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‘Go back, boy,’ Rob snarled.
She took the boy’s hand and pulled him closer. ‘The fault is not his.’
That, he knew. He’d like to make it hers, but that would be a lie. ‘We don’t need him with us.’
Her hand touched Wat’s shoulder. ‘He’ll do no harm.’
‘Nor any good, either.’ The boy had few uses. Simple tasks, sometimes, he could do.
‘Of course he can,’ she said, looking at the boy as if he were more than a halfwit. ‘Can’t you, Wat?’
Wat nodded.
‘He’ll agree with anything you say,’ Rob said. Or he used to. Before this woman arrived and the boy developed his own opinions about dragons.
‘But you told me,’ she began, words and eyes sending a warning, ‘that he would be good help with whatever we needed.’ She hugged the boy closer, as if he were a shield, and the child turned his worshipful gaze back to Rob.
He shook his head. The woman might not be able to cook or wash, but she could manoeuvre this boy as skilfully as he deployed men in battle. And, in the process, she gave him no choice but to be cruel or to allow the lad to come.
He crouched before the boy. ‘So you want to fish, do you?’
Wat nodded.
‘Then come along.’ Under the boy’s watchful eyes, he would have to throttle his words. And his temper. Which was, of course, exactly what the woman had intended.
But she was looking at Wat and tugging his hand to draw his attention back to her. ‘You must stay close to me and not go too far into the water. I must bring you safely back to your mother.’
But Wat, excited, wiggled like a pup and tugged at Stella’s hand, trying to hurry her towards the stream.
‘Go, then,’ Stella said. Wat took off running. ‘But don’t go in the water!’
Suddenly alone with her again, Rob missed the boy’s protection. ‘Well, he’s with us. What would you have him do?’
‘He can carry the fish.’
Rob threw Stella a warning look. ‘If we ever catch one.’
Despite her warning, Wat did not wait at the water’s edge, but ran in, stomping and splashing and throwing water in the air.
Stella ran, but Rob was faster. He scooped the wet, wriggling boy from the water and stood him back on the bank. ‘Did you think to scare the fish out of the water? If there was a fish there before, he’s swum for his life now.’
Wat cringed and Rob realised how harsh he must have sounded.
Stella knelt before the boy and hugged him. ‘I told you not to go in yet.’
Wat looked from one to the other and shrugged off her arms, as if bracing for a blow. ‘My fault.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Rob agreed sharply.
Her arms took the boy again and now she was the shield between them. ‘Do not blame him. He’s a …’ She paused, as if not wanting the boy to hear her insult.
‘He’s a fool.’
‘He’s a child, not a man.’
‘On this side of the border, he is a man. Or should be.’ Poor weak creature. Like the baby lamb, destined for an early death.
But her fierce expression brooked no argument.
He put a hand on Wat’s shoulder, gently enough that Stella eased her grip and the boy looked up, hopeful. ‘Go find us small sticks and twigs, Wat, as many as you can, and bring them back here.’
Reprieved, Wat scrambled down the bank towards the bushes.
‘And stay away from the stream,’ Stella called after him. ‘What will we do with the sticks when he brings them?’
‘You know no more of catching fish than you do of the kitchen, do you?’ If she was representative of the rest of her clan, it was no wonder they came raiding. Otherwise, they would starve.
‘Do you?’ She admitted nothing.
He thought for a moment of marching her into Liddel Water to catch the fish alone. She’d be up to those bare ankles in water first. Then, her borrowed skirts would be soaked, clinging to the curve of her hips. And if she were drenched in water the way she had been in flour …
He forced his mind back to the fish. ‘Actually, I do.’
She cast a doubtful gaze at the stream, then looked back at him. ‘What do I do first?’
He waved his hands. ‘Just build a little dam and a place for them to swim in.’
‘You’ve not done this before either, have you?’
‘I watched my mother do it.’ Watched as she set the sticks in place and relished the luxury of the catch.
‘When was that?’
Years. It had been years. ‘A while ago.’
‘Then how do you know how to do it?’
How? He never asked that question. The how of things was passed down in the blood, embedded in the bones. Once the sticks were in his hands, he would remember. ‘So you insisted we come out here and build a weir and you know nothing of fishing?’
‘I thought you knew.’
‘Well, in my family, it’s the women who do it.’
Shock stole her speech.
He had never wondered at it before. His father had taught him of war and sheep and cattle. The rest was left to the women.
‘Well,’ she said, finally, ‘if you at least had a picture of it, that would help.’
‘What do you want?’ he retorted. ‘A book of lessons?’
‘Yes.’
Now he was the one who stared. ‘Could you read it?’
She coloured. ‘Maybe.’
‘Liar.’ He was learning her. Without the boy to protect, she had returned to protecting herself.
‘I could read a few words.’
‘The same two your mother knows?’ Just looking at her raised his temper. ‘You don’t cook, you don’t wash, you can’t fish …’ He waved his hands, fighting the temptation to put them on her shoulders and shake her. ‘What are you good for, lass?’
Pink embarrassment crept from her cheeks to the roots of her hair. He had upset her, which was no less than he had intended, but he had not expected to feel guilty for it.
But before she could answer, Wat ran out of the bushes, trailing sticks. He stopped in front of Rob and thrust the pile of twigs and sticks into his arms. ‘Here!’
Then he stepped back and looked from one to the other, his face transformed by a proud, happy smile.
Stella crouched before him. ‘That’s good, Wat. You did a good job. Can you get us some more?’
He nodded and ran off again.
‘Children,’ she said, gazing up at Rob with a soft smile. ‘I’m good with the children.’
Stella watched Rob’s scowl turn to frustration. He flung Wat’s precious twigs to the ground.
‘Then go marry someone special and have some.’
She rose, resisting a sharp answer, and tilted her head to study him. No man—indeed, no one at all—had ever treated her this way. Everyone at home spoke to her carefully, as if afraid to upset or anger her.
As if afraid to evoke any emotion from her at all.
But his words were like a spear in her empty womb.
‘When you let me go home, I will,’ she said, wishing that words could make it so.
Rob’s strong, stubborn gaze turned tender. Aye. Somewhere behind the black brow and the angry words, there lurked a touch of softness. Maybe some day, he’d find a woman who could release it.
‘Truce, then.’ Two words, but in those, she heard the lilt of a song.
She smiled and nodded towards the water. ‘Truce, while we see if between the two of us, we can figure out how to catch some fish.’
They waded into the water and Rob selected a place in the stream to build the dam. She explained to Wat what they needed and he ran back and forth, tireless, heaping twigs upon twigs.
Determined to prove her worth for something, she gritted her teeth, as silent as Rob, and bent to the tedious trial and error of lacing and stacking the sticks so they would not be washed away. At the end of the afternoon, wet, tired, and bedraggled, they had a makeshift weir, ready to trap a passing salmon or two or three.
Wading out of the stream, she sank down on the bank, heedless of the grass and mud beneath her. Rob did the same. Wat, quick to copy, sat between them, looking from one to the other.
‘You did well, boy,’ Rob said, ruffling the boy’s hair.
Wat smiled, bright as the sun.
Then, with a satisfied sigh, Rob stripped off his shirt.
She tried not to stare, but drops of water ran down the curve of his shoulders and traced the muscles of his arms and she remembered the feel of him, holding her to the earth, of that one moment she had no choice but surrender …
She cleared her throat and turned her eyes to Wat. ‘Yes, you did.’
‘So did you.’ The rumble of Rob’s voice cascaded through her.
‘Can I tell my mother?’ Wat said. ‘Can I tell her what I did?’
Stella looked to Rob. ‘Aye. Go on.’
‘She’ll be pleased,’ Stella called out, hoping it was true. ‘I worry about him,’ she said, after the boy was out of earshot. ‘His mother doesn’t seem to have any time for him and it would be so easy for …’
For something to happen.
Rob looked at her, silent.
She lifted her chin. ‘Someone should watch him.’ She did not want to ask permission. Did not want to say please.
‘What? Why?’
So he does not fall into the well.
‘Is he not a child of God who deserves to be cared for?’
‘He’s a halfwit who will never survive without help.’
‘Then you admit he needs help!’
A hint of disgust edged his eyes. ‘The boy must learn to survive on his own. I did.’
No. This man would not have sympathy for the weak. Strong, bold. He would not understand what it was to doubt.
‘But what if he can’t?’
‘Then he will be better off. If he can’t survive childhood, he’ll not survive a life on the Borders.’
Maybe he was right. Maybe this child would be better off dead.
Maybe she should have died in that well, too.
‘Besides,’ Rob continued, ‘no one has time to follow a child around all day.’
‘I do.’
