by Mia Marlowe
“That’s a fine ring, William,” Nab said. “But I was just wondering about something else.”
“What’s that, Nab?”
“What ever happened to that buxom barmaid?”
On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love gave to me five golden rings.
—From “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
“Weel, that’s a relief ! I dinna think I could abide more birds.”
—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry
Chapter Fourteen
Nab parted company with William in the great hall. Lord Badenoch headed for the kitchen, so Nab figured he was on his way back to the nursery to see if Lady Katherine was still there. Though he’d like to help his friend William settle matters with his wife, Nab had another mission in mind. He’d done all that Lord Badenoch expected of him for now and Lord Glengarry hadn’t much use for him of late.
He crept into the solar, hoping that it was vacant. Sometimes men who wished for a quiet place in which to play a game of chess made use of the laird’s retreat, but Nab was in luck. There was no one there.
He pulled the copy of Le Morte d’Arthur from under his motley, ready to put it back up on the shelf in the correct spot. Nab tried never to keep a book too long, lest it be missed. It was past time to return Camelot to its resting place. Besides, Dorcas hadn’t enjoyed the stories of the Knights of the Round Table as much as he’d hoped.
She seemed fixated upon the fact that Queen Guinevere was consigned to the stake for her unlawful affair with Sir Lancelot while the knight in question was allowed to continue to roam free and have all sorts of adventures. The fact that Lancelot roared in to the rescue at the last moment and saved his ladylove from the flames didn’t mollify Dorcas in the least.
“I dinna see why she was the only one to be burned in the first place since no one can have an affair by themselves. Why should Guinevere bear the punishment for two? No one tried to burn Lancelot,” Dorcas had insisted stubbornly.
“Weel, that makes no sense. If they had, then he wouldna have been able to save her, aye?”
Dorcas was unconvinced. “’Tis still not fair.”
That set Nab to scratching his head, since the whole point of the Round Table was fairness, as far as he could see. They pledged to help the weak, to defend the downtrodden, to show mercy to their enemies, and he told Dorcas so in no uncertain terms.
“They may be grand fellows when dealing with other men, but there’s not a smidge of mercy in them if it’s a woman who’s broken the rules,” Dorcas had said tartly.
So Nab tucked the book back on its shelf with a pang of regret. He still thought he’d be more at home in Camelot than ever he would in Glengarry Castle.
Nab ran his fingertips over the other books’ spines. There was a treatise on animal husbandry. He didn’t think Dorcas would be terribly impressed with the intricacies of cattle breeding. The one time he’d read it the book had cured him of wandering near the cattle byre for weeks.
One of the books was titled The Confessions of St. Augustine. Nab figured that since a saint wouldn’t have much sinning to report, it couldn’t be all that interesting.
There was another book he’d never tried—a volume of love poetry. Nab knew a number of ribald limericks, and an epic poem or two he could recite on command, but he hadn’t committed any sonnets to memory. Ever since he’d admonished William that he’d need some poems if he was going to woo his wife, this little book of poetry had been in the back of Nab’s mind.
It was even in Gaelic. According to the frontispiece, the poems were translations of verses written by monks in the eleventh century. Nab wondered what men who lived lives completely shut away from the world might have to say on the subject of love, but when he opened the book and read the first poem, he was shocked to his curled toes.
He was so lost in a tangle of rhyme and pentameter, not to mention arms and legs, that he didn’t hear when someone entered the solar behind him. It was only when that someone cleared their throat loudly that he snapped the book shut and whirled to face the interloper. His face was hot, and the hands that held the book of love behind him were clammy.
But the person who’d invaded the solar was Dorcas, so he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Och, Dorcas, ’tis only ye.”
“‘Only ye’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I was afeared ye might be someone else.”
“Someone important, I suppose?” she said archly.
“Aye, I mean, nay. That is . . . I mean—”
“I ken well enough what ye mean, Nab.”
Dorcas pulled a cloth from her sleeve and began dusting the already clean chess set. The board was in a state of play and doubtless her efforts would not be appreciated, since she was careless of where she replaced each piece. But Nab was loath to say anything about it because of the vehement way she scrubbed the ivory pawn.
“Are ye angry, Dorcas?”
She glared at him. “Aren’t ye the knowledgeable one?”
He swallowed hard. He’d always hated it when his parents were angry. It made him feel that there was an upturned hive in his belly. “Who are ye angry with?”
“Who d’ye think?”
Nab cast about in his mind for someone who might have upset her. “Is it Cook? I know ye get yerself in a turmoil when she thinks ye work for her and starts giving ye orders and—”
“Nay, ’tis not Cook.” Dorcas shook her head so hard, Nab feared it might roll right off her shoulders. “Ye stupid, stupid man.”
Nab was used to being thought a fool, but he certainly didn’t expect Dorcas to think he was stupid. She knew things about him the others didn’t. She’d heard him read. She’d been to his secret room. He’d have sworn she was his friend. His chest ached strangely.
“Why are ye angry with me?”
She turned to face him then, and her face crumpled. “Ye scared me half to death.”
“How?”
“By sitting on the bastion roof. I was out of my mind with fear that ye’d . . . well, that ye’d . . .”
“Ye thought I’d jump? What a silly notion. I told William so too. I just wanted someplace quiet to think for a while. ’Tis not safe to go to the secret chamber in daylight, ye ken. Someone might see and then it wouldna be secret any longer, aye?”
“Sitting on the bastion isna safe either.” She slammed the white king down with such force it was a wonder his crown didn’t topple off. “That roof is covered with ice. One slip and . . .”
A new idea popped into his head and out of his mouth. “Ye were worried for me.”
“Of course I was. Who d’ye think sent Lord Badenoch up there after ye?”
Dorcas had convinced a laird to climb up onto the bastion after him. She was very persuasive. Without realizing she did so, she persuaded him to puff out his chest a bit.
“Weel, now ye know ye need not have worried.”
“Aye, I know that.” She picked up the black queen and rubbed its carved face with the cloth with such vehemence it was a wonder the piece still had a nose when she was done. “And from now on, I’ll do my best not to care a flying fig what happens to ye, Master Nab.”
His chest sagged. That didn’t sound good. He sort of liked it that she’d been worried.
“Why dinna ye care anymore?”
“I do. That’s just the trouble.” She replaced the black queen far from its original position so it menaced the white king.
Checkmate, Nab almost said, but then he decided Dorcas wouldn’t appreciate a change of topic.
“Ye’re the one who doesna care,” she said. “Ye dinna care one whit. Ye climb down from the bastion as if nothing’s happened and do ye come straight to me to ease my mind? Me, who’s the only one who cares a flibbet about ye? No, ye dinna.” She swabbed one side of the chess board, knocking a whole phalanx of pawns on their faces. “Instead ye flit about the castle on every other business under the sun
.”
That sounded vaguely insulting. “I dinna flit.”
“Ye know what I mean.”
“I wasna flitting. I was doing things for William. Important things.”
“More important than letting me know ye are all right?” She gave him her back and returned to scouring the chess pieces.
For the first time in his life, a small fire kindled in his belly. This must be what angry felt like, he decided, but it wasn’t his fault. Dorcas was being unreasonable. “If ye kenned I was down from the bastion, ye kenned well enough that I was all right.”
A hapless bishop slipped from her hand and rolled across the floor, but she didn’t go after it. Instead, Dorcas just stood there. Her shoulders shook and her head hung down.
“Dorcas?” He tiptoed over to her and almost put a hand on her shoulder, but stopped himself at the last moment. He didn’t like being touched. Maybe Dorcas didn’t either. “Are ye all right?”
“No, I’m not.” She erupted in full-blown sobs. Then she turned and threw her arms around Nab’s neck. He’d have been less surprised if she’d pummeled him.
“Dinna cry, Dorcas. Please, dinna.”
At first, when she clung to him, he got that hot and jittery feeling that always accompanied being touched, but as her body relaxed against his, the feeling changed. He decided he didn’t mind so badly when Dorcas touched him. Hesitantly, he patted her back with his free hand since he still clutched the book of love poems in the other.
“The man I care about doesna care about me one bit,” she said with a sniff.
“Then he’s a very stupid man.”
She pulled back and looked him straight in the eye. To his surprise, he was able to meet her gaze. “Aye,” she said with a crooked smile, “he is that.”
Dorcas tried to peer around him. “What is it ye’ve got there?”
Nab didn’t know whether to be relieved or bereft that she was no longer so close. He’d never felt like this before. Her smile, even a crooked one, made him feel as if he’d swallowed a moonbeam. No, a whole jar of honey without becoming ill. No, it was . . . it was . . . well, he wasn’t sure just what it was, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
If a body got too happy, it was like a prayer to the devil. Excessive happiness was a sure sign things were about to turn in the other direction. But for now, Dorcas was smiling at him, so he decided to wallow in the moonbeam.
Who knew when he’d ever feel like this again?
He held the book out for her to see. “I was picking out something new to read to you since you didna much care for King Arthur.”
“I didna say that. It’s just that he didna practice being such a fair king with his own queen.”
“Ye must admit she did him a grievous hurt.”
“So did Lancelot, but I didna notice him being led to the stake in naught but his nightshift.”
Nab sighed. Not this again. He gave himself a shake. Where had the moonbeam gone? “In any case, I thought ye might fancy this book instead.”
She eyed the new volume. “What is it?”
“Weel, I havena read it yet myself, ye ken, but ’tis supposed to be love poems.”
He’d thought her smile the finest thing he’d ever seen. He was wrong. He’d only seen the smallest part of her smile. It bloomed now like a living thing, like the sun in its radiance. Even if it struck him blind, Nab couldn’t look away.
“Read me one,” she said, crowding close again.
She smelled of sweet soap and bread and linen that had been dried in the sun. Even if he could tear his gaze away from her long enough to read anything, Nab wondered if his mouth would work.
“Quick,” she said, “before someone comes!”
He opened the book and started to read the first poem he came to:
From Fate’s cruel wounds I cry ‘Alack!’
For Love has turned to me attack.
Her bountiful gifts she keeps from me
And makes me beg on bended knee.
And all because, tho’ ’tis not fair,
My well-thatched head has lost its hair.
Dorcas snorted. “If that’s what this ninnyhammer of a poet thinks passes for a love poem, I can well believe his lady makes him beg.”
“Ye dinna think ’tis on account of his bald head?” Nab didn’t think he’d like it much if a lady lost her hair. It stood to reason that shoe would fit the other foot as well.
“Nay, of course not. Bald or old or brick-headed, Love doesna think on those sorts of things.”
“Love canna think on anything,” he pointed out. “Love isna a person so it doesna have a brain, ye ken.”
Dorcas scowled at him. “Sometimes I think ye dinna have one either. ‘My well-thatched head has lost its hair,’ indeed. Bring the book to the secret room and find me a better poem by nightfall.”
She flounced out of the solar with a flip of her skirts.
First she smiled, then she scowled. First she scoffed at his poem, then she demanded another. Nab rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t know which way she’d turn him next.
Still, there was a bit of that moonbeam dancing inside him. So he slid down into a corner of the room with the book and flipped through the pages, looking for a poem Dorcas might like.
Love doesna think on those sorts of things, she’d said.
He was still pretty sure Love couldn’t think at all, but if it could, Nab wondered what Love would think on. Would it think on red hair or a slight frame or someone who was thought a fool by the rest of the world?
What sort of things made a body love another anyway?
Or not.
On the sixth day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me six geese a-laying.
—From “The Twelve Days of Christmas”
“And we’re back to the winged demons again. What? Ye dinna think a goose smacks of the Fiery Pit? Ye ne’er have run afoul of one then, I warrant. There’s not a meaner creature on God’s earth. Were I to receive such a gift, and six of them no less, I’d suspect my true love didna bear me any love at all.”
—An observation from Nab,
fool to the Earl of Glengarry
Chapter Fifteen
Katherine finally relinquished her nephews to the care of their nurse, and since old Beathag assured her that Margaret was resting comfortably, she stripped out of her clothes and lay down on her bed in her shift to catch up on some much needed sleep. She only expected to snatch an hour at most, but the feather tick wrapped her in a thick embrace and she slept like the dead. It was long past time to dress for supper and join the revelers in the great hall below when something finally roused her.
She was used to the noisiness of a castle. In Glengarry, as in Badenoch, there was always someone rattling about during the daytime, even without the press of extra guests and the excitement of the holidays. She could ignore at will the determined hum of a working keep. Or even one bent on frivolity and merriment. But it wasn’t the sound of pipes and song wafting up the spiral stairs that pried her from her dreams.
It was the smell of warm bread.
The yeasty summons caused her eyelids to flutter open and her mouth to water. When she came fully awake, she found William standing by her bedside, bearing a tray. Tall, broad, and impeccably dressed in a fresh shirt and plaid, the man himself looked good enough to eat, never mind what was on the tray.
“Time to wake and have some supper, love.” His rumbling baritone shivered over her. “The day is spent, and Dorcas tells me ye’ve not taken a bite.”
After first taking care of Margaret, and then the youngest members of her brood, Kat decided it was nice to have someone take care of her for a change. She sat up and plumped the pillows behind her back.
“Ye should know better than to listen to Dorcas,” she advised. “She talks too much.”
“So I noticed. She also has a wicked hand with a broom,” Will said as he settled the tray across her lap. In addition to the fresh bread, the trencher was laden with F
orfar Bridies, haggis, neeps and tatties, as well as thick slices of goose with brambleberry relish. For good measure, there was even a bowl of Clootie Dumpling swimming in rich cream.
“I canna eat all this,” Katherine said.
“I was counting on that.” William helped himself to one of her bridies and took a bite of the pastry. Hitching his hip on the side of the bed, he settled in beside Katherine. Then he held the bridie out for her. “Try this. I dinna know what Cook used for the crust, but they’re light enough to float away. We need to convince her to share the secret with our Mrs. MacGuff. Her pastries are like lead weights. I could use one to hold down the stack of ledgers on my desk.”
Katherine laughed. Their cook at Badenoch was a crotchety old lady who hadn’t tried a new recipe in decades. “Dinna tell Mrs. MacGuff that or she’ll put a spider in your tea.”
“Try it and tell me ’tis not worth the risk.” He tore off a corner of the bridie and lifted the bite to Katherine’s lips.
It fairly melted on her tongue. In addition to the crusty pastry, a unique mix of spices seasoned the savory meat inside, a burst of sensations for her mouth. “Och, you’re right. This is worth braving a spider. I’ll get Cook to show me how she makes these, and then Mrs. MacGuff will either learn from me or she’ll have to suffer my presence in her kitchen from time to time. And we know how she loves that!”
“So,” he said smugly, his dark eyes alight with triumph, “ye do intend to come home with me after Christmas, then.”
Katherine bit her tongue. Blame it on lack of sleep or inadequate food or simply the fact that William Douglas sitting on her bed was the finest thing a woman could ever hope to see in all her living life, but somehow her plan to petition Rome for an annulment had flown completely out of her head. Now, however, the notion was back with a vengeance.
She helped herself to the flagon of small beer and buried her nose in it. She needed to fortify her resolve.
