The Brunson Clan

Chapter Two

John watched Cate return to the hall and join her men near the hearth without so much as a glance his way.

The wake was in full swing and John was surrounded by strangers. Rob had gone upstairs to sit with the body, which was never allowed to be left alone before burial. Soon enough, John would have to face his father’s corpse, knowing the sightless eyes would never see the king’s badge of thistle that John had so proudly pinned to his chest.

It seemed to impress no one here on the Borders. Not even the Gilnock wench.

In truth, he had not planned to kiss her, but when she refused to surrender, when her eyes clashed with his as strongly as her blade, he found himself … roused. Even then, he had expected little more than the taste of cold steel. But her lips, thin and sharp as her tongue, warmed, drew him in …

And then rejected him.

She might not have meant it as a challenge, but that was his body’s translation.

Women did not refuse Johnnie Brunson.

He watched her, surrounded by her men, wondering what kind of a woman she was. Flaxen hair framed a face hard, sharp and spare as the rest of her. At least, that’s what he had thought until he was close enough to feel her breasts against his chest and see the sweep of her thick lashes.

He forced his thoughts away from rumpled sheets and throaty laughs. She did not seem to offer stories of her own, but she laughed at the others and encouraged them to tell their own tales.

In that, at least, she seemed a woman. She was likely as changeable as any he had known. All he must do was figure out how to change her.

Beside John at the table, the men who had ridden with Red Geordie were swapping stories of Storwick cattle stolen and recovered and stolen again and making promises of the cattle they would steal in Geordie’s memory.

John did not waste breath to argue. Black Rob would decide when, where and if they raided again, but John must not force that choice too soon.

When next John turned to look for Cate, she had gone.

‘Would you sit a watch with him?’ His sister’s voice, soft, came over his shoulder.

He turned to see her, and Rob, faces scored with grief, behind him.

‘It should be kin beside him,’ Rob began, as if John were kin no more.

‘Rob, please.’ Bessie’s voice was weak and weary.

He met his brother’s eyes, clashing as they had, even as boys. ‘I am as much his son as you are,’ he said. At least, that was what he had told himself whenever he had doubts. ‘I will take my turn.’

He rose. No other choice. He must face his farewell.

Alone, he climbed the stairs and paused at the open door to the room where his father lay. The candle that would burn throughout the night flickered on the chest by the hearth.

And at the foot of the bed, Cate Gilnock sat, head bowed, as if she were kin with the right to sit with him.

Anger pushed him into the room to claim his place. His brother, his sister, even the men who rode beside Geordie the Red were closer to him than John was. That, he had accepted.

But not this woman, this interloper.

‘I sit with him alone,’ he said, voice cold.

She jumped up and reached for her dagger, stopping only when she recognised him. ‘If you cannot respect his word, you should not sit with him at all.’

Her words twisted inside him, sharp as a blade. ‘Alone,’ he said, not trusting himself to say more.

Wordless, she lowered her blade and stepped outside.

His father lay in the curtained bed where he had died, arms at his side, wrapped in white linen. John could hardly imagine his gentle, doe-eyed sister having prepared the body for burial, but here he lay, even in death, his face as fierce as in John’s memories.

He took a step forwards. He should pay his respects. He should pray for his father’s soul as Cate no doubt had done. Or perhaps he should be fearful that the man’s spirit, vengeful, might still haunt the room. He should feel … something.

Instead, he felt as if he stood in an empty room.

Hard to even picture this body as his father, straight, strong and spare of speech with no time for his youngest boy except brief minutes to drill him in the wielding of the staff and sword. He had not been the son favoured with the old man’s care and training. John had been the one pushed from the nest and sent to the king, his loss mourned no more than that of a cow or a sheep.

And in ten years, never a word sent except notice of his mother’s death, as if John had ceased to exist once he had left Brunson land.

Well, he was back and his father, in truth, was dead as he had been to John for the last ten years.

Taking a step closer to the bed, he was swept with a wave of grief that weakened his knees. Staggering, he gripped the corner post of the bed to stay upright. He thought Rob was the one who needed to grieve, Rob the one who needed time to adjust to his father’s loss before he shouldered the demands of the head of the family.

Now, John faced the truth. He was the one for whom it was too soon. Too soon to accept that his father was gone. Too soon to release the glimmer of hope he’d felt as he rode across the hills, proudly wearing his armour. Hope that he might make peace with the man at last.

Too late for that now.

Peace, if peace were possible, would have to be made with his brother.

The air stirred behind him. The room was empty no more.

‘When did you last see him?’ Cate’s voice.

He did not turn, but spoke the memory. ‘I was twelve. He sent me to Edinburgh, with just enough men to assure I’d arrive safely. We rode as far as the burn, crossed the water, I turned back to wave…’

But his father had already left the parapet and, in that moment, left his life.

John shook his head, stood straight and turned his back on the body in the bed. There would be no reconciliation now. ‘I last saw him ten years ago.’

Shadows and candlelight softened her face, until he believed, for a moment, that she understood.

Or did he see only pity for a man who did not belong to his family?

He bristled against it. She was the one who did not belong beside the deathbed. ‘Why are you praying over my father as if he were kin? Where is your own?’

‘Dead as yours.’ Whispered, words more vulnerable than any she had yet spoken. ‘At the hand of Scarred Willie Storwick.’

Now. Only now did he understand. ‘So you picked up his sword and his men and vowed vengeance.’

She didn’t bother to nod, and when her eyes met his, the woman’s softness was gone and he faced the warrior again. ‘And your king will have no men of ours until I’ve had it.’

Her words, a vow, chilled him, but hot anger rose to wipe out the feeling. This stubborn woman was his enemy, as much or more so than the Storwicks across the border. ‘The king will have his men, or you’ll wish he had.’

She sniffed. ‘I’m not afraid of your king.’

‘I was not speaking of the king.’

Her eyes widened and he regretted his threat, but her obstinacy had swamped all his plans of persuasive charm.

He leaned closer, this time resisting her lips. ‘But the king, too, knows something of revenge. That’s why he’s going to destroy the man who’s held him captive these last few years.’

‘If he’s a man who knows revenge, he will know why I need mine.’

‘He won’t. Not if it stands in his way.’

He wanted to best her now, as he’d been unable to do in the yard. ‘So if you’re of the Brunsons, you’ll do as we do. The king will have his men. I am here to make sure of it.’

‘Johnnie!’ Bessie stood at the door, the faintest hint of judgement in her voice.

How long had she stood there, silent as a wraith, watching?

And what had she seen?

She did not wait for him to ask. ‘You’ve travelled long today. Get your rest. I’ll sit with him.’

He walked out, silent, without a backward glance at the bed.

Or at Cate Gilnock.

‘Did you see to the dog?’ Bessie moved so silently, it always surprised Cate when she spoke.

‘I tied him,’ Cate answered, returning to sit on her stool. ‘With the horses.’

‘I’m sorry you must be separated.’

Silent with surprise, Cate blinked. She thought she had fooled them all, that they judged Belde only a dog, valuable for tracking and nothing more.

Bessie pulled a stool beside Cate’s and sat, then let her head fall into her hands with sorrow, or fatigue.

Cate reached out to touch her shoulder, uncertain how to help. ‘Let me get you something.’

Bessie shook her head without opening her eyes. ‘They’ll be here, coming and going all night.’ Her voice soft, still. Then, she sat up, straightened her shoulders and met Cate’s eyes, coming to herself in a way so similar to her brother’s that Cate blinked. ‘I’ll sleep later.’

Bessie was the woman every man expected: chaste, quiet, placid and peaceful. One who looked out on the world with an open gaze, as if she knew and was perfectly content with her lot in life.

And though the two women had shared a room and a bed for near two years, Cate still knew no more of her than that.

‘Your brother is not like the others.’ He threatened the defences that had served her so well.

Bessie nodded, not asking which brother Cate meant. ‘We were close when he was a boy.’

Cate could see that they would be, both lean with rust-coloured hair, unlike Black Rob, who favoured his mother’s people.

Then, Bessie smiled, sadness banished. ‘We called him Johnnie Blunkit.’

‘Blunkit? Why?’ She could not imagine this angry man dragging a blanket behind him.

‘Because of his eyes.’

‘Ah.’ Blunkit fabric was a soft blue-grey, remarkably similar to the colour of John Brunson’s eyes. ‘He must have hated that.’

‘Later, aye—’ Bessie nodded ‘—he did.’

Cate shook her head, trying to picture this strong knight as a youth. ‘I don’t remember him.’

‘You must have seen him when he was younger.’

‘When?’ She would have been no more than ten when he went to court, Bessie even younger.

‘A wedding, a year, maybe, before he left. I cannot remember whose, but the tower was full. Everyone had come to celebrate.’

Cate tried to summon the event and had a dim memory of two lads in the courtyard, crossing swords. The taller—it must have been Rob—had the advantage, but John gave no quarter, fighting harder when he accused his brother of holding back.

‘So long ago.’ She was no longer the giggling girl of nine who knew nothing of the world’s horrors and still thought to be a bride one day. ‘I had forgotten.’

‘He was not like the others.’ Bessie nodded towards the bed where her father lay. ‘Even then.’

Cate shook her head. Perhaps Bessie no longer knew her brother. ‘He’s like enough.’

He was a man. One whose first thought had been to kiss her.

When John returned to the hall, the fire had burned low and the raucous conversations had quieted. Some men dozed.

He accepted a mug and took a wedge of cheese, the first food he’d had all day. So simple, the things that kept a body bound to the earth.

Rob sat alone on the stone window seat. He did not move or speak when John joined him.

He wasn’t sure what drew him back to his silent brother, but he had faced the truth: his father was truly gone. The triumphant return he’d hoped for lay shattered at his feet. There would be no reconciliation.

It was the king’s favour he must seek now, not that of a family who had never granted it and never would.

His father, Cate, his brother. Each had judged him and found him wanting. The king would not—not when John brought three hundred Brunson men to fight at his side.

Cate walked into the hall and another man rose to take her place in the dead man’s room. This stubborn woman, determined to oppose the king’s will, was haunting him more than the things that should have been: his father, the king, his mission.

She was nothing like the women he had known at court, any of whom seemed ready to flip their skirts for a chance to bed a king’s man. Even those women already wed.

‘She’s a skittish one, isn’t she?’ he said to Rob, nodding towards the other side of the hall where she stood with one of her men.

‘Cate?’ Rob shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

John took a sip, waiting.

His brother said nothing more.

He gritted his teeth. Silence was not the way at court. There was always chatter, even if the words were meaningless.

Even if they were false.

He forced another question. ‘Why is that, do you suppose?’

Another shrug. ‘Not for me to say.’

‘Not for you to say or not for me to know?’ Was Rob hiding something? With as few words as the man used, it was hard to tell.

Then, Rob turned his head to look at John with that familiar expression that needed no words to say Little Johnnie Blunkit. ‘She lost her father to the Storwicks. Do you expect her to be dancing?’

‘No,’ he said, refusing to yield, ‘but I don’t expect her to dress like a man and wield a sword, either.’

Rob shrugged and made no answer, but his face spoke his grief. He had just lost a father. He was not dancing. And if John forced him too soon, he’d not be sending men to the king, either.

‘She has no mother?’ John said, cracking the silence.

‘Dead. Years before her father.’

‘Brothers? Sisters?’

Rob shook his head.

She had no family, so she stole his. Well, she could have them.

‘When did it happen?’ His brother delighted in making him beg for each scrap. ‘Her father’s death?’

‘Two years ago.’

Longer than he had thought. Long enough that she should no longer be in grief’s grip. ‘How?’

Rob sighed, finally accepting John would ask until he was answered. ‘She said little. It was about this time of year. They were still in the hills with the cattle when Scarred Willie came. Killed everyone but Cate. Took the cattle.’

Killed everyone. It was not the way of the Borders, such killing. But the woman’s life had been spared, as was right.

‘Could you not chase him down?’

‘We didn’t find out till weeks after.’

‘Why not?’

‘She buried them, her father and the others, before she came down from the high land.’

John studied her again, the woman who could barely keep a blade upright. How had she summoned the strength of body and heart for that? ‘And then?’

‘We tried,’ Rob growled, as if John accused him of shirking his duty, ‘but the Storwicks denied his guilt and the English Warden wouldn’t hand him over for trial.’

The Borders had their own laws, enforced jointly, on occasion, by royally appointed Wardens on both sides of the border.

‘And even if he had,’ Rob continued, ‘it would have been his word against hers.’

‘So Father promised her the justice the Wardens wouldn’t.’ Suddenly, he saw hope, something that might persuade Rob, persuade all of them, to the king’s side.

‘The king has appointed a new Scottish Warden.’ John leaned forwards. ‘I carry the papers with me. This one will insist Storwick is brought to justice.’

Rob snorted. ‘One Warden’s no different from the next. Scots or English.’

‘This one is.’ John’s statement was more emphatic than his certainty. He knew little of the man. ‘You must give him time to prove it.’

‘I must?’ Rob near shouted. ‘You left us and now you come back and tell me what I must do?’

‘I didn’t leave. Father sent me.’ He lowered his voice, hoping Rob would follow.

He did not. ‘Well, I didn’t see you running home when you turned one and twenty.’

‘And I saw no invitation.’

‘You don’t need an invitation to come home, Johnnie.’ All the arrogance of a big brother was in his voice.

‘For no better a welcome than I’ve had, I do.’ Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that conversation in the hall had stopped.

‘Well, what have you done since you arrived but yammered about what the Brunsons must do because your precious king says so? You might at least have given your father the grace of his burial.’

His plan to make Rob’s decision easy had already gone well awry. ‘We’ve little time. The king needs our men in East Lothian by mid-October.’

Realisation reflected in Rob’s eyes. He rose. ‘Well, Johnnie, my father is more important than your king. He, and you, can wait for my decision until we’ve laid Geordie the Red in the ground.’

Rob turned his back and walked out of the hall.

And when John looked up, everyone was watching, silent.

Including Cate Gilnock.

Chapter Three

It was no day for a funeral, John thought, as they gathered outside the tower’s walls the next morning. The sun looked downright cheerful to see the man put in the ground.

To Bessie fell the role of leading the procession to the burial ground, as her mother would have had she been alive. Awed, John watched his sister calmly assume yet another duty. When last he had seen her, she’d been a lass of eight. Now, she seemed a woman who had already seen, and accepted, all the sorrow life could offer.

His brother stepped up to the coffin, first man to be ready to heft it to his shoulder. John moved to take his place on the other side.

‘I’ve five other men already,’ Rob said.

‘None of whom is his son,’ John said, warning them back with a glance. Estranged as he might be from his father, from the family, this was his role, his right.

His duty.

The others stepped away, not waiting for Black Rob’s permission. In this, John had the right.

He took his place and at Rob’s nod, they lifted the coffin to their shoulders.

Bessie led them from the tower, singing of sorrow in a song that needed no words. Cate fell in behind her, ready to lend an arm if she faltered. Next to his sister, Cate, with her cropped hair, loose pants and knee boots, seemed as young as a lad.

The burden rested heavy on his shoulder as the men found their common step. Arms raised, he steadied it with both hands, feeling as if his father’s weight held him fast to the earth. But he would not be the first to cry off. And in the mile between the tower and the burial ground, they only paused once to let the coffin down.