The Widow's Bargain

‘Oh, yes,’ Hugh said, placing a foot in the stirrup. ‘’Tis a lovely morning to be raiding a castle.’

From Lady Ebony Moffat’s chamber on the topmost floor of Castle Kells, the views across the loch were to the south and east through groups of windows that were little more than slits in the eight-foot-thick stone walls. The apertures widened into wedge shapes with built-in stone benches on three sides, deeply cushioned. One such space in the corner had been curtained off to create a garderobe in the thickness of the wall, and in another corner was a door that led spirally downwards to the next level.

The cushions had not, of course, been made for young Sam Moffat to jump up and down on in excitement, nor had the windows been made just that size for him to squeeze his head through to look sideways towards the woodland path. Consequently, when a man’s shout was heard from the stairway to say that Master Sam’s grandpa was coming in. Sam found that it was more difficult to reverse into the room as easily as it had been to go out of it. For a moment, there was panic in his little breast. ‘Mama!’ he yelled. ‘I’m stuck again!’

Tempted to use the next half-minute to teach him a lesson, after the hundredth time of telling, Lady Ebony lifted her faded blue wool surcoat off the bed and slipped it over her head. After seven years, it still fitted like a glove over her linen bliaud. Her sister-in-law Meg was already making her way to the door. ‘I’ll follow you when I’ve freed him,’ Ebony called. ‘You do on down.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Meg. She had seen it before. It was his ears.

Ebony smiled, adjusting the surcoat across her shoulders. ‘As Sir Joseph’s daughter, love, you must be there or he’ll want to know why. You go and show an interest. I’ll bring Sam down in a moment.’

It didn’t take as long as usual to free him, for now he had learnt how to press his ears flat and twist. Nor did he have time today for the soothing noises from his mother when his Grandpa Moffat would surely have brought something back for him from his night raid which, to Sam, was as innocent as a trip to the market. He skipped off, reddened about his six-year-old ears, his eyes as grey as granite, blond-haired, slight-framed, bursting with an unpredictable primitive energy. After three years, Sam rarely asked about the father he so closely resembled.

It did no good for his mother to protest at Sir Joseph’s frequent gifts to his only grandson, a pony that no one had taught him to ride, money that he was not allowed to spend, clothes from another child’s back, toys and trinkets salvaged from someone’s home. Her initial objections had been disregarded, and she could not bring herself to tell her child that his grandpa gleaned other people’s property by force, mostly at night, plundering across the Scottish-English border to torch houses, kill the men, lift the cattle and bring them up on to Scottish pasture. There was only so much one could expect a child to understand at six years old, and as long as they were obliged to live under Sir Joseph’s protection, Sam must be taught, first and foremost, to respect his elders.

His cries of excitement could be heard echoing down the stairway and disappearing into the maze of chambers, halls, stairs and passageways that was now his world; hers and Meg’s too. It was unsafe for them to venture out when raiders passed so frequently in both directions, perpetuating feuds that had escalated alarmingly in the five years since the Scottish victory at the Bannockburn. Now, there was not a household, large or small, that did not fear the raids, though these would be fewer now that the hours of darkness were less. Perhaps this would also be Sir Joseph’s last raid till the autumn, when they might begin to live more normally than this.

Sharing none of her son’s urgency, she sat on the window-cushion and rested her head against the wooden shutter, her eyes scanning the pattern of massive oak beams that supported the roof. Woollen tapestries clad the walls with colour and warmth. Polished stools, a table, chests, and a canopied bed provided every comfort, and a fire at one end was protected by a hooded chimney with the Moffat coat of arms carved into it. The castle was cool at all times of the year, and this chamber was one of the most private in a place where privacy was at a premium. She had no cause to bewail a lack of comfort, and her inclination was to stay up here well out of the way rather than to be seen condoning her father-in-law’s lawlessness.

Not wishing to let Sam out of her sight for too long, she relented at last, taking up a piece of damp linen and spreading it over a chest to dry before removing from it a strand of moss that had caught in its fibres. Still damp, her hair was hurriedly bundled into a caul of gold net and pinned carelessly on top of her head in a style unknown to fashion. At Castle Kells, what did it matter how one looked and, in Scotland, who except the nobility cared a damn about fashion in these uncertain times? She took a quick look round and went down, descending the steps slowly with her skirts held up. It would take her quite some time to reach the great hall.

The unusual absence of men made Ebony wonder if Sir Joseph’s return was in some way out of the ordinary. She quickened her step. He had taken about thirty men with him, this time, but still she would normally have encountered members of the household at every turn, as she had done earlier that morning. The guard who always stood in the window niche overlooking the courtyard was missing. She peeped through the arrow-slit, but it was set too high to show her more than the gatehouse on the opposite side and yet, even as she watched, an archer on top of the tower took aim at something below him. Before he could complete the draw, however, his arms went up and he fell backwards with an arrow in his throat.

‘Reivers!’ Ebony whispered. ‘It’s the reivers! God have mercy on us.’ Reivers. Border raiders. Murderers and thieves. Merciless destroyers. How had they got in? And where was Sam, her precious child? Panic rose in her breast like a sickness. Men such as this had killed her Robbie three years ago; she could not let them take Sam, too.

Picking up her skirts, she ran like a hare, flying through arches and open doorways, leaping down steps to reach the great hall on the first floor. Breathless, her heart pounding with fear at what she might find, she threw open the door at the side of the high table where covers had already been laid, silver trays, spoons and knives set, but no more than that. People were everywhere, huddled in groups guarded by men whose assortment of weaponry was fearsome, their expressions menacing.

With her mind set on only one goal, she barged her way past them. ‘Let me through!’ she yelled. ‘Let me through, damn you! Sam! Where is my child? Sam!’ Distraught, and screaming his name, her calls cut across the hall already bristling with tension and fear. Hitting out at the barriers of arms and bodies, kicking and elbowing men aside like skittles, she searched for a sign of Biddie, Sam’s young nursemaid, in a congregation of unknown and familiar faces and a terrified crowd of household servants, cooks, grooms, pages and all.

At the far end of the hall near the great chimney-piece stood another group of strangers who had turned at her noisy entrance. Biddie’s white wimple was easy to spot, her face contorted and pleading. Her loud cry held all the anguish and terror of one who has failed in her duty. ‘Mistress!’

Ebony charged towards her but, even in her panic, was no match for the man who caught her and swung her hard against him, catching at one arm and hand. Before he could capture the other, she swung it back and threw her force behind a blow to his head, the sound of the impact cracking through the hall like the snap of a whip. ‘Let go of me, you churl!’ she shrieked. ‘My child…where is he?’

Ahead of her, the group parted to let Biddie through. A large and powerfully built man followed close behind, his eyes opening wide with surprise before quickly narrowing again, concealing their bright blueness. ‘Not exactly the reception we’d hoped for, Hugh,’ he said quietly to the man with the reddening cheek, ‘but it’s an interesting start, eh?’

Ebony heard none of this exchange as she took Biddie’s plump arms and shook her. ‘Where is he?’ she said, her voice on the edge of tears. ‘What have they done with him? And Meg?’

Biddie’s mouth twisted. She was barely twenty years old, but dependable and devoted to Sam. ‘Nothing…I don’t think,’ she whispered. Her large liquid eyes glanced across at the door. ‘They took him into the courtyard. He’ll be all right, mistress.’

But the enraged lioness was not prepared to accept that, hurling herself bodily into the group of men who, by chance, stood between her and the courtyard door. No time for asking, pleading or remonstrating; her only thought was to reach Sam before he was harmed.

Intrigued, and astonished to find a clothed version of the black-haired mermaid they had carried in their minds since sunrise, the men allowed her to get as far as the door, which was guarded. She turned like a creature at bay, her eyes both tearful and blazing with fury, her hands ready to claw at the man who faced her. ‘I want my child,’ she croaked. ‘I want him. Let me go to him.’ Her voice shook, almost running out of air.

‘The fair-haired wee laddie is yours?’ the man said in surprise. ‘And you are…?’

‘I am Sir Joseph Moffat’s daughter-in-law,’ she snapped. ‘And who the devil are you, sir? Do reivers admit their names these days, and do they still terrorise women and children like the cowards they are?’

‘You’re a Sassenach!’ he said, ignoring the questions. ‘This gets more interesting by the minute. What’s an Englishwoman doing in this den of thieves?’

‘Never mind the courtesies. Get my child here to me now, if you please. What have you done with him?’

‘Nothing. Yet.’

The courtyard door opened to admit two people, one above the other, the uppermost one bending his little head to duck beneath the point of the arch, his little hands clutching at the white hair of a gaunt and elderly man clad in padded waistcoat strapped with baldric and sword-belt. Sam’s legs straddled the man’s neck and dangled on to his shoulders. He was giggling.

He caught sight of his mother at once. ‘Mama!’ he called. ‘I’m riding Josh. Look at me! I’m going to show him my pony.’

She would have flown to him and dragged him bodily into her arms, but she was caught back by the tall man and held with such force that she was unable to escape him, and such was Sam’s excitement that his attention had gone from her in the blink of an eye. While she was never able to remember exactly what the man said to her at that moment, she understood that she must not show Sam her distress. ‘Yes, love,’ she called. ‘Don’t be too long, will you?’

With a merry wave and a grin, Sam was jogged through the company and out at the other side of the hall in the direction of the stable yard, while tears of relief and dread filled Ebony’s eyes. ‘Don’t take him away,’ she gasped. ‘Let me go to him.’ She tried to shake off the restraint of the man’s hands but to no avail, and the outer door was closed with a terrifying finality as Sam’s head ducked once more.

‘Now, my lady. You’ve had one answer. It’s time I had some.’ The man had scarcely taken his eyes from her, but now he allowed her to distance herself from him, bristling like a wildcat. ‘Give me your name,’ he said, harshly.

‘My name, sir, is Lady Ebony Moffat,’ she replied, angrily brushing a tear away from her chin. ‘Reivers don’t usually—’

‘And your man? Where is he?’

‘My man was killed by the likes of you.’

‘When?’

‘Three years,’ she whispered, hanging her head. Her hair had fallen into a black silken bundle at the nape of her neck, and damp strands still clung to her throat. Her grey eyes, black-lashed and almond-shaped, were set in a perfectly oval frame, high-cheeked and fine-boned, like an elf, and now her pale full lips trembled with distress. ‘My father-in-law has had us live here since then. Where is he? Where’s Meg?’ She saw the man’s eyes link with those of the man she had struck, then return to hers, showing her a flash of blue that she could only liken to steel. The man was obviously the leader of this mob, yet his manner was soldierly, his men disciplined, their actions ruthless, but nothing like the murderous rabble who had raided her home and burned it down. They were, she supposed, all different in their methods, even if their aims were the same.

‘Sir Joseph is wounded,’ he said with a distinct lack of concern, ‘and your sister-in-law is tending him.’ Sidestepping, he barred her way as she made for the stairway. ‘You’ll not find him there. And she’s perfectly safe.’

Fiercely, she tried to push him away as if he were a youth. ‘You’ve wounded him? So who’s to be next? Damn you…take what you want and go! Leave us in peace! What is it you want…food…cattle…?’

He held her back again with infuriating ease. ‘No great hurry,’ he said. ‘No one is going to ride off to get help. No one is in a position to resist, and Sir Joseph is hardly going to defend anything for a while. We shall take the men and hostages away, and the castle is in our hands for as long as we need it. We’ll leave when we’re ready.’

‘Not my son,’ she pleaded. ‘You’ll not take him away?’

The man she had struck was not inclined to negotiate. ‘He’s the old man’s grandson,’ he said from behind her, ‘and grandsons make useful hostages. The old devil will be more inclined to co-operate when he knows we have his wee bairn, won’t he?’

She whirled round to face him as the last words left his lips, hurling herself at him in a frenzy of rage. ‘Lout!’ she screamed. ‘Murderous, thieving lout!’

But before her nails could reach their target, the man who had recently held her fast did so again, and she was pulled hard against his chest, lifted off her feet, and thrown over one broad shoulder like a sack of oats, then carried, squirming, shrieking with rage and beating at his back, towards the small door at the dais end of the hall where the white covers were still untouched on the table. One of his men, grinning, opened the door and closed it behind them and, with the sound of its slam against the frame, Ebony knew that, once again, her worst nightmares had returned.

Her strongest instinct was to give in to the blind panic that engulfed her, to scream, bite, kick and fight against the overwhelming fear of losing her child. Utterly consumed by a nameless black terror that saturated her limbs with the strength of ten, she lashed out like one demented. Even so, her efforts made very little impression upon the solid bulk of the man who held her painfully hard against the stone wall of the deserted passageway with his hands, body and legs, keeping his head out of range of her only free weapon.

He let her fury subside and gradually wind down to a standstill, and she knew at the back of her tormented mind that the time had come for something other than mere appeals to their better natures, for they were not in the business of concessions. Tears streamed down her face and neck, sticking her loosened hair to her skin, and her head dropped forward onto his padded doublet, too heavy for her to hold up. ‘My son…my son…’ was all she had breath to say. ‘I cannot lose him.’

At last, she became aware of his body pressing against hers, and perhaps it was that that helped to remind her that she had hardly looked at this man, would hardly have recognised him if she were to see him again. Now, she raised her head and saw through her tears that he was clean-shaven, that he was regarding her impassively, that his mouth was well formed and unsmiling, and that his air of healthy virility might have had something to do with his white teeth, which showed as he spoke to her.

‘Steady,’ he said. ‘Steady now. Your son’s safe enough, but I need a hostage. He need not be gone for ever.’

She shook her head wildly. ‘No, not him! He’s all I’ve got.’

‘He’s the only grandson?’