Highland Master (4 page)

“So he sends men to burn your fields?” Brett frowned, thinking that she was not telling them everything, but decided he would just let her tell them what she wanted to now, and press for more later.

“Burn our fields, steal our harvests, steal our livestock, and such as that. He wants me to give up. He wants me to walk away, I am thinking.”

He also wanted her to marry him, but Triona was reluctant to admit that. Something told her that these men would find Sir John’s insistence that she marry him so he could take Banuilt as his own as appalling as she did, but she could not be sure. The very last thing she needed at the moment was men telling her to do as Sir John wanted so that her people would not suffer. It was what most men would do, and she did not know these men well enough yet to be certain they would not do the same.

Guilt often made her consider giving in, but she could still banish it easily. She knew Sir John and she knew he would be a bad laird for her people. His own people were not fond of him, but loyalty to the clan and love for their home kept them under his thumb. He was a vain, greedy man, and she knew without any doubt at all that he would be very bad for Banuilt. Unfortunately, his attempts to beggar them and starve them were also bad for them all.

“He has ne’er openly attacked ye or any of your people, has he?” asked Brett.

“Nay. He has spilled nay blood o’er this. He wants us to bend to him, to come to him because we are broken and starving. Then he, in all his gracious charity, will take the reins.” She winced, knowing she sounded as angry as she felt, her bitterness over the situation leeching into her words.

“Go and get some rest, m’lady. Ye have told us enough.”

“So ye will be taking Arianna somewhere else?” She tried not to show her disappointment, understanding that they had to think of her cousin first.

“Nay. We will stay. As ye said, nay blood has been spilled, nay direct attack against the people has occurred, so there is nay real threat to our cousin. I think Sir John Grant needs ye to hand the land over to him, there being nay other way he can get it without bringing trouble down upon his own head. We will stay and we will do our best to make him change his mind.”

She blinked, unable to believe what he was saying. “Ye mean to help us?”

“Aye, we do,” he said firmly, and all his companions nodded in agreement. “We shall stay until this is settled. One of the first things we shall do is begin to train your men. Mayhap a strong garrison will help. After all, Sir John didnae cause ye trouble ere the garrison left, did he?”

“Nay, but they left soon after Boyd died, when the fever had finally waned, so I cannae say for certain that their presence would have made any difference.”

“They should ne’er have deserted their posts.”

“I understand why they did. We have ne’er had any troubles here, nay for a verra long time, so the need for their protection of the land was nay one that was clear to see. And, during and right after the fever struck, we lost so much that the temptation of gaining some coin to bring back the life they had kenned was more than they could resist.”

“So they stole your horses and emptied your armory and went away.”

“Weel, it wasnae truly theft. I didnae tell them nay to take the things, and they were doing what they thought would help Banuilt. I but wish I could ken how they are all doing, for they have been gone, oh, eighteen months or so, and there hasnae been any word.”

“Mayhap we can think of some way to find out how they fare. Go rest, m’lady. We can tend to ourselves.”

She nodded and went to her bedchamber. Her whole body ached with weariness, and even the fact that five strong men had just said they would stay and help her battle Sir John did not ease it. Morning was going to come all too soon, and she had so much work to do. A few more hours of rest was more important than thrashing out a plan at the moment.

 

 

“There is something she isnae telling us,” said Harcourt as soon as Triona was gone, the doors to the great hall shut behind her.

“I ken it, but she will eventually, or we will discover what it is,” said Brett. “I have a suspicion or two.”

“Care to share what they are?”

“What is the easiest way for a mon to get his hands on a woman’s lands?”

“Ah, of course. Ye think he wants her to wed with him and thus make himself laird of it all. Why wouldnae she just say so?”

“Many men would tell her, bluntly, to cease making her people pay for her reluctance and marry the mon. I suspect she has been told just that, too often, since her husband died. She doesnae ken us weel enough to ken if we are of that ilk or nay. Most of the people here are young or female, so her resistance doesnae trouble them. Mayhap they agree in part because they dinnae like Sir John. It may be an idea to try to get some knowledge of the mon. She could be fighting to keep her people out from under a bad laird’s bootheel as much as she is fighting an unwanted marriage.”

Uven nodded. “I think he would have to be a mon that would make a bad laird, simply because of what he is doing to get what he wants. Especially since what he wants isnae due him, as he believes it is. But working to starve people, mostly women and children, into making the lady wed him? Cannae think that any mon who would do that could be a good mon.”

“I think she forgives her garrison a wee bit too quickly as weel,” said Harcourt. “They deserted her and took horses and weaponry she could have made good use of.”

Brett nodded. “I wouldnae be so forgiving, either, but they may have done it for just the reasons she said. After such a disease devastates a place, things can be verra bad. When so many fall ill there are a lot of tasks that cannae be done, and if many die, then there are nay enough people to ever catch up. The idea comes along that money could be made by selling one’s sword for a while, and there is the solution to the trouble, the hunger, and the care their families need. Foolish, mayhap, and nay so weel thought out, but nay such a crime. I just wonder if that is what truly happened.”

“What do ye mean?”

“I ken that a lot of men cannae write, but they always find a priest or monk to pen some word to their kin when they travel. These men have been gone for near to two years and there hasnae been a word? There hasnae e’en been a body sent home to be buried, or wounded sent home to be tended by their kin? Or e’en gifts bought with the coin they are supposedly earning?”

Harcourt rubbed his chin and frowned. “That is odd. Nay e’en word that they arrived safely and found work. Aye, ye are right. There is something verra odd about that.”

“And who would benefit from the loss of the weel-trained garrison?”

“Dear Sir John, although he hasnae attacked the place, so that cannae be why he would want them gone. As Lady McKee said, he cannae just take the place by force or he will bring a fair load of trouble down on his own head. It has to be given, sold, or married into.”

“But no garrison means it is easier to play this game of burning fields and stealing stock and trying to starve the people into submission. Who is here to stop ye save women, bairns, the old, and the completely untrained?”

“But if they didnae go to France, where are they? Ye dinnae think the mon had them all slaughtered, do ye?”

“I dinnae ken. It may be naught and I have just let my mind weave wild tales, but I just cannae shake the feeling that all is nay as it appears.”

“Another matter to look into,” Callum said.

“Nay sure how to do that, but, aye, it should be looked at most carefully,” agreed Brett, and then he yawned.

“I think it best if we catch a few more hours of rest, too,” said Harcourt as he stood up. “If naught else there are men to start training, and from what I have seen, that will take all the strength we have.”

Brett laughed as he followed his brother out of the great hall, Uven, Callum, and Tamhas coming after them. He briefly wondered if he was right to think it was safe for Arianna at Banuilt and then shook aside his concern. Sir John had not spilled blood in almost two years. He doubted the man would start now. He wanted capitulation, and he did not want to anger their liege laird, an obvious ally, by trying to steal Banuilt by force. The man probably also saw the keeping of the people who worked the land hale and ready to begin working to his advantage when he took hold of Banuilt.

Proof of the man’s crimes was needed. That was what they had to work toward as they helped Lady Triona keep Sir John’s vicious little games from bringing Banuilt down. With proof, she or some representative of her choosing could go to their liege laird and demand justice. It would be easier to just kill the fool, but Brett decided watching the man brought down would be almost as satisfying. He fully intended to show Sir John Grant that sometimes giving in to greed could lose a man everything he had.

“This weaving is beautiful, Joan.”

Triona stroked the wool cloth Joan held out for her to study. Joan was an excellent weaver, her work much coveted at the marketplaces in the larger towns. The shearing had been good last year and looked to be even better this year, if all continued to go well. Soon they would not only have enough wool for all of Banuilt’s needs but a goodly amount to take to market as well. It was one of the few things that had not yet suffered from Sir John’s continued attempts to beggar them. It might even prove enough to make up for all he had cost them, for it would give them the coin needed to buy supplies.

“’Tis going verra weel, m’lady. The shearing is coming along weel and it looks to be a finer lot than we had last year. The flocks are weel guarded and there has been no trouble. We move them around more often, too, just as ye ordered, so that they are nay so easily found.”

“Good. I think we need to try to do the same with the cattle. Will says we lost six head last week. Poor little Donald was so upset that he had failed as a watchmon, he was close to crying, but I cannae fault the lad. He is young and he fell asleep.”

Triona looked around the village as she fought down her anger over that loss, and idly noted that a few of the buildings needed some repair. It was sad to see how very empty the village now was. With so many of the surviving men having gone to France, it was mostly women and children who remained. A lot of them had moved in together, finding it much easier to manage the work and their children with other women right at hand. It was a good idea, undoubtedly made the women feel safer as well, but it left a lot of empty cottages, and there were not enough skilled hands to keep those empty buildings in good repair. It hurt her heart to see the once thriving village in such a state, and she knew that the longer the lack of repair continued, the harder it would be to return it all to what it had once been.

“There be only two cows missing now, m’lady,” said Joan, breaking into Triona’s thoughts. “Four wandered home.”

Looking back at Joan and nearly gasping in surprise, Triona asked, “They wandered home?”

“Aye, m’lady.” Joan grinned, giving a beauty to her plain, round face, which had undoubtedly been what had captured the heart of her tall, handsome husband, a man who was now running about France with far too many other Banuilt men.

“What amuses ye?”

“Weel, either the men who stole them were a witless lot, or they let a few come back here apurpose. I be thinking it was the latter. I have kenned enough Grant men o’er the years to ken that they are nay a witless lot. And some of them are nay so far removed from their reiver ancestors.”

“Ah, so ye, too, are thinking that Sir John Grant’s men are nay in favor of his tricks. ’Tis something I have begun to believe and Sir Brett and his men suspected. E’en Nessa believes it.”

“Aye. There be a lot of ties atween people here and the people there. Sir John’s father was a fine mon though nay a great laird, and ne’er a bother. I dinnae ken what went amiss with his son. ’Tis sad and all, but Sir John isnae the mon his father was, and his people ofttimes complained on the fact. They say he is a harsh laird and given to fits of temper. Weel, they told us such things afore this trouble started, and, once the harassment began, we ceased speaking to each other.”

There was something in the tone of Joan’s voice and the way her gaze briefly drifted to the right that told Triona there was a lie being told. Obviously not all ties had been broken. For a moment she considered pressing the woman for the truth and, if there were some meetings between her people and Sir John’s, demanding that they cease immediately. Then she inwardly shook her head. As of the moment, no blood had been spilled, something she suspected was aided by those ties that had not been completely broken. Until this fight with Sir John turned bloody, she would simply ignore it all. Thus far, communication between the people of Banuilt and those of Gormfeurach had really been to her benefit, such as in the mysterious return of four of the six stolen cattle.

It was sad that the two clans had to remain apart, thought Triona as she looked around the village again. The fever had hurt the Grants as much as it had hurt her own people. There were far too many widows and widowers in both places. Somehow Sir John had kept hold of enough supplies and coin to keep his remaining men from going off in search of it as hers were forced to, but he had not been able to replace the women they had lost to the fever. For reasons she knew she would never fully understand, the fever had hit the women of Gormfeurach the hardest. In Banuilt it had struck harder at the men. Instead of pulling apart, the people should be pulling together to rebuild both places. The way Sir John wanted that to happen was not one she could accept. The mere thought of being forced to marry him made her shudder with revulsion.

“Do ye think our men will soon return from France?” asked Joan. “It has been near eighteen months.”

“I dinnae ken, Joan,” Triona replied. “In truth, I dinnae really understand why they left at all. We were nay in any danger of starving. Mayhap they thought they couldnae abide being ruled by a woman.” Triona did try to understand why the men left but could not fully stop herself from fearing now and again that it was her becoming laird that had done it.

“Och, nay, they didnae care about that. My Aiden was all excited after talking with a mon o’er an ale. Man’s name was Birk. Aiden said the mon was going to fight in France and that there was a lot of coin to be made in the doing of it. He told our men of others who had gained riches doing the fighting for the lairds and the king o’er there, and that they welcomed the sword of a Scotsmon. Threw in a few tales of fighting the Sassenach and getting paid to do it, and nay one of those fools would heed us women when we asked them nay to go. Nay, they set off all cheery and promised to return with purses heavy enough to buy us all fine linen gowns and bonnie slippers and all. Things we ne’er said we wanted, nay once. I am just a wee bit concerned that we have heard naught from them since the day they rode away.”

Triona was not sure why, but a chill of suspicion ran through her veins. No matter how foolish she told herself it was to think it, she could not stop wondering if Sir John was somehow responsible for the loss of all her fighting men. The fact that those men included the ones skilled in hunting, woodworking, thatching, and nearly every other skill a village desperately needed to survive, would only make such trickery a greater success for Sir John. Yet, she wondered, if the men of Banuilt were not really fighting in France, where were they? It was the question she asked herself whenever the thought of treachery slipped through her mind, and the reason she had so often shrugged aside the suspicion. She simply could not believe Sir John’s people would stand silent as he slaughtered thirty men, nor would they have helped him do it.

She tried to tell herself that she was being foolish, that she had just never heard the whole tale of how the men had decided to go to France because of the confusion and deaths caused by the fever and was seeing more in it than there was. How could Sir John lure away so many men and the men never guess at his game? They had to be in France. All reasonable questions, but this time her suspicion was not being so easily dismissed.

“Weel, isnae he a bold bastard to come ariding right into the midst of the people he torments.”

Joan’s muttered words drew Triona out of her confused thoughts. She looked in the direction of Joan’s scowl and nearly cursed. Sir John was riding toward them, six armed men riding guard, and he was looking around her village as if admiring all the signs of the results of his trickery. The man knew she had no firm proof that her troubles were his fault, just as she knew that without such proof she could not demand that he stay off her lands. His friends were far more powerful than the few Boyd had had and would not look kindly upon her if she was seen to have insulted Sir John in any way.

As he rode up to her, she had to admit that he was a fine-looking man. Not tall, but strongly built, and with a face most women would find attractive. His hair was the deep brown of a chestnut and his eyes were an interesting hazel color. He also dressed very elegantly, yet all she could think when looking at his finery was to wonder just how much it had cost him. Everything about him would suit many women, and probably had. Yet, not once had he made her heart flutter.

His nature, however, was one that she utterly despised. He was cocksure, so arrogant that it made her teeth hurt from clenching them against all the words she wanted to say to him. The man also made his opinion all too clear, in his every look and word, that women were far beneath him. Whenever his words stirred her anger, making her ache to spit out that fury at him, she simply reminded herself that, without a woman, he would not even be alive to strut around as he did. It always gave her the strength to let his words just flow around her, never touching her.

“My laird,” she said, and curtsied, ignoring the fact that his returning her curtsy with little more than a slight nod of his head was an insult. “Why have ye come to Banuilt?”

“I but ride through on my way to dine with our liege laird,” he answered, and smiled.

A smile meant to keep her keenly aware that their liege laird, the man they all vowed allegiance to, had never once asked her to dine with him. She and Sir John were but small septs within the larger clan, minor landholders with only a few men to spare for any battle and no vast riches to draw a covetous eye. Boyd had gone to dutifully pledge himself to the laird, even occasionally sending some of Banuilt’s men to increase the size of the laird’s forces, but she had been mostly ignored. Once Boyd was dead, their liege laird had only requested she sign a promise to continue the allegiance the men of Banuilt had always pledged. He had decided not to extend her the courtesy of inviting her to his keep to offer her pledge face-to-face.

It had been an insult in a way, indicating that she was simply not important enough for the laird to see in person. At the time she had been so busy with the sickness gripping the people of Banuilt, fearing for her daughter’s life, and seeing to the burying of far too many people, that she had ignored it. When one is burying people one has known and liked for years, the lack of a proper invitation from one’s liege laird is of little importance. Now and then it still stung, however. The man had not even granted her request for a new priest.

Not that she missed the old one. If that man had survived, he would have been following her around day and night, telling her that it was her place as a woman to have a husband, and how Banuilt would be better for it. He had died still cursing her for dragging him to every man, woman, and child in the fever-ridden town and manor to give them what was needed so that none would die unshriven. Triona suspected she would be quite happy to live without another man like that around, but people needed a priest, and she would have to write the laird about it again.

She noticed Sir John glaring at her and realized she had been expected to reply to his statement. “I wish ye a safe journey, m’laird.”

“Banuilt is looking a wee bit worn,” he murmured as he glanced around. “It needs men here to mend what is broken.”

“We are doing weel enough, m’laird, and will do better still when our men return from France.”

“Those who go to France dinnae always return, m’lady. ’Tis a fine country and the weather much fairer than ours, and it can sore tempt a man to settle down in it. Bonnie lassies, too. Ye shouldnae hope too much for them to come home and rescue ye from this.”

“Many of them left behind wives and bairns, m’laird. I suspicion they will wish to return to them if naught else.”

The smile he gave her was so condescending that Triona’s palm actually itched from the urge to slap it off his face. From behind her she heard Joan softly curse and knew the woman felt the same. Sir John thought her naïve to believe a man would come home simply because he had left behind a wife and a child or two. Some might act with such dishonor, but she had more faith in her men. She also knew that most of them truly loved their wives and children.

“A wee cottage in a French village with a bonnie French wife could be equally tempting,” he said.

“Then I hope such a mon stays there, for I would want none who thought so little of their promises given to another to serve me.” The fact that he could find such a possibility something to smile about was just one more reason to never accept his offer of marriage.

“So naïve ye are. It would be good if I could tell your liege that ye have agreed to allow me to take this place in hand, my lady.”

“I have it in hand, thank ye kindly.”

“Do ye? It appears to be slowly rotting beneath your touch. A strong mon at your side could make all the difference.”

He was about as subtle as a rock to the head, she thought. It was hard not to spit out her accusations against him, to tell him that she knew well who caused her to have trouble keeping Banuilt’s larders filled and its cottages in good shape. She had tried giving voice to her suspicions in the beginning, and it had done nothing but gain her Sir John’s feigned show of hurt and insult, as well as a letter from their liege telling her to be more cautious in her speech.

“It but needs to recover from the loss of so many of its people,” she said.

“Ah, but if the people from Gormfeurach and Banuilt were united, that repair would move along much more quickly.”

 

 

Brett paused in his approach to study Sir John Grant. He was a healthy man of Brett’s own age or thereabouts, but despite his good looks and fine clothes, there was something immediately disquieting about the man. Brett had seen the men ride into the village and had begun a cautious approach, his companions spreading out and doing the same, but noticed no alarm amongst the women. In fact, he had caught the exchange of flirtatious looks between some of Sir John’s men and some of Triona’s women, and relaxed his guard just a little.