Page 25 of The Guardian’s Bride (Highland Secrets #3)

W eary, sick, and frightened, Rowena hardly remembered sailing over the firth, the sleeping potion strong enough to keep her dozing fitfully. By the time she felt more alert hours later, the galley was sliding into a busy port beneath a castle that overlooked the horseshoe curve of a broad river. Berwick-upon-Tweed, she heard someone say. There were several men on the galley—Malise, Hugo, Abernethy, soldiers, oarsmen.

Where were they taking her? Berwick was just above England, and three hours or more from Fife, but she had hardly been aware of the time that had fled past.

Aedan! Colban! Where were they, what had happened? She vaguely remembered being in the church at Dunfermline, and remembered Colban running out, and Hugo approaching her. But she had lost the rest. Confused, she looked about, relieved to see that Aedan and Colban were not on the galley with the others. Setting a hand to her chest, she felt the crystal, safe on the silver chain Aedan had given her.

She felt sick and dizzy, and leaned back, her hair blowing about in the sea breezes. Then Malise approached, taking her arm without a word to march her down an angled platform to the stone quay. Glad to be off the boat, she soon quailed as she realized he was leading her to yet another boat, a smaller one. She dragged back.

“Do you need another dose of Hugo’s tincture? Do as you are told,” he said.

She did, knowing his threats were real. Soon several men joined Malise, and the oarsman began to pull the smaller longship out into the river.

Sir Peter Abernethy had guided her to a cross-board and sat beside her. “This is the River Tweed. Up there is Berwick Castle.” He pointed to a castle on a hill overlooking the waterway. Then, with a curt apology, he tugged at the knotted ropes around her wrists to make them secure. She leaned back against the stern of the boat and he tucked her cloak around her. He stood.

“Do you want some ale?” he asked.

“Please.” Her mouth was dry, her voice hoarse. “Where are we going?”

“Carlisle Castle. The king wants to see you.”

“But he is at Lanercost,” she protested.

“Not any longer.” He turned to leave.

“Sir Peter—did Colban get away?”

“That wee lad! I decided not to look for him.”

“Thank you,” she said, realizing he had let him go. He nodded and walked away.

She closed her eyes, unsure what would come next. If Edward wanted to see her, suspecting she tried to assassinate him, he might be angry enough to declare some awful fate for her. She thought of the Scotswomen in cages and shuddered.

And she knew that Carlisle Castle, Edward’s stronghold on the border between England and Scotland, was just a few miles from Lanercost Priory where the king had set up his household. She had heard that Scottish captives disappeared into Carlisle forever.

Lifting her hands, wrists joined by the damp knotted rope, she pushed her bedraggled hair out of her eyes as Sir Peter returned.

“My lady.” He handed her a wooden cup that she took awkwardly. Thirsty, she drank, finding the frothy ale refreshing at first. But it had a bitter aftertaste; the stuff they called the Great Rest had been added. She dumped it out.

“Tell Brother Hugo not again,” she said. “I know the taste.”

She noticed the monk standing nearby with Sir Malise and knew they could hear her in the smaller longship. Hugo shrugged innocently and turned his back.

Though she had sipped only a little, she felt the effects again. Thankful she had not downed the whole of it, she leaned her head against the rise of the stern, dizzy again.

Soon Malise came toward her. “Brother Hugo says he just wanted to ease your suffering on the journey, since you were so sick on the galley. So you should be grateful.”

“I was sick?” She did not remember that. But she noticed that her blue gown had some messy streaks—and she saw similar stains on Malise’s surcoat. She smiled.

“I do not travel well on water.”

“Wish I had known that,” he snapped.

“So do I. You would have left me in Dunfermline.”

“You would have come with us if we had to drag you over land. Boats are faster. We will reach Carlisle tonight and you will face the king.”

“What will he do?”

“He will not be interested in your troubles.” He sat beside her. “Listen. Edward wants you brought to him. Aye, there is a charge against you, but if you agree to certain things, I can still help you.”

She did not answer. The boat was skimming fast, and she felt the sickness begin again. She gulped fresh air to delay it.

“Give me your promise, and all this will be gone.”

“I am not a fool.” She slid him a glance.

“You are foolish to refuse a marriage that would solve your problems.” He lifted her hand to examine the gold band and let go. “You escaped with MacDuff because there has always been something between you.”

“That is not your concern.” She turned a shoulder to him.

“He puts you in jeopardy with the king. Pledge to me instead so I can help you. Otherwise, you take unnecessary risks.”

“I do not take risks.” But she had done so with Aedan, and would never regret it.

“Once Edward learns the name of your betrothed, you will have signed MacDuff’s death warrant. And there is the other matter.”

She did not look at him. “What other matter?”

“Have you gathered the Rhymer’s things to relinquish to Edward, as ordered?”

Feeling an urge to touch the silver chain at her neck, she kept still. “I have not been to Kincraig since Edward made that petulant demand.”

“Soldiers will be sent there to take those things. It will not go well for your kin.”

“You want those things as badly as Edward does. But they will not benefit you.”

“A king’s writ is a serious thing.”

“Edward’s writs can be ignored on Scottish soil. They are not legal.”

“Are you a legal mind now, not just an herb-wife and silly female?”

“One of my sisters recently married a justiciar. Ask him what is legal in your actions here.”

“Well then. A legal marriage would benefit both of us. Brother Hugo can take care of that on this very boat. That would cancel your promise to MacDuff.”

“You are persistent, I credit you that.” She swept her hair back in the breeze.

He stood. “We will be on this river for a while, then we will ride the rest of the way. You have a little time to think it over.”

“I have done enough thinking.” The words brought Aedan to mind so keenly that tears pooled in her eyes. She blinked them away, and rested her head back, feeling again a heavy, unnatural urge to sleep.

When she woke, she heard Malise and Abernethy talking nearby. Straining to hear, she kept her eyes closed.

“Still following us? Good! But they cannot be allowed to sail too close. Not yet.”

“How do we prevent that?” Abernethy asked. “They have been behind us all the way, and now they are sailing the river too. They could be on us if we do not hurry.”

“Find a way to stall them if they get too close. They must not catch us until we reach Carlisle. Then we catch them.” Malise turned. “Ah, Lady Rowena. Good news!”

She stared up at him. “News?”

“Your lover is on our tail. Look there.” He pointed behind them on the river.

Aedan? She struggled to sit up and look. The light was fading toward dusk, glinting on the water. Blinking, she saw the shape of a longship well behind them.

She thought it looked like Lauder’s longship, but she could not be sure. “That could be any ship on this river.”

“That one has been behind us steadily since Fife.” He smiled. “I told you I would set a trap for MacDuff. And you are the bait.”

Brian Lauder’s longship, propelled by a full complement of oarsmen and a billowed sail, was fast, but the larger galley had cut powerfully through the water all the way from Fife. The English ship was a misty, distant sight when the angle of sea and coastline allowed, but Aedan had not lost sight of it.

He stood in the bow watching, determined. No matter how much distance the other ship had on them, he had no room in head or heart for defeat. He felt grim, flat, all trace of humor lost. Malise had grabbed his son, who thankfully got away. He had taken his wife—she was that to him now.

Aedan would catch him. He saw no other course but that.

Brian joined Aedan then. “They have pulled into the harbor at Berwick—you saw that. And they are far ahead to catch on water, but we can keep them in sight and follow wherever they take her.”

“Aye, but where the devil is that?”

“To King Edward, most likely. Patrick says he recently heard Edward has gone to Carlisle. A long way for a day’s journey, but it could be where they are headed.”

“Could be.” Aedan thought again of the difficulty Rowena had while traveling on water. The thought brought a new ache of worry and stoked a fire of anger in his blood. He clenched his fists and watched the sea. They had been on the water three hours now, and he had kept a keen eye on the distant form of the English ship.

As the galley turned into the water at Berwick-upon-Tweed, the northernmost port on the English coast, Brian’s longship followed. The crew navigated the curving port and the water flowing around fingers of land as they entered the River Tweed. Soon enough, they saw the galley—docked and empty but for some crewmen and soldiers.

Brian sent men to inquire; they returned to say the English lord from the galley had hired a smaller boat to head down the river as far as Kelso, where they planned to change to horses. The riverman did not know their destination, but he confirmed that a woman was with them.

“She looked ill, we heard,” the crewman reported. “They half-carried her into the smaller vessel. The riverman noticed, finding it odd.”

Aedan turned away, mastered fury, turned back. “We follow,” he told Brian and Patrick. “If they sail, we sail. If they take horses, so do we. I will not give this up.”

“Nor will we,” Patrick said.

“My longship can sail the Tweed for a long way before the waters become too narrow to allow it,” Brian said. “We will catch them.”

The oarsmen bent to the task as the ship skimmed along the river in the gathering twilight, proceeding more slowly than on the open waters of the sea.

Before they left Berwick, Aedan looked up at the castle in the purpling dusk. His niece Isabella was trapped there in a horrible iron cage—he had intended to visit her somehow but fate had intervened. He did not see a cage along the profile on the high parapet as they passed beneath the castle.

At Selkirk, just before he was ambushed and taken to Yester, the guardians of Scotland had word that Isabella was removed daily from the cage to sit in a chamber with a servant woman, then returned to her cruel confinement. He could only pray that Isabella had some small moments of comfort.

Near Kelso, the waterway became a challenge even for their sleek longship. Lashing in at a riverside dock, they heard that a group of Edward’s knights, a monk, and a woman had docked and hired horses and a cart to head west for Carlisle. Hearing that, Patrick hired horses in the town—making sure to charge the cost to the English Crown, as his sheriff’s rank permitted—and they took to the road too.

When Rowena woke again, she was in a haycart drawn by a horse, surrounded by Malise, Peter, and guards on horseback. Not certain how she got there, she was glad when they drew into the yard of an inn. The light was leaving the sky. Twilight was late in summer, and though they had been traveling for hours, the lavender light would last until nearly midnight. Tired and hungry, she thanked Sir Peter when he lifted her out of the cart. Without a word, he handed her over to a large woman who came out of the inn.

“Ropes? Is she a criminal?” the woman said.

“Not your business to ask,” Abernethy said.

“Fine. I want no trouble here. But she is a woman and no matter what she has done, she has likely had enough of men for a while. Give her to me.”

Not long after, refreshed a little, Rowena was back in the cart. Riding beside the cart, Malise spoke to Abernethy, and hooted, a pleased sound that startled her.

“Aye, sir, they are still following,” Abernethy said. “Far off. On horses now.”

So Aedan was still on their tail, Rowena thought. Thank the saints he and the others had not lost the route in the change from water to land. He had not given up—and she knew with every fiber of her being that he would never give up looking for her. He was a guardian, a protector to his bones. And he loved her.

Knowing that filled her with hope, with love, and with fear.

As the cart rolled on, each turn of the wheels rumbled his name. Aedan, Aedan, Aedan MacDuff. Stay safe, she thought. And keep away. But she knew he would not.

Finally, as twilight darkened to indigo sparkling with stars, the silhouette of Carlisle Castle loomed. The escort rolled through the gate, though Rowena was left to wait under guard while Malise disappeared into the keep, asking for the captain of the castle. The effects of the potion were clearing, but she felt dull-witted and just sat.

Malise returned to beckon to Abernethy. “The king is not here. They say he headed out, intending to invade Scotland again. He felt strong enough to don his armor and ride a horse, determined to lead his army in battle. Insistent, they said.”

“Where is he now?” Peter asked.

“The royal camp is a few miles north, near the border of Scotland,” Malise said. “Hurry. Those rogues cannot find us until I can introduce them to King Edward.”

Tents and torches stretched through the darkness as Rowena walked with Malise, Peter, Hugo and a few men into the royal camp a few hours later. They had left horses and cart with the king’s guards once Malise showed permission to enter, signed by the lieutenant of Carlisle.

Unsteady on her feet, wrists still confined, Rowena felt Abernethy’s guiding hand on her arm. Ahead, Malise Comyn stopped to talk with a few men—lords by the look of them, in fine tunics over shining mail, with gold chains and even fur-lined cloaks; although the summer days now flowed into July, the evenings were cool.

She shivered a little as she and Abernethy waited for Comyn. Then he and Sir Peter took her along a path to a cluster of small tents on the edge of the field near a woodland. Along the way, she noticed Malise’s pronounced limp after the ordeal of travel. She frowned, wondering then if he resented that she had not cured it entirely.

A woman came toward them, tall and tough-looking, wiping her hands on her apron, a kerchief pinned on her head. “It is late, Sir Malise. Who is this chit?” She tipped her head toward Rowena. “A lady by the look of her, and no whore.”

“A lady to you, Dame Bessie. She will stay in your tent. A guard will sit outside for the night.”

“Guarded?” Bessie scrutinized her. “She looks poorly. Is that your doing, sir?”

Rowena blinked, pleased that Dame Bessie took a dim view of Malise.

“No one mistreated her,” he said, though Rowena gave a doubtful huff. “She has had a long journey today,” he continued. “We all have. She will stay here. In the morning, she is to be brought before the king. So clean her up.”

“I want extra coin for this favor. Something is not right here and I want naught to do with it.” The woman took Rowena’s arm. “Audience with the king, hey? Then she is no whore. The king is too weak to crawl out of bed, let alone—”

“Just do what you are told,” Malise snapped.

In the tent, the woman cut the rope from Rowena’s wrists, muttering, then gave her a cloth, a bowl of water, and a corner for privacy. Undressing to her shift, Rowena washed while Bessie shook out her clothing to refresh it.

“Sit there and let me comb the tangles from your hair.” She began to glide an ivory comb through Rowena’s long hair in a surprisingly soothing manner. “Braided or brushed loose? Combed out, it is lovely. Are you wed, do you need a kerchief?”

“Braided. I—am betrothed.” She gazed at her hand, where Aedan’s gold ring glinted in the candlelight. She was a widow—and now a wife again. But she could not admit that, or soon be widowed again.

“What a pretty chain. What kind of stone is on it? It sparkles.”

Rowena set a hand over her chest, realizing that the Rhymer’s crystal, twinkling in the candlelight, was noticeable through her shift. “Just a trinket.”

“Why does the king want to see you? There are no other ladies in this camp. I hear his young queen may arrive with her ladies, but I have not seen them yet.”

“I am a healer,” Rowena said. “Perhaps he wants to see me for that reason.”

“He needs healing, that one! I only see him from a distance. I do the laundry and some chores in camp and rarely go to the royal tents. But he is weak, anyone can see it. Yet he comes out here to stir war with the Scots, even in his condition. I hope you can help him, lady.”

Then no rumor of poisoning had reached the washer-woman’s ears, or she would have said. Nodding, silent, Rowena wondered if she had been summoned to help—or to be reprimanded and unjustly sentenced despite her innocence.

Again, she thought of Aedan as she had done so often that awful day. Where was he? Had he followed them to the royal camp by now? Would he keep away and stay safe, or would he try to rescue her and step into danger?

She remembered Malise’s chilling words. I set a trap, and you are the bait.

Inconstant moonlight made the way more difficult to follow, but Aedan and the others made progress, sighting the other group now and then—distant moving shadows on the road or the crest of a hill, too far to catch but near enough to see. At a tavern, they learned their quarry had stopped there too and had moved on, perhaps an hour or more. Lingering long enough for ale, water, bread, and wedges of yellow cheese, Aedan and the others took to the road again.

He was deeply grateful for the help of friends who neither complained nor questioned their mission that night. Without sharing his thoughts with them, he was by turns terrified, furious, heartbroken, and determined. He sensed they felt the same.

The cadence of compline bells tolled in the air from some monastery in the hills. Aedan knew that marked the hour of prayers before bed for those monks, and he was grateful for some sense of the time. Riding on, they stopped in a woodland grove to share what remained of the bread and cheese, then rode a little farther until Carlisle Castle was visible in the distance, a powerful fortress on a high round hill overlooking a river that gleamed in the darkness.

They rested in forestland within sight of the castle gates, choosing a spot where they would not be seen. Then, exhausted, they rolled up in plaids and dozed for a little while, taking turns to keep watch. The hired horses, quiet and robust with strong hearts and much patience, slept too.