by Candace Robb
He stroked her hair. ‘And you in mine, dear Maggie.’
The soldiers called to him.
Father Francis pulled Margaret away, but she clutched Andrew’s arm.
‘We agreed, Dame Kerr,’ said the priest, putting his hand over hers, ‘you would see your brother to wish him Godspeed and then depart without trouble. You will only make it worse for him if you detain him. Think of your brother. Not yourself.’
Margaret stepped back, but did not take her eyes from Andrew.
‘God watch over you, Maggie,’ he said.
‘And you.’
‘God go with you, Father Andrew,’ said the priest.
‘Bless you for bringing her,’ Andrew replied.
Margaret let Father Francis lead her off to the side as the company began to move towards the abbey gateway. As Andrew rode past the two cloaked figures, he lifted his hand to bless them, then dropped it, fearing his blessing might anger God and curse them.
But Margaret and the priest crossed themselves as if he had finished the gesture.
He believes he is cursed, Margaret thought. My Lord God, show him that he is not. Forgive him.
Father Francis watched her closely until Andrew disappeared through the gateway, staying her with a hand when she would move forward.
When the sound of the horses faded, he said, ‘We must go, daughter. Before Abbot Adam puts us in chains.’
They were being watched by several of the larger brethren.
‘I don’t care.’
‘I do.’
They trudged back up Canongate in the softening rain, saying little.
Murdoch had lighted the brazier in the tavern and opened the door to the wet morning. Margaret and Father Francis stepped within, stood close by the brazier, warming their hands.
The priest’s hawk face was softened by a gentle smile that wrinkled the flesh from brow to chin.
‘You gave your brother great comfort this morning.’
‘I thank you for escorting me, Father.’
‘I am the shepherd of my flock. I do as God directs me.’
They had just settled at a table far from the draught when Celia came in. Her dark brows drew a straight line across her pale forehead as she lifted Margaret’s discarded mantle.
‘Dame Margaret, you must have dry clothes.’
‘I’ll follow you up by and by, Celia.’ She wished to talk to the priest.
Celia hovered for a moment, then withdrew.
‘Father, you have helped James Comyn as well as my uncle—and Andrew, whose actions on his abbot’s part I’ve no doubt you ken.’
‘I have told you—I am the shepherd.’
‘Would you have saved Will Harcar if you could?’
He dropped his head, shook it once. ‘He was an enemy to all in this town.’
‘Who killed him, Father?’
The priest ran his hands over his bald head. ‘A loyal subject of King John Balliol.’
‘MacLaren?’ Redbeard seemed the obvious suspect to her now.
Father Francis bowed his head.
‘Who was the Englishman?’
‘The bait. He was no Englishman, but he convinced Harcar he was. And offered him money for information.’
While MacLaren waited down below in the inn yard, ready to cut his throat. Margaret crossed herself.
‘And Agnes Fletcher—what of her?’
Francis raised his eyes, searched her face. ‘It is clear her troubles robbed her of her trust in God. But are you not truly asking, what of Jack Sinclair?’
‘What of Jack?’ she whispered.
‘He is in God’s hands. As are we all.’
‘That is not a comforting thought.’
‘No, at the moment He is the God of Abraham, a smiting, terrifying power.’
Margaret saw images of Andrew’s drawn face beneath his hood, Agnes’s wasted body, Jack’s bloated lyke, Roger’s wounds. She had no stomach for the ale Murdoch set before her.
‘I’ll leave you now, Father. Bless you for your kindness.’
‘Go in peace, my daughter.’
Once in her chamber, Margaret threw herself down on the bed and let the tears come. Celia came to sit beside her, quietly holding her hand. When Margaret began to shiver and rose to warm herself at the brazier, Celia helped her undress. Then Margaret slipped beneath the covers and pulled the bed curtains to block the morning light.
On the road south the soldiers were uneasy all the day, glancing back at every sound, watching the hills. When they stopped to rest their horses Andrew wandered towards the brush to relieve himself. A soldier was immediately by his side, dagger drawn.
‘My lord abbot would reward you handsomely for using that on me,’ said Andrew. ‘Say you were forced to subdue me.’
‘Your abbot spoke well of you, Father Andrew. You do not know your own worth. We are sorely in need of you at Soutra: Father Obert is old, he falls asleep hearing our confessions.’
In the shadowy landscape of the hour after sunset the small party followed the road up to a height that gave them their first glimpse of the great Hospital of the Trinity astride Soutra Hill. It was just an outline in the deepening twilight. Except for the regular line of the high walls it could be an outgrowth of the stony hill. A spire was visible for a moment before they began their descent into a valley where night already held sway. Matthew began to pray aloud and did not cease until they reached the guard post at the foot of Soutra Hill.
Wind fanned the flames of the guards’ fire into fantastic shapes.
Andrew joined in Matthew’s prayer.
20
Watching the Cloud Shadows
Margaret and Celia sat in Janet’s house, talking quietly with the weaver as she worked the loom. The click of Margaret’s cards made counterpoint to the slower rhythm of the shuttle. Celia worked on new sleeves for Margaret’s best gown.
‘What will Murdoch do about Sim?’ Janet asked. ‘He cannot trust him now.’
‘Sim is still in the tavern,’ Margaret said. ‘Murdoch thinks it best to keep him in sight.’
Janet exclaimed at that. ‘He’ll regret that.’
‘I’ve a mind it’s the same reason he accepts James Comyn as his partner,’ said Margaret. ‘I’ve never heard a pleasant word pass between them.’
‘I don’t like James Comyn,’ said Celia. ‘He has dead eyes.’
‘I think him a fine figure of a man, although I dislike his loyalties.’ Janet stepped down from her bench, shoved it aside with her foot. She had completed enough of the cloth to reach it from the ground. ‘I understand Roy has done little work and much damage since Belle returned.’
‘My uncle is too patient with him,’ said Margaret.
Celia shook her head. ‘If Roy loves Belle so, why does he refuse to wed her?’
‘It’s the doubt,’ said Janet. ‘He would ever look at the bairn and wonder if it’s his. And fear Belle would wander off again with the first man who promised a better life.’
Margaret stretched forward to turn a card. ‘Rosamund thought Besseta and Comyn were lovers.’
‘Don’t listen to that woman’s tales,’ Janet warned.
‘Oh, Master Jack was much finer than James Comyn,’ Celia said.
Margaret was glad her head was bent over her weaving. Celia’s comment had startled her. She had not thought before how Celia might feel about Jack, how well she might have known him. He had returned to his aunt’s house so often.
‘He was bonny, aye,’ said Margaret. ‘The bonniest man I’ve ever seen.’
Margaret and Comyn stood together over Agnes Fletcher’s grave. They had buried her close by the Blackfriars kirkyard, just beyond consecrated ground—Father Francis would not go so far as condoning both suicide and murder, and neither would the Blackfriars. Besseta knelt, weeping as she planted a rosemary that the fathers had given her.
‘Do you not wish you had spared the sisters what they went through in those rooms these weeks? Separated them from one another?�
� asked Margaret.
‘It would not have saved Agnes. Or eased Besseta’s pain.’ Comyn was looking out over the graves to the kirk wall, where two friars wielded shovels, digging a hole for a young tree that lay beside them. ‘They might save their backs for the grave digging. The dead will fill the kirkyard when Wallace and Murray join together.’
‘Darksome thoughts.’
‘It’s best to face it.’
Margaret did not respond. She was waiting for the right moment.
‘Have you found what you wished to learn here in Edinburgh?’ Comyn asked.
The day had grown warm. Margaret pushed back her hood. ‘Not all of it. I would ken whether my husband had a part in this. If he encouraged his cousin to betray you.’
‘It would have been a good use to make of such a man as Jack.’ Comyn said it with bowed head, nodding slightly.
What a cold, bloodless man. ‘Good use? He was Roger’s cousin, they were brought up together like brothers. I would not use my brother so.’
‘No, I don’t believe you would.’ Comyn glanced at her, saw something, turned to look directly at her. ‘What will you do if Roger appears?’
Not liking the way his pale eyes searched her face she moved away from him, sitting down on the wall that bordered the kirkyard. Comyn followed, as she had expected, but she had regained her composure.
‘Well?’
‘I shall ask him whether Jack acted alone. I’ll not shy away from that.’
‘And if you don’t like his answer?’
Margaret dropped her head. ‘I cannot say.’
He did not pursue the question, for which she was grateful. After a brief silence, he began to rise.
She must spit it out. ‘What you said about our being allies, what did you mean?’ She met his pale gaze, prayed God her eyes stayed steady.
‘What are you asking?’
The intensity of his regard made her heart pound. ‘John Balliol is my king. I want to know what I might do to help him.’
‘Truly?’
Slowly, she nodded. ‘I do not want to look back on this time with regret.’
‘What does your uncle say about this?’
‘He is not to know.’
Comyn dropped his gaze, shook his head. ‘You have a strange way with you, Margaret Kerr.’
‘You will consider what I have said?’
He reached over, took her right hand, turned it over and back. ‘You do not shy from work.’ He looked up into her eyes. ‘I will give it some thought.’
She withdrew her hand.
In a little while Comyn rose, took his leave.
Margaret sat on the wall for a long while, listening to Besseta’s tearful farewell to her sister, watching the cloud shadows glide across the castle high above. After a time Margaret hugged herself, trembling with the import of what she had set in motion. She had done it. She had embraced her mother’s visions as the best hopes she had. Pray God Christiana was right.
For Further Reading
Geoffrey W. S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and The Community of the Realm of Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 1988)
Elizabeth Ewan, Townlife in Fourteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 1990)
Andrew Fisher, William Wallace (John Donald Publisher Ltd, 1986)
Marta Hoffmann, The Warp-Weighted Loom: Studies in the History and Technology of an Ancient Implement (Robin and Russ Handweavers, 1974)
Peter Yeoman, Medieval Scotland (B. T. Batsford/Historic Scotland, 1995)
Alan Young and Michael J. Stead, In the Footsteps of Robert Bruce (Sutton Publishing, 1999)
Alan Young, Robert the Bruce’s Rivals: The Comyns, 1212-1314 (Tuckwell Press, 1997)
More from Candace Robb
The Margaret Kerr Series
A Trust Betrayed
In the spring of 1297 the English army controls lowland Scotland and Margaret Kerr’s husband Roger Sinclair is missing. He’d headed to Dundee in autumn, writing to Margaret with a promise to be home for Christmas, but it’s past Easter. Is he caught up in the swelling rebellion against the English? Is he even alive? When his cousin, Jack, is murdered on the streets of Edinburgh, Roger’s last known location, Margaret coerces her brother Andrew, a priest, to escort her to the city.
She finds Edinburgh scarred by war—houses burnt, walls stained with blood, shops shuttered—and the townsfolk simmering with resentment, harboring secrets. Even her uncle, innkeeper Murdoch Kerr, meets her questions with silence. Are his secrets the keys to Roger’s disappearance? What terrible sin torments her brother? Is it her husband she glimpses in the rain, scarred, haunted? Desperate, Margaret makes alliances that risk both her own life and that of her brother in her search for answers. She learns that war twists love and loyalties, and that, until tested, we cannot know our own hearts, much less those of our loved ones.
The Fire in the Flint
Scots are gathering in Murdoch Kerr’s Edinburgh tavern, plotting to drive out the English forces. Margaret takes her place there as innkeeper, collecting information to pass on to William Wallace—until murder gives the English an excuse to shutter the tavern. The dead man was a witness to the intruders who raided chests belonging to Margaret’s husband and her father, the latest in a string of violent raids on Margaret’s family, but no one knows the identity of the raiders or what they’re searching for.
Margaret’s uncle urges her to escape Edinburgh, but as she flees north with her husband Roger, Margaret grows suspicious about his sudden wish to speak with her mother, Christiana, who is a soothsayer. Margaret once innocently shared with Roger one of Christiana’s visions, of “the true king of Scotland” riding into Edinburgh. Now she begins to wonder if their trip is part of a mission engineered by the English crown...
A Cruel Courtship
In late summer 1297, Margaret Kerr heads to the town of Stirling at the request of William Wallace’s man James Comyn. Her mission is to discover the fate of a young spy who had infiltrated the English garrison at Stirling Castle, but on the journey Margaret is haunted by dreams—or are they visions?—of danger.
He who holds Stirling Castle holds Scotland—and a bloody battle for the castle is imminent. But as the Scots prepare to cast off the English yoke, Margaret’s flashes of the future allow her to glimpse what is to come—and show her that she can trust no one, not even her closest friends.
A CRUEL COURTSHIP is a harrowing account of the days before the bloody battle of Stirling Bridge, and the story of a young woman’s awakening.
The Owen Archer Series
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