The Raven's Moon (4 page)

Rowan tilted an eyebrow. "Would I do that?"

Geordie grinned. "I found a nice garnet and a gold brooch when I was on that shore," he said. "I gave it to my wife. Queen Elizabeth would not miss one brooch, after all."

"Ah, you're a reiver to the heart—for an Englishman."

Geordie chuckled. "Time was, I rode with the Blackdrummond Scotts. What did you find on that beach," he added low. "The truth, now."

"A wee gold medallion and a few coins. They took those. And this," Rowan drew the dark mirror out of his jack and loosened its wrapping. "It washed ashore after the English officers had left. So I kept it."

"Does not look worth much, hey." Geordie peered at the black stone. "Ugly thing."

"'Tis just your face you see in that mirror," Rowan said as he dropped the thing inside his leather pouch.

"Could it be the raven's moon?"

"This? They wanted something of value, surely. A jewel. A black pearl, perhaps."

"Queen Elizabeth would covet such a thing. I heard she raised hellfire with her council over fetching every bit of coin and fancy that washed ashore." Geordie scratched his bristly chin. "A man would do much to gain a prize wanted by the English queen."

"If they were the men the Scottish privy council mentioned to me, the queen wants them found."

"Scottish agents working for Spain would be a threat to her. Spain pays well for spies willing to help invade England. And Elizabeth fears assassination. Of course she wants them found, and fast. The council explained this to you?"

"They did." Rowan glanced at him. "Your English government does not trust me, but the Scottish council has faith in me still."

"You're a rogue and a reiver, Rowan Scott—but I'd ride with you to the gates of hell."

Rowan huffed. "May it never come to that. The council appointed me deputy in the Middle March. I'm to find that missing gold—but I surely did not expect scoundrels to jump me as soon as I set foot outside the inn."

Geordie nodded. "I heard about your post—it's why I asked to meet you here. I know something of the rest of your assignment, too," he added grimly.

Rowan watched the clouds run fast and dark overhead. "I hear that Alec has taken up with Spanish agents, and he and another were carrying Spanish gold. His comrade was arrested. Alec got away."

"So you're to find him."

"The best man for the task," Rowan said, shrugging. "But I do not want to find my brother for any reason—be it king, warden, even kin asking me."

"But surely loyalty—"

"No," Rowan said flatly. He kept his thought to himself.
If I see Alec, I may kill him.

"Is it because of Maggie?" Geordie asked. "Or your prison term?"

"Maggie is dead," Rowan said. "As for the time I spent in English prison, that is past. But I will not ride out to find him or to save him—or to hang him."

"Well, best find these spies or you'll be the one to hang."

"What do you mean?"

"English officers sent word to Queen Elizabeth's advisers that the notorious Rowan Scott knows where the gold has gone. They will accuse you if that Spanish gold is not found soon. They say you were on that beach—and you are a reiver and a usurper of authority."

"A known thief and rebel, and the likeliest suspect," Rowan said. The English had used just such logic to condemn him three years back. He scowled as he looked at the wind-driven storm clouds. "So I am to receive another valentine from the English."

"An arrest warrant? Aye, unless the gold is found."

"Easy enough to find spies in the Border," Rowan said sarcastically. "Two Scotsmen in jacks and steel helmets. There are only thousands like them."

"What will you do?"

"Find these spies. Or be named an outlaw with my brother."

"Aye, then. Watch that rogue's neck of yours, my friend. 'Tis worth a ransom in Spanish gold."

Chapter 3

"There came a wind out o' the north,

A sharp wind and a snell,

And a deep sleep came o'er me

And frae my horse I fell."

—"Tam Lin"

The horse shifted restlessly in the driving rain, hooves pawing the muddy ground. Mairi leaned forward and patted the broad black neck, slick with moisture. "Steady now, Peg, my friend," she murmured in Gaelic. "Steady, girl. Soon we will ride fast and far, and take this messenger down. And then we will find you a warm, dry place and something to eat."

She heard the soft nicker of a horse behind her, and turned. A man rode toward her, cloaked and hooded against the drenching rain. Christopher Armstrong lifted a hand in greeting as he drew his horse to a halt beside her.

"The storm is worsening, Mairi," he said. His youthful voice was reedy, in keeping with his long, lanky, adolescent body. "You've waited here a long while. No one will travel the Lincraig road in this weather. Come home now, back to Jennet's house. She has a hot meal ready."

"But the messenger will come this way," Mairi said.

"Tomorrow perhaps. By now, in this weather, he's taken shelter at some inn or even a croft on the moor."

"He is close. We would see him in the distance but for the heavy rain."

"Mairi, please—"

"I will stay."

Christie brushed back his damp blond hair and sighed. "Stay, then, if you like being wet as a fish. But we must not go after this man. My kinsmen warned me to leave this one be."

She shook her head. "I cannot do that."

"He is not like the others, they said. He will not be frightened o' Lincraig haunts. We cannot risk it. Let him pass."

"I cannot."

"This man is dangerous, I hear," Christie said. "Rumor says the council in Edinburgh would send him through here."

Her grip tightened on the reins, a swift reaction to his ominous words. "What did they hear of him?"

"A notorious reiver. 'Tis all I know."

Mairi knew that the Border hills were full of notorious reivers. She had learned that many of them were sound and good men, though overbold in moonlight forays against their enemies.

"Is he has notorious as you will be someday, Devil's Christie?" she teased, using the riding name given him by his reiving kinsmen.

He grinned. "Almost." He frowned. "Truly, Mairi. Let this one pass do you treasure your life."

"I treasure my brother's life," she said. "So do you, since he is your sister's husband. I would not be out here otherwise. I would not be in the Borderlands at all, but in the Highlands."

Christie was silent as he watched the sweep of rainy moor and road. "Look there," he said after a few moments. Mairi peered through the dismal blur of rain.

A fair distance away yet, a man rode a bay horse at a slow, steady canter. Tall and wide-shouldered beneath his soaked hood and cloak, the rider sat straight, his head bowed only slightly.

Watching the manner in which he rode his horse through the rain, Mairi sensed the messenger's weariness as well as his determination. Despite sheeting rain and failing light, he had not taken shelter for the night. She knew, suddenly, that this messenger would not give up.

Neither would she.

"Aye, here he comes," she said. "Alone and wet to the skin. He rides as slow and careful as an old woman." She gathered the reins. "The ghosts of Lincraig Castle will have his papers from him quicklike, and say—
Boo!
And he'll ride off in fright like the others. He doesna look dangerous to me."

"More than you know," Christie muttered.

"If you do not want to do this, I will take him down myself," she said, more boldly than she felt. Urging Peg forward a little, she watched through rain and murk as the messenger rode steadily closer along the narrow ribbon of highway.

A sudden chill went through her. The foreboding that she had felt earlier returned tenfold. Destiny, she thought suddenly. Destiny and purpose rode with this man. She shivered, but the chill was not from cold.

Perhaps this man is the one.
But she shook her head as soon as the thought came. He could not be the man Iain had predicted would ride through storm and danger to find her, only her. This messenger rode toward the March warden's tower, as he had been ordered. He did not know that she and Christie waited on the crest of the hill.

She shivered again. Chill and fatigue, she told herself, from being out in the cold and the wet too long. Dismissing the rest of her thoughts as folly and nonsense, she drew a breath and watched the approaching rider.

She did not care if the man was dangerous, as Christie had warned, or as slow-witted as the other messengers. Mairi only wanted to know if he carried a warrant that could harm Iain. He must not be allowed to give it to the warden.

Her heart beat rapidly, and her hands flexed and tightened on the reins. A sensation spooled down her back, a lightning surge that tingled and spread through her body. The rain beat all around her and the wind tore at her cloak, but Mairi did not take her gaze from the man who rode relentlessly closer.

* * *

Rowan sneezed. Hurtling through wind, rain, and increasing darkness, he muttered a curse as he shifted the reins and bent his head inside his hood. Sharp, slanting raindrops beat over his shoulders as he rode toward Blackdrummond Tower.

Rain drenched his cloak and hair and ran in miserably cold rivulets down his cheeks into his stubbled beard. His leather jack and the rest of his clothing were nearly soaked in places, and his feet squished uncomfortably inside his long boots.

Earlier, he had removed his helmet because the pattering rain against its steel surface and brim had produced a maddening, tedious noise. Pulling at the hood of his sodden woolen cloak, he peered through twilight and dense rain.

The earthen roadway had turned to muck, and the grassy fields to mire. Murky light made the twisting route even more hazardous. As the road slanted upward, Rowan slowed the horse to a walk, not wanting the bay to break a leg, or to plunge over the side of a steep hill.

He was familiar with the slopes and curves of these hills and moors, for he had ridden this way many times in weather as fierce as this. But he had not been through here for years. At this slow pace, he doubted he would make it home before complete darkness swallowed up every detail of the landscape.

He swore, and then, because it felt good, swore again, crude and loud. That vented some of his frustration at being delayed, but did not relieve the wet, the chill, or the fatigue.

At least the weather would be sufficient insurance against reivers along the road, he thought. On bonny moonlit nights, clandestine traffic often crisscrossed these moors—stealthy riders, both Scottish and English, and their stolen cattle and sheep. He had ridden on many such raids himself, as had generations of Blackdrummond Scotts. But he had no desire to meet a group of reivers out here alone, on a slippery road.

On a dry night, with men at his back, he would relish such an encounter. The letter tucked inside his boot to keep it safe from road thieves—hopefully the ink had not blurred into an indecipherable mess—guaranteed that he would ride here both in moonlight and daylight, as deputy warden in the Middle March.

He knew this wide expanse of territory well, and knew most of the lairds, tenant farmers, and herdsmen who inhabited it. A good proportion of them were Border reivers as well: cattle and sheep thieves, many of them honest men, some of them scoundrels, rogues, and rascals. He had been raised in their midst.

Rowan considered, as he traveled along the muddy road, the unknown Scotsmen who had forged a spy link with the Spanish crown. Borderers tended to be fiercely loyal to kin and companion, and less so to their sovereign. The greater rascals among such a lot might be tempted by the glitter of Spanish gold. He intended to find them if they were hiding in this area.

He had accepted the council's assignment with one private reservation. Until he had spoken with Geordie Bell, he had been unwilling to pursue his own brother, not out of loyalty, but out of a desire never to see Alec again. When he had heard about the English accusations, he had realized that he would have to find Alec in order to save his own life.