'They did not.'He closed that conversation and that hope.
As I climbed on to Kailzie all my aches and pains returned.I looked across to Hugh, about to make some jocular remark.His face was set, without humour.I wished that things were otherwise, yet I knew that it was better this way.The strange feelings that I had developing within me could not be realised.Hugh was a passing stranger; no more.
We rode into the arms of the night and I was very unhappy.
Chapter Nine
TARRAS MOSS
SEPTEMBER 1585
A betraying moon cast pale light over a scene of haunting desolation, with rough heather moorland between long patches of sucking bog and the occasional stunted tree.A hunting owl called, reminding me of my own Lethan Valley and I felt suddenly homesick for the sweet grass and friendliness of home.
Mother would be worried silly for me and Father would have called up the men of the Lethan to scour the Border for the Yorling.He would not know that I had been abducted by Wild Will and then escaped, to wander the wastes of Tarras with this man who was not ugly at all.
'Wait!'The man who was not ugly put a quiet hand on the nose of my horse.
I waited without question.
'Dismount.'
I dismounted, wincing at the pain that stretching some tender parts of me caused.Hugh pulled his horse to lie prone and I followed.Having a horse obey you was a thing all Borderers could do.There was no praise in horsemanship; you either managed your horse or you died.There was no other choice in the long hills and sweet green valleys of the Borderland.
We lay in silence, saying nothing.I smelled the acrid scent of a man's sweat, heard the low murmur of conversation and then the jingle of bit and bridle.Fifty yards away a man rode past, followed by another, and another.They rode soft and slowly with the nine-foot lances of the Border held ready in their right hands and the moon glinting from the steel helmets.I held my breath, closed one hand over the muzzle of Kailzie and watched.
The riders passed, one by one, each man looking about him, each face hawk-wary, hard, and set.Backswords swung low from their saddles, some carried a dag, the heavy pistol whose shot would tear a fist-sized hole in a man.And then they were gone, near silent in the night.I made to rise but Hugh's hand gestured for me to stay.His eyes were urgent.
I settled back down, aware of the insistent hammering of my heart and the sudden dryness of my mouth.We waited as a cloud skiffed across the moon, bringing temporary intense darkness.There was the soft scuff of hooves, the aroma of horse and a lone rider passed us, just as moonshine returned.I looked up.It was Wild Will himself, with that livid white scar down the side of his face and his eyes like gimlets, boring into the night.
My horse shifted, the sound seeming to carry for miles in the hush, and then Wild Will passed on with the hooves of his horse strangely muffled and his aura of evil shivering my bones.I took a deep breath, gasped for air, and felt Hugh's hand reassuringly on my arm.
'Are you all right?'His voice was soft.
I nodded, unable to speak.
'Give them a few more minutes,' Hugh said.
I nodded again.I doubt I would have been able to move at that moment.I looked sideways at Hugh.He was peering into the dark, concentrating hard.I waited, listening to the sough of the wind through the heather.That owl was silent now.
'Right.'Hugh touched my arm.
We rode on, slowly, looking around us, wary, alert for every sound, every movement.We both knew that the Armstrongs were hunting for us and Wild Will would hang Hugh without a qualm.I quailed to think what he would do to me.Always imaginative, my mind filled with images, each one more horrific than the last until I realised that I was scaring myself to numb futility.
'Wait…' Hugh's voice broke my thoughts.'I've taken us the wrong road.'
I nodded.Not many men would have admitted their fault so openly.Robert would have tried to put the blame on me, or the dark, or the weather.I chased that thought away: I should not compare Robert with Hugh; they were two different people, each with good points and bad.
'Turn around; slowly now,' Hugh said.
I tried to obey, only to find that Kailzie's hooves were sinking in something softer than mud.
'We're in a bog,' I said.
'Wait.'Hugh slid from his horse and came toward me.'Dismount.'I did so, fighting my fear as I felt the suck of peat-bog under my feet.'Take three steps back, slowly.'
I did so and sighed as the ground was immediately firmer.I felt the spring of heather under me.
'Stay there,' Hugh spoke quietly so his words did not carry through the hush of the night.I watched his shadowy shape move back into the bog where Kailzie was neighing in fear as she felt the ground sucking her in.Blowing into the nostrils of my horse and fondling her ears, Hugh calmed her down before leading her one slow step at a time out of the bogland.
