“How near?”the laird asked casually, tossing the silver piece into the air.
The tinker watched the coin with dark eyes as it fell back into the laird’s big palm. He could tell it was full weight by its size and the faint sound it made as it hit the skin. “Perhaps ten miles just south and slightly to the east, my lord,” he replied, deftly catching the coin as it was sent through the air in his direction. He bobbed his appreciation.
“My thanks,” Malcolm Scott said, and he signaled his men forward again.
The tinker watched them go, thinking that so large an armed group did not bode well for Wulfborn Hall. He beckoned his caravan onward.
“Do you think he told the truth?” Robert Ferguson asked his nephew.
“He had no reason to lie,” the laird said, and then he called to Beinn. “Send two men ahead to ascertain the exact location of this place we seek.”
“You want to find the right place, Nephew. It would not do for us to attack someone innocent in this matter,” the Ferguson of Drumcairn remarked.
“Alix said there were no neighbors for miles around,” Malcolm Scott replied.
Two scouts broke off from the main party and rode ahead seeking out Wulfborn Hall. They were not long in finding it, for the tinker had not lied. One of them rode back to the laird while the other waited and watched. The house that stood on a small rise at one end of the village was constructed of stone. It had a slate roof, and its windows were long and narrow. It was a house that could be properly defended. The village was small and poor looking, but it did have a little church at the opposite end from the house. There were few signs of life on this autumn day, for the harvest was long in. Most of the cotters would be keeping to their hearths until spring came. There was a respectable flock of sheep grazing on a hillside in the weak sunshine, and maybe half a dozen cattle in the nearby meadow. The place was hardly worth pillaging, the clansman observing in the shadows thought to himself as his horse shifted beneath him. Sensing the arrival of his clansmen, the watcher turned as the laird rode up by his side.
Malcolm Scott gazed down on the scene. “It seems a peaceful enough place,” he said. “Is it not guarded?”
The clansman shook his head in the negative. “Shepherd and his dog over in yon meadow, my lord, but other than a goodwife scurrying to the well in the village I’ve seen no sign of men-at-arms. ’Tis obvious this Englishman believes he is safe from attack.”
“Umm,” the laird grunted, and then he said, “The house looks as if it is fortifiable. Stone walls as thick as any keep. And the door will be oak bound in iron, I’ll wager. Not easy to hack through, but it can be done. No walls though about the place.” He thought silently for a long minute. How to proceed? Would the Englishman, faced with fifty armed Scots, turn Alix over to him and admit his defeat? Or would he persist in the fantasy that Alix belonged to him, thereby forcing the Laird of Dunglais to strong action? There was no way to know the answer to his questions, of course, until he himself proceeded one way or another.
“ ’Tis never wise to show one’s full intent,” the Ferguson of Drumcairn said to his nephew quietly.
Malcolm Scott nodded thoughtfully. Then he spoke. “You and your clansmen remain here, Uncle. I shall take mine down the hill and up to the door of Wulfborn Hall to see what I can accomplish with this lordling.”
“He’s not likely to give her up,” Robert Ferguson noted.
“Probably not, but before I destroy his village, drive off his livestock, and take his people to sell in the Jedburgh market, I should like to offer him the opportunity to be reasonable and save most of what he has from my ire,” the laird said.
“ ’Tis fair,” his uncle agreed, “and most generous of you, Colm, considering the scurvy fellow stole your wife.” He turned to his own clansmen. “We’ll be remaining here for the interim, lads,” the Ferguson of Drumcairn told them.
The laird turned to his captain. “We’ll go quietly,” he said, “but ride slowly through the village to instill the proper amount of fear in these English. In the end I have no doubt we’ll have to fight to regain possession of my wife, but perhaps a show of force will frighten this Englishman into being reasonable. Tell the men.”
Beinn nodded, and then moved among the Scot clansmen speaking quickly and quietly. Then he returned to his lord’s side. “ ’Tis done, and they understand,” he said.
The Laird of Dunglais raised his arm and signaled his men forward. They came from the wooded hillside into the open, riding slowly and silently down the hillside. The shepherd in the meadow saw them first, and a shiver of dread ran down his spine, but he remained with his sheep, for the clansmen made no threat to him. Indeed they didn’t even look at him as they rode by.
A woman coming from the communal well saw them as they passed the little church and came down the street of the village. Dropping her full pail she ran shrieking at the top of her lungs towards her cottage. Several cotters, hearing her distressed cries, came to their doors, leaping back with fright and slamming them shut as the troupe of clansmen rode mutely by them. They continued on up a small rise until they reached the house, and it was there that they stopped. The Laird of Dunglais climbed down from his big stallion, and walking up to the iron-bound oak door, pounded furiously upon it. Then he stood and waited, but there was no answer. He beat upon the door a second time.
“Open the door to me, Sir Udolf Watteson! I have come for my wife, and as God is my witness, I shall have her!” Malcolm Scott called out. He banged the door again.
Finally a tiny window high up in the door opened. It had an iron grating and all but obscured the face of the man who spoke from it. “What is it you want, Scotsman?”
“Are you Sir Udolf? For I shall speak only with him,” the laird told the speaker.
“I am he” was his answer.
“You have my wife, my lord, and I have come to take her back,” the laird said.
“You are mistaken,” Sir Udolf replied. “Go away!”
“Alix Givet was married to me in the rite of our Holy Catholic Church,” the laird answered quietly.
“Alix Givet is my betrothed wife,” Sir Udolf responded. “I have the dispensation from Yorkminster that permitted me to take her as my wife. My claim is prior, and it is just. You cannot have her.”
“You had no authority over the lady, my lord. Therefore your dispensation is not valid, for it was obtained under false circumstances,” Malcolm Scott said. “Alix is my wife, and she is carrying my bairn. I want them back.”
