Tam Lin: Adult Fairy Tales

By Nicole Dreadful

"What are you doing?" the man asked again. His voice was soft as a rose petal.
"Picking roses." Janet took a step to one side, where she wouldn't have to stare into the sun. He turned with her and the afternoon sun illuminated his face: high, wide cheekbones beneath eyes as bright and blue as the sky. His full lips were pressed together with displeasure.
"Carter Hall is mine," he said in his too calm, too quiet tone. "Those are my roses."
"Yours?" Janet asked. "It's in the middle of Chaster's Wood and Chaster's Wood is mine. My father gave it to me." Or he would, when she asked him to.
"No one comes to Carter Hall without leave from me."
"I'll come and go as I please." Janet lifted her chin stubbornly. "And I'll ask no leave of you."

In the ruins of Carter Hall, headstrong Lady Janet Dunbar encounters a mysterious stranger. Tam Lin claims Carter Hall as his own, yet Janet believes it to be part of her own lands. Thus begins a battle of wills — and as Janet seeks to assert herself mistress of Carter Hall, she realizes how much more there is at stake…

Tam Lin, also known as Child Ballad 39, has been retold many times in many mediums. This version is not intended for readers under 18.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Skookum Creek Publishing
• Release date: Aug 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781941633076

Book preview

1 Take warning, a’ ye ladies fair

Ow!

Janet pushed the embroidery frame back and stuck her finger into her mouth.

Have you pricked yourself again? Anne looked up from her own sewing. You’re always dreaming yourself away and not watching what you’re doing.

Janet looked the swath of linen on the frame. Silken floss trailed where she had dropped the needle, a bright line of scarlet across the mostly empty cloth. It was only a little— she said around her finger.

Anne passed her own needle through her work and pulled the thread tight. Have you finished the border yet?

Not yet.

This confession elicited a deep sigh from her cousin. You’re not much help, Janet. It will be enough work to finish everything before my wedding day at this rate, and you have barely started anything of your own trousseau.

She bent her head and pushed the needle into her embroidery with quick and nimble fingers. The window behind her framed her form. A swallow dipped through the view outside, swooping carelessly through the brilliant blue sky.

Janet pulled her gaze away from the window and looked down at her finger. A single drop of blood welled on the pad of her index finger. It was not as bright as the crimson thread.

I can’t concentrate, Annie, sitting inside when it is so lovely out of doors. She rubbed her thumb over her finger, smearing the blood. Again it welled up, a deep red as dark as wine. She stood up. I’m going for a walk.

Anne frowned at her. By yourself? Janet—

I don’t want to take you away from work, dear cousin, Janet said. And I don’t want to wake Nurse. She nodded to the old woman sitting across the room. Her head, which had been nodding softly all morning, had drooped down to one side, and she snored gently. I won’t be long.

Where are you going? Anne asked as Janet left the room. Don’t go down to the river.

Don’t worry, Janet called over her shoulder. I won’t. She licked the blood from her finger again before she lifted her skirts to descend the stairs. The dark green of her dress wouldn’t show a stain.

She went softly down the steps, placing her slippered feet with care on the stone worn smooth by generations of Dunbars, their family, and their friends. At the bottom, she peeked carefully around the corner into the Great Hall. Dust motes floated through the shafts of sunlight that entered through the high-set windows. Across the hall, Janet recognized her father’s graying head. The Earl of March and his chamberlain bent over a ledger book; Janet hurried across the flagstone floor and out the door before anyone looked up to ask why she was not tending to her sewing.

Outside, she marched purposefully across the yard in front of the castle. Donald, her father’s marshal, caught her eye and raised an eyebrow. Next to him, one of the newer squires turned to stare at her as well. Donald cuffed the young man on the side of the head.

Don’t leave your mouth open, Davey, he said. You’ll catch flies. And don’t stare at the Lady Janet.

Janet lifted her chin, flipped her long yellow braid over her shoulder and kept going out the gate and down the cobbled road. She passed by several carts and turned off on a side road before she reached the cluster of small stone cottages that made up the village below the castle.

At first she took the route toward the river, just because Anne had told her not to. But as she approached, the sound of splashing and women’s laughter drifted up through the trees.

It was laundry day. The women of the village would be crowded along the banks, scrubbing their household linens against the rocks, with their skirts tied up above their reddened knees. The thought of seeing so many sheets and tablecloths, chemises and undergarments, whether they were embroidered or not—Janet made a face and turned away.

After that she let chance decide which fork of the road she took. She passed by small fields where the tenant farmers worked their crops. It was a warm summer’s day, warm enough that she almost wished she had gone down to the river. It would have been nice to take off her slippers and wade in the cool water.

The thought gave her a goal after all: up ahead was the forested hill of Chaster’s Wood. It was almost at the edge of her father’s land, where his holdings bordered with those of the neighboring earldom. It would be cooler in the shadows beneath the trees, and she’d never visited the wood before.

She turned her steps deliberately towards it. The road turned away down the valley, but she found the faint remains of an older trail that took her between the tall oaks.

The wood had swallowed her up completely when Janet heard a welcoming sound: the gentle mumble of a stream. She rounded a corner and found a small, moss covered bridge. Gratefully, she stopped to cool her feet and drink.

As she sat wiggling her toes in the water, her stomach twinged, reminding her that she’d stepped out before the midday meal. Nurse would worry about her while Anne sighed and rolled her eyes. Still, the old road tugged at her. She could go a little further. Her father would scowl, but he could never stay angry at his only daughter for long.

Janet pulled her slippers back on and continued. The road wound uphill and then the trees opened abruptly to reveal a crumbled castle overgrown with vines and shrubberies. Moss crept up the stones and greenery spilled out the empty windows. It was beautiful.

Janet climbed up the front steps and pushed past the drooping branches of a twisted hawthorn growing beside the door. In this great hall, birds startled and flew up as she entered, spiraling up through the bare rafters into the open sky. Young saplings had pushed aside the pavers of the floor as they grew. The air was thick with the sweet scent of roses, though Janet could see none growing in the hall.

She gathered her skirts in her hands and picked her way across the floor to the door on the far side. She passed through the kitchen, where a rusting iron kettle lay among the mud bricks of what had been a fireplace.

Another door led her into an overgrown garden. All along the far wall were the roses: sprawling bushes bent down with the weight of the voluptuous blooms. A few of the flowers were delicate pink or creamy yellow, but most of them were blood red.

Slowly, Janet wandered through the garden, stopping to crush the herbs between her fingers and smell the aromas of mint, sage, and thyme. In one bed she found a tangled heap of vines, heavy with peas and broad beans. In another, a few leeks were growing under a thick cover of weeds. There was a gnarled apple tree and a thicket of raspberry canes. Even abandoned, the garden was fruitful enough to provide the luncheon she had missed at home.

When she had gathered all she wanted from the edible plants, Janet went to the roses. Each flower petal was a soft as velvet under her fingers. The blossoms were enormous; when she leaned forward to breathe in their scent, the outer petals brushed over her cheeks.

Janet went back into the decayed kitchen and looked around until she found a small knife only half rusted away. She used the crumbling blade to cut some of the red roses. With the edge of her thumbnail, she removed the thorns and sat down to weave the stems into a crown. She thought of her half-hearted embroidery and laughed aloud. Let Anne spend the day inside with flat flowers that smelled of nothing at all! How much lovelier these roses were than anything her cousin could embroider.

A shadow fell across the flowers in her lap.

What are you doing?

Janet looked up and her fingers clutched involuntarily at the roses. An overlooked thorn bit into her palm, and she grimaced. The man standing over her was silhouetted against the sky, his features obscured by the contrast of light and shadow.

Janet scrambled to her feet, trying to do so gracefully. I beg your pardon, sir, she said. I didn’t hear you approach.

Had she walked so far that she had left her father’s land? She raised a hand to her eyes and squinted at him. He was far too young to be the elderly Earl of Roxburgh; nor was he one of her father’s knights, though his clothes were very fine.

What are you doing? the man asked again. His voice was soft as a rose petal.

Picking roses. Janet took a step to the side, where she wouldn’t have to stare into the sun. He turned with her and the afternoon sun illuminated his face: high, wide cheekbones beneath eyes as bright and blue as the sky. His full lips were pressed together with displeasure.

Carter Hall is mine, he said in his too calm, too quiet tone. Those are my roses.

Yours? Janet asked. It’s in the middle of Chaster’s Wood and Chaster’s Wood is mine. My father gave it to me. Or he would, when she asked him to.

No one comes to Carter Hall without leave from me.

I’ll come and go as I please. Janet lifted her chin stubbornly. And I’ll ask no leave of you.

He reached out, quick as a snake, and grasped her hand. There is a price to pay, he said, as Janet stared at him in shock and anger.

No one had ever laid a hand on her, the Earl of March’s only child. She should slap him with her free hand, or struggle to pull away—but his grip on her wrist was strong, and she suspected he did not give a fig whose daughter she was.

What price? she asked.

The man turned her hand over. Janet followed his gaze and saw the new blood drawn by the rose’s thorn. He pressed his thumb into the puncture until fresh pain blossomed in her palm. Janet took an involuntary hissing breath and looked back to his face. His mouth was still a flat line, neither smiling nor frowning, but his eyes burned into her.

He dropped her hand. Your price is blood. Without looking away from her face, he raised his hand and licked the smear of her blood from his thumb.

Janet clasped her