’t look like he’s worth much, but if no one ransoms him, and he lives, he’ll be off to the galleys. We’ll get some value from him.” And the soldier laughed heartily.

“ ’Tis my son, Bobby,” the old woman insisted. “He went off to fight the Scots. ’Tis he. Please let me have him, sir. He’s all I have. My man is dead, and who will take care of me if ye take my Bobby from me?”

The soldier, who had some small authority among his ranks, called, “Halt!” to the men carrying the litter. “Yer sure that this is yer lad, Old Mother? Look closely at him. We found him among the Scots dead, wounded and dying.”

“ ’Tis my son, Bobby!” the old woman said again.

The soldier’s captain came up to see why the line of prisoners had come to a halt. He listened to the old woman’s pleading, and then looked at the man lying on the litter. How the hell did one differentiate between an English borderer and a Scots borderer? He was a Midlands man, and to him these northerners all looked relatively the same. The unconscious man had nothing on him, no plaid, badge, or ring, that would tell the captain the truth of the matter. Whoever he was, he was obviously of no importance. He had an open gash on his head that was still oozing slightly. If he lived, he was likely to bring little to the king’s coffers in ransom, and even less being sold into the galleys. It would actually cost more to keep the man alive until his situation was resolved.

“Yer certain this man is your son?” he asked the old woman sharply.

“ ’Tis my Bobby!” she insisted once again.

“Give him to her,” the captain said. He looked to the men carrying the litter. “Take him to wherever she wants,” he said, “and now get this line moving again. We’re going to be caught in the open tonight as it is.”

Touching the unconscious man’s face gently, the old woman said, “Yer home now, my son. Yer mother will take good care of ye. I’ll heal yer wounds for ye. I thought I should never get ye back again.”

Then she led the litter bearers across the marshland following a path they could hardly see until they reached a small neat cottage. She instructed the two men to bring the litter into the dwelling, admonishing them to set it down carefully upon the cottage’s single bed. Then she sent them on their way, warning them to follow the path back exactly else they be swallowed up by the mud.

She slammed the door closed behind them and then went to build up her fire, hanging a black iron pot of water on a hook at the end of an iron arm and swinging the arm out over the fire to boil the water. Finding her box of salves and ointments, the old woman waited for the water to boil. When it did, she opened another box, pulling out a clean rag. She began to clean the wound. It had not, praise the Holy Mother, become infected yet. When she could see the shape of it, she was relieved to observe that it was not too deep a cut. Head wounds always bled heavily, giving the appearance of being more serious. Some were. This wasn’t. The cut was no more than an inch in length.

But there was a deep indent in his head as if he had been hit by something. She dressed the wound carefully and bandaged it.

Her poor son was filthy. She rolled him from the litter onto the bed proper, then cut the clothing from his unconscious body and washed it thoroughly. Then, puffing and heaving, she managed to get him beneath the warm coverlet. It wouldn’t do for her Bobby to get an ague just when she had gotten him back. Jesu and his Blessed Mother had answered her prayers! Well she had prayed to them long enough, hadn’t she? She had been faithful, and now she was rewarded. Her son was home with her again. The old woman pulled a stool near to the bed, sat down, and waited for her son to awaken.

Fingal Stewart began to slowly come to himself. He didn’t remember a great deal of what had happened. He remembered an English horseman coming towards him and waving his sword. Fin had ducked the clumsy warrior, but the tip of the sword had cut him, and blood pouring from the wound obscured his vision. He was knocked from his horse. When he began to grow conscious once again, it was to find a man with foul breath leaning over him, pulling the ring from his finger. His boots were being yanked from his feet by another man. He protested faintly, trying to rise, but something hit him hard on his head near his wound, and he fell back into an unconscious state.

As he struggled to awaken, he tried to remember where he had been, and what he had been doing. But then the biggest question of all came to him.
Who was he?
He could not, try as he might, remember his name. Or where he had come from. A sudden wave of fear swept over him. His eyes flew open. He was too weak to arise, but he turned his head this way and that, seeking to learn where he was. An old woman, her crossed arms upon his bed making a pillow for her head, was sleeping as she sat upon her stool.

He could remember a battle. It hadn’t been a big battle, but it had been a short and a fierce one. Where was he? He moved his head cautiously, his eyes sweeping about the cottage. It was a poor woman’s abode, he could tell right away. But it was clean and it was neat. Had this old woman taken him from the battlefield? He was a Scot. That much he could remember. Was this Scotland or England? And what was his name?

“Bobby, my son, yer awake!” The old woman was looking at him with rheumy eyes, her toothless mouth spread in a happy smile. “When I heard the wounded were being brought in from the battlefield, I ran at once in hopes of finding ye alive.”

“Where am I?” Fin asked quietly.

“Why, yer home in our own wee cottage in the marsh,” she answered.

“The Scottish marshes or the English marshes? And where are my clothes?” He had become aware he was naked beneath the coverlet.

“Yer in England, my son. Aah, I can see the blow to yer poor head has addled yer wits. It will all come back to ye soon enough. Yer safe with yer mam.”

“My clothes?” he repeated.

“Why, I cut them off ye, for they were filthy and bloodied, Bobby. Don’t worry, my son. I’ve some breeks and shirts for ye to wear when ye are well enough to get up. Some scavenger must have gotten yer boots before ye were picked up, but there’s an old pair of yer da’s in the trunk where I put his clothing after he died. Mayhap they’ll fit, although yer da had a bigger foot. Are ye hungry?”

“I am,” he said, realizing suddenly that he was ravenous.

“Let me get ye a dish of porridge then, Bobby,” she said, standing up and going to the hearth where a small pot was now hanging over the glowing coals of the fire.

Bobby
. Nay, his name was not Bobby, and this old woman was not his mother. That much he knew for certain. But he was in England, and he was a Scot who had survived a battle. How far from the border was he? And again he tried to remember who he was. He was injured, and because she believed him her son, the old woman was caring for him. What if her real son returned? Or was he more likely lying dead on the battlefield? Whatever the truth of the matter, he would have to remain here for the interim until his wounds were healed, his strength restored, and his memory returned. Or at least enough of it that he could make his way home, wherever that was.

With the old woman’s care he began to return to himself physically. He left the bed after several days. His limbs had grown stiff, and he worked each day to return to what felt like normal for him. Looking at his own muscled body, he knew he had been an active man. He suspected he had eaten better too than he was now eating. His diet consisted of oat porridge, bread, and hard cheese. The old woman’s tiny kitchen garden was now covered in snow, the ground frozen hard as rock.

She didn’t want him to go outside of the cottage. “I’ll lose ye again!” she cried the first time he had sought to step out into the cold air.

He had reassured her as best as he could, but she stood in the low doorway of the cottage watching him as he walked about surveying his surroundings. Then he had cut some peat from the muddy marsh where the ground wasn’t yet frozen and brought it in for her fire. She had virtually nothing but the few bits of wood she went out to gather each day to keep her fire going. He would gather as much fuel for her as he could as a means of paying her back for her kindness.

The winter set in with heavy snows, short bitter days, and long bitter nights.

Bits and pieces of his memory were beginning to return as the days started to slowly lengthen once again. He remembered he had had a horse, and a sword. One day he recalled a man whose name was Iver. He dreamed of a small stone keep on a hillside above a neat village. There was a priest, and an old laird. And then one night Fingal Stewart awoke suddenly and knew his name.

He arose from the pallet where he now made his bed. He could not take the old woman’s only sleeping arrangement once his wounds had healed. Quietly he walked to the small window, opening one shutter to gaze out upon the snowy landscape surrounding the cottage. There was a moon that night. A border moon, he thought. He was Fingal Stewart, Lord Stewart of Torra. That much he knew now, but there was more he could still not recollect. He had to return to his house in Edinburgh and find the man named Iver who could probably help him to unravel the rest of the mystery surrounding him.