Border Fire(72)

She had not gone far into the woods before she stopped beneath a tall beech tree and looked back. "This one will do," she said in a low but carrying voice. "The lower branches are too high for anyone to reach unaided. No one will seek us here."

From his perch on Davy's shoulders, Sym looked down at her with a frown and said, "But what if they fire the trees?"

"They are too green and wet from the rain," she replied. "If the raiders fire aught, they'll fire the cots. Oh, be quick, Davy! I think I heard a man shout."

Quick as thought, the tall man swung the boy down and clasped his hands together to make a stirrup. When she put her right foot into it, he hoisted her high, and she climbed like a cat, clearly not caring that both males could catch glimpses of all that she had beneath her skirts.

When she was safe on the lowest sturdy branch, she lay lengthwise along it and reached a hand down for the boy. His father practically tossed him to her, and after she had dragged him up, the two of them climbed higher.

"Go back now, Davy," she called down to him urgently.

"I can still see ye," he said.

"Then we'll climb higher. Now, by the blessed Mary, go!"

Without further protest, he ran off to look after the rest of his family.

"You climb higher, Sym," Laurie said. "Climb as high as you can, but take care that you do not fall. I shall be right behind you."

Sym began climbing, but he had not gone much higher when he stopped and whispered over one shoulder, "Some'un's comin' close."

His words barely reached Laurie's ears, but she understood them, for just then she too heard the soft splat-splat of a horse's hooves on the wet leaves of the forest floor. A moment later, she realized that two horses approached.

She could not climb higher without forcing Sym to do likewise, and not only were the branches above him slender and thus less safe, but the two of them could not risk noise or movement. Taking comfort from the fact that dense leaves almost completely concealed him, she decided that no one would see him from the ground. But she knew that they might see her if they looked up at the right moment.

Not daring to speak, she hugged the thick trunk of the tree and tucked her skirts beneath her, trying to make herself small. Her overskirt was a soft green, close enough to the leaves' color to go unnoticed, but her underskirt was the usual red flannel, and she prayed that none of it was showing. On such a gray day, even a wee patch of red would stand out like a spark in Davy's black cave.

The horsemen drew nearer. She was surprised that they had managed to get so far without encountering difficulties in one of the bogs.

The two men did not converse, and she realized that they were probably listening for sounds of flight or alarm. If they knew about the three cottages in the clearing, doubtless they were hoping to surprise the inhabitants.

A moment later, she saw them in their gleaming steel bonnets and plate. One was tall and broad-shouldered, riding a dun-colored pony with black points that was larger than most she had seen. The other man rode a chestnut roan. He was shorter and square of shape, his waist and hips nearly as wide as his shoulders. He carried a bill, an English weapon, part spear and part ax. His companion wore a sword at his side and a longbow strung across his back where he could easily reach it. In one ungloved hand, he carried an ominous looking pistol at the ready.

Scarcely daring to breathe, knowing that the boy above her would keep still, she sent a prayer heavenward. Although it was not unheard of for the English to kill women, even women of her rank, she did not fear for her own life as much as for Sym's. English raiders were not noted for asking questions or for encouraging conversation of any sort before putting their victims to the sword. Nevertheless, she felt oddly calm. Had Tarras Wood suddenly swarmed with horsemen, she told herself, she might have felt more fear, but the two silent men seemed harmless-unless, of course, one of them looked up.   





 

In any event, if they caught her, she would do whatever she had to do to save the lad.

When the pair drew rein almost directly beneath the tree where she and Sym hid, she stopped breathing. A chill of pure terror shot up her spine. Quaking, she realized that she had grossly underestimated her composure.

The man carrying the bill said in a gruff voice, "There be two or three cottages ahead. Like as not, they've heard nowt, so we should take 'em easy."

The other man wiped a leather-clad arm across his face and brow, and then, resting his pistol on a muscular thigh, he took off his steel bonnet, revealing a shock of red curls a shade or two darker than his neatly trimmed, reddish-blond beard. As he thrust long fingers through his hair, he tilted his head back.

For one horrible, frozen moment, Laurie's gaze locked with his.

"Brackengill?" The man with the bill spoke sharply, and the red-haired man turned to look at him.

"Aye?"

"If ye've finished combing your pretty locks, we've work yet to do."

"Let's get to it then." His expression did not alter.

When he replaced his helmet, raised his pistol again, and rode on, Laurie decided with a surge of relief that the dark foliage surrounding her had prevented him from seeing her after all.



Two

He rang'd all around down by the woodside,

Till in the top of a tree, a lady he spyd.

SIR HUGH GRAHAM, LORD Scrope's deputy warden, had seen the girl in the tree. Indeed, he had seen her clearly enough to know that her eyes were large for her face and so dark as to look black. But he had seen little more than those dark eyes and the small, pale, heart-shaped face framed in a halo of dark, damp curls.

It was the face, he thought, of a child. Doubtless, her eyes had seemed enormous because of her terror.

As he followed Martin Loder, Scrope's chief land sergeant, Sir Hugh was not certain why he did not mention seeing her. He knew as well as anyone-perhaps better than most-that a female could be as dangerous as any man. For all he knew, the girl in the tree held a pistol cocked and ready to shoot.

A nerve between his shoulder blades twitched.

The girl had seemed young, though, and more terrified than terrifying. At all events, despite the nervous twitch, every fiber of him rebelled at the thought of telling Loder about her.

Martin Loder was a villainous creature, envious of his betters and overeager to prove himself to Scrope. Moreover, given a choice in the matter, Hugh did not make war on women or children. What he had seen that day had already been enough to turn his stomach, though his reputation was that of a hardened soldier.

The last straw was seeing armed men forcing women and children to remove their clothing, then leashing them in pairs like dogs and driving them naked through the dale. That sight had stirred his impulse to follow Loder into Tarras Wood.

Loder's courage-or foolhardiness-had surprised him, for the man was not aware until Sir Hugh had shouted that he was following him. Sir Hugh considered himself a brave man, but he would not have ridden alone into that infamous bog-ridden area.

He understood Scrope better than he understood Loder. Scrope was determined to teach Liddesdale a lesson, and Hugh understood his fury, for Liddesdale was a notorious reivers' nest. The whole, wide valley was a grim, forbidding place dotted with robber towers. Shut in by bleak fells, it consisted largely of quaking morass and vast primeval forest. Reivers flourished in every march, but in Liddesdale, every able-bodied man was one.

Just months before, a small army of Liddesdale men and other ruffians-doubtless under the direction of their powerful leader, Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch-had raided Carlisle Castle to free one of their own. Carlisle was Scrope's stronghold.

Having made the English warden look foolish, they had to pay. Sir Hugh had understood that from the outset. He had supported Scrope when, immediately after the Carlisle raid, determined to punish the raiders, Scrope had organized several forays against them with the official blessing of the Queen and her Privy Council.

Those forays accomplished little of note, however. Buccleuch had retaliated each time, with the result that livestock moved back and forth across the line so frequently that men said the poor beasts were losing weight as fast as they gained it. As a result, many would likely be too weak to survive the winter.

Elizabeth of England was as offended as her warden over the high-handed way the Scots had freed his prisoner and royally indignant at Buccleuch's continued forays into her realm. She had written angrily to King James of Scotland, demanding the Borderer's immediate surrender to her authority.

So far, the King had refused to comply with that demand, and Hugh was certain that if James enjoyed the same freedom that some of his predecessors had, he would have continued to repel all her demands. But James hoped to succeed to the English throne on Elizabeth's death. Knowing that she could squash those hopes with a word, he feared her anger and thus bowed to the inevitable.   





 

James did not prostrate himself, however. He merely ordered Buccleuch into ward at Blackness Castle, which overlooked the Firth of Forth a few miles outside Edinburgh. If he had hoped to placate Elizabeth with the compromise, however, he had failed.

The English Queen, like nearly everyone else in England and Scotland, soon began to hear tales of Blackness luxury and of James and his favorite out hunting together. She heard tales of dicing and playing chess and, worse, tales of the two of them laughing together at Scrope's fury. Her demands became more imperious. James, she insisted, must hand Buccleuch over to English authorities.