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‘Get my horse and the dog, Angus.’
He hesitated. ‘Ye shouldna go out alone, Mistress Clare.’
She knew that, but she had picked the boy because he would not refuse her. ‘Both the bird and I need exercise. And my father sent word. He’ll be home soon. The Inglis are halfway to Carlisle by now.’
In truth, the Inglis might be as close as Melrose, but she was tired of hiding, tired of winter, tired of being caged like the birds. Besides, the wild hills surrounding their border castle offered as much protection as an army. The ‘Great Waste', some called it. No one would come here unless he wanted to escape the civilised world.
Angus brought her hound and horse and held the falcon as she mounted. Then, sitting proudly on top of his pony, he rode beside her. As they left the shadow of the tower’s wall, she took her first deep breath and looked up at the blue, cloudless sky. They had not seen the like for months.
‘Clare! Wait!’
She turned to see Euphemia, daughter of the widow Murine, galloping after her. Clare stifled a sigh for the loss of her private moment with the falcon and freedom.
She held her horse to let the girl catch up. Far from looking ready to hunt, Euphemia, on the edge of womanhood, looked as if she were ready to fall into bed with the next man she stumbled across. Not because of her clothes—her dress was as temperate as Clare’s—but even at sixteen, the slant of her smile and the flutter of her eyelashes put men in mind of night pleasures.
Just as her mother’s did.
‘I had to come,’ the girl said, as she caught them. ‘We may not see another day so warm ‘til June.’ A flush touched her cheek and her dark hair tumbled across her shoulders.
Clare’s tight braid insured her hair would never fly loose, even after a day on horseback. ‘You may join me, but stay close. She’s not been out for days and I intend to be sure she has a good flight.’
She gazed at the sky, looking for potential prey. Instead, she heard the flapping wings of another falcon. Wee One, hooded, swivelled her head, as if searching for the sound.
‘What’s that?’ Euphemia asked.
Clare peered at the bird—male, she thought, from his smaller size. He flew back and forth across their path, fierce, dark, yellow-rimmed eyes glaring as if he wanted them to stop.
‘I don’t know.’ She frowned, suddenly afraid the strange bird might tempt Wee One to freedom. Thinking to escape him, she urged the horse into a gallop, not stopping until she was halfway up the ridge and the tercel was no longer in sight. Waiting for the others, she felt the south-west wind nudge her back.
Maybe summer would come early.
‘Look!’ Angus whispered as the hound pointed.
A few yards away, a fat partridge huddled under a bush. She would be easy to flush into flight, the perfect quarry for a falcon.
Clare glanced over her shoulder to be sure they had lost the tercel. Then she removed Wee One’s hood, struggling to hold on to the leather jesses as the wind nearly jerked them out of her fingers. She raised her arm and Wee One took off, wings flapping, until she was just a speck overhead. There, she would wait, as she had been trained to do, until the humans sent her prey skywards.
Angus set the dog towards the bush, scaring the partridge into flight, where the bird expected to be away from danger, but the small dot in the sky dived for her prey, falling faster than a horse could gallop.
They stirred their horses and gave chase.
They were halfway down the valley by mid-afternoon. The bird had worked, tireless, through the day. She had several fine stoops, killing three fowl. Each time, Clare rewarded her with a taste of the flesh. Then, she whisked the prey into the sack for Angus to carry.
Food rewarded the falcon for a successful flight, but the bird was never allowed to eat without her master’s help. Otherwise, she would learn that she did not need the help of humans after all.
The last partridge escaped. Clare called her falcon with a shrieking whistle and smiled as Wee One swooped on to her fist, obedient.
This bird would return to her. Always.
At the thought, the list of duties left undone rushed back, sweeping away the freedom of the day.
She turned her horse around, motioning to Angus and Euphemia to follow her. The morning’s warmth had ebbed, and a chilly mist huddled in the valley and obscured the hills, reminding her of the dangers that lurked all around. The Inglis army might be far away, but the Inglis border was not.
That was her last thought before he rose out of the fog, a golden man on a black horse, like a spirit emerging from the mist.
A man without a banner.
A man without allegiance.
The hound barked, once, then growled, as if cowed.
The man’s eyes grabbed hers. Blue they were, shading as a sky does in summer from pale to deepest azure. And behind the blue, something hot, like the sun.
Like fire.
Any words she might have said stuck in her throat.
Next to her, Euphemia gasped, then giggled. ‘Where are you going, good sir?’
Clare glared at her. The girl was hopeless. They’d be lucky to get her married before she was with child.
‘Anywhere that will have me,’ he answered Euphemia, but his eyes touched Clare.
Her cheeks burned.
Beside her, young Angus drew his dagger, the only weapon he was allowed. ‘I will defend the ladies.’
‘I’m sure you will.’ The stranger’s smile, slow, insolent, was at odds with the intensity in his eyes. ‘That’s a handsome dirk and I’m sure you could wield it well against me, but I would ask that you not harm my horse.’
His tone was oddly gentle. Where was his own squire? ‘Who’s with you?’
‘No one.’
‘A dangerous practice.’ Did he lie? An army could hide behind him in this mist. Her fault. She had ridden out alone and unarmed and put them all at risk. ‘Don’t you know Edward’s army still rides?’
He frowned. ‘Do they?’
His accent confused her. It held the burr of the land closer to the sea, but there was something else about it, difficult to place. Yet over the hill, in the next valley, each family’s speech was different. He might be a Robson from the other side of the hill, scouting for one last raid before the spring, or loyal to one of the Teviotdale men who had thrown their lot in with Edward. ‘You’re not an Inglisman, are you?’
‘I have blood as Scots as yours.’
‘And how do you know how Scots my blood is?’
‘By the way you asked the question.’
Did her speech sound so provincial to Alain? She winced. She wanted to impress the visiting French knight, not embarrass him. ‘What’s your name, Scotsman?’
‘Gavin.’ He paused. ‘Gavin Fitzjohn.’
Some John’s bastard, then. Even a bastard bore his father’s arms, but this man carried no clue to his birth. No device on his shield, no surcoat. Just that unkempt armour that, without a squire’s care, had darkened with rust spots.
No arms, no squire. Not of birth noble enough for true knighthood, then.
‘Are you a renegade?’ On her wrist, Wee One bated, wings flapping wildly. Clare touched her fingers to the bird’s soft breast feathers, seeking to calm them both.
His slow smile never wavered. ‘Just a tired and hungry man who needs a friendly bed.’ His eyes travelled over her, as if he were wondering how friendly her bed might be.
‘Well, you’ll not find one with us.’
‘I didn’t ask. Yet.’
Did he think she’d offer to be his bedmate? She should not be talking to such a man at all. ‘Well, if you do, I’ll say you nae.’
‘I don’t ask before I know whether I’m speaking to a friend or an enemy.’
‘And I don’t answer before I know the same.’ Her voice had a wobble she had not intended.
‘Are you a woman with enemies?’
‘Three kings claim this land. We have more enemies than friends.’
‘Aye,’ he said, nodding, a frown carving lines in his face. He flexed his hand as if it itched to reach for his sword. ‘Who are yours?’
Her eyes clashed with his. She should have asked him first. Where was his loyalty? To the de Baliol pretender, recently dethroned? To David the Bruce, still held for ransom by the Inglis Edward? Perhaps he had lied about his blood and was Edward’s man himself.
Next to her, the young girl sighed. ‘This is Mistress Clare and I’m Euphemia and I have nae enemies.’
‘Euphemia!’ Was she batting her lashes? Yes, she was. ‘Do you want us to be killed?’
‘He wouldn’t do that. A knight is sworn to protect ladies, aren’t you?’ She fluttered her eyelashes at him again, then turned to Clare. ‘Don’t treat him as an unfriend.’
‘If I do, it’s because I have a brain in my head.’
If she kicked the horse into a gallop, could she outrun the man? Not with Angus and Euphemia in tow and Wee One on her wrist.
She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘He looks like a dangerous ruffian, not a knight. He carries no markings and he’s wearing dirty armour with rust spots!’ The man, if he knew the maxims of chivalry, cared little for them.
Euphemia shrugged and turned to the man. ‘You’re not dangerous and dirty, are you?’
Something darkened his face before a smile waved it away. ‘Well, that may depend on how you mean the words, but I’d say Mistress Clare has a gift for judging character.’
He said it with no sense of outrage. No knight would allow his honour to be so challenged. Certainly Alain, epitome of French chivalry, would never let such a slight pass.
‘On whose lands do I ride, Mistress Euphemia?’ he asked.
‘Not Mistress. Just Euphemia,’ Clare said, refusing to elaborate. Disgrace enough that her father had shamed her dead mother by taking up with the widow Murine. Worse that he’d treated another man’s by-blow as his daughter. ‘And you’re on Carr lands.’
‘Held of who?’
‘Douglas,’ she answered. There, that declared their loyalties, but if she hadn’t told him, the girl would have.
She thought his shoulders relaxed, but she must have been mistaken. ‘It’s difficult not to be on Douglas lands in the Middle March, isn’t it?’ His slow nod revealed nothing of his thoughts. ‘Are you loyal to the Bruce?’
‘You ask that when the heart of a Bruce adorns Lord Douglas’s shield?’ In her surprise, her tongue forgot its courtly inflection. ‘Are ye daft?’
‘Nae, but Carr men have been known to lapse in loyalty to an absent king.’
King David the Bruce had been England’s captive for half her life, it seemed. In his absence, a Douglas and a Steward ruled Scotland in his name. ‘Does that make you an enemy of Douglas and Carr, Gavin Fitzjohn?’
‘Not as long as they are no enemy of mine.’
His eyes met hers and they took each other’s measure in silence. On the Border, an allegiance could be as strong as the relentless wind. And as variable.
‘See, Clare? He’s no enemy and we should all go home. I, for one, am chilled to the skin and ready to sit by the fire.’ Euphemia kicked her horse into a trot and the stranger fell in behind her.
Clare handed Wee One to Angus, then hurried to catch up, letting the squire and the hound follow.
She brought her horse beside Euphemia and the stranger dropped further back, complimenting young Angus on his mount.
‘You’re leading him straight home!’
Euphemia shrugged. ‘Why are you so worried? There’s one of him and three of us.’
‘And he’s the only one carrying a sword.’
A few men still manned the tower, but if he was scouting for raiders, they were leading him straight to what he wanted. Still, she would feel safer, she decided, home in the castle, where he would be outnumbered by her men-at-arms.
At the silence, the stranger moved closer. ‘Angus tells me your falcon killed three today that were twice her size. That’s a bird with courage.’
‘Well that you say so.’ Euphemia smiled. ‘Wee One is Clare’s favourite.’
‘Then it seems your sister is as good a judge of bird flesh as she is of men.’
She glanced at him without turning her head, still puzzling him out. He’d displayed none of the courtly respect a knight should, yet he controlled his destrier with a warrior’s ease, confident of his strength.
He caught her studying him and she snapped her gaze away, gritting her teeth at his laugh. ‘It’s too late to flatter me, Fitzjohn.’
‘Oh, Mistress Clare,’ he began, his voice still edged with humour, ‘no man who was any judge of character would try flattery on you.’
‘But a true and noble knight would always speak sweetly to a lady,’ she countered. Alain always did. ‘That must mean you are not a true knight.’
‘Or that you are not a true lady.’
She stiffened. What gave her away? ‘I am certainly a truer lady than you are a noble knight.’
He cocked his head. ‘Perhaps, Mistress Clare, it may be too early to come to that conclusion.’
She gulped against his gentle rebuke. A lady would never have made such a statement. In this wild land, it was hard to cling to the courtly graces she had learned as a child in France.
