by Anya Karin
His fingers closed around a hard, spiky ball fringed with purple.
“Thistle,” he said to himself. He wrapped his hand around it, and made a motion to hurl the flower off into the mists below, but stopped short. His hand fell to his side.
“Honor and loyalty, boy. Two things no one can take from you. No matter whether you’re rich, or poor. Starving or fat. The lord of a castle, or lying half dead in a gutter, you can have them, or you can’t. Do you understand what I mean?” The words vibrated in his chest.
Gavin started down the side of the hill opposite the one he’d come up. He clenched the thistle in his fist, so that the spines pressed into his palm.
“I think I do, Da,” he whispered. “I think I understand.”
As soon as Gavin pushed open the waist-high door to where he and John had made their headquarters underneath the Prince John Tavern on Rose Street, he heard booming laughter. Someone new, he thought, someone come to join our little band?
“Gavin!” Red Ben Black’s voice boomed through the room and took Gavin off guard. “I thought you’d got lost out on your walk!”
“Didn’t expect to see you, Ben.” Gavin said with a smile.
“Call me Red. Me wife does, and I’ve got used to it.” He laughed again and slapped himself on the belly before drinking an entire mug of the tavern’s thick, black beer in one go. “Good,” he said, dragging the back of his hand across his lips.
“Red Ben here has come to give us some news that I thought you’d find interesting.”
“Oh? Why’s he drinking beer?”
“His preference, friend. I offered him real drink.” John held the bottle with two fingers, and poured the amber fire into Gavin’s hardened clay cup.
“Red Ben Black,” Gavin said. “What can we do for you?”
“Well,” the big man said, “you know how I said that the lord of the manor had gone north to Fort Mary to fetch his bride? He’s come back. Or rather, is on the way back. The house got a missive from him this morning informing us to have a – I quote – sufficient banquet – end quote – for him upon his return, which should be tonight. Assuming, of course, his lordship doesn’t break his carriage again.”
“How would that happen?” John said as he grabbed a haunch of unidentified burned meat. “Roads aren’t that bad between the Lochs and here.”
“They are when you’re as wide as Laird Macdonald,” Red laughed. “But listen boys, we should go.”
“Go? Where?” Gavin sat down and took a drink. “I just got here.”
“Aye, but there’s something you’ll want to see. Get up! No time to explain. Oh, and Gavin? Here.” Red Ben tossed a bundle of something that Gavin grabbed out of the air.
“What’s this?”
“We’re going to a party, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
Ben pursed his lips. “Suppose I didn’t tell you that bit, ah?”
“Suppose you didn’t.”
“Well you seemed so interested in the lass that I thought you might like to see her. And anyway, Macdonald is a nasty, cruel man, the sort that could stand a chopping down.”
A grin spread across Gavin’s face.
“Oh wait, wait, no, no, no, Gavin!” John said. “You can’t be taking this seriously. You’re going to a party at the house of a man you just robbed? Twice?”
“We,” he said. “We just robbed.”
“Right, of course, that’s what I meant. This is insanity.”
“And not just me.”
Gavin grabbed the wadded up fabric and stood. He stretched it out and held it up in front of John.
“Do you have another of these for John? I think he’d look just wonderful wrapped in some of that Macdonald red and green, don’t you?” He made his hands into a square frame and laughed.
“Aye, I do. But you’ll both need to be ready. I doubt getting in will be as easy as it was when the house was empty. You’ll have to at least be clean enough to pass for nobility.”
The three men nodded to one another, threw back their drinks, and gathered their things.
Red Ben stepped in front of the other two men in the doorway and turned back to them. “One more thing, Gavin,” he said.
“We’re to run all the way there?”
“No, no,” the big man laughed. “Although it might be just as bad. After tonight, I’m leaving Macdonald’s employ. Tired of the abuse. Instead, I’m your new man.”
Gavin and Two-fingers exchanged a couple of cocked eyebrows.
“You’re sure about that?” Gavin said. “It’s a dangerous road we travel. And you’ve got Alice and the children-”
“Alice,” Red Ben said, “is more dangerous than Macdonald could ever manage to be.”
Chapter Six
Kenna’s morning was a jumble of arriving at Laird Macdonald’s estate in Kilroyston, slightly north of Edinburgh, and almost immediately being shoved off on the Sheriff, who was to show her around town, as the carriage rumbled down the rutted street, she found herself looking at Alan, and trying to figure out exactly why he was so sour.
“Give me the plug, Rodrigo,” Sheriff Alan said. “Quickly, you awful Spaniard.”
Dark-skinned, dark-eyed Rodrigo unflinchingly pulled the black square from his belt-pouch and handed over the tobacco, which he never chewed, only carried. Without a word, because he refused to speak, or couldn’t – Alan had no idea which – Rodrigo settled back into the uncomfortable chair in the back of the coach that bumped along the rutted streets of old Edinburgh.
Alan fished the remnants of his last chew from his lip and flung it, dripping, out of the window, wiped his moist, brown lips with a handkerchief in the single display of manners he possessed. Kenna watched in horror as his jowly mouth opened and Alan’s brown teeth closed around the second lump of tobacco and then turned her eyes back to the old buildings as they rolled past.
“Laird Macdonald says you’ve never been here before,” the Sheriff said. “Seems a shame. Even I’ve seen Edinburgh castle. Why is it that a good Scottish girl like you has never been?”
“I, uh, my family is from quite far north, so just never had the chance. My father’s traveled but I’ve never done much going around.” Kenna refused to look at him in his absurd powdered wig with the brown streaks where he adjusted it with his juice-covered fingers.
Alan grunted in response.
The carriage rolled to a stop, and the driver swore.
“What’s going on?” Kenna said.
“Probably an overturned carriage or someone hurt in the street.” Alan said.
“You can’t be serious.” Kenna stuck her head out the window and gasped when she saw an injured man in the road and a number of carriage drivers standing around him shouting for him to move. “Why don’t they help him? He’s got a broken leg! How can those people expect him to move if he’s been hurt?”
“Because he should,” Alan said. “The people telling him to move have every right. They’re important. They’ve got things to do. That creature in the road is just holding things up.” He spat out the window and took a look.
Alan pursed his lips.
“Rodrigo, go help the man. At least get him off the road and make sure he’s not dead.”
With a sigh, Rodrigo looked to Kenna, nodded slightly and trotted over to the man in the road. A few moments later, he’d helped him to the side of the road, and was on his way back.
“Wait just a minute,” Kenna said as the carriage started to move again. “That man needs help and no one’s got any idea what to do. If you don’t set that, he’ll die. Let me out of here.”
She moved so quickly that Alan didn’t have time to block her, though he tried as soon as he realized what she was doing. He let his drooping, heavy eyelids fall halfway closed while he watched her talk to the man, get some swatches of cloth and sent a couple of people from the crowd to find boards, then splinted his leg.
When she returned, Alan scowled at her.
“We’re on a schedul
e, girl. You’ve to be back and Macdonald’s in only a couple of hours. People like Ramsay Macdonald don’t wait.”
“What’s the hurry?” she said. “I want to see the town and taking a few moments to help someone isn’t going to do anything to ruin tonight’s party.”
“Often times, girl, life is one awful thing after another. You’re noble now. Or will be soon.” Juice dribbled out of one corner of Alan’s mouth. “It’s not all bad though.”
Kenna turned back to the window and stared out of it until the carriage pulled to a stop.
“We’re on foot from here,” Alan said. “Easier to get to the castle without a bunch of horses along.”
A few blessed moments passed in silence as the carriage let them out at the foot of the hill leading to the castle and the three began to walk. The smells of vendors selling roasted meats, sweet shortbreads and pasties had Kenna’s mouth almost watering. They passed another vendor, one selling trinkets and fragrant, spice-filled haggis wrapped in old newspaper.
Kenna waved him down as they passed, and asked Alan to pay him. Alan, in turn, commanded Rodrigo to hand over money.
“Thank you, ever so much, milady,” the crook-backed vendor said. “Is there anything else the beautiful lady would like?”
“Aren’t you a flattering man,” Kenna said.
“They all do that. Don’t be fooled.” Alan said. “Street people will do anything for attention.”
Kenna couldn’t help glaring at him.
“I’ll also take one of those pins, the one with the rose on it.”
She fumbled with the backing for a moment before the man asked if he could help. He fastened it to her collar, and bowed deep as they continued.
“You must stop talking to them,” Alan said. “You’ll find yourself a target.”
“Of what, exactly? Of kindness and people offering me snacks? How horrible.”
Behind the two of them, Rodrigo chuckled to himself.
“Can we go in? I’d love to see the inside. I’ve never actually been to a real castle before.”
“None at all? Isn’t there a manor in that backwater where you live?”
Kenna’s eyes narrowed. “Yes. That doesn’t mean I’ve been inside of it, though.”
“You Scots are all the same. Entranced by wealth, always wanting to see things you can’t have. You’re to marry the Earl of Kilroyston. You’ll live in a nice manor, have servants to do everything for you. Why can’t you just be satisfied with that?”
Kenna’s cheeks flushed. She stared at Alan for a moment, then began to speak, but calmed herself.
Rodrigo bit his lip.
As she looked at him, the Sheriff wiped his hand across his lips and smiled as though she’d done something amusing.
“Have I once insulted you today, sir?” She said to Alan. “Have I – even one time – said anything about England or wherever you’re from, or your people? Have I?”
Alan ran his tongue along the back of his lower lip, pushing the black plug further back in his cheek.
“And yet, here you are, doing nothing but complaining about where you are, the people of the country that pay your wages, and-”
“King George pays my wages.”
“And you interrupt me, sir! You haven’t even the courtesy to listen to me before spitting venom.” She took a breath. “If you hate living here so much, then leave.”
“I’d love to, lass. I really would. Do you think I want to be stuck up here with all you hooting savages?”
“Then what in the world are you doing here? You must have petitioned the king for your post.”
Alan laughed. A dribble ran down his chin, into his stubble. He pushed it away and then adjusted his sagging wig.
“I don’t expect you to understand. A little girl from a simple people, you are. An insignificant part of a powerful empire. You wretched creatures are lucky we English have decided to take care of you. If not for us, where would you be?”
Kenna chewed her lip and looked at Rodrigo as Alan resumed his plodding, tired steps up the road. The kind-eyed Spaniard shrugged, and tilted his head to indicate she should follow the sheriff.
The next minutes passed again in silence, with Kenna fuming and Alan hitching his trousers up around his belly and holding them in place as he dragged his feet up the cobblestones.
“Oh look,” Alan said. “The men in skirts up there, they’re getting ready to fire the cannon. Must be nearing mid-day. We’ll need to return to the carriage soon. Your bridegroom will expect you to be dressed as best you can for the party tonight. As reasonable as Laird Macdonald is, even he can’t escape your people’s delusion that you can be refined.”
Kenna didn’t hear him. She watched with fascination as the finely-kilted soldiers prepared the bank of cannons, saluted and fired. When they shot, she stuck her fingers in her ears and giggled, jumping at the noise.
“Why do they do that?”
“The cannons?”
“Yes, why do they fire them like that?”
“Same reason you people do everything else. Because you’re convinced you matter. You’re convinced you’re free.”
As he spoke, Kenna’s thoughts were already somewhere else.
She thought of the party, of the lecherous and aggressive Ramsay Macdonald, she thought of the repulsive sheriff, and she thought, finally of Gavin as she touched her chest where the thistle he gave her all those years ago hung, as it always did, preserved in a piece of glass.
Her mind was so distant that even when Alan moved near her, pulled one of her locks between his fingers, rubbing and smelling her scent, she didn’t notice.
“Women,” he said, looking at Rodrigo. “They’re still women, no?”
Alan flashed a brown-toothed smile. Rodrigo squinted, frowned, and turned away from the sheriff, his eyes focused on the carriage.
Chapter Seven
“I’ve,” Kenna sucked a deep breath, “never worn a corset that took two people to tie.”
The two ladies whom Laird Macdonald had assigned to dress her for the party were hustling back and forth, pinning her hair, rubbing her with scented oils, hitching her into awfully restrictive clothing and powdering her face with some horrible stuff that caused her to sneeze.
“Miss Kenna,” Olga, the bigger of the two serving ladies said in a thick, German accent, “you are going to have to stop sneezing! The powder won’t stay in place and you huffed and puffed half of it onto the rug!”
“Well I’m sorry Olga, but I can’t keep myself from sneezing when there’s powder going up my nose.”
The two ladies snickered softly to keep up propriety, while Kenna tried to cross her arms over her chest, but couldn’t quite manage.
“Can’t you loosen this horrible thing?” She said.
“Now, now, miss Kenna. You’re a lady now. You can’t act like you’re in the country anymore. Elena,” she called to Kenna’s other assistant, “if you could please tie her hair more tightly, I think a bun on top. You can let two little tentacles down the sides.”
“Tentacles?” Kenna said. “That sounds horrible!”
“I’m sorry; I don’t know any words for...tendrils? Locks?”
“Locks is much less awful sounding.”
“Elena, please put Mrs. Macdonald-”
“I’m not Mrs. Macdonald yet, Olga. Don’t remind me.”
“Yes, very sorry. Elena, two locks on either side of Miss Kenna’s pretty face. You have the reddest hair that ever I have seen.”
Her words brought a little smile to Kenna’s face. The first one she’d had all day. The carriage ride back from the brief sightseeing tour of the city with Sheriff Alan was a grim one. His manners and demeanor were so grotesque that she was barely able to tolerate his company, much less the increasingly constant attention he paid her. It was as though he realized that she was a pretty girl, and then refused to let her more than a half-foot away from him until she finally hopped out of the carriage and walked as quickly as she could into the hou
se.
Rodrigo’s not so bad, though, Kenna thought. He’s got a nice smile, he’s not mean to everyone he sees just for the sake of it, and most of all, he isn’t forever gnawing on tobacco that drips down his chin and... She shivered as she remembered the brown stains on the sheriff’s teeth and his fingers and whiskers, and the brown streaks in his ill-fitting wig.
“What do you think of Alan, Olga?”
Olga ran a comb through Kenna’s wavy hair, tugging out tangles so that Elena could fix it as she prescribed. “The sheriff?”
Kenna nodded. “He took me on a carriage ride through the city today. It was not very comfortable.”
“He’s a lecherous man. And he’s foul and vulgar. And a slovenly drunk.”
“I noticed all of those things, though he didn’t do any drinking while I was with him.”
“But, he’s also a nobleman. Sent up here from Manchester, I think.”
“Cambridgeshire,” Elena said. “Sent up here from Cambridgeshire after he defiled one of the King’s servants.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Quite.” Elena said.
“He seems the sort,” Kenna said. “But what about that man who he takes around with him like he’s a thug, Rodrigo, I think his name is? What of him?”
“Rodrigo, he’s a good man. And he’s not a lecher. But if he was, I don’t think I’d much mind.” Olga chuckled and Elena blushed. “He’s a Spaniard, a famous swordfighter from Barcelona. He’s a mute though, lost his tongue while he was adventuring in the Americas. Another of the servants told me he was taken captive by Blackfoot Indians, and they tortured him and cut out his tongue.”
“That’s...horrible,” Kenna said. “Is it true?”
“It’s a good story, anyway.” Olga busied herself mixing some new tincture that Kenna was sure would make her sneeze as Elena began to painfully tug, pull and pin her hair into place.
Minutes, then a half-hour passed in silence and finally Elena and Olga stood back, examined their handiwork and ask Kenna to stand.
“Beautiful,” Olga said.
“Breastaking,” Elena said.
