Blythe Gifford - Return of the Border Warrior

He wandered the kitchen, for there was nary a stool to sit on, wondering how to broach the subject of Cate. Finally, inspecting a large hanging carcass of beef as if to give it his approval, he glanced over at her, as if the thought had just occurred to him. ‘That’s a great beast she has, that Cate.’

‘She’s always with him. Close as some are to their kin.’

Closer than others. ‘So she lost her family, then.’

‘Aye.’ She did not look up from shaping a loaf.

‘Was she so …’ What word would capture it? ‘Bloodthirsty?’ Aye, there was the word, though it did not match the woman with fear in her eyes. ‘Even before?’

Before what? Her father’s death or something else?

Bessie was slow to answer. ‘Have you ever known a Borderer who was not?’ she said finally.

No. He had not.

Then why had he thought he could turn her from her own vengeance to young James’s? Now that he was here, he remembered what his years with the king had erased.

An eye for an eye .

It was the only Bible verse his father ever knew.

‘He always hoped you would come home, you know.’ She said it as if she had followed his thoughts.

He shook his head, fighting the longing her words evoked. Only Bessie would think so. A woman could weave entire cloth out of words a man never spoke.

It was too late for peace with his father. And now, Rob was head of the family, as he had been destined since birth. There was no place for John here, being beholden to his brother while they both tried to wrest a living from the same, stingy earth.

Maybe that was why his father had sent him away.

‘You and Rob are not comfortable, are you?’

He started, wondering for a moment whether she really were fey. Quiet, watchful, she had always had a way of reading people, of knowing the things that went unsaid, especially the ones you wanted to hide.

But then, Rob hadn’t bothered to hide his disdain.

‘We’re different, Rob and I.’

‘He’s alone now, Johnnie.’

The thought surprised him. He had assumed his brother knew his place and embraced it. Yet his father and Rob had been the pair, even when Rob was growing. His father had spent hours with his first born, teaching him to ride, to fight, to follow the trails when the moon was dark. Showing him the best places to hide the cattle. Telling him how to deal with a headstrong follower. Neither spoke much. A nod. A shrug. A grunt. These communicated as much as words for a talking man.

A good thing, since both of them had rust in their throats.

And in a battle, he had no doubt, they would have fought with one mind, finishing each other’s thrusts without needing to confer.

And now, Rob sat alone.

Well, that hadn’t sent him to Johnnie’s side, but it explained why he seemed frozen between John and Cate’s tug of war.

A sudden vision stunned him. ‘Does Rob plan to marry?’

A sigh. ‘Marry who?’

‘Cate Gilnock.’ Did every conversation lead to her? He paced abruptly, bumped his head against a hanging pot, then swatted it in irritation. That would explain Rob’s loyalty to her, even beyond that of kin. ‘They seem well matched.’

A slight smile touched Bessie’s lips, as if she were enjoying a joke he did not understand. ‘Too well. There’s no spark there, not the one that a man and woman feel.’

He ignored his relief. Then another thought nagged. ‘Is there someone for you?’ His little sister, grown now. Past time for her to find a husband. ‘Is that how you know about men and women?’

She finished shaping another loaf and lined it up beside the first. ‘I know,’ she said, stopping to face him, ‘because there is no one for me.’

He tried to remember the men who shook his hand yesterday. Fingerless Joe, Odd Jack, the rest. No, none of them would be good enough for her.

He faced Bessie’s future for the first time. What would happen to her? As her older brother, he had protected a shy, delicate, pliable sister. That was not the woman who faced him now. This woman had strength any man would be lucky to have beside him. Strength he had never seen in the women inside Stirling’s walls.

Strength like Cate Gilnock’s.

Unwelcome thought. ‘You could come back to court with me.’

‘Could I now?’ She put her hands on her hips and then presented her plain wool skirt as if to curtsy. ‘And wouldn’t I look so lovely meeting the king?’

‘We could find you something … else.’ What did he know of women’s clothes? How to take them off.

She dropped her skirts and returned to her bread. ‘You’ve a good heart, Johnnie Brunson. Don’t ever think you don’t.’

No. She was right. Court would welcome her no more than his family had welcomed him. The women in Stirling, perfumed and curled and expecting to be waited upon, would barely nod to her. Even the wench carrying the king’s bastard would mock Bessie Brunson, he feared.

‘And so does your brother,’ she said, bringing the talk back to a subject he’d hoped to avoid. ‘If you would give him a chance to show it.’

‘More than he’s given me.’ There seemed no truce between what he wanted and what Rob did.

But he had to find one—a truce with Cate and then with Rob—or he might never see Stirling again.

‘Why don’t you stay with us?’ she said, turning to face him. ‘Come home, Johnnie.’

‘My place is with the king.’ This was not his life. Hadn’t been for years.

‘He wants you to stay, you know.’

He searched her eyes, then shook his head. Only a sister’s foolish hopes. ‘No, he doesn’t.’

He started pacing, ducking the pots this time. He had not come home. And he had not come to the kitchen to talk to Bessie about Black Rob Brunson.

‘Cate says she wants to avenge her father. Is that all?’

‘Storwicks are no friends of ours,’ she said, sounding like the Borderer she was.

‘I mean to Cate. Is there something more?’

Bessie didn’t look up from the dough. ‘Why do you ask?’

Because of the fear she carries with her . Fear she seemed to be able to hide from the rest of them. Was it his to reveal? ‘Her eyes are … haunted.’

‘I thought you said she was bloodthirsty.’

‘Aye. That, as well.’ A contradiction. ‘That’s why I wonder—’

‘Don’t be asking me these questions,’ she said, and he saw a reflection of his mother’s expressions in her raised eyebrows. ‘Cate’s the one you must be asking.’

He sighed. He’d rather confront his surly brother than brave Cate’s knee again.

As he climbed the tower stairs, he heard raised voices in the hall.

‘Now! A raid in his honour. He would want it.’ One of the men. He could not tell which.

John hurried his steps. So soon, they returned to reiving. He heard a murmur, his brother’s steady voice, though he could not make out the words. Would Rob say yes or no?

‘There’s enough of us,’ someone else said. ‘We could go.’

‘The moon’s half-full.’ He could hear Rob clearly now. ‘The night still short.’

‘And our horses swift.’ Cate’s voice. ‘We could get to their tower and back before the dawn. And if Scarred Willie is there—’

As John reached the top of the stairs and entered the hall, he saw Rob surrounded. His brother’s face of strength had few differences from his face of grief, but John could see them. If Rob carried his grief into battle, the enemy would have an advantage.

‘Red Geordie is barely in the ground,’ John called out. ‘Can you not give him a moment’s peace?’

Rob, Cate and half a dozen of his men turned to look at him. Even the dog tilted his head, quizzically.

Cate scowled. ‘It was not peace your father wanted.’