Thorn in My Heart

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  “Guid day to ye, sir,” the peasant said, tipping his cap.

  Jamie, unshaven and disheveled, was relieved to find his standing in society still apparent. It was his boots that marked him as a gende-man—Italian leather, finely tooled and well fitted, if a bit mud splattered. Jamie greeted the stranger with a perfunctory nod. “How much farther to Carlinwark?”

  The man looked over his shoulder as though the distance were signposted. “Eh…twelve miles, I'd say. Could be fourteen.” He turned back to study Jamie. “Ye'll make it by the gloamin if ye put a bit o’ smeddum in yer step.”

  Jamie brisded at the peasant's impudence. Surely the man understood he was accustomed to traveling on horseback, not on foot like a commoner. If it took him longer, so be it.

  “Follow the banks o’ the Dee past Balmaghie,” the man continued, inclining his head to indicate the route. “Ye'll come to the casde they call Threave. Hundreds o’ years auld and prime full o’ woe.” The peasant lowered the handles of his tipcart, oblivious to his sons’ distress at toppling among the vegetables, and used both hands to point the way. “Cross the bridge, then turn north and follow the road into the village of Carlinwark, past the Three Thorns. Ye'll be wantin to watch for Gypsies, lad, travelin alone as ye are.”

  “So I shall.” Not that he had anything left worth stealing. Jamie thanked the man, then strode past him, grimacing as he heard the peasant's wife peck away at her husband like a hen come upon fresh grain. Her sharp scolding reminded him of his mother. Rowena McKie's words might be more refined, but the tone of voice was quite the same. Jamie shook his head as he walked, wondering how his father Alec had endured his wife's constant belitding. Whichever one of his cousins he claimed for a bride, Jamie intended to make very sure her nature was gende and her words seasoned with sugar, not salt.

  The miles and hours passed without incident as he put one booted foot in front of the other, always keeping the meandering Dee in sight. Occasional herds of black catde rumbled by, sending him scrambling to higher ground for safety. The beasts were purchased the day before at Keltonhill on the first market day in October, or so he'd learned from a local farmer with an incredulous look reserved for travelers foolish enough not to know that simple fact. Jamie merely shrugged, keenly aware of being what the Buik called “a stranger in a strange land.” This Galloway was not his Galloway. The rugged hills and glens of home had disappeared, replaced by lush farmland and wide, flat meadows. Bonny as the landscape might be, he could not return to Glentrool soon enough.

  Above him the pale gray skies had grown darker, the clouds thicker. Such a changeable sky could revert to sunshine without a moments notice or usher in a fierce autumn storm and drench him to the bone. The rain did not concern him, but the brooding sky did. It bore down on him in silent warning, as though it knew something he did not. Jamie refused to acknowledge his discomfort, training his gaze on the hedgerows instead, ignoring the ominous heavens, even as a memory from three nights past haunted him: Had he truly conversed with the Almighty in his dreams?

  A low rumble of thunder overhead sent Jamie's thoughts bolting elsewhere.

  He quickened his steps, matching the hasty rhythm of his heartbeat, and eyed the countryside for a safe haven from the coming storm. An hour passed, then a second. The rain threatened, nothing more, nor did the sun reappear. When a massive square tower rose in the distance, gray and foreboding as the clouds themselves, Jamie stopped to gape at it. On an island in the Dee stood the remains of Threave casde, embrasures for archers’ bows piercing the tower walls like eyes narrowed into menacing slits.

  A flock of goldeneye flew across the gloomy hills, the whisding of their wings swallowed up by the stark landscape that was once home to the Black Douglases. The earls were gone now, but their spirits seemed to hover over the land, holding sway even from the grave. Unnerved by the deserted fortress, Jamie began walking again, faster now. When another rumble of thunder rolled over him, he fairly ran along the marshy riverside, past the eerie casde, craning his neck for a place to cross the Dee, for cross it he must. By the time he arrived at the old bridge—short of breath, his blistered heels crying out for mercy—Jamie knew he must attend to his wounds without delay. He would reach Auchengray tomorrow, but only if he first found some relief for his swollen, bleeding feet.

  Jamie dropped onto the bridge with a weary grunt, not minding the damp stones under his breeches. He grasped one filthy boot and tugged with all his might. It came off abruptly, sending him sprawling backward. The second one came more easily. He parked his boots next to him, dangled his legs over the edge of the bridge, and let loose a noisy, satisfied groan, despite his empty stomach. How good the cool air felt on his swollen feet! The fast-moving waters of the Dee tumbled over the rocks far below—inviting but too far away to be of much use to him.

  As the threat of a storm passed and twilight fell, the insect world struck up its familiar chorus. Jamie leaned back on his elbows, content to simply breathe and listen. It was then he heard the muffled sound of wagon wheels coming down the road, coming closer. Low male voices, children singing, the music of a woman's throaty laugh, tin pans banging against a wooden brace—all floated past like leaves from a nearby ash tree. He sat up, wincing as he scraped an elbow on the rough stone. Tinklers. Gypsies, he'd wager.

  Round the bend came a wagon pulled by two shelties, broad backs straining against the load of kettles and pots, crockery and horns. Fore and aft walked Gypsies of all ages, dressed in ill-matched if colorful garb, whispering and giggling among themselves until they spied Jamie and fell silent, averting their eyes.

  He struggled to stand, ashamed to be caught without his boots on his feet, sore and bleeding as they were. The dozen or so Gypsies busied themselves with their cartful of goods, speaking in a musical cant. Were they Marshalls or MacMillans? Watsons or Wilsons? The roads of Galloway were thick with such families—foreigners and nomads drawn to a land where smuggling and cattle reiving constituted a way of life, where most folk looked the other way when His Majesty's laws were bent in two.

  None of the wary travelers would meet his gaze save one. He appeared to be the oldest, the patriarch, who stepped forward, then broadened his stance and folded his arms with a familiar swagger. “We meet again, lad.”

  Jamie blinked, trusting neither his eyes nor his memory. “We've crossed paths before?”

  “Aye, ye know we have.” From behind the Gypsy rose a chorus of soft chuckling. “Near a certain cairn in a certain parish, name o’ Monnigaff.”

  Jamie peered at the man more closely. It was him. Sporting a different coat on his back but nonetheless the same traveler who'd found him last Sabbath morning waking from a most curious dream. “So it is you,” Jamie murmured, at a loss for what else to say. He counted four younger men behind him and a passel of women and children unpacking their cart by the roadside. The odds were very much against him. “What…ah, what shall I call you?”

  The Gypsy's dark eyes brightened. “Ye shall call me for supper!” he crowed, and the others laughed more boldly, sneaking glances at the gendeman with his torn clothes and foolish questions. Sobering slighdy, the Gypsy nodded his head, though he did not offer his hand in polite greeting. “Me name's Marshall, and that's all ye need to know.”

  “James Lachlan McKie of Glentrool,” Jamie said with as much bravado as he could muster, locking his hands behind him. Conversing with tinklers in the gloaming was a strange business. Cutpurses who helped themselves to others’ pockets and pouches were a common occurrence and no threat to him since he had naught worth stealing. A cutthroat was another matter, sticking a knife in a man's gullet for no reason other than he didn't care for the look of him.

  As though reading his mind, the Gypsy produced a slender blade— Jamie had seen that before as well—and the man carved it through the evening air. “Have ye found some new silver ye might share with a poor family of travelers?”

  Jamie lifted his chin, determined to stand his ground. “I have not.”


  The Gypsy pretended to search the bridge high and low, eyes wide in mock astonishment. “And where's yer grye, man? Have you no mount to carry ye?”

  “No horse,” Jamie said, his jaw tightening. “Not since yestermorn.”

  “Why then, yere one o’ us!” the Gypsy cried, throwing out his arms. The knife mysteriously disappeared and with it any threat. “Ye sleep by the road, eat what the Almighty sees fit to feed ye, and greet every man as an equal.” His grin revealed a misaligned mouthful of teeth. “Only yer strods tell the world ye re a man o’ means.”

  “My what?”

  “Strods.” The gypsy pointed to Jamie's feet. “Yer boots, man.”

  Both men stared at the empty boots, which were precariously perched on the edge of the bridge. Jamie suddenly wished they were on his feet. The Gypsy spoke to the others in a cant all their own, gesturing as he did.

  Presendy a young boy stepped forward with a carved walking stick in his hand and a gleam in his elfin eye. “Now, sir?”

  “Aye, now,” the old Gypsy said.

  The boy marched up to the boots and prompdy pushed one off the bridge with his stick, sending the boot splashing into the water below.

  “You!” Jamie lunged for him, but the boy was too quick, darting back to his mother, who wrapped him in a blanket of arms and skirts. “How dare—och!” Jamie threw himself onto the bridge, leaning over from the waist, grasping in vain at the boot far below. It lodged itself among the rocks temporarily, then broke free and sailed along with the current, disappearing under the bridge. With a muttered oath, he scrambled to his feet and ran to the other side, only to see the boot emerge and continue bobbing downstream, farther beyond his reach. It would fill with water soon enough and sink to the murky bottom, useless to anyone.

  “Why?”He turned on the Gypsy, his face flaming. “Why would you discard one boot when you could have stolen them both and sold them?”

  The Gypsy's smile was warm, not sly as before. “Because then we'd be thieves, just as ye expect. Were tinklers, tradesmen, and homers. Not thieves.”

  “But—”

  “D'ye know why the world thinks ill o’ the Gypsy race?” The mans animated features grew still. “They say that a Gypsy blacksmith forged the nails for the cross. True or not, we've been condemned to wander the earth forever, a people with no home.” His shoulders sagged as he said the words. “May it ne'er be said of a Marshall that he did not honor God's chosen one.”

  Jamie's heart stuttered. Behold, I am with you. Had God really chosen to bless him, then stripped him of everything that made him a McKie? Jamie stared at the man, at a loss for answers. None of it made sense, especially not this thieving Gypsy. With grim fascination Jamie watched the man's jaw work as though chewing over what to do with him.

  At last the Gypsy spoke. “One o’ yer strods has disappeared. The other is worth nothing to ye.” He nodded at the young boy, who slipped from his mother's grasp long enough to retrieve the lone boot and place it in the Gypsy's gnarled hands. “It'd make mony a useful purse. Or shoes for a half-dozen barefoot chauvies” he murmured, caressing the leather, his dark eyes intent, his dry lips pursed. “So, James McKie, will ye sell me yer fine boot?”

  Jamie's mouth dropped open. “Sellit to you?”

  “Not for coin,” the old man quickly added. “We've none o’ that in our tents. But we've food enough for any Scotsman. Are ye hungry, lad? Will ye sell me yer strod for a bowl o’ Gypsy stew and a walking stick for your journey? Seems a fair bargain.”

  Jamie shook his head, dazed at the turn of events, then agreed that a meal would be a fine trade. After all, a useless boot was hardly a sacrifice, and the carved stick could be of some value. Within moments one of the Gypsy women presented him with a crockery bowl brimming with thick, fragrant stew and a carved horn spoon. Jamie scooped up the stew, bringing it to his lips, then abrupdy stopped. Might it be tainted on purpose? A simple ploy meant to do away with famished travelers and rob them of their worldly goods?

  The man named Marshall eyed him evenly. “A horn spoon holds nae poison, Mr. McKie. Had I the notion to kill ye, I'd have done it on that rock in MonnigafF.”

  Ashamed of himself, Jamie shoved the spoon in his mouth, gulping down the lukewarm stew with a grateful nod. Half an hour later he finished a second bowl and stood to take his leave, reveling at the sensation of a fiill stomach, when he saw the young Gypsy boy, soaking wet, come trotting up to the encampment.

  On the child's face was a look of triumph. In his hands he held Jamie's other boot. Muddy and drenched, but his boot nonetheless.

  “What's this?” the old Gypsy exclaimed, blinking his eyes dramatically. “A strod to match the one I just bought? Lucky day for me, I'd say.” Agile for his age, the man yanked off his shoes and pulled on the boots, struggling a bit with the wet one, but soon standing to model them for his appreciative clan. “Why, I look like a fine gendeman!”

  “And I look like a fool,” Jamie fumed, stabbing his walking stick into the ground and stamping off with as much dignity as he could muster while marching in bare feet with blisters.

  “Aye, but ye're a fool full o’ stew,” the Gypsy called after him. “Not so bad a trade, eh? God speed ye, lad. Yer feet will carry ye home.”

  Seventeen

  But, oh! what mighty magician can assuage

  A woman's envy?

  GEORGE GRANVILLE, LORD LANSDOWNE

  Leana pressed an armful of freshly laundered linens against her face, breathing in the crisp October air captured in their folds. The clatter of cooking pots drifted in from the kitchen next door. Neda was taking her time preparing supper, stalling until Rose and Willie made their appearance. If they tarried much longer, Lachlan McBride could be counted on to raise his voice in protest. At Auchengray the evening meal was served at seven. “No visit with royalty is going to interfere with my supper,” her father had announced when Rose had left for Maxwell Park earlier that afternoon. Royalty and nobility were not one and the same, but Leana saw no need to mention it and risk his ire.

  The laundry door was propped open to usher in the fading sunlight. She stood near a warm patch of it as she matched the linen corners, pressing the fabric flat between her fingers. Mary had worked so hard to scrub the tablecloths clean, the least Leana could do was fold them. After being laid out to dry on a patch of grass where the flocks wouldn't trample them, the linens would still need to be ironed, a thankless task only a seasoned laundry maid like Mary could handle. Some cold December day perhaps, when the cumbersome business of washing was out of the question.

  Grateful that winter was two months away, Leana breathed in the rich scent of herbs wafting through the doorway. Basil, clovelike and peppery, tickled her nose. Aromatic thyme, useful for chasing away an occasional nightmare, tinged the evening air. Fragrant pennyroyal piqued her thirst for a steaming cup of tea.

  And what of the tea being poured at Maxwell Park?

  Leana released a lengthy sigh, her thirst forgotten. She was pleased for Rose and her sisters growing relationship with Lady Maxwell. Yet something tugged inside her, pulling her this way and that: pride in the gentlewoman's attentions, yet concern for her possible motives; joy in Rose's newfound confidence, yet fear of where it all might lead. “You fret too much,” Leana said, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the window. Worry wrinkled her brow and pinched her lips into a tight, unattractive line. She forced herself to smile, then laughed at her foolishness. Enough.

  Leana quit the stuffy laundry room and escaped to the vegetable garden to dig up some neeps for dinner and bury her misgivings. The sun was low in the sky by the time her skirts were filled with firm yellow turnips. She stood, gripping the corners of her apron to keep the root vegetables from tumbling out of her by-pit basket, then nearly dropped the entire harvest when Willie and Rose came riding up the drive and startled her, whistling and calling her name.

  “We're home, Leana. We're home!” Rose sang out, waving gaily. Willie had barely pulled the chaise to
a fll stop when Rose scrambled out of it, her manners forgotten so eager was she to reach Leana's side. Once there, she eyed the dirty turnips, then wrinkled her nose, taking a step backward to avoid soiling her blue dress. “At least I'm not late for supper.”

  “And a good thing you're not,” Leana scolded her gendy. “I was worried about you.”

  “No need to be,” Rose insisted, looking over her shoulder at Auchengray's most diligent servant. “Willie saw to an errand while we chatted, then brought me safely home.”

  Leana smiled at them both. “I see he did.” It was hard to remain cross with her sister; she'd clearly had a fine afternoon. “So, was your time with Lady Maxwell everything you expected?”

  “Oo aye!”Rose dissolved into a girlish giggle before she composed herself, her face aglow, her dark eyes sparkling. “Neda serves a cup of tea with naught but a biscuit. But at Maxwell Park, her ladyships mahogany table is covered with fruit tarts and fresh shortbread and…”

  Rose went on describing the fragrant black tea, the delicately painted bone china, and the glowing tapers in silver candlesticks. Leana listened and nodded and tried her best not to be envious. She'd seen the fabled interior of Maxwell Park as a child of four, with her mother. But she'd never sat at Lady Maxwell's table.

  Would an invitation to his lordships Hogmanay Ball be next for Rose? The last day of the year—Hogmanay—was a cause for celebration in every Scottish home, Maxwell Park especially. Eligible gende-men from half a dozen parishes brought their menservants and their purses to Lord Maxwell's door at December's end, dancing in the new year and shopping for a bride. Might Rose be included on the guesdist this year?

  A slender vine of envy curled around Leana's heart like bindweed.