Tamed by a Laird (10 page)

After this careful consideration, he had decided that if the minstrels were heading for Dumfries, he and Lucas should do likewise.

Lucas had muttered faint protest, but Hugh paid him no heed. The man had served him for years and had traveled many miles
with him. Lucas could always find something to complain about, but he had never let Hugh down.

They kept to the Dumfries road despite passing two roads that branched north. They found no one who had seen the company.
As most folks were abed before darkness fell, Hugh kept going then for some time without seeing a soul.

“Nah then, we should ’ave found someone that’s seen ’em by now,” Lucas said at last. “They be right numerous, so I’ve me doots
they’d be quiet a-travelin’. We’ve talked to dunamany folks as live along this road, sir, but…” He shrugged.

“Aye,” Hugh agreed. “Someone ought to have heard them. Try that cottage yonder, across that wee field. I’ll wait with the
horses and stop anyone who comes along. But I’m rapidly coming to believe they may have taken another route.”

“Aye, I’m for goin’ back to one of them branch roads, m’self.”

“Try the cottage, Lucas.”

With a nod, Lucas handed him the lead for their sumpter pony and urged his own horse to a trot, respectfully keeping to the
edge of the field. To Hugh’s experienced eye, it looked freshly planted. An optimist, he thought, to believe that winter was
over when one could still feel and even smell snow in the air.

Lucas looked brighter when he returned, because fortune had smiled on them at last. “T’ woman were up all night with a colicky
bairn,” he said. “Nae one passed by but silent travelers. However, she has a sister a-visitin’ who lives a mile north of ’ere
on the Lochmaben road. The sister were complainin’ of a racket set up in the night by a great company of travelers—a-singin’
and carryin’ on, she said.”

“Can we reach the Lochmaben road from here without trespassing where we should not, or must we ride all the way back to that
last fork?” Hugh asked him. “ ’Tis all of two miles and more, I’m thinking.”

“Aye, and I did think to ask t’ woman. She said her sister be ’eading back shortly and will show us the way.” Although Lucas
rarely showed his feelings, Hugh could tell he was pleased with himself for acquiring such useful information.

The news, welcome as it was, revealed nothing of the two missing young women, and darkness would fall long before he and Lucas
could catch up with the minstrels. Lucas’s earlier observation that they would catch up with at least one of them by midnight
was looking less likely by the minute.

Hugh could not doubt that wherever they had camped the previous night, they would likely have moved on at first light. He
also realized now that they were not going directly to Dumfries, so heaven alone knew how many other places they meant to
visit first or which direction they would head next.

He was beginning to become seriously annoyed with Janet Easdale. However, his mood lightened when their guide, a brisk young
matron who called herself Mistress Moffat, guided them swiftly to the Lochmaben road.

As he thanked her, he said, “I wonder, mistress, if you can suggest a likely place along this road for a company of minstrels
to camp.”

She considered for only a moment before suggesting Castle Moss. “The laird there does enjoy the players whenever they come
this way, sir. Faith, but he nearly always lets any as wants to camp in his woods. I warrant ye’ll find them there.”

He was just as certain that he would not find them there, but he hoped the laird of Castle Moss could tell him if the young
baroness had been with them.

Only when he began to explain that hope to Lucas did he realize he’d have to be careful in his description, so as not to reveal
what Dunwythie wanted kept quiet.

Castle Moss stood only a mile up the road, and although he’d have liked to travel on through the night since they would have
moonlight, he knew that both he and Lucas would do better for a good night’s sleep.

The laird of Castle Moss proved both hospitable and delighted to entertain his guests with an enthusiastic description of
the minstrels.

“Most astonishing!” he exclaimed when Hugh asked about them. “One fellow tossed dirks about like clubs. Didna seem to mind
which end he caught, and I swear to ye, he had eight o’ them going at once. When he stopped, he just gathered them all together
like a bouquet o’ spring flowers.”

“That sounds like just what I’m after, sir,” Hugh said. “I’m looking to hire minstrels for our market fair at Thornhill, and
I’ve heard that this lot is exceptional.”

“They are, and the jugglers were only the beginning. Why they’ve a pair o’ fools that nigh made me split m’ sides laughing,
and then there was Bonnie Jenny.”

Hugh raised his eyebrows. “A lass? Dancer or a gleemaiden?”

“Ye might call her a gleemaiden, I expect. But the chief juggler put her out before us, all on her ownsome, and I’m telling
ye, that lass has a voice like an angel. She sang only two songs, mind ye. And, although we shouted for her to sing more,
the man wouldna allow it. Instead, he said they’d be at Lochmaben tonight—and doubtless tomorrow, as well, it being Sunday.
Then they’ll go on to Dumfries, he said. He kens his business, that ’un. He’ll likely draw crowds wherever they set up their
encampments, as well as in Dumfries market square.”

“You did say they aimed for Lochmaben from here, did you not, sir?”

“Och, aye, but it will do ye nae good to seek them there, ye ken. Sithee, them English louts willna let in any Scotsmen unless
they be minstrels or troubadours.”

Having learned all he wanted to know, Hugh changed the subject and spent a pleasant evening with his genial host. But the
next morning, as he and Lucas were riding away, he said to Lucas, “We’ll make haste now that we know where they are. We need
only think of a ruse that will get us inside Lochmaben Castle.”

“Aye, sure,” Lucas said. “Tha think t’ lassies we seek be with them, then.”

Hugh nodded. “No one with the voice of an angel sang at Annan House,” he said. “If they’d had such a singer, can you doubt
they’d have produced her? Also, Lady Easdale’s given name is Janet, but members of the family call her ‘Jenny.’ ”

“By, sir, ye’re no expecting me to believe a young baroness in ’er own right be pretending to be them minstrels’ gleemaiden!”

“I don’t
know
that,” Hugh said. “But I’ll wager half your year’s pay that the singer is either the lady Janet or the maidservant Peg
calling
herself Jenny in a hope that someone will hear the name and come to collect her mistress.”

“Tha canna expect a man to bargain with half his year’s pay,” Lucas said scornfully. “I’ll put up a groat against ten of yours
on such a bet, but no more.”

“Done,” Hugh said. “Easy gelt, that is, and I’ll not turn down a silver groat.”

“Aye, well, I canna think what will get ye into Lochmaben without ye spin them one of your grand tales of why they should
admit ye. ’Tis true that I’ve heard ye spin dunamany such tales in days gone by. But if ye think ye can spin one, snatch up
the lady, and carry ’er off without raising a fearsome dust—”

“I do not think I can do that,” Hugh said. Although he would never be such a dunce as that, he did realize that he had not
yet thought the whole thing through.

“And just as ye canna snatch her from Lochmaben, ye canna march up to yon minstrels and demand they hand her over to ye neither,”
Lucas said sagely.

“True,” Hugh said. “We’ll have to be gey cautious in our approach to them, so let us discuss the matter as we ride.”

“We should ha’ gone home when we could, mistress,” Peg said as they prepared their sleeping places at Lochmaben Castle. “I
dinna like it here.”

“But think of what we’re seeing, Peg,” Jenny urged. “No one we know has seen the inside of this castle other than the people
with whom we’re traveling, and this is the castle that produced King Robert the Bruce. He was born here, I believe, and it
was the seat of Bruce power for years, even centuries.”

“Aye, but the Bruce could go outside its walls when he wanted to,” Peg said.

“We’ll be out again by noon tomorrow—by midafter-noon at the latest,” Jenny said, correcting herself when she recalled that
the commander of the castle had said he would provide their midday meal for them after their performance.

Peg remained noticeably nervous, however, and Jenny had to admit, if only to herself, that she had felt safer in the laird’s
woods at Castle Moss than she felt inside the walls of Lochmaben Castle. She did not know if the walls were fourteen feet
thick, but they were certainly thick enough for two men to lie end to end.

Situated, as it was, on a flat peninsula jutting into Loch Maben, with most of the loch’s surrounding land bog-ridden, the
castle’s famed impregnability seemed most intimidating when one was inside its walls, surrounded by enemies.

Bad enough that four water-filled ditches stretched across the narrow neck of the peninsula, all but the last one boasting
temporary, easily removed drawbridges.

Worse was that the last ditch lacked
any
bridge, forcing them to go in boats through a main gate that opened right over the water into a well-guarded forecourt.

After disembarking, as they passed through the equally well-guarded inner gate and under a fanged iron portcullis into the
castle’s main courtyard, Jenny had looked back to watch the boats depart. That sight made her wonder if she had been dafter
than even Peg had thought she was to insist on coming to Lochmaben.

She wondered, too, if she could trust Bryan to keep her full identity secret. He and the others—even the women—behaved as
if they had no concern for their safety. But most of the other women, she had noted, had protectors of one sort or another
in the company—husbands, other kinsmen, or lovers. She and Peg had only Bryan, who paid little heed to them now that the company
was setting up a makeshift camp in one corner of the inner courtyard.

Jenny had expected to share a tent with Peg again. But although the yard was large, its paving stones made pitching the tents
impossible. Feeling exposed not only to the chilly weather and dark, menacingly overcast sky but to the castle’s roaming men-at-arms,
she recalled Mairi’s comments on the likely life of a minstrel.

Until now, her adventure had seemed no more than that. But catching one lustful look, then another, and another, she felt
an increasing chill of unease.

To be sure, the looks came from the men-at-arms and not, so far, from any of the minstrels. Even so, she doubted that the
latter group would leap to defend her virtue against such odds as they faced inside Lochmaben.

“We must take care to stay together with your brother and his friends or with the other women, Peg,” she said as they made
their way toward Bryan.

“Aye, sure,” Peg agreed vaguely, glancing toward the sky. “D’ye think it will snow in the night, m’lady?”

“Sakes, Peg, would you expose my rank to everyone here?” Jenny said. “I depend on you to protect me, and you’ll not do it
by flinging m’ladys about.”

“Ay de mi!” Peg exclaimed. “But ’tis harder than ye ken! Them two words just fly off me tongue when I speak to ye.”

“Then think before you speak,” Jenny advised, espying the Joculator making his way toward them through the other minstrels,
who were swiftly establishing spaces for themselves in the designated sleeping area.

“I’ve asked the others to provide ye two with extra bedding,” the Joculator told them. “However, I came to tell
ye
, Jenny, that although the commander of the castle will reserve our full performance for their midday meal tomorrow, he wants
us to provide music for their supper tonight. Apparently, lass, someone who heard you at Castle Moss has whispered in the
man’s ear.”

“Mercy, do you mean he wants to hear
me
sing?” Jenny asked. “Tonight?”

Although Phaeline had complimented her musical abilities, she had never led Jenny to think them extraordinary, and she did
not know what to think now. That the English commander wanted to hear her sing was flattering. But for him to have singled
her out in such a way was disconcerting—even, she decided, a little frightening.

The Joculator’s attractive smile flashed. “I had suggested that our musicians might play from the minstrels’ gallery, and
he had agreed. But then he insisted that our bonnie Jenny must sing, too, and
not
from the gallery. He commanded that your stool be set just below the dais, lass.”

Jenny swallowed hard and cast a glance at Peg. But Peg was staring at her own feet and said not a word until the Joculator
had walked away again.

Then she said bluntly, “
Now
will ye agree that we ought to ha’ stayed at home?” The words were barely out of her mouth before she clapped a hand to it
and stared guiltily at Jenny. “Och, but I ought never to speak to ye so, me—”

“Don’t be daft, Peg,” Jenny interjected quickly. “We are cousins, are we not? You may say what you like. However, although
we may have been daft to come here, here we are and here we’ll stay until we leave. So we must make the best of it. Where
do you suppose we go to relieve ourselves in this great place?”