Father opened his mouth to interrupt and closed it again without saying anything.Father rarely gave advice about matters of the heart, leaving it to his womenfolk, that is, Mother and I, to say our hearts and afterwards make our peace.'Keep them at it, Bess,' Father said and moved away.I watched him mount Dryfe, his stallion, and spur northward down the valley.
'You heard your father,' Mother said.'We want this cut and the hay stooked before night's upon us.'
I nodded, caught Robert's eye and we smiled at each other.Despite what mother said, Robert was my lad, as you will know by now.We had known each other since childhood, or rather we had nevernotknown each other.We grew up together, fishing or guddling for trout in the Lethan or the River Tweed, netting the salmon as they returned to spawn, racing each other to the summer shielings, working in the rigs or with the cattle, riding around the valley and along the ridges of the Heights.We were like brother and sister in some ways, and everybody and his mother should have known we should be wed one day.That one day would be when I was full woman and he was full man.
However, there is a huge gap between knowing something should happen and the actual event itself.Robert Ferguson and I knew we were right for each other and I had long since told him our plans for the future, but neither my mother nor Robert's father agreed.My mother said she would not let me marry until Robert had proved himself man enough to take a wife, and Robert's father, Archie Ferguson, just did not like me.I did not know why he should feel like that.I am a personable girl, active in what I do, and I am from good stock.Indeed, my family is better than the Fergusons of Whitecleuch or any other Fergusons in the Borderland between Berwick and Solway Sands.If bloodlines were to be compared, I can stand proud against any in Scotland, and that means any in the world.
As you can see, I am still indignant that any mere Ferguson should question my right to his son if I choose him.However, as we had neither lands nor cattle, Robert and I had to wait until our respective families realised that Fate, the Lord, and all the deities that may or may not exist in river, loch, hill, earth, and sky had decreed we were meant for each other.Or until some other man took my fancy, which was something that I knew would not and could not happen.We were destined you see, for I had seen it in my visions.
And therein lies my tale.
When Father trotted off that fine September day to seek the cause of the smoke, Mother took charge of the harvesting, which meant we moved faster and worked twice as hard.In the Lethan Valley, nobody argued with Lady Tweedie.Or if they did, they certainly did not argue a second time.
Occasionally I caught Mother raising her head to check the tenants were working as hard as they should.Sometimes she gave a grim nod of satisfaction, more often a sharp bark of reprimand.Once I caught her looking at something with a smile on her face and I followed the direction of her glance to see what amused her so.I saw she was watching Clem's Adam as he bent forward to his task.Clem's Adam was a fine handsome man of about thirty, with a face that many women spoke about and a body that would have graced any of these sculptures in the ancient abbeys.Yet it was not his face that Mother was smiling at but quite another portion of him that he thrust skyward as he faced the opposite direction.
Was a man's behind so interesting?I shrugged; slightly embarrassed that Mother should act like she did at her age and especially as she was a respectable married woman.She was too old to be thinking about men, especially men other than her husband, my father.I glanced over to Robert who was working in a similar position.What I saw did not interest me, so I saw no reason to linger.
'Keep working!'Mother had obviously switched her attention away from the rump of Clem's Adam.
If Father had remained with the harvesting, the rain would have beaten us.As it was, we beat the rain, so the barley was taken into storage and the hay cut and stooked at exactly the same time as the heavens opened and the deluge descended.
'Get back inside.'Father returned the minute the rain began in earnest.'All of you.There are reivers about.'
'They are early this year,' Mother said calmly.'Is it the Veitches?'Living on the Border makes one stoical about the unexpected.
'Not this time,' Father said.'Much worse than that.'
I felt Mother stiffen.'Is it the Armstrongs?'
'I believe so,' Father said.
Although Mother nodded calmly, I could sense her tension.'Wild Will Armstrong casts a wide net but I have never known him to hit the Lethan before.'She raised her voice only slightly.'All the women!Get the animals within the barmekin wall.'She pushed me toward the horses.'Go along, girl.We will hold the tower.'
I looked at her.'How about the kye?'The cattle, you may know, are at the shielings, the high pasture in the summer.Father had left them nearly unattended in the shielings so we could get the barley and hay cut.
'The men will get the cattle in,' Mother said.'Move, Jeannie!'
She had made her decision and, as I said, nobody argued with the Lady Tweedie.
Our tower, Cardrona Tower, sits near the head of the valley, at the confluence of the Manor Burn and the Lethan Water, so there is a natural defensive moat on three sides.The Tweedies have owned the upper Lethan Valley since 1307 when our ancestor Sim Tweedie joined King Robert I against the English invader; before that, we only held Cardrona Tower itself.It is not the largest tower house in the Borders, but it is secure against all but a major army and all our tenants and most of their livestock can fit into the barmekin, the walled area immediately outside the keep.
Mother looked over at the tower, tutted and shook her head.'I would wish for a better home,' she said.'We are the Tweedies of Lethan; we should have something grander than a mere tower like any Border laird.'
I said nothing to that.I had heard the words, or something very similar, a hundred times before.Mother always had grand ambitions for a palace to grace our position as the pre-eminent family in the area.Father was quite content to remain packed and cosy within our gaunt stone tower.It was secure, it was traditional, and it had been our home for so many centuries that Father could not consider anything else.
Robert cantered up to join Father, looking somewhat bemused as he often did.It was an expression that irritated me.
'Take care.'I touched his arm, surprised as always by the hardness of his muscles.There was no need to say more.
His broad face broke into a smile.'I will,' he said.
I watched him fondle the ears of his horse and check the sword at his side.He tapped his horse, waved to me and to my good friend Katie Hunnam of the Kirkton and followed my father out of the great gate.
'He should not need you to wrap him in cotton wool,' Mother said.I expected nothing more from her.'He should be man enough to care for himself.'
'He can care for himself.'I watched the line of men ride up the pass toward Brothershiel with the horses sure-footed on the wet grass and Robert near the front.The rain increased, hammering off the barmekin walls and pattering into the fast-surging Lethan Water, a harbinger of autumn.
I had mixed feelings as I saw Father take the men up the pass into the high hills.Up here in the Lethan we were away from the worst of the riding families of the Borders, but we always had a fear that the Veitches would come over these same hills that Father was entering, and we did suffer the occasional raid.Only a year before riders from Liddesdale had passed us by to take the Thieves Road by the Cauldstaneslap over the Pentland Hills and hit the lands around Edinburgh, so we had been on alert.That smoke from Peebles had been a warning.
