“Well, there’s a law in my kitchen, too. No ale for the man that murdered Storm. I was talking to Jonah here about the uses of a besom when you stepped in—but I’m minded to thwack you instead.”
“I’m fairish dry, Rebecca,” said the shepherd, with sudden wistfulness.
“I hope as much. The drier you get, the better I’ll like it.”
They stood at bay, regarding each other with dour enmity, till Rebecca thought of Hardcastle, riding home from Norbrigg market and late to come.
“The Garsykes sort lie quiet,” she said, “and it’s getting hard to bear. I wish the Master would listen to sense, and not go taking his journeys as if naught had happened at the pinfold.”
“He’s made that way. An earthquake wouldn’t alter him.”
“Obstinate, like his father before him.”
“A rare plucked ’un, like his father. After all, if he’s got to be killed, he’s wise to seek it in the open. When my time comes, says I, give me God’s sky to turn my toes to, and curlews singing me to sleep.”
“Now that’s all nonsense, Brant. You live too lonely on the heights yonder, and your fancies breed like maggots. When my time comes, give me a cosy hearth and the taste of a treacle-posset in my throat. That’s how I’d say my last good-bye to Logie. And here we stand chattering, while the Master lies murdered, like Storm, somewhere ’twixt here and Norbrigg.”
“Nay, now, you’re running to meet trouble before it comes. And as for Storm, he wasn’t murdered, I’d have you know. Justice was what he got, and if I’d my way, they’d tar such-like and hang ’em in chains at the cross-roads, same as human footpads.”