“. . . in sickness and in health, to be bonlich and buxom in bed and at board . . .”
Hearing Lady Murray, soon to be Lady Cavers, promising to be meek and obedient, Sibylla glanced at Simon and found his gaze waiting to catch hers, his eyes as brimful of amusement as she knew hers must be.
He put a hand to the small of her back and rubbed it, plainly not caring a whit if people behind them saw him stroking his wife. As she leaned into his hand, to savor its warmth, she thought how different it all was from four years before.
It was the same wee kirk, and less than a fortnight short of the anniversary. But no rain fell today, and wedding guests packed the kirk, so it was much warmer inside. Also, the bride and groom looked happy to be there.
Geordie Denholm stood on the other side of Simon with Alice beside him and Rosalie next to Alice. Geordie and Alice were not yet betrothed, but the Colvilles were no longer an issue, the Douglas having hanged both for their crimes. Sir Malcolm’s lady had said she thought Geordie would do very well for Alice, so Sibylla and Simon considered that matter settled.
The Douglas was present, too, in the front row of guests. The two-year-old truce, amended to include his new rules for resolving grievances across the line, would, they hoped, continue for at least the original ten years. The reiving had not stopped, but families deprived of their beasts were more apt to see justice now.
Cecil Percy had brought his wife and family to visit Elishaw in May, and his eldest son had taken a strong liking to Rosalie. Rosalie, having learned in Edinburgh that there were many fish in the barrel, had kept the lad at arm’s length.
Simon thought she was turning into an accomplished flirt, but Sibylla knew that Annabel remained confident of another English alliance.
The priest murmured to the bridal pair, and they turned to face their guests.
“I present to you Sir Malcolm and Lady Cavers,” the priest said solemnly.
The piper skirled a tune, and they came down the steps to receive the felicitations of their guests.
“How are you feeling, Sibylla?” Amalie demanded as she approached. “I saw Simon rubbing your back.”
A mother for more than two months, Amalie had regained her usual figure. Her son was with his nurse at Akermoor, where the whole family was staying.
Sibylla grinned at her. “I’m fine,” she said. “Sakes, I’m barely three months along, but your brother is already proving to be as certain of what is good for me as Garth was when you were with child. I marvel now that you did not murder him,” she added, with a teasing look at Simon.
“Take care, my love,” he said, smiling and holding her gaze. “If I hear much more of that, I’ll put you to bed as soon as we get back.”
“Aye, sure, you may, but only if you promise to join me there, my lord.”
With that, surrounded by laughing kinsmen and merrily chattering friends, they followed the newly married couple outside into the sunny street.
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed Border Moonlight. Its title derives from a mixture of old reivers’ cries, particularly those of the Scotts of Buccleuch and Scotts of Harden.
The lady Catherine Gordon of Huntly is a product of the author’s imagination, although her “father,” Sir John Gordon of Huntly, was the last in the male line of the Gordons of Huntly. The author also took literary license with the date of his death, moving it up a few years from 1408. He was succeeded by his sister Elizabeth, who married a Seton. His descendants have held Huntly Castle since then.
The Earl of Fife ruled Scotland until his death in 1420.
The truce to which Scotland and England agreed in 1389, nearly a year after the Battle of Otterburn, was renegotiated in 1391 to include Archie the Grim’s rules for redressing grievances across the line. Despite those rules, reiving had become such an integral part of Border economy that it continued for two hundred years. After the union of Scotland and England, stiffer Elizabethan laws finally put an end to it.
The river Tweed rarely behaves as it did in Border Moonlight. It is generally a calm and beautiful river, the fourth longest in Scotland with the second largest water-shed. As a point of trivia, according to the Encyclopedia of Scotland, although tweed cloth is produced in some Tweed towns, the name does not derive from the river. It comes from a “misreading in London of the Scots word ‘tweel’ or ‘twill.’ ”
If you wondered about bridges, the Tweed was bridge-free from Berwick all the way to Peebles through the year 1654. Few bridges existed in the Borders, because Borderers saw them only as rash invitations to invaders.
The Abbot’s Ford mentioned in Border Moonlight belonged to Melrose Abbey and lay about three miles west of it. Sir Walter Scott, the poet, built his home there and called it Abbotsford. The cluster of shiels or huts the abbey provided for pilgrims near the confluence of Gala Water with the Tweed grew to be the town of Galashiels.