The Raider (19 page)

“Truce,” she said, holding out her hand.

Reluctantly, he clutched her soft hand in his own. “Truce,” he repeated.

Robbie had his truce with a Clifford, though he wondered how much this one was going to cost him.

Rosalin saw little of him over the next two days. Apparently, Robbie’s idea of a truce was to duck in long enough to grab some clothes, mumble a few words, and then disappear. He slept in the tent with her, but he waited until after she was asleep to creep in and woke before she was awake to creep back out.

In between, she tried to keep herself busy and do her best (without much success) to not perish of boredom. During the long hours alone, with only her none-too-friendly Douglas guardsmen for the curt exchange of words that passed as “conversation” (they probably thought something was wrong with her, she asked to go to the privy so often just to go outside), Rosalin was seriously considering mutiny. Or, as they weren’t on a ship, open rebellion.

The first day, she’d attended to her person and her much abused clothing. She’d combed her hair until it was free of every last knot and tangle and fell around her shoulders in long, shimmery waves, and pounded and brushed her woolen gowns until they were free of most of the dirt. They still smelled of smoke, though, so she asked one of the dour Douglas brothers (she’d learned their names at least: Iain and Archie) to fetch her some dried heather and packed the gowns with it. By the following morning her chemise was completely dry and her gowns smelled good enough to wear again.

She’d never cleaned in her life, but by the second day, she’d wiped every surface, tidied every furnishing, and practiced making the beds enough times to rival any of the maidservants at Whitehall Palace. She’d even mixed in some of the dried heather with the rushes to brighten the smell of peat that seemed to linger on everything.

While in the process of putting away the linens and plaid that she’d borrowed, Rosalin decided to take a peek through the rest of the trunk. Normally she wouldn’t be so nosy, or show such a lack of regard for someone’s privacy, but really it was Robbie’s own fault. If he wasn’t going to tell her about himself, then she was going to have to see what she could find out on her own.

Never far from her mind was his admission that felt like more of a confession:
I don’t know if I’m strong enough
.

She knew he’d meant it as a warning—and it had been well taken. He was right: her brother would kill him. But the idea that
she
could weaken him so warmed her and sent a little—well, not so little—thrill shooting through her. It also provoked an urge in her to dig deeper, to see if maybe it meant something more. Fate had brought them together again, and she couldn’t help but think there was a reason.

She didn’t know what she expected to find, maybe a few mementos—a sprig of dried flowers or a lock of hair from a past sweetheart, a brooch or ring,
something
that hinted to his past—but that wasn’t the treasure trove she uncovered when she dug through the stack of carefully folded linens, clothing, and armor, to the bottom of the trunk.

One by one, Rosalin pulled out leather-bound codex after leather-bound codex. There were seven in all, most containing multiple works. It was a small fortune in manuscripts ranging from Socrates and Plato to Augustine and the relatively new work of Father Thomas Aquinas, of whom there was talk of making a saint. They were scholarly works that did not belong in the war chest of a…
barbarian
. Good gracious, he could rival her brother in his philosophical learnings!

There were also a few histories. She picked up one of the volumes, entitled
Historia Romana
, by someone named Appian of Alexandria. She paged through the thick pieces of parchment, scanning the carefully inked words in Latin. Picking up another, she was stunned to see that it was written in Greek.

Did Robbie really read these? If the well-worn bindings were any indication, it appeared that he did—quite frequently.

She was so enthralled by her discovery that she didn’t hear him enter until he was standing right behind her. “What are you doing?”

She looked up guiltily from her cross-legged position on the ground before his trunk. It was quite obvious what she was doing, and his dark scowl reflected that knowledge, but she answered anyway. “I was bored.”

His eyes narrowed. “So you decided to go through my belongings?”

“I was putting away the tunic and plaid I borrowed and happened to see these.”

He gave her a look that suggested he knew otherwise.

He glanced around the tent, noticing the changes she’d made. “You aren’t a serving maid, Rosalin.”

“Nay, I’m a hostage,” she said cheekily. Seeing his frown, she added quickly, “It’s something to do.”

He ignored her hint. “Aye, well, just make sure you make that clear to your brother when you come back with callused hands.”

She picked up one of the books and started to flip through it again. “Why would you wish to hide these? They are wonderful.”

“I’m not hiding anything. I just would have rather you had asked me first.”

“Which I would have, had you been here. But as you’ve avoided me for the past—”

“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been busy.”

She blinked up at him innocently. “Haven’t you? Hmm. You must be
very
busy if you can’t retire until after midnight and wake before dawn.” She could see his temper flaring, and decided to switch subjects before she started to laugh. Teasing him was surprisingly fun. Holding up the codex she’d been leafing through, she asked, “Do you really read Greek?”

“Aye, a bit.” He practically snatched it from her hand. “Have care with that. It’s a rare partial manuscript of Roman history by Polybius.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve never heard of him.”

He carefully placed the book back in the trunk and started to pick up the others to do the same. “Aye, well, I doubt many lasses are well versed in military history.”

“And I doubt many Scottish warriors are well versed in Greek and ancient philosophy.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said dryly. “We aren’t all barbarians.” She glanced away so that he wouldn’t see her blush. How had he guessed she’d had that exact thought? “We even have schools in Scotland, just like they do in England.”

She ignored the sarcasm, focusing instead on what he’d said and the opportunity to learn more about him. She stood from the ground, shook out her skirts, and plopped down on the stool nearby. “So you went away to school when you were younger?”

He’d replaced all the books and seemed to be looking for something in his trunk. But he took the time to shoot her a look that said he knew what she was up to. “Aye. In Dundee.”

“Is that near where you grew up?”

He sighed and turned to face her. “It is not.” When it seemed that was all he intended to say on the subject, her disappointment must have shown in her expression. He continued with all the enthusiasm of having a tooth pulled. “I was born in my father’s barony of Noddsdale, near Renfrew in Ayr, on the west coast of Scotland and was fostered in the Borders. Dundee is in the east of Scotland on the north side of the Tay. About thirty miles south of Kildrummy.”

“That’s quite a distance to travel for schooling.”

“It’s a well-known school, attended by young lairds and chieftains from all around Scotland. The vicar who taught me there—a man by the name of William Mydford—among other things, was an ardent military strategist. The ‘pirate’ warfare of which your countrymen often disparage us is actually traced to some of those books.”

Her skepticism must have shown.

“Both Appian and Polybius wrote of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general reputed to be one of the greatest military strategists of all time. He was famous not only for his use of ambuscade, scorched earth, and for catching the Romans off guard by crossing the Alps, but also for teaching the Romans fear.”

Rosalin had heard something of Hannibal. “He was also reputed to be unspeakably cruel.”

He held her gaze. “By whom? The descendants of the Romans he defeated? Even Polybius, Greek by birth but Roman by affiliation, conceded that like most people he was probably good and bad.”

She smiled. “So you went to school to learn to be a brigand?”

He shot her a look and seeing that she was teasing him, shook his head. “Nay, I was born knowing how to do that.”

She scanned the leather-clad arms and chest. “Aye, I don’t doubt it. You look as if you were born with a sword in your hand.”

“I didn’t need a sword until the English put one there. It was never my desire to be a warrior. I would have been content—” He stopped suddenly, looking away, as if the memories had overtaken him for a moment but he’d been able to wrestle them back under control.

When he turned back to her, the good-humored teasing they’d shared a few minutes ago was once again carefully contained behind the determined, humorless facade. “School is where I learned to be a ‘
rebel
.’ It’s where I learned about justice—real justice, not the English version—the tyranny of oppression, and the principles of liberty and freedom that give Scotland and the community of the realm the ancient right and responsibility to anoint its own king and not be ruled by a foreign one.”

Unwittingly, Rosalin’s discovery of the books had raised the specter of all that was between them. The teachings in these manuscripts had fostered the fierce patriotism that gave him the single-minded determination to fight for Scotland’s independence against her countrymen.

She was embarrassed to realize that she’d never given much thought to the Scots’ side of things or that they might have their foundations in something so…scholarly. Indeed, they were likely the same philosophical underpinnings that her countrymen used to justify the war. She’d thought of the Scots as ruthless brigands, as backward barbarians. But what if…what if they had cause to fight? What if they had justice on their side?

Even the thought felt disloyal to her brother, not to mention treasonous to her king. But how could she ignore all that Robbie had told her about what happened to him?

It was disconcerting to think that the enemy were not uncivilized rebels who needed to be brought to heel, but educated warriors fighting for freedom and justice.

But she wanted to know what he’d been about to say. “What would you have been content with?”

He retrieved the item he’d been looking for from his trunk and slid it into the sporran at his waist. She’d caught only a quick glance, but it looked to be a curved piece of thin metal with a short handle.

Though her question seemed to have made him uncomfortable, he answered. “My brother Duncan had the love of battle like my father. I would have been content to till our land and raise our cattle. Before everything was razed, that is.”

It took her a moment to process what he’d said. “You wanted to be a
farmer
?” This man who seemed to epitomize war and warfare?

His mouth hardened, as if her disbelief had offended him. “Aye. Well, the decision was taken from my hands when my father was murdered by your countrymen. I left school at seven and ten, joined the risings with my school companion and boyhood friend William Wallace, and never looked back.” He nodded to the trunk. “Those books belonged to him, by the way.”

She paled.
William Wallace, dear God!
Many English were just as horrified by what had happened to him as the Scots. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t kill him.” He said it matter-of-factly, but she sensed the deep emotion underlying the careless words.

“Perhaps not, but I’m sorry for everything you lost. The life you describe…It sounds nice. I shouldn’t have said those things to you earlier—calling you a thug and a brigand. I didn’t realize—” She stopped and looked at him. “I know little about the war or the history between our two countries, but with what you have told me, I think I understand now why you fight.” She paused. “You had a brother?”

“Aye. Duncan was captured after the battle of Methven, not long before I was captured at Kildrummy. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a guardian angel to rescue him and was executed before I could reach him.”

She put her hand on his arm, her heart breaking for him. His father, his sister, his brother, his closest friends, his home and future. She didn’t dare ask about his mother. “I’m so sorry.”