Chapter Eleven #2
'We have not done this before,' Father continued, 'because we have lacked the manpower. We have two hundred riders in the Lethan; the Veitches have three hundred. If we faced them in open battle, they would outnumber us.'
The assembly was silent again. They knew these facts, of course, but hearing them was always sobering.
'I was as aware of the numbers as you are,' Father spoke more quietly now, 'so I cast a wide net to look for allies and distant kinsmen.'
That got my interest. The old Border worked on the kin system.
Family was second only to business. Men and women felt strong attachment to family, and blood and loyalty could be fierce unless cattle were involved.
I had thought the Tweedies were a close-knit family; I was not aware that we had kin outside the Lethan Valley.
'Let me introduce you to one of them.' Father nodded to Willie Telfer at the door. 'Right, Willie; bring him in.'
When Willie opened the door and a man stepped in, a buzz ran around the great hall. I watched in astonishment as the Yorling, resplendent in his bright yellow jack and with his spurs rattling, stepped across the stone flags.
I stood up, reaching for some sort of weapon, as a score of men did the same. I searched for Robert's gaze, hoping to reassure him that I believed in him despite his discomfiture at the hands of this lithe young man.
There was a smile on the face of the Yorling as he joined us at the top table. He gave a small bow to Mother, and a deeper bow to me.
'I am glad to see you alive and well, My Lady Jean,' he said quietly as the assembly broke into a hundred questions.
I responded with stiff formality. 'Sir,' I said, with the briefest of curtseys.
Father banged his fist on the table for silence, causing great dents in the pine for which Mother would undoubtedly later take him to task.
'Most of you have heard of the Yorling.' Father had to raise his voice and repeat himself until the hubbub died down. 'Well; I have a small admission to make.'
As the Yorling stood beside Father, I drew in my breath sharply. I had always been aware that I felt a bond to the Yorling; despite his actions, I had known that I was never in any real danger from him. Now I guessed why.
I looked toward Mother and felt her hand slide around mine. 'Mother…' I said.
'Yes, Jeannie,' she whispered. 'I already know.'
I squeezed my mother's hand in sympathy and support.
'Some of you may have guessed the truth,' Father said. 'In my youth, before I met my lady wife, I was a roving blade.'
Most of the men laughed at that, digging each other in the ribs and guffawing their masculine approval. Oh, our Tweedie men loved to think of themselves as men's men, reiving and raiding for women as well as cattle, although in slightly different ways. I hoped.
'In these old days, I roved around the Debateable Land and had a name and reputation. I wore a yellow jack most remarkably like this one and men knew me as the Yorling.'
That name caused a hush to fall on the gathering. Everybody had heard of the Yorling as the leader of an outlaw band decades before. Now they knew that my Father, Tweedie of the Lethan, had been that man. I am sure their opinion of him multiplied. I am not sure that I shared their adulation.
'This bold young callant took on my mantle.' Father tapped the Yorling's shoulder. 'This is George, now known as George Graham from his mother's side, or the Yorling. He is my son; born out of wedlock so not able to inherit my lands, but Tweedie by blood.'
I had guessed that truth and now I looked on the face of the half-brother I had not known that I possessed. He looked at me along the length of the table.
'Will you forgive me, my sister?' His smile was as wide as ever although there was genuine concern in his smokey eyes. 'You were never in danger.'
'I always knew that,' I said truthfully, 'but why did you do it?'
As he opened his mouth to talk, Father started again. 'Now you see why the time is right to rid us of the plague of the Veitches. George—the Yorling—will add his band of twenty riders to our strength and our combined force will sweep the Veitches from their land of Faladale!'
The gathering were on their feet, clapping hands and stamping feet, hammering the tables with fists, tankards, and the pommels of daggers as they agreed full-heartedly with Father's ideas.
Oh, Father was clever. He had used his youthful faults as a tool to give the valley exactly what they wanted. Now nobody could accuse him of anything except being a vibrant youth, a man with the Tweedie Passion, which all knew about and nobody would gainsay.
'Mother…' I leaned closer to her, embarrassed that her husband's philandering should be so publicly revealed.
Mother shook her head. 'We are all Tweedies now,' she said softly and stood up.
'I wish to speak!' Mother said, and silence fell on the gathering as men and the few women waited to hear what the Lady Lethan had to say about her husband's bastard son.
'George!' Mother said loudly. 'Welcome to our surname, our valley, and our family!'
She sat down again as the great hall erupted in a huge roar of approval and probably relief.
All knew that my mother was a formidable woman, well able to take care of herself verbally and physically.
Now they had heard her formally accept the issue of Father's pre-marital loins into her household there was no reason for any other to take issue.
George Graham, the Yorling, was accepted as part of the Tweedies of Lethan Valley.
'Now the Veitches will pay the reckoning in full, and we shall sign the deeds of their repentance in red ink and with a sharp quill!
' Father said as the gathering roared approval of bloodshed, violence, and death.
I slipped away with my head confused and my eyes stinging with hot tears. I was not sure why.