Rufus made his way through the village to the river that flowed so conveniently past his stronghold. The water ran sluggishly now beneath its frozen surface, but it still provided water for the village and a thoroughfare into the world beyond-by sled in the frozen depths of winter, by boat in other seasons.

A group of youths was gathered at the river’s edge, their cloaks discarded beside the line of buckets that stood waiting on the bank, as they swung pickaxes at the ice to free the water hole that had frozen over in the night. They straightened as Rufus approached, and stood waiting, their cheeks pink from cold and exertion.

“Mornin‘, m’lord.”

“Morning, lads.” Rufus exchanged greetings and small talk, acknowledging each one by name. If he was aware of the naked adoration in their eyes as they gathered around him, he gave no indication.

These were his novitiates, the most recent recruits to the Decatur band. Many had followed fathers, brothers, uncles into the world beyond the law. Some were fugitives from the law themselves, some merely imbued with the spirit of adventure. They all, however, had one distinguishing feature. They were utterly and unswervingly devoted to the house of Rothbury and held no loyalty above loyalty to their cadre.

“Is it true, master, that we’re to declare for the king?” A tall young man, whose bearing made him the clear leader of the group, spoke for them all. Ten pairs of eager eyes rested on Rufus’s countenance.

“You think His Majesty will accept the aid of a band of moss-troopers, Paul?” Rufus inquired, and his bland tone deceived none of them. His eyes had a glitter that seemed to reflect the icy surface of the river under the fading stars. “The aid of a family dispossessed for treason? The hand of an outlaw, stained with years of cattle stealing, highway robbery, and God knows what other crimes against the law-abiding countryside?”

Paul met his eye. “I think His Majesty’ll accept any hand that’s offered, sir,” he declared. “With Lord Leven marching in from Scotland, seems to me the king hasn’t much choice.”

The master’s mouth quirked, but with more derision than amusement. “Aye, I believe you’re right, lad. A whole mountain of grievance will be buried under the banner of loyalty, you mark my words. And with a king’s gratitude, what could a man not achieve?” He raised a hand in farewell and strode off, his cloak swirling around his ankles with the sudden energy of his stride.

With a king’s gratitude, a man could achieve reinstatement… a full pardon… The house of Rothbury could once more take its rightful place in the world inside the law. Oh yes, there was little that a grateful king could not do for a loyal subject.

Rums laughed shortly to himself. He would play this conflict for his own ends. He had no time for the king’s cause. Charles was as much a fool as his father, James, had been. But Rufus would not make the mistake of his own father. He would support this king in his folly, and he would reap the rewards of that support. He would exact the goodly price of restitution.

He made his way up the narrow path that snaked up the hillside to the first of the watchmen’s fires. The stars had disappeared when he reached the hilltop, but the ring of fires surrounding the valley still burned brightly, as they would throughout the day, providing warmth for the watchmen who guarded the Decatur sanctuary twenty-four hours a day.

“Morning, Rufus.” A tall, lean man in his early twenties turned from the fire where he was warming his hands. “Coffee?”

“Thanks, Will.” Rufus nodded at his cousin. He was particularly fond of the younger man, whose father had guided the fatherless Rufus through all the pitfalls of youth. Will was Rufus’s uncle’s son, sired when the old man should have been sitting by the fire nodding in peaceful senility instead of rampaging through the countryside by day and lying each night with his bedmate with all the vigor and virility of a man in his prime. “Peaceful night?”

“Aye. But Connor’s men reported troop movements to the north. Leven’s men, we reckon.”

Rufus took a beaker of hot spiced mead from a man armed with pike and musket. “We’ll send out scouts later this morning. If Fairfax and Leven join up with Parliament’s forces, the king’ll be in a pretty pickle. He can wave goodbye to a superior force in the north.” He sounded as if the issue didn’t concern him unduly, but Will was not deceived by the calm, matter-of-fact tone. He knew what Rufus had invested in this choice he’d made.

“You think we might be able to delay Leven?” Will blew on the surface of his own mead to cool it. “A little judicial harassment perhaps?”

“Aye, that’s precisely what I thought.” Rufus chuckled suddenly, and his expression lightened, his eyes losing their earlier glitter. “We’ll give the king’s command a little unofficial aid. My lords Bellasis and Newcastle should prove grateful.”

Will grinned, recognizing that Rufus had lost his seriousness and was now contemplating this little jaunt in the same light as he planned their more mischievous raids.

“Granville’s for the king, too,” he observed after a minute.

Rufus did not immediately respond, but stared out over the hills as the night clouds rolled away from the eastern hills. “We’ll see. I’ve a feeling that he’s not committed as yet. If he goes for Parliament, all the better. We’ll really tweak his tail then.”

“But it’s said he’s raising a militia for the king.” Will couldn’t hide his puzzlement.

“We’ll see,” Rufus repeated. He didn’t know why he was so sure of Cato Granville’s ambivalence, but he felt it as if it were his own. He’d spent all his life ranged against this man, watching his movements, trying to second-guess him, until sometimes he felt he lived inside the man’s head.

He handed his beaker back to the pikeman. “I’ll take a few men and ride out toward Selkirk. See what tidbits we can pick up on the Edinburgh road.”

“Have a care.”

“Aye.” Rufus strode away down the narrow track to the village below.

The sounds of shrill altercation coming from a garden at the edge of the village gave him pause. His expression lost its air of somber distraction. He turned aside through a wooden gate into a small kitchen garden. The ground was iron hard and barren of produce, but a clutch of hens was squabbling over grain scattered before the kitchen door. Two very small bundled figures rolling in the snow were the source of the altercation.

Two strides took him beside them. Fortunately they’d gone to bed in their clothes the previous night. In the absence of supervision they would probably have rolled out of bed and into the snow in their nightshirts. As it was, little Luke seemed to have his boots on the wrong feet and his fingers were all tangled in his gloves.

Rufus seized a collar in each hand and hauled the pair apart. Towheaded, blue eyed, they faced each other, glaring, red faced, furious.

“It’s my turn to collect the eggs!”

“No it’s not, it’s mine!”

Rufus surveyed the two boys with a degree of indulgent amusement. They were such a tempestuous pair, born a year apart, and they both had inherited the Rothbury temper. It made for an unquiet life, but he recognized so much of himself in his sons that he rarely took forceful objection to their whirlwind passions. “What a pair of scrappy brats you are. It’s too cold to be rolling in the snow.”

“It’s my turn for the eggs because I’m older,” young Tobias declared, lunging against the hand that merely tightened on his collar.

“You did it yesterday. You always say you’re older.” Tears clogged his little brother’s voice as he stated this unassailable truth.

“Because I am,” Toby said smugly.

“It’s not fair!” Luke wailed. “ ‘Tisn’t!”

“No, such things rarely are,” Rufus agreed. “But sadly, they can’t be changed. Who collected the eggs yesterday?”

“Toby did!” Luke swiped his forearm across his button nose. “He always does it ‘cause he’s older.”

“I’m better at it than you, ‘cause I’m older.” Toby sounded very sure of his ground.

“But how’s Luke to get better at it if he never gets any practice?” Rufus pointed out, aware of the sudden frigid gust of wind whistling around the corner of the house from the hilltop. “The eggs will have to wait now. It’s breakfast time.”

Ignoring the barrage of protests, he tightened his hold on their collars and propelled them ahead of him toward the low stone building that contained the mess.

The children’s mother had died soon after Luke’s birth. Elinor had been Rufus’s regular bedmate for five years. She hadn’t lived in the village, but their relationship had transcended the simple financial exchange that characterized his dealings with Maggie and the other women of Mistress Beldam’s establishment. Her death had affected him deeply, and in the face of all practicality, once Luke was out of swaddling clothes, Rufus had taken the boys himself. A martial encampment was hardly the perfect place to bring up two small children, but he had sworn to their mother that they would bear his name and he would take care of them himself.

Mind you, their futures would be a lot rosier if their father’s gamble paid off and his lands were restored to him by a grateful monarch, Rufus reflected with cold cynicism, ushering the children into the crowded aromatic warmth of the mess.


Portia pulled the hood of her cloak tighter around her face, against the sleet-laden wind whipping down through the Lammermuir Hills. Her horse blew through his nostrils in disgust and dropped his head against the freezing blasts. It was late morning and she hoped they would stop for dinner soon, but there were no signs of comforting habitation on this stretch of the Edinburgh road, and Portia’s companions, the dour but not ill-disposed Giles Crampton and his four men, continued to ride into the teeth of the wind with the steadfast endurance she’d come to expect of these Yorkshiremen.