Rowenna rolled her eyes. How could Cecily spend good money on something so frivolous when they had barely survived the winter, shivering before an empty hearth, with no meat on their bones or in their bellies, save what she could hunt, and rationing their meagre crops? She gave Cecily a look of withering contempt, which her sister returned.
‘If I am to find a husband, I must look my best, Rowenna. Did Father not say our fortunes depended on it?’
Still glaring, Rowenna pulled up the board and removed a cloth bag. It was comfortingly heavy in her hand, but when she tipped it out, a collection of pebbles rolled onto the floor.
‘Damn his eyes and shrivel his balls!’ howled Cecily. Despite her angelic appearance, she could curse like a fishwife when the fancy took her.
‘Did I not tell you to hide it in a different place this time?’ hissed Rowenna. ‘Bran can sniff out money like a hound, no matter where it is hidden.’
‘Well, Bran will just have to get his throat slit, and serve him right,’ huffed Cecily, climbing back into bed and hauling the covers over her head.
Rowenna rose to her feet, overcome with a feeling of helplessness. Once again, rescuing her family from their folly was to be her burden. She made her way downstairs and outside into the walled yard. It was hard not to despair as she squelched through the mud in search of her father. She looked back at the house through a bleak, cold drizzle.
Fallstairs had once been splendid, looming over woodland and moors beyond, but it had faded into decrepitude. Its twin chimneys were crumbling and belched smoke into the hall when they had enough firewood to feed the fires. The roof leaked and sent damp creeping down into the upper chambers. Its walled defences were incapable of withstanding a determined raid by reivers intent on pillage and mayhem. There would come a time when there was nothing else to steal, and then the whole place would probably fall down.
Beyond the walls stretched fields swamped with weeds and gorse, which would have yielded a fair crop if put to work. Yet her father and brother had no inclination for toil or for ordering their affairs and preferred to gamble, whore and drink their way into oblivion. It was only by sheer luck that they had survived this long, clinging on in the lawless no man’s land between England and Scotland.
Rowenna plodded on and then stopped dead in her tracks. Damn! Morgan MacCreadie, an ally of her father’s, was leaningby the well, scraping dirt from his fingernails with a knife. His horse was tethered nearby, its ears flattened against the drizzle.
Morgan was swarthy, muscular and heir to swathes of farmland a few miles to the north. He smiled at her approach, making Rowenna squirm inside. She had long been the subject of his open admiration but had no time for it today.
‘Have you seen my father?’ said Rowenna.
Morgan grunted and pointed his knife in the direction of the stable. He was a man of few words. ‘I came to see Rufus on a matter of business, but he is not receiving visitors just now.’
Rowenna left him staring after her and entered the stables. Beyond the shuffling of the horses and pigs came a rattling snore. Rowenna rounded a stall and encountered her father, Rufus, sprawled in the hay beside Morag. She was a fleshy, drab of a woman who served as a housekeeper and cook, but only when it suited her and when she was not insensible from stealing Rufus’ whisky. An empty bottle lay beside them. Morag’s bodice gaped to reveal a slab of white bosom and rolls of underarm fat. Her ample thigh was draped over Rufus with an air of possession.
Morgan came up beside Rowenna, making her jump. ‘Drunk as a lord. He will be out for the day,’ he said.
Rowenna muttered a curse under her breath. ‘How could my father be so carried away by lust for this creature that he succumbed to it in this filthy place?’
‘Tis a puzzle indeed, for I venture Morag has long since lost her bloom,’ offered Morgan.
‘Did she ever have any?’
Morgan shrugged. ‘She is not blessed that way, as you are, with your lovely hair and eyes and all.’ He stared at her and then coloured at his clumsy compliment, coughing away embarrassment when she did not respond. ‘Well, you’ll get no sense out of him this day, lass.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
Rowenna stomped out of the stables, rushed to the well and filled a bucket. She returned and stood over the two lovers. Morgan put out a hand. ‘Best not, Rowenna. Your father will wake in a fair temper.’
‘Damn his temper and his lazy hide,’ she said. Then she flung the icy water over the two snoring lovers.
Morag screeched like a banshee, arms and legs flailing, and her father leapt to his feet. ‘By all that is holy. Are we under attack?’ he sputtered, staggering sideways.
‘We may as well be, for all the use you are.’
‘Oh, it’s you, child.’
‘I am no child, and it is the middle of the day, and you are drunk, not to mention in a state of ungodliness with this one here,’ she said, indicating a glaring Morag, who proceeded to stuff her bosom out of sight and stand unsteadily. ‘Begone,’ snapped Rowenna, and the woman stomped off, muttering ‘cursed little witch’ under her breath.
Rufus met Rowenna’s glare. ‘A man has urges, daughter, so why must you peck at me so, you and your sister both, peck, peck, peck with your stabbing little beaks. Your poor sainted mother…’
‘Has been gone these two years and driven into an early grave by your transgressions,’ spat Rowenna.
‘She was a good deal kinder than her progeny.’
‘More fool her. Father, you must gather your senses, for Bran is in trouble and needs money to get out of it.’
