Chapter Two

Sparks spiralled into the night sky like tiny insects lit from within, only to shrivel and curl to black in the wind ripping across the moors. Several cottages were ablaze, sending a wall of heat onto Jasper’s face, their roofs taking fire with the cackle of a witches’ coven. A rumble of thunder overhead reached into his heart and twisted it as he surveyed the bodies lying in the grass and mud. In the half-light, the blood on their clothes seemed almost black. It unsettled him and brought bile to his throat. Jasper had seen death many times, but this was a slaughter of innocents, and the reivers had not just attacked the men of Dungarnon defending their herd from pillage. They had killed women and children, too.

A line had been crossed, a challenge thrown down that he would have to face. Reiving was one thing - a way of life in the Marches. But this scorched earth slaughter was quite another, and it demanded retribution.

‘Tis a bad business, Laird,’ said his clansman, Randel. ‘To butcher the little ones, womenfolk too. ‘Tis not reiving, ‘tis war.’

‘If it’s war they want, they shall have it.’ Jasper spat to rid his mouth of the taste of death. ‘The cattle?’

‘Gone, all of them. They knew we had those beasts. Someone must have told them.’

‘Aye, but told who?’

‘Folk say it was hard to tell which clan came raiding,’ said Randel. ‘They were cloaked and masked. Could be Beatties, Gunns or any one of our enemies. Or it could be that Strachan bastard who now holds sway at Fellscarp. He never much liked giving up that land to you at Liddesdale.’

‘Aye. I would have said Peyton Strachan was a beat dog a year ago, but now, who knows what he’s capable of? He hangs onto Clan Strachan by his fingernails, so he needs to look the big man. Attacking me is his way to do that.’ The familiar bitterness choked Jasper’s throat as he asked the obvious question. ‘Was it the Bannermans, do you think?’

‘Likely not. That bastard, Seaton, keeps his distance since…well, since…’ He trailed off at Jasper’s withering look. ‘What I mean to say is that they keep well away from us, and Caolan Bannerman might have the balls for this, but he is too wily to start a war with a Glendenning.’

‘Don’t be too sure. He lurks on our border like a tick sucking at us.’

Jasper tried to banish the image of Brenna Curwen, now Bannerman, trembling in her wedding dress before the altar at Kransmuir. How he had burned to have her. His jaw worked as if his rage was forcing its way out. If it escaped, it would scorch everything in its path. Jasper reigned himself in and turned to his right-hand man.

‘The ground is soft. Whoever they are, those bastards will have left tracks. We will hunt them down, Randel. I want them alive. I need to know whose hand guided their swords before I guide mine into their gullets.’

‘Laird, I share your fervour for revenge, but to track at night is risky, and this storm is coming on. It will be pitch black soon and heavy going, with little hope of success should the rain wash away tracks. Why not take shelter and set off at first light? There is a whorehouse close by where they have eager women and a big hearth. We could warm our bones and our balls.’

‘Have you not seen enough fire for one night?’

‘Aye, ‘tis a tragedy, but it won’t improve by looking at it. Let us take our ease at the whorehouse.’

‘No,’ spat Jasper. He could not contain his rage enough to be gentle with a woman, and even whores had a limit to their tolerance. He had to force himself to relax his hands from tight fists as he turned to the group of clansmen at his back. They awaited his orders, fearing his anger.

‘Laird, why not let me lead the men on the hunt, and you go home to your wife’s warm bed,’ said Randel.

Jasper shook his head. ‘Tis not that warm these days.’

‘Aye, well, women get like that when they are about to pup.’

Jasper cut him off with a snarl. ‘Isobel’s bed was cold long before I put a bairn in her belly.’

‘Tis no business of mine, Laird,’ said Randel, lowering his eyes.

‘No, but ‘tis common knowledge at Kransmuir and, no doubt, the subject of much gossip. But enough of women. Take some men and see if there are any folk in hiding, injured or too fearful to come out. Send riders out to find out who did this.’

Randel whirled his horse and shouted orders to the men. Jasper churned with bitterness. Randel’s comment had cut him, for he had no warm bed to return to, soft arms to embrace him or mouth that sought his kiss. He had taken Lady Isobel Marlowe into his family and his bed when his pride was in the dirt. Though she was a comely widow, high-born, and possessed vast tracts of fertile land which now belonged to him, it had been a singular piece of folly. Now, he’d as soon put his member into a gorse bush as into Isobel’s rigid body.

Thunder echoed over the hills, and his horse whinnied. There was a fell taste to the air as if Devil’s arse was pressing down on the West March. Rain began to fall, pricking at his face, hitting the burning thatch with a sizzle. Within minutes, it was a deluge, but Jasper was not deterred.

He shouted at his men, ‘Let us ride and find these whoresons who took what is ours.’

Before he could ride out, a Glendenning clansman came thundering into the village. He pulled up his horse with some effort. ‘Laird, you are needed at Kransmuir.’

‘An attack?’

‘No. ‘Tis your wife. She is taken ill, and Lady Glendenning says you must come at once.’

‘How bad is it?’

The man shook his head. ‘I do not rightly know, but the bairn comes early, and it is going a bad way. There is not much time, your mother said.’

His child. His future. Everything he had strived for was in jeopardy. He had sacrificed any hope of love and happiness on the altar of clan loyalty. Was that sacrifice to be for nothing? Guilt ripped through his gut at his bitter thoughts of Isobel. Would God punish him by taking her?

With a curse, Jasper kicked his horse hard in the ribs and headed back to Kransmuir as if the Devil was snapping at his heels.