Mad Maggie Kerr, who had never in her life wept publicly, now burst into tears. She threw down her napkin, stepped down from the high board, and, sobbing, ran from the hall.
“Shame on ye for making her unhappy, and in her condition,” Grizel said from her place at the trestle directly below the high board. She got up and hurried after her mistress.
“Breeding women,” the earl said with a smile. “I’ve seen my own wife behave much the same in her time. Yer lady will calm herself. But, Fingal, if indeed ye received no summons, then ye could remain at Brae Aisir, and none would fault ye. It is possible that because of the sensitivity of the pass, the king did not send to ye. Yer honor must decide.”
“Yet he sent ye to suggest we close it,” Fin said. “Nay, I must answer the king’s call even if others do not. I know he is a difficult man, and sometimes cruel. The incident with the Countess of Glamis was more like his uncle Henry. But he has seen the laws of our land enforced to the gratitude of the commons, and he has kept us prosperous. I should not have my wife and this responsibility were it not for my royal kinsman. My family has ever been faithful to the kingly Stewarts. I will not bring shame upon us by ignoring the royal summons to arms now I have learned of it. I’ll show ye the pass tomorrow. Then I will gather my men, and we will follow ye into the king’s service.”
“God knows I’ll welcome any men you can bring. My force is small. I have scarce two thousand men at my command,” George Gordon told Lord Stewart.
“I can probably gather no more than thirty,” Fin replied. “I can’t leave the keep undefended, given the current situation. Brae Aisir is usually safe, but in times like these, ye never really know. A small war party breaking away from a large one could cause us some serious damage. But I will ride with my men.”
“And I will be here to see to our defenses, should it be necessary,” Dugald Kerr said. “Iver can go with ye, and Clennon will remain with us. And dinna fret over Maggie. She’ll calm down and see reason in time.”
But while Maggie did compose herself, by the time Fin reached their bedchamber that night, she was not happy at all that he would leave them. “The king should be defending his kingdom,” she said, “but instead he sends the Earl of Huntly to do it for him, and he expects ye to leave yer family at his whim.”
“I cannot refuse a summons to defend our land,” Fin told her. “Besides, if it comes to more than border raiding, James will be in the forefront of the battle. He is no coward, Maggie mine. But ever since his mother died the past autumn, the English king has used every excuse he can find to break the peace.”
“Convince the earl not to close the Aisir nam Breug,” Maggie said to her husband.
“If it comes to real war, there will be no traffic anyway, but if it just remains border raids, then we’ll have more traffic going in both directions. I think I’ll ride with ye tomorrow.”
“Are ye up to it?” he asked cautiously, knowing to suggest she was frail would bring a furious outburst.
“Aye, I am. With each confinement ye and Grandsire grow less restrictive with me. I’m no more than three months gone. I can still ride astride. It’s a lass this time,” Maggie said to her husband.
“How can ye be certain?” he asked, curious as to her intuition.
“It’s nothing like when I carried Davy and Andrew,” Maggie told him. “I’ve barely been sick at all. ’Tis a lass, I’m certain, and I’ll name her Annabelle.”
“As long as she is as sweet natured as her mother I’ll be satisfied,” Fin said.
“I’ll not let her be one of those sit-by-the-fire-and-sew lasses,” Maggie responded. “She’s going to learn how to ride, and how to use a claymore.”
“Will the man who weds her one day have to outride, outrun, and outfight her?” Fin teased his wife.
“Nay,” Maggie said, her tone softening, “but I don’t want our daughter helpless to any man when she is a grown woman. I want her to be able to survive on her own if she must. No woman should be helpless without her man.”
“Certainly no border woman,” he agreed.
The following morning, Fin and Maggie rode out with the Earl of Huntly to show him the Aisir nam Breug. When George Gordon saw the watchtowers above the pass, he was extremely impressed. But when Maggie brought him to the stone thistle markers just before the border with England, she revealed to him the secret of the Aisir nam Breug.
“Ye can see watchtowers on the hillside above each of these markers. This morning messengers rode along each side of the hills, warning our men in each of these little redoubts of the possible war to come, of the battles that have taken place this summer in the eastern Borders. Should an armed party be seen within the pass, the fronts of these large stone markers would be pulled away to release a great torrent of stones that would block the pass, making it impossible to get through. Our kin, the Netherdale Kerrs, have a similar means of protection in place. That is why our markers are a full mile from the true border itself. But above the place delineating the real border are towers, and they would sound the alarm so those above the markers could get to them in time to block the Aisir nam Breug to invaders.”
“Have ye ever had to use this system to protect yourselves?” the earl asked.
“Only once. In the time of King Edward the First, who was called the Hammer of the Scots, was it necessary to block the pass; but not since then,” Maggie told him.
“Then I see no reason to arouse your English relations’ suspicions by closing the pass,” the Earl of Huntly said. “Ye have it as well protected as ye can, and ’tis unlikely anyone will attempt to breach it.”
“I am told a number of English died the day they tried to come through, for the Kerr clansmen shot at them from their towers,” Maggie said proudly. “I wish we could have a small cannon or two to add to our defense, but if we did, it’s quite likely that Edmund Kerr, the Lord of Netherdale, would consider it a hostile act,” she said with a chuckle.
They returned to Brae Aisir, and the following day the Earl of Huntly, Lord Stewart, and their men departed for Jedburgh, where the earl was quartering his small force. Maggie was not happy to see her husband go, but she stood dry-eyed at his stirrup, offering him a last cup for good fortune. She had managed to get him to take Clennon Kerr’s fifteen-year-old nephew, Ian Kerr, with him to act as his messenger. Ian would ride back and forth, bringing Brae Aisir word of what was happening.
George Gordon attempted to reassure her. “It’s October, madam, and the English always go home before the snows come.”
“I can hope yer correct, my lord, and my husband is home by Christ’s Mass,” Maggie told the earl. “Godspeed to ye, sir.”
He thanked her for her hospitality, then turned to lead his men from the courtyard of the keep.
