Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

“What is it, child?” she asked when she reached the girl. “What’s wrong?”

“There are men coming, Auntie, from over there, beyond the hill.”

“From the west? From Annandale? How many?”

“I don’t know. They are too far away to count, but they’re coming.”

“Show me.”

The girl turned and started to run up the hill, and Jessie stretched out her pace to keep up with her, remembering when she, too, had been able to treat steep hillsides as though they were flat ground, but she was concerned about who might be coming her way from the west. The Annan lands had belonged to the King’s father, Robert Bruce of Annandale, but they, like her own Nithsdale, had always been a major invasion route from the south, and during the wars of the previous few years they had become sparsely populated as the local people fled into the safety of the higher hills to avoid being harried by the ever-present English. The vales of Annan and Nith, with the rest of Scotland’s south, had both been burned bare many times in the previous decade in order to deny sustenance to King Edward’s armies.

She breasted the top of the hill eventually to find the children hopping up and down with excitement as they jabbered and pointed into the distance. Jessie, fighting for breath, held up her hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the sinking sun ahead of her. The light was fierce, but her eyes adjusted quickly, showing her the unmistakable reflection of light on weapons, armor, and saddlery. They were still more than three miles away, she guessed, not yet having passed the distinctive stone outcrop known locally as the Leopard, which reared up two and a half miles from where she stood. She was aware of Marjorie close beside her, craning on tiptoes as she tried to see all that she could.

“Your eyes are better than mine, child. Can you see how many there are?”

“No, Auntie, but there’s a lot of blue among them.”

Jessie could see no blue, but she did not question the girl’s assertion. The men were coming from Annandale, Bruce country, and James Douglas’s colors were blue and white—Douglas, whom the King himself had appointed governor of all the south mere months before. Her mind went at once to what she was wearing. Her scandalous suit was no fitting garb in which to receive the King’s young envoy. She spun suddenly, grasping her ward by the shoulder.

“It is Sir James Douglas, here on the King’s affairs. I must run back to the house and dress to receive him. I leave it to you to round up all the others and bring them back safely. Can you do that?”

“Of course, Auntie.” Marjorie Bruce swung away and began calling to the other children, but Jessie was already striding off, her crossbow balanced on one shoulder as her long legs bore her effortlessly down the slope towards the cluster of houses less than half a mile away.

She was half undressed by the time she entered her own house, but fortunately no one was around to see her remarkable condition. Calling loudly for her companion Marie as she swept inside, she pulled the cloth bag from its resting place between her breasts and dropped it on the table just inside the door of her own room before unlacing the bindings at the front of her leather breeches, pushing them down over her hips, and stepping out of them. The open tunic fell beside them, and she grasped the edges of her undertunic and pulled it swiftly over her head. Then she crossed naked, except for her high boots, to the large French armoire that held most of her more formal clothing.

There were few dresses there to choose from, so her selection did not take long, and before long she was standing erect, tapping her foot impatiently as Marie fussed with the lacings of the bodice of the rich green dress. It was a magnificent gown, as out of place among the women of Nithsdale as a preening peacock would be among a local flock of geese, but it set off her eyes and her hair wondrously well, as she had been told by many an ardent admirer, and she knew it would have the required effect on the King’s young warden.

“Your hair, madam,” Marie said, concern in her voice. “It needs … something.”

“Then do something. But be quick. Our guests will be here at any moment.”

During the few minutes that she knew Marie would require to pin up her hair into something resembling what she thought a lady’s hair ought to look like, Jessie eyed the cloth bag containing the letter. It was a very special bag, although no one else ever glanced twice at it. But it was his, made from the kerchief he had pulled from within his tunic to wrap the gift he had sent to his sister. Jessie remembered taking it from him, remembered the feel of it in her fingers, warm as it was with the heat of his body and scented, as she discovered moments after leaving his tent, with the clean, intimate odor of his skin. She had delivered the gift to Peggy Sinclair, and taken joy in Peggy’s pleasure at receiving it, but she had kept the kerchief, sniffing at it fondly from time to time when she was alone—and foolishly, she sometimes told herself—long after the faint, lingering odor of his presence had faded and died. But she could not bring herself to part with it, and so she had sewn it into a rectangular bag, a reticule that she used to contain the things that were essential to her every day … her combs; her sachet of rose petals and dried lavender; her needles and fine thread, carefully protected in a tiny etui of flat, polished ebony from some exotic land; a palm-sized mirror of polished silver in a velvet bag; and now the daring letter that broke her promise not to disturb his peace once she had returned to Nithsdale.

“There, madam. It is finished. No one would ever know it newly done. But the boots …”

“The boots are very comfortable. No one will see them.”

Jessie stood up, taking the metal hand mirror that Marie offered. She checked her reflection once, briefly, then nodded her thanks. “You are a miracle, Marie. Now, my reticule from over there, if you please, and we may go and greet our guests.”

TWO

The leading group of the visiting moss-troopers—the garron-mounted raiding Scots horsemen of the long-disputed border country between Scotland and England—was clattering into the courtyard of the farmhouse as Jessie reached the front door, and she had no trouble finding a smile with which to welcome King Robert’s dashing young lieutenant. James Douglas saw her immediately as he cantered into the yard, and he grinned, whipping off his bonnet with its blackcock feather and bowing from the saddle.

“Lady Jessica!” he shouted. “Seldom has weary traveler ever beheld such a wondrous sight as you present there in your doorway.” He prodded his horse forward until it could approach no closer, then slipped from its back and took her proffered hand in his own, bowing over it. “My lady, you must pardon my arrival unannounced, but I had little choice. We chanced across some Englishry two days ago and they outnumbered us heavily, so we chose to run and hide.” He smiled as he said that, but Jessie knew he was quite serious. King Robert had expressly forbidden his commanders to engage the enemy in anything resembling formal battle—a directive, logical and judicious though it was, that did not sit well with many of his staunchest commanders. Among those, young Douglas was the ablest and the most fiery, so she could guess at what it had cost Sir James to run away, as he put it.

She looked him in the eye and nodded. “Then you are welcome here, my lord of Douglas. Are they far behind you?”

“The English?” He laughed. “No, my lady, they are miles away, seeking us in some distant part of Galloway. We gave them the slip easily, left them slaistering through dub and mire last night and heading westward while we doubled back and came this way. I wouldna bring them howling here to bother you. But I have brought another to amuse you … one I picked up last month.”