"It is only September, mistress," Fyfa said dryly. "Time enough yet to catch some unsuspecting traveler in your web."
Robena brightened. "Aye," she said. "And I have other plans to execute as well. I have decided that I want my daughter. Sir Udolf told me that my husband's whore is raising Fiona and that the brat even addresses her as her mother. I will not have another woman mothering my child, nor will I reason with him in this matter. If he does not wish his bigamy revealed, nor his bastard rendered publicly illegitimate, he will give me my child. I shall take her, and he will keep his mouth shut or I will expose him, expose his bastards to the world. He will have no legitimate heir then."
"Mistress," Fyfa said, "this is no place for a little maid gently reared."
"She will be a help to you," Robena said carelessly. "And if she is pretty she will help me to lure travelers to our cottage. There are men in this world, Fyfa, who prefer very young lovers." And Robena laughed.
Fyfa shuddered at the cruel sound. While she did not wish to find herself and her helpless brother once again without a home, she almost wished that the laird would come and put an end to her mistress's cruel debauchery. "I'll get your meal," she said, and hurried from the bedchamber.
The autumn came to the borders. It was now October, and the weather had been beautiful and unusual for so late in the year. Her instincts had been right. No one came from Dunglais. She had set Rafe to watching the keep. Certainly at this age her daughter rode out regularly. Once she learned Fiona's habits, she would ride out on Beinn's horse, which Rafe had found the day he had brought Beinn to her, and she would take the child herself. Robena smiled. Aye, it was a far better plan. She would gain Fiona almost immediately, and Fyfa would then have someone to help her with the chores.
The brat would quickly learn that she was no longer her father's pet. Robena wondered if her daughter had ever been whipped. Well, let her disobey her mother's wishes and Fiona's bottom would soon be introduced to the hazel switch. A good beating never hurt a child. He own father had whipped her with great regularity until she had grown breasts, and then her mother would not permit it. Robena arose from her bed and began to prepare for the day ahead.
She had lost a lover, but there would be another eventually, and in the meantime there would be Fiona to amuse her.
Fyfa, of course, did not think her mistress's plan a sound one. "You are safe and comfortable here," she said. "You have the opportunity to enjoy a lover now and again. Even if you manage to take your daughter from your husband, he will certainly come after her. And this time he will kill you. When he hired my brother and me he was quite honest about you and what you had done. He did not kill you then because he wanted to be able to say with complete truth to your family that he had not slain you even though it was his right to do so. He identified the body of that poor beggar woman you killed out on the moor and exchanged clothing with as your body. He let her lay there for months in the open so that she would be unrecognizable but for the clothing she wore, in order to give truth to the lie that you were dead, mistress. He protected you and kept your father's family from further embarrassment, thereby preventing a feud."
"I would have liked a feud between the Ramsays and the Scotts," Robena said. "Perhaps I shall cause one by letting my da know I am alive and how ill treated I have been by Colm." She giggled. "Imagine all those clansmen fighting and dying over me!"
"If you keep on like this, mistress," Fyfa warned, "the laird will indeed kill you, and he has every right to do so. And if he kills you then he can in truth wed his mistress. Do you want that? Isn't is better for you to have this hold over him that you now have?"
"But he doesn't know I have a hold over him," Robena said irritably.
"He will when you take his daughter," Fyfa said. "Even if he comes and takes her back he will know that you know his secrets. You are fortunate that he does not know yours. Do not bait him. You would be wise to leave the child with him and not be bothered. Then you can live your life as you will, and he will never be the wiser. Knowing what you know, there is always time to expose his bigamy. Wouldn't you gain more satisfaction exposing his bastards after his death? Then your child should inherit."
"I want my daughter now!" Robena said. "I do not want her calling another woman her mother. I am her mother. She belongs to me and not to this Englishwoman. He can have his whore, but I will have my bairn."
"You haven't seen her since she was two years old," Fyfa reminded her mistress. "And the laird told me you rejected her from birth."
"But she is mine," Robena responded, "and I want what is mine."
Fyfa shook her head. There was no reasoning with her mistress when she got into a mood like this. Robena Ramsay was a woman who always needed something to do and now, bereft of her recent lover, she was looking about for that something. She will bring trouble down on us all, Fyfa thought unhappily, but there was nothing she could do. She was a servant. A favored servant to be sure, but a servant nonetheless. "Sit down at the table," she said. "You need to eat." And when she had finished cooking and serving Robena, Fyfa stepped outside of her kitchen to work in her little garden.
The day was fair and the air still held a hint of warmth. The trees and the hills were now bright with color. Fyfa watched with trepidation as her brother Rafe set off on Beinn's horse towards Dunglais. She had a very dark premonition about what was to come, but short of going to the laird herself there was nothing to be done. She couldn't risk losing their place. While Fyfa knew that she could always fend for herself, there was her poor lack-witted brother to consider. She saw how people treated folk like Rafe. Their own elder half brother had been cruel to him. Fyfa sighed. What was going to happen was going to happen.
At Dunglais the beautiful autumn weather and the knowledge that the church had lifted the threat of Sir Udolf from the laird and his wife brought about a happy change. Alix could no longer ride, but now that she was free to move outside of the keep's walls she would sometimes take her son in the pony cart while Fiona rode by her side. On other days Alix would walk with Fiona on the moors. They treasured these days, as winter was certain to set in sooner than later. One early November afternoon Alix and her stepdaughter walked out of sight of the keep picking late flowers that had escaped a recent frost and gathering small plants that had medicinal value which they carefully put in a willow basket.
"I have to stop a moment," Alix said. She was breathing hard, and her belly was very big. "I shall be glad to have his child born. I so dislike being encumbered."
"Will you sit, Mam?" Fiona asked her.
Alix laughed wryly. "Oh, Fi, if I sit I shall not be able to get up again unless someone comes to winch me onto my feet."
Fiona giggled. "He's going to be a big lad, Mam," she said.
"You keep saying he," his stepmother noted.
" 'Tis a lad, Mam. I just know it. And James will have a playmate," Fiona said.
"You don't want a little sister?" Alix asked her.
"I am too big now to enjoy a little sister," Fiona said. "Remember, I am to be nine. But you must be sure my brother is not born on my birthday. I do not wish to share."
"I have already told him, but we shall see if he is an obedient lad," Alix replied, smiling at Fiona. How she loved her, Alix thought. Fiona was starting to look less like a young child and more like young girl. And with order and peace in her life now, Fiona was less and less prone to mood swings. She was learning self-control. "I think I have walked far enough today," Alix decided.
"I told you you should have taken the cart," Fiona responded. "Your burden is great now, and the bairn due to be born in another few weeks."