The Heather Moon (2 page)

"Some Romany believe you have the evil eye, that you were born with a curse." Nona Faw brushed Tamsin's dark curls out of her face. "I think the
gadjo
are even more foolish than our Romany brothers and sisters about such things. How could a small babe, born of love, bring a curse into the world? How could this face, these beautiful water-colored eyes, carry bad luck?"

"I know that some say I am
wafri bak,
bad luck," Tamsin said, nodding solemnly. "Grandfather gets angry with them."

Her grandmother stroked Tamsin's cheek and sighed. "Fate has marked you with a flaw for some reason, and we must trust that fate will look after you. But you must be strong in your heart to bear what comes to you. One day, I hope, you will see your hand as a gift instead of a burden."

Tamsin nodded again, though she did not understand what her grandmother told her. She saw no gift, only a small, ugly hand, different from any other hand she had ever seen, and not nearly as useful as others. She wished it were pretty, but she knew that the most fervent wishes could not change her hand.

Later that day, when her father rode into her grandparents' camp, Tamsin thought that he was the largest man she had ever seen. Archie Armstrong was tall and big and very handsome. Even his teeth were large when he grinned at her. She smiled up at him shyly, and his answering laugh was loud and pleasant, making her laugh, too. He was blond, green-eyed, and rosy-faced, and reminded her of a shaggy golden bear.

She waited quietly while he spoke with her grandfather in the Scottish tongue, which she did not understand. Her father handed her grandfather a heavy bag of silver coins. Tamsin knew that John Faw was an earl in his own land, a foreign place far from Scotland. She was sure that he would be happy to have another bag of coins to hide under the floor of his wagon. She hoped he would give her a silver piece to wear on a string around her neck. Her grandmother wore so many coins that they jingled and glittered on her full bosom whenever she moved.

Finally her father mounted his horse and held out his arms to Tamsin. Her grandmother kissed her repeatedly, hugging her until they both were damp with tears.

Her grandfather, who always smelled of smoke, horses, and the metals that he worked, touched her head gently and told her that they would come to see her whenever their wanderings took them near Archie's stone tower. Then he looped a leather thong, strung with three silver coins, around her neck, and handed her up to her father's arms.

"All will be well," her grandmother said. "You will go there, and you will see. All will be well."

Tamsin nodded, clutching her small bundle of belongings in her good hand, hiding her left hand under her cloak. As they rode away, tears slid down her cheeks, even though she tried to stay silent and act proud.

After a while, she wiped the tears away clumsily with her hand, fisting it so that her father would not see its strangeness. She feared he might decide not to take her to his great stone house, where her grandparents very much wanted her to be.

In her heart, Tamsin knew that she wanted to stay out under the sky and the stars, to travel through wind and sunshine and rain with her grandparents. She did not want to be shut inside a
gadjo
house as dark and smelly as a cave.

But her father's smile, and his nice laugh, made her feel safe. Her grandparents had promised to visit her as often as they could. If she proved unhappy, she could ask Nona and John Faw to take her back into their Romany band.

Besides, she admitted to herself, she was curious to learn what Scottish thieves and stone houses were like.

* * *

"Sweet Savior! Will ye look there," Archie growled. He turned to the man who rode beside him, and pointed down to a narrow glen at the base of the hill on which they sat their horses. A group of men rode alongside the burn far below.

The movement of his arm jostled the small girl in his lap, and Archie steadied her with one hand. She looked up at him, still silent, as she had been in the few hours since he had fetched her from the camp of the wandering Egyptians, called gypsies.

He smiled slightly. She trained her wide, limpid gaze on him, green as glass and framed in thick black lashes, set like jewels in her small, honey-colored face. The child was too serious, too quiet, he thought. Her trust and willingness, and her dark, delicate beauty, pulled at his heart, endearing her to him more than he could admit to anyone.

She reminded him much of her mother, but for those eyes—his own, light green—and her tawny skin, paler than her mother's darker tone. Her mother had been beautiful and kind, and he had never cared that she was a gypsy lass. He had loved her well, and she him. If she had lived through this child's birth, he would have had fine sons of her, and gentle nights.

Archie glanced at Cuthbert Elliot, his mother's brother, who had ridden out to meet him not long before, bearing tragic news. "There's a party o' men down there, wi' a lad between them," Archie said to his uncle. "Those would be them, then."

Cuthbert nodded, his thin face grim beneath the frame of a steel helmet. "Aye, heading away from Rookhope Tower, as I told ye. They ride for the earl o' Angus, who lately holds our young King James in his power. And there's young Master William Scott between them. Puir lad, he's the Laird o' Rookhope now, since those de'ils hanged his father just this morn."

"Aye, for the theft o' two cows from the English, ye said. By God!" Archie shook his head sadly. "Allan Scott, hanged without trial. 'Tis muckle hard to believe it."

"A wicked sort o' justice, to hang a man within sight o' his own tower, with his wife and bairns at the window," Cuthbert said.

Archie shivered in the cold winter wind, which held a damp hint of snow. But more than chill disturbed him.

Last year, he had lost his two strong, beloved sons to the gallows, hanged for reiving crimes. He thought the grief might never leave him. And now the cruel death of Allan Scott, the notorious Rogue of Rookhope and his dearest comrade, brought a pain almost as deep and just as bitter.

He wrapped his arm securely around his small daughter and hugged her to him without a word. He knew that she could not yet understand his language, but he wanted to let her know that he would keep her safe.

She glanced up at him and smiled. So innocent, he thought, so pure and trusting, untouched as yet by the pain and the injustice in the world. He wanted her to stay that way, but knew that life would take that innocence from her, with or without the good care of a father. She had been marked by grief before she had even left the womb, he thought, with but half a wee hand.

He returned her smile, and her small, sweet face brightened. He felt the sorrowful pain in the region of his heart ease a little. Then she turned her head to look down into the glen, where the lad and his captors rode along the edge of the burn.

Archie sighed. Tamsin might be a waif and a gypsy, but she was his only child now, and he meant to honor his obligation to her. The brothers she had never known were gone, and their mother, his first wife, had died long ago. Six years ago, Tamsin's mother died after a year of marriage. With sons to inherit Merton Rigg and the gypsies willing to care for his infant daughter, he had not felt the need to find a new wife.

But then his life had changed with the tragic deaths of his sons. All that was left to him now was this half-blood daughter, crippled and small, who did not even speak Scots.

"The Rogue o' Rookhope was the best of all the Border rogues," Cuthbert said. Archie looked at him, reminded of his presence. "The finest reiver in all the Scottish Borderlands."

"Aye. I'll mourn him like my own brother," Archie said.

"The earl o' Angus has done a black deed, and his men wi' him, including that knave Malise Hamilton. See him down there, like a dark vulture, beside the lad." Cuthbert scowled. "Bastard half-brother to the earl o' Arran, the regent himself, and so he thinks himself finer 'n a king. Bah."

Archie frowned, watching the man who led William Scott's horse through the glen. A light flurry of snow began, obscuring the view, but Archie saw William's proud, straight carriage. The lad turned his face up toward the falling snow, his dark hair winging out in the breeze.

"Will Scott is scarce thirteen, but look at him," Archie said. "Rides proud as any Border rogue, as if he's unafraid o' those bastards, as if he knows he's equal to any man. He minds me well o' his da. Where will they take him, do ye know?"

"Angus has decided to make him a hostage o' the crown, and a pledge for the good behavior o' the surname, 'Scott'."

Archie sighed. "Poor lad. I wonder what will become o' him now. God's blessing upon him, and his mother too. Lady Emma has lost both her man and her eldest bairn this day."

"But even in her grief and shock, she thought kindly of yer friendship, and sent a man to Merton Rigg wi' the sad tale o' the hanging. Did I tell ye that Malise Hamilton gave her four gold coins in recompense for her husband's death, one for herself and one for each bairn?"

"And they have the cheek to call us scoundrels!" Archie shook his head. "But see ye, that William Scott is a bold one. He'll be a braw, handsome man one day, as his father was."

"I hear he's to be confined with young King Jamie himself, as a companion. Angus wants it so. He says 'twill keep the Border lords in check to have one o' their own pups hostage wi' the king. William Scott will learn fancy speech and writing and dancing, and wear silks and gewgaws. He'll forget he ever was Rogue's Will, the son o' Allan Scott o' Rookhope."

"He willna forget," Archie said fiercely. "And when that lad's a man, Hamilton and Angus had best beware. They'll regret what they did this day."

"I hope so." Cuthbert gathered his reins. "We'd best get yer wee Tamsin home. My mother is there, wi' a hot fire waiting, and she's made a fine stew. Though she frets that she doesna ken wha' wee 'Gyptian bairnies eat."

As Archie watched, William Scott looked up. Archie raised a hand in silent salute, his throat tightening. Even at some distance, through a veil of snow, the lad seemed to recognize his father's friend. He lifted a hand in reply.

"A braw lad," Archie murmured. "Cuddy, what will we do now, my lass and me?"

"What?" Cuthbert asked.

"At the new year, Allan and I discussed a marriage between his Will and my Tamsin. I promised to fetch my lass from her gypsy kin, who nursed her through her infant years. We agreed 'twould be a good match. I told him—" His voice broke.

He remembered his friend, tall and dark-haired, lean as a whip, a wickedly clever reiver and a loyal comrade, yet a man with a gentle manner for his lady and his bairns. "I told him Tamsin was a bonny lass," he said. "I said she would grow into a fine lady for his lad. Despite her hand, and her dark blood."

"Despite it, hey," Cuthbert agreed, glancing at the girl.

"Allan said he were not bothered by her gypsy blood or her wee hand because she was an Armstrong o' Merton. He said she would be good enough for a son o' his blood, were she a troll wi' my own fearsome face." He smiled, shook his head a bit.

"Did ye get that marriage promise in writing?"

"Nah," Archie said. "Our word was all the bond we needed then."

"But now ye lack proof o' that promise—and ye've lost the bridegroom too. Best forget arranging that marriage, Archie. We will never see the lad again."

Archie sighed, feeling a crushing disappointment. Watching the lad ride proud and unafraid through the glen, he glanced at the little girl in his lap. Her attention was fastened on the boy.

The two bairns were something alike, he realized. Dark and slender, proud and straight, they matched like brother and sister, like twin souls. But the thought only made him sad.

"What a strong match that would have been—a child o' mine and a child o' Rookhope's," he told Cuthbert.

"Aye so. But now young Rookhope is a ward o' the crown and will be raised in the court. He'll be book-ruined and full o' silly manners." Cuthbert shook his head. "Find yer lassie a fine young reiver who can run livestock out o' England wi' ye, someone who can take care of Merton Rigg when ye're gone. Or find yerself a new wife and get new sons on her. I've a cousin ye might fancy."

"I've had two wives and three bairns, and I am weary o' death visiting me," Archie answered. "I have this wee bairn left to me and I'll keep her close. Losing kin is too hard, Cuddy. Too hard." He lifted the reins. "Let's get this lass home."

"Look, wee Tamsin misses the boy too," Cuthbert remarked. "Are ye sad, wee girl?"

Archie glanced down. Tamsin frowned, the glint of tears in her eyes. She lifted her right hand to wave.

The boy in the glen looked up and saw that, and waved in return. Archie felt a sharp tug deep in his heart.

"Och," Cuthbert said, "d'ye think she knows that he was meant for her, and now she's lost him? That we've all lost him?"

"How could she know? Nor will we tell her, not ever."

"So she will never meet that fine lad." Cuthbert sighed. "Well, this day has made my heart full sore. I will have to make me a ballad about William Scott and the gypsy lass."

Archie groaned. "Yer ballads are the worst I ever heard!"

"Will-yam Skoht," the child said softly.

"I thought she didna have the Scots tongue," Cuthbert said.