The Widow's Bargain

‘Whew!’ said Hugh. ‘Good thing I ducked. Why don’t they attack you?’

‘Because I don’t grab at them. They tend not to like it.’

‘Then I should hoist her over my shoulder. Is that the idea?’

‘As a last resort.’ Sir Alex smiled at the jibe and cast an eye over the room’s disarray. There were bowls of reddened water and cloths, pots of salves, a flask of stale brown urine, bloodied bandages, piles of linen and an empty trestle-table ruckled with soiled sheeting. From between the grubby fold of linen, he lifted a strand of black leather upon which hung a small silver key. ‘And what might this be about?’ he said, holding it up. ‘It’s been cut from round his neck, by the look o’ things, so now we have the job of finding out what it unlocks.’ He slipped the key and its thong into his pouch.

‘Which may take a few days. Is that what you’re thinking?’

‘Things have changed with the old man’s death, Hugh. There’s no reason now why we shouldn’t stay till we’ve found what we’re after, especially since we’ll get nothing out of him. The hostage threat hardly applies now, does it? Though I’ve a mind to make it sound as if it’s still a possibility. See what I mean?’

‘I’ll go along with whatever you decide. If you want to hold on to that as a warning in case of trouble, then go ahead. I’ll back you…With those two we’ll need all the ammunition we can find.’

‘Good. Staying on in the owner’s place may be a bit unorthodox, but we can easily defend ourselves here, if need be.’

‘There’ll have to be a funeral, Alex. His cronies will come, and I don’t suppose they’ll be the cream of society.’

‘All the more reason for us to stay a while. Think of those two beauties playing hostess to Moffat’s pals, will ye? Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘But ye ken the rules aboot castles and women, Alex. No castle can be held by a woman without her man. She has to be out in a day or two and away to her dower-hoos.’

‘That’s true enough, especially when there’s so much raiding about. So, if we’re not entirely welcome, that rule will be enough to grant us extra time. As long as we’re here to protect them, I can see us having time to do our duty to the king on two fronts. Defend the castle and find proof of what he suspects.’

‘Guid. So I’ll tell the men before they start saddling up, shall I?’

‘Yes, Hugh. Do that. Then organise the garrison hall. I want this place better organised and prepared for some outside opposition. The odds are shortening. Make a start while I go and tell the new laird’s mother. She was asleep last night when I went up.’

Hugh’s eyebrows lifted in amusement. ‘Now there’s a thing. The wee lad will be in his ma’s wardship now, won’t he? So we can expect a fair few interested parties flocking around to marry the mother and get their hands on the castle and whatever else they can before young Sam comes of age.’

‘More than likely, Hugh.’

‘And where do you stand in all this, my fine friend?’

‘Right at the front.’

‘No! Is that so?’ Hugh grinned. ‘As close as that?’

‘Even closer.’ He gave Hugh a friendly shove. ‘Get going, will you?’

Hugh halted in the doorway. ‘Just one more thing. When do we tell them what our business is?’

Leaning his bottom on the table, Alex folded his arms and looked down at them critically. ‘I doubt we can keep it from them much longer. They’ve already noted the differences and by the end of today there’ll be too many to hide. Reivers don’t make a habit of organising their victims’ funerals, do they? Or being present at them. Well, not formally. I’ll have to break the news to Lady Ebony very soon. I’ll let you tell Mistress Meg.’

‘Thank you. Can I borrow your chain-mail?’

‘No, I shall need it myself.’ Smiling, they headed for the great hall which, for some reason, was apparently known as the summer hall.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Lady Ebony listened with only half her attention to Sam and Biddie’s chatter, the other half riveted upon the upturned pillow beneath which her dagger still lay. Goose bumps had risen along her arms, causing her breath to forget itself and her mind to try to untangle facts from impressions that refused to disappear. The part of the bed next to where she lay had been warmer than usual. The pillow had shown a distinct dent in it next to hers. The dirk was upside-down under the pillow, not as she had placed it; she had almost cut her hand seeking the hilt. She had experienced the most vivid dream yet of Robbie’s body next to hers, his arms wrapping her, his lips on her forehead. Uncannily, awesomely vivid. She glanced down at her thighs; she had pressed them against his, overlapping him. The feel of his skin, hairy and warm, still tingled. ‘God in heaven!’ she whispered.

‘What, Mama? Are you saying your prayers?’ Sam bounced over to her, hobbled round his ankles by his long braies. ‘Look, you’ve still got the May-blossom up there. Shall we be taking it with us?’

Aghast, she looked round the half-drawn bedcurtain to see that the branch of white hawthorn she had removed earlier was back where it had been before. ‘Did you put this back up here, Biddie?’ she asked.

Biddie pulled Sam’s braies up, tucking the shirt inside. ‘Time you were doing this yourself, young man. What? May-blossom? Nay, it was on the stool last night. Must have done it yourself without thinking, mistress.’

Ebony knew that she had not. Her scalp prickled, sending thoughts scattering and refusing to settle on the too-awful truth, imposing a ban of silence on the incriminating evidence that might reveal how her dream was not a dream at all. No, she would not—could not—admit that her body had betrayed her by wanting him. She did not want him, unless he was Robbie.

She was still tying an old black ribbon around her thick black plait when the door was noisily unlocked. As before, knock and opening came together.

‘Sir Alex,’ Biddie said, ‘my lady has not yet finished her toilette.’

Sam, marginally more welcoming, saw no harm in a gentle contradiction, which he was lately getting the hang of. ‘She’s only plaiting her hair,’ he said, ‘but she doesn’t allow men in her chamber, sir, except Master Morner the chamberlain. May I ask your business?’

Resisting the smile that would have offended, Sir Alex stood gravely to attention. ‘My pardon, Laird of Kells,’ he said. ‘My business is quite urgent or I’d never have interrupted a lady’s privacy. May I speak with Lady Ebony?’

‘That’s my grandfather’s title, not mine,’ he said, pleased to be able to correct an adult on so many points.

‘Yes, that’s what I’ve come to speak about. May I?’

Biddie took Sam by the hand to draw him away before he became addicted. ‘Come,’ she said, ‘in here.’ She took him into the garderobe.

‘Laird of Kells?’ Ebony said, quietly. ‘You have…news…do you?’ She stood by the bed, sheathing the dirk that had been the cause of her consternation. ‘Is it Sir Joseph?’ He looked, she thought, particularly pleased with himself, as if remembering that a smile would be extremely bad form.

‘I’m sorry, my lady. He died soon after midnight.’

Another shock. She had not quite expected it. Her hand flew to her midriff and pressed against the faded rose-madder kirtle that was not yet laced down the side. ‘Last night?’ she whispered. ‘And you have only just come to tell me…at dawn? Did it not occur to you that Mistress Moffat might have needed my comfort, or that I should have been there? With her?’

‘Yes, it did.’ His glance fell upon the bed, then back to her face. ‘You were asleep.’

The implication of what he was telling her, even at a time like this, was impossible to disregard, and during the long silence loaded with unspoken accusations and admissions, Ebony resolved that neither on this occasion nor on any other would she give him the satisfaction of admitting that she knew what he also knew. Had there not been another more urgent subject claiming their attention, she might have given way to the urge to examine more closely the bronzed throat that showed at his open shirt-neck, the muscular forearms and wrists below rolled-up sleeves. But no, it was safer to deny that it could ever have happened. To do otherwise would be the first step to disaster.

‘I was locked in!’ she snapped. ‘I only hope Mistress Moffat will be able to forgive my appalling lack of compassion. Perhaps in future—’

‘In future, lady,’ he interrupted, brusquely, ‘there will be different sleeping arrangements, so the need will not arise. Now, if you wish it, I will escort you downstairs to see Mistress Moffat and Sir Joseph, too, later on. He’s being laid out in the winter hall. You may wish Master Sam to see him there.’

Her slim dark brows drew together like curlicues. ‘Just a minute. Different sleeping arrangements? You are talking about today’s journey, I take it?’

‘Not exactly. I’m talking about Castle Kells, my lady. We have decided to stay here a while, now that Sir Joseph is no longer here to defend it.’ He was quick to explain, as her hostility gave way to disbelief. ‘Otherwise you and your household would be obliged to move out immediately. The king doesn’t allow his castles to remain undefended, not for more than one day. I’m sure you’re already aware of that, as Mistress Moffat will be.’

She was not. The problem of defence had never been discussed. Sir Joseph had believed himself to be immortal. Move out, or have these brigands stay? Something here was not making sense. Reivers never stayed. They damaged, thieved, destroyed and killed, and then they ran, hiding their tracks and their identity for as long as they could.

‘No!’ she said with a quick glance at the garderobe curtain. ‘No, you cannot stay here. You must not!’ Already her fears were racing ahead, preparing her for what might happen, for what he had assured her would happen. Last night he had shown her how easy it would be, but to pay the full price here at Castle Kells she would have to deceive Meg, as well as Biddie and Sam, and that was asking yet more of her, more than she had offered in the first place.

‘Why must we not, my lady?’ he said, keeping his voice low, as she did. ‘You think there’s a danger we may eventually be accepted, our presence…enjoyed…perhaps?’

‘Quite the opposite. I think, sir, that you may find how two seemingly helpless women guarding one helpless child may be too uncomfortable for you and your rabble. I don’t know who you pretend to be, but—’ Her breath ran out before she had finished, and she could have cried with relief as the door opened and Meg entered, breathless for quite a different reason. They ran to each other, clinging and rocking as if they had been parted for a year instead of a night, a night in which the world had changed for each of them in the most primeval manner imaginable.

Biddie and Sam joined them while the audience of one, feeling that his presence was redundant, left the room with the same practised silence he had used after midnight, his departure too late not to hear Meg’s plaintive cry, ‘Ebbie…Ebbie! What’s happening to us?’