Chapter 16 #2
McBain approached and returned the papers to Ruark, once again bound in red ribbon. “I do no’ think ’tis right ye sending me away,” he groused. “Ye may have need of another sword.”
“If we do, one more will make no difference.”
Ruark told him it was time to take Rose and leave. “Tell Colum he is not to allow her from his sight. Now go.”
Watching him hurry away, Ruark shoved the papers in his shirt.
“I’m tellin’ ye it makes no sense,” Angus said a moment later, coming along beside him and riding a large black barb. “Duncan . . . he’d no’ turn from a fight. Not this fight.”
A breeze stirred the grass. The morning sky had begun to lighten and as the last shining star in the northern sky faded, Ruark’s gaze slipped past the stone walls overgrown with larkspur, beyond the chapel to the stables, where dozens had followed his lead and mounted.
He rode his horse to the highest point overlooking the river, where the men began to line both banks, their accoutrements winking in the sunlight.
Firelight dotted the landscape, and in the awakening light of dawn, he saw Jamie across the river.
The boy sat on a roan next to Hereford’s large barb.
It was the first time Ruark had ever glimpsed his younger brother. His hair was not dark, like Ruark’s or their father’s as he’d expected, but the bright blond color of Julia’s. He was not large, but fine boned.
Loki restlessly curveted beneath Ruark.
“He looks well,” someone beside him remarked, swinging the glass in his hands and noting that Rufus and Gavin did not look nearly as pampered, but at least they were walking on their own volition as they were led from a tent.
Their long tangled hair looked as if it had not seen a comb in months.
They wore no boots. Their trews, and what once had been white homespun shirts, were torn and ragged beneath old plaid rags.
Then they raised their chained hands and a cheer suddenly went up in the crowd, followed by another that began farther down the river near the watch.
Like everyone else, Ruark turned his head and looked west. A low grumble strengthened in the earth beneath him, the thunder growing louder as a line of mounted men roared over the distant hill.
Four hundred men exploded into view and across the rise. They were a wild-looking bunch, bearded, hair long and unkempt, fearless, enough to dampen the enthusiasm of even the most confident enemy.
Duncan rode at its head. Seeing Ruark, he broke ranks and turned his horse up the hill to where Ruark reined Loki around to meet him.
Raucous cheers continued to greet the newcomers as they jostled for space beside those already lining the riverbank.
Heckles and jeers on the other side followed and soon swords were raised as taunts were lobbed from both sides.
This went on up and down the river for as long as it took Duncan’s men to move their lathered horses into place.
Loki, perhaps sensing Ruark’s mood, sidled away as Duncan’s arrival was met with jovial backslapping by those on the hill.
Duncan looked at Ruark. Scraping a hand across his bearded jaw, he leaned slightly in the saddle.
“Sorry we are late, nephew. Nothing occurred while I was gone?” His gaze swept the gathering troops across the river.
“I would hate to have missed the excitement.”
Showing yesterday when expected would not have had the same dramatic effect on the clan and its foes as his arrival this morning.
No doubt, Duncan preferred the more substantial role as this day’s hero, especially considering the part he’d played bringing about these events in the first place.
In some way, whether advertent or not, he had played a part in all the events, including yesterday’s events that led up to Ruark’s marriage to Rose.
Had Duncan arrived as planned, the proceedings might not have progressed as far as they had, and Rose might not now be his wife.
But the effect of Duncan’s arrival on morale was palpable.
“Your presence is welcomed, Duncan,” Ruark said.
It seemed appropriate that he should smile.
The first time Rose heard the raucous voices raised in cheer had been shortly after the carriage left the market square north of the abbey.
The coach had not stopped but continued to careen over cobbled streets as if the devil himself were on their tails.
But now the black coach came to a grating standstill in the middle of an ill-maintained road five miles outside Jedburgh.
In the silence that followed their unexpected halt, Rose heard the faint crack of musket fire.
She moved aside the heavy curtain and peered outside, unable to see any part of the outskirts of the town through the dull gray mists.
McBain climbed down from the coachmen’s roost to join Colum, who had dismounted and walked off the road away from the clank and creak of the coach as it settled.
The ten outriders, the coachmen, Rose, and Anaya all bent their attention apprehensively toward the sounds floating faintly across the valley on the awakening breeze.
Without waiting for the step to be lowered, she swept aside her heavy skirt and exited the coach to go and stand beside McBain.
“Were those shots fired?” Rose asked, hoping he would tell her this was a positive sign that everything had gone to plan and not the bloodcurdling sounds that preceded battle and the spilling of blood.
Anaya was leaning her head out the window. “Aye, mum,” she said.
McBain exchanged a telling glance with Colum that she did not understand. “Does this mean the trade is completed?” Rose asked.
The fact that no one could answer her only added fuel to an already heated temper.
Then Colum pointed his finger. Rose followed his gaze.
She felt the low reverberations beneath her feet just as she watched riders materialize from the mists.
They were miles away and would pass them at a distance.
But the sight was impressive as the mass continued to grow into hundreds strung out along the rustic river valley, high spirits all.
She would not have wanted to be in their path.
“Duncan must have arrived with the men just after we left,” Colum said.
“Aye, he’ll fancy himself the hero this day to be sure,” McBain replied.
Rose cared little who was the hero this day as the thunder of their passing faded, leaving only a handful of slower riders, their horses following at an unhurried lope as if they knew the others would have to eventually slow.
Halfway across the valley they stopped and seemed to look in Rose’s direction.
One rider broke away and turned his horse toward her.
She did not have to recognize Loki’s deep red coat to recognize his rider.
She started to follow Colum and McBain down the rocky incline to meet him, but he was not looking at her as he reined in the horse in front of the two men. Dust darkened his handsome countenance.
“Is the boy well?” McBain asked cautiously.
“Aye, he will do fine for now. He has gone on ahead with Duncan.”
“You would let Duncan arrive at Stonehaven in your stead?” McBain asked. Again, Rose was reminded of the earlier look he had exchanged with Colum.
Ruark laughed. Leaning forward with one forearm on his thigh, he said, “ ’Tis a day’s ride to Stonehaven. I have no doubt I will catch up to him in a few hours.”
Then his head lifted and his eyes found her. She was standing some distance away. But not so far that she couldn’t hear every word he spoke or feel his gaze touch her. “Would you care to join me, Lady Roxburghe?”
Indeed, she had more than earned her place to ride to Stonehaven at his side.