Blythe Gifford - His Border Bride

She turned her horse around, motioning to Angus and Euphemia to follow her. The morning’s warmth had ebbed, and a chilly mist huddled in the valley and obscured the hills, reminding her of the dangers that lurked all around. The Inglis army might be far away, but the Inglis border was not.

That was her last thought before he rose out of the fog, a golden man on a black horse, like a spirit emerging from the mist.

A man without a banner.

A man without allegiance.

The hound barked, once, then growled, as if cowed.

The man’s eyes grabbed hers. Blue they were, shading as a sky does in summer from pale to deepest azure. And behind the blue, something hot, like the sun.

Like fire.

Any words she might have said stuck in her throat.

Next to her, Euphemia gasped, then giggled. ‘Where are you going, good sir?’

Clare glared at her. The girl was hopeless. They’d be lucky to get her married before she was with child.

‘Anywhere that will have me,’ he answered Euphemia, but his eyes touched Clare.

Her cheeks burned.

Beside her, young Angus drew his dagger, the only weapon he was allowed. ‘I will defend the ladies.’

‘I’m sure you will.’ The stranger’s smile, slow, insolent, was at odds with the intensity in his eyes. ‘That’s a handsome dirk and I’m sure you could wield it well against me, but I would ask that you not harm my horse.’

His tone was oddly gentle. Where was his own squire? ‘Who’s with you?’

‘No one.’

‘A dangerous practice.’ Did he lie? An army could hide behind him in this mist. Her fault. She had ridden out alone and unarmed and put them all at risk. ‘Don’t you know Edward’s army still rides?’

He frowned. ‘Do they?’

His accent confused her. It held the burr of the land closer to the sea, but there was something else about it, difficult to place. Yet over the hill, in the next valley, each family’s speech was different. He might be a Robson from the other side of the hill, scouting for one last raid before the spring, or loyal to one of the Teviotdale men who had thrown their lot in with Edward. ‘You’re not an Inglisman, are you?’

‘I have blood as Scots as yours.’

‘And how do you know how Scots my blood is?’

‘By the way you asked the question.’

Did her speech sound so provincial to Alain? She winced. She wanted to impress the visiting French knight, not embarrass him. ‘What’s your name, Scotsman?’

‘Gavin.’ He paused. ‘Gavin Fitzjohn.’

Some John’s bastard, then. Even a bastard bore his father’s arms, but this man carried no clue to his birth. No device on his shield, no surcoat. Just that unkempt armour that, without a squire’s care, had darkened with rust spots.

No arms, no squire. Not of birth noble enough for true knighthood, then.

‘Are you a renegade?’ On her wrist, Wee One bated, wings flapping wildly. Clare touched her fingers to the bird’s soft breast feathers, seeking to calm them both.

His slow smile never wavered. ‘Just a tired and hungry man who needs a friendly bed.’ His eyes travelled over her, as if he were wondering how friendly her bed might be.

‘Well, you’ll not find one with us.’

‘I didn’t ask. Yet.’

Did he think she’d offer to be his bedmate? She should not be talking to such a man at all. ‘Well, if you do, I’ll say you nae.’

‘I don’t ask before I know whether I’m speaking to a friend or an enemy.’

‘And I don’t answer before I know the same.’ Her voice had a wobble she had not intended.

‘Are you a woman with enemies?’

‘Three kings claim this land. We have more enemies than friends.’

‘Aye,’ he said, nodding, a frown carving lines in his face. He flexed his hand as if it itched to reach for his sword. ‘Who are yours?’

Her eyes clashed with his. She should have asked him first. Where was his loyalty? To the de Baliol pretender, recently dethroned? To David the Bruce, still held for ransom by the Inglis Edward? Perhaps he had lied about his blood and was Edward’s man himself.

Next to her, the young girl sighed. ‘This is Mistress Clare and I’m Euphemia and I have nae enemies.’

‘Euphemia!’ Was she batting her lashes? Yes, she was. ‘Do you want us to be killed?’

‘He wouldn’t do that. A knight is sworn to protect ladies, aren’t you?’ She fluttered her eyelashes at him again, then turned to Clare. ‘Don’t treat him as an unfriend.’

‘If I do, it’s because I have a brain in my head.’

If she kicked the horse into a gallop, could she outrun the man? Not with Angus and Euphemia in tow and Wee One on her wrist.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘He looks like a dangerous ruffian, not a knight. He carries no markings and he’s wearing dirty armour with rust spots!’ The man, if he knew the maxims of chivalry, cared little for them.

Euphemia shrugged and turned to the man. ‘You’re not dangerous and dirty, are you?’

Something darkened his face before a smile waved it away. ‘Well, that may depend on how you mean the words, but I’d say Mistress Clare has a gift for judging character.’

He said it with no sense of outrage. No knight would allow his honour to be so challenged. Certainly Alain, epitome of French chivalry, would never let such a slight pass.

‘On whose lands do I ride, Mistress Euphemia?’ he asked.

‘Not Mistress. Just Euphemia,’ Clare said, refusing to elaborate. Disgrace enough that her father had shamed her dead mother by taking up with the widow Murine. Worse that he’d treated another man’s by-blow as his daughter. ‘And you’re on Carr lands.’

‘Held of who?’

‘Douglas,’ she answered. There, that declared their loyalties, but if she hadn’t told him, the girl would have.

She thought his shoulders relaxed, but she must have been mistaken. ‘It’s difficult not to be on Douglas lands in the Middle March, isn’t it?’ His slow nod revealed nothing of his thoughts. ‘Are you loyal to the Bruce?’

‘You ask that when the heart of a Bruce adorns Lord Douglas’s shield?’ In her surprise, her tongue forgot its courtly inflection. ‘Are ye daft?’

‘Nae, but Carr men have been known to lapse in loyalty to an absent king.’

King David the Bruce had been England’s captive for half her life, it seemed. In his absence, a Douglas and a Steward ruled Scotland in his name. ‘Does that make you an enemy of Douglas and Carr, Gavin Fitzjohn?’

‘Not as long as they are no enemy of mine.’

His eyes met hers and they took each other’s measure in silence. On the Border, an allegiance could be as strong as the relentless wind. And as variable.

‘See, Clare? He’s no enemy and we should all go home. I, for one, am chilled to the skin and ready to sit by the fire.’ Euphemia kicked her horse into a trot and the stranger fell in behind her.

Clare handed Wee One to Angus, then hurried to catch up, letting the squire and the hound follow.

She brought her horse beside Euphemia and the stranger dropped further back, complimenting young Angus on his mount.

‘You’re leading him straight home!’

Euphemia shrugged. ‘Why are you so worried? There’s one of him and three of us.’

‘And he’s the only one carrying a sword.’

A few men still manned the tower, but if he was scouting for raiders, they were leading him straight to what he wanted. Still, she would feel safer, she decided, home in the castle, where he would be outnumbered by her men-at-arms.

At the silence, the stranger moved closer. ‘Angus tells me your falcon killed three today that were twice her size. That’s a bird with courage.’

‘Well that you say so.’ Euphemia smiled. ‘Wee One is Clare’s favourite.’