'We were coming for you.'Father indicated the men who rode at his side.
'We were going to rescue you!'Robert seemed excited at the prospect.'We found out that you were down in Liddesdale.'
'I was there,' I said.'Wild Will Armstrong held us prisoner.Hugh and I escaped…' I looked around for Hugh.The excitement at meeting Father and Robert had quite driven my anger away and I was prepared to forgive him.I expected him to fall in with my moods, you see; I was a very thoughtless young woman in these days.'Where is Hugh?'
'Hugh?'Father raised grizzled eyebrows.'Who is Hugh?'The sun caught the ring on his pinkie as he reached for his sword.
'He is the man I escaped with.'I looked around, expecting to see his face among the familiar men of the Lethan.He was not there so I cast my gaze further back lest he was lurking at the fringes, waiting to be invited.That was the sort of thing a gentleman would do, I reckoned.'I cannot see him.'
'You were alone,' Robert said.'There was no man with you.You were alone on the road when we saw you.'
'No.'I shook my head so vehemently that my hair netted across my face and I had to claw it free.'I was with Hugh.You must have seen him.'
'There was nobody with you,' Father said.
I eased out of the press and looked back; the road was as empty as the hills.There was no sign of Hugh anywhere.I had a sudden feeling of dread as if I was wrong and Hugh had been somebody I dreamed up, or perhaps, horribly the spirit of the Tweed.We had made love once, when my Robert had been absent and we were in an ancient, sacred place, filled with the power of those stones.
No.I shook those silly thoughts away.Hugh had been real; he had been as solid and real as any of the men in whose company I now stood.I had not imagined him or dredged him from some recess of my imagination.Or, God forbid, he had not emerged from the haunted Tweed to enchant me with his love and leave me with a spirit-child.
Oh, dear God in heaven!That was a possibility that I was with child!
I tried to calm my fears as I forced a smile.'He must have gone another way,' I said.'It is not important.'
'Who was this Hugh?'Robert asked.As always, he was like the cow's tail, always at the back.Even so, it was good to see his face.
'He was just a man I escaped with and who travelled the road with me.'I tried to sound as casual as possible.'As I said, he was not important.'I dismissed Hugh and his love with as little apparent concern as if he had been a mouse I had passed or a bird of the sky.
'We will get you back home,' Father decided, 'and we will hear of your adventures.'He stepped back, holding my shoulders in both hands.'You are looking well for somebody who was held by the Armstrongs.'
'I was not held long,' I said, still searching hopefully for Hugh.'They only had me for a day or so after the Yorling grabbed me.'
I saw my father's face alter and knew there was something he was not telling me.This was not the time to ask.I wanted to go home.I also wanted Hugh.I knew I could not have both.
Father looked me up and down, shaking his head.'Did they force you to wear men's clothing?'
I had forgotten that I was dressed like a man.'No,' I said.'We put these on so we could ride through Liddesdale in safety.'
'Tell me when we get home,' Father said again, as Robert asked me about Kailzie.
Chapter Eleven
LETHAN VALLEY
OCTOBER 1585
Can you remember the parable about the prodigal son and how his father killed the fatted calf when he returned home?Well, that did not happen at my homecoming.Instead, Mother looked me up and down, said: 'aye; you're home then,' and got on with her spinning.That was my welcome back to Cardrona Tower.No fanfares, no beating of drums, or sounding of trumpets.A few words and a look, yet I was still glad to be home, in familiar surroundings and surrounded by friendly faces.
Yet although everything was the same, everything seemed different.It was not of course: the Lethan was the same; it was me that had changed.I had been outside the confines of the Lethan Valley, I had experienced violence and theft, I had met a great many very unpleasant men and I had my first visitation of the Tweedie Passion.In short, I was a woman now while before I had been a girl.
However, other things had also changed in my enforced absence, as I discovered the morning after my return.I lay in my own bed, staring at the groined ceiling, thinking how glad I was to be back home and wondering about Hugh when Mother walked in.
Expecting her to start shouting that I should be up and about and working, I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
'Don't get up.'Mother held up her hand to stop me.She sat on the bed at my side.'Now that you've decided to come back,' Mother spoke as if I had chosen to be abducted and carried away by half the outlaws of the Borders, 'your Father will want to talk to you.'
I nodded.'I have already told him what happened.'Or some of it, anyway.I missed out some minor details, such as what Hugh and I had got up to, and the fact that he had been a Veitch.
'So I believe,' Mother said.'It is what you have not said that I find most interesting.We will discuss that later.'She looked deep into my eyes.'You have much to tell me, I believe.'
