Fraser smiled faintly. “My position with Gilbert was a long and lucrative one,” he said. “But now… now I feel that I finally belong somewhere, and to someone. Thank you for accepting my fealty at Blackpool. I will not fail you.”
“I know you won’t,” Tor said. “But we see a good deal of action from the Scots. If you wanted a post that will see action, you got one.” He paused, looking up at the brilliant sky again. “You know, the last time I was riding in a group with my de Wolfe brethren, it was to hunt down Steffan de Featherstone. We were there to right an injustice and tonight… I feel like we’ve done the same thing, only differently. We righted another kind of injustice.”
“True, lad,” Blayth said. “We did, indeed. Did you give Armathwaite the donation you brought?”
Tor nodded. “It is more money than they’ll see in ten years of donations,” he said. “And it is something I do not ever wish to speak of again. I only wish to speak of the future, which includes a wedding next week for Fraser and Isabella. I will get blindingly drunk on Uncle Blayth’s fine wine, dance with the bride, and also with my wife, and enjoy myself immensely.”
Ronan grinned at Fraser, who simply lifted his eyebrows at his future brother-in-law whom he was coming to like a great deal. Riding next to Ronan, Blayth cocked his head thoughtfully.
“Did I ever tell you about Alys and Gerard de Wolfe’s wedding so many years ago?” he said. “Oddly enough, it is one of the few things I remember from the past, although I have no idea why. They were married at The Lyceum, the de Royans castle south of Wolfe’s Lair, and everything was proceeding wonderfully until I was attacked.”
They all turned to look at him. “Attacked by whom?” Tor asked.
“My own mother,” Blayth said, his eyes twinkling at the hazy memory. “All because of a song I sang for the guests.”
Tor started to laugh. “I do not believe it,” he said. “Matha attacked you for singing?”
Blayth nodded. “She was not at your wedding, so I did not sing the special song for her, but she will be at Isabella’s,” he said. “I will teach you the song so we can all sing it to her.”
“A song that makes her attack?” Tor said, dubiously. “I do not think I want to learn that song.”
“Learn it!” Blayth bellowed, watching his nephew laugh. He began to sing it in his beautiful baritone.
“There once was a lady fair,
With silver bells in her hair.
I knew her to have,
A luscious kiss… it drove me mad!
But she denied me… and I was so terribly sad.
Lily, my girl,
Your flower, I will unfurl
With my cock and a bit of good luck!
Your kiss divine,
I’ll make you mine,
And keep you a-bed for a fuck!”
Tor and Fraser refused to learn it, but Ronan and Christian did. When Fraser married Isabella in the great hall of Castle Questing a week later, they happily sang it with Blayth’s urging.
True to form, elderly Jordan de Wolfe was fairly spry for her age and took after them with a switch. When her grandsons moved too fast, she went after Blayth because she knew who had taught them the song. Blayth ran, too, spending the rest of the evening dodging his angry mother.
And he loved every moment of it.
EPILOGUE
Trimontium Amphitheater
Kelso, Scotland
They were literally on the edge of their seats.
The entire audience at the Trimontium Amphitheater was on the edge of their seats, having just watched two hours of a drama that had them riveted. It was called The Harpies of Blackpool, and the stars of the show were two evil women who destroyed everything they touched and would have succeeded in destroying the city of Edinburgh had the hero, an English knight, not stopped them by virtue of his magic sword.
It was the climax of the drama, performed to an audience full of men where over half were Scots from the borders. Only men were allowed to attend dramas, and act in them, so it was a female-free environment. The Scots were furious that the harpies tried to destroy Edinburgh and not too thrilled when an English knight came to their rescue, but in the very last moment when the harpies were drowning in the Firth of Forth, the knight ripped off his tunic to reveal that he had been a Scotsman all along.
The crowd went wild.
All but the English, of course, although they had greatly enjoyed the drama of the wicked harpies. Sitting on the grass of the ancient amphitheater, the men from the House of de Wolfe refrained from booing when the English knight revealed himself to be Scottish because the play changed nightly. Two nights ago, it had been a Scotsman who had ripped off his leine to reveal that he was an English knight.
On the borders, one must cater to both crowds.
Tonight, however, the drama favored the Scots, who cheered and yelled and even threw coins onto the stage below, which was just a vast dirt area. The amphitheater had been built by the Romans a thousand years before and although a good portion of it still stood, it wasn’t nearly what it had been when dramas had once entertained Roman troops.
But for tonight, it served its purpose.
The Harpies of Blackpool Castle was another rousing success.
There was no one more proud of the drama than Tor, who sat with his brother, Will, his cousins, and his uncles, Scott, Troy, and Blayth. They had all come to Kelso to see Isalyn de Wolfe’s drama, although only the family knew that she was the one who had written it. For all anyone else knew, London playwright Wellesley Fairhurst had penned the piece.
It had been four years in the making.
The birth of two children during that time had slowed Isalyn’s determination to continue her beloved hobby, but it didn’t stop it completely. Between the births of Tristan de Wolfe and Merrett de Wolfe, Isalyn had written the drama that had the villains as bad as they could possibly be and the hero akin to Jesus Christ. It had been dramatic and sappy at times, and Tor had been greatly amused by it, but the crowd loved it and that was all that mattered.
And his wife was in her glory.
Because Isalyn couldn’t travel to London with the babies, she had convinced some of her friends to come north and perform it for the masses in the wilds. They had happily come, and now two harpies were dying terrible deaths as the audience screamed for more.
But there wouldn’t be any more until tomorrow night.
With the drama ended and the crowds thinning out, Tor left his family still seated on the grass to hunt down his wife, who was backstage where the actors were. She was dressed in clothes a usually well-bred noblewoman wouldn’t wear, like breeches and tunics and cloaks, and her glorious hair was pinned back under the hood of the cloak because she didn’t want to appear like a woman to the casual observer. Women weren’t allowed at these dramas, so she was trying to stay hidden.
But it didn’t work very well. The birth of two children had left her even more gloriously round and supple, and Tor snuck up behind his wife as she was speaking to one of the actors made up to look like a harpy. He grabbed her from behind, pulling that lush body against him.
“Another remarkable night, Lady de Wolfe,” he murmured in her ear. “You have two hundred clansmen out there cheering happily because Edinburgh is saved.”
Isalyn turned in his arms, her face alight with joy. “They did like it, didn’t they?” she said. “I think some of those men have been here every single night.”