He, too, was physically and mentally exhausted, as well as pushed to the breaking point by frustration and angry enough to kill someone—preferably the arse in charge at Hailes—but he’d driven his men hard to make it back tonight. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been wrong with Joan, and with the shite heap of trouble that he’d just gone through in East Lothian, he needed to know that not all of his life had gone to hell.

He raked his fingers through his helm-plastered hair. Christ, I need some sleep. But it would have to wait. He needed to make his report to Pembroke. It was going to take everything he had not to let him see exactly what he thought of the English “lordship” in Scotland.

The garrison commander hadn’t been so lucky. Sir Raoul had narrowly escaped with his life for what he’d done.

Damn it, this wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d come over to the English to prevent things like this from happening. Alex’s hand might not have been the one to light the fire, but innocent lives of people he was responsible for had been lost all the same.

The situation had been even worse than Alex anticipated. He should have known Pembroke’s information would be skewed. He’d gotten the full story from his mother and Sir Alan Murray, a trusted captain of Alex’s father who’d kept charge of their lands for as long as Alex could remember.

Alex’s tenants had indeed supplied victuals to the castle soldiers, who’d in turn promised to protect them from Bruce’s raiders. But they didn’t. When Bruce’s men had come, the bloody English cowards had refused to leave the protection of the castle walls to come to the farmers’ aid. That hadn’t stopped the castle soldiers from coming for more supplies later, however. When the farmers understandably refused—they had little left and even less inclination after being left in the lurch by English “lordship”—the English commander had raided their farms and villages, killing two men who’d been trying to free animals from a burning barn when it had collapsed on them.

Alex had left the English commander in no doubt of what would happen if he ever did something like that again. He would also take the matter to the king, but he wasn’t going to count on Edward to do what was right. Even if Alex could convince him of the unjustness of the situation—which was unlikely—he knew the king was too focused on the war to worry about a few farmers in Scotland, even if it was his duty as overlord and king. So Alex had been forced to take on the role of enforcer. It was ironic, given how much he’d hated it when his former partner, Boyd, had done the same.