Chapter 1

His hands and his feet they ha’ bound like a sheep . . . And they locked him down in a dungeon so deep . . .

The Scottish Borders, 1388

A wakening in dense blackness to find himself bound hand and foot, lying in acute discomfort on cold, hard dirt, twenty-four-year-old Sir Walter Scott of Rankilburn, Murthockston, and Buccleuch (pronounced Buck-LOO) became aware of a disturbing sense that all was not well. Then memory stirred to confirm the fact.

Lammas Gibbie’s deep voice echoed through the blackness in reverberating waves. “I’m thinking he be moving now, Tammy,” he said.

“Be that you stirrin’ about there, Wat,” the huge man so oddly called Jock’s Wee Tammy said, “or just a few rats fussin’ over summat or other?”

“I’m awake,” Wat said, although the raspy voice scarcely sounded like his own. His throat was parched and his head ached. “I don’t recall how I got here, but someone must have hit me on the head, for it’s pounding as if the devil himself were inside. That blow seems to have blinded me, too.”

“One o’ them villains clouted ye, right enough,” Gib said. “Ye’re no’ blind, though. We’ve nae light is all. Tammy and me canna see nowt, either.”

“How many of us are in here?”

“Just us three in this cell,” Tammy said. “They caught some o’ the others, too, though. Likely, they’ve put them elsewhere, because we canna hear them.”

Wat gathered enough saliva to swallow before he said, “Sorry, lads. I’ve well and truly landed us all in the suds this time.”

“Aye, well, what comes does come,” Tammy replied.

Wat grunted but made no other comment, seeing nothing to gain by pointing out that what was likely to come was hanging for all three of them.

“’Tis the Douglas’s fault as much as yours,” Gib muttered. “If he hadna ordered this unnatural peace just now, we’d no’ be in such a fix.”

Silence fell. The powerful Earl of Douglas was Chief Warden of all three Scottish marches, and although Wat had often remarked on the futility of the earl’s demand for peace between the volatile Scottish Borderers so he could expend their energies in keeping the land-greedy English in England, he knew he could not blame Douglas for their present misfortune. The responsibility for that was his own.

His hands and feet were numb. He tried shifting position and stifled a groan when jolts of pain shot through his limbs and set nerves in his fingers and toes afire.

“How long have we been here?” he asked.

“A good while,” Tammy said.

“Ye snored,” Gib added.

“Snored?” Indignation momentarily replaced suffering. “I was unconscious!”

“Nonetheless, ye snored,” Gib insisted. “Likely, ye can blame them three pots of ale ye drank afore we left Rankilburn.”

Wat remembered the ale. He should not have drunk so much of it. However, that was not the only error in his hastily conceived plan.

It had seemed so simple then. After spending the previous day at the horse races in Langholm, he and a party of friends had returned to his peel tower in Ettrick Forest, to discover that in his absence, raiders had lifted his entire herd of cattle. They had also taken a pair of valuable sleuthhounds and seven fine horses.

“I was right about who stole my beasts,” he muttered.

“Aye, Murray had them right enough,” Tammy agreed. “He still has them, come to that. I been thinking on it, though, Wat, and ’tis in my mind that someone must ha’ warned him we were coming. Ye decided straightaway to raid—”

“To recover what is mine,” Wat interjected.

“Aye, well, that’s as may be,” Tammy said doubtfully. “But yon Murray will no’ agree that ye had the right to take his beasts home along wi’ yours.”

“Iagan Murray has more beasts than any man needs to feed one threaping wife, a pair o’ sons, and three o’ the homeliest lasses in the Borders,” Gib said.

“Still, ye canna blame him for trapping us last night as he did,” Tammy replied. “’Tis only natural the man would want tae keep his own beasts.”

“Nearly half of the beasts he’s got now are mine,” Wat said grimly, “and I don’t want him to keep them. As to my taking his, he can show no proof of that. He and his men rose up out of the heather before we’d touched one of them. Sakes, I should have realized it was too easy to follow my beasts. ’Tis clear enough now that he expected us to follow, and that’s why he and his men were waiting for us.”

“That was clever o’ them, that heather was,” Tammy said. “Wi’ all o’ them wearing white feathers in their caps as they were, and lyin’ flat, they looked as much like new blooms in the moonlight as the real heather did.”

“Murray kens fine that we’d ha’ take his kine, though,” Gib said, ignoring the interruption. “Bless us, but anyone would.”

“Even if we had taken them, it was Murray’s own fault for making me come here to collect mine,” Wat said.

Tammy laughed. “I’d like t’ be in your pocket when ye explain that to your da’ and Jamie Douglas. Mind, I’d no’ like ’em to ken I were listening, though.”

“I trow it’s what either of them would have done,” Wat said curtly.

“Mayhap they would,” Gib said. “Your da’ and the Earl o’ Douglas both hold on to what’s theirs, but that willna stop them being angry.”

Wat knew the earl would be angry. James, second Earl of Douglas, although less than ten years Wat’s senior, was the most powerful man in the Borders, perhaps in all of Scotland. And Douglas did not let anyone forget it. Facing him, if that should ever come to pass now, was not something to look forward to, not after he had ordered peace. Even so, the Douglas’s anger would be as nothing compared to Sir Robert’s. Just thinking about that gentleman’s likely reaction made Wat flinch.

Then, remembering his plight, Wat said with a sigh, “I doubt I’ll have to face either of them. You know that Murray means to hang us in the morning, do you not?”

“He caught us wi’ the goods,” Tammy said. “’Tis his right to hang us.”

“Aye, sure, but you’ll admit that it does seem devilish hypocritical,” Wat retorted. “We did nowt but what he did before us, after all.”

“We didna catch him at it, though,” Tammy reminded him.

In the ensuing silence, the darkness seemed to thicken and close around them until Gib said abruptly, “D’ye believe in heaven, Wat?”

“Aye, and in hell,” Wat replied. “Do not you?”

“I do.” Gib paused. “’Tis just that . . .”

“What, Gib?”

“Sithee, me Annie’s in heaven wi’ our wee bairn that the English killed alongside o’ her when they came three years ago,” Gib said. “I dinna doubt that Annie’s waiting for me, ye ken, but ’tis likely I’ll no’ be joining her now, will I?”

“Why not?”

“Yon Murray’s no’ likely to ha’ a priest at hand to shrive us, is he?”

“He may have a chaplain,” Wat said. “But if he doesn’t, you’ve led a good life, Gib, and I believe God counts that above all else.”

“Mayhap He does, Wat, but I’ve broken me share o’ His commandments.”

“So have we all,” Tammy muttered. “’Tis nae use to fret about it now, man.”

Wat’ s imagination instantly presented him with a string of images from his own life that God might find hard to forgive.

He had no idea how much time passed before Tammy said quietly, “Ye’re gey quiet, Master. Be ye thinkin’ or sleepin’?”

“Thinking,” Wat retorted. “I doubt if anything focuses a man’s mind more sharply on his sins than knowing that in just a few hours he’s likely to hang.”

It was several hours past dawn when Sir Iagan Murray, a thickset man of medium height, graying hair, and undistinguished apparel, entered Elishaw Castle’s great hall and took his customary seat at the end of the high table nearest the fire, where his wife and three daughters had been awaiting him for some time.

His men had eaten earlier and departed to their duties, so the family would enjoy a little privacy, although they were not alone. Servants scurried about, some clearing away trestle tables in the lower hall while others set platters of food on the dais table and poured ale into Sir Iagan’s mug and wine into the ladies’ goblets.

Eighteen-year-old Lady Margaret Murray, standing beside her mother in a plain blue dress that did nothing to flatter her thin figure, with her hair concealed under a close-fitting, uncomfortable white coif and veil, was well aware of her two younger sisters fidgeting impatiently at her other side. She ignored them both while two gillies moved the ladies’ bench in closer behind them and Lady Murray took her seat. Then, hearing a sound of relief from her youngest sister, eleven-year-old Rosalie, Meg shot that damsel a warning look as they sat down.

Fifteen-year-old Amalie took her seat quietly between them.

The two younger girls wore simple veils over their brown plaits. All three girls looked more like their English-born mother than their Scottish father.

The opposite bench remained empty, the board before it bare, visible signs that the girls’ brothers were away from home. Simon, the elder, served the Scottish Earl of Fife and Menteith; and the younger one, Thomas, served elsewhere. Meg was not sure where Tom was now, but she missed him and wished he would come home. Neither brother had yet married.

In due time—which was to say when Sir Iagan had seen each of his sons well established—he would doubtless marry off his daughters to men of property. Although he had received no offers for them yet, he frequently assured them that, his power and connections being what they were, he would eventually achieve that goal. That some witless wag had once labeled them three of the homeliest females in Christendom had done naught to aid their prospects, but Meg knew that when it came to marriage, beauty was not everything. Sir Iagan was a man of wealth.

He was also a man of influence. As such, she knew he had decided he had little need to dower his daughters heavily. She just hoped he would provide them with enough to entice more than one potential husband to present himself. What few men she did know believed that, at eighteen, she was already long in the tooth.

Lady Murray, having given her order to the gillie attending her, said placidly with her soft English lilt, “Good morrow, husband. I trust you slept well.”

“Indeed, my lady,” he replied with a polite nod, “I slept gey fine, although I confess I did not reach my bed until after midnight.”

Rosalie said with concern, “Could you not sleep before then, Father?”

“I had important duties to attend, lassie.”

Meg said quietly, “Duties in the middle of the night, sir?”

Turning to his wife, he said, “Madam, your daughters display unwarranted curiosity about their father’s business. Surely, ye’ve explained to them that well-bred young women do not ask such questions.”

“I shall explain it to them again, sir, but I own, I am as curious as they are. The only duty that might keep you up so late when we have no visitors would be reivers, but I heard none of the din that usually accompanies discovery of a raid.”

He smirked, saying, “That, madam, is because your lord husband was before them. Having suspected that the scoundrels intended to attack my herd, I had buried two score men in nearby heather. We thus captured their leader and six of his rabble, and I’ll wager ye canna guess who that leader is.”

“Who, Father?” Amalie asked.

Sir Iagan frowned at her. “I was not speaking to you.”

“No, sir, but how else can we know? Is he locked up in the dungeon?”

Pride in his victory overcame all else, and his chest swelled as he said, “I have all seven of the devils locked up, and I mean to introduce them to Elishaw’s hanging tree as soon as I’ve broken my fast.”

Meg wished that Amalie had not interrupted, but she knew their mother was as curious as they were, and glanced expectantly her way.

Deftly, Lady Murray used the point of her knife to spear a slice of meat from a platter and transfer it to her trencher. As she tore the meat apart delicately with two fingers, she said, “Do you mean to reveal the leader’s name to us, sir?”

“Aye, for it will astonish ye to learn that he is of gentle birth. I recognized his face at once. So would ye have done, madam, had ye seen him.”

She frowned. “Indeed, sir, I do not imagine I could know any man who steals cattle for a living.”

“Still, I must suppose ye’ve seen him, and more than once, for he’s Scott of Buccleuch’s eldest. Even if ye dinna recall his face, ye’ll ken his family.”

“Buccleuch? But he is a knight and a baron of some wealth!”

“Aye, so we’ll see if his son dares to identity himself—not that I care if he does or not. We caught them red-handed, and I mean to hang every one of them. Fetch me more ale, lad,” he called to a passing gillie.

Lady Murray returned her attention to her food for several moments before she said musingly, “Does young Scott have a wife, sir?”

He looked surprised, clearly having thought the subject closed, but he said only, “None that I ken. Ha’ ye interest in his ancestry, as well, madam?”

She persisted. “You said also that he is Buccleuch’s eldest.” She put slight emphasis on the last word.

“Aye, and what of it? Ye’ll no’ be telling me I shouldna hang the man!”

“I hope you know me well enough after all these years, my lord, to be sure I would not put myself forward in such an improper way. It does occur to me, however, that when Providence drops on one’s doorstep a single young man who will inherit vast properties, one should not heedlessly destroy such a gift.”

“And how, prithee, is the man’s trying to make off with my herd an act of Providence?” Sir Iagan demanded. “If ye’re suggesting that I demand ransom—”

“Nay, for as you must have realized, yourself, with the Douglas gathering his armies and Buccleuch one of his fiercest allies, ’twould take too long to negotiate and thus be too dangerous. Whatever you do, you must do it quickly.”

He nodded, but Meg wondered if he had thought the matter through as swiftly and thoroughly as her mother had.

Lady Murray said in her placid way, “We have three daughters, sir. I need scarcely remind you of your duty to find them suitable husbands. And whilst one may easily find a husband for one, finding three will be difficult. Therefore, to hang such an excellent prospect . . .” She paused, meeting his gaze directly.

He glowered back, saying in a near growl, “Ye believe that scoundrel would make one o’ them a suitable husband? Are ye daft, woman?”

“Nay, sir, only practical. With two sons, as well, establishing all our offspring will require loosening your purse strings to a sad degree, I fear, but with such an opportunity as this, with care and your customary astuteness . . .”

“I’ve wealth enough,” he muttered defensively when she paused, but by the manner in which he frowned, Meg knew that her mother’s words had jolted him. Wealth or none, no man complained of penury more than Sir Iagan Murray did.

“There is also,” Lady Murray went on, “the fact that, barring a miracle of God, the English army will soon reestablish control of this area. You have taken care to create powerful ties on both sides of the line over the years, with the result that we escaped harm when the English came three years ago. But we may be sure that the Douglas took note of that, and he has proven himself as great a soldier as Sir Henry Percy. If Percy fails, our Simon’s service with the Earl of Fife, albeit an excellent connection, is unlikely to protect us. I’m thinking this incident may allow you to establish a more powerful one nearer Elishaw before the English arrive.”

“Hotspur will prevail easily enough, Douglas or no Douglas,” Sir Iagan said with a grimace. “Moreover, madam wife, it surprises me that you should suggest kinship with any more of the men you so often call ‘my heathenish Scots.’”

“Young Scott may be a heathen, but he is clearly no coward,” Lady Murray said. “He has won his knighthood, I believe, like his father. And if he is the same young man that I do recall, he is rather handsome, although rather dark for my taste. He also has a stubborn, implacable look about him, but I warrant he would make a suitable enough husband for a sensible young woman like our Meg.”

Startled, Meg barely managed to keep silent, but she dared not speak lest her already irritated father order her from the table. She certainly could not say what she was thinking, that this young Scott sounded just like Sir Iagan and her brother Simon—temperamental, stubborn, and domineering. But then, in her experience, most men were temperamental and domineering, although she had not met many yet. She could still hope to meet at least one who was not.

“Tell me, daughter,” Sir Iagan said abruptly, “what do you think of your mother’s daft notion?”

Quietly, Meg said, “I do not think I want to marry a thief, sir.”

“There, you see,” Sir Iagan snapped.

“Meg is a dutiful daughter,” Lady Murray said complacently without so much as a glance at Meg. “She will do as you bid her.”

“Ye’re talking as if the lad would agree to the idea,” he said. “More likely, he’d refuse it outright.”

“Pressed to choose between a marriage and a coffin, I believe any sensible man would choose the marriage,” Lady Murray said. “However, I should like to see this young man before you hang him. Will you permit that, sir?”

“I suppose next you will say you want your daughters to see this villain, too,” he said testily. His sardonic expression said he believed nothing of the sort, but it altered ludicrously when the wife of his bosom agreed that she did indeed want her daughters to see the reiver.

“It will be a beneficial experience for them,” she said placidly.

Meg, certain that her mother had been about to decline having any such notion in mind, and therefore having just begun to breathe again, had reached for her goblet but her ladyship’s reply diverted her attention enough to make her knock it over, spewing ale across the table and drawing a curse from her father.

As gillies leaped to clean up the mess, Sir Iagan said, “To admit such a ruffian to my daughters’ presence would be most unsuitable. I won’t permit it.”

“You said yourself that the young man is well born,” Lady Murray said. “You may desire me to excuse Rosalie, but there can be naught amiss in showing Meg or Amalie what happens even to powerful men who break the law. Moreover, if you should change your mind after further considering my suggestion, there will be no harm in letting them see the man one of them will marry.”

“Very well then,” he said grimly. “But I permit it only because seeing him in his present state, if it accomplishes nowt else, will put this foolish notion of marrying him to one of your daughters right out of your head, madam.”

“Mayhap it will,” she agreed equably.

With a brusque gesture to one of the hovering gillies, he snapped, “Tell them to fetch the reivers’ leader here to me, and tell them to bring him just as he is.”

Meg watched the gillie hurry from the hall, wishing with half her mind that she could snatch him back and with the other half that she could fly along beside him, unseen, and have a look at the prisoner before he was haled in before her.

Well aware that such powers were beyond the ken of ordinary mortals and that God could read her thoughts, she surreptitiously crossed herself.

When the cell door creaked open, even the faint light from the stairwell outside it made Wat wince. Believing that the guards had come for all three of them, to hang them straightaway, he was surprised when the two men who entered each grabbed one of his arms and hauled him upright.

“You’ll have to untie my feet, lads,” he said, stifling a groan. “Even then, I doubt I can walk, for I’ve scarcely any feeling left in them.”

The larger of the two men said, “We weep for ye, reiver, but we dinna care an ye walk or no’. Ye’ll come wi’ us any road.”

“What of my men?”

“They’re to bide here a wee while longer.”

They had clearly meant to drag him, but when they realized how heavy he was and that the winding stone stairway was too narrow to accommodate all three abreast, they finally untied his feet.

“I dare ye to run,” the one who had spoken before said with a grim chuckle. “’Twould please me much tae clout ye again.”

Wat did not reply. The circulation returning to his feet made him clench his teeth against the pain, to prevent any sound his captors might interpret as proof that he suffered. If they meant to hang him, so be it. He would not whimper.

His feet refused to cooperate with his brain, however. His ankles felt as weak as new-sprouted saplings, and he could not feel his toes, but pain from his feet and ankles radiated into his legs, and his knees felt no steadier than his ankles.

Although one guard pulled and the other pushed, it still took the combined efforts of both, and his own, to get him up the winding stone stairway and outside into the cobbled bailey. Wat turned his face to the sun then, enjoying its warmth but keeping his eyes shut to let them accustom themselves to the glare.

“Dinna dawdle, man,” the spokesman snapped. “The master awaits ye.”

“Let him wait,” Wat retorted. “He cannot hang me twice.”

In response, the men hauled him forward, making him stumble along as best he could between them. In this fashion, they dragged him through a doorway, up another, broader stairway, and through an archway into Elishaw’s great hall. He could feel his toes by then, but the renewal of that fiery pain was no comfort.

They shoved him forward with his hands still bound behind him. Although he struggled to remain upright, his balance betrayed him, and he fell heavily to the stone floor. Only with effort did he manage not to strike his head.

“’Tis right and proper that ye should abase yourself, ye scurrilous villain!”

Looking up, Wat saw a thickset man in plain leather breeks and a short black cloak standing over him and looking down with arms akimbo. Having seen Murray at horse races more than once, he had no trouble recognizing the man.

Forcing himself awkwardly to sit, he said, “Hello, Murray, you damnable thief. If you mean to hang me, get on with it.”

“I do want to hang you,” Murray said.

Feeling at a distinct disadvantage staring up at the man as he was, Wat said nonetheless tartly, “It was my right to regain my livestock and my dogs.”

“And to whom did ye declare this right, laddie?”

Glowering, Wat said nothing. He could gain nothing by admitting to the man who had stolen his beasts that more lawful routes did exist for recovering them.

“As I thought,” Murray said. “Ye and your lads are nowt but common felons, but I’ve the power of the pit and the gallows, just as your father does, and I’ve my own hanging tree right outside in the bailey just waiting for ye.”

As Wat digested the fact that Murray had recognized him, he heard a lilting female voice, more English than Scot, say, “Forgive me, my lord husband, but that young man should not sit in my presence, or in yours, come to that.”

Murray grimaced, but the startled look he shot over his shoulder at the high table not only drew Wat’s gaze in that direction but told him that his host had forgotten the presence of the three ladies who sat there.

To the two men who had brought Wat in, Murray said, “Help him stand, lads, and stay by him, for I’ve summat more to say. Sithee, lad, though it goes right against the grain wi’ me, I do have a proposition to make ye. If ye find it to your liking—which I doubt—ye might yet miss dangling from me tree.”

On his feet again now, flanked by the two guards, Wat eyed Murray warily. “What is this proposition, then, that you dislike it so?”

“Why, nobbut that ye’ll agree to take my eldest daughter there, the lady Margaret, for your wife.”

Certain that he must have misunderstood, Wat said, “My wife?”

“Aye, that’s it,” Murray said, nodding. “Stand up, lass,” he added with an encouraging gesture. “Let the lad have a look at ye.”

Still stupefied, Wat gaped as one of the women got slowly to her feet.

His first impression was that her mouth was too big and her body too thin for his taste. Moreover, had he met her in the yard, he’d have thought her a servant, because her clothing gave no indication of her father’s supposed wealth or rank.

She was not near enough to discern the color of her eyes, but he thought they looked ordinary. Her pale, rather long, narrow face was red with embarrassment, and thanks to her coif and veil, he could not see a single strand of her hair.

Even so, her personal appearance had little to do with his outrage.

“You must be mad,” he said curtly to Murray.

“D’ye mean to say ye’ve already got a wife?”

“I do not, although my father is presently negotiating a marriage for me with a cousin of the Earl of Douglas.”

“From what I hear o’ ye, they’ll no’ be surprised an ye pick your own wife, and ye’ll like my Meg better nor any Douglas wench,” Murray said confidently.

The thought flashed through Wat’s mind that his host could well be right about the Douglas wench in question, since he had known Fiona since they were children and found it impossible to imagine being married to her. But his wishes did not enter into it. An alliance between the two families would serve both well.

Pushing these swift but irrelevant thoughts aside, he said, “I may have a habit of running contrary to plans that others make for me, but that would hardly be cause to let you choose my wife, Murray.”

“Aye, well, I was hoping ye’d say as much, for if ye willna agree to marry the lass, I can hang ye straightaway.”

“Then do it,” Wat snapped. “I’ll not marry your daughter, whatever you may threaten. I am not afraid to die.”

“Amen, then,” Murray said, signing to the guards before adding, “My Meg, let me tell you, is worthy of a better man than ye are. Ye’ve offended her wi’ your ingratitude, and by heaven, ye offend me the more. Take him out to the tree, lads.”

As the guards grabbed him and began to hustle him away, Wat wrenched away from them long enough to turn back and say, “Pray, mistress, forgive me. I swear, I meant no offense to you.”

To his amazement, she gazed steadily back at him and replied in a calm and surprisingly low-pitched, musical voice, “I took no offense from your rudeness, reiver. I have even less desire to marry you than you have to marry me.”

Her words did more than prick his conscience. They stirred the swift, ever-ready response to challenge that had ruled much of his behavior since birth.

It was a great pity, he thought as the guards thrust him roughly out of the hall, that he would die before he could teach the wench to appreciate him more.