Free Border Fire by Amanda Scott Page A

to stall, recognizing many of the animals by location and size. Her own gray gelding pushed its muzzle against her shoulder, and she wished that she had a sugar lump or carrot to give it. She would bring it something special next time to atone for the oversight.
    At the end of the row of stalls, she found what she sought. The pony there was larger than the others, and remembering the height of the captive and the breadth of his shoulders, she knew it must belong to him. Hugh would appreciate its size, for he was also a large man. The horse snorted, and she wondered if it were uncut but dismissed the thought even as it formed. A stallion would smell the mare two stalls down even when she was not in heat. The horse stood calmly and so was doubtless a gelding.
    Leaving the stable, she bade the dungeon guard a good evening. “Have you just begun your watch, or do you near the end of it?”
    “Nearing the end, mistress,” Small Neck Tailor said. “Yaro’s Wat will take my place when he’s eaten his supper. Then I’ll get mine. I’ll be glad to get it, too, I can tell ye.”
    “I’m sure you will,” she said. “There is plenty of the ham from dinner left over, and I saw Matty slicing cheese, so I am sure you will get plenty.”
    He smiled, clearly looking forward to the ham and cheese, and she hurried back to the kitchen entrance. She had seen no sign that anyone outside remembered that she was in disgrace with Hugh. Not that the men were any more likely than Sheila or Matty to speak of that disgrace or to order her back to her bedchamber. Still, she would have much more difficulty putting any plan into action if the men believed that Hugh would punish anyone who obeyed a command of her giving.
    Back in the kitchen, she found only Sheila, putting food on a tray.
    “I’m nearly ready to take your supper up, mistress.”
    “Good,” Janet said. “Bring some of that sliced ham and cheese, too, will you, and maybe a manchet loaf or two. My walk has stirred an appetite, after all.”
    “Aye, mistress, gladly.”
    Upstairs, Janet waited until the maid had brought her tray, fetched wood for the fire, and gone away again. Then, hurrying to Hugh’s room, certain that his man would linger in the hall, she found a thick woolen cloak in his wardrobe and carried it back to her room. There she drank her milk and ate some of the bread but put the ham, cheese, and the rest of the bread into a drawstring bag for the reiver.
    She sat comfortably by the fire with Jemmy Whiskers curled in her lap for an hour or so until Sheila returned to take away the tray. While the maid was in the room, Janet exerted herself to look like a woman about to prepare for bed, and after that, time passed slowly, but it passed. At last, setting down the cat, she got her cloak and Hugh’s and, draping the former inside the latter, swung both over her shoulders. Their combined weight was enough to make her grateful that she did not often do such a thing.
    Tying the drawstring bag to her girdle beneath the cloaks, she pulled on her gloves and hurried down to the kitchen.

Chapter 5
    “I never yet lodged in a hostelrie
    But I paid my lawing before I gaed.”
    M ATTY AND SHEILA WERE banking the great kitchen fire, and Janet’s entrance startled both of them.
    Smiling, she said, “Before you and Sheila retire, Matty, I think we should take toddies out to the guards in the bailey. It is a very cold night, and I do not want them making excuses to slip inside rather than stay at their posts where they belong. Fetch some cider, please, and pour it into the pot on the hob. We’ll use the poker to hurry the heating, so set it in the coals now to get hot. Sheila, do you know where Sir Hugh keeps his brandy?”
    “Aye, mistress,” the girl said, her eyes widening, “but we’re no allowed—”
    “Never mind, I’ll fetch it,” Janet said. “The men are due a treat, but you are quite right to remind me that he does not like the servants to touch his spirits.