Turn of the Tide

by Skea, Margaret

  Her suspicion hardened to a certainty.

  Ishbel was still hovering. ‘It’s a mite early for supper and nothing cooked besides.’

  Grizel spoke sharply. ‘There’s broth and cold beef and cheese – it will be fine, I’m sure.’

  Elizabeth said, ‘You have the advantage of us. We don’t wish to keep you a stranger.’

  He bowed again. ‘I am remiss. Sigurd Ivarson, master of the Svanen, lately blown from Norway.’

  Hovering on the edge of unaccountable irritation, Grizel said, ‘We don’t always live by the clock. Nor does Ishbel rule us, however she may like to think.’

  The rain, which had diminished as they stood, came on again, pelting the windows. Elizabeth shivered and Grizel, her irritation melting into concern, said, ‘It’s freezing here and no wonder. You away to the solar and see to the fire, else we’ll suffer another of Ishbel’s lectures. I’ll fetch a towel for our guest.’ She moved towards the door and gestured to Sigurd to accompany her, yet kept her distance as if she feared contamination.

  Elizabeth had the table cleared and platters set before Grizel returned to the solar, her face slightly flushed, her breathing shallow as if she had been running. When Ishbel appeared, puffing from the stairs, with a tray well laden, Grizel moved to relieve her of it, smiling. ‘You’ve enough here for a ween of visitors.’

  ‘I don’t want any foreigner thinking we can’t keep a good table, forbye he looks as though he can put away plenty.’ It was clear she was part way to a thaw. ‘He’s a well-made man and seeming friendly.’

  Grizel was arranging and re-arranging the table.

  Elizabeth set three chairs. ‘I trust he isn’t so famished that he can’t answer questions while he eats. I am fair desperate to hear how Hugh does.’

  ‘And I to tell,’ Sigurd filled the doorway, his tousled head bent, his now dry hair curling light blonde. He spoke to Elizabeth, but his eyes rested on Grizel. ‘It is a commission that has brought an unexpected pleasure.’ She found herself flushing again and to cover the confusion he awoke in her, busied herself with the food.

  ‘Well, then.’ Elizabeth waved him to the head of the table, the chair creaking as he sat down.

  Grizel, who had regained some of her usual composure, responded to the expression on his face. ‘You needn’t fret. It has held heavier, though . . .’ her natural mischief returned, ‘. . . maybe not by much. We needn’t be formal.’ She indicated the food. ‘Easier and best if you help yourself, and don’t be afraid to eat plenty, for we aren’t used with those who pick.’

  ‘I see you have the measure of me. And I had thought to maintain a polite pretence.’ The look of comic regret on his face made them both laugh.

  ‘The broth will be cold if we don’t start, and we daren’t ask Ishbel to heat it again.’ Grizel slid the platter of bread towards him and he sniffed at it appreciatively.

  ‘I haven’t had fresh bread since we left Oslo and, though we made a swift crossing, it is the homely things you miss.’

  With the reference to Oslo, Grizel took pity on Elizabeth.

  ‘What news of the King’s fleet? Did they all make it safe?’

  ‘Indeed, for the winds were favourable, and I believe the crossing took but six days, though winter or summer the North Channel is rough and I daresay there were some who felt the worse for it. Not Braidstane though. I suspect he relished the journey. He came onto land looking as fresh as if he had just left home, apart from the tang of salt on him. He was on the ship berthed next to mine.’

  Elizabeth made a fair job of concealing her impatience as he worried at a gap between his back teeth with his tongue.

  ‘I intended to sail on the evening tide and took the opportunity to extend the normal courtesies of one master to another, and thus gain first hand knowledge of sea conditions. But your King wasn’t for wasting time in courtesies. They were no sooner tied up than he was off the ship, his entourage scrabbling behind him. It caused a flurry at the dock, for there were no horses to hand and he wasn’t best pleased at the lack. It was as they waited that I met with your husband.’ He reached forward and cut a wedge from the block of cheese and another slice of bread. ‘Scots bread is always good and this better than most. I have a mind to steal your baker.’

  ‘That,’ Elizabeth said, ‘won’t be so easy, for it’s Grizel who does the baking here.’

  He pulled down the corners of his mouth. ‘It would have been a fine thought at sea, that I came home to such.’

  Grizel bent her head to hide the treacherous colour in her cheeks, glad of Elizabeth’s interruption.

  ‘And Hugh?’

  ‘He took the chance, seeing that the Svanen was fully loaded and ready to slip anchor with the tide, to ask where I was headed. Hearing it was Leith, he commissioned me to send a message of his safe arrival. He said it wouldn’t be hard to find someone glad of such a job.’

  ‘Harder than you thought then, seeing as you are come yourself?’ Mindful of the distance, Grizel added, ‘We are grateful.’

  ‘It is I who is grateful.’ Sigurd leaned on the chair, tilting it back onto two legs so that it groaned under the strain. ‘We took a scrape on some rocks rounding the north coast of Denmark. Nothing major and it could have waited our return, but as we shipped some water, I decided it was best to have the repair done. Waiting is tedious, so I took it upon myself to bring his news in person. And am glad of the welcome I received. At least . . .’

  Grizel, seeing once again the hint of laughter in his eyes, leapt to fill the pause. ‘Ishbel may not be over friendly at the first, but now that she knows you are indeed come from Hugh, she won’t hold back.’ She rose to clear the table. ‘Indeed you may wish at the end that she did, for she can be gey familiar and aye speaks her mind.’

  As if on cue, Ishbel opened the door. ‘And why not?’ Grizel paused in the act of lifting a platter, her cuff riding up her outstretched arm, exposing her wrist, and turned, would have answered, but Ishbel gave her no chance to interrupt.

  ‘It’s no use in saying what you don’t mean. A spade is a spade and shouldn’t be called a shovel.’ As Grizel continued to clear the table her hand brushed against Sigurd’s, the momentary contact sharp as a bee sting.

  ‘You were hungry, right enough.’ Ishbel looked at the almost empty plates. ‘You can’t do better than good Scottish fare.’

  ‘Indeed no.’ Sigurd’s reply was the essence of polite. ‘And the cheese had a fine bite to it.’

  ‘From our own sheep and matured these three months past.’

  ‘And well worth the wait.’

  It was obvious that the compliment pleased Ishbel, her acceptance of him complete as she waved away his offer of help with the tray saying instead, ‘If you want to be useful, you can see to the fire. I haven’t the time for everything, and it wouldn’t be the first time today I found it near out.’

  They settled for the evening: Grizel on the bench by the hearth, Elizabeth lying on the settle, and Sigurd stretched out on the warm flags, resting his back against the chimneybreast; raking intermittently at the logs each time the flames threatened to subside. Candles flickered in the wall-sconces casting alternate strips of light and shade, broken by the occasional bright flare. Grizel, seeing Elizabeth’s eyelids begin to droop, felt a tightness in her chest. To cover it she said,

  ‘Did Hugh say aught of the King’s plans?’

  ‘We had little time, otherwise he would no doubt have written a note to you himself. Your king isn’t the most patient of men and though the light was already beginning to fail, and they were to travel but a short distance before halting for the night, he brooked no delay. Whether for sentiment or not I cannot judge, but their chosen lodging was to be the same that kept his princess on her first night. The wedding, I believe, is to take place in Oslo.’ He forestalled the inevitable question, ‘A journey of some two weeks or more; then some will make for the Danish court to winter there. Your husband said to tell you he would write when he could.’

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sp; Elizabeth pressed her fist into the gap between her ribs as if trying to find extra room to breathe. ‘It’s not the writing that will likely be the problem, but the bringing of the letter.’

  ‘True. This will certainly be my last voyage before the spring.’ Sigurd’s eyes were fixed on Grizel, regret in his voice.

  Sure that they must be able to hear her heart hammering, she looked towards the tapestry on the gable wall moving in the draught from the window. It was one that Elizabeth had brought from Greenock: in the foreground, a merchant ship running under full sail, waves boiling about its keel, heading for a distant estuary and calm water. In the background a storm built, ragged black clouds threatening to overtake them. For the first time she saw it as a race that the sailors mightn’t have won. She cast about for a happier thought.

  ‘The talk is that James’ princess is bonny?’

  ‘So she is. Golden-haired and lissom, but young yet and sturdy and may run to a stouter figure in good time.’

  ‘Sturdy,’ said Elizabeth, ‘is a fine thing. There have been gey too many weak bodies married into Scots royalty. Infant kings and rule by nobles the result. And factions and fighting and no-one safe, whether earl or laird.’

  Sigurd’s face was a question mark.

  ‘There is a feud,’ Grizel said in explanation, ‘and we part of it and though small-bit players have suffered much. James has a notion to stop all such.’

  ‘Pray God he will succeed.’ Elizabeth rested her hand on her stomach. ‘I wish my bairn to keep his father, whether that is in James’ hands or Hugh’s own.’

  ‘Can we not talk of something cheery? Else our guest will think the Scots are aye dour.’

  Sigurd smiled at Grizel. ‘An unwarranted reputation in this company, I’m sure.’

  Elizabeth rose. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I don’t sleep well the now and must needs to bed early, else I’m not fit for anything in the morning.’ Sigurd also rose, but she shook her head at him, avoiding Grizel’s eye. ‘There isn’t a need for anyone else to keep my hours. Indeed they are hardly sociable. Grizel will be glad of your company for a while yet I’m sure. She has sat alone many nights of late and will have to do so again. It’s a favour you do us by your visit in more ways than one.’

  As he handed Elizabeth to the door, his gaze flicked to Grizel. ‘My pleasure,’ he said, ‘for I am rescued by congenial company both from the tedium of waiting my ship’s repairs and from the likely discomfort to be had in lodgings at Leith.’

  Grizel tried to concentrate on the hiss and spit of the resin beading on the split logs. From the fire, the scent of pine rose, sweet and sharp, as if it was in a forest they sat, the deep velvet quiet of it enveloping them like a cloak.

  Sigurd broke the silence, talking with obvious affection of his home, his family, the business he shared; the soft cadences of his voice eroding the reserve that she struggled to maintain.

  Much later, she climbed the curving stair to her chamber and, sleep deserting her, curled on the window seat, leaning her cheek against the cool stone. And to avoid other, more treacherous thoughts: the touch of his hand on her wrist, the glimmer of laughter in his eyes; she wondered how it would be to ride on a sleigh pulled by dogs, swathed in arctic fox and miniver. Or to bide in a little wooden house with overhanging eaves that could, at a stretch, be touched from the ground. Or through the long dark winters to toast her toes, not at an open fire, but at a pretty wood-burning stove set on a hearth of blue and white porcelain tiles.

  Chapter Six

  Munro’s head was pressed against Sweet Briar’s neck, one hand on the dip of her back, the other brushing at her flanks, specks of salt and dust flying with each downward sweep. He should have been occupied otherwise: seeing to the cattle lately moved into the byre for winter, mucking out, spreading fresh straw, carting clean water, hay. Instead he lingered in the stable, doing the work of the lad rather than his own, finding in the regular brushstrokes a peace that had eluded him for weeks since. The horse for her part stood quiet, but showed her pleasure in the extra attention by turning her head from time to time and snorting into his ear. He gave a final slap to her rump and took her head in both hands, pulling her face downwards, the slick of saliva as she lifted her lip moistening his cheek.

  ‘A month now, and no word,’ he said, as if in answer to an unspoken question. ‘Not even a line or two for the sake of our mother.’ He leant his forehead into the angle between her face and neck and felt the faint hirsel in her breathing that stemmed from a cold taken two years past, which, though it had never quite settled, seemed to trouble her not at all.

  ‘Is this where you’re hiding?’ Kate was framed in the doorway.

  ‘I thought to see to Sweet Briar myself: the lad was gey busy.’

  She flashed him a ‘you might try for a more convincing lie’ look. ‘We thought we were going to have to take our dinner without you. The bairns are fair peeved with waiting. Not to mention that Agnes isn’t best pleased that the pudding she made especial blackens in the oven.’ She linked her arm through his and, as if an afterthought, said, ‘No news has aye been good news in the Munro family.’

  He tossed the brush into a basket hanging on the wall. ‘You know in what frame Archie left.’

  She faced him, gripping both his arms. ‘I know how he was when he came; and how he softened. And besides, there is Sybilla now and we cannot discount her influence. I don’t think, for all his protests, it was pure chance he fixed on her to take back to Kilmaurs.’

  ‘It is William’s influence I fear; he has had three years of that. The softening . . . I should have encouraged it, not sent him off in bad fettle.’

  ‘And starving yourself in the stable? Will that accomplish anything? Bar irritating Agnes and the bairns. Do not think I lack concern, but I won’t destroy all that is good here for an ill not yet come. It is a matter of weeks only; last year there were months at a stretch without word.’

  ‘Naught of himself is one thing, but naught of how Sybilla fares . . .’

  She shook her head, placed one finger against his mouth. ‘There may be naught to tell. Or if there is, insufficient of significance to warrant the sending. She is a lady’s maid, what in her daily concerns would interest him?’ She linked with him again. ‘Dinner.’ she said.

  For the rest of the week he tried and failed to settle, despite all Kate’s efforts. At mealtimes he ate swiftly, but scarce knew what he was eating. When the children demanded his attention, he responded absently, often saying ‘Yes’ when he would normally have said ‘No’ so that they took full advantage of his dwam, Robbie claiming wide-eyed, ‘Dada said I could,’ each time he was caught in some new mischief.

  ‘And the trouble is,’ Agnes complained, ‘It’s probably the truth he tells.’

  Anna, who had played constantly with the wooden horse that Munro had brought from Greenock, now plagued to have a pony of her own, or failing that, to be allowed to try the latest addition to the stable, so that he began to regret both purchases. To prove herself capable, she took to sitting cross-legged, tack spread all around her, rubbing goose-fat into the leather with a rag scrunched into a pad the size of her fist. Munro, coming on her one afternoon, her legs thrust under a saddle, noted the shine she had worked and commended it, tweaking her plait, but failed to pay proper attention to the question she fired at him, unaware that he had agreed to any request.

  Inside he fidgeted; outside he either snapped orders at the men or missed giving them altogether, so that no one knew whether they came or went.

  Realising himself to be poor company, but with no idea how to sort it and aware that Kate watched him with increasing exasperation, he took to spending, not only the best part of the day outdoors, but the evenings as well; coming to their chamber late and rising early.

  Agnes tackled Kate. ‘Can you not do something with him before the entire place falls apart? I’ve sorted him before and I will again if needs be, for we can’t have this carry on all winter.’

  ‘I�
�ll speak to him, though I doubt he’ll settle till he can find some excuse that takes him to Kilmaurs, and perhaps it would be for the best. This quarrel with Archie is more than a scratch and may not mend without salve. Despite that Archie was more than half to blame, Munro feels the fault is his.’

  ‘Whatever the cause, we all feel the brunt’ There was a speculative glint in Agnes’ eye, displaced when Maggie erupted through the door holding aloft a ribbon, Anna in pursuit. Maggie dived behind Kate’s skirt screeching, ‘It’s mine, is, is, is,’ emphasising each word with a stamp of her small foot.

  ‘It is not.’ There was real anger in Anna’s voice.

  Agnes whisked Maggie away, protesting still, while Kate caught hold of Anna.

  ‘I hate her, she’s aye taking things, an then she ruins them an . . .’

  ‘No, you don’t. And I’ll sort it. It’s only a wee bit ribbon.’

  Anna dug her face into Kate’s bodice. ‘It’s aye ‘only a wee bit’.’

  Kate’s lips twitched, but she kept her tone stern. ‘I’ve said I’ll sort it.’ She put her hand under Anna’s chin and forced her to look up. Her voice softened. ‘It’s a fine supper that’ll be ruined if we don’t get a move on. Run along and find Robbie and your father.’ She headed Anna towards the door, all thought of tackling Munro for his ill temper forgotten.

  And so the following morning, despite the change in the weather that the sky threatened, Agnes took Munro in hand and despatched him with a list of errands that would take him half way around the county, all of them sufficiently urgent that they couldn’t be left to a better day. ‘Here’s a piece for you,’ she said briskly, ‘but we’ll not expect you the night for you’ll doubtless bide at Kilmaurs. But mind,’ she wagged her finger at him, ‘Don’t waste over much time in the morning for I can be doing with all the pruch. And,’ she wagged her finger again, ‘if there’s anything you can’t get, don’t just decide to bring something else. I’d rather do without than have your choosing.’