The Brunson Clan
John shrugged.
Rob shook his head. ‘An attack is the best defense.’
Shush, Rob. But she held her tongue. His words were true enough, but not what the King, or Carwell, wanted to hear.
The warden did not hesitate. ‘Did you attack him?’
She held her breath. Her brother had near said as much.
‘I did not. Though if I had, I’d not be sorry.’
Carwell swung his gaze from Rob and let it rest on John. ‘Did you?’
Cate reached for her husband’s hand.
‘Storwick did not die by my sword,’ John said.
The warden nodded, as if he had known no explanation would be forthcoming. ‘So,’ Carwell continued, ‘can you explain how God, in his infinite wisdom, managed to kill the man?’
He paused, perhaps still hoping someone would. John kept his eyes on Carwell’s, not glancing at Rob or Bessie. Or Cate.
No one spoke.
Finally, John shrugged. ‘Who can fathom how God works his wonders?’
Bessie let out a breath, slowly. An accusation that could not be proven could always be denied. Carwell knew that as well as any of them. Better.
‘His death is a mystery,’ Rob said, ‘but the English dogs will come across the border soon enough to seek retribution. And we’ll need every Brunson man here when that happens.’
Bessie had no trouble deciphering Carwell’s fleeting look this time.
Anger.
‘Justice and punishment on this side of the border are my responsibility,’ Carwell said. ‘Not theirs.’
‘I wish you had remembered that earlier,’ John said. ‘When you had Storwick in your hands.’
Before he could shield his expression, she caught a glimpse of the anger again.
Just as quickly, he masked it.
‘I’m well aware of my duties.’ The arched brow and the crook at the corner of his mouth were well short of a smile. ‘And as you say, the man was a menace to the English as well as the Scots. I believe the English Warden is giving prayers of thanks along with those for Storwick’s immortal soul.’
They exchanged cautious glances, then Bessie sent up her own prayer.
Justice and punishment are my responsibility. He had not travelled for two days to confirm what he already knew. ‘So why are you here?’
The man’s eyes held hers, for a moment, and she had the disquieting feeling that he could see behind her eyes.
She closed them against his gaze, as if that could stop him from seeing the truth.
When she opened them, he was looking at her brothers again.
‘Those of us who live on the Borders understand God’s mysterious ways. The King seeks earthly explanation. And blame. Right now, he blames you. For all of it.’
‘A few Brunson men wouldn’t have won his siege for him,’ John said. He had told the family as much. At sixteen, the King was no expert in the art of war.
Carwell raised his brows. True or not, this was not what the King wanted to hear. Or would choose to believe. ‘Yet I sent every man I could spare to fight by the King’s side.’
The rest had fought beside Brunson men in the chase for Willie Storwick. Carwell, she noticed, managed to keep both the King and the Borderers placated. Most of the time.
‘But you,’ he continued, looking at John, ‘refused the King’s command to send Brunson men. You’re suspected of killing an Englishman. And now you’ve married without bothering to inform the King, let alone seek his permission.’ He sighed. ‘The only man in Scotland the King hates more right now is the Earl of Angus.’
John sighed. He had been as close to the King as a brother. Once. They had known there would be repercussions when he chose kin over king.
Still, his family were glad that he did so.
‘You have one chance to redeem yourselves,’ Carwell said. ‘The King has demanded all men loyal to him to take a Great Oath.’
‘To him?’ John asked.
He shook his head. ‘Against Angus. Pledging you will do everything in your power to destroy the man.’
Something the King had so far failed, utterly, to do.
Bessie looked to Rob. As head man of the Brunson family, the decision would be his.
‘I’ve no love for Angus or his kin,’ he began. ‘But I’ll take no oath against a family that’s done mine no harm.’ He didn’t take his eyes from Carwell. ‘There are enough who have.’
Carwell’s careful calm broke. With an exasperated sigh, he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Take the oath, for God’s sake. He’s going to be angry enough when he learns that Johnnie has married.’
Rob and John shook their heads at the same moment, at the same angle, and she smiled, seeing her father in them both. Seeing her family as one again.
‘An oath is a sacred thing,’ John said. It was one of the lessons coming home had taught him. ‘We’ll not take one for the King’s pleasure.’
She saw Carwell straighten his shoulders, as if all that had come before was only prelude. She held her breath, waiting for him to speak of why he had come.
‘Then you give me no choice. As warden, it is my duty to secure a pledge of peace from the Brunson family. Something to ensure your future good behaviour.’
‘Since our past has been so reprehensible?’ she said. Who was this man to demand oaths and pledges? ‘If we won’t swear an oath, why would we give a pledge?’
But John, who knew the ways of the King, understood it first. ‘It’s not words the King wants. It’s a hostage.’
‘Hostage is a harsh word.’ There was Carwell’s smile again. She was beginning to hate the curve of his lips.
‘If we displease him again, the King’s treatment will be harsher,’ Johnnie said.
Rob, Bessie, Johnnie and Cate looked at each other.
‘I should go,’ John said. ‘I’m the one he knows.’
The one who failed him.
‘He won’t like what you have to say,’ Rob answered.
John sighed. ‘I can face that.’
Shaking his head, Black Rob looked all of his name and more. ‘He’ll make you face it at the end of a rope, Johnnie.’
No. Her heart quickened its beats. Not Johnnie. Not when he had finally come home, not when he was just wed.
His bride threaded her fingers with his. ‘If you must go, I will go with you.’
Rob rose, trying to tower over the situation. ‘I won’t let you.’
‘But I promised the King when I came—’
Carwell jumped into the middle of the argument. ‘You, then.’ He pointed to Rob. ‘If the head man of the Brunson family went to court and gave his oath, the King would—’
‘Bah!’ Rob said. ‘I’ll give no man an oath that would prevent me from protecting my kin.’
Not Rob. She held her breath. Rob would bend his stiff neck for no one. Not even a king. He would only make things worse for himself. For all of them.
Her youngest brother rose. ‘We’ll think on it.’
That was Johnnie. Saving face. Buying time.
But time would not change facts. Her father had died less than three months ago. Rob had taken his place as head of the family. Johnnie was home and happy.
Her brothers, Cate, the family she loved so much her heart hurt to think of it, needed to be left alone, not torn apart and sent away.
Carwell rose, his courtier’s grace clashing with the harsh set of his brow. ‘Don’t think too long,’ he said. ‘The King is not a patient man.’
She felt herself rise from the stool and stand on her own two feet. No. She would not let him do this.
‘It will be me, then,’ she said. ‘I will stand surety for the Brunsons.’
Chapter Three
What was the woman doing? Was she daft?
Carwell glared at Bessie Brunson, then turned to her brothers. Surely they would not allow this madness.
Or was it?
Shielding his eyes, hiding his thoughts, he assessed the options. It was not what the King expected, but the King had an eye for the ladies. An apology from a beautiful Brunson might soften his heart while a belligerent argument from either of her uncooperative brothers could very well make things worse.
But to put a woman at risk, even one as stubborn as Bessie Brunson … no.
‘Impossible,’ he said, as if it were his decision.
Bessie ignored him, facing her brother. ‘I can go to the King. I can explain—’
‘Explain?’ Rob raised his hands to heaven. ‘Even if you leave Willie Storwick to God, we invaded neutral territory and torched a tower. That’s the right of it.’
‘Aye.’ Carwell sighed. He knew. He had helped them do it. ‘The King wants your oath and a promise of good behaviour,’ he continued, finally. ‘Not an explanation.’
‘What the King wants,’ said John, ‘is retribution.’ His grim expression reflected Rob’s. John had grown up beside the King and knew him better than any of them. ‘He’ll want you in chains.’
Carwell forced back a shudder. ‘Or worse.’ The King had been ruled by others since he was a babe. He had years of wrongs to right.
Her cheeks lost colour and he braced to catch her, should she faint. Realising the risk, she would no longer want to go.
She didn’t even flinch. ‘So it shall be.’
‘You don’t know what you are saying.’ Life here was hard, but the threats were clear. Court was full of hidden dangers, deceptive as the quicksands he had learned to avoid in childhood. The smooth sands might look safe, but a single misstep would suck you into danger.
And death.
Bessie Brunson couldn’t even navigate a dance without stumbling.
‘Leave us,’ Rob said, standing. ‘This is a decision for family.’
Relieved, he nodded. He was not here to bargain with Bessie Brunson. Let her brothers deal with her.
He turned for the door, whispering in her ear as he left the room, ‘They will not allow you to go.’
She smiled. ‘They won’t be able to stop me.’
Bessie refused to watch him leave the room. There would be a price to pay for putting herself at his mercy, though she did not know yet what it would be.
The moment he left the room, the objections all came at once.
‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘It’s not your place.’
‘You mustn’t.’ Cate grabbed her arm. ‘I won’t let you.’
Her plea was the hardest to resist, for the secrets they shared were not for a king to know. But Cate, who had been like a sister, was a wife now. And Bessie was sleeping alone in an empty room.
She squeezed Cate’s fingers. ‘There is no one else,’ she said, calmly. ‘Johnnie’s defied him already. The King will clap him in irons without even listening.’ She shook her head. ‘And, Rob, the only way you know how to talk is with a sword. But if I go …’
What was that tickle in her stomach? Fear or excitement?
‘I’m a woman. I can’t give the family’s oath, so the King can’t force us into that. But perhaps I can make him listen long enough for me to explain.’
‘Explain how Willie Storwick died?’ John took his wife’s hand.
Bessie shrugged. ‘I need tell no lies. None of us killed him. No one need know more.’
Especially Laird Thomas Carwell.
‘I wish I had,’ Cate muttered.
‘But maybe I can make the King understand …’ What would she have him know? How the wind whined at the top of the hills? The purple of the thistle in the late-day sun? How days were spent with an eye ever looking south, waiting for raiders to sweep into the valley?
How precious this home, this life, these people were?
‘We do what we must to protect the family,’ Rob growled. ‘That’s all any man needs to understand.’
‘Carwell doesn’t,’ she said.
‘The King,’ said Johnnie, ‘cares nothing about our family. He cares only that what he wanted to happen did not.’
What he had wanted was for Johnnie to enforce the King’s will on the Brunsons. Instead, Johnnie had come home to himself. To know that family was first. Last. All.
‘If I do not go,’ she said, ‘if I do not try to sway him, he will come after all of us.’
‘He’ll come anyway,’ Johnnie said, with grim certainty. ‘One day.’
‘That may be, but my going would give you the winter.’ Would give them time.
Johnnie and Cate exchanged swift smiles. Rob ran his thumb over the hilt of his dirk.
She had always been closest to John and now he looked at her, puzzled. ‘I once suggested you go to court, didn’t I?’
‘Aye.’ And she had refused, knowing she would be mocked for her plain dress and her country ways. Things too selfish to concern her now.
He took her hands. ‘So your heart is set on this?’ John said. ‘On meeting the King?’
‘The King?’ She let her fingers rest in his. ‘Do you think I make this journey so I can skip to a minstrel’s tune?’ This trip was her duty. Her father would be ashamed to think she had spared a moment’s thought for clothes or music. Or herself.
Johnnie shook his head. ‘I don’t trust him around you.’
She bridled. ‘I’m not one to be blinded by a king.’
‘You needn’t worry about Bessie,’ Cate added, loyally.
John smiled at his wife. ‘It’s not Bessie or the King that I don’t trust. It’s Carwell.’
They shared the silence of agreement. There, of course, was the problem. None of them did.
‘But the King does.’ Don’t insult me. The sharpest words he had said. She shrugged off the memory. Her brothers might have ridden side by side with him, but she refused to trust the man, with his half-truths and his changeable eyes. ‘That’s what matters now. Besides, with time enough by his side, I can find a way to prove he betrayed us.’
Scarred Willie had escaped twice when they had allied with Carwell. Only when the Brunsons tracked him down alone did the man end up dead.
John sighed. ‘He swore he didn’t.’
Rob snorted. ‘And you believe him?’
‘You don’t kill a man without proof.’
‘You don’t send your sister to court with him either.’
She sighed. ‘Argue amongst yourselves,’ she said, reaching for the door. ‘I’ll be packing.’
And when she entered the courtyard, the first thing she saw was Thomas Carwell.
Carwell stepped smoothly away from the door when he saw the flash of her hair, bright as a red-breasted bird flying over the valley.
He raised his eyebrows, a silent question. ‘And?’
She cocked her head without smiling. ‘As close as you are standing to the door, did you not hear?’
He had tried to listen, dammit, but the walls were thick. ‘I heard only something of packing.’
Behind her, the door opened and Rob stepped out. ‘Bessie, come back here! I’ll not let you leave with that unreliable—’
He saw Carwell and snapped his lips shut.
‘You can say it.’
‘Turncoat.’
A man who hid his badge to disguise his loyalties.
He clamped his jaw against a harsh reply. The man didn’t trust him. So be it.
John’s grim face appeared over Rob’s shoulder. He spared Carwell barely a glance. ‘You know nothing of the court, Bessie. Stirling’s a nest of vipers. You’ll be eaten alive.’
She faced her brothers calmly. ‘Will I? Then let the vipers choke.’
Stubborn wench. Her brothers might not trust him, but at least they were sensible enough to know it was unthinkable to put a woman, even this one, in such a position. ‘So we agree this is not for her to do.’
Rob turned back to him and he saw a shift behind the man’s eyes. ‘I’ve not decided.’
Damn. A misstep. Would Rob allow this, simply because Carwell opposed it?
‘Well, I have,’ Bessie said. ‘It’s the only solution.’
Her brothers exchanged glances. Rob looked back at her, to make one final plea. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I am sure that it is my duty,’ she said. ‘So step aside and stop wasting your breath.’ She looked over her shoulder at Carwell. ‘All of you.’
He inhaled, ready to argue against this madness. ‘It’s mine to waste.’
Suddenly, he faced three siblings and one wife, each with that ‘stubborn as a Brunson’ set of the jaw.
John shook his head. ‘She’s right, you know.’
Rob sighed. ‘Aye.’
They won’t be able to stop me, she had said. How had she known?
Both brothers turned to him now. ‘If anything happens to her,’ Rob said, ‘anything at all, it’s you who’ll be answering for it.’
‘She’ll be hostage to King James for your behaviour,’ he replied, smothering his anger. ‘If you violate the peace, do you expect me to defy the King for you?’
They traded sceptical glances. No, they knew better than that. They still blamed him for what had gone wrong on Truce Day.
No more than he blamed himself.
‘But her life,’ John said, glowering. ‘You must promise to protect her life with your own.’
He looked at Bessie. Her chin was high, her lips were set and he wanted nothing more than to refuse. The last time he had made such a promise, he had failed. But this …
No. He must not fail this time. ‘I’ll protect her life with mine.’ Her liberty? Well, that he could not promise.
‘And her reputation?’ John added.
Bessie’s eyes widened. ‘I need no such—’
‘Aye.’ He’d see she got there and back untouched. ‘That, too.’
‘If anything happens—’
‘I’ve given you my word,’ he retorted, cutting off Rob’s threat.
If anything happened to her, his conscience would punish him far worse than the Brunsons ever could. ‘We leave at dawn,’ he said to Bessie.
She nodded, her damnable calm like a thistle scratching his skin. This woman was as steadfast and unmovable as a rock. And nearly as unresponsive.
‘Be ready.’ He turned and walked away.
As Bessie took each familiar step down the tower’s spiral staircase the next morning, she trailed her fingers over stone walls her chubby fingers had reached for when she was a babe in her mother’s arms.
The stairs rushed to the ground all too quickly.
One step at a time, her father would say, when a task seemed too much
Now, each step was a farewell. Each stone and plank and candle deserved its own goodbye.
Cate greeted her with a hug when she reached the ground floor. Side by side, they walked to the door.
‘There’s flour enough to last the winter,’ she began, ticking off the things Cate must know when she was gone, ‘if you don’t make too many pies. Rob doesn’t like carrots, so when you make the stew, scoop his portion without them. The Tait girl can help you brew the ale. She’s good at it, but she’s lazy, so you need to watch her, and—’
The door opened; the courtyard yawned before her, crowded with men already mounted on their horses. Her wooden chest, pitifully small, was already strapped on wooden runners to be dragged behind a horse.
No time. There was no time left.
Cate rested a hand on her shoulder. ‘It will be all right.’
She did not speak of the ale.
Lifting her eyes, Bessie looked toward the hills, hung with fog. It was raiding season. Anything could happen while she was away. A thousand terrors crowded her thoughts.
She lifted her chin and shut her mind against them. Rob and John were waiting. They must not doubt her. She must leave them with minds at rest.
Her first farewell was for Johnnie.
Never afraid to show affection, he wrapped her in a hug. ‘Stay safe. The King is not a bad man, but he is younger than he is wise.’
She nodded. ‘He won’t keep me there long, will he?’
Johnnie ruffled her hair, as he had done when they were children. ‘A woman as pretty as you? He’ll have a hard time letting you out of his sight.’ His lips smiled. His eyes did not.
She shook her head. ‘Then don’t worry yourself. I’ll be home by Yuletide.’
Then, his back shielding them from Rob’s eyes, Johnnie pressed a silver coin into her hand. ‘In case you need it for … something.’
Her eyes widened.
‘That’s the King’s face on it,’ he said.
She ran her thumb over the crowned profile. ‘He has a strong nose.’
‘And a stronger will.’
She slipped the coin into the pouch at her waist and turned to Rob.
Never at ease with sentiment, he raised his arms from his side, not knowing what next to do with them.
She slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest, but only for a moment. And when she reached to touch his cheek, he jerked away.
Ah, that was Rob. Just like his father. Never able to be soft, not even with her.
‘Don’t worry.’ She squeezed his hand and blinked, refusing to let the tears fall.
Instead of meeting her eyes, Rob glowered at Carwell. ‘Bring her safely back or you’ll wish you had. If anything happens to her, I’ll find you. No matter where you are.’
‘It won’t.’ But when he answered, Carwell looked not at Rob, but turned his gaze as if the vow were made to her.
She shook her head, not wanting the man’s promise. Never again would she trust him to be responsible for anything that mattered. ‘I will mind myself.’
She knew who she was, what she was doing and why. And if she had to put up with the arrogant, untrustworthy Carwell in order to do it, then she would.
They mounted and rode out of the gate, turning east toward the sun. And she heard, drifting on the wind behind her, Rob and Johnnie, singing her on her way, the words of the song that defined the Brunsons.
Silent as moonrise, sure as the stars …
She had grown up knowing her place. Silent servant. Steady support. The calm, quiet, sturdy centre of the household. Now, she was leaving everything she knew and loved, but only so she could save it.
She glanced at Carwell out of the corner of her eye, surprised to see him watching her.
She looked away.
Aye, there might be one other reason she was going to court. Not for clothes or dancing, but so that when she returned, she could bring this man’s head on a platter.
The notes of the song grew faint and she turned to look at her home one last time.
Behind her, she saw nothing but fog.
Bessie had thought to draw him out as they travelled, but the day was cold and the wind raw and they rode too far and fast for idle talk. She had ridden the length and breadth of Brunson land, but when day’s end came, early, she was surrounded by unfamiliar hills.
‘This is the edge of Brunson land,’ he said, as they dismounted to make the night’s camp. ‘Robson lands start with that next ridge.’
She squinted in the gathering dusk. The next ridge looked no different than the one they had just left. ‘Is that part of the March also under your rule?’
‘Rule? The Warden rules nothing.’
‘Yet you insisted you were responsible for this side of the border.’
‘Responsible, yes, but the King barely rules here, as the Brunsons have made clear. I only try to keep louts like your brothers from killing each other.’ His smile was unexpected. ‘And me.’
How could he smile? Life and death were no game. ‘To those of us who live here, it is no laughing matter.’
‘I did not laugh,’ he answered. ‘I only thought to break your silence and make you smile.’
And against her will, a smile broke out. Rob could be a lout, it was true. ‘If you had to stand between those two loggerheads all your life, you’d be silent, too.’
At home, she seldom had a need to speak. It had left her awkward and graceless and unable to trade words with Carwell, let alone the King.
Her smile dissolved. ‘How long before we reach Stirling?’
‘Five days if the weather holds.’
She nodded, understanding. It was November. The weather would not hold.
Behind them, his men had fanned out and set to work, arranging the watch, building a fire, setting up camp. Each seemed to know his task. For the first time in her life, she did not.
She looked around for work to do and saw one of the men heating the griddle to fry oat cakes. ‘I’ll cook,’ she said, starting towards him.
Before she could move, Carwell’s gloved fingers circled her wrist. ‘I told your brothers I would take care of you.’