CHAPTER SIX
Keith had waited until he’d pulled his men off of the rise overlooking Monteviot and hustled them out of view of the English in a grove of pine trees before telling Rhoswyn of his bargain.
He wanted to do it in front of everyone because she was less apt to argue or fight him if there was an audience. Rhoswyn could be bold with an untamed tongue, but she did have some tact and decorum. That was her mother’s influence. Keith hoped that she had enough sense not to contest him on the bargain he’d struck with the English but, in hindsight, that had been too much to hope for.
When he announced the terms of surrender for the English, the fight was on.
“A marriage?” Rhoswyn repeated when her father’s words settled. “A marriage?”
Keith faced her firmly; he knew that was the only tactic to take. “Aye.”
“With me?”
Keith nodded. “It is the best possible solution,” he said evenly. “We know that we canna remove de Wolfe from Monteviot. He has it and he’ll keep it. The man has castles all along the border, all the way tae Berwick, so marryin’ intae his family is the best solution. It’ll make the man our ally and it will put ye in a place of importance in the House of de Wolfe, lass. Do ye not understand the honor?”
Rhoswyn stared at him, her face turning red with rage and embarrassment as she realized what her father had done. Now, it occurred to her why he’d been so insistent that he dictate the terms of surrender. He’d made her promise not to say a word and she hadn’t. Now, she knew why. God help her, she knew why her father had behaved as he had. He’d had plans she didn’t know anything about, plans involving her. When that understanding settled, it was all she could do not to run at the man and punch him in the throat.
She’d been a fool!
“These were yer terms all along,” she said hoarsely. There was much emotion involved. “Ye made me promise not tae speak terms upon me victory and this is why. Ye had this planned all along.”
Keith knew that his men were in support of the marriage to the English. It was the way treaties were conducted and there was nothing unusual about it. Except in this case, it involved a woman who was not quiet or obedient. It involved a woman who could fight with the best of them and being submissive wasn’t something she was good at. But these were terms her father had dictated and Keith had no intention of allowing Rhoswyn to deny him on this. He had to take charge before she did.
“And if I had, what is it tae ye?” he said, knowing his only hope was to be more of a bully than she was. “Ye’re not in command, Daughter. I am. I must do what is best for me clan and if that means an alliance with the English, so be it. If that means ye must be sacrificed for the greater good, then I am willin’ tae do it. Whatever made ye think ye had a say in yer future, Rhoswyn? Ye dinna from the day ye were born. Yer future has always been in me hands and now ye know what that future will be. Ye’ll be an ambassador of peace for yer people. That is a great callin’ for any woman.”
He made it sound so noble when, in truth, it was anything but noble. Sacrifice, he’d said. She was to be the sacrifice to the English so they wouldn’t overrun Kerr lands. At least, that’s how she saw it. Rhoswyn simply couldn’t believe this was her father’s true intention. It had never occurred to her that he would do this and along with her anger and revulsion, she felt the distinct pangs of betrayal.
“Ye care about the clan more than me,” she hissed. “That ye’d give me over tae the English… that ye’d been plannin’ it all along… why dinna ye tell me what ye planned tae do? Did I not have a right tae know?”
Keith lifted his eyebrows. “Would it have made a difference? Would it have made ye lose the battle? Let the English win? Tell me, lass – would ye have done anythin’ differently?”
Of course she wouldn’t have. Her pride wouldn’t have let her. “So ye betrayed me tae the English,” she said, realizing that she felt very much like weeping. “How could ye do this tae me, Pa? I thought ye loved me!”
“I do, lass.”
She threw up her hands, a frustrated gesture. “Ye loved me so much that ye bartered me like a prized mare!” she declared. Then, she pointed a finger at him. “Ye had no right tae do it without me consent.”
Now, she was challenging his authority in front of his men and Keith wouldn’t have it. Rhoswyn could only push him so far before he felt the need to push back. In this case, he had to push back – and push hard – because she was challenging him in front of his men. If he couldn’t control his own daughter, then his men would cease to have any respect for him. He already ran a fine line with that and he had for years. Therefore, he did what he had to do – he marched up on her and scowled into her red, angry face.
“When did ye ever think I had tae listen tae me own daughter?” he growled. “Ye have no say in anythin’, Rhoswyn. Ye do what I tell ye tae do, when I tell ye tae do it. I dunna need yer consent for anythin’ I do. We need this alliance with de Wolfe and ye know it. Ye’ll be marryin’ his eldest son. Do ye know what that means? It means when de Wolfe dies, ye’ll be the wife tae the head of the family. Are ye so stupid and stubborn that ye dunna see what an honor that is?”
Rhoswyn’s face was turning positively scarlet. “I dunna care what an honor it is!”
Keith was animated as he spoke. “Ye have tae marry sometime and I canna promise that I’ll find a man willin’ tae marry a woman who can best him in a fight, so this is the best option ye have. Or do ye intend tae become an old maid and let yer cousins and their heirs take what rightfully belongs tae me? It will be them that takes me place as the chief when I die because ye know as well as I do that a woman canna become chief. At least if ye marry de Wolfe’s son, there’s a chance that ye’ll bear a son tae carry on me bloodlines, a lad I can be proud of!”
Rhoswyn was so angry that she was shaking. “An English-born son,” she said through clenched teeth. “Is that what ye want? A Sassenach grandson?”
Keith’s jaw ticked. “’Tis better than seein’ me blood die off,” he said. “Since yer mother couldna provide me with a son, I expect ye tae do what she dinna.”
Gazing at her father, Rhoswyn suddenly saw, for the first time in her life, how disappointed her father was that she’d been born a girl. He’d never expressed that to her before, not ever, and she’d grown up thinking he’d been wildly proud of her. He’d raised her as a son and she’d excelled at everything he’d taught her. But he couldn’t teach her to be a man; that was the one thing she would never truly be able to do. Take over the clan and be the son he’d always wanted. It was like a slap in the face to realize that.
But Rhoswyn wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
Without another word, she turned on her heel and ran for her horse. Before Keith realized that she was trying to escape, she managed to mount the beast and take off at a dead run. Only then did Keith and his men swing into action. Keith didn’t want her injured, but he instructed his men to capture her at all costs and bring her back. She had a wedding to attend and if she had to do it bound in ropes, then that was her choice.
Keith wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip away.
It was close to sunset when Fergus and his sons managed to capture Rhoswyn, who had stopped by a stream to relieve herself. It was quite a fight, with Fergus coming away with a black eye and his son, Artis, with loose teeth, but three men against one woman eventually wore Rhoswyn down, but not completely. They were still forced to bind her.
Even when they reached Monteviot, keeping her bound was the only way she would not run again.
It made for a rather interesting evening.
*
“This is the best we can do,” James said. “With most of this place stripped of anything useful, this is going to be a less than desirable marital bed.”
James stood with Patrick and Apollo on the third floor of the tower, in the one of the two big chambers that had survived the fire due to stone walls and stone floors. Although it smelled heavily of smoke, it essentially hadn’t been scorched. But heavier even than the smell of smoke was the prevailing mood in the chamber.
Gloom and apprehension were in the air.
While William, Paris, and Kieran remained with Troy, trying to help the man accept a marriage that he was literally being forced into, James and Patrick had slipped away at William’s instruction to prepare a chamber for the new bride and groom to spend their wedding night in. Being that there were no female servants at Monteviot, there was little choice but for the knights to try and accomplish domestic duties.
But it was a difficult task.
The reivers had destroyed nearly all of the furniture in the tower, but they’d left the mattresses intact. Also, there was a big wardrobe on this level that they oddly hadn’t broken up for projectiles or firewood, although the contents of it had long been emptied. The men had virtually nothing to work with, but they managed to find a crumpled-up mattress that they re-stuffed with old hay found in one of the outbuildings. Bedrolls and cloaks made up the bedding. It wasn’t much, but it was all they had. Patrick even started a fire in the tiny hearth.
“This is a piss-poor way to start a marriage,” he grunted as James finished with the mattress. “God’s Bones, I feel sorry for Troy.”
“Do not tell him that,” James said firmly. “He does not need to hear it. There is nothing he can do about this so do not make him feel any worse.”
Patrick waved him off. “I would not tell him that, of course. But the man has my sympathies. First to be publicly humiliated by the woman and then forced to marry her. She couldn’t have stripped him more of his manhood had she cut off his ballocks.”
“But imagine how a woman like that would be in bed,” Apollo said. He was trying to fix one of the doors on the wardrobe and when Patrick and James looked at him, he lifted his eyebrows. “We know she is a fighter. She is not afraid to put a man in the position of submission. Imagine how aggressive a woman like that would be in bed.”
Patrick cocked a dark eyebrow. “Troy has already been forced to submit to her twice – once in battle and once for the marriage offer. Now he will not even be able to dominate her in the bedchamber?”
Apollo gave him a rather lascivious expression but Patrick couldn’t agree with him, nor could James. In fact, James sighed heavily as he finished dragging the mattress against the wall next to the hearth.
“If I thought I could get away with it, I would help him to escape,” he said. “But Papa would have my head. ’Tis too bad that we cannot swap Troy out for another groom. Mayhap one of the soldiers. Do you think Red Keith would notice?”
Patrick grinned in spite of himself. “I think Red Keith had his eye on Troy the moment the man engaged his daughter. In hindsight, it could have been his plan all along. Did he truly plan on letting his daughter go to battle against a de Wolfe knight? I cannot imagine he truly believed she could win.”
James looked at his handiwork on the bed. It wasn’t wonderful, but it was all he could do. “I did not get a good look at her,” he said, “but she moved with confidence. She certainly attacked Troy with confidence. She knew if she did not take the man down at the very first, the battle would be over. That speaks of a cunning woman.”
“Or a ruthless one.”
James moved away from the bed, heading over to the fire that Patrick was blowing to life. “God help him,” he muttered. “I hope he does not kill her before the night is out. That will bring the Kerr in droves to the border and we will not be able to stop them.”
“He knows that,” Patrick muttered.
“Does he?”
Patrick stood up from the hearth, wiping his hands off on his breeches. “I am sure Papa is having that conversation with him even now.”
James looked at his brother, wondering if, indeed, their father was having such a conversation with Troy at the moment. For certain, the last time they saw Troy, the man was fit to be tied. Rage didn’t quite cover it. As James and Patrick debated on the mood between their brother and their father at the moment, Apollo came away from the wardrobe.
“Mayhap we had better go to the hall and see if we can be of service,” he said. “If not to tie Troy up so he can’t run away, to at least keep the peace. If Troy becomes angry enough, there is no telling what he might do.”
Patrick simply stood there, gazing into his fledgling fire. “He has been known to destroy things when he is angry,” he said quietly. “He is a man who allows his emotions to feed his strength. In fact, the first battle we faced after the death of Helene and Athena, I clearly remember Troy ripping a man’s head clean from his body. You were there, James. You saw it.”
James had. He thought back to that terrible skirmish about a month after the tragic deaths, a battle that had been a big misunderstanding. A lass from Clan Hume had run off with an English soldier and The Hume had believed Wark Castle to be the destination. James, in command of Wark, knew nothing of the lass or of the disappearance, but found himself in a very nasty fight with a band of rabid Scotsmen.
Berwick, Northwood, and Questing had ridden to their aid, including Troy, but he hadn’t been ready for that battle. Every pain, every anguish he’d been feeling since his wife’s death had manifested itself in brute strength and barbaric actions. As far as the others knew, he’d never used his sword once in that battle. Everything he did, he’d done with his bare hands, and it had been a bloodbath. That was the capability of Troy’s anger and they all knew it.
It wasn’t something they wanted to see again.
“I did, indeed, see it,” James said after a moment’s reflection. “But that was a different time, Atty. Helene had just died and he’d not yet come to grips with it.”
Patrick was still staring into the fire, watching the flames lick against the old wood. Thoughts of Troy, of that day, and of Helene filled his brain. There was a long pause before he spoke again.
“It was my fault, you know,” he whispered. “All of this is my fault.”
James knew what he meant. He sighed heavily. “Atty, nay…”
“They were coming to see my son,” Patrick insisted. “Had they not been coming to Berwick, none…”
James cut him off, slapping a gentle hand on Patrick’s chest to get his attention, to pull him away from a guilt that had consumed him since that day. He rarely spoke of it, but the family knew his feelings. He had been tortured since that day, no matter what anyone said to him. Even Troy had spoken to him about it but a brother’s absolution hadn’t alleviated that guilt.
That burden had been Patrick’s alone to bear.
“It was not your fault,” he said firmly. “Troy has never blamed you. It was a tragic accident and nothing more.”
Patrick’s jaw ticked faintly. “Mayhap,” he said. “But I cannot tear myself away from that guilt. I feel as if all of this… I am responsible for it. I am responsible for Troy’s pain and Scott’s departure.”
“That is not true.”
“Because of me, our family is fractured. True or not, that is the guilt I live with. The evidence is there.”
James patted him on the chest. “I cannot say that I would not feel the same way from your perspective but, someday, you must come to terms with the fact that you did nothing to cause any of this,” he said. “Things like this… they happen, Atty. Women die and men die. It is the way of life. But I would like to think that in the grand scheme of things, a death serves a higher purpose. Mayhap we do not understand what the purpose is when it happens but, in time, we will see the light. We will see that everything in life happens as it should.”
Patrick looked at his brother; James was two years younger than he was, a fine and noble man with a good heart. When the entire world was upended, James could always be looked upon for comfort and calm guidance. He had their mother’s gentleness and her uncanny wisdom. That was simply his gift.
“And you think Helene’s death has a higher purpose to Troy?” Patrick asked. “I am sure he does not see that.”
James nodded. “Mayhap not now but, in time, he will,” he said with quiet resolve. “Mayhap he was meant to marry the Scots lass to forge a larger bond with the Scots. Mayhap their son will be the greatest knight who has ever lived, a man who brings peace to the borders. Who knows? Only time will tell. I only hope I am around to see it.”
Patrick smiled weakly. “You will be,” he said. “And then remind me of this conversation when we are old. Let us look back on lives well-lived and see if everything really does happen for a reason.”
James smiled in return. “I can promise you that it does,” he said. Then, he looked around the chamber, seeing the pitifulness of it. It certainly didn’t look like the chamber of a newly married couple, but that couldn’t be helped. His smile faded. “But for now, I do not suppose there is anything more we can do here. Let us take Apollo’s suggestion and retreat to the hall.”
With great reluctance, the three of them headed back down to the hall where the future of Troy de Wolfe – and an alliance with Clan Kerr – were being forged in blood.
Troy’s…