Laird of the Wind (27 page)

"This was a mews for my other goshawk," he said.

"Astolat?" Isobel asked, remembering the name.

He nodded, stroking Gawain's back. The bird was still hooded. "We'll let him rest," James said. "But not for long, or he'll go feral again. Come with me."

Isobel followed him out of the little cell and up another flight of steps to a higher gallery. They crossed the threshold of another chamber, this one placed against the inner wall. A small, square window shed some light into the room, illuminating a stone slab bench, table, and a bed, supplied with a mattress and fur coverings. The room was austere, with blankets and a small stone hearth in the corner the only notes of comfort.

"Is this the chamber you use for yourself?" she asked.

"Aye."

"Grand for a brigand," she remarked, wandering forward, touching the walls, the massive stone frame of the bed. "I thought outlaws only lived in caves, or hollow trees, or out in the open."

"Some of us live in coziness and luxury, inside abandoned fortresses," he said wryly. "But none of us have true homes."

Isobel heard the sad, low note in his voice. "An adjoining chamber is there," he went on. He pointed to a small door in a dividing wall. "You may use that, if you like."

Her footsteps echoed on the stone floor as she crossed the room and peered through the doorway. The adjoining chamber was a twin to the first, with a courtyard view and stone furniture, although it lacked bedding.

The space, as stark as its twin, was peaceful in its simplicity. Isobel sat on the bench beneath the window, and looked out over the courtyard. Rain pattered over the stones and the grass below. She shivered, grateful to be in a dry place.

"I'll make a fire—there is a hearth in my chamber. And we have stores of goods and food tucked away, so you will be comfortable," James said. "While you stay."

She nodded silently; fatigue and hunger had finally sapped her strength. As he left she leaned her head beside the window, watching the rain thicken to a downpour.

She sighed, and closed her eyes, and wondered how she could have agreed to this. Enclosed in a stout tower high on an inaccessible crag, she was more firmly imprisoned now than she had ever been.

Her only chance for freedom rested with the outlaw. And her only hope existed in the trust she had placed in him.

* * *

"The rain has stopped," Isobel said.

James nodded, barely looking up from the hawk, who was involved in yet another bate. He and Isobel sat in James's chamber, sheltered from the rain, which had continued while they had eaten a meal of the bread and cheese that Alice had sent, along with a flask of red wine taken from James's own stores. A small fire crackled on the hearth, filling the room with warmth.

James sighed and watched the hawk as he beat his wings. Once unhooded, Gawain had flung himself from the fist again and again, as if working off his anger at being transported yet again. James had begun to despair of ever training the hawk.

"He's been ruined, this gos," he said. "Whoever had him before spoiled him utterly."

"Then he could not have come out of my father's mews," Isobel remarked, coming closer. "My father raised hawks properly."

When the wing beats stopped, James scooped the panting bird back to his fist. "I cannot right damage done by a poor falconer. There is not enough patience in the world for that."

"If anyone has the patience, 'tis you," Isobel murmured.

He huffed a humorless laugh. "I know when 'tis hopeless."

"'Tis not hopeless." She reached out to smooth a fingertip over the bird's back. "Ho, Sir Gawain, tell the man you can be reclaimed. Aye, tell him."

James looked at her with a sense of surprise. "I thought you wanted me to set him free," he said.

"I do, when the time comes. But you said yourself his wing must heal before you can let him go."

"Aye." He reached into the pouch at his waist and pulled out a deck feather, lost by Gawain in his tantrums. He used the feather to stroke the bird's breast and legs.

Gawain glared at them both, his bronze eyes resentful. He perched with his wings hunched forward, wingtips touching James's fist, his talons flexing restively.

"He's hungry," James said. "See how his talons clench. And he's exhausted, too, and yet will not sit the fist quietly for me." He shook his head, and reached inside his hawking pouch to pluck a bit of raw meat from inside a cloth, which he fed to Gawain. "He just will not take to the fist reliably. And look at him. He is as bedraggled as when I got him out of the tree. He's twisted his tail feathers with all these bates. Now they will have to be straightened—and that is not a merry process, let me tell you," he said sourly.

"Let it go until later," Isobel said quietly, watching him. "You are as exhausted as he is. Just feed him and let him sleep, and rest yourself. Then start afresh with his training."

James sighed. "Aye, I am tired. But I have to train the hawk—I cannot let him behave wildly, and I cannot let him go with a weak wing. He has to be able to hunt or he will die."

"'Tis honorable of you to rescue the hawk, and try to man him for his own well-being."

James lifted a brow, surprised and inwardly pleased by her compliment, and by the unmistakable sympathy he sensed in her voice. But he gave her a wry look, hesitant to reveal how much her quiet support meant to him. "Honorable? This, from the lass who thinks me a wretched traitor?"

"I think you are much like that goshawk, Jamie Lindsay," she said softly. Her eyes glimmered in the shadows. He thought their color was very like the rain, just then.

"Foul tempered and bedraggled?" he drawled.

A smile played at a corner of her mouth. "Aye, that, too."

Despite discouragement and aching fatigue, he felt his glum mood lighten at her kind tone. He was glad to know that he pleased her, that she had some faith and respect for him. And he liked the humor that sparked pleasantly between them.

She sat on the stone bench beside him. "But there's more. Both of you are wild, and strong, and stubborn. And neither of you will ever give in. I can see that."

He glanced at her. "I seldom relent in any matter, but this goshawk comes close to defeating me."

"Naught will ever defeat you."

He drew his brows together. A soft light glowed in her remarkable eyes, a glint of admiration. He had seen that before, when they had shared a sweet, lingering kiss among the ferns. He was grateful for the renewal of her trust, but he felt discomfitted by it, too. He did not truly deserve it.

"Oh, I have been defeated," he drawled. "I just keep it to myself. Unlike this rude lad."

Isobel tilted her head to stare at him. Her gaze was adoring, gentle, and pierced him deeply. James felt his blood begin to surge. He wanted to touch her, wanted to sip some of the sweetness he saw on those lips, in those eyes.

Fatigue blurred his thoughts, blurred the edges of years of self-discipline. If he stayed here with her, he would surely do something he would later regret.

"Come outside," he said, standing. "I will show you the Craig."

Chapter 18

The wind pushed at her hair. Isobel captured her soft, thick tresses in one hand, taming the mass with a twisting motion. She wished she had the use of two hands to braid it, for the wind on top of the crag was fierce, beating her hair about her head, whipping her skirts against her legs.

She stood on the summit of the crag and looked out over a view as glorious as any she had ever seen. After the rain, the sky brightened, but clouds still rolled, large and dove-gray, overhead. The forest below was a deep green, softened under transparent veils of mist.

All around stretched an expanse of texture and pattern, made up of hills and forestland, of lochs like slices of silver and rivers like shining ribbons.

Isobel turned to look at Jamie. He stood beside her, the hawk on his gloved fist. "'Tis beautiful up here," she said in awe. "I have never been so high up before."

"The view extends for miles from the crag." He raised his free hand to point. "Over there are the low hills of the Borderlands, round and green. And there"—he shifted his arm to indicate a gentle, meandering river—"the Yarrow Water, which flows to meet the Ettrick Water. And all around us, the forest itself. Just there, beyond that long, rocky hill, is the clearing and Alice's house. On bright days, to the east, we can even see the three peaks of the Eildon hills."

She looked west. "Can you see Wildshaw Castle from here?"

He stood silently beside her. The hawk chirred and lifted his wings, and Jamie soothed him with a quick, low word. "We cannot see the castle," he said quietly. "'Tis beyond that edge of the forest, past that round hill over there. Wildshaw overlooks a river valley on the other side of the hill."

"It must be very beautiful there."

"'Tis, aye." A muscle beat in his cheek briefly.

"You can see much of what goes on in the forest from here, then," she said. "That must be useful for a forest brigand."

"Certes," he agreed. "We see Southron soldiers riding through the forests and over the hills. We have seen patrols riding to and from Wildshaw, and from other castles nearby. We know when soldiers are in the forest. And we can see them easily when they ride along the riverbanks."

"Then you know your foes before you have to face them," she said. "The Southrons must hate the fact that you are safely up here, and they cannot get to you."

"They would give much to take the Border Hawk out of his eyrie, I think." He glanced at her. "In a way, watching from this height is like looking into the future. From up here, we can predict who we will meet down in the forest, how many, from what direction. We can choose our skirmishes. We just cannot foresee the outcome."

"Yet 'tis a more practical way to know your future than I can offer you," she murmured. "Watching from up here has helped to protect you all these years."

He shrugged, nodded. "I have been fortunate enough, I suppose. When I was captured for the first time by Southrons several months ago, 'twas elsewhere. 'Twould not have happened in this part of the Ettrick."

Isobel gazed at his strong profile, and at the beautiful form of the hawk on his fist. "Where were you taken?"

"We were west of here, just past Wildshaw, traveling to meet up with another band of men loyal to Wallace. We were ambushed by a Southron patrol." He drew a long breath. "Several of my men were killed. My cousin Tom Crawford—Alice's youngest son—died fighting beside me. Margaret was taken with us."

"She was with you that day?"

"Aye. She was often with us. The lass is willing and strong, and fearless. I would not refuse a good bow arm just because it belonged to a female. But the day was ill-fated. We were taken to Carlisle—those of us who survived the ambush. I was held there until July. And Margaret was taken into Leslie's custody. He was there, and sympathetic to the English."

"Was that when you lost possession of Wildshaw—when you were taken by the English?"

He shook his head. "They took the castle seven years ago, after my brother, the laird, died on the field at Falkirk. Wildshaw is mine by right. But the English king added my name to a list of dispossessed barons and had me declared an outlaw for refusing to sign an oath of fealty."

"As if Edward Longshanks has the right to demand fealty, or to take land from Scotsmen and reassign it," she commented.

He lifted a brow. "This, from a lass who means to wed a Scotsman lately gone over to the English?"

"This from a lass who knows what is fair, and what is not," she retorted. "Marriage will not change that."

He nodded once, as if in approval. "King Edward's commanders have installed a garrison of over a hundred at Wildshaw. They keep the castle stocked with supplies and war machines to aid them in fighting in the Borderlands."

"You cannot gain it back, as laird of Wildshaw?" she asked.

"I tried," he said. "It came to sorrow."

She remembered standing in the bleak, threatened garden at Aberlady, cradling a white rose while James told her that he, too, had lost a castle—and loved ones—to a fire caused by the English. And she recalled Alice's comment that he carried a heavy inner burden since he had lost Wildshaw.