by Amanda Scott
Sidony had expected the Chevalier de Gredin to deliver her to Fife. He had been Fife’s man when she and others in her family had met him, and despite certain actions of his that suggested opposition to Fife, and a year spent in the north with Henry, she knew that Adela and Rob believed—and doubtless so would Henry—that de Gredin was still as much Fife’s man as any of Fife’s men-at-arms. And now, here he was proving it by riding under a royal banner and threatening her.
The thought of being handed over to the earl as a prize of war was terrifying enough, especially as de Gredin had said cheerfully that he expected Fife to enjoy questioning her. He had even suggested horrible means that the earl might use, until she shut her ears to him and thought hard about Giff MacLennan instead. If anyone could come up with horrid things to do to Fife and de Gredin, Giff surely could.
Instead of heading back to Edinburgh as she had expected, de Gredin—leading her horse despite what he had said earlier—had abruptly turned off the track and headed over the ridge and down the other side. In time, they came to a cottage, where he dismounted and lifted her from her saddle.
“Two of you, fetch the cart and see to the horses,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
Gripping her arm, he took her inside the empty cottage, where he allowed her to relieve herself in a night pail in a curtained alcove before mixing her a mug of something horrid that he made her drink. She began to grow sleepy, and although she fought it, blackness soon enveloped her.
She awoke, moaning. It was pitch dark, she could hardly breathe, and her head ached so badly that she could not think. She lay on a hard, bouncing surface and heard the rattle of wheels beneath her. Then blackness descended again.
The next time, she awoke to hear neighing and a jangle of harness. Then came a screeching sound and enough dim light to see that she was inside a crate in an open building, a stable perhaps. Someone had pried off the crate’s lid. Gulping fresh air, she tried to sit up and realized her hands were behind her, tightly bound.
“Not a word,” de Gredin hissed, helping her. “Drink this quickly,” he added, putting a cup to her lips and gripping her jaw, tilting the cup’s contents down her throat so quickly that she swallowed, choking, sure she would be sick.
Salty air and a glimpse of harbor outside the wide-open doors told her where they were. Hearing male voices approaching, she opened her mouth to scream, saw his fist coming, and knew no more.
Chapter 12
Giff, Captain Maxwell, and Jake enjoyed supper sitting together on two of the oarsmen’s benches in dusky half-light, sharing Giff’s meat rolls with their two watchmen. Giff shared the brogac in his jug, too, but only with the captain.
Young Jake, delighted to see him, had said nonetheless bluntly, “I dinna ha’ your shilling yet. Me da’ wouldna pay me for clearing up below.”
“Nor should he,” Giff said. “How much of a task can it be on a new ship?”
“Aye, well, it gets dirty enough, and there be bundles and barrels and all to shift. Also, there be rat traps to empty when we’ve been at the wharf. I dinna mind the clearing, nor even yet the scrubbin’, but I dinna like rats, dead or no.”
Maxwell told his son sternly that he should be thanking Sir Giffard for his supper instead of complaining. “In this wind, I’d no’ ha’ wanted to make a fire for cooking,” he added. “We’ve a deep enough firepot, but this be gey safer.”
Amiable conversation continued, and Giff entertained his hosts with bard’s tales of the Highlands and Isles until Maxwell sent Jake to bed and said, “We ha’ been sleeping in the aft cabin, sir, and he’ll go right off, so come along and bring that jug o’ yours. When ye want to leave, I’ll hang a lantern to bring the towboat. All my lads but these two sleep ashore yet, and the boat stays wi’ them, but they’ll see our light.”
“Do you know yet when you sail?” Giff asked as he followed him into the aft cabin, where shelf beds, one atop the other, occupied the stern wall and a small table built into a cubby in the steerboard wall boasted narrow benches on either side of it.
“Not long now, I expect,” Maxwell said as the two men took seats facing each other. Jake soon scrambled onto the top bed and pulled a quilt over himself.
“His lordship’s people ha’ been carrying provisions and gear aboard for some days now,” Maxwell said. “Some they stowed in the aft hold, some in the fore, and some o’ his lordship’s effects be in them kists by the door and in a small hold under the wee trap by yon washstand. See you, this be the master’s cabin, but Jake admires them shelf beds more than the pallet he sleeps on in my own wee forecastle cabin, and until his lordship comes aboard, I canna see the harm.”
“Does his lordship sail with you then?”
“Wi’ respect, sir, mayhap I should ken why ye be asking afore I answer ye.”
Giff shrugged. “Plain, rude curiosity, Captain, so you can tell me it is none of my affair. I’ve more tales to tell if you’d prefer them. One of my favorites, which I thought unsuitable for young Jake’s ears earlier, is about a Norse king’s daughter known far and wide for her talent in the black arts.”
“Indeed, your tales amuse me, and your whiskey is very fine,” Maxwell said, glancing at the top bed, where all was silent. “What magical things could she do?”
Giff reached for the jug and poured a generous amount in Maxwell’s mug and a like amount in his own as he said, “Doubtless the most useful was to fly high above the countryside, so no enemy could hinder her. She proved gey helpful to her father, the King, who often consulted her when his other advisers failed him. But he was jealous of the vast forests of Lochaber, which were finer than his own, so . . .”
Speaking quietly, he drew the tale out, embellishing the way the wench had flown to rain fire on the forests and the lengths to which people had gone in futile attempts to stop her. He lingered over their talks with the wise man who suggested a silver arrow, and by the time he reached the lass’s death and her father’s sorrow, Jake was breathing audibly and evenly in the top bed, and Giff’s remaining audience of one had refilled the mugs twice and was swaying where he sat.
Giff went on to tell him about Deirdre of the Sorrows, initiator of generations of blood spilled because her father had failed to reward a soothsayer. He stopped talking only after Maxwell put his head on the table and began to snore.
Leaving him as he was, Giff went quietly out on deck and looked for the sentries. One slept on a rowers’ bench, wrapped in a heavy blanket. The other stood atop the forecastle, looking east into the starlit expanse of the windy firth.
After quietly raising the rope ladder, Giff climbed up to join him. In the wind, the man did not note his approach until Giff was behind him.
“’Tis a fine blustery night, is it not?” Giff said.
The man swung round. “Sakes, sir, ye startled me near out o’ me skin!”
“I believe Captain Maxwell told me the other day that two men alone can raise your yardarm and sail,” Giff said amiably. “Is that right?”
“Aye, it is,” the man said with a touch of pride. “See you, sir, we’ve pulleys and that to make the sail light as a bedsheet, so I’m thinking one man could do it alone were it no’ for the yard being of a mischievous nature. D’ye want I should hoist the lantern, sir, so yon boat will come t’ fetch ye?”
“I would first like you to help me put up the sail.”
“Och, nay, sir, I canna do that.”
“Can you swim?” Giff asked.
“Aye, sure, but—”
Giff heaved him over the side and went back down to the deck to discuss his request with the second watchman.
The Earl of Fife had endured a frustrating day, for despite his certainty that Isabella, the admittedly formidable Countess of Strathearn and Caithness, carried the Stone in her great train of baggage, he had been unable to find it.
He had confronted Isabella himself, but despite the royal banner to which all loyal Scottish nobles owed duty and respect, Isabella had not deigned to dismount f
rom her horse. She had said he might look at anything he liked but to get on with it. If she held him in any respect, Fife had discerned no hint of it.
It was truly a pity, he thought as he gazed morosely at his laden supper trencher, that sons of the King of Scots, unlike royal sons in every other civilized place he could call to mind, bore only the rank of earl and not that of prince.
Isabella’s rank equaled his, for she was a countess twice over in her own right. Doubtless, she believed she outranked him, because although he held two earldoms, his had come to him by judicious marriages, not by birthright.
“Forgive me, my lord, if I intrude on your thoughts,” the lady on his left said softly. “You have been so silent. I trust you enjoy your usual excellent health.”
“I do, indeed, madam,” he said, smiling at her. “The day has been tedious, but I look forward to a more entertaining evening.”
He could be charming if he put his mind to it. The lady was beautiful and very generous with her charms. And, too, her husband was away and Fife’s wife had stayed in Stirling.
He returned his attention to his supper until a royal page came to inform him that the Chevalier de Gredin awaited him in his audience chamber. Murmuring to his beautiful neighbor that duty called him, he left the hall without another word.
Giff shook the shoulder of the second watchman, noting as he did that the shouts of the first had diminished and doubtless would not carry far in a wind that blew them toward the open sea. The chap seemed an able enough swimmer, though, and would certainly raise the alarm as soon as he reached shore.
Giff wondered briefly if he’d have been wiser to kill him, but the man was not his enemy, and it was not Giff’s nature to second-guess himself. In his opinion, concern after the fact generally proved useless.
The watchman stretched out on the rowers’ bench groaned and muttered, “Leave me be, Geordie, or I’ll give ye your head in your hands to play wi’.”
“Wake up, lad,” Giff said sternly. “You’re wanted.”
The man’s eyes opened, he blinked, and finally, realizing that it was not his mate who had awakened him, sat up rather too quickly and gave his head a shake.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, beginning to stand but subsiding when Giff put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Where be the captain?”
“Sleeping,” Giff said. “I need your help, though. What’s your name?”
“Hob Grant, sir. But where’s our Geordie?”
“Busy,” Giff said. “Stand up and I’ll show you.”
The man stood, clearly still groggy but struggling to come full awake.
“Over here,” Giff said, indicating the end of the bench nearest the gunwale. “Look yonder. I ken fine there’s little light, thanks to the lack of a moon and a sky full of clouds flying before this wind. But do you see that splashing?”
“Aye, sure,” the man said.
“That’s your man Geordie,” Giff said.
“Nay, he’ll be forward atop the forecastle.”
Giff watched as he looked, then looked back at the erratic splashing in the water halfway to the shore. When he turned back to Giff, his eyes were wide.
“Sakes, sir, we must do summat straightaway! He’ll drown!”
“I don’t think so,” Giff said. “Can you swim?”
The eyes grew even wider. “Nay, sir, nary a stroke!”
“Then mayhap you will be more obliging than your friend Geordie was. I should like you to help me pull in the anchor and put up the sail.”
“But, sir, this be the Earl o’ Fife’s ship!”
“Fife won’t mind, for he shan’t know anything about it,” Giff said. “So, will you help me, or do you want to join your friend?”
“But ye canna sail this ship by your own self, man!”
“I won’t have to; I’ll have this fine wind and you to aid me.”
“Sakes, his lordship will hang us all when he catches us.”
“Then we must see that he does not catch us. But we waste time,” Giff said. “If you won’t help, I must throw you overboard and get on with it myself.”
“Nay, then, I’ll do what ye say. But should I no’ wake the captain?”
“Not yet,” Giff said. “I’m thinking we’ll want to weigh anchor first.”
“Aye, sure, for that’ll take the two of us. What o’ the tide?”
“It was turning when the abbey bell rang Vespers, so it won’t begin to turn against us for an hour yet. Do you know any obstacle betwixt here and the open sea?”
“Sakes, sir, d’ye no’ ken these waters?”
Giff grinned. “I know them well enough. I want to know if you do.”
“Well, there be nowt to worry us if we keep to the middle once we be in the main channel—well, nowt till we come to the Isle o’ May, as ye might say.”
“I think we’ll see the Isle of May.”
“Aye, sure, but if we go too far north, we could run into—”
“We’ll be heading south, not north.”
“Mayhap we will then, but we must go north till we clear the east sands o’ Leith and the Black Rocks. Then there’ll be yon rocks at the narrows, sir—Fidra, Craigleith, and the Bass Rock, as well as—”
“All close to shore,” Giff said, having no intention of going so far. If all went well, he would move the ship less than three miles in darkness. He was no fool, and he knew his success must depend on the wind’s cooperation and that of the tide.
If either shifted too early . . .
But it was useless now to think about that, so he set to work.
Dismissing the page without ordering refreshment for himself or de Gredin, who annoyed him by having brazenly taken a seat near the fire and not rising at his entrance, Fife waited until the lad had gone before saying curtly, “I don’t like cryptic messages. What is this mysterious object you say you have found?”
“One infers from such a question that you found no more of value amongst Countess Isabella’s belongings than I did,” de Gredin said.
“You will stand when you address me,” Fife snapped, wondering how far the man would go in his stupid belief that his hostage remained a mystery.
“I pray that your lordship will forgive my rudeness,” de Gredin said, getting up at once and making his customary deep bow. “I rode far today and have had naught to eat. But weariness and hunger do not excuse bad manners. I do believe, though, that I have acquired the means to force both the Sinclairs and Logan of Lestalric to share with us whatever they know about his holiness’s treasure.”
“So, why did you not bring your acquisition here to me?” Fife asked, ignoring de Gredin’s characterization of the treasure. Thanks to his own men, he knew the chevalier had captured Lady Sidony, but he had not yet decided what to do about it. Holding her was a risk he was not certain he wanted to take. He was concerned only with the Stone of Destiny, and it was unlikely that a mere lass—and the youngest of the Macleod lot, at that—would know aught about it. Still, she might prove useful as a hostage, which was clearly de Gredin’s intent.
“I dared not bring it here openly,” de Gredin said with a touch of amusement. “Nor could I think of a way to assure its concealment if I had to cart it through town and enter through the gates of the Castle. By your own order, all carts and wagons must be searched at the gate tower unless you yourself command otherwise, so it seemed safer to conceal it elsewhere.”
“You have yet to identify this so-important item,” Fife pointed out.
De Gredin smiled. “It is not, precisely, an item, my lord, but a person.”
Curbing his temper, Fife remained silent.
De Gredin’s smile faded. He said, “’Tis Lady Sidony Macleod, my lord.”
“Her father is a Councilor of the Isles, adviser to my nephew MacDonald.”
“More importantly, she is good-sister to Sir Michael Sinclair, Sir Hugo, and Lestalric. Not one will risk her safety. They will bargain to protect her.”
“You said you had hidden her. How,
and where?”
“Aboard ship, but no one aboard knows she is there. She is in the hold, and I gave her a potion to make her sleep through the night. She will be frightened, dazed, and most uncomfortable by morning—just right for questioning, I should think.”
“Then your promised ships have come,” Fife said, certain de Gredin meant to keep the lass under his own control. That he had not told Fife the ships had come annoyed him. “Where are they?” he demanded. “I trust they are here at Leith.”
When the chevalier did not answer, Fife’s impatience stirred again. “Well?”
“I pray you will forgive me, my lord,” the exasperating man said quietly. “I can scarcely think. Might it be possible for me to get something to eat?”
Fife recognized the tactic, for he employed many such himself. De Gredin clearly thought his prize had given him the upper hand and that it would do him no harm to flex it. Little though Fife wanted to play games, he decided to let him go on thinking so for a time. It would only strengthen his own position later.
Without comment, he shouted for a gillie and ordered the chevalier supper and wine. “He’ll have it here,” he added.
When he turned back, he saw that de Gredin had sat down on the cushioned settle in the inglenook, and was leaning back with his eyes shut, apparently resting.
Giff watched with satisfaction as wind filled the great square sail and the ship began slowly to move northward. Thanks to a habit of obedience to command and despite his nearly palpable fear of both his captain and the Earl of Fife, Hob Grant proved an able assistant.
They had raised the anchor, and as the Serpent was moored well away from other ships, doubtless due to his lordship’s fear that one might drift into it, they had been able to trust the tide’s northward run to the harbor exit until they could get the sail up. It was a near thing, though, because the wind blew directly from the west, a detail that made Hob Grant question their ability to get safely free of the harbor.
