Like Chaff in the Wind (The Graham Saga)

by Belfrage, Anna

  “If he’ll have us,” Matthew replied over his shoulder. His eyes darted all over the place, and he was walking at a pace that had Alex running, a very exhausting exercise through Edinburgh’s steep, narrow closes.

  “What’s the matter?” she puffed, wrinkling her nose at the odour that wafted their way from the Nor Loch.

  “Nothing.”

  “Matthew!” She stopped halfway up a close. He exhaled and set down his burdens before turning to face her.

  “It might be unsafe for us here, and as yet I have no arms, no horse.”

  “Oh, hell; why can’t Luke Graham just fall into a vat of boiling syrup and die?” Alex scowled at the cobblestones, the dirty gutters, the enclosing walls. “It’s him, isn’t it? Again!”

  “I don’t know, and it may all be fancies.” Briefly he explained about the man in the harbour, taking her hand to hurry her along while he spoke. “Once we’re out on the moors it’ll be alright,” he finished. “I doubt city rats will be comfortable out there, in the open.”

  Minister Crombie was delighted to see them, assured them they could stay with him, and went on to say it was an open secret that Luke Graham had men watching for the potential return of his brother.

  “Oh,” Alex gulped. The tall man of God threw her a worried look, swept his bony hands down his long dark coat.

  “For what purpose, I don’t know, but I doubt it is to welcome you home. Ah well; you’re safe here, and by tomorrow you’ll be gone.”

  “Yeah; all alone on the road to Cumnock with a band of paid assassins on our tails,” Alex muttered, fingering the spider web of faint scars on her left arm.

  “Tonight; we leave tonight,” Matthew said. “Can you help me find a horse?”

  “What? Now?” Minister Crombie looked out at the overcast afternoon, bushy eyebrows pulled low over his eyes. “Mayhap, but it might come dear.”

  They returned a few hours later, Matthew with a sword on his belt and a dagger for Alex as well as a musket. Yes, he assured Alex, he’d delivered the letter to James’ wife, had told her as much as he could of what had befallen her husband, and had with relief turned the weeping woman over into Minister Crombie’s capable care while he went to buy them a horse.

  With them came yet another minister, and Alex did a discreet eye roll before arranging her features in a pleasant smile. Sandy Peden was not her favourite among Matthew’s boon companions, not by a far stretch, but she could see how animated Matthew was by the presence of his friend and preacher, and so she held her tongue.

  Sandy was a relatively new acquaintance for Alex, having become a recurrent guest at Hillview only during the last few months before Matthew’s abduction, but Sandy and Matthew went years back, even if Simon – who wasn’t too enchanted by this very impassioned minister – had confided to Alex that he couldn’t recall them being more than casual companions in their youth.

  “Minister Peden,” Alex said, curtseying to the minister.

  “Alexandra,” he replied with a slight nod. A nondescript man of medium height with a shock of fine mousy hair, his saving grace was his eyes. Large and luminous, two grey pools fringed with the longest and fairest lashes Alex had ever seen, they studied her with amused respect. “An admirable rescue,” he said, nodding in the direction of Matthew.

  “Purely for egoistical reasons,” Alex replied, and Sandy burst into laughter.

  “Aye well, men like Matthew Graham don’t grow on trees.”

  “No they don’t; one in a million, I’d think.” She smiled at her husband and excused herself to do something about her hollering child.

  *

  Matthew followed her out of the room with his eyes, thinking that women like her were quite rare on the ground as well. With a private smile he re-joined the heated discussion between the ministers, and over the coming half-hour, Sandy and Minister Crombie took turns in filling him in as to what had happened in his homeland during his absence.

  “Evicted from my living, no less,” Sandy blustered. “Thrown out of my own kirk, as have most of our fellow Presbyterian brethren, and then what do we have but a religious war in the making? Again, I might add.”

  “Now, now,” Minister Crombie said. “We don’t know that, dear Sandy, do we? And it might behove you to at times curb that tongue of yours, mayhap even scrape your foot and bow symbolically in the direction of the powers that be.”

  “Hmph!” Sandy snorted and left the room.

  “That bad?” Matthew asked.

  “No, not yet,” Minister Crombie said. “But it’s getting difficult. The king – or at least his parliament – intends to push us all into Episcopalian rites, and the first to go are of course us, the ministers who refuse to kowtow to his Anglican beliefs and the Book of Common Prayer.”

  “But he promised not to!”

  “A king does as he pleases,” Minister Crombie said. “Ah well, it need not concern you, at least not yet.” He leaned forward and patted Matthew on the leg. “I am that glad to see you back home. I’ve prayed – for you and your remarkable wife.” He opened his mouth to say something more, but there was a commotion at the door, and they got to their feet, Matthew’s hand dropping to his sword.

  “Ha!” Sandy Peden manhandled a young man into the room. He held him in a choking grip, ignoring the guttural sounds that signalled the man had problems breathing. “I found him sneaking about outside.” Sandy released his prisoner to fall face first to the floor.

  “Ah, did you now?” Matthew pulled his knife and advanced on the man, who squealed and tried to crawl away. It didn’t avail him much, and once Matthew had explained just what he was going to do to him should he choose not to speak, the unfortunate man told them everything, words spilling like a garbled waterfall from his mouth. Matthew released his hold on the greasy hair and stood up.

  “If I leave now they won’t know, and if you can keep this rascal under lock and key until tomorrow or the day after, they’ll never catch us.”

  “No,” Minister Crombie agreed, looking rather green around the mouth – no doubt due to the ruffian’s admission that their task was not only to kill Matthew, but also his wife so as to ensure there remained no witnesses alive.

  “I’ll ride with you,” Sandy said, “and so will my brother.” Matthew nodded his curt thanks, and in less than an hour he had a small company assembled, consisting of himself, Alex, Sandy and his rather impressive brother, and John Brown, a most devout neighbour from down Cumnock way.

  “I wish I could come with you,” Minister Crombie sighed, “but with my piles, well…”

  “Oh,” Matthew said, not wanting to know. He helped Alex up on the horse, swung himself up behind her, and nodded a farewell to Minister Crombie.

  “God speed,” the minister said in a hushed voice, “and don’t cross the Clyde at Lanark – they’re bound to ride in that direction – well, unless I convince the constables to collar the wretches first.”

  *

  “More than one lookout,” Alex said through chattering teeth several hours later. It was sometime between midnight and dawn, and the light from a waning moon silvered the moors, throwing everything into different shades of grey through black. It was cold, her calves cramped after nearly two hours hidden behind the thicket, but right now she was very grateful Matthew had insisted they spread out and hide, leaving decoys in place round the fire.

  “Mmm,” Matthew agreed from where he was sitting beside her, eyes never leaving the five men who were slinking down the hillside towards the little campfire and the blanketed humps around it. “Fools,” he breathed into her ear. “Look at them, like sheep to the slaughter.”

  Alex suppressed an urge to burst out in loud, nervous laughter. Sheep? Very well armed sheep – even from here and in the dark she could make out the odd glint on an uncovered blade.

  “Stay here,” Matthew said, and then he was gone, leaving Alex to keep her eyes peeled on the path, just in case there should be more than five.

  A shape moved swiftly dow
n the slope. Matthew, she realised after squinting for a while, and at his back was John Brown – or a shape she assumed to be John, it was impossible to make out. Someone sent a stone bouncing, there was a hissed curse and everything froze. The five ambushers shrank to crouch, Matthew and John disappeared into the shadow of a crag. One of the horses nickered, but down by the fire the shapes remained immobile – well, they would, given that they consisted mostly of twigs and stones. Alex swallowed, threw a look up the path. No one there.

  They were almost at the campsite by now, five shadows that communicated with hand movements, no more. And behind them came Matthew and John, moving as stealthily as foxes. A rustle and Alex bit back on an exclamation. Something was coming up the path, but once it got closer Alex relaxed. Things moving on four legs weren’t her major concern at present. She returned her attention to the dell. Any moment now…

  It was unfortunate that just as the trap was closing, Rachel should wake from sleep, crying loudly. The would be attackers whirled in the direction of the sound, saw Matthew and John Brown advancing on them, and threw themselves in a concerted effort against them. From their hiding places came the Peden brothers, rushing to join the fight, and Alex couldn’t stand it, to sit here crouched while only yards away her husband and their friends were fighting a far too even battle against the bastards who wanted them dead, so she placed a screaming Rachel under a bush and launched herself into the melee.

  “Get away!” Matthew barked. “Stay away, Alex!”

  “In your dreams,” she shouted back. But she kept to the fringe of things, not wanting to get in the way of all those blades. Still, every now and then one of the combatants would stumble into range, and it was with a certain satisfaction that she felt her foot connect with someone’s nether parts, a howl indicating that specific person wouldn’t be moving very much any time soon.

  Matthew was everywhere, and it was his sword that brought the fight to an end, the apparent leader shrieking for mercy as the blade dug into his uncovered neck. There was a moment when Alex thought Matthew was going to slice his throat wide open and kill him then and there, but to her relief Sandy popped up by Matthew’s side, and whatever it was he said was enough to make Matthew lower the blade and spit the ruffian in the face. And then it was all over, the five men hogtied and dragged forward so that their faces could be studied in the light of the fire, now kicked into life by Matthew.

  Rachel was still sobbing, the odd half-hearted wail escaping from her between her energetic pulling at the breast.

  “Bad timing,” Alex told her. “What was I to do? Nurse you and let your father fight it out on his own?”

  “I wasn’t alone, Alex,” Matthew said with a smile in his voice.

  “No, but I helped.”

  “Helped? You’ve left the man maimed for life,” Sandy put in. “Not that he will live for all that much longer.”

  “What? You’re going to kill them?”

  “Of course not. That would be a grievous sin, a permanent taint on our souls. No, we will ride back with them to Edinburgh, and there turn them over into the tender care of the constables.” Sandy looked the men over with a certain disdain. “They’ll hang, as they should, ruffians that they are.” He turned back to Alex, a wrinkle appearing on his brow that had her sighing inside.

  In difference to Minister Crombie, Sandy Peden had made it his own little mission in life to ensure the foreign Mrs Graham was properly instructed in all aspects of the Presbyterian faith, lecturing her for hours on the Bible, the relative importance of men and women, the qualities of a good wife, and she could see yet another speech coming on. She looked to Matthew for support, but her husband was busy inspecting knots, rearranging bedding, seeing to his new horse – anything, in fact, that made it impossible for her to catch his eyes. Sandy was already at it, his beautiful voice berating her for the unwomanly behaviour she’d just displayed. Alex pretended to listen, her eyes on her nursing child.

  She glanced over to where her husband was still busy with Ham. She could make out no more than the general shape of him, but that was enough to tell her he was stiff with tension, and to Sandy’s evident surprise she stood, handed him the by now sleeping Rachel, and walked over to join Matthew.

  “I don’t think Ham has any stones left in his hooves to dislodge,” she said, kissing him on the nape.

  “No.” Matthew continued smoothing his hands up and down the horse’s legs.

  “Stupid name for a horse,” she added in an effort to distract him.

  “You think? It would have been worse if he was a pig.” He tweaked at her hair. “We could have been dead.”

  “But we’re not, right?”

  “No, we’re not, but no thanks to my twisted, evil brother. He wishes us both dead, Alex, both!”

  “He won’t try again,” Sandy said, having come over to join them.

  “He won’t? How so?” Matthew asked.

  “There are ways to rein in a maddened beast; you start by talking to its master.”

  “What? Matthew should go to the king?” Alex held out her arms to receive Rachel back.

  “Hmm, no that would not be wise, I think. Leave it with me, aye? It is I, is it not, that has the gift of the word – not that I seem to entrance all audiences.” Sandy winked at Alex and sauntered off to talk to his brother.

  Chapter 38

  Two uneventful nights, and just before noon of the penultimate day of May, Matthew turned Ham up the last stretch towards Hillview. Clouds chased each other across a sky blue in patches, and a gusty wind tore at cloaks and hoods, lifting Ham’s mane to float like an elongated set of medusa curls around the powerful neck. A very good horse, not quite as impressive as Samson, but with strong cruppers and clean legs and a good head, with those flat, dished cheekbones that spoke of Arab ancestry.

  Matthew smiled wryly; he was only thinking of the horse to distract himself from the snakes that presently inhabited his stomach. Would it have changed? Two and a half years since he’d last seen his home on a cold January morning, and with every step the horse took down the road, Matthew felt his heart pick up pace, a weakening sensation in elbow creases and knees.

  “Are you okay?” Alex asked.

  “I’m afraid it may have changed.”

  Alex blew out loudly through her nose. “Of course it will – superficially. Just as it had when you came back from those years in prison.” She adjusted the shawl that held Rachel to her chest and reached back to pat Matthew on the leg. “The heart of it doesn’t change. The fields, the hill, the way the stream meanders across the meadow – all of that remains as it always was. It’s the earth as such that calls to you, the place where you’ve lived as a child, where your family has lived for generations. And no matter how changed, it’s still the place where you belong, forever rooted there.” She sighed and gave a shaky laugh. “Not like me, hey? I have no roots, no place on earth eternally labelled ‘home’. A proverbial rolling stone, that’s me. Even in my old time – or should I say my future time – that’s the way it was.”

  “You belong here too,” Matthew said, spreading his hand over her stomach. “You belong with me.” He disliked it when she spoke of that old life of hers, even as tangentially as she had just done. It made him too aware of how random their meeting was – a fickle misalignment in time, and two people who should never have met ended up eye to eye.

  He widened his fingers, pretending he could curl them round the wee stranger in her womb, keep it safe and cosseted. He chuckled; the bairn lay well protected under the steady beat of her heart. He pressed his hand harder into her belly, swept by a primitive pride in his own virility; his woman, his child. She pushed back against him. It made his blood fizz, how his wife softened at his touch, and he bent his head to nibble at her ear, laughing at how all of her shivered in response.

  “Tonight, in our bed.”

  “Maybe,” she said with a little shrug. He bit harder and she squealed, promising him that of course tonight in their bed.

>   “What do I say to him?” Alex asked Matthew a bit later. “Come here, come to Mama? What if he doesn’t want to?” She shifted, clearly nervous. “I keep on seeing him hiding behind Joan’s legs, staring at us from a safe distance.”

  “You’ll say the right thing; you’re his mother.”

  “You think?”

  “Of course you will, lass.” His son; no longer a wean, but a laddie. He couldn’t visualise this unknown little being, seeing instead the babe he had left behind, all dimples and folds of baby fat with light hazel eyes. Alex feared Mark might not recognise her. He feared he might not recognise his son.

  Matthew held in Ham just before they crested the last little hill and dropped off.

  “I must piss.”

  Alex fussed with her hair, smoothing it back before replacing cap and hat, and in Matthew’s eyes she was very beautiful, sitting the horse with their daughter clasped to her chest. He took the reins and walked the last few steps, and there before him lay Hillview, spread out in the summer greenery. The barn, the weathered stable, henhouse, dovecot and privy – still all there, solid and permanent. His eyes flew over the buildings, noting that they stood strong and well maintained. Two horses in the meadow, the glittering line of water where the stream cut its way behind kitchen garden and storage sheds. Alex inhaled, and he turned to look at her.

  “Home,” she said.

  “Aye; home.” His eyes flew to the main house, nestling back against the hill – grey stone, dark slate roof and two chimneys. Home. He dashed a hand over his eyes and drew in a lungful of Hillview air – finer air than anywhere else on earth. Exclamations of delight floated up from below, Matthew took a firm grip on the reins, and began the last walk downhill, towards his home, his family and son.

  *

  She should have been scanning the waiting faces, but the one thing that caught Alex’s eyes as Matthew led Ham down the slope was so incongruous she nearly fell off the horse. It couldn’t be! She looked again at the solitary garment hanging to dry, and suppressed a desire to knuckle her eyes. Light blue, long legged and with a copper zipper up the front; jeans…here! She was mesmerised by them, her head swivelling, but then she was being helped off the horse, Rachel was swept from her by Matthew, and she was surrounded by arms, by people welcoming her home. There was Joan, still as thin as a rail, her grey eyes shiny with tears, her hair covered by an overlarge cap, and here came Simon, weeping openly as he squished her to his chest.