The Brunson Clan

The Tait girl was already moving among the pots, toting a sack of flour, measuring it out to start baking bread. When Stella walked in, she looked up, her gaze sullen. ‘Why are you here?’

‘To see if we can put some decent food on the table.’

A belligerent pout took over the girl’s face. ‘Nothing wrong with the food.’

‘Except that it’s barely edible.’

‘You think it’s so bad?’ The girl set the sack down and crossed her arms. ‘Cook it yourself, then.’

Stella bit her lip and swallowed. If the girl left her alone here, they would all starve. ‘I thought you might need help.’

‘From a Storwick?’ The girl waved her hands in the air. ‘Like you helped with this?’

She looked around the rebuilt kitchen, suddenly noticing the charred floor and the misshapen, half-melted pots. Her people had done this with their torches.

Well, it was no worse than the damage from the flaming brands the Brunsons had lobbed into her home, but bringing a blood feud into the kitchen would not fill her stomach. ‘I’m surprised they make you do all this alone.’

The girl’s shoulders suddenly sagged, weary. ‘I make better ale than bread.’

Another blot on Rob Brunson’s shield. This was a woman half-grown, no longer a girl, but not old enough to shoulder all this. Had he no better thought than to make this lass responsible for the whole household?

Not a thought to be shared. ‘And the head man? He has no wife?’ She had seen no sign he was married, but her breath seemed to pause, waiting for the answer.

The girl shook her head. ‘He’s not one for women.’

Stella was not surprised. Women would not have much time for that growling beast, either.

‘And are there no Brunson women to help?’

‘The mother is dead these two years. The head man’s sister moved off to marry that Carwell.’ She sniffed, as if she liked the Scottish Warden little better than Stella herself did. ‘Johnnie and his bride are building their own tower.’ She shook her head and leaned forwards. ‘And Johnnie’s Cate isn’t much for cooking.’

Well, there was nothing for it. She’d have to do with what she’d been given. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Beggy.’

‘Well, Beggy, I’ll tell you a secret. I’m not much for cooking either.’ A child saved by God’s hand was, in her family’s opinion, destined for more important things than brewing and broiling. She gave the girl’s stiff shoulders a squeeze and stood. ‘But you and I are going to see if we can make something fit to eat.’

‘In that?’ The girl looked at her, eyes wide. ‘That’s fine as a feast gown.’

She looked down and sighed. Her wool skirt was stained already. And she knew little more of washing than cooking. ‘Is there an apron?’

Beggy pointed. ‘One that needs washing.’

Better than none at all. She tied it on and turned back her sleeves. ‘Now, where’s the salt?’

‘Burnt.’ She rummaged on a shelf and held up a small sack. ‘This is all that’s left.’

When she was taken, she had worried about what the Brunsons might do to her. She had never thought that the blows her family had struck against the Brunsons would now fall on her as well.

More lightly, of course. What was a shortage of salt, after all?

‘Well, we’ll add spices then.’

The girl looked at her, blankly. ‘We ran out before Candlemass.’

‘Lamb?’

‘A little. Too soon for most.’

‘Something from the garden?’

Beggy shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

Stella looked around the kitchen. ‘Is there nothing left?’

‘Carrots. But the laird won’t eat them.’

‘He won’t? Well, then, I guess he’ll go hungry.’

See how he liked it.

Johnnie and Cate arrived near midday. While Cate went to feed her slobbering beast of a hound, Rob and John retreated to the laird’s private meeting room and Rob told him about the Storwick woman.

When the tale was done, John lifted his brows, doubtful. ‘The King has already named us outlaws. And now we hold an English woman?’ He shook his head. ‘It won’t go well.’

Could Johnnie never just accept his leadership? Rob had wanted agreement, not arguments. He had argued enough with himself already.

‘You, of all people, should understand.’ Because of Cate, Johnnie had more reason to hate the Storwicks than any of them.

But Willie Storwick was dead now, and much of Johnnie’s anger had died with him. ‘Carwell has stretched the law by holding Storwick without trial. When they discover you’ve got the woman, they’ll ride again.’

‘Let them come.’

Johnnie shook his head. ‘You’ve barely finished rebuilding from the last raid.’

‘Rebuilt stronger.’ He had higher walls. And doubled the watchers in the hills. They would not be surprised again.

‘That won’t protect us against King James.’

‘King James! King Henry! This side of the border or the other, I care nothing for a man I’ve never seen.’

Now he saw the worry in Johnnie’s eyes. ‘I’ve seen him. Bessie barely escaped from him.’

He shook off the guilt. Bessie had insisted she be the Brunson to plead their case to the King. For all the good it did them. Or the King. ‘He has no sway with me.’

‘Maybe not, but he’s put a price on our heads.’

His brother had come home from court, yes. But he still did not fully understand life here and what a leader must do to protect the family. To survive. Rob did.

‘And much has come of that, as you see.’ He spat in disgust. ‘Who’s to fear him? He’s barely more than a bairn. Doesn’t dare come himself.’

‘He will, Rob. I know him. He will.’ John grabbed his arm and shook it. ‘He burned a man at the stake in St Andrew’s.’

Rob couldn’t stop the shiver. A man should die on his pony, fighting. Not burned. Not hanged.

And not in his bed, as his father had.

‘Can you not just agree with me for once?’

His brother sat back, and crossed his arms, as if knowing further argument would be futile. ‘What are you going to do with her, then?’

‘Hold her here. And if they try to take Hobbes Storwick from Carwell …’ He left the threat unsaid. Couldn’t bring himself to say he’d kill a woman.

Storwicks wouldn’t know that, though. They’d done worse.

Johnnie looked at him, sharply. ‘Take Storwick? From a moated castle? Impossible.’

‘I’d expect you to try. If I were the one held.’

Silence. Then a sigh. ‘Aye. I would.’

Rob nodded, relieved. It was their own kind of truce.

‘Do they know yet that you have her?’

‘It’s been a day. Two. They know she’s gone.’ A missing daughter. They’d worry, not knowing whether she had fallen into a ravine, drowned in the river … He steeled his heart.

She was safe and better treated than she’d a right to be, but he was surprised to have seen no signs of a search.

‘Well, you can’t send a message to Bewcastle.’

He sighed. ‘Carwell must do it.’

His stubborn sister had been betrothed to the Scottish Warden at the King’s command. Then she had defied her brother to marry the man.

Thomas Carwell had managed to dance on the edge of the Border Laws he was paid to enforce and still not infuriate King James. At least, not until he ignored the King’s order that he bring the Brunsons to Edinburgh for hanging.

But still, the King had not removed the man from his office. Not yet, anyway.

‘He’s still the Scottish Warden. He can send an official message through the English Warden.’

‘Who’s no friend of any of us since we violated the new treaty. He’s not going to like it.’

‘Neither do I.’ You never knew with Carwell. Reiver one day. English collaborator the next. Agent of the King the day after that. ‘What’s to keep him from tattling to the King about it?’

‘Bessie.’

He sighed. For all that she was a woman, his sister was steadier than most lasses. He certainly missed having her about the tower. He was not a man who craved comfort, but without her, there had been no one to keep the kettle full and stuff fresh feathers into the mattress.

He wondered what the Storwick woman was doing in the kitchen. Probably scheming to poison him.

‘Well, I’ve saddled myself with the woman. And if they don’t know I hold her, it’s for naught. Would you go to Carwell Castle to tell him?’

‘You’ll not go?’

He shook his head. He had not spoken to the man since the Storwick raid. Nor to his sister Bessie. He was not ready to start now. ‘Not the time to leave the tower undefended.’

Johnnie eyed him for a moment. ‘We could take the girl with us. Give her to Carwell for keeping. She’ll be surrounded by a moat and out of your hands.’

‘And held beside her father. Together, the two of them would make an irresistible target.’ Based on Stella’s questions, they did not know where Hobbes Storwick was held. That could not last for ever. ‘If I hold her here, she protects our tower and makes them think before they ride to Carwell Castle.’

To protect the tower. No other reason he was keeping the woman. In truth, he’d as soon be rid of her and her haughty air.

Johnnie rose. ‘We’ll leave tomorrow. Cate will be happy to see Bessie again.’ He paused, waiting.

Rob averted his eyes.

‘I’ll tell her,’ his brother said, finally, ‘that you asked of her.’

‘Tell her I asked for her recipe for lamb stew.’

Family was all. Protecting it, not loving it.

Love made you weak.

The thought of Bessie’s stew reminded him that the Storwick woman was in the kitchen and he crossed the courtyard to see how she fared. Drizzle had dissolved yesterday’s sun, along with his good mood, and he began to doubt that today’s meal would be any more edible than yesterday’s.

At the kitchen door, he stopped.

The room—pots, hearth and floor—was white as if a snowstorm had hit.

And in the midst of it, the Storwick woman clutched an empty sack of flour.

Both women turned to him.

‘Take her away,’ Beggy shrieked, when she saw him. ‘I’d rather cook alone.’

Stella blinked. Rapidly.

Mercy. He had no patience for crying females.

He stepped into the room, sending a puff of flour over his boot. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘First, she let the stew burn. Now, she’s spilled half our flour!’ Beggy’s voice danced on the edge of a scream. ‘Get her out of here.’

He took Stella’s arm, but she looked back at Beggy. ‘I should help you clean …’

‘No! Don’t help,’ the girl said. ‘Or there’ll be nothing left to eat.’

He pulled Stella out of the kitchen and into the courtyard. ‘Did you plan to starve us all?’

‘I do not cook at home.’

He stared. All women cooked. Didn’t they? ‘You were the one who complained of the food!’ Criticising the lack of foolish luxuries, of no importance to anyone except to her. ‘And you don’t even cook?’

‘I didn’t think it would be so hard.’

‘For most women, it isn’t.’

‘Then why don’t you marry a woman who can cook?’

Her words hit as hard as horse’s hooves on rock. ‘And why don’t you marry a husband who’ll keep you from roaming the Borders alone?’

She licked her lips, crossed her arms, lifted her chin, all as if to fill the space where there should have been words. But flour still clung to her sleeves and her apron and her shoes and he couldn’t help but think she looked ridiculous instead of haughty.

‘I will,’ she said, finally. ‘Soon. Someone worthy. Special.’

Special. She said the word as if to insult him. ‘Who is special enough for you?’ The words curdled on his tongue. Why even ask? He didn’t care. Not really.

‘No one you would know. No one the least bit like you.’ She turned away, as if she could choose to end the conversation. ‘And no one who would interest you.’

Suddenly he wanted to know who would possess this infuriating woman. ‘He interests me if he will ride to rescue you. Or if he won’t ride as long as I keep you.’

She looked back at him, eyes wide, as if both ideas were new to her. He was not skilled with women, but this one was hiding something.

‘Then you will have to wonder at it, won’t you?’

And he did wonder. She was more than of an age to marry and more than passable to look on. Why was she not yet wed?

And as he looked at her, trailing white dust from her apron, he was also wondering why he had ever thought taking Stella Storwick was a good idea.

Stella kept her fists tight and her chin high, but her smile stiffened.

He would have to wonder because there was no one. Not yet.

There would be. Some day. It was hard to find the person good enough to join with a child saved by God.

‘Well,’ he said, a touch of pride in his voice, ‘the woman who marries a head man must be special, too.’

Relieved at the shift from her imaginary husband to his imaginary wife, she rolled her eyes heavenwards. ‘The woman who marries you will have to have very special patience.’

‘The man who marries you will have to be a saint.’

A saint. Yes. That’s exactly the kind of man her parents were looking for.

Her stomach growled, loud enough that Rob looked down. ‘Next time, eat what’s put before you.’

‘Next time, put something before me I can eat.’ And dinner would be worse, now that she had singed the stew.

‘Brunsons don’t whine about food.’ He took her arm and pushed her ahead of him. ‘I should not have let you out at all.’

She looked towards the gate. He must not lock her in the tower again.

‘There ought to be salmon now,’ she said, dragging her feet. Liddel Water was just beyond the gate. Air without walls, a chance to explore, even to escape …

He had retreated to silence and did not glance at her.

She tried again. ‘Are you not a fishing man, then?’

Now he looked insulted.

‘Ah, I can see that you are not. Because you are such a fighting man.’ Maybe she could goad him into it. ‘Well, the man who leads the Storwicks provides for their bellies as well as for their protection.’

‘We have cattle and sheep to fill our bellies.’

She raised her brows. Her belly, certainly, had not been filled. ‘Do you not like fish?’

He paused, as if he were trying to remember the taste. ‘I like it well enough.’

‘Then why don’t you serve it?’

‘Not enough salmon to fish.’

‘I ate a plateful, only last week. There’s plenty of salmon.’

‘Plenty for Storwicks because your kind has blocked the cursed stream and the salmon can’t get up this far.’

The thought gave her pause. She had known, of course, that her family had built traps that allowed them to feast on fish, but she had never thought about what that would mean for the families who lived upstream.

‘Well, we’ll have to catch the few there are, won’t we?’

‘Do ye know any more of fishing than of cooking?’

What she knew about fishing wouldn’t fill a leather thimble. But it could not be so hard. Neither was cooking. If the Tait girl had not made her nervous, if there had been unburnt salt … ‘I know enough.’

He leaned away so he could meet her eyes. ‘Do you, now? Do you know how to build a garth?’

‘A what?’

‘A garth. A weir, I think you call it.’

‘Ah, yes.’ She knew the word. It was some kind of construction of sticks that the fish could swim into, but not out of. And she had never touched one in her life.

‘Or perhaps the Storwicks spear the fish by torchlight and slaughter them for sport. That would suit your style.’

Had they? Perhaps. They did not tell her all. ‘What we don’t eat isn’t wasted. There’s plenty who will pay for good fish.’

‘Is that how you pay for those clothes, then?’

She looked down. ‘Clothes?’ She looked down at her dress, now covered with flour outside the apron’s reach. She might have brushed away the flour dust, but now the mist was turning it into white mud.

‘You’ve got sleeves big enough to drag across the table and you’re wearing a gold cross fine enough for some king’s spawn.’

Without thinking, she touched the cross at her neck. The women of Brunson Tower wore coarse wool, laced vests and tight sleeves, as did most of the women in her home. But her parents had always made sure she had something better. ‘A gift. From my parents.’

‘Stolen, no doubt.’

‘You say that because that’s what fills your house.’

They faced each other with stubborn frowns, but there was no answer either could give. Reivers on both sides of the border lived that way.

‘There’s no disgrace in that,’ he said, finally. ‘The disgrace is in what else some men do.’

She knew the man he meant. Cousin Willie had been a disgrace to them all. Her father had even disowned him, but somehow the man had become a symbol, a pawn that the English king and warden had blown all out of proportion, leading to raids and treaties and kidnappings, all because of a man hated by his own kin.

Had the Brunsons killed him? Probably.

Was the world better off with him dead? No doubt. But she would not admit that to Rob Brunson.

She drew herself up to her princess height. ‘If you are unable, or unwilling, to provide good fresh fish for your table, then say so and I’ll go hungry. Don’t mock my clothes or insult my family instead.’

Shock. Anger. A clenched fist and jaw and a face as grim as the bare hills in winter. Would his anger be enough for him to let her out of the tower?

‘Ye want fish. We’ll get fish. But you’ll be the one to do it. And I warn you, you and your clothes will be wet and bedraggled before we’re through.’

And she couldn’t hold back a smile. Because she was sure his would be the same.

Chapter Four

Cate told Rob she couldn’t bear to set eyes on a Storwick, so Rob kept Stella in her room until Johnnie and Cate rode west the next morning.

Now, he was left alone with her and with the promise he’d made. He could not force her into the stream wearing a flour-covered dress, so he persuaded a few of the women to loan her skirt, shirt and vest. Stella emerged from the room looking at once like all the other women he knew and nothing like them at all.

Breasts he had barely noticed beneath her own gown now seemed proudly outlined above the Widow Gregor’s second-best vest. Beggy Tait’s skirt was too short for her, which meant a glimpse of bare ankle. Even the sharp angles of her face seemed softened when she wore ordinary clothes.

But her expression was not.

And still, hanging around her neck was that golden cross, studded with some green stone and with a fleck of flour stuck in the delicate wire. Something finer than he or his father had seen in a lifetime. Her family must have lifted it off the very queen.

But why did she wear it? If Storwick had sold it, his clan could have feasted until the end of days.

Apparently oblivious to the glory around her neck, Stella held out folded fabric, dusted with white. ‘I will leave this with the laundress.’

Well, new clothes had taken no edge off her sense of privilege. His anger was exhausted. Now, he was simply baffled. She was no dullard, yet still she surveyed the tower as if she owned it instead of he. ‘Do you not yet understand that you are the prisoner here?’

‘And do you not understand that I am …?’ She let go the rest of the words and her arms, holding the dress, drooped.

‘What?’

She shook her head, for once, holding back words.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t. Just who are you to think yourself entitled to treatment I wouldn’t give the King himself?’

Chastened eyes met his. ‘I am a hostage for the good behaviour of the rest of my clan.’

He didn’t believe she meant a bit of it.

She turned back to the room. ‘I’ll leave the dress on the bed.’

‘Do you know anything more of washing than cooking?’

She looked up, then let her eyes drop as she shook her head.

He sighed. If they didn’t clean her dress, she’d have to be garbed in borrowed clothes the others could ill afford to lend. ‘Bring it. Widow Gregor does some washing.’

They stopped at the Gregor hut and the Widow’s eyes went wide, as if the green dress were as precious as the necklace. ‘I’ll do my best, but I don’t know, I’ve never …’

Beside him, Stella waved her hand, as if the dress were of no importance. As if she had hundreds more like it at home.

Wat trailed after them as they left, watching Stella with the same worshipful gaze that used to follow Rob.

Truth was, the boy’s adoration had never been comfortable for him. It held expectations Rob wasn’t sure any man could meet. But he had grown accustomed to it. And it made no sense for the boy to waste his admiration on Stella Storwick.

Wat looked at Rob and smiled. ‘She’s a very pretty dragon.’

Eyes wide, Stella glanced up at Rob, making no apparent effort to hide a smile before she turned to the lad. ‘Why, thank you, Wat.’

‘Go back, boy,’ Rob snarled.

She took the boy’s hand and pulled him closer. ‘The fault is not his.’

That, he knew. He’d like to make it hers, but that would be a lie. ‘We don’t need him with us.’

Her hand touched Wat’s shoulder. ‘He’ll do no harm.’

‘Nor any good, either.’ The boy had few uses. Simple tasks, sometimes, he could do.

‘Of course he can,’ she said, looking at the boy as if he were more than a halfwit. ‘Can’t you, Wat?’

Wat nodded.

‘He’ll agree with anything you say,’ Rob said. Or he used to. Before this woman arrived and the boy developed his own opinions about dragons.

‘But you told me,’ she began, words and eyes sending a warning, ‘that he would be good help with whatever we needed.’ She hugged the boy closer, as if he were a shield, and the child turned his worshipful gaze back to Rob.

He shook his head. The woman might not be able to cook or wash, but she could manoeuvre this boy as skilfully as he deployed men in battle. And, in the process, she gave him no choice but to be cruel or to allow the lad to come.

He crouched before the boy. ‘So you want to fish, do you?’

Wat nodded.

‘Then come along.’ Under the boy’s watchful eyes, he would have to throttle his words. And his temper. Which was, of course, exactly what the woman had intended.

But she was looking at Wat and tugging his hand to draw his attention back to her. ‘You must stay close to me and not go too far into the water. I must bring you safely back to your mother.’

But Wat, excited, wiggled like a pup and tugged at Stella’s hand, trying to hurry her towards the stream.

‘Go, then,’ Stella said. Wat took off running. ‘But don’t go in the water!’

Suddenly alone with her again, Rob missed the boy’s protection. ‘Well, he’s with us. What would you have him do?’

‘He can carry the fish.’

Rob threw Stella a warning look. ‘If we ever catch one.’

Despite her warning, Wat did not wait at the water’s edge, but ran in, stomping and splashing and throwing water in the air.

Stella ran, but Rob was faster. He scooped the wet, wriggling boy from the water and stood him back on the bank. ‘Did you think to scare the fish out of the water? If there was a fish there before, he’s swum for his life now.’

Wat cringed and Rob realised how harsh he must have sounded.

Stella knelt before the boy and hugged him. ‘I told you not to go in yet.’

Wat looked from one to the other and shrugged off her arms, as if bracing for a blow. ‘My fault.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Rob agreed sharply.

Her arms took the boy again and now she was the shield between them. ‘Do not blame him. He’s a …’ She paused, as if not wanting the boy to hear her insult.

‘He’s a fool.’

‘He’s a child, not a man.’

‘On this side of the border, he is a man. Or should be.’ Poor weak creature. Like the baby lamb, destined for an early death.