Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy 2] Read Online Free PDF Page B

wi’ a daughter o’ mine, and they be proven reivers, every last one o’ them.”
    “That lad you mean to hang first has not yet seen the eleventh anniversary of his birth,” Wat said, casting a glance at Lady Murray. “Would you hang him just for following us? I give you my word as a Borderer, he had nowt to do with reiving.”
    “Aye, sure,” Murray said scornfully. “I expect ye’ll say next that none o’ ye did and that ye didna even ken the lad were there.”
    “I did
not
know,” Wat said, feeling his temper stir. He was not accustomed to having his word challenged. “Nor did my men know that he’d followed us, because they’d have sent him back with a sore backside just as I would have.”
    “Then, I warrant that by hanging him now, I’ll save myself the trouble later. With you lot to set him an example, he’ll be a true reiver in no time.”
    Wat looked again at Lady Murray but could read nothing in her expression. Shifting his gaze to the lady Margaret, he wondered if she might wield influence with her father. Just as he had decided that she might, a new voice spoke up.
    “Aye, I
will
be a true reiver one day,” Wee Sym said defiantly, glowering at Murray. “And your herds would be the first I’d take, for ye’re nobbut a blackguard to be hanging men what took nowt from ye whatsoever. I saw how it was! I saw your men jump out o’ the heather. And where your beasts were, that’s no your land at all. ’Tis the Douglas’s, and ye’ll answer to him for it just as all do hereabouts.”
    “Enough, Sym!” Wat snapped, terrified that Murray would order the lad’s hanging without further discussion. When Sym looked ready to say more, Wat added in a measured, even sterner tone, “Not one more word.”
    “Bless me, but I’ll be ridding the world of a right scoundrel,” Murray said. “Put the noose round his neck, lads, and let’s get on with this.”
    “Wait,” Wat said.
    “We’ve nae more to say,” Murray declared.
    “If you release my lads—all of them—I’ll do as you ask and agree to marry your daughter,” Wat said, ignoring gasps from his men and Sym’s goggle-eyed stare.
    Behind Murray, Wat saw Lady Margaret put a hand back to her mouth. Her sister’s eyes were as big as Sym’s, but Lady Murray revealed no emotion.
    “I’ll release the boy,” Murray said. “That’s all.”
    Wat drew a deep breath and let it out. A moment before, he might have taken the deal just to spare Sym, but a glance at Gibbie staring at his own feet with visible tension in his broad shoulders told Wat what he had to do.
    To Murray, he said, “Releasing one is not enough. I’ll not save myself just to spare a foolish bairn who’ll likely throw his life away in just such another act of defiance. You’ll release the rest of my men, or we have no bargain.”
    “I’ll do nae such thing.”
    “Think you that after hanging half a dozen Scott vassals you can escort your daughter to Rankilburn and return here safely with nobbut a tail of your own men to protect you? Or will you let her fate rest with no more protection than that of a man whose word you do not trust, over miles of countryside rife with armed ruffians, poachers, and lusty men-at-arms, not to mention any number of rogue English raiders? Recall that despite Douglas’s orders, the area is hardly peaceful.”
    He saw Lady Murray touch her husband’s arm.
    Meg’s fingertips pressed hard against her lips to keep the words she wanted to speak from spewing forth at her father. How could he threaten to hang a child? How could he not believe the reiver, who clearly was willing to die with his men? And what had the boy meant when he’d said the reivers had stolen nothing?
    She felt relief when her mother moved, for although she had not been able to see exactly what Lady Murray did, Sir Iagan made no immediate effort to reply to the reiver’s challenge. He turned to her ladyship instead.
    “What is it?” he asked when Lady Murray did no