The Border Lord's Bride (28 page)

During the winter months, Duncan Armstrong had instructed each cotter to dig a small shelter beneath the stone floor of his cottage. If the raiders came at night, and there was no time for the inhabitants of each cottage to make an escape, they were instructed to flee to the shelter. The entrance to each of these underground hidey-holes was concealed by one of the floor‘s large stones. Even if the cottage above was burned, the stone floor would remain unscathed, and those hidden beneath it safe. Each shelter had a small barrel that was kept filled with water, a bucket, and some coverlets.

The March full moon came on a cloudless night. On the walls of Duffdour the men at arms spotted a fire on the far hills just after midnight. The bell in Father Iver‘s church pealed out a warning, while the laird himself rode into the village to speak with the clanfolk. "It looks like Johnston‘s Keep, between us and the Bruces," he told them. "They can come either way—to Cleit or to Duffdour. Gather your families up. Shelter behind the walls of Duffdour House. We‘ll know better on the morrow what is happening. I want no lives lost if we can manage it."

In response the cotters gathered up their families and followed the laird back behind the walls.

Ellen took the women and children, along with some oldsters, into the hall, where they could be settled down. Then she joined her husband on the heights of the walls to watch. The night deepened and finally waned into morning, but no one had come. Still the laird was cautious, for he had noted, as had Altair, the faint, irregular shadows on the hillsides.

"What are they?" Ellen asked when he pointed them out to her.

"Raiders," Duncan Armstrong said. "Their garments are the colors of the hillsides, and when they lie upon their bellies they are almost invisible to the eye."

"How many are there?" Ellen wanted to know.

"Probably only a few, come to see if our gates are open," the laird said wryly.

Ellen gestured with her head to remind him Artair was also somewhere along the parapet too.

He grinned at her, giving her a quick kiss. "I think it‘s time to send our visitors home," he said.

Then the laird called for his longbow, took it up, nocked an arrow into it, and sent the missal flying into the pale gray of the early morning hillside. He smiled, satisfied, as a howl of pain broke the silence, and signaled to several of his men at arms to prepare to shoot their longbows.

"That is your only warning, lads," he called out. "By the time I count to ten you had best be on your way across yon border, or my men will begin shooting. And please tell Lord Colby that the laird of Duffdour sends his compliments." Then he began to count.

Suddenly the hillside sprang to life, and five men arose, two of them dragging a sixth man between them as they stumbled to escape the arrows shortly to come.

"Ten!" the laird called out. Then Duncan Armstrong turned to his men. "Don‘t hit them, lads.

Just help them along on their way," he instructed.

The men on the walls let fly their arrows, carefully placing them near enough to the fleeing English borderers to hurry them along. And the other men at arms laughed loudly as their enemies made their escape.

"You might have done better to kill them," Ellen noted. "We would have at Lochearn, my lord.

Why leave your foes alive to fight another day?"

"I made the point I wished to make, wife," he explained. "Better to have six mouths babbling about Duffdour‘s readiness against raiders. The next time they come I will show no mercy."

But while other villages and keeps along the border felt the fury of the English that spring, Duffdour did not. Conal Bruce rode over to visit his older brother one day in late May to tell Duncan Armstrong that there was talk being circulated among the border families that the laird of Duffdour had made some accommodation with the English that was keeping his house and villages, his cattle, horses, and sheep safe. The question was, had he paid the English to keep away, or was he involved in some form of betrayal to Scotland and to the king?

"But I am the one who warned the king last winter of Lord Colby," the laird said.

"Aye, ‘tis truth," Conal said, "and I sent to several of the families myself on the advice of Patrick Hepburn. But you still remain unscathed while the rest of us have suffered losses, Duncan."

"This is Lord Colby‘s revenge on you, husband," Ellen spoke up. "You refused to help him when he attempted to gain your aid last winter. He has now made you seem guilty by leaving us alone here at Duffdour. ‘Tis cleverly done. I suspect the loudest voices against you may be those whom the English have subverted."

"We must call a meeting of the border lords," Duncan said. "We cannot be entrapped into fighting with one another, for that but serves the purpose of the English."

"I‘ll send the word out, and hold the meeting at Cleit," Conal Bruce said.

"Arrogant bastard Colby," Duncan said. "If he meant to turn me because I had nowhere else to go he is sadly mistaken. I will never betray the king!"

"I‘ll have Patrick Hepburn at the meeting to attest to your warning last winter," the laird of Cleit told his brother. "We‘ll straighten this out."

"Aye, we will," Duncan said. "And before someone tumbles my walls down and burns my house to the ground. I will give our neighbors no excuses to steal my stock."

Conal Bruce returned to Cleit and sent out invitations to most of the border lords to come to his hall on the tenth day of June to discuss the gossip about his brother. The laird of Duffdour would be there himself, and could prove that he was no traitor. Patrick Hepburn agreed to come as well to testify to Duncan Armstrong‘s innocence.

This would be a meeting of clansmen, and Ellen would not travel with her husband to Cleit. She was content to remain at home, for old Peigi had not been well. The winter had been a difficult one for Ellen‘s longtime servant. And the proof that she did not feel well was the fact that she was allowing young Gunna to do more and more of her work. Ellen didn‘t want to leave Peigi at this particular time, for she worried that her last link to Lochearn could soon be no more if Peigi did not improve with the warmer days.

Duncan Armstrong arrived at Cleit to find that his brother had invited lairds belonging to the families along the immediate border such as themselves. There were Elliots, Kerrs, Johnstons, Douglases, Fergusons, and even some Hays. Several of them glared at the laird of Duffdour with open distrust, but Duncan Armstrong refused to be cowed. He looked each man in the eye, and shook his hand. Adair was nowhere to be seen; nor were any maidservants. Only men filled the hall.

The laird of Cleit saw that his guests were served some of his fine smoky whiskey, and then he called the meeting to order from his place at his high board. "There have been rumors," he began, "that my brother is in league with the English. It is not so, and I have invited you all here today that he may tell you this himself."

"He can say whatever he chooses to say," Ian Johnston said, "but I for one find it odd that while all of us along the border have suffered losses over the spring months, Duffdour has remained unscathed."

"The Armstrongs of Duffdour are known to be the most honorable of men," Andrew Hay spoke up. "Before you go accusing them, Johnston, at least allow the man to speak in his own defense.

Yours isn‘t the only holding that‘s lost stock and folk."

"I lost my house!" Ian Johnston said, his voice decidedly louder now. "And my wife lost the bairn she was carrying from the terror she endured. ‘Twas a lad too!"

"Blame Lord Colby then," Duncan said in a quiet but commanding voice. "He is the man who directs the raiders."

"And how the hell do you know that?" Ian Johnston demanded.

"Because last December when my Ellen and I returned from court, where we had gone at the king‘s request, I found Roger Colby in my hall waiting for me."

"How did he get past your fine new walls?" Robert Elliot asked.

"My captain was ill, and the youngsters on guard left the gates open. The Englishman came with six men, and ambled through my gates while those on guard flirted with some lasses," the laird of Duffdour said irritably.

Several of the other men snickered. They were jealous of the walls that Armstrong had been given royal permission to erect about his house and barns. Without the king‘s permission most of the border keeps were vulnerable.

"You find it amusing?" Duncan said. "I did not. The Englishman wanted me to give my

allegiance to his king, and in exchange Duffdour would be free from attack. Had there not been a blizzard outside my house, and had not the laws of hospitality bound me, I should have thrown the arrogant bastard out in the same moment the words left his lips. But there was a blizzard, and I was bound by common decency. I refused his offer and told him I would notify Cleit, and Cleit would notify others as to his attempts to subvert the border lords. I told the Englishman that I was loyal to King James, and should never betray him. He put forth some veiled threats against me, against Duffdour, but in the morning when my wife went down to the hall he and his men were gone."

"So you admit he offered to keep Duffdour safe from raiders?" Ian Johnston said. His tone and his stance were bellicose.

"Aye, I do," the laird of Duffdour said. "And I also told you I turned his offer away. And on that next morning I sent to my brother here at Cleit, telling him what had transpired, and asking him to inform Lord Bothwell."

"And Conal Bruce did indeed inform me," the Earl of Bothwell said from his place by the fire, where he had been listening to the exchange among the lairds. "And I informed the king of the English duplicity."

"Then why the hell has Duffdour been kept safe?" James Elliot wanted to know.

"Is that not obvious to you and the others, Elliot? I will admit this Colby fellow is clever. He sought Duffdour‘s aid in order to dragoon others of you into his plot, for the Armstrongs are respected in the borders, but Duffdour turned him down. So rather than attack Duffdour, he leaves it be so that the rest of you grow suspicious of the Armstrongs. Without this meeting you would soon all be quarreling with one another, some championing Duncan Armstrong, others not. By fighting with one another you would weaken yourselves, leave yourselves more open to attack by the English. You should all find yourselves warring on two fronts. Against the English.

Against each other. Is that what you really want? Other than the fact that Duffdour has been left unscathed, what proof do any of you have that the Armstrongs have betrayed the king or their neighbors? You have no proof. Will you start a contretemps over an empty suspicion?" the earl asked them. "Know that if any of you should attack Duffdour acting on these baseless doubts, you will find yourself facing me as well."

"And me," Conal Bruce said.

"And me," Andrew Hay chimed in.

"And I should wonder," Patrick Hepburn continued, "that the man so determined and eager to place blame on Duncan Armstrong might perhaps be guilty himself of betrayal and treachery."

He looked around the hall at the other men there. "Did Lord Colby pay any of you a visit too, my lords?"

There was a dead silence, and several of them men looked away, shuffling their feet. There was no doubt that Lord Colby had visited them as well.

"What, my lords, no denials?" the earl demanded scathingly.

"We sent him away," Ian Johnston said.

"And so did I," Duncan repeated.

"But they burned my house the very same night!" Johnston shouted. "Your home stands

untouched, your wife safe."

"Because I have walls about Duffdour," Duncan replied. "And gates that are kept barred at all times now. I have men patrolling those walls and hidden in the hills around my home to give me early warning of an enemy‘s approach. What have any of you done to secure your premises?

Even my cotters are protected from danger should they not be able to gain the safety of my walls in time. Walls can be breached, my lords."

"And why have you all sat these past weeks like a gaggle of geese waiting to be plucked?" the earl asked them. "Why haven‘t you ridden out and attacked the English in kind? When do you intend to defend yourselves, my lords?"

"We are few," James Elliot said. "We‘re bonnet lairds with small holdings and barely enough men to protect ourselves. If we leave, who will look after our women and the bairns? And who will protect the stock and the fields? ‘Tis all well and good for you to lecture us, Hepburn.

You‘ve men and arms enough, thanks to your good fortune as the king‘s favorite. We‘re only simple men."

"Band together into a single large force," the earl told them. "That‘s what the English have done.

They‘re no better off than you are but that Colby allied them."

"And you think our clansmen should join forces?" James Elliot asked.

"Why not?" the earl responded. "A dozen clansmen can do little, but fifty or sixty men can put a terrible fear into the hearts of the English. Raise enough havoc on their side of the border, and Colby will find his forces dwindling away, for they won‘t want to leave their own holdings vulnerable to us."

"Won‘t we be vulnerable to them?" Andrew Hay wanted to know.

"Aye, but not at first. Three or four hard strikes will come as a complete surprise to the English.

Colby will then have to change his tactics," the earl told them.

"You can fortify your homes more than they are now," Duncan Armstrong spoke up. "I‘m sure Patrick Hepburn will speak on your behalf with the king, will you not, my lord? Whatever can be done to deter the enemy should be done. Certainly the king will not object to low walls of stones or wood or brush—brush that can be fired to deter the enemy even more. Make the doors and windows of your house less accessible. If you don‘t have a well in your kitchens, then dig one. A man can live without food, but water is absolutely necessary."

"I agree with the Hepburn," Conal Bruce spoke up. "We need to band together to stop this Englishman before he causes any more difficulty."

"Aye," the others muttered—all but Ian Johnston, who continued to glare hard at the laird of Duffdour. "And who is to lead us?" he demanded to know.