Chapter Sixteen
Elizabeth was leaning on the barmkin wall, shading her eyes against the late afternoon sun.
Behind her, John’s footfall. ‘It is a goodly thing you do. Hugh has long had need of a wife, and one that he can trust withal.’
She thought of the visits lately made to Newark, and of how she had not yet explained that circumstance and how it were as well she did before she was forced to tell their father. She picked at the lichen on the capstone, now was as good a time as any. ‘I meant to tell you, Christian and I made some visits while you were away, and have contracted that father will make others, so soon as he returns.’ John, his thoughts still on Hugh and the wedding and therefore not entirely listening, queried,
‘Visits?’
Encouraged, she continued before his concentration improved sufficiently to protest. ‘There was a child . . . he was taken stealing from the warren . . . we fed him and sent him away, but . . . it’s a shameful thing that there are folk half-starved, and we wasting more than many families have to eat altogether. I set about raising a collection.’
Something of her words seemed to penetrate. ‘What?’
‘A collection: from those of our own class, to provide aid for the unfortunates who, through no fault of their own, find themselves with less than enough food. To tide them through to harvest just, and ensure that they don’t start the winter half-starved.’
She had his full attention now. ‘So that was your secret. Do you think that father will look kindly on you begging from our neighbours, even if it isn’t for ourselves?’
‘I couldn’t just ignore him.’ Then, as a softening, ‘And neither could you if you’d been here. The child was just a rickle of bones and gey feart. At least we thought at first he was too feart to eat when offered, but then I said he could take the food away and he was that pleased.’ She pictured the waif running off down the valley, the pail of bread hugged to his chest. ‘I haven’t asked for much, and in truth have got less, though some have promised to think on it, and to speak to father on his return. Maxwell has been generous.’
Under her fingers his muscle hardened. ‘Maxwell? For why was he so ready to loose his money? He is no philantrop.’
This was difficult water. ‘I think that the moment I picked was right. His steward was but lately returned from some trading deal: sufficiently successful that he was disposed to be helpful. I didn’t stay long.’ She found herself flushing at the remembrance of his hand on her arm and his breath hot on her cheek. ‘Indeed, I won’t look to go a-begging there again, for to find him so kindly disposed another time would be to expect too much.’
‘And how many of our near neighbours have you seen fit to hector on their responsibilities to the poor?’
‘Not hector, John. It was all done in the best of spirits.’ She fought to keep her temper. ‘I have a list of those who have promised at least to think on it and perhaps . . . if you could look to it before father’s return, then I needn’t trouble him at all.’ She was smoothing the nap of his doublet sleeve, but he tossed her hand away.
‘As far as father goes, you may do as you please. But don’t expect me to go cap in hand to anyone.’
She stared out across the valley, tried again. ‘If you don’t want to be involved in the collection . . .’
He snorted.
‘. . . I had another idea . . .’
‘Which was?’ His tone was hardly encouraging, but she ploughed on.
‘A common warren.’
‘You’re crazy. Who’d have control?’
‘Why not the parish?’
‘The parish couldn’t agree the day of the week, far less a scheme such as that.’ He thumped the capstone beside her. ‘And I suppose you have a list of those who will support you in this also?’ When she didn’t reply he continued, ‘The sooner Hugh takes you to Braidstane the better, so that your meddling will be his problem and not ours.’
Her eyes sparked. ‘It’s fine for those who have enough lard about them to keep them warm all winter.’ And in case he missed the point, ‘You were aye roly-poly and set fair to be so again. If my own family won’t support me in this, I swear to God I’ll be proud to meddle. Our warren released onto the moor and it won’t be long before the countryside is overrun with meat, for all and to spare. And not before time.’
Chapter Seventeen
Munro stopped briefly at Clonbeith to retrieve Sweet Briar and in Greenock to buy gifts: a tiny carved wooden horse for Anna and a miniature brightly painted top for Robbie. Kate was harder. He didn’t know how she would receive him and wished to choose carefully: something generous enough to please, but not immoderate, lest she thought he sought to buy her renewed favour. He settled on an embroidered cushion filled with lavender, the scent of it enveloping him like a cloak with every jolt.
Dusk stalked him as he reached Broomelaw and he halted in the gateway, slipping from the saddle to look up at the tower windows. ‘No light, lass,’ he said, fondling Sweet Briar. ‘I trust they aren’t from home, else we must look to ourselves.’ He had paused his hand as he spoke and the horse lifted her head and nudged his palm, so that he petted her again. ‘You shall be first.’ A square of light spilled across the courtyard as the lad opened the top half of the stable door, then, with a rattle of the bolt, swung wide the bottom section also. Munro relinquished the reins, ‘It seems you will be well cared for, but as for me . . .’ He nodded towards the still dark house. ‘Is your mistress at home?’
‘Aye sir, they are but lately returned from a visit to your mother at Renfrew.’
A light flickered on the stairway as Munro reached the door. He watched its progress through each of the three small windows that lit the turnpike. For a moment again there was darkness. Under his breath he counted: six steps to the top of the stair, two to the door of the solar – now.
Light flared.
Kate’s face was in shadow, so that he couldn’t tell whether she smiled or not.
‘We hadn’t expected you so soon. No matter . . .’ her voice was half way between uncertain and warm, her body stiff.
‘Kate? What use courtesies if things aren’t straight between us? It isn’t right to waste what we have in regrets. God knows I’m not proud of what was done, but however much I may wish it, I can’t go back.’ When she still avoided his eyes he stretched out one finger and ran it lightly down her cheek and across her mouth, resting the fingertip against her lips. ‘Kate?’ She leaned towards him.
Anna burst onto the stairwell, short plaits flying, Robbie behind her. ‘Dada,’ they chanted in unison, tugging at the saddlebag slung over his shoulder.
He hunkered on the floor and delved in his bag – bairns aye appear when they aren’t wanted. The carpenter from whom he had bought the toys had, at Munro’s request, wrapped them individually in scraps of hessian, so that he had a parcel for each of them.
Robbie didn’t open his immediately, probing at the shape, his eyes narrowed, the tip of his tongue wiggling between his lips. He looked at the knot intently, then worried gently at it till it loosened and the string fell away, the coarse cloth springing back. Rocking on his heels he said, ‘What is it Dada?
‘Watch!’ Munro set the top on the floor and flicked the knob between his forefinger and thumb.
Robbie clapped his hands as the colours spiralled outwards. When it stopped and fell over, he dived to pick it up. ‘Again Dada, again.’
Munro set it spinning twice more, then, taking the small hand in his, placed Robbie’s fingers against the knob. ‘You try.’
Three times he held Robbie’s finger and thumb and tried to help him to start the top, but each time it wobbled and fell over. Munro saw in the tightening of his lips determination building. He tousled Robbie’s hair. ‘We can try again later.’
‘Now,’ Robbie said. ‘I shall try now.’
Munro caught Kate’s eye and risked a smile. Anna was tugging at her string, pulling at the knot, first with her fingers, then with her teeth, succeedi
ng only in making it tighter. As she threw the parcel away Kate slipped onto the floor beside her.
‘Careful, you don’t want to break it, else Robbie will have his top and you will have nothing. Let me help.’
‘Stupid string,’ Anna said.
Kate freed the knot and laid the bundle in the child’s lap. Anna kept her small fists tightly clenched, scowling, but when neither Kate nor Munro intervened, she slid one hand to the hessian and pulled it aside, staring down at the tiny horse. For a moment Munro thought he had chosen badly, but when she looked up, her eyes sparkled. She rubbed her finger down the ripple of mane and over the smooth swell of belly, contoured from the grain of the wood, then cantered the horse across her knees, up her chest, across her throat and all the way down again. Uncurling her legs, she ran to the window that overlooked the courtyard and climbed onto the sill to gallop the horse backwards and forwards, ‘clip-clopping’ vigorously.
He rummaged again and produced the parcel for Kate.
‘It’s but a wee bit thing. Nice enough in its way, at least, I trust so.’
She fingered the parcel, ‘I trust so too. Else I may be forced to steal Anna’s horse and that . . .’ there was a hint of a thaw in her voice, ‘. . . would likely cause a riot.’ She bent her head and in her turn worried at the string, which had somehow worked itself into a knot.
She too poked her tongue between her lips and bent her dark head close to the parcel, illustrating the origin of Robbie’s patience. There was a flash of colour at Munro’s feet and a crow of satisfaction as the top spun briefly before tilting to a stop. Satisfied, Robbie set it carefully on the table and clambered up onto the sill beside Anna. She shifted sideways, leaning her back against the angle of the wall and trotted the horse onto Robbie’s lap. Munro touched Kate’s wrist and pointed. Her face softened as she looked at the twins, cross-legged, like a pair of happy brownies, the horse between them. Kate’s hand was small and fine and warm, and, without conscious thought, Munro traced a line from her wrist to the tip of her fingers.
Her breathing shallowed. She turned her hand over and he nudged her fingers apart to slip his own into the gaps. Her skin was dry, the scar at the base of her thumb, where she had torn it on hawthorn as she helped him clear ground for the lambing pens, rough under his touch. He tightened his grip and was rewarded by the first full smile since Annock. ‘Can you not manage?’ he said, looking at the parcel on her lap.
‘Not one-handed, I can’t.’
‘Well then, I shall have to help.’
Again the smile. She pulled the parcel against her stomach and caught at the string with her free hand while he took the other end and pulled, but too hard, so that it skidded off her lap and dangled, the knot remaining stubbornly tight.
‘It isn’t going to damage?’
‘It’ll take no harm. There. I’ll hold and you pull. A lighter touch may do it.’
Light or not, it took several more attempts before the string was released and the hessian put aside. With all the tugging and pulling the scent was strong, even before the cushion was revealed. She held it against her face, breathing in deeply, then traced the pattern of lavender stems appliqued onto the smooth silk. Her mouth trembled between a sob and a smile and he tried to think of something comic to say, but couldn’t find words.
‘Nice enough,’ she pressed her palm against his, the smile winning, ‘in its way . . .’
With his free hand he ran one finger into the hollow of her throat then downward towards the swell of her breasts. He felt the flutter of her pulse and bent his head and kissed her. She didn’t pull away. It was a mood that lasted the evening through, past the children’s bedtime into their own, so that they lay together for the first time since Annock.
Afterwards she said, her head tucked into his neck, a strand of hair lying across his face, the scent of it wholesome, ‘I feared for us.’
His voice was hoarse. ‘I think that I feared more.’
She settled firmly against him. ‘It wasn’t the house, nor the land, nor even the safety of the bairns that plagued me. It was this. Us. The thought that whether here or not, you might have gone somewhere I couldn’t follow.’
He knew that he should tell her of his detour to Greenock, his meeting with the Montgomeries, for if they were to start again, there should be no secrets between them, and was searching his mind for appropriate words when she continued and the moment was gone.
‘Now maybe isn’t the time to talk of obligations, but there is nothing . . .’ he heard the steel in her voice, ‘. . . nothing we owe, to the Cunninghames or anyone else, is worth that loss.’
He lay, inarticulate, able only to press his chin onto her head, to hold her more tightly for fear that he might rock the fragile peace. Finally, when he felt her draw back, he said, ‘Without your anchor these months past, I have been adrift and like to founder. I don’t know yet how things will turn, but . . .’ he pulled her close again and spoke into her hair, ‘. . . if it’s a promise you want Kate, I won’t risk losing you again.’
Part Two
October – November 1589
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
King James Bible, Galations 6:7
Chapter One
Munro heard it first. On the quayside, as he stood in the small crowd waiting for the line of fishing boats nosing into the harbour. A rumour only, insubstantial, fragmented, like the mist that drifted in curls on the Clyde and eddied among the masts of the few trading vessels moored against the sea wall.
He thought it hardly credible, yet it amused him to imagine James slipping away, the court abed, to rescue his Danish bride, as if it was ardour that drove him. As indeed it might be if he were not the King; for the bride was not yet fifteen, and winsome, so it was said. Who wouldn’t have chosen as he had, and the choice a lass eight years older or one eight years younger than himself? Still, for all his love of poetry, it was a match that owed more to politics and the need for an heir, than any sonnet he might write. And if the King was indeed on his way to Norway, it was a foolishness that wouldn’t be appreciated by most of his council. The truth would be known soon enough, and, in the meantime, it was a fine piece of gossip to take home.
He had been sent to the harbour for salt herrings, more to get him out of the way than anything else. He watched the fishing fleet emerging and disappearing again into the mist, a wee pickle larger each time he spied it, and the notion took him to wait for a fresh catch to salt at home.
‘It’ll give me something to do, lass,’ he murmured to Sweet Briar, ‘And save Agnes the trouble of imagining another unnecessary errand.’ It irked him that each time there was a birthing, the womenfolk shut him out, so that he was forced to pace up and down in the hall or the courtyard and nothing to do but wait.
‘Anywhere you please,’ Agnes had said, ‘so long as it isn’t under our feet.’ She had been Kate’s nurse and was now both midwife and nurse to Kate’s children; and so thought nothing of speaking her mind to Kate’s husband when the need arose.
An hour later, when the sounds from upstairs had temporarily stilled, she had appeared in the doorway of the hall. ‘Kate’s resting the now and like to be so for a while. If you can’t find anything to do other than pace, you might away and get some salt herrings. That will at least not waste your time altogether.’
‘I don’t wish . . .’
She brushed aside his protest, as she would swipe a fly that buzzed about her kitchen. ‘We can’t be doing with you ranging up and down, the tramp of your boots on the flags like the beat of a drum pounding at Kate’s head till she is fit to burst.’
And so he had saddled Sweet Briar and set out, in one way glad of the excuse for the ride, yet guilty also for the gladness. This was her third confinement, and the first two straightforward as the dropping of lambs, though not so fast. Yet however hard he tried, he couldn’t help but fear that something would go awry. No amount of telling, from Agnes or the apothecary, would settle him until it was o
ver and the bairn safely delivered. The other children: the twins, now six, and Maggie, a placid, roly-poly two-year-old, who you couldn’t so much as glance at without smiling, had been sent to his mother at the first twinge and no doubt romped to their hearts’ content with no-one to check them.
He had kept tight to Broomelaw these three years past and was glad of it, glad too that events abroad had turned greater folks’ thoughts aside from their own squabbles to other dangers. News had filtered to Broomelaw in snippets: arriving with pedlars; confirmed in the market; thundered from the pulpit. And if hard at times to guage the accuracy of the reports, the kernel was no doubt true and enough for their needs: Babington’s execution, sufficiently horrific that Munro spared Kate the detail. Queen Mary, beheaded at Fotheringhay: protesting her innocence and her adherence to the old faith to the end. A seemly death, if you discounted the talk that it had taken more than one cut. Eclipsing all else, and producing a ripple of fear that bought temporary peace between the warring Scottish Lords: the talk of a Spanish fleet, bound for England, yet threatening the peace of Protestants everywhere. When word came that the vast ships, nipped and harried by the English, had been defeated, thanks to the fervent prayers of the faithful and to the weather, relief returned, along with reawakened interest in personal affairs. There was scarce a seaboard parish without their own tale of the tattered Spanish fleet. And the Clyde shore no exception. The immediate danger past, the Munros, like many others, had spared a thought for the poor sailors who found themselves washed up on a foreign shore, the sorry remnant of a vast endeavour.
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