Border Fire (8 page)

She did not think the guards on the ramparts would try to stop a lone rider leaving by the postern gate before midnight. They would assume that the men below knew him and had approved of his leaving. In any case, she could think of no way to incapacitate the men on the walls, nor could she justify putting the entire castle at risk of attack to save Rabbie Redcloak. Besides, Hugh would kill her if he came home to learn that she had somehow disabled all of his guards.

The cat murmured, annoyed because she had stopped stroking.

“I have things to do, Jemmy Whiskers.” She set the cat down and went to open a shutter and look out. The landscape was dark, and there was no moon yet. “It’s freezing,” she said to the cat. “I shall need my warmest cloak.”

Collecting a heavy, dark wool, fur-lined cloak from the wardrobe, she draped it over her shoulders, leaving the hood down while she searched for gloves. Rejecting patens in favor of heavy boots that would give her more freedom of movement, she left the bedchamber, letting the door swing to behind her. Then she had to open it again when the cat loudly protested being left behind.

Crossing to the service stair, she hurried down to the kitchen with Jemmy Whiskers darting ahead of her. The cat ran into the kitchen, but Janet paused just outside to listen. Only female voices sounded within, so she peeped round the doorway to reassure herself that the sole occupants of the chamber were the two maidservants, Sheila and Matty, busy preparing supper for the household. The sight made her realize that her hastily conceived plan required adjustment.

“Matty,” she said briskly as she entered, “I am going to walk outside for a few minutes to get some exercise before I eat my supper.”

The two maids exchanged a glance that told her they knew that Hugh had ordered her to keep to her room. However, Matty said only, “’Tis like ice out there, mistress. Ye’ll catch your death.”

“You know better than that,” Janet said, smiling. “However, if it is truly so cold out tonight, perhaps the men would enjoy a toddy later to warm them. I will think about that whilst I walk. You go ahead and serve the household when you are ready. You can serve mine upstairs after you have finished eating your own.”

“Very well, mistress,” Matty said, nodding.

Janet left through the kitchen door, walking briskly, her way lighted by the warm glow of torches set into brackets on the wall. The cold was even sharper than she had expected, for a breeze eddied in the bailey, making the torches waver and flicker. The area was sheltered from the winds that seemed always to blow, albeit not so sheltered as her bedchamber, which faced to the east, and neither was as cold as the open moors would be. She hoped that Hugh had allowed Rabbie Redcloak to retain his signature cloak. If he had not, the man would freeze. Perhaps she should take him one of Hugh’s, just in case.

She frequently walked around the bailey for exercise before supper, so the men paid her little heed. They would be gathering in the hall soon for their meal, and that, she knew, was the thought uppermost in their minds. As she walked toward the stable, she saw that many of them were already moving toward the main entrance, leaving behind only those who guarded the walls.

When she saw the stable lads join the others, she walked into the stable, noting that one of the younger men stood guard outside the door leading to the dungeon. She saw him look at her, and raised a hand in greeting.

Inside the stable, the lads had extinguished the torches while they had their supper, but radiance from those outside provided light enough for her purpose. She walked slowly from stall to stall, recognizing many of the animals by location and size. Her own gray gelding pushed its muzzle against her shoulder, and she wished that she had a sugar lump or carrot to give it. She would bring it something special next time to atone for the oversight.

At the end of the row of stalls, she found what she sought. The pony there was larger than the others, and remembering the height of the captive and the breadth of his shoulders, she knew it must belong to him. Hugh would appreciate its size, for he was also a large man. The horse snorted, and she wondered if it were uncut but dismissed the thought even as it formed. A stallion would smell the mare two stalls down even when she was not in heat. The horse stood calmly and so was doubtless a gelding.

Leaving the stable, she bade the dungeon guard a good evening. “Have you just begun your watch, or do you near the end of it?”

“Nearing the end, mistress,” Small Neck Tailor said. “Yaro’s Wat will take my place when he’s eaten his supper. Then I’ll get mine. I’ll be glad to get it, too, I can tell ye.”

“I’m sure you will,” she said. “There is plenty of the ham from dinner left over, and I saw Matty slicing cheese, so I am sure you will get plenty.”

He smiled, clearly looking forward to the ham and cheese, and she hurried back to the kitchen entrance. She had seen no sign that anyone outside remembered that she was in disgrace with Hugh. Not that the men were any more likely than Sheila or Matty to speak of that disgrace or to order her back to her bedchamber. Still, she would have much more difficulty putting any plan into action if the men believed that Hugh would punish anyone who obeyed a command of her giving.

Back in the kitchen, she found only Sheila, putting food on a tray.

“I’m nearly ready to take your supper up, mistress.”

“Good,” Janet said. “Bring some of that sliced ham and cheese, too, will you, and maybe a manchet loaf or two. My walk has stirred an appetite, after all.”

“Aye, mistress, gladly.”

Upstairs, Janet waited until the maid had brought her tray, fetched wood for the fire, and gone away again. Then, hurrying to Hugh’s room, certain that his man would linger in the hall, she found a thick woolen cloak in his wardrobe and carried it back to her room. There she drank her milk and ate some of the bread but put the ham, cheese, and the rest of the bread into a drawstring bag for the reiver.

She sat comfortably by the fire with Jemmy Whiskers curled in her lap for an hour or so until Sheila returned to take away the tray. While the maid was in the room, Janet exerted herself to look like a woman about to prepare for bed, and after that, time passed slowly, but it passed. At last, setting down the cat, she got her cloak and Hugh’s and, draping the former inside the latter, swung both over her shoulders. Their combined weight was enough to make her grateful that she did not often do such a thing.

Tying the drawstring bag to her girdle beneath the cloaks, she pulled on her gloves and hurried down to the kitchen.

“I never yet lodged in a hostelrie

But I paid my lawing before I gaed.”

M
ATTY AND SHEILA WERE
banking the great kitchen fire, and Janet’s entrance startled both of them.

Smiling, she said, “Before you and Sheila retire, Matty, I think we should take toddies out to the guards in the bailey. It is a very cold night, and I do not want them making excuses to slip inside rather than stay at their posts where they belong. Fetch some cider, please, and pour it into the pot on the hob. We’ll use the poker to hurry the heating, so set it in the coals now to get hot. Sheila, do you know where Sir Hugh keeps his brandy?”

“Aye, mistress,” the girl said, her eyes widening, “but we’re no allowed—”

“Never mind, I’ll fetch it,” Janet said. “The men are due a treat, but you are quite right to remind me that he does not like the servants to touch his spirits. I do not want his wrath to fall upon you for this instead of on me. Fetch out a half-dozen chopins. That should be enough, I’d think.”

“Aye, mistress. Are ye sure, then, about the brandy?”

“You just heat the cider,” Janet said, hurrying from the kitchen to Hugh’s small private chamber near the hall, where she knew he kept his French brandy in a wooden chest. She could hear the men in the hall laughing and talking, and someone playing a lute. They were settling down for the night, and since most of them slept in the hall, they would not disturb her.

She knelt beside the chest to open it. It was not locked, for Hugh believed—and with good reason—that no one would dare take anything from it. Since she wanted to make the toddies sufficiently potent to dull the guards’ alertness long enough to serve her purpose, she was tempted to take three bottles; but she decided that Matty and Sheila would balk at such a blatant misuse of their master’s brandy. The cider was potent even without the added brandy, and on such a cold night the men had doubtless drunk a good deal of ale with their supper. She settled for two.

Carrying the bottles back to the kitchen, she opened them and poured their contents into the pot of warming cider.

“Mistress Janet!” Matty was scandalized. “Sir Hugh never said to give those men all that brandy to drink.”

Janet winked at her. “Sir Hugh annoyed me today, Matty. This will serve as excellent punishment for him, and the men will be glad of its warmth.”

“That cider’s strong by itself, mistress,” Matty said, exchanging a look with Sheila. “With brandy added, ’tis more like to put them to sleep, I vow.”

Sheila frowned. “The master will be gey wroth wi’ ye, mistress.”

Suppressing a shiver at how wroth her brother would be, Janet managed to say lightly, “He has been wroth with me before, and I expect that he will be again, but the men out there are cold. If they spend all their time stamping their feet to warm themselves, or slip indoors to seek warmth, they will not guard us well. I believe that if we do them a kindness, they will exert themselves more, and with reivers about, perhaps thinking about rescuing their leader…” She shrugged, letting their imaginations fill in the rest.

Matty said, “Sir Hugh’s new wall is stout, mistress. No heathenish reivers will get through it.”

Sheila did not look as confident, but since neither woman offered more argument, Janet was satisfied. In other circumstances she might have taken the opportunity to explain Matty’s error, but presently it suited her plan to let them both think scornfully of raiders, and to believe that with the guards even half-awake, Rabbie’s Bairns could never breach the castle’s stone walls.

When the cider was hot, she told Sheila to finish banking the fire and then to take herself off to bed.

“Matty can help me carry the toddies out to the men,” she said.

“I’ll help her, mistress. Ye oughtn’t to go out again on such a cold night.”

“Don’t be daft,” Janet said. “I’m dressed more warmly than either you or Matty. Moreover, there must be no doubt in Sir Hugh’s mind that this was my doing, so the men must see me. Now tend the fire as I bade you, Sheila, so that Matty can go to bed as soon as we have finished.”

Sheila obeyed, so Janet picked up the chopins and followed Matty to the kitchen door.

Holding the pot in one hand, the maid opened the door with the other. Three stone steps led up to the torchlit bailey, where Janet saw with relief that Yaro’s Wat had taken Small Neck Tailor’s place at the dungeon entrance. She knew that the men followed no particular schedule, and she had feared that Geordie might have decided to stand guard in place of the smaller, slighter Wat. Geordie had a head for spirits that was the envy of many a Graham, and his presence might well have spoiled her hastily conceived plan.

The only other men in sight were a stable lad mucking out stalls and a guard by the postern gate, who would doubtless remain to admit Hugh and his men on their return. The main gates generally remained closed and barred after dark.

Matty said firmly, “I’ll serve the three men on the wall first, mistress. Climbing them steps should keep me from freezing whilst I’m about it. I only hope I dinna drop the pot. My fingers be like icicles in this cold.”

“I’ll hold the pot whilst you fill three chopins,” Janet said. “You tell them they can each have the one tote but no more. Sir Hugh must not find them drunk when he comes home.”

Matty grimaced, but she made no objection when Janet took the pot from her and held it while she dipped each chopin to fill it.

Janet said casually, “I’ll serve the three down here.”

“But, mistress, ’tis enough that ye’re here. Ye should not be serving—”

“Don’t argue. The sooner we do this and get back inside, the sooner you will be warm again. I am wearing a heavy cloak and I do not mind the cold, but you are not dressed warmly enough to linger. Now go.”

Matty obeyed with barely concealed gratitude, and Janet went first to the man by the postern gate, dipping him up a full chopin of the potent brew and assuring him that it would warm him through. He accepted it gratefully.

Filling another for the lad mucking out stalls, she took it into the stable, which now was aglow with torchlight. As she offered him the toddy, she said, “I do not think I know that large beast in the last stall.”

“’Tis the reiver’s pony, mistress,” the lad said, leaning his rake against a wall and taking the chopin she held out. “I thank ye. ’Tis cold, the night.”

“Aye,” she said, still eyeing the magnificent horse. “I warrant Sir Hugh will like having that one. I’d like it myself.”

“That b’ ain’t no lady’s horse, Mistress Janet. Scottish Border ponies be but half-trained beasts at best. Sir Hugh said he’ll soon teach this one manners, though.”

That settled the matter as far as Janet was concerned. Moreover, if the reiver rode away on his own pony, Hugh could not charge him with another horse theft.

Offering the lad a refill, she made sure that she still had plenty for Yaro’s Wat, and strolled outside to the dungeon door. “I hope you don’t have to stand here all night, Wat,” she said. “It’s perishing cold out here.”

Taking the mug she held out to him, he sipped, then looked at her curiously. “Strong stuff this be, mistress.”

“Aye,” she said, grinning at him. “I thought you’d be glad of it.”

“I am that. Warms me right through, it does.”

“Good.
Will
you have to stand here all night?”

“Only till two. Then Geordie said he’d take my place till dawn.”

“Why do I not leave the pot, then?” Janet suggested. “The cider will not stay hot, but mayhap you will think of a way to warm some for him.”