Highland Hero

by Amanda Scott

  “He does,” James said in the stern tone he had used before. Looking directly at Ivor, he added, “He would like to know where you are taking him, though.”

  “With respect, sir,” Ivor said, holding his gaze. “Whilst we are in this room, I will answer your questions as well as I can. I will do that whenever we can speak privily. However, you must otherwise behave as most lads your age do. That is to say, you will obey my orders or suffer the same consequences that an ordinary boy would suffer, especially when others are near. I cannot undertake this task without such an agreement, because I must have your cooperation to keep you safe.”

  James eyed him measuringly for a long moment and then frowned. “Will everyone we meet treat me as if I am of no account then?”

  “No one will behave so,” Ivor said. “Nor do I expect you to behave as if you were raised in a byre. You need only treat any adults we meet with civility and those of rank with the respect due to them. Your maidservant, if she accompanies us, may treat you with her customary deference. But I think that you must treat Mistress Childs as you would treat any kinswoman to whom you owe respect. That means that she will not address you as ‘sir’ or ‘my lord.’ And you will not speak to me again as you just did,” Ivor added sternly, “or we will fall out.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. But he was silent for a time before he grimaced and said, “I expect our acquaintance will prove a salutary one then… sir.”

  Ivor wondered if the boy meant salutary for himself or Ivor. Deciding that it did not matter, since they would both likely learn a few things, he saw that Mistress Childs had used the time to shift items about from bundle to bundle.

  As she finished tying the last one, she looked at James. “If you will carry that blue bundle and your bed pillow, sir, I can take this one and my things. You take yours, Marsi, and that white bundle. We’ll let—” Breaking off with a click of her tongue, she said to Ivor, “Pray, sir, we must know what to call you.”

  “Call me Hawk for now,” he said.

  “That seems most unusual and rather too familiar, sir. But if you will have it so, and if you will carry that bundle you took from Marsi, we are ready to go.”

  Marsi wondered what the man who called himself Hawk was thinking. She had found it hard to read his expression, except when he’d told Jamie how he was to behave. His stern displeasure then had been plain enough.

  As she donned her hooded gray, sable-lined cloak, she realized that the only other person she could recall speaking so to the prince was Albany. However, the thought had only to flit through her mind for her to amend it.

  As far as she knew, Albany had never spoken so crisply to anyone. The duke’s tone was chilly to the point of freezing one’s blood in one’s veins. And he spoke so softly that one had to exert oneself to hear what he said.

  Hawk had spoken as a man accustomed to obedience from other men did.

  But what manner of name was Hawk, for mercy’s sake? She’d have liked to ask him. But in her current guise, she dared not question him so. If he expected to command Jamie, he would make short shrift of insolence from a maidservant.

  That thought stirred a tingling in her mind as if the notion of such certain dominance challenged her. She had tested most of the adults in her life from early childhood onward and easily recognized the urge to test him for what it was.

  She fought the impulse, and it eased. But she knew that once such an urge made itself known, it became hard to ignore. Deciding that she must control it if her pretense, as hard as it would be to maintain at all, was to last long enough to get her away from Turnberry. Catching Hetty’s stern eye on her just then, she stepped hastily aside to let the nursery mistress and Jamie lead the way out of the room.

  It was not the maid’s place to go first. Nor did Marsi want to be right behind Hawk, lest another impulse to question him undo her.

  He had already taken a dim view of her asking about their destination. That he would view personal questions in an even dimmer light seemed certain.

  In truth, she realized as she hurried down the winding stone stairs after the others, she was beginning to see a vast chasm before her. Could she maintain indefinitely this pretense that she had created for herself, or would her temptation to challenge Hawk undo her?

  Not only was she dangerously curious about their handsome escort, but she had also failed to consider one important detail—her dislike of waiting on others.

  Attending Annabella had been satisfying enough, because the Queen had deeply appreciated all that her attendants did for her. The most Marsi had had to exert herself was to help make the Queen’s bed or help look after her clothing. Any more taxing duty fell to ordinary maidservants or menservants, although no males other than the King and Annabella’s sons ever entered her grace’s bedchamber.

  However, some of her other ladies had assumed that Marsi, as the youngest, should wait on them, too. She had been as dutiful as she knew how to be but soon learned that Annabella refused to let the others scold her. She knew she had taken advantage of that fact more than once. But Annabella could not protect her now.

  Hetty would not shield her either, because Marsi was one of the Drummond children that she had nursed. Hetty knew her through and through.

  In Marsi’s present guise, she knew that Hetty would expect her to do things that she had never had to do for anyone before. That did not matter, though.

  She could do anything if she made up her mind to it.

  Rounding the last turn of the stairs, she looked in astonishment at the cavern before them. She had little time to take it all in, though, because Hetty and Jamie were hurrying after Hawk. Ahead of him, tied to a jetty, was a longboat.

  As Hawk neared it, a man jumped to the jetty from the boat and strode to meet him. Taking the bundle Hawk carried, the other man tossed it to a third aboard the boat. He signed then to someone else to attend to Hetty’s and Jamie’s bundles.

  “I hope you don’t need to fetch more things,” he said then in a voice that, although quiet enough, carried easily. Marsi realized that although they were right on the water, she could barely hear the sea outside the cavern.

  Hawk said, “We’ve brought all they’ll need for now. My lads will carry aught that they’ve left behind that they may need later.”

  “Good, because the sooner we’re underway, the better. This place is likely to get busier the nearer we come to the turning tide. Who’s the lass?”

  Hawk glanced at her. “The nursery maid. Hand those bundles to one of these men, lass, and get yourself aboard.”

  The third man, still aboard the boat, said, “Here, lass, I’ll show ye how.”

  Smiling warmly at him, she said, “My name be Marsi, sir.”

  “A lovely name it be, too,” he said, grinning back. “Come this way now, and see can ye walk up yon plank without tumbling off o’ it.”

  “Will ye no tell me your name, sir?” she asked.

  “This way,” he repeated, glancing warily at Hawk and the man with Hawk.

  Noting Hawk’s stern eye on her, Marsi caught up her skirt, stepped onto the plank, and walked up it to where her new friend stood ready to hand her aboard.

  “Show them to the master’s cabin,” the man with Hawk said. “The women and lad can stay there. Hawk can share the forecastle cabin with me if need be.”

  Marsi noted that the ship was a sort of Isles galley with benches for eight oars on a side. The seaman who had helped her aboard guided her now toward the high stern. There, a door opened into a small cabin with two shelf beds at the rear, one atop the other. A cunning washstand hugged the wall to her right and a small table with flanking benches occupied an alcove to her left.

  “This cabin is small for three people,” she said to her guide. “That wee table has room for only one adult on each bench.”

  “The lad can sleep on the floor,” her companion said. “Yonder be your bundles, lass. Just shift them about as ye need. There be a small hold under yon trap, too, if ye want tae stow the
m. Why d’ye look at me so?”

  Swallowing her dismay at the familiarity in his tone, she said, “I beg your pardon. I didna mean tae stare. Ye be gey large, is all.”

  “Aye, sure, I am,” he said with a smile. “Sithee, oarsmen need tae be big.”

  “D’ye ken where we be going?” she asked.

  “Now, that would be telling, that would,” he said, winking. Then he added soberly, “We’re no tae say nowt, lass. So dinna be plaguing me or any o’ the other lads if ye dinna want tae suffer the rough edge o’ the master’s temper.”

  “I thank ye for your kindness,” Marsi said, seeing Jamie hurrying toward the cabin with Hetty behind him.

  “Right ye are,” the man said, turning and striding away.

  Hetty looked green, so Marsi said, “Come in, Hetty, and sit down.”

  “Ye should call her Mistress Hetty if not Mistress Henrietta,” Jamie muttered behind her. Turning, she saw that he had swung himself onto the top shelf bed. “I like this,” he said, patting the thin mat underneath him. “I’ll sleep here.”

  Turning back, she saw that Hetty was eyeing their accommodations with wary disapproval. Her face was paler than it had been a minute before.

  “Sit, Mistress Hetty,” Marsi said, gesturing toward the wee table. “If you want fresh air in here, I think that window above the table may open.”

  “They call that a porthole, I think,” Jamie said. “It has a latch, so I’m sure we can open it. But you should not be climbing about, Marsi. I’ll do it.”

  “Not until we ask if we may, sir,” Hetty said. Looking weary, she sat on the bench facing the doorway.

  Marsi eyed her helplessly, wondering what she could do to make her feel better. The light in the room dimmed. Turning, she saw Hawk filling the doorway.

  “May we know the captain’s name, sir?” Hetty asked.

  “I call him Wolf,” he said.

  “Sakes,” Marsi exclaimed, “are you in a league of anim—?”

  “That will do,” Hetty said sharply. “You should be getting our things off the floor and sorted into kists or some such place.”

  “We’ll be getting underway at once, mistress,” Hawk said. “When the lass gets a feel for the boat and the movement of the sea, she can attend to all that. Until then, I’d suggest that the three of you stay in one place.”

  Marsi said, “Sir, the man who brought me in said we might put things in the hold under that trapdoor by your feet. He left when Mistress Henrietta and Jamie—”

  “Jamie?”

  Feeling fire in her cheeks, Marsi was grateful to hear Jamie say, “I told her she should call me so because ye’d said that she and Hetty should treat me as an ordinary lad. Hetty has a harder time remembering tae do that than Marsi does. She still calls me ‘sir.’ Also, it does occur tae me that if ye dinna want our true names noised about, ye should call Hetty ‘Mistress Henrietta’ as Marsi does.”

  Hawk looked from one to the other as if he had recognized Jamie’s words as a diversionary tactic and might say so, and more. Instead he nodded, saying, “That is a good notion, lad.” To Marsi, he said, “Put anything you like in that hold if it is empty, lass. But they are casting off now, so wait until we are under sail. You don’t want to fall into the hold.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Marsi said. She smiled, but he was already turning away.

  Had Hetty not been watching her, the temptation to stick out her tongue at the man would have been irresistible.

  Ivor shut the door behind him and immediately breathed more easily. He was sorry now that he had let the maid accompany Mistress Childs. Nay, though, the lad was right. He should call her Mistress Henrietta.

  That lass, however—being both damnably attractive and impertinent—was bound to draw the attention of every man aboard if she had not already done so.

  Wolf had certainly taken note of that infectious smile of hers. And the chap who had handed her aboard had looked much too interested in her.

  Looking for Wolf now, Ivor saw him a short distance away to his right, talking with his helmsman. The galley was emerging from the cavern harbor, and he saw at once why the water inside remained calm.

  The outer rock wall of a long, open-ended tunnel running perpendicular to the entrance broke the force of incoming waves. That wall was far enough from the cavern opening to let the galley turn from harbor into tunnel. Clearly carved by the sea, as the cavern had been, and augmented by a masonry breakwater at each end, the tunnel made for an easy exit, especially for a galley with two men to each oar.

  Catching Wolf’s eye, Ivor stayed where he was until the other man joined him. Then he said, “Have you somewhere other than the aft cabin where we can talk privately, or should we wait until we are under sail?”

  “We’ll go to the forecastle. It contains a wee cabin where I keep my rutter. That’s the book in which we note details of any coastline we pass and information we glean from other boatmen about other places. My father and I always kept pallets on the floor of that cabin for sleeping. I still keep two in there.”

  Ivor hadn’t thought about sleeping. “How far are we going?”

  “As you know, your destination lies on the other side of Scotland, a hundred and fifty miles away,” Wolf said. “To save time, we’ll take you to a wee place called Milton on the Firth of Clyde between Castle Dunglass and Dumbarton. Dumbarton is the main harbor there and well watched, as is the port of Glasgow on the south side. Milton’s charm is that it has a small but comfortable inn that rarely houses folks of the sort who might recognize your charge. Members of the nobility generally prefer accommodations in Dumbarton or Glasgow.”

  “How long will this journey take?”

  The boat had emerged from the tunnel and turned into the waves. Wolf looked musingly at the overcast sky and then turned his face to the chilly breeze.

  “ ’Tis some fifty miles, so ten hours or more if this breeze does not increase or it rains. We barely have wind enough now to fill her sail. But it does blow from the southwest. If it continues so, at least it will not hinder us. Sithee, I’d liefer land you by nightfall than in broad daylight, for although I have legitimate reason to visit Dumbarton, you want to go unnoticed if possible.”

  “I do,” Ivor agreed. “Albany’s men likely litter that whole area.”

  “He keeps a watch at all the ports. You can trust the innkeeper at Milton to house you, but you’d do well not to trust him otherwise. If Albany’s men question him, he’ll tell them all he knows. Although the duke is no longer Governor of the Realm, his men still act as if he is.”

  “Aye, sure, because he acts so, himself,” Ivor said.

  As they talked, they followed the narrow, raised gangway between the rows of oarsmen on their benches. A low, steady beat of the gong marked the strokes of the oars, and Ivor found the rhythm relaxing, as was the gentle salt-laden breeze.

  Pulling open the narrow door to the forecastle built into the high stem of the boat, Wolf gestured for Ivor to precede him inside.

  The cabin was more spacious than Ivor had expected, but he hoped they would not have to sleep aboard. Although he saw a low shelf for charts and a wee table and benches set into an alcove similar to the one in the aft cabin, he saw no bed. Anyone who slept there slept on the floor.

  Shutting the door, Wolf said, “Do I continue to call you Hawk, or may we exchange our true names at last?”

  Ivor grinned. “Do you remember our friend Lion from St. Andrews?”

  “Our most famous swordsman? Aye, sure, I do. He was as skilled with his sword as you are with your bow, my lad.”

  “If you know the name Fin of the Battles, you will agree that Lion became even more famous,” Ivor said.

  “Sakes, Fin of the Battles was the only swordsman save Davy Stewart left standing after the Queen’s tourney of champions at Edinburgh Castle. And they say that her grace stopped them only after they had fought for half an hour, and only because she feared that Davy might lose, which would reflect badly on the royal family
. No one minded, though, because they had put on such a fine display of skill. That splendid chap was our own Lion from the brotherhood at St. Andrews?”

  “The same. And he is now my good-brother. He married my sister, Catriona.”

  “As I recall,” Wolf said thoughtfully, “there was no archery contest at the Queen’s tourney. But I did hear of one at Stirling months later, won by an archer who never missed his shot, a Mackintosh. Have you ever missed a bowshot, Hawk?”

  “You ken fine that I have. I did not spring from the womb with bow in hand.”

  Wolf cocked his head to one side, expectantly.

  Easily interpreting the look, Ivor said, “Aye, then, my name is Ivor Mackintosh. My father is Shaw MacGillivray, war leader of Clan Chattan.”

  “Then you must be Sir Ivor by now, I’d wager.”

  Ivor nodded. “And you?”

  “Jake Maxwell, and I have likewise earned my knightly spurs. My father’s family lives in Nithsdale. But I spent much of my childhood on his boat and later, on this one. Sithee, my mam died when I was six. After that, I stayed with my da until they sent me to Bishop Traill at St. Andrews. Sithee, when I was eight, Da entered service with the MacLennans of Duncraig. That’s on the northwest coast of Kintail. So, we now serve Donald, Lord of the Isles.” He glanced out the porthole. “We are beyond sight of Turnberry’s ramparts, so we’ll hoist Donald’s flag now.”

  Opening the door, he shouted to someone named Mace to take down the Dutch flag and remove the Dutch ship name, as well.

  “Then, this must be the MacLennans’ boat,” Ivor said when Jake had shut the door again. “Do they ken aught of our undertaking?”

  “This boat is mine,” Jake said. With a mischievous grin, he added, “Years ago, it belonged to the Duke of Albany, whilst he was still the Earl of Fife.”

  Ivor looked narrowly at his old friend, suspecting a jest.

  Jake threw up both hands, palms out. “I swear it!” he said, laughing. “Sakes, I’d forgotten how quick your infamous temper is to leap.”

  “This boat truly belonged to Albany?”