Juliet Landon - The Widow's Bargain

Ebony turned her back on the two of them. ‘We’ve got to get him away from here,’ she said, keeping her voice low.

The large eyes swivelled in her direction at last. ‘Escape, you mean? Before they take Sam with them? Are they really going to do that?’

There was no question of telling either Biddie or Meg of the bargain. ‘Yes,’ Ebony said, looking away. ‘As soon as it gets dark, we have to take him down to the waterfall and into the boat. It was there this morning when Mistress Meg and I bathed.’

‘And what about Mistress Meg and Sir Joseph?’

‘They say we must take him. Both of them. If we go before dark, we chance being seen. If we delay, they may find the boat and take it away. It’s got to be tonight, Biddie. I have to go and help with Sir Joseph now, and you must go up, if they’ll let you, and gather together what Sam will need to keep warm, and some food. Hide it in the stair-passage so that we can collect it once we’re out of sight.’

Loyal to the roots of her hair, Biddie would never have questioned her mistress’s motives and, if she secretly wondered when Ebony had last shown a streak of indifference to Mistress Meg’s needs, she was hard-pressed to remember. After all, Sam’s safety came first, and time was not on the side of heroism. ‘If they take Sam,’ she said stoutly, ‘they’ll have to take me too. But I could go on my own, you know, and get help from further down the glen. They could be here by daybreak tomorrow.’

‘You can’t go in daylight, Biddie. You’d not stand a chance.’

Biddie pulled her wimple down, leaving it in white folds around her neck as a nest for her brown curls. ‘Not even if I take this off?’

‘No, love,’ Ebony smiled. ‘We cannot spare you.’

Bandaged around the laird’s wounds, the strips of torn linen sheeting did little for him except to make him more decent. As the task continued, Ebony’s conviction that she could not leave Meg one moment before she must increased with each passing hour. Meg had lost her mother and brother in the space of one year. Her father was strong but, even if he survived, would likely be disabled and she would be left behind at the castle with only a skeleton staff of household servants and no defence. Even her father’s retainers had been marched away, and though he and Meg had insisted and Meg had promised, Ebony knew that her premature departure would be heartless. She went about her business, saying nothing of her doubts, and Meg fell silent with foreboding.

There were other men who needed Ebony’s care, men whose injuries were too severe to make the journey with the others, and although she caught sight of Sir Alex on several occasions, she avoided his company at the mid-morning meal that was served later than usual. She, Sam and Biddie ate alone. She was torn by conflict and indecision, burdened by the price she had agreed to pay for a place at Sam’s side, yet telling herself that it was nothing compared to the thought of losing him. Women had done more than that in the past. Much more.

Usually loud with laughter and shouting, the crashing of doors and the excited baying of hounds, the castle was now eerily quiet under the new command of competent men formidable behind flint-hard expressions that watched from every vantage point, every door and arrow-slit window. Still puzzled by their restraint, she went from office to store, from treasury to muniment-room, from chapel to kitchen to stable to see what, if anything, they were preparing to take away on the morrow, but saw only the evidence of their thorough examinations, nothing of looting or destruction. It was as he had said: they were taking their time.

The situation showed no improvement on Sam’s noisy return to his mother and nurse after almost the whole day in Joshua’s care. He had, he told them in non-stop breathless chatter, been allowed to help the bowman to make him a small bow and then the fletcher to make him arrows. Then they had sat him upon Josh’s great horse while it was being groomed, and someone had fashioned a small sword for him to wave. None of which impressed his safety-conscious mother.

‘Have they no thought for the danger, for pity’s sake? What on earth are they thinking of?’ she scolded. ‘Is that their idea of how to look after a child of six? I should never have allowed him near them. Idiots!’ They were in the kitchen and heads had begun to turn at the unusual spectacle of Lady Ebony in a fret. ‘What would your Grandpa Moffat say to that, I wonder?’ she went on, preparing a dish of chicken pieces and cold stuffing for Meg and Brother Walter.

‘He’d say they were cloot-headed bastards, Mama,’ Sam chirped, helping himself to the crust of the bannock on the tray. ‘But Josh doesn’t have a cloth head. He’s nice.’

It was not so much the sentiments that Ebony deplored, but the fact that he was able to voice them with such pride in his vocabulary. Her eyes met Biddie’s in astonishment. ‘We have no way of knowing,’ she said in unmistakable reproof, ‘whether their parents were married or not, so it’s best not to use that word until we can be sure, Sam Moffat.’

Unabashed, Sam broke another piece off the bannock and popped it into his mouth. ‘Will they tell us, then?’

‘Probably not. And it would not be polite to ask them. Now, leave that alone. You’ve had your supper. Come with me upstairs.’

‘May I not go and see Grandpa and Aunt Meg now?’

‘Not at the moment. He’s sleeping. Biddie will take this to Aunt Meg.’ Sam was hauled away, protesting, but still full of excitement about the usually banned activities he had shared with the men, an enthusiasm his protective mother could not recall him ever showing in Sir Joseph’s forbidding company. He was also utterly exhausted and, by the time they had reached the upper chamber, his remaining energy took him only as far as the bed where he flopped, one gangling arm and one leg barely making it to the surface.

Ebony sat by him, holding back the natural impulse to undress him and tuck him into the bed where he slept with her and Biddie each night. He would need to be dressed if they were to go within hours. ‘Sam,’ she said, stroking his soft hair. Sleepily, he crawled over the coverlet and snuggled into her embrace and, while she deliberated what to tell him or indeed whether she could bring herself to leave Meg in such a sorry plight, his eyes closed, the light began to fade, and it was time to light the candles.

Her torment was resolved as Biddie reappeared. ‘Biddie,’ she said. ‘We’re not going.’

The young nursemaid looked as if she had mis-heard. ‘Not…?’ she said.

‘Not,’ said Ebony. ‘I can’t leave Meg tonight. It wouldn’t be right. She needs us.’

Biddie came further into the room and sat on a stool by the side of the chest from which their clothes had been taken. ‘But they’re to take you and Sam tomorrow, anyway,’ she said. ‘Aren’t they? And didn’t Mistress Meg say you should make a run for it? You’re thinking it’s too dangerous?’

‘It’s not the danger, Biddie. It’s Meg, mostly.’

‘Mostly.’ The maid recognised uncertainty as well as anyone. ‘And Sam?’ she said.

‘Well, look at him. We’ll never get him moving again after the day he’s had. He went out like a light with not even a story to soothe him.’ Sam had not moved, his long slender legs dangling like ropes off her lap, his little toes pointing inwards, his thumb nowhere near his mouth, so far.

‘But the bag of food and clothes is on the stairway to the kitchen-garden door,’ said Biddie. ‘I hid it behind the empty baskets. If you’re sure we’re not going, I’d better go and bring it back before anyone finds it. Besides, we’ll need it for tomorrow.’

‘I think it’s for the best. And when Sam’s in bed, I’ll go down and tell Meg we’re staying. She’s as exhausted as the rest of us, poor lass. Light some candles before you go.’ Ebony looked down at her sleeping child, sure that she had done the right thing, but aware of some uncertainty about the reasons she had given to her maid. Were there others that she could not interpret? Was her decision entirely unselfish? Did it matter, after all?