saw nothing that looked materially different from home. If there was something here that would turn the tide of battle, she couldn’t recognise it.
Beggy would not let her back in the kitchen. The man in the armoury frowned at her when she paused at the door. Finally, she went up to the parapet, sat on the stone seat near the chimney, and gazed to the south. A man on lookout, standing at the other end of the wall, left her alone.
And looking towards home, she knew again that she was on the wrong side of the hills.
At home, when the sun set, you could watch it. Here, it disappeared behind the hills, hidden and as difficult to see as Black Rob Brunson’s feelings.
If he had any.
She should have been mourning her father or scheming to escape or counting dirks in the armoury or at least keeping a watchful eye on Wat. Instead, she was thinking about a stubborn, silent man.
Sometimes when he did deign to speak it was in an accent so twisted she could barely understand the words.
No, she did not want to dwell on how much he filled her thoughts. Only because he was difficult to deal with. Only because he was the largest obstacle in her path. No other reason that just before she drifted to sleep at night she found herself thinking of his strong chest, bared in the sun as they sat on the bank …
At least while they built the weir, he did not ignore her. No, that wasn’t it. He did not ignore her. He dismissed her. As if what she wanted was unimportant.
At home, what she asked for appeared. She was treated with a deference she only recognised now that it had vanished. Here, she was no longer special Stella, but only an enemy captive.
‘Are you sad, then?’
Wat’s voice startled her. How long had he stood there watching her?
Yet he was the one soul in Brunson Tower who looked at her with sympathetic eyes. She motioned him closer. He put a hand on her knee and she ruffled his blond curls. ‘Aye, Wat. I’m sad today.’
‘Why?’
Because I’m feeling like the Lost Storwick.
What would the poor lad say if she were to tell him how cruel his hero was? But was that true for Wat? She had seen Rob impatient with the boy, yet never cruel.
She pulled him close and hugged him until he wiggled. No. There was no use in making this poor child sad as well. The child seemed too foolish to understand sadness.
Or too wise.
‘I was missing my father,’ she said, then forced a smile. ‘But I feel better when I talk to you.’
‘My father is in Heaven.’ He smiled, as if Heaven were as close as Canonbie.
‘Is he, now?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll see him there when I die and all the saints and Red Geordie Brunson, too.’
Speechless, she nodded back, wishing she had the kind of faith this boy did. The kind of faith her mother did. ‘Red Geordie? That’s Rob’s father?’
‘Aye. He went there and left Rob to care for us here.’
She stifled her observation on how well the head man was doing at the job.
‘Come, Wat.’ She stood and took his hand. ‘Do you think your mother will lend you to me for a while?’
He nodded, swinging her arm. The touch of his trusting hand in hers nearly made her cry. Special, aye. So special that she had never married, would not have children of her own.
She squeezed back and they went down the stairs.
When they entered the small hut at the edge of the courtyard, the Widow Gregor glanced up with eyes that looked one hundred years old.
‘What is it?’ she said, immediately. ‘Wat, did you bother this woman?’
The boy hung his head. She squeezed his hand. ‘No,’ she answerd quickly. ‘Not at all.’ Eight children, Rob had said. And a poor widow saddled with them all. No wonder she had no time or patience for one who was special.
‘Ah, then you’ve come for your dress,’ she said, picked up the carefully folded green velvet and handed it to Stella.
‘Thank you.’
‘I tried me best, but …’
The dress would never be the same. And somehow, it did not matter.
‘Come, Wat.’ His mother held out her hand. ‘Don’t bother this lady.’
Stella tightened her hand on his. ‘He is no bother. I’d like to watch him for you.’
Surprise dissolved into relief and then a shrug. ‘Do what you like. It will keep him from under me feet.’
Anger made her tongue tart. ‘You take little enough care of him. He wanders by himself. Something could happen to him.’
The Widow’s weary eyes met hers, a gaze at once hollow and overfull. ‘Who are you to judge my life?’
No one, she realised. She was no one at all. ‘Come, Wat. Find your ball and we will play.’
Days passed.
Rob allowed her outside the walls, as long as she was with Wat, somehow knowing that the grip of the boy’s fingers held her as tightly as an iron chain.
Each day, Stella took Wat down to check the garth, but if there were fish in the river, they were clever enough to swim past the trap. Still, Wat never lost hope.
And she was smiling at his faith when they walked back inside the gates late one morning and she came face to face with the Brunson Warrior Woman.
The woman her kin had so grievously wronged. The woman who had ridden with the men to track him down and exact revenge for the killing of her father.
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