by Candace Robb
‘He will be here anon.’
‘You do not wish to answer my question?’
‘He would rather do that himself, I am certain.’
She detected a smirk, barely suppressed. ‘You may wait for him in the tavern. When I have met him, I shall decide where you might be most comfortable.’ She motioned towards the rear door of the tavern.
She left him then, moving stiffly away, her irritation tightening every muscle so that each step took effort to execute without a jerk. In the stable Hal was humming as he brushed down the finest of the two horses.
‘What can you tell me about him?’ Margaret asked.
Without pausing in the long, smooth strokes, Hal said, ‘In Edinburgh, only the Comyn’s horse is so fine. They are well cared for, though they have been ridden hard of late. The riders should be praying that the English have not noticed them.’
‘They came far?’
Hal nodded.
‘What of the rider?’ Margaret asked.
‘Aylmer speaks with a fineness. His master must be very grand to have such a servant.’
‘Is he lying?’
Hal shrugged. ‘I have not the gift to judge, Dame Margaret.’
‘Might he be English?’
Hal met her eyes for a heartbeat. ‘I pray he is not.’
‘I pray so, too. I am grateful for your observations, Hal.’
‘Shall I stable these beasts?’
‘Of course. They need care.’ She left him, deep in thought about what might bring noblemen to Edinburgh, and to this inn. Such people usually sought the hospitality of Holyrood Abbey. What worried her was their timing, just after a murder and a search, or burglary. And the possibility that they were English, come to spy on the tavern.
The rooms that shared the upper storey of the inn with her room were the most comfortable, but she would wait to meet the other man before committing to that. She might not turn them away – indeed, if they were from south of the Tweed she would not dare – but she did not need them near if she liked the master as little as she did the servant. She paused at the foot of the steps leading up to her chamber, deciding instead to check the rooms above the undercroft in case she chose to put the men there. She had one foot on the steps up to that when Celia came hurrying across the yard towards her.
‘Mistress, you have a visitor.’ Celia looked close to tears and her voice trembled.
‘What is wrong, Celia?’
‘He’s up above, Mistress. He insisted I let him wait for you in your chamber.’
‘God’s blood, who does he think he is.’ Margaret lifted her skirts and turned to follow Celia. ‘This is a customer I will turn away.’
‘You don’t understand, Mistress. It’s the master – your husband.’
Margaret stopped in mid-stride. ‘Roger?’ She turned back. ‘Are you certain?’
‘I was his mother’s maid for many a year. It is he.’
‘Dear Heaven.’ Margaret pressed her arms to her stomach, feeling as if she had been hit squarely and lost all her breath.
‘What can I do?’ Celia asked.
Margaret shook her head. ‘How goes he? Is he well?’
‘He looks weary, but much the same otherwise.’
‘Does he come in friendship?’ Margaret heard herself ask the question and wished she could suck it back inside.
‘He was sharp with me.’
Hence the tearful face, the trembling voice.
‘I must attend him. He is my husband.’ With a deep breath to steady herself, Margaret headed towards the tavern. But seeing the man Aylmer, she returned to Celia. ‘We have guests tonight. The man by the tavern door is the servant, Aylmer, and I have yet to meet the master, but I think he must be a nobleman, perhaps English, for so fine a servant. With Roger here—’ Her mind went blank.
‘Were you seeing to a room for the strangers?’ Celia suggested.
‘Yes. Hal is stabling their horses.’ When Margaret turned again, Aylmer was gone. She was relieved. She needed no audience as she climbed to confront her long-absent husband.
3
A GOOD HUSBAND
Celia had noticed the stranger watching Margaret and her as they spoke and had felt an urge to shoo him away. He must have sensed that he was unwelcome for he was gone now, and Celia alone witnessed Margaret pausing at the foot of the steps, squaring her shoulders and continuing up.
Often in the past months Celia had wondered how Margaret would behave when or if Roger returned. To have left his wife of only two years for such a long while during such frightening times had been reprehensible. But he’d compounded the offence as if he never considered Margaret’s feelings: in the sole letter he’d written to Margaret he’d promised to return at Yuletide but then did not appear, and sent neither an explanation nor an apology; when at last Margaret had caught sight of him in Edinburgh he had run from her; shortly thereafter he had sent word ordering her home to Perth but provided no escort; and perhaps the most humiliating discovery for her mistress was that he had spent the time arranging safe passage to Carlisle for a wealthy Englishwoman who had stayed in the very room Margaret now occupied and he’d been a frequent visitor in the room. Although Murdoch had denied they were lovers, Margaret’s brother had assumed they were and so must most of the townsfolk.
All this being so, as time passed Celia had imagined Roger less and less welcome. She herself had never wed, nor even bedded – her former mistress having run a strict household – so she could only guess at the emotion of such a reunion as was now commencing. But having heard her mistress weeping many a night, watched her search crowds for a sign of her long-absent husband, and noted her listening for his name when the Bruce was mentioned, Celia had grown to hate her former mistress’s son and presumed Margaret felt much the same.
Dame Katherine had impetuously loaned Celia to her gooddaughter Margaret for the journey to Edinburgh to seek the murderer of Jack Sinclair, Roger’s factor, and to trace Roger’s own whereabouts. He had by then been gone months longer than he had originally planned. Oblivious to the danger of travel and the tension in English-occupied Edinburgh, Celia, eager to please the mistress who was training her to be a lady’s maid, had gone without protest. She had not understood the sacrifice she had unwittingly undertaken until they arrived at Murdoch Kerr’s tavern. The rawness and the filth had first frightened, then disgusted her. She knew that Margaret had regretted bringing her along, considering her desire to be a lady’s maid ludicrous in the midst of war. But that very war had forced them to abide together long enough that they came to appreciate each other’s virtues. Margaret had begun to confide in Celia, who did everything she could to help her new mistress’s cause. Even now only Celia and Hal knew of Margaret’s spying work for James Comyn, and Celia had grown accustomed to evading questions about her mistress’s whereabouts.
But since the murder of Old Will, Celia had wondered whether their subterfuge was as successful as she had thought. She feared that someone else had learned of Margaret’s work for Comyn and had searched the undercroft for information.
‘If you’ve naught better to do, you might help me in the tavern,’ Sim barked, badly startling Celia.
She wondered how the weasel had managed to creep up behind her. ‘I’ve rooms to ready,’ she snapped, thinking Sim her prime suspect.
‘Where’s the mistress?’
‘Busy.’ Celia picked up her skirts and hurried up the stairs before he could ask any more.
Margaret’s feet felt weighted down and her heart pounded so hard she feared she might faint before she reached the landing. So many times she had imagined this moment, but nothing had prepared her for the jolt of hearing it had finally come. At the top of the stairs she found herself irritated by the need to deal with her estranged husband on the night that a nobleman was to lodge here. The mundane practicality steadied her. This was all part of her life, her own familiar life. Roger was her husband after all, not a stranger. She smoothed her apron as she crossed the landing
to her chamber door. Reaching for the latch, she wondered whether Roger would be pacing or sitting. Upon opening the door she was startled to find him standing just within, blocking what little light came through the shutters.
‘Maggie,’ he said softly, reaching out to her.
She backed away. She did not doubt it was him, but she was not ready to walk into his arms. ‘First I would see you, Roger. I must see with my own eyes that you are truly here.’ She felt for the lantern just inside the door and opened the shutter, marvelling at how steady her hands were when she felt so breathless.
Roger tucked his thumbs in his belt and watched her as she studied him. His clothes were unfamiliar. They were well made, but they hung loosely on him. She had never seen him so thin. His face – she had known to expect the four long scars on his cheek, wounds that she had seen in spring, but not the tidy beard that partially hid them. Nor had his hair been so cropped then and sprinkled with grey – he was fifteen years older than she, but he had not looked it before. Strangest of all were his eyes. They had been his least attractive feature, unflinching and, perhaps because they were such a pale blue, icy. She knew they could not have darkened, but they seemed so, darkened with sorrow, pain, suffering, she thought. The changes in him frightened her more than anything had since his cousin Jack’s death.
‘Am I much changed?’ he asked.
She was glad to find his voice familiar, deep and warm.
‘I had not thought what you might have suffered,’ she said. ‘I knew of the wounds on your face, but I had not seen how thin you had become.’
‘I am stronger than I was.’
She could think of nothing else to say. It was as if she had convinced herself that their factor’s murder, Edinburgh’s transformation into a town scarred by fires and bloodshed with the townsfolk terrified by Longshanks’s soldiers who watched every move, her uncle’s dangerous missions, the unexplained disappearances, the corpses, the dread rumours of battles – all the horror of the past months had been but a waking dream and Roger’s changed appearance now proved it real. There was no going back. Her old life no longer existed.
Roger touched her face. ‘You are as bonny as ever.’
The tender gesture closed her throat and brought tears. ‘Roger,’ she sobbed, and stepped into his embrace. He smelled of sweat, wood smoke, horses and leather. His body was harder, his grip tighter than before, and she knew that though he was her husband in name he was yet a stranger. He murmured tenderly how he loved her, had missed her, had worried about her. Although she feared his words false, all the old hopes for their marriage stirred within her. Roger pressed himself against her and she grew warm with desire, her body betraying her.
He lifted her and carried her to the great curtained bed, laid her gently on it. ‘It has been too long, my Maggie.’
She found her resolve and rolled away from him, into the curtained darkness. ‘I cannot erase the months so quickly,’ she said, ‘no matter what you have suffered. When we met for a moment on that cold, rainy day in spring you did not reach out to me, you ran. Why?’
Roger said nothing as he finished pulling off his boots, dropping them on the floor one by one. Then, with his back to her, he said in a quiet, patient voice, ‘I thought I could protect you, Maggie. Some of the English know of my work for the Bruce, and if they had witnessed our meeting they would have followed you, found some reason to question you.’ He unlaced the sides of his tunic, pulled it off, then sat cross-legged on the bed facing her.
She wanted to wrap her arms around him and sink back on to the pillows clutching him tightly. But she was frightened to lose herself in him, to fall into the role of wife as blindly as she had before. ‘And afterwards, when Janet Webster told you why I’d come here, could you not see that you couldn’t protect me in such wise?’
‘I thought you’d gone mad. My young wife, safe in Dunfermline, had suddenly decided to abandon all sense and come here, walking among the English. Don’t you remember that soldier in Perth?’
She knew of whom he spoke, one in Longshanks’s army who had grabbed her as she walked to the kirk. ‘I do, Roger. I remember how you ran from the house to defend me. I count it as one of my best memories of you – I thought at that moment that you loved me, that you had not married me simply for the show of having a young wife.’
‘What? How could you not know how much I love you, Maggie?’ Roger reached for her. ‘Come here.’
Margaret moved beyond his reach. ‘What of Edwina of Carlisle, your comrade in spying? Did you sit here on this bed with her?’
He lay back with a groan. ‘She was also working for the Bruce. You have been told that, and that she is dead.’
‘Did you share her bed?’
‘I am your husband. I have kept my vows to you.’
‘A simple yes or no would suffice.’
Roger propped himself up on an elbow. ‘No.’
‘Then why did you not tell me about her?’
He sat up. ‘God’s blood, for the same reason I didn’t embrace you on the street in spring, wife, for fear of endangering you.’
‘Am I such a simple little thing I cannot be trusted? A lap dog rather than a woman?’
Roger grabbed her shoulders. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, giving her a shake. ‘I love you, Maggie. I have thought over and over of you on High Street, calling out to me. You cannot know what that did to me, seeing you, hearing your voice. You must have seen that I moved towards you, not thinking how I might endanger you. But my companions were sharp and they drew me away, brought me to my senses.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her.
It was a passionate kiss. She wanted so to believe him, wanted to feel safe here in his arms. He was her husband. He was kissing her forehead, her temples, her neck. It was God’s will that they be here in this bed, that they comfort one another. He was so warm, stronger, rougher than she remembered, insistent, his hands everywhere, helping her undress. She shut out her anger and hurt and took pleasure in him, kissing his eyes, his cheeks, his lips. She pulled off his shirt and kissed the hollow of his neck. When he was freed from his leggings she pressed her head to his warm, flat stomach.
Roughly he pulled her up on top of him. His lips closed over her mouth with a new fierceness that felt more like anger than passion. He pressed her lower back against him with such strength she thought her spine would snap, and then rolled so that he was now pressing her down into the bedding. She could barely breathe. Her passion turned to fear. He slipped down to mouth her breasts, kissed her stomach, and then with a groan rolled away and pushed her aside.
Her body ached with desire. Her fear dissolved into an overwhelming sense of bereavement. He could not follow through with the pretence of loving her. She moved away from him, clutching a pillow as if it were someone come to comfort her, and wept.
She did not know how long she lay there, mourning something intangible, before Roger moved close to her, and lying on his side, his head on her pillow, stroked her hair.
‘I have dreamed of you. Your wild locks, so bright, rivalling the sun.’
‘You need not lie to me,’ she whispered.
‘I love you, Maggie.’
She heard a slight catch in his voice and wondered if it could be true. How she had yearned for him. She had hoped for a husband who sought her counsel, shared his thoughts, listened to her; who showed her in simple ways that he cherished her; who knew that she would worry and would find a way to tell her he was safe. Who would not lie to her.
‘I don’t think I understand what you mean by love.’ Her voice, trembling and high, made her words sound peevish. She pushed herself up, clutching the covers to hide her nakedness from the stranger lying beside her.
Roger lay on his back. He ran his hand along her shoulder with a gentle, caressing touch. ‘What happened just now – I have ridden a long way, and I wanted you too much. The heat of my passion – they say it can unman one. But we’ll have many nights, Maggie.’ There seemed a yearning in his voice.
/> ‘You mean to stay?’
‘I mean to be a good husband to you. Teach me how.’
She was searching her memory for other nights with him, trying to recall whether he had ever said such words, and it came to her, their wedding night, after he had spent himself so quickly that he rolled away from her just as she was warming to his lovemaking. He had said, ‘I shall be a good husband to you, Maggie.’
‘You are tired,’ she said now. ‘Sleep.’
‘I cannot until you tell me how to be a good husband to you.’
Her mind was in turmoil and she did not trust what she might say. ‘Not now.’ She lay down with her back to him and tried to quiet her storm-tossed thoughts with Hail Marys.
She’d managed only a few before Roger put his arm around her and leaned close to kiss her neck.
Margaret tucked the covers up higher.
‘Maggie, we must talk.’
‘On the morrow.’
He tugged at her, trying to turn her around to face him.
‘Let me be,’ she cried, resisting him even as she searched the chatter in her mind for an excuse that would buy her some peace. She must think how to cope with his return without either dissolving in tears or shouting at him. Rolling on to her back she said, ‘I’ve not slept well since Fergus sent troubling news.’
‘So you are not angry with me, just weary?’ Roger stroked her forehead.
Oh, angry I am, Roger, but we must not yet speak of that. ‘He wrote of intruders searching our house and Da’s, and Ma’s room at Elcho as well.’
‘What?’ Roger lifted the cruisie that still burned beside the bed and brought it close to Margaret’s face. ‘In Perth?’
She nodded, turning a little from the lamp, the light startling her.
‘What did they take? Was anyone injured?’
