The Widow's Bargain. Juliet Landon

yes,’ Hugh said, placing a foot in the stirrup. ‘’Tis a lovely morning to be raiding a castle.’

      

      From Lady Ebony Moffat’s chamber on the topmost floor of Castle Kells, the views across the loch were to the south and east through groups of windows that were little more than slits in the eight-foot-thick stone walls. The apertures widened into wedge shapes with built-in stone benches on three sides, deeply cushioned. One such space in the corner had been curtained off to create a garderobe in the thickness of the wall, and in another corner was a door that led spirally downwards to the next level.

      The cushions had not, of course, been made for young Sam Moffat to jump up and down on in excitement, nor had the windows been made just that size for him to squeeze his head through to look sideways towards the woodland path. Consequently, when a man’s shout was heard from the stairway to say that Master Sam’s grandpa was coming in. Sam found that it was more difficult to reverse into the room as easily as it had been to go out of it. For a moment, there was panic in his little breast. ‘Mama!’ he yelled. ‘I’m stuck again!’

      Tempted to use the next half-minute to teach him a lesson, after the hundredth time of telling, Lady Ebony lifted her faded blue wool surcoat off the bed and slipped it over her head. After seven years, it still fitted like a glove over her linen bliaud. Her sister-in-law Meg was already making her way to the door. ‘I’ll follow you when I’ve freed him,’ Ebony called. ‘You do on down.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ said Meg. She had seen it before. It was his ears.

      Ebony smiled, adjusting the surcoat across her shoulders. ‘As Sir Joseph’s daughter, love, you must be there or he’ll want to know why. You go and show an interest. I’ll bring Sam down in a moment.’

      It didn’t take as long as usual to free him, for now he had learnt how to press his ears flat and twist. Nor did he have time today for the soothing noises from his mother when his Grandpa Moffat would surely have brought something back for him from his night raid which, to Sam, was as innocent as a trip to the market. He skipped off, reddened about his six-year-old ears, his eyes as grey as granite, blond-haired, slight-framed, bursting with an unpredictable primitive energy. After three years, Sam rarely asked about the father he so closely resembled.

      It did no good for his mother to protest at Sir Joseph’s frequent gifts to his only grandson, a pony that no one had taught him to ride, money that he was not allowed to spend, clothes from another child’s back, toys and trinkets salvaged from someone’s home. Her initial objections had been disregarded, and she could not bring herself to tell her child that his grandpa gleaned other people’s property by force, mostly at night, plundering across the Scottish-English border to torch houses, kill the men, lift the cattle and bring them up on to Scottish pasture. There was only so much one could expect a child to understand at six years old, and as long as they were obliged to live under Sir Joseph’s protection, Sam must be taught, first and foremost, to respect his elders.

      His cries of excitement could be heard echoing down the stairway and disappearing into the maze of chambers, halls, stairs and passageways that was now his world; hers and Meg’s too. It was unsafe for them to venture out when raiders passed so frequently in both directions, perpetuating feuds that had escalated alarmingly in the five years since the Scottish victory at the Bannockburn. Now, there was not a household, large or small, that did not fear the raids, though these would be fewer now that the hours of darkness were less. Perhaps this would also be Sir Joseph’s last raid till the autumn, when they might begin to live more normally than this.

      Sharing none of her son’s urgency, she sat on the window-cushion and rested her head against the wooden shutter, her eyes scanning the pattern of massive oak beams that supported the roof. Woollen tapestries clad the walls with colour and warmth. Polished stools, a table, chests, and a canopied bed provided every comfort, and a fire at one end was protected by a hooded chimney with the Moffat coat of arms carved into it. The castle was cool at all times of the year, and this chamber was one of the most private in a place where privacy was at a premium. She had no cause to bewail a lack of comfort, and her inclination was to stay up here well out of the way rather than to be seen condoning her father-in-law’s lawlessness.

      Not wishing to let Sam out of her sight for too long, she relented at last, taking up a piece of damp linen and spreading it over a chest to dry before removing from it a strand of moss that had caught in its fibres. Still damp, her hair was hurriedly bundled into a caul of gold net and pinned carelessly on top of her head in a style unknown to fashion. At Castle Kells, what did it matter how one looked and, in Scotland, who except the nobility cared a damn about fashion in these uncertain times? She took a quick look round and went down, descending the steps slowly with her skirts held up. It would take her quite some time to reach the great hall.

      The unusual absence of men made Ebony wonder if Sir Joseph’s return was in some way out of the ordinary. She quickened her step. He had taken about thirty men with him, this time, but still she would normally have encountered members of the household at every turn, as she had done earlier that morning. The guard who always stood in the window niche overlooking the courtyard was missing. She peeped through the arrow-slit, but it was set too high to show her more than the gatehouse on the opposite side and yet, even as she watched, an archer on top of the tower took aim at something below him. Before he could complete the draw, however, his arms went up and he fell backwards with an arrow in his throat.

      ‘Reivers!’ Ebony whispered. ‘It’s the reivers! God have mercy on us.’ Reivers. Border raiders. Murderers and thieves. Merciless destroyers. How had they got in? And where was Sam, her precious child? Panic rose in her breast like a sickness. Men such as this had killed her Robbie three years ago; she could not let them take Sam, too.

      Picking up her skirts, she ran like a hare, flying through arches and open doorways, leaping down steps to reach the great hall on the first floor. Breathless, her heart pounding with fear at what she might find, she threw open the door at the side of the high table where covers had already been laid, silver trays, spoons and knives set, but no more than that. People were everywhere, huddled in groups guarded by men whose assortment of weaponry was fearsome, their expressions menacing.

      With her mind set on only one goal, she barged her way past them. ‘Let me through!’ she yelled. ‘Let me through, damn you! Sam! Where is my child? Sam!’ Distraught, and screaming his name, her calls cut across the hall already bristling with tension and fear. Hitting out at the barriers of arms and bodies, kicking and elbowing men aside like skittles, she searched for a sign of Biddie, Sam’s young nursemaid, in a congregation of unknown and familiar faces and a terrified crowd of household servants, cooks, grooms, pages and all.

      At the far end of the hall near the great chimney-piece stood another group of strangers who had turned at her noisy entrance. Biddie’s white wimple was easy to spot, her face contorted and pleading. Her loud cry held all the anguish and terror of one who has failed in her duty. ‘Mistress!’

      Ebony charged towards her but, even in her panic, was no match for the man who caught her and swung her hard against him, catching at one arm and hand. Before he could capture the other, she swung it back and threw her force behind a blow to his head, the sound of the impact cracking through the hall like the snap of a whip. ‘Let go of me, you churl!’ she shrieked. ‘My child…where is he?’

      Ahead of her, the group parted to let Biddie through. A large and powerfully built man followed close behind, his eyes opening wide with surprise before quickly narrowing again, concealing their bright blueness. ‘Not exactly the reception we’d hoped for, Hugh,’ he said quietly to the man with the reddening cheek, ‘but it’s an interesting start, eh?’

      Ebony heard none of this exchange as she took Biddie’s plump arms and shook her. ‘Where is he?’ she said, her voice on the edge of tears. ‘What have they done with him? And Meg?’

      Biddie’s mouth twisted. She was barely twenty years old, but dependable and devoted to Sam. ‘Nothing…I don’t think,’ she whispered. Her large liquid eyes glanced across at the door. ‘They took him into the courtyard. He’ll be all right, mistress.’

      But