Return of the Border Warrior

The priest had left.

The Brunsons remained.

So at the end, his father was laid to rest with only his family and the land he belonged to. Perhaps, he thought, as they consigned his father to the earth, this was more fitting.

John looked out across the valley his father had loved. Grey clouds had gathered atop the hills, shielding the sun, and he felt a stir of unwelcome emotion. This earth, this clay, had made him, too.

Yet now, he was a stranger to it. His brother and the others who rode it daily could find their way on a moonless night. To him, it was like a woman he had not yet bedded. The soft hills, the surface he could see, beckoned, but he did not know what parts of her body would respond to his touch. Hadn’t found the hidden places.

He found himself watching Cate, wondering what hid beneath her disguise. She embodied every dilemma he faced: a family who had disowned him, a land that kept its secrets, a way of life at odds with everything he wanted.

And yet, something about her tugged at him, tempting him to peel back her layers, to discover her secrets. And something about her made him mourn what he had lost.

The ancestral melody began. Bessie and Rob joined voices to sing the ballad of the Brunsons. The song that had come down from ancestors no longer remembered, except through song.

This is the story, long been told

Of the brown-eyed Viking, man of old

Left on the field by the rest of his clan

Abandoned for dead was the first Brunson man

Abandoned for dead was the first Brunson man.

Left for dead and found alive

A brown-eyed Viking from the sea

He lived to found a dynasty.

There were verses unnumbered, names and stories of the Brunsons since the first, and when the last had been sung, Rob stepped forwards to sing alone.

I sing today of Geordie the Red;

A Border rider born and bred

A man more faithful never found

Loyal to death and then beyond

Loyal to death and then beyond.

The last notes faded. The song had been sung. His father laid to rest and his legacy created. Loyalty. But did Rob sing of loyalty to king or to kin?

Or was he still struggling to choose?

They walked back to the tower even more slowly than they had left. Ahead of him, Rob and Bessie leaned towards each other, shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the life ahead of them.

A life in which he had no place.

Cate, to his right, was dry eyed, but none wearing the Brunson brown and blue had more vengeance in their gaze than she. More vengeance, he thought, than sorrow.

No, Rob would not, could not yield, he feared, as long as Cate held him to his father’s word. She was the key.

Well, women were changeable. The king’s own mother had sided with the English, the French and the Scots in turn, changing sides as easily as she changed husbands. This Cate would be no more steadfast if he gave her the right persuasion.

He just had to figure out what persuasion that was.

***

Last night, the hall had been full of talk, laughter and tears. Today, the guests were gone and only Rob’s and Cate’s men remained. And the silence of sorrow.

John escaped the tower, even the courtyard, unable to feign regret he did not feel. Outside, in fresh air, he would be able to think clearly on the challenge of Cate Gilnock.

He did not need her acceptance. He did not need, or want, to touch the woman. He simply needed her to release vengeance he still did not fully understand. He feared, however, that peeling away her layers could be even harder than peeling off her clothes.

Beyond the tower walls, the Galloway ponies dotted the field, left to feed themselves until the coldest weather came.

Let them find their own forage, his father would say. Makes them strong.

He paused to pat one of the bays on his broad, sturdy chest and the pony let him, nosing for a treat. John held up empty hands. ‘Not today, boy. Next time.’

In apology, he swept his hand down the reddish hair of the beast’s back, feeling warmth beneath his palm. When they were boys, Rob used to challenge him to mount a pony bareback and race around the tower. John won often enough that Rob dropped his dare. He beat his brother because he was more flexible, able to communicate with the horse, rather than forcing the creature to his will.

He grinned. He could probably do it still.

Seized with the memory, he murmured a word or two and stepped away to allow a running start. The pony waited patiently as John approached, jumped, then pushed himself up and swung his leg over to settle astride.

Well trained, the pony lifted his head and waited his command. No saddle held John on. No reins helped him guide. And no armour separated him from the feel of his mount’s muscles, flexing beneath him.

He guided with his legs and, by shifting his weight, headed out to where the Liddel Water skipped down the valley. He was surprised to discover that, once mounted, he remembered paths his head had long forgotten.

Following the stream, he saw Cate in the distance, wading across in water that reached near to her waist. She carried a wad of cloth and kept glancing downstream, as if looking for someone.

Instead of calling out, he stopped the pony in a thicket of trees where they could not be seen, curious.

She dropped the cloth on the other side of the stream, then waded back across. Man she might try to be, but now he knew the truth. Now, he could appreciate the shades of ash and flax mixed in hair that did not reach shoulders too slender to be mistaken for a man’s. And as she climbed out of the stream, wet cloth clung below her waist, drawing his gaze to the place her legs met and putting him in mind of what might happen if she spread them for him. Strange that a place normally hidden behind a skirt should be so tempting when clothed in breeches.

Pausing, shoulders hunched, she looked from tower to valley to hillside, as if wary of danger. Storwicks could be around any bend, true, but it was early in the season and still daylight. An attack was unlikely.

His pony, trained to be silent and invisible, did not draw her eye. Then she turned her back on him and ran downstream to disappear around a bend and into the trees.

Baffled, he urged the horse ahead, slowly, uncertain whether to follow. What was she doing with—?

Before he could finish the thought, a sleuth dog in leather harness burst through the bushes, pulling Cate behind.

The beast weighed more than she, if John were any judge. Nose to the ground, the dog dragged her with him as he followed the trail she had laid, turning abruptly to cross the water where she had, and pouncing on the bundle of cloth with his tail wagging when he reached the opposite bank.

Well trained, he thought.

‘Good, Belde,’ she said, pulling a treat from her pocket for him to gobble. ‘Good dog.’

And then she petted him with more affection than she’d shown to any two-legged creature.

As they crossed the stream again, he dismounted and walked closer. But before he reached her, she heard his step over the rushing water, whirled and drew her dirk.

Not drawn for him, he realised. She was a woman wary of any sound. He held up his hands, palms toward her, a gesture of peace. ‘No enemy. Only me.’

She did not lower the blade. The softness she’d shown the hound did not extend to him. They reached the bank and the dog bounded over to him, then put his nose to John’s waist and started sniffing him up and down.

John pushed him away to no avail. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Getting to know you.’

He took a step towards her and the dog, between them, started to growl, the hair on his neck standing straight.

‘What do you want?’ she asked. After four trips through the water, she was soaked. Only the quilted jack-of-plaites vest disguised her sex.

He raised his eyes, fighting irritation. ‘Not a kiss. I promise.’ He had told her flatly he would not bed her. Could she tell his body was not listening? ‘Call off your dog and put down your dirk.’

She sheathed the blade and her eyes flickered to the pony, standing patiently behind him. ‘You’re riding Norse. He’s a fast one.’

Her tone gentled, as when she had spoken to the dog.

‘Do you work with the ponies, then?’

‘Aye.’ She walked over to the pony and stroked his neck. Her dog followed and sat squarely between Cate and John.

Physical persuasion was futile, but the four-legged creatures seemed to be the chink in her armour. ‘You’re good with the animals.’

She threw him a look of disgust. ‘I’ve found them to be kinder than people.’

An odd statement. ‘I never thought animals had any feelings at all.’

‘At least they don’t kill their own.’

He did not remind her that she was the one ready to kill Willie Storwick. ‘What possible quarrel might one sheep have against another?’ He laced the question with a smile, bending towards her.

The dog rose, growling.

‘Sit, Belde,’ she said, grabbing his harness.

The dog looked at her, wagged his tail and sat.

John eyed him warily. Drooping ears and a wrinkled face gave the dog a lazy look, but he acted as if he would kill, if she asked.

‘He’s very protective of you,’ John said.

‘To the death,’ she answered, meeting John’s eyes. The gentleness she showed to the animals did not extend to him.

He raised his brows. ‘A sleuth dog usually has an English hand on the leash.’ And behind him, a pack of riders tracking the reivers across rock and water.

‘Not this one.’ Cate wasted no more words than his brother.

‘How did you get him?’

Something softened around her eyes, as if she was thinking of a smile. ‘Da stole him.’

John nodded. It was the only honourable way for a reiver to get anything.

Her memory, apparently, was a good one. ‘He had been tracking Da, but he slipped his leash and lost his tracker. When he found Da, he was so pleased he just sat there wagging his tale while Da rubbed his head.’

She had kind feelings for the beast, that was certain. ‘He does not wag his tail for me.’

‘He does not know whether I am safe with you.’

I do not know whether I am safe with you, she might have said.

‘You must tell him …’ He met her eyes. If he could get the dog to like him, maybe the woman’s trust would follow. ‘Tell him that you are.’

She swallowed, then looked down at the dog. Her breath came faster, but she did not speak.

‘How would you do that?’ He kept his voice soft, not wanting to force her. ‘How would you tell him?’

She did not look up. ‘I would tell him you are a …’ She glanced up, studying John, as if uncertain he deserved the label. ‘That you are a “friend”.’

Looking into the mirror of her eyes, he suddenly wanted to be worthy of the name. ‘I am.’

Though her eyes reserved judgement, she turned back to the dog. ‘Friend,’ she said firmly, then spoke over her shoulder. ‘Reach out to him.’

He held out his hand and Belde sniffed it.

‘Friend,’ she said, as the dog licked his fingers. ‘John.’ Then she smiled. ‘He should not growl at you again.’

John hoped the same would be true of Cate. ‘How long have you been working with him?’

‘Three years.’

Only the dog brought softness to her eyes, so he would talk of the dog. ‘Was he with you the night your father was killed?’

The joy that had touched her face shattered.

Fool. Speak of something else. ‘The ponies? How long have you worked with them?’ Would she deign to answer?

She shook off the sorrow. ‘Longer. I had no brothers, so my father depended on me. And once he was gone …’ The darkness returned, and with it, all her barriers. Then she faced him again, head high. ‘We’ve the finest horseflesh on the Borders. Sturdy and tireless. They’ve been known to ride sixty miles without a stop.’

Long enough to leave Scotland after sunset, foray deep inside England and return home before the sun rose. In fact, without such mounts, there would be no reiving.

Yet in her talk of the ponies, he had heard a flash of pride. Better that than fear or anger. ‘You do a fine job, I’m sure.’

Instead of the smile he had wanted, she turned back to the pony, blinking against tears.

‘There now.’ He walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to turn. ‘No need to cry at a compliment.’

Belde stood to all fours, growling.

‘Quiet, beast,’ he said. ‘Friend.’

He wrapped both arms around her in a hug, thinking she would smile as most women did when cajoled.

Instead, she brought her knee up, squarely between his legs.

Hard.

He dropped his hold and doubled over, biting back a curse.

Teeth bared, the dog barked. Cate groped for his fur coat, without looking where her hand fell. Instead of his pain, he saw hers. There were no tears, but horror had replaced sadness and he wasn’t sure whether she saw him at all.

‘Cate!’ He tried to stand, barely able to hear himself over the dog’s baying. ‘What is it?’ She looked as if she were staring at spirits.

Cate knelt beside the barking beast and clasped her arms tightly around his neck. Then, as if her prayers for deliverance had been answered, her face relaxed, her eyes met his, and he saw Cate again.

She lost her parents to the Storwicks. Do you expect her to be dancing?

But that had been two years ago and death was no stranger to these hills. Her fear was beyond that.

She rose, her hand never leaving the dog’s fur, and gathered his leash. ‘I must go.’

And she turned her back, clearly intending for him not to follow.

But, with a slight limp in deference to the ache between his legs, he did.

His brother might disdain him. This woman might detest him. But he was not a man to be feared by women, even by one who clearly had much to fear. He grabbed her arm. ‘Stop.’

She did, but pulled her arm away so he was no longer touching her. The dog growled again, but she stilled him. ‘I told you—’

‘Listen to me,’ he began. ‘You may not like me. You may not want to lose Brunson men to the king’s business. And I understand you want no kisses, but I am a Brunson and you’re under my family’s protection, so you needn’t pull a dirk every time I am close.’

‘It’s you who must listen,’ she answered. ‘I warned you and you act as if you are a man without ears.’

‘I heard what you said.’ Lucky, he thought, that she had used her knee and not the dagger she’d threatened him with last time. ‘And it was a kiss you warned me against, not a simple touch.’

‘Then let me make it clear enough that even you can understand my meaning. No man touches me. Ever.’

He remembered again that first day, when she refused his hand. Strange even then, he had thought. And now he had seen the fear behind it. ‘I am not a man who hurts women. Ever.’

She stilled then, accepting his gaze with those deep-brown eyes, come from some common ancestor. A sigh escaped. ‘I know,’ she said finally, a whisper.

The whisper reminded him of the kiss, now so fully forbidden. He swayed towards her, then stopped himself before the dog could take a chunk from his leg.

‘Go then,’ he retorted, wincing and wanting to clutch himself again. He’d have to walk the pony back from here.

She did, but he called out before she was beyond earshot, ‘And don’t let that beast growl at me again.’

She looked over her shoulder with that barely-a-smile crooked corner of her mouth that made him think she might be laughing at him.

He might not be a man to be feared, but some man was. He wondered who. And why.

Chapter Four

Cate had a long, hard fight with herself as she ran away from him, back to the tower.

She had not allowed a man so close since …

Since then.

Though the Brunsons were family, they did not treat her as her father had, hugging her goodnight or ruffling her hair in play. Red Geordie was sparing with a hug, even for his own children.

That suited her. Here, she was protected, but no one tried to come too close.

Except this man, who knew no better than to put comforting arms around her shoulders.

She had stiffened at his touch, braced against the fear that would come and steal her mind, afraid she might spear him with her dirk before she could stop herself.

It did come, the fear, her old enemy, then left near as quickly as it came. And if she wounded his manhood and his pride, at least she didn’t leave him bloody.

Because his embrace had not felt like an attack, or even the prelude to a kiss. Instead, held against his chest, she had felt warm and comforted.

Safe.

When had she last felt that way?

Braw Cate, they called her. Cate the Bold. They thought her brave and bold and unafraid because she dressed in breeches and waved a blade.

She was not fearless. She was terrified.

Only with sword and dagger in hand did she dare to face those fears. Only when breeches disguised her womanhood could she rise from bed to face the world. Only with Belde within reach of her hand could she survive the most ordinary day. Going beyond the tower walls, as she must to train him, took every bit of her strength. And when she did, she always kept a clear view and an eye open for the enemy.

Now, this man had touched her and, for a few minutes, she had not felt fear.

And that frightened her more than anything else.

Inside the tower, with Belde at her side, she entered the hall, empty of mourners now. Black Rob sat alone, shrouded by mourning, looking every bit of his name.

Her heart ached for him. For all of them. She had lost a father, too.

She did not often speak idly with Rob. It was not their way. Words were worth no more than air. Necessary for breath, a menace in excess.

But today, she wanted words that might help her understand this tall, lean, blue-eyed stranger who bore the Brunson name. He barely seemed their kin, though he and Bessie shared a certain slant of the eye, an arch of the brow that spoke of pride. And action.

Bessie had told her of the boy, but it was the man she sought to understand, the man who was getting too close, not only to her body.

She hovered beside the table, waiting for Rob to look up.

When he saw Belde, he smiled, the first one she’d seen from him all day. ‘So you’ve let the beast inside again, eh?’

She nodded and sat across the table. The dog lay down beside her, close to the hearth, as if glad to be back.

She let the silence lay a while. Rob waited for her to speak.

‘So,’ she began finally. ‘John comes home.’

Not a question. That would be too difficult. Too personal. It would indicate she cared.

The smile disappeared. ‘Aye.’

Belde stretched out, his yawn a squeak in the silence.

She tried again. ‘He’s been gone a while.’

‘Long enough to change.’

She looked up and his eyes met hers as if he knew why she asked. ‘Change?’

‘He’s no Brunson now.’

She might have agreed an hour ago. Certainly, his tongue had little Brunson in it and his ideas did not belong to the Borders. But he was as stubborn as the rest of his kin, that she was sure. ‘Maybe not, but he shares your blood. Nothing replaces that.’

Ever.

She was here, safe, only because Red Geordie had taken her in. It was their code. It was how they lived. For family. For loyalty. For kin. To be cast away from the family was to be a broken man, wandering alone like the outlaws who prowled the no man’s valley of the Debatable Land.

Even Johnnie did not deserve that fate.

Rob’s shrug said the same. ‘Maybe, but he won’t be here long.’

‘Because you want him to leave?’

‘Because he doesn’t belong.’

She sighed. Johnnie had said as much. Her sense of safety was an illusion. He’d return to court, where he belonged, beside that king he spoke of and surrounded by the kind of ladies who would people such a place.

And she’d still be here. Alone.

Barely able to walk, John watched Cate and her dog disappear through the gate. After he’d recovered, he limped back to the tower, leaving the pony to graze near the west gate. He wondered whether her dagger might have inflicted less damage than her knee.

Understanding women had never been so difficult before. Living beside the king, he had never had to spare an extra thought for them. Women were fickle, accommodating creatures, ever ready to please you, in bed or out.

At least, the women at court were.

His sister was not like that, of course. And his mother had not been, either. Perhaps Border women were as different as their men. He’d ask Bessie about this Gilnock woman. Subtly, of course. He would not want her to feel forced to choose between her brothers.

* * *

He found Bessie in the courtyard’s kitchen hall, kneading a ball of light brown dough with calm, rhythmic strokes and blinking against tears.

Heedless of her sticky hands, he gave her the hug Cate had refused and she rested her forehead on his shoulder. ‘Are you all right, Bessie?’

She shook her head, not lifting it. ‘I knew we would lose him one day. Every time he went on a raid I prepared, but not … not for this.’

Some men prayed to die peacefully in their sleep. Brunsons were not among them.

He patted her back, not knowing what else to do or say, until she raised her head and forced a smile. Then he let her go and she straightened her shoulders, turned back to her breadmaking and pummelled the helpless dough into submission.

He wandered the kitchen, for there was nary a stool to sit on, wondering how to broach the subject of Cate. Finally, inspecting a large hanging carcass of beef as if to give it his approval, he glanced over at her, as if the thought had just occurred to him. ‘That’s a great beast she has, that Cate.’

‘She’s always with him. Close as some are to their kin.’

Closer than others. ‘So she lost her family, then.’

‘Aye.’ She did not look up from shaping a loaf.

‘Was she so …’ What word would capture it? ‘Bloodthirsty?’ Aye, there was the word, though it did not match the woman with fear in her eyes. ‘Even before?’

Before what? Her father’s death or something else?

Bessie was slow to answer. ‘Have you ever known a Borderer who was not?’ she said finally.

No. He had not.

Then why had he thought he could turn her from her own vengeance to young James’s? Now that he was here, he remembered what his years with the king had erased.

An eye for an eye.

It was the only Bible verse his father ever knew.

‘He always hoped you would come home, you know.’ She said it as if she had followed his thoughts.

He shook his head, fighting the longing her words evoked. Only Bessie would think so. A woman could weave entire cloth out of words a man never spoke.

It was too late for peace with his father. And now, Rob was head of the family, as he had been destined since birth. There was no place for John here, being beholden to his brother while they both tried to wrest a living from the same, stingy earth.

Maybe that was why his father had sent him away.

‘You and Rob are not comfortable, are you?’

He started, wondering for a moment whether she really were fey. Quiet, watchful, she had always had a way of reading people, of knowing the things that went unsaid, especially the ones you wanted to hide.

But then, Rob hadn’t bothered to hide his disdain.