Chapter 20
Dev waited until the two men stood before him.
The older one, a chestnut-haired man of perhaps thirty, wearing the garb of a peasant or cowherd, carried their white flag.
The younger—tawny headed, eighteen or so, dressed in similar style—had relinquished the Percy banner into Coll’s care at the door.
The lad stood beside his superior with one hand resting atop the other at his crotch.
Coll stayed by the door, armed with his dirk, but Dev could tell that the two nervous men before him wanted only to deliver their message.
“What message do you bring?” he asked the older one.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but who d’ye be? I were told to deliver me message to the Laird o’ Coklaw.”
“The current laird is nine years old,” Dev replied. “I am the Warden of Coklaw, acting in his stead, so you should deliver your message to me.”
“May I ken your name, sir, to tell my master?”
“Tell me yours first.”
“They do call me Jock o’ the Storm, and this be Bangtail Joey.”
“I’m Sir David Ormiston of Ormiston,” Dev said. “You rode here under Northumberland’s banner. Do you speak for his lordship?”
The younger lad’s hands clutched each other over his codpiece as though he feared for his manhood. Under the circumstances, though, Dev decided he’d be wise to deduce little from that.
“I do bring a message from Alnwick,” Jock o’ the Storm said steadily. “Ye may ken that our fourth King Henry gave all o’ the Douglas lands o’ Teviotdale to Northumberland as reward for his lordship’s victory at Homildon Hill.”
“I know that his lordship’s grandsire, the first earl, had the temerity to make such a claim twenty-five years ago,” Dev said. “He failed to take Teviotdale, though, and I doubt the current earl has enough power to do so. So, what is your purpose here?”
“To ask ye to confer wi’ the Douglas. Tell him our master means to ha’ what is his and would parley wi’ him. Our master will accept payment instead o’ land, but if ye dinna agree to one or t’other, we’ll besiege Coklaw again.”
“So I am to be your messenger, am I? Art too cowardly to ride two miles more to Hawick? Unless his grace has summoned the Douglas elsewhere, he is currently staying at the Black Tower. Did you not know that when you came here?”
The two men looked at each other. Then Jock o’ the Storm looked Dev in the eye and said, “I did ken that, sir. But a Scots town be a gey dangerous place for an Englishman. If that be cowardice, so be it. Will ye take our message to Douglas?”
“I will not. Between them, as you must know, Buccleuch and Douglas can raise ten thousand men in a sennight. Your master would be lucky to raise half as many.”
The older man shrugged. “We had over twenty thousand at Homildon.”
Dev held his gaze but did not bother to comment. Jock o’ the Storm was too young to have aided in the Scottish defeat at Homildon Hill. Moreover, the current earl, Hotspur’s son, was a mere shadow of his father or grandfather.
“Be that your final answer?” Jock o’ the Storm asked quietly.
“It is,” Dev said. “Your white flag will provide safe-conduct back across the line, but I’d advise you to travel swiftly. Keep heading due south and stay clear of Hermitage. Its constable, as you doubtless know, takes a dark view of Englishmen in Liddesdale.”
“Aye, we’ll keep clear,” Jock said. “But ye’d be wise to heed me warning, too, that trouble will follow this refusal o’ yours.”
“Leave now, whilst you can,” Dev said, adding a chill to his voice.
“Aye, then, sir, we’re awa’.”
Leaving Coll, Sandy, and Jock Cranston to see the two outside the gate and away, Dev decided to attend to his ever defiant, yet ever intriguing wife.
“D’ye ken who that were?” Bangtail Joey demanded when they were clear of the gate and trotting their ponies southwestward toward the cut. “That were Devil Ormiston! Ye were daft to threaten him, Chukk.”
“He’s a man like any other man,” Chukk said, although he knew better.
“They dinna call him Devil Ormiston for nowt,” Joey said testily. “Ye told ’im me right name, too, and gave a false one for yerself. Why did ye no call me summat else, too? Answer me that!”
“I didna say ye were a Graham, did I?” Chukk snapped. “I’ll wager there be any number o’ Bangtails this side o’ the line, just as there be south of it.”
Joey grimaced but said no more, and the silence continued for a mile or more before Chukk said, “He didna recognize either o’ us. That be a good thing.”
“What d’ye mean?” Joey asked. “How would he recognize us?”
“I thought ye’d recall him from that fracas near Chesters some weeks back,” Chukk said. “That Ormiston chap were wi’ the reckless one that the earl’s Simon killed wi’ his lance. That dead one, they said, were the new Laird o’ Gledstanes.”
“Aye, well, Himself did tell us to make mischief hereabouts, but I hope it doesna rain again,” Joey muttered. “I were a-hoping ye’d take us home soon.”
“We need more mischief than a few raids, Joey. You hie yourself back to the lads and find us a new place to shelter, mayhap where we camped at Easter near Langside. Ormiston’s men may scour the hills this side o’ Slitrig Water, to be sure we’ve gone.”
“What be ye a-doing, then?”
“I’ll be a wandering shepherd again,” Chukk said. “I’ve a wee notion under me cantle,” he added, patting the top of his head. “But I must hone it some, so I’ll think whilst I wander. Meet me in yon lamb’s cut early tomorrow—alone. I’ll ken more by then about what I mean to do.”
Robina heard Dev’s footsteps mounting the stairway, but the sampler wanted to tilt. Drawing a breath to steady herself, she adjusted its frame again and stepped hastily down from the stool.
“He’s on the landing!”
Ignoring Rab, she went to the north window and looked out at the hillside behind the castle just as the privy-stairs door opened in the corner behind her.
Dev was silent, so Robina stayed as she was.
If she looked at him, he might see her guilt, and she was sure that he’d be angry with her for spying on him through the squint.
But Coklaw was her home, and she had every right to know when someone threatened it.
Dev might be the one in charge now, but she would not let him set her aside altogether.
“Are you going to look at me, Robby, or are you going to sulk?”
She turned then but chose to address a point just above his head and said as calmly as she could, “I’m not sulking. Are you going to tell me what they said?”
“Do I need to?”
She looked right at him then but his gaze was steady, his face expressionless. She had discerned no anger in his tone and saw nothing of his mood now, either.
Even so, his question could mean only one thing.
“You know about the squint.” In the ominous silence that followed, her stomach clenched and her palms dampened with sweat.
“Coll found it straightaway,” Dev said. “We are well acquainted with lairds’ squints, lass.
They are especially common here in the Borders, where a man knows that a visitor from another clan may be friendly one day and an enemy the next.
If he can leave such visitors to entertain themselves long enough to judge how they behave and what they say, he may spare himself much trouble. ”
“I expect you knew I would watch, then,” she said.
“The truth is that I wondered if you knew about the squint. You did not tell me about it. Nor did Greenlaw or anyone else.”
“Greenlaw knows,” she said. “I don’t know who else does.
Father showed it to Rab and me years ago.
” Remembering, she swallowed hard. “He said we both needed to know of it, in the event that something happened to him. He… he also told us what he’d do if he learned that one of us had spied on him or his guests. ”
Dev shook his head. “If you’re feeling guilty, sweetheart, you need not. I didn’t give that squint another thought until Coll brought those men into the chamber. Perhaps I should have remembered it when you submitted so quickly.”
“You were angry with me then. I did not want to make you angrier, but…”
“… you wanted to know what was happening,” he said, finishing her sentence with alarming ease. “I’ll admit that your defiance irked me, lass, but you have as much right as I do to use the laird’s squint. Does Benjy know about it?”
Surprised, she said, “I doubt it. I did not tell him, but Rab might have.” Falling silent, she listened for Rab’s voice, expecting—nay, hoping, he would tell her whether he had or had not.
“How old were you and Rab when your father told you?” Dev asked her.
“I don’t remember exactly, but…” She thought. “It was not long after Mam died, because Benjy was a wee bairn. We were ten then, I think, mayhap eleven.”
“So your father wanted to be sure that others in the family knew of the squint. And Benjy is the rightful laird now. Moreover, he does not seem to engage much in idle talk.”
“That’s true; he doesn’t,” Robina said. “In fact, I was going to ask you to speak to Ash about repeating things that Benjy says to him.”
He nodded. “I’ll have Coll talk to him. Ash is a good lad, so a hint will be enough. Did you or Rab ever tell anyone else about the squint or use it yourselves?”
She smiled guiltily as she shook her head. “We both knew that Father would react much as I expected you might today. Besides,” she added, “it was a trust that he placed in us. We felt important, knowing his secret and keeping it.”
He nodded. “Our squint at Ormiston overlooks the great hall. It is no great secret, though, because the hole cuts down through a niche in the stairway wall.”
She had naught to say to that, but he continued to look at her as if he waited for her to speak. If it was right for her to know about the squint, he was not awaiting an apology. Once again, though, his expression remained inscrutable.
“You’re sure that you’re not angry with me?” she said, eyeing him closely.
“I’m sure,” he said. “Don’t defy me like that again, though. I don’t usually react so kindly to such defiance.”