“To my knowledge the barracks have a single door and no other exit,” Maggie replied. “Yer men had the watch, for ye imprisoned mine. And I have not left the house since ye came. Again, question yer men to see if I did for I have been in my chamber upstairs much of the time since yer incursion into my home. Ye have murdered my men, and now ye wish to place the blame on an innocent woman to cover yer crime. Shame, sir, shame!” Maggie said. “There is not one of those men I did not know, and now they are foully murdered by ye and yer men. Unarmed. Helpless. May Jesu have mercy on ye, Ewan Hay, for given the chance I shall not,” she wept. Then Maggie turned and left the hall, her shoulders shaking in apparent grief, but she was laughing so hard she feared he would discover her subterfuge.
Astonished, Ewan Hay watched her go. He was still faced with the problem that he had placed into confinement fifteen men who were now no longer there. “Bhaltair!” he shouted to his captain.
“I’m here, my lord,” the man answered, stepping forward. He was a short, stocky man with a bald pate and small dark eyes. His face had suffered through many fights. His large wide nose had been broken several times as had his jaw, which was slightly skewed. One of his cheekbones had been smashed practically flat. He was a rather fearsome-looking fellow with a short temper, and he took his position as Ewan Hay’s captain very seriously.
“Question yer men,” his master said. “See if the lady has been outside of the house since we came. And see if yer men took it upon themselves to slaughter the Kerr men-at-arms, though where they would put the bodies I don’t know.”
“They could be underneath the snow,” Bhaltair said, “but that our lot isn’t experienced enough to have done something like that, nor do they have the stones for it. Yer brother gave ye a bunch of untried and lazy weaklings, but I’m getting them into shape for ye, my lord,” he said, flattering his master shamelessly.
My lord. Ewan smiled. Here was a man who respected him and his position. “Do what ye must, but I want them in prime fighting condition by the time the snows are gone. Edmund Kerr believes I am his pawn in this matter, but I am not. I have but used him to gain access to Brae Aisir, and now I have it. But I must hold it. And until the Kerr clan folk accept what has happened, we must be vigilant at all times.”
“Understood, my lord,” Bhaltair said. “I will go and question the men now.”
But none of the Hay men-at-arms had seen the lady of Brae Aisir leave her home since their arrival. And all swore innocence in the matter of the missing Kerr men-at-arms. Upon reflection, Bhaltair, who despite his rough appearance was not a stupid man, though he was superstitious, realized that until this morning they had all been penned in the hall waiting out the storm. He could not hold his men responsible for the disappearance of the Kerrs. But they were nonetheless gone. Only witchcraft could have accomplished such a feat, he decided.
But Ewan Hay did not believe in witchcraft. He went to the barracks himself to inspect them. He had had the chamber well lit so he might see what Bhaltair had obviously not. He looked up the chimney of the hearth, but there was no evidence of disturbance in along the sooty walls. He walked with his eyes down upon the floor seeking something that would indicate an exit. But the hard earth showed no outward sign of a trapdoor leading to a tunnel. He was almost ready to give up when he found the narrow window. Its wooden shutter was blackened with age and to the quick glance seemed a part of the stone walls. The window, however, was barred.
Ewan Hay removed the bar, opened the shutter, and looked down. There was no sign of human traffic on either the sill or the ground, which was about eight feet down, but Ewan was certain this was the means by which the Kerr men-at-arms had escaped. It would not be difficult to get the bar to fall back into its place when the shutter was pulled closed from the outside, provided it was rigged properly to do so.
He had been careless, Ewan Hay realized. He knew little about the keep; before he imprisoned the Kerr clansmen, he should have inspected it more carefully and herded his prisoners into the keep’s cellars where there would have been no access to escape, or at least a less easy escape. He couldn’t continue to be so negligent and feckless if he expected to hold this keep against the English Kerrs. They would leave him be for the winter he could be certain. But once the snows melted and the pass was open to traffic again, Rafe Kerr was sure to come on an inspection.
He would have to keep Lord Edmund’s heir as his prisoner until he could make the greedy Englishman see reason; that he, Ewan Hay, was now master of Brae Aisir, and he didn’t intend relinquishing it. Brae Aisir was after all in Scotland, and he was a Scot. He would need allies, however; men he could call upon to defend his rights from the English Kerrs. And that would mean making Mad Maggie his wife, not his mistress. She was the key to seeing him made legitimate in the eyes of their neighbors. He didn’t intend letting that border vixen escape him this time.
Maggie was content for the moment that Ewan Hay could do little harm. Once a path to the village was opened through the snowbanks, she sent all the maidservants from the keep. The Hay men-at-arms were a rowdy lot, and some of the lasses in service were young and apt to be foolish. Grizel, of course, remained along with the men servitors. Her grandfather was not pleased by any of what was happening, but he was afflicted by his annual winter ague coupled with a stiffness in his limbs that tended to cripple him. Maggie’s two sons, Davy and Andrew, had taken to being with their great-grandfather, and following him wherever he went, as their nursemaid had been sent away with the other female servants but for Grizel and the cook, Maudie, who kept to her kitchen, directing the young lads now replacing her kitchen wenches.
Maggie herself had returned to the hall as Ewan Hay had sent his men to inhabit the barracks formerly possessed by the Kerr men-at-arms. Once they had eaten in the evening, they stacked the trestles on the side of the hall and disappeared. Ewan had managed to convince Bhaltair that there was no witchcraft involved in the escape of the Kerrs but only their own carelessness and the Kerrs’ quick thinking.
The winter deepened, and the snows continued. Maggie grew larger with her coming child. She sat by one of the hearths sewing and wondering where her husband was, why he had not returned, why there was no ransom demand. She would not accept that he was dead. She knew she would feel something if he were dead, and she didn’t. As long as there was winter, they were safe; Ewan Hay could do nothing in the winter. But once the winter ended, if Fingal didn’t return home, Maggie found herself fearful for what might happen. Of late Ewan Hay had attempted to charm her as she sat in the hall.
“The bairn must soon be due,” he said one late-February day. “Will it be another lad, do ye think?” He attempted a smile.
Maggie looked at him bleakly. “It will be what it will be, sir. Only God knows.”
The longer he stayed, the more she hated this intruder in her home.
“Ye did not answer my question,” Ewan said. “When will ye birth this child?”
“When is not yer concern,” Maggie answered him rudely. “The bairn will come when it comes, and not a moment before. Why do ye care?”
“I am but curious, madam, nothing more,” Ewan replied. Then he changed the subject completely. “When does the pass usually open again?”
“When the snows are gone completely,” Maggie said. “Once the melt begins, and we can enter the pass safely, we patrol its length each day until we are certain it is clear. I will be brought the reports,” she told him.
“Nay,” he responded in a hard voice. “The reports will be brought to me first. Because I am ignorant of the pass, I will confer with yer grandfather until I am sure of what I am doing. Yer responsibility is to care for yer bairns and prepare for yer marriage to me as soon as possible.”
“Marry ye? Yer mad, Ewan Hay! Raving mad! I have a husband. His name is Fingal Stewart. I need no other husband but him,” Maggie said, and the child in her womb stirred restlessly. Her hand went immediately to her belly to soothe it.
“Madam, sooner or later ye must face the fact that Lord Stewart did not come home after Solway Moss. No ransom demand came to Brae Aisir. If one does not come in the spring, and yer husband does not return home by then, ye must wed me,” Ewan Hay said. “God’s foot, madam, yer place is here in the hall with yer bairns, not out riding the Aisir nam Breug like some clansman.”
“I will do as I damned well please!” Maggie told him angrily.
“Nay, ye will cease being a border vixen, and become a good border wife,” Ewan said. “With our king in his grave, and a wee bairn on the throne, ye may be certain the English will be at our doors come summer. The traverse must be protected, and no woman is capable of such a task.”
“I’ll not wed ye,” Maggie said quietly now. She didn’t want the bairn disturbed again, and all the shouting was indeed distressing it.
“Ye have no choice. I need the cooperation of yer clansmen, and I cannot gain it unless ye are my wife. Stewart may have gotten bairns on ye, but yer still Dugald Kerr’s heiress in the eyes of yer Kerr clan folk,” Ewan Hay said.
Maggie grew pale with his words. He was right, damn him to hell. But if, God forbid, she had indeed been widowed at Solway Moss, she had no intention of remarrying, let alone marrying Ewan Hay. He was a coward, and she despised him. “I will never wed ye, and the sooner ye understand that, the better it will be for ye, sir.”
