The Captive Heart

Chapter Eleven

The clansmen followed the track they had followed several days previously, turning south this time where the raiding party had split in two. They moved along at a steady pace, stopping to rest their horses briefly and take a few moments of ease. They carried with them oatcakes, which they ate a-saddle when hungry. Each man's flask held his own personal preference for liquid refreshment. When the short autumn day began to wane they found shelter by an ancient cairn of stones. Gathering wood for a fire, they soon had one going. Others among them went on foot onto the moor and trapped several rabbits and two game birds, which were dispatched quickly to be brought back for supper. The creatures were swiftly skinned, the birds plucked. Then they were put on spits to be roasted over the open fire.

When the game was nicely cooked it was portioned out among the men to eat with their oatcakes. Afterwards a watch was set for the night, and those who could, slept. The skies had cleared near sunset. As he lay upon his back staring up at the night sky admiring the bright stars, Malcolm Scott considered that it had been a very long time since he had gone raiding. The borders were not always as quiet as they had been of recent years, but then the English had had-still had-problems with their monarchs. Everyone chose sides, and they had been so busy fighting amongst themselves that there had been no time to fight with the Scots.

He wasn't certain as he lay there that he didn't miss the excite-merit of the raiding that had gone back and forth during the previous years. It wasn't over yet, of course. It would never be over. He expected that once England settled down with this new king, of theirs, and the matter of poor mad Henry VI was concluded, the raiding would begin anew. He smiled in the darkness thinking of how he would take his sons with him and teach them how a border lord went raiding. He would show them there was a time for harshness and a time for mercy. That cattle, horses, and sheep, not women, were the best part of a raid, for they added to a man's wealth. But, of course, first he had to regain his wife from that stubborn fool of an Englishman who thought that Alix was his.

He awoke when his uncle shook his shoulder. It was still dark, but the darkness was lightening, and the distant horizon was beginning to hint at morning. Around him the men were gathering up the horses that had been grazing and resting during the night. After watering the horses at a nearby stream, the men were now preparing to ride.

"Mount up!" the laird called to them as he sprang into his saddle.

The borderers moved slowly off from their encampment. The air was distinctly colder this morning, but as the sun slowly began to rise, the dampness eased. With more light the horses picked up the pace as they rode south. In late morning, close to the noon hour, they had the good fortune to come upon a small three-wagon caravan of tinkers who were also traveling south to find a milder winter. The wagons stopped as the laird and his troupe came up upon them.

"Good morrow, my lords," the obvious leader said, bowing nervously as he waited to learn the fate God had decided for him and his family. He was a swarthy man, but roughly dressed. From the wagons about him children peeped out curiously. There was no sign of women, only other men with faces that said nothing.

"Do you know of a place called Wulfborn Hall?" the laird asked pleasantly.

"Wulfborn Hall?" The tinker considered carefully, and then he saw the gleam of silver in the laird's fingers. "You are quite near it, my lord," he said quickly.

"How near?" the laird asked casually, tossing the silver piece into the air.

The tinker watched the coin with dark eyes as it fell back into the laird's big palm. He could tell it was full weight by its size and the faint sound it made as it hit the skin. "Perhaps ten miles just south and slightly to the east, my lord," he replied, deftly catching the coin as it was sent through the air in his direction. He bobbed his appreciation.

"My thanks," Malcolm Scott said, and he signaled his men forward again.

The tinker watched them go, thinking that so large an armed group did not bode well for Wulfborn Hall. He beckoned his caravan onward.

"Do you think he told the truth?" Robert Ferguson asked his nephew.

"He had no reason to lie," the laird said, and then he called to Beinn. "Send two men ahead to ascertain the exact location of this place we seek."

"You want to find the right place, Nephew. It would not do for us to attack someone innocent in this matter," the Ferguson of Drumcairn remarked.

"Alix said there were no neighbors for miles around," Malcolm Scott replied.

Two scouts broke off from the main party and rode ahead seeking out Wulfborn Hall. They were not long in finding it, for the tinker had not lied. One of them rode back to the laird while the other waited and watched. The house that stood on a small rise at one end of the village was constructed of stone. It had a slate roof, and its windows were long and narrow. It was a house that could be properly defended. The village was small and poor looking, but it did have a little church at the opposite end from the house. There were few signs of life on this autumn day, for the harvest was long in. Most of the cotters would be keeping to their hearths until spring came. There was a respectable flock of sheep grazing on a hillside in the weak sunshine, and maybe half a dozen cattle in the nearby meadow. The place was hardly worth pillaging, the clansman observing in the shadows thought to himself as his horse shifted beneath him. Sensing the arrival of his clansmen, the watcher turned as the laird rode up by his side.

Malcolm Scott gazed down on the scene. "It seems a peaceful enough place," he said. "Is it not guarded?"

The clansman shook his head in the negative. "Shepherd and his dog over in yon meadow, my lord, but other than a goodwife scurrying to the well in the village I've seen no sign of men-at-arms. 'Tis obvious this Englishman believes he is safe from attack."

"Umm," the laird grunted, and then he said, "The house looks as if it is fortifiable. Stone walls as thick as any keep. And the door will be oak bound in iron, I'll wager. Not easy to hack through, but it can be done. No walls though about the place." He thought silently for a long minute. How to proceed? Would the Englishman, faced with fifty armed Scots, turn Alix over to him and admit his defeat? Or would he persist in the fantasy that Alix belonged to him, thereby forcing the Laird of Dunglais to strong action? There was no way to know the answer to his questions, of course, until he himself proceeded one way or another.

" 'Tis never wise to show one's full intent," the Ferguson of Drumcairn said to his nephew quietly.

Malcolm Scott nodded thoughtfully. Then he spoke. "You and your clansmen remain here, Uncle. I shall take mine down the hill and up to the door of Wulfborn Hall to see what I can accomplish with this lordling."

"He's not likely to give her up," Robert Ferguson noted.

"Probably not, but before I destroy his village, drive off his livestock, and take his people to sell in the Jedburgh market, I should like to offer him the opportunity to be reasonable and save most of what he has from my ire," the laird said.

" 'Tis fair," his uncle agreed, "and most generous of you, Colm, considering the scurvy fellow stole your wife." He turned to his own clansmen. "We'll be remaining here for the interim, lads," the Ferguson of Drumcairn told them.

The laird turned to his captain. "We'll go quietly," he said, "but ride slowly through the village to instill the proper amount of fear in these English. In the end I have no doubt we'll have to fight to regain possession of my wife, but perhaps a show of force will frighten this Englishman into being reasonable. Tell the men."

Beinn nodded, and then moved among the Scot clansmen speaking quickly and quietly. Then he returned to his lord's side. " 'Tis done, and they understand," he said.

The Laird of Dunglais raised his arm and signaled his men forward. They came from the wooded hillside into the open, riding slowly and silently down the hillside. The shepherd in the meadow saw them first, and a shiver of dread ran down his spine, but he remained with his sheep, for the clansmen made no threat to him. Indeed they didn't even look at him as they rode by.

A woman coming from the communal well saw them as they passed the little church and came down the street of the village. Dropping her full pail she ran shrieking at the top of her lungs towards her cottage. Several cotters, hearing her distressed cries, came to their doors, leaping back with fright and slamming them shut as the troupe of clansmen rode mutely by them. They continued on up a small rise until they reached the house, and it was there that they stopped. The Laird of Dunglais climbed down from his big stallion, and walking up to the iron-bound oak door, pounded furiously upon it. Then he stood and waited, but there was no answer. He beat upon the door a second time.

"Open the door to me, Sir Udolf Watteson! I have come for my wife, and as God is my witness, I shall have her!" Malcolm Scott called out. He banged the door again.

Finally a tiny window high up in the door opened. It had an iron grating and all but obscured the face of the man who spoke from it. "What is it you want, Scotsman?"

"Are you Sir Udolf? For I shall speak only with him," the laird told the speaker.

"I am he" was his answer.

"You have my wife, my lord, and I have come to take her back," the laird said.

"You are mistaken," Sir Udolf replied. "Go away!"

"Alix Givet was married to me in the rite of our Holy Catholic Church," the laird answered quietly.

"Alix Givet is my betrothed wife," Sir Udolf responded. "I have the dispensation from Yorkminster that permitted me to take her as my wife. My claim is prior, and it is just. You cannot have her."

"You had no authority over the lady, my lord. Therefore your dispensation is not valid, for it was obtained under false circumstances," Malcolm Scott said. "Alix is my wife, and she is carrying my bairn. I want them back."

"You lie!" Sir Udolf told the laird in a tight voice. Alix with child? She had not told him that. But in the week he had had her back she had spoken but few words to him. She could not be carrying this Scot's bastard! He would not allow it! She was meant to bear him a child. Another son to take Hayle's place. A son to inherit Wulfborn one day. "My wife is not with child," he finally said to the laird.

"That could possibly be truth if you had a wife, Sir Udolf, but you do not. I do, and she is with child. You are holding her captive in your house. Release her, and I shall go my way peaceably. Deny my request, and you will feel my wrath," the Laird of Dunglais said in a hard voice.

"Get you gone from my lands," Sir Udolf responded. "Alix Givet is mine. If she is indeed with child, I will gladly return your bastard to you when it is born, but its mother remains with me, you rough savage. You have raped and abused her! You have forced her into an unholy and illegal union! But I shall protect her from you! Go!"

Malcolm Scott shook his head in disbelief. "If you truly believe what you say, my lord, then you are a bigger fool than I took you for," he told Sir Udolf. "Release my wife to me, or suffer the consequences of your folly."

The little window with its grating slammed shut above him, but not before Sir Udolf had shouted, "I will see you in hell first, you filthy Scot!"

"God's wounds!" the laird swore angrily, and his stallion danced nervously as its master swung it around and galloped back through the village and up the hill with his men to where his uncle waited with his own clansmen. "The stubborn fool wants a fight, for which he is neither prepared nor able to win," he said to Robert Ferguson.

"The house is strongly made," Beinn said to his lord. "While you spoke with the Englishman I sent several of our men to ride about it, looking for weaknesses in the structure. There are none we could see. The windows are all shuttered for winter, and there are but two doors. The one before which you stood, and a tiny door that probably leads to the kitchens. Like its larger mate, it is iron-bound and oak. The walls are all stone and of a deep thickness. It needs no wall or moat about it, for it is as strong as any keep, my lord. We are not equipped to batter it down as we are now."

The laird said nothing for what seemed a long few moments, but then he spoke. "This Englishman sits behind his house walls smugly holding my wife and our unborn bairn as his captives and thinking she is his for the taking. We will fire the village and take his livestock first. But when I return it will be for my wife, and once she is safe I will kill Sir Udolf Watteson myself for his temerity. Which will you have, Uncle? The four-legged sheep or the two-legged ones?"

"I'll take the four-legged," the Ferguson of Drumcairn replied. "Easier to manage, and I won't have the bother of selling them off. What about his cattle?"

"Next time," the laird said grimly. Then, before they realized what he was doing, Malcolm Scott rode back down the hill, through the village, and up to the front door of Wulfborn Hall. "Alix," he shouted in as loud a voice as he could. "I will be back for you, lambkin! Do not dispair! I will be back!"

Seated in the hall of the house Alix heard him calling to her through the closed shutters of the windows. She smiled, and her hands encircled her belly in a soothing motion. "There, my bairn," she whispered. "Do you hear your da?" And she smiled to herself even as Sir Udolf stormed into the hall, coming over to the hearth where Alix sat.

"Is it true?" he demanded to know.

"Is what true?" she responded in a cool voice.

"He's put a bastard in your belly," the master of Wulfborn said.

"My husband and I are expecting a child, aye," Alix answered him.

"He is not your husband! I am your husband!" Sir Udolf almost screamed. "I have the papers declaring a betrothal between us. You are mine!"

"You had no right to seek a betrothal between us," Alix told him quietly. "You are not, were not, my legal guardian. I was a widow, and free to choose my own husband if I wanted another. You were my father-in-law, and I told you when you suggested it that I wanted no marriage between us. How could I when I thought of you as I thought of my own dear father, God assoil his soul? I should have felt as if I were committing incest. And certainly the church would not allow such a union."

"And yet it did," Sir Udolf said almost triumphantly.

"You as good told me that you would buy this dispensation, and I have been given to understand it took Father Peter three trips to York before your wishes were granted. And how much gold did it cost you, my lord? And it has all come to naught. Let me go home to my husband. He's still out there, isn't he? I could hear him through the shutters in the hall when he cried out to me."

"He has bewitched you!" Sir Udolf insisted. "And seduced you not only in body but in soul. When your bastard is bom it shall be taken from you. Then we may count this unfortunate incident closed. Father Peter will bless us and our union, and you will give me a son to replace the one you took from me."

Alix looked at him, astounded. "Are you mad, my lord?" she wanted to know. "I took nothing from you, but that son who grows more saintly in your eyes daily took much from me. He took the most precious gift I had to offer any man, my virginity. On our wedding night he took it cruelly, brutally, and then left me to return to his mistress. I lay in a cold dark chamber frightened and in pain. Hayle hated me for being his wife. He called me a whore because I agreed to our union so that my father would be safe in his last days, so that I might have a home. I know that most marriages do not begin with love, and knowing your son's devotion to his Maida, I did not expect his love. But I was entitled to his respect, for I was willing to give him mine. And a little kindness would not have gone awry with me. Instead I was mounted in the dark almost every night like a mare in heat. He did not want to see my face or even have me looking at his shadow, for the guilt that overwhelmed him at the taking of a woman other than Maida was too much for him. Hayle was like a boy with his first and only love. Sometimes I felt as if I were years older than he was, and yet it was he who was the elder."

"But I would not-could not-treat you like my son did," Sir Udolf told her.

"I know you would not, and I do not disagree that you need another wife, my lord," Alix said. "But you cannot have me. I am already a wife to the Laird of Dunglais, and soon to be a mother to my husband's son. Let me go, and find yourself another. I am certain there is a family hereabouts who has an eligible daughter. I know you have not spoken to your neighbors in years, but now would be a good time to renew your acquaintance with them. We are all at peace with one another."

Before he might answer her, a serving man ran into the hall. "My lord! My lord! The Scots are burning the village! They are driving off the people and your sheep!"

For a moment Sir Udolf looked befuddled and bemused. Then he cried, "This savage whose bastard you carry has done this! He will never have you back! Never! And when the brat springs forth from your womb, madame, I will slay it myself and send its body back to him at your Dunglais."

"You have brought this upon yourself!" Alix told him angrily, coming quickly to her feet. "If you had returned me to him when the laird asked you, we could have gone home. My husband would have left you in peace. This is his answer to your intractability, my lord. You wish to blame someone for this misfortune? Blame yourself!" Then she pierced him with a hard look. "And if I have the misfortune to still be at Wulfborn when my son is born, I give you fair warning. Make one move towards him, and I will kill you myself! You are mad to believe I would allow you to harm my child." And turning on her heel, she left the hall while behind her the few servants stared open-mouthed at Alix's outburst.

Sir Udolf Watteson sat down heavily, remaining silent and still for several long minutes. Finally he stood up, and climbing to the top of his house, opened the shutters on the very window from which his son had hurled himself. Looking out he saw his village burning merrily and heard the faint cries of the wounded. His flock of sheep was gone from the hillside, as was the shepherd and his dog. His few cattle, however, remained. Of the Scots there was no trace now but for the destruction they left in their wake. He sighed as he drew the shutter closed and returned to his hall.

None of it mattered. Some of his villagers would have escaped the borderers. They would return to rebuild the village, and it would be the same as it had ever been. He would take the cattle to the final cattle fair of the year while they were still healthy with their summer grazing. In the spring he would purchase another flock of sheep with the monies he had gained from the cattle sale. He would have no livestock to feed over the winter months, he thought, pleased with his own cleverness.

And best of all Alix Givet was still his. While her strong will was pleasing on one hand, for it indicated the kind of sons she would give him, on the other hand it was not at all agreeable. He would have to beat her regularly in order to keep her in line. It was imperative a wife maintain her place in the order of things. A man could not be overruled in his own house, but then, and he smiled to himself, she was young. Once she understood what was expected of her he was certain she would become a model spouse. Alix was intelligent, and no one could call her a fool despite her stubborn insistence that she loved the Scot whose child she carried.

Alix did not come out of her chamber after that, much to Sir Udolf's dismay. She did give orders from her self-imposed isolation that the hall was to be cleaned. She instructed the cook and his staff what to serve so that Wulfborn Hall once more became a pleasant habitation. But he did not see her, and she kept her chamber door barred to him. Only Bab was permitted admittance, and to Sir Udolf's surprise Bab became devoted to Alix. He considered denying her food and drink. Perhaps she would miscarry her bastard, and the connection she seemed to have with the laird would be severed. But Sir Udolf suspected if he did that his servants would see she wasn't fed and bring liquid refreshment.

Father Peter had escaped the conflagration that had engulfed the village along with some elderly villagers who had fled to the church for sanctuary. Sir Udolf knew they had been left in peace because the elderly were of little value. The priest made plain his disapproval of the master of Wulfborn's actions. "No woman," he told Sir Udolf sternly, "is worth the misery and destruction you have allowed."

"She is mine by right," the baron muttered.

"You are ensorcelled," the priest responded.

"Yet you went to York for me," Sir Udolf snapped. "Thrice!"

"Because you would not listen to reason," the priest said. "When I returned that first time and learned Mistress Alix was gone, I told you to look elsewhere, but nay, you would not. When my contact in York wrote that more coins were needed for God's work in order to make your dispensation a reality, I warned you to cease your foolishness and seek elsewhere for another wife."

"Were those at Yorkminster going to return my offering?" the baron demanded.

"Of course not!" the priest said irritably. "You gave it for God's work."

"I gave it to get my dispensation to marry Alix Givet. God's work indeed! We both know my coins went into the pocket of he to whom you gave it," Sir Udolf said.

"You might have had another to wife by now. I would have sought for another good woman of childbearing age for you among our neighbors' families if you had but asked me. And with God's blessing that wife might have proved fecund, ripening now with a son for you as Mistress Alix ripens with her husband's child, my lord."

"He is not her husband! Do not call that Scots savage her husband, Priest!"

"I will know if he is her lawful husband, as she claims, once I have spoken to her again," the priest told his master. "Where is the lady?"

"In her chamber," Sir Udolf said irritably. "She has been there since the Scots burned the village. She will not come out, and only Bab is permitted her company."

"I can see, however, that her influence has extended into your hall, for it is clean again as it has not been in months. And your table has been most tasty these past few days," Father Peter remarked dryly.

"Go and seek her out, then," the baron said. "And remind her of her proper duties as my wife and lady of Wulfborn." Then Sir Udolf held out the large goblet in his hand to be refilled, and a servant jumped swiftly to do his master's bidding.

The priest arose from the high board, where they had both been sitting. Familiar with the house, he found his way quickly to Alix's bedchamber and knocked upon the door. A voice within inquired as to his identity, and he answered, "Father Peter. I wish to speak with Mistress Alix."

"Are you alone?" He now recognized Bab's voice.

"I am, God's word upon it," Father Peter replied. He heard the heavy wooden bar being lifted from its brackets and then the iron key being turned in the lock. The door opened and he stepped quickly inside. At once he noticed the door was relocked and the bar replaced into its supports.

Alix sat by the small hearth in the room. It was burning merrily, and there was a large stack of wood on the wall next to it. A small iron pot hung from an iron arm that could be swung over the flame or not. The bed with its hanging curtains was neatly made, and the shutters at the window were closed, a drapery pulled across to shield it and keep out any draft that got through the shutters.

"Come, and sit down, Father Peter," Alix invited him.

There was a chair on the opposite side of the hearth from the settle where Alix now resided. Bab sat next to her, sewing a tiny garment. The priest found the situation most pleasant and normal. He sat down and then leaned forward to speak to her.

"Will you swear upon the good and faithful souls of your deceased parents now in purgatory to answer my questions honestly, Mistress Alix?" Father Peter asked quietly.

"I will," Alix replied, and she kissed the crucifix he held out to her.

"Were you married in God's church and under God's law?" the priest asked.

"The marriage contract between myself and the Laird of Dunglais was drawn up by Father Donald, the keep's priest. It was signed in the great hall beneath his eye and witnessed by the laird's uncle, Robert Ferguson of Drumcairn, and his wife, Margaret. We then went to the keep's chapel, where our marriage was blessed and a Mass held to celebrate the event."

"But was the marriage you entered into an honest and valid one, my daughter?" Father Peter inquired. "Was he fully apprised of your past?"

"He was. I held nothing back, Good Priest," Alix said candidly. "That is why when Sir Udolf came to Dunglais Keep several months back my husband kept me hidden. He wanted no difficulties with Sir Udolf."

"But you know, and if you are being honest with me, your husband knew Sir Udolf had sought a dispensation. And when he came to your home he said he had obtained that dispensation. Is that not so, my daughter?"

"It is," Alix replied. "But Father Donald had told us the bishop of St. Andrew's would have never upheld such a document. That is was undoubtedly obtained by means of fraud. Now you answer me honestly, Priest. Was it?"

The priest shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and Bab cackled knowingly. "There was a donation made at Yorkminster for the archbishop's Christian work," he admitted to Alix.

"There was a bribe made," Alix responded dryly. "And not once, nor twice, but three times. Shame, priest! Shame! Now to salve your own conscience you must tell Sir Udolf I am indeed wed to another. That he must release me back to my husband."

"Lady, I have already given him such advice, but he will not listen, I fear," the priest said, sighing nervously, his cheeks flushing with her rebuke.

"Colm has burned Wulfborn Village, taken its people into bondage, and made off with the sheep. He has sworn to return for me, and he will. When he comes, he'll batter down the door to this house and kill Sir Udolf Watteson. I do not want my former father-in-law's death on my conscience, and it will certainly be if he persists in his foolishness. Has he lost his wits entirely? Why has he not sought out a local woman of good family to wed and give children to instead of insisting I must be his wife?"

"Lady, I do believe the death of his only son, his only child, has indeed rendered him somewhat mad. When I returned from York two years ago and you had fled in my absence, he alternated between rage and great sorrow. There was nothing we could do to calm him at first. He was surely as one who had lost his wits, but then he grew calm once more and spoke most reasonably. I suggested your flight freed him from any further obligation towards you, and at first he agreed. But then he began to worry because you had gone on foot, leaving your own horse behind. I said such action proved to me you were an honorable woman and wanted to begin your life afresh. He countered that as the beast had been yours when you came to Wulfborn it said to him that you were distressed. He said that you were obviously overwhelmed by his plans for you and had run off in your confusion," the priest told Alix.

Alix snorted. "I left because the thought of my father-in-law bedding me was utterly repugnant," she said.

"He searched the region for several days after you left," Father Peter continued, "but he could not find any trace of you. When it snowed he was frantic with worry, but I almost had him convinced that it was God's will you were not found. I said he must let me seek among his neighbors for a suitable woman of childbearing age to marry. I told him it was his duty to marry again."

"Why, then, did he not?" Alix asked the priest.

"A messenger came from Yorkminster from my contact asking for more coin to facilitate Sir Udolf's quest for a dispensation."

"Why did you not keep it from him?" Alix inquired.

"The message was most cleverly directed to Sir Udolf. He gave the messenger what was asked and sent him back to York even before he spoke with me," Father Peter said. "When I asked him why he had acceded to the request when he had decided to accept you were gone from him, he replied he had been foolish to even consider letting you go because he knew he would find you, that the two of you were meant to be together."

"God's foot!" Alix swore, irritated. What was she going to do about this stubborn man who held her captive? The fire in the hearth crackled noisily, and sparks flew as a gust of wind blew down the chimney.

"In midspring a third and final request came for more coin along with the promise that when it was received the dispensation would be immediately sent. Sir Udolf paid a third time and the bishopric was true to its word. The dispensation came."

"He has threatened to murder my child when it is born," Alix told Father Peter.

The priest grew pale, but then he quickly said, "I will not permit it, lady!"

"You must get him to listen to reason," Alix insisted. "My child should be born in his own home. And my little stepdaughter will be frantic with my absence. She does not remember her own mam, as she died years ago. I have been with her two years, and am the only mother she has ever known. Fiona will be eight next month. She is a dear little lass, Good Priest. I miss her."

"I will do my best to help you, my lady," the priest said. "Perhaps if you came into the hall Sir Udolf might be made to see reason more easily."

"Nay. If I come into the hall he will press his suit more forcibly, I fear. My presence will give him the illusion of normalcy. He must not have that from me. You must press him to find a suitable wife."

"I will do what I can, lady, but Sir Udolf has never easily been brought to reason when he set his mind upon something he wanted."

"I must go home to Dunglais," Alix said, and her voice trembled slightly.

The priest left her, and heedless of Bab, Alix began to cry softly.

"Take me with you," Bab said suddenly.

"What? What did you say?" Alix asked the woman sewing by her side, sniffling.

"Take me with you, lady. I know you have your own servants, but I will care for your bairn," Bab told her.

"Are you certain you want to leave Wulfborn? You were born here, Bab."

"After you ran away that first time he took a terrible dislike to me, as if he blamed me for what happened. Then, as I have told you, he beat me, blaming me for your flight. And not just once, lady. I took to keeping out of his way because if I did not he would as likely beat me as not. I peeped through the shutters at your man. He is strong and he is determined. He will come for you. Of that I have no doubt. When you go again, which you will, despite the master's wishes and the priest's hedging, Sir Udolf will look again to me to take his ire out upon. And if Father Peter can convince him to wed another she will not want me, for if Sir Udolf dislikes me she will as well in an effort to please him. I am not as young as I once was, lady. But I can work hard and earn my keep, and I do not eat much. You'll need a servant for your nursling, won't you? I tell you I would rather be the lowest slavey in your kitchens than remain at Wulfborn when you are gone."

Alix considered the woman's words. She was a bawdy slattern, and she had not in the past been kind. But once Alix had earned Bab's respect, the woman had become devoted to her. And if Bab was telling the truth, then she had suffered because of Alix. "I must think on it," she told Bab. Let the woman gain a bit more of my trust, Alix thought.

" 'Tis fair, my lady," Bab responded with a nod.

November ended. Sir Udolf took to coming to Alix's chamber door and speaking to her. For the most part she ignored him, but one day he came and called to her, "We must set a date for the wedding day, my dearling."

Alix could not resist responding. "Have you found a suitable lady of good family and still young enough to give you children, then?" she asked him. There was a startled silence that caused Alix to smile.

But then he said, "You know 'tis you who is to be my bride."

"I have a husband," Alix told him. "The priest has spoken to you, I know, and yet you persist in this fantasy, my lord. I cannot wed you because I am already wed. I am with child by my darling husband. But if these things were not so, I would still not wed you, my lord. You are father to he who was once my husband. What you propose is unclean, and it sickens me you would think of she who was at one time a daughter to you as a wife with whom you would couple in an effort to gain children. 'Tis incestuous. For shame, my lord Udolf. For shame!"

"Were you his mistress?" came the question.

"Before I became his wife? Aye, I was! And I should have been happy to remain his mistress the rest of my life, for I love him! But he loved me enough to make me his wife." Alix wondered why he had not asked her that question before.

"I forgive you," he said.

Then Alix laughed. She could not help it. She laughed, turning away from the closed and barred door. If Sir Udolf wasn't mad, then he had to be the biggest fool to ever be born. And the infant in her womb took that moment to kick, for her laughter had disturbed its slumber.

"Alix," he called to her through the heavy door. "Alix.'"

She ignored him.

He pounded upon the door to her chamber, but his blows did not even shake the portal on its hinges. Finally Alix heard his footsteps as they retreated down the hall.

"He is becoming dangerous," Bab warned her.

"How do you know?" Alix asked.

"He liked to tell everyone it was the result of nearly drowning that made his son like he was, but 'tis not the whole truth. The men in this family are usually well mannered and well behaved unless they are denied something they desperately want. But poor Hayle, like the child he was, he wanted everything he saw, and denied most of the time, he could not cope with living especially when his Maida died. Hayle seemed to have no control over his emotions or his desires, just like a child. But Sir Udolf's father killed a woman he desired who kept refusing him. He slew a horse that refused to be obedient. Sir Udolf has spent all of his life struggling to not be like his father, ignoring the same traits in his only son. But now there is something that he very much wants and cannot have," Bab concluded. "I can see his frustration is beginning to cause him to lose control over himself, which means he will become dangerous. Pray God your husband returns soon to storm this house and make you free again."

It began to snow that night and Alix was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness as she stared from her window the next morning and saw the hillsides covered in white. Two menservants worked shoveling snow to open a path to the barns. Alix sighed. If the winter set into the borders, a time when raiders on both sides kept to their hearths, how was Colm supposed to come and fetch her? She had confined herself to this chamber for several weeks now, and she was becoming restless. She didn't want to stay at Wulfborn a minute more. And she certainly didn't want her bairn born here!

And then, as she stared out, something appeared upon the horizon of the hills about Wulfborn. She could not make it out at first, but as she remained watching the something began to take shape. Slowly, slowly the dark form began to reveal itself until Alix could see it was an enormous party of men. As they drew closer she immediately recognized the red plaid of her husband's family. And there were two different green plaids, one with narrow red and white stripes and deep blue squares she identified as Ferguson. But the other green tartan was not familiar to her.

"Bab! Bab! Come quickly," Alix called.

The older woman hurried to the window and looked out. "Well," she said dryly, "it would appear your husband and a few of his friends have come calling, my lady." Then she chuckled. "I can but imagine Sir Udolf's face when they break down his fine front door. I would say you're going home today."

"We're going home, Bab," Alix said. "If you will come with me." And Bab smiled the first smile Alix had ever seen her smile.

"Aye, my lady! I'll come, and gladly."