“Alison’s son is dead.”
She gets to her feet. “Then why is my aunt so desperate to speak to William?”
I shrug. “I do not know, or care. It is too late. I am about to leave Scotland. This is all behind me now.”
“Beatrice is your kin, even if only distantly,” Isobel says. “Do you have any care for her?”
“No,” I say. “I have the bond. You will stay here under Sophie’s hospitality and, after I sail, you can take the bond and return to your family. I don’t give a damn about your aunt Beatrice.”
“She says you are so much like her sister Margaret that it is uncanny,” Isobel says.
“Stop tormenting me!” I wave to Red. “Take our guest to a chamber and make sure the door is well locked.”
Red, taking his cue from my voice, grasps Isobel by the arm and leads her from the room none too gently.
Sophie turns to me. “Stranger and stranger the truth becomes.”
“I know the truth, and it is bitter. I don’t wish for any further knowledge of the noble Blackadder clan and their plans,” I say. “I am sailing on the first ship that leaves.”
Fifty-three
The next morning Red accompanies me to Leith to arrange my passage. On the docks the air sings with promise, smelling of fish and salt and spice and adventure. For the first time in weeks my heart lifts. I will go to sea and forget the miseries of land. I will let the wind take me to France, or Ottoman, or Egypt.
But the soonest I can take a passage is three days’ time, to Flanders. I pay the captain and, as we step down the gangplank, a man rushes through the crowd toward me. Alert to danger, I drop into a fighting stance, my dagger drawn, and Red does the same. The man comes to a halt. It is Bothwell’s servant, French Paris.
He raises his hands. “I mean you no harm, sirs.” Then he peers at me more closely. “Robert?”
“Shut your mouth.” I straighten and drop my dagger hand to my side. “You’ve not seen me.”
He nods. “You’ve not seen me either. Pray to God this ship is leaving this afternoon.”
I shake my head. “Next week.”
He groans out loud. “There’s not a single ship leaving this cursed place today,” he says and there are tears in his eyes. “Damn them to hell.”
I step closer to him. “Why do you run?”
“There is such evil afoot that we shall all be sucked into the maelstrom. Your father is waiting up there on the road. We had one chance today to flee. But if Bothwell misses us, we lose any chance of escaping again. I must go.”
“Wait.” I grab his arm. “I must speak to my father.”
He shakes me off. “There is no time.”
“What evil do you speak of? Is my father involved?”
He looks at me despairingly. “Bothwell calls up a storm to break over this kingdom. Run, before it comes.”
“Take me to William,” I say.
He wrenches himself back. “I’ve said too much. Get away from me.”
He squirms through the crowd and disappears.
“Shall I follow him?” Red asks.
I stare at the crowded dock. “No. We must get back to Sophie’s.”
≈ ≈ ≈
The Lenten Carnival has arrived, when the back of winter is broken and the season of fasting and atonement and hardship is almost over. The celebrations have already begun, early in the day after mass. Today at court, Sebastian and Margaret will marry and tonight Holyrood will explode with light and color. After the excesses of the Prince’s christening, no celebration can again be minor.
Edinburgh is crowded and Red and I must push our way through to Sophie’s door.
“Did you find a passage?” she asks.
“I have a berth in three days. But I ran into one of Bothwell’s men on the dock. He was trying to get passage for himself and William on a ship. He was terrified, Sophie. He told me there was great evil about to happen and they were trying to outrun it. But there was no ship leaving and he had to return to the palace.”
“If it is true and your father is involved, you must hide until you sail,” she says.
“Sophie, I must find William,” I say. “He and French Paris were trying to flee from Bothwell. If I can offer him a safe hiding place until we sail, he might agree to come with me.”
Sophie frowns. “The palace is full of comings and goings for the Lenten Carnival and the wedding tonight. You should be able to get a message to William. I will send Red. Be careful what you commit to paper.”
My father, I must speak to you. I saw French Paris today and he told me what you are looking for. The message bearer will tell you where to come to meet me tonight. Alison.
Red is back within two hours of taking my note. William has scrawled a reply on the reverse of the parchment.
Do as you promised and leave for France at once. You are not my child. I never want to see you again.
I stare at the words and my heart twists.
“What is it?” Sophie is watching me. I hand her the note.
“He was leaving Holyrood with three men,” Red says. “They carried bags. I followed. They went down on the Cowgate. There are stables there with rooms above them and they went in. They did not come out, at least while I was there.”
They both look at me and I straighten. “I will go there. I must speak to him myself.”
Sophie shakes her head. “You must wait till darkness. The streets will be busy with the carnival tonight.”
“The masque will be on at Holyrood tonight too,” I say. “You’re right, it will be safer then. But what if they leave?”
“I’ll watch,” Red says. “I’ll take a boy with me and send word back.”
“Good,” Sophie says. “We shall keep Isobel locked in. Whatever danger is brewing, she is best under our eye.”
≈ ≈ ≈
While I’m waiting for darkness to fall, I make my preparations for leaving Scotland. I will sail in disguise, wearing a beard and the clothes of a merchant in good trade, a man who would go abroad for business interests. I have a forged passport, thanks to Sophie, a purse with a little gold, a small trunk containing clothing and a pistol. When she thinks I will not notice, Sophie slips another purse into the trunk, clinking with silver.
We take our evening sup in her chamber, listening to the sounds of the street outside. I do not know what I should be alert for and so every raised voice makes me jump. French Paris promised evil doings this night, but so far only the sounds of revelry drift up to Sophie’s rooms.
Red’s message boy comes with the news that William and his men have left the rooms on the Cowgate and disappeared. He says he will keep watch and send for me as soon as they return.
“You should sleep,” Sophie says. “It may be a long night.”
I stare into the fire. “I cannot sleep,” I say and wrap my arms around myself.
She takes up a cup and splashes me a generous dash of whisky. “You could leave him. You owe him nothing.”
I stand. “I can’t, Sophie. You cannot dissuade me.”
She comes across to me and takes both my hands in hers. She looks at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine. “Do you love only those who are cruel to you?”
I pull away from her. “Of course not.”
“Your father, Bothwell, and the Queen,” she says. “All have used you for their own ends. All have betrayed you. Yet you cannot let them be. Perhaps it is their very cruelty that draws you?”
“How dare you?”
“I wish you could walk away from them.”
“I walked away from the Queen,” I say. “Here I sit, out of her service.”
She laughs, but it is a sad sound. “Perhaps you are right. I will not believe it till you have sailed.”
I stare at her coldly. “You should get some sleep.”
She moves away from me. I do not turn around to see her leave, closing the door hard behind her.
I take another mouthful of whisky, for the feeling of it burnin
g down my throat and into my belly. Outside, drunken revelers pass, shouting and laughing in the cold night air.
I am filled with remorse for speaking to Sophie thus and I go to the door, intending to follow her and apologize. But my feet take me in a different direction and I find myself outside the door of Isobel’s room.
“Are you there?” I ask softly.
A pause, and then her voice close by. “Alison?”
I slide down to sit with my back against the door so that my mouth is near the level of the keyhole.
“Take me with you,” she says. “I would rather flee with you than go home to a family I cannot trust.”
I sigh, and it comes from a deep, weary place inside me. “You will bring all the danger of your clan upon me. I cannot.”
“Please,” she says.
“What would you do in my place?” I ask her.
“Keep me imprisoned, if you must, until we can go together to Leith and sail. None of my family knows where I am. After that, perhaps, you will know you can trust me.”
“How can there ever be trust? We have three generations of betrayal between us.”
“You think I am still loyal to my family, but I tell you this. I have renounced them. When I leave Scotland with you, I will cast off the name of Hume like a shackle.”
I can’t help but smile a little. “Names have a way of following you.”
“I shall take my grandmother’s name, Douglas. You can take it too. Alison Douglas, as you were when I met you.”
“And then we are part of another clan with its own feuds and cruelties.”
“Then we should take a craftsman’s name, a simple name, that does not come laced with blood,” she says. “Or we shall make up names that we choose freely ourselves.”
“I have already had so many names,” I say.
“Don’t leave me.” I can hear the tears in her voice. “Sophie will try to turn you against me, but I swear to you I am true, Alison.”
I let her think I have left, but I do not move. My backside grows cold from the chill in the floor, but I sit there silently, my skin pressed to the door, long after I have heard her stand up and move away.
At last I creep back to the chamber and pull my chair in front of the fire. I stoke it up to try and drive away the cold, and settle down to wait.
It is many hours later and the sounds of night revelry have all but disappeared when the boy comes with word that William is back at the inn on the Cowgate.
Fifty-four
The night is icy and the streets mostly empty now, though I can still hear the sound of festivities drifting up the hill from Holyrood and in the great houses of Edinburgh. A light fall of snow floats down and I pull my cloak closer around my shoulders. The boy leads me down Blackfriar’s Wynd, our footprints stretching back into the dark.
Red is waiting in the shadows in the Cowgate. “It’s been busy down here,” he says softly as we meet. “The Queen’s party has gone back to Holyrood after visiting the King at Kirk O’Field. Your father only just came back.”
“Where are they?” I ask.
He jerks his head to show me. In the dark it is a small, mean place. “We will go to the door together and when the innkeeper opens it, I will show my pistols. I’ll make sure he keeps his mouth shut.”
We cross the lane quietly, our steps muffled in the snow. Red knocks softly on the door and a moment later a man wrenches it open. “Who’s there?” he grunts.
Red steps forward, both pistols raised. “Not a word,” he says quietly. “We have business with the men upstairs.”
The innkeeper shrinks back, and Red pushes forward until we are both inside and the door is shut behind us. “Get going,” he says to me. “Call if there’s trouble.”
I climb the stairs to a door at the top. I can hear voices through the wood. I hesitate, raise my hand, and knock. The voices fall silent and a moment later the door opens a crack.
“Jesus!” It is Jock’s voice.
“Let me in,” I say.
Jock opens the door and admits me, shutting it quickly behind me.
William rises from his seat. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to see you,” I say, pulling back the hood of my cloak.
“How did you find us?” Jock asks.
“My messenger followed you.”
“This is bad.” Jock shakes his head. “Who else has followed us so easily?”
“You can’t stay,” William says, agitated.
“Easy,” Edmund says, waving at them to sit down. “It’s a freezing night. Give the child a whisky.”
Jock pours out a cup and holds it in my direction. I take it and sip. The burn of it gives me courage and I face William. I cannot read his expression, but it is not anger.
“I would speak to my father privately,” I say to Edmund.
“You can’t!” William says. “I told you. You’ve got to leave at once.”
Edmund laughs. “Calm yourself. We’re all family here. Let’s hear what she’s got to tell us.” He pushes William back down on his chair.
“I have passage on a ship in three days,” I say. “And a safe place for you to hide. Come with me and escape whatever evil you have been drawn into.”
“You shouldn’t meddle where you know nothing,” Edmund says. “Your father’s hour is at hand.”
Under my gaze, William shifts in his seat and looks at the floor.
“This is Bothwell’s doing?” I ask.
“A favor for Bothwell in return for a pretty reward,” Edmund says. “Guaranteed this time, and no woman to ruin the plan. But of course, you are not interested in the castle any more, are you?”
“Bite your tongue,” William says.
I swing back to him. “There is more you must know, about the family’s treachery. I have ridden to Tulliallan to talk to John. They knew you were lowborn, but they kept it secret from you. They planned to use the proof to take the castle from you if you ever gained it back.”
William puts his head in his hands. “Why do you torment me?”
I move in front of him. I would put my hand on his shoulder but I do not dare. “You can never win the castle,” I say. “But you have me and you have your life. We could go to France and live without the weight of this upon us.”
Jock swigs loudly at his whisky. “Easy for a woman to walk away,” he spits. “You just marry another man with a castle.”
“I do not believe I will marry.” I gesture at myself. “Look at what I’ve become. Do you think there are landed men who look for a wife such as this?”
“She’s right,” Edmund says. “No need to look for a husband now that she’s in league with Hume. I’d say there’s a handsome reward from them for her services.”
I stare at him in shock and my gut contracts. “You cannot believe that.”
“I believe it all right,” Edmund says with his nasty grin. “You already have your signed bond saying the Blackadders will never claim what’s theirs. Now you come here with some new reason why your father should abandon his castle. You’ve been in league with them a long time now, have you not? What have they offered you? Marriage to one of their own?”
I shake my head. “You must be mad.” I turn to William. “You know I would never do such a thing.”
He looks at me mutely and then there is a movement behind me, so fast I don’t have time to react. Jock takes me in a sailor’s hold from the back, leaving my throat exposed. I struggle for a moment but his grip is iron.
“Father,” I plead. William drops his eyes.
“Don’t try claiming your kinship now,” Edmund says, his voice full of menace. He advances toward me. “Tell us. What pact have you made with the Hume clan?”
“Father,” I say again, my voice rising.
Edmund slides his dagger out. “What will make you talk, eh? One less finger?”
I try to struggle but Jock has me in such a hold that I cannot move. Edmund grips my wrist and peels my fingers open. I can feel his blade sh
arp against my skin.
I must summon Red. I take a deep breath and scream, a high woman’s scream. Jock claps his hand across my mouth to stop me doing it again.
“Stop it,” William says to Edmund.
“Not this time,” Edmund says. “You need to know what unholy alliance she has made to keep the castle away from you so it can be undone.”
Edmund presses the knife harder, and the pain shoots up my arm. I look at William, pleading. He reaches to his side and draws out a pistol. He raises it, pointing at the three of us. I stiffen.
The sound of the gunshot is deafening in the small room. The door swings open and Edmund and Jock whirl around.
Red is at the door, holding two pistols like an assassin. One is smoking from where he has shot out the lock. He sizes up the room. If the three of them are against him, he cannot prevail.
William’s pistol is still pointing in my direction. “Let her go,” he says to Jock.
Jock releases me and steps back, hands up. Edmund lowers his dagger.
“Drop it,” Red says, and Edmund lets his weapon fall with a clatter.
My legs are shaking. I meet William’s eyes. “Come with me.”
He shakes his head. “It’s too late.”
“Hurry.” Red jerks his head. I step through the door and he backs out behind me, his pistol still trained on the three of them. When we are in the hallway, he shoves the smoking pistol in its holster, grabs my arm, and hurries me down the stairs.
We escape onto the street, pull our hoods over our faces, and set off at a run. As we reach the first corner, the whole world splits apart.
Fifty-five
The sound drives into my head, blossoming louder and louder into a roar that obliterates everything else. I clap my hands to my ears and fall to my knees. I am dimly aware of Red beside me, pulling my head down. Then the clatter starts all around us in the dark, like hailstones.
As the frightful noise fades, voices break out from the houses all around us. Babies wailing as they are jerked from their sleep, men calling out, women shrieking. I take my hands from my ears and Red and I stare at each other.
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