by Candace Robb
When he told the sad tale to his sweetheart, Matilda grew quite excited and suggested that he ask his father’s and Roger’s former clerks, if any were still about, whether there were caches of money or record books that might be of interest to thieves. ‘Although I’ll warrant it’s treason against King Edward one of them is about,’ she said excitedly, obviously savouring the potential drama. ‘And no clerk would be trusted with such documents.’ She’d been favouring Fergus with smiles and flirtation for lack of a better suitor now that so many were off to war. It was Fergus’s only consolation.
Celia had not fooled James about the identity of Margaret’s visitor. He had received word from more than one reliable source that Roger Sinclair had arrived with his man, Aylmer, and headed straight for Murdoch’s inn. James thought it unlikely that Roger’s appearance so soon after someone had been searching his belongings was an accident. Robert Bruce would have as many spies as the Comyns, if not more so. James’s family had held sway over the country for so long they had become overconfident. The Bruces had never yet had the opportunity to rest on their accomplishments.
James had met Roger Sinclair occasionally in the past, before he’d had much interest in the man. Before Longshanks had stepped in to choose the Scots’ ruler for them, James had enjoyed a comfortable life as the itinerant negotiator of marriages, trade transactions and occasional ransoms for his wealthier Comyn and Balliol kin. He had been seldom in Edinburgh, and his interest in the tavern had been limited to an occasional drink with someone passing through until Longshanks’s invasion, when it had become useful for spying. Roger, an older, moderately successful merchant trading in Berwick and Perth, had been of no concern to him.
The timing of Roger’s return could not be more inconvenient for James. In considering the route that would allow him to accommodate Margaret he had become reacquainted with the location of Elcho Nunnery, not a great distance south of Perth along the Tay. Dame Christiana MacFarlane, Margaret’s mother, now lived there, the seeress who had been blessed with a vision of Margaret’s future that included a glimpse of the rightful king of Scotland riding into Edinburgh. William Wallace put much weight in prophecies, particularly those of Highland women. Wallace would like very much to know the identity of that king. Margaret need only provide her mother’s description of the king in the vision to compensate James for his trouble. He had therefore decided that escorting her to Perth would benefit both of them.
But with Roger Sinclair’s return, James would not likely be escorting Margaret anywhere. Curse the man and his belated attention to his wife.
It was not merely the timing that bothered James. Margaret had been of much help to him in gathering information, anything from overheard conversations between English soldiers to the names of women from the town who visited the castle garrison. He worried that Roger might persuade her to change sides, abandoning Balliol for the Bruce, and if she did, she might share information with him. James wanted to believe that her sense of honour would prevent her from betraying him, but love often pushed people beyond moral behaviour.
It all put James in a foul mood and, though it was the middle of the night, he woke his servant to fetch him wine and a cold repast.
Voices raised in anger woke Margaret. They were so loud that her heart raced as she peered out of the bed curtain. The room was empty, the argument now more clearly down in the yard. One of the voices was Murdoch’s. Someone had arrived yesterday – the English servant. And what of his master? She realised with a start that she had neither met him nor resolved whether to let them stay. The light streaming in through the slatted shutters alarmed her. She could not think why Celia had not roused her much earlier.
But a hat on one of the hooks and a leather travelling pack on the chest jogged her memory. Roger was here. Had she not seen his things in the room she would have thought his return a dream. Yesterday afternoon had been like any other. She’d had no premonition that her wait of almost a year was about to end, not even a fleeting thought that Roger might appear. In fact, of late she had ceased to pray for either his safety or his return, an omission born of resentment. She was not even twenty and condemned to the chaste life of a nun while her husband yet lived. Though he might never venture near her, she was condemned to await his pleasure while he might change his name and marry or bed as many women as he pleased – or so she had come to think over the past year, usually in wakeful hours before dawn.
And now he’d arrived, pledging his love, teasing her with passionate play, promising … what? No more than he had promised on their wedding night, to be a good husband. She had told him she did not understand what he meant by ‘love’ but she might have added ‘husband’.
About one thing she was adamant – she would not let his return erase the strength she had gained in his absence. Nor would she withdraw her support from John Balliol. With that resolve she forced herself to rise and begin her day. Her eyes burned and her face was tender from Roger’s scratchy beard. Worst of all, she had been left unsatisfied and abandoned, as if he’d opened his eyes this morning and realised she was the wrong woman.
Celia knocked – her timing was uncanny. After pulling her crumpled shift over her head, Margaret called out for the maid to enter. As the door swung open the arguing voices grew louder.
‘With whom is my uncle debating so long and loudly?’
‘English soldiers,’ said Celia. ‘They are carrying out orders to board up the High Street door to the tavern and guard the yard entrance.’ She glanced at Margaret, then quickly averted her eyes. ‘The tavern is shut.’ She shook out Margaret’s dress.
Margaret turned her back to Celia to receive the gown overhead. ‘Shut?’ This was disturbing news. ‘Uncle feared this would happen. Does it have something to do with that stranger who arrived yesterday?’
Celia looked confused. ‘Stranger?’ She shook her head as if she didn’t know whom Margaret meant. ‘The soldiers say it’s because of Old Will.’
‘Old Will,’ Margaret whispered. ‘They searched his rooms and now they close the tavern.’ She turned back to Celia. ‘Why has death stirred them like no other among us? Who do they think he was that they find him so important in death?’
Celia stole another glance. Her pained expression was like a mirror held to Margaret – she must look as ragged as she felt.
‘Whatever their reasoning,’ Celia said, ‘they are eager. While your uncle argues with one, the other soldiers make haste with the carpentry. But I don’t believe their mission surprised him. Your uncle and Hal were up before me, loading a cart in the dark.’
So her uncle had another hiding place. Margaret should have guessed. As she stretched out her arms for the sleeves she asked, ‘Where did you sleep?’
‘The east chamber up here – I thought I should be near.’ Celia worked at the laces, her fingers cold. ‘But I woke at every sound.’
‘Where did you put Aylmer, the English servant? And what of his master?’
‘Oh! Master Roger did not tell you the man is his servant?’
Margaret could not believe it. Even in her father’s house they’d never had such a well-spoken, well-dressed servant. ‘No, he said nothing of him.’
‘I put him in the other house. He and Master Roger were up early, out in the town.’ Finished with the sleeves, Celia looked Margaret in the eye. ‘Are you well, Mistress?’
Margaret wondered just how bad she looked. ‘I am tired, that is all.’
When dressed, she went out, avoiding her uncle and the soldiers while she looked for Hal. She could not help but notice when passing them that the English soldiers had begun to look shabby, and in fact one wore a tunic so large for him that he’d tucked the hem into a wide belt so it didn’t drag in the mud. They’d not looked so when they’d marched into Perth the previous summer. It gave her a little hope, or at least the satisfaction that they, too, suffered deprivation. She found Hal in the stable, combing Murdoch’s sable-coated cat.
‘Agrippa wanted to hide fro
m the soldiers,’ Hal said to the ground.
Heavy-lidded green eyes watched Margaret approach, then closed as she gently touched Agrippa’s round, silky head. ‘He is calm now,’ she noted.
Hal nodded. ‘The master’s voice, though it be angry, reassures him.’
‘What do you know about my uncle’s movements with the cart?’
‘Celia must have told you.’ Hal nodded. ‘I saw her watching from above.’
‘I wonder who else saw you.’
Hal shrugged. ‘The master wanted the cart brought round to the close after curfew, when I’d seen no one about for a good while, but long before dawn.’ Hal raised his head and she saw by the slackness of his young face how weary he was. ‘I helped him load barrels and trunks, and then he led Bonny away down the backland. I was to watch a good while to see whether someone might think it safe to run off and report him. I saw no one.’
Margaret’s petting inspired a loud purr from Agrippa.
‘What is to happen to us, Dame Margaret?’ Hal asked. ‘With the tavern shut, Master Murdoch will have no need of me.’
The cat jumped away.
‘I don’t know, Hal. Have you any kin?’
He shook his head.
Margaret had begun to reach for his hand, but thought better of it, and glad she was, for at that moment Roger and Aylmer appeared, leading their horses. Hal stepped forward to relieve them of the beasts.
Handing Hal the reins, Roger swept off his cap and bowed low to Margaret. ‘How goes my lady this fine day?’
‘With the soldiers about it is hardly fine,’ she said, noting once more the change in his appearance, the hollows in his cheeks, the grey-flecked hair. ‘You cannot have missed them.’
‘I am only surprised they left it so long.’
Margaret was unsettled by the warmth in his eyes as he looked at her. ‘They seem to allow you much freedom at the gates,’ she said.
‘We came through Blackfriars’ to Potter Row and then down the backlands. Unfortunately, one of the soldiers saw us. He said nothing, but he will to his superiors. It is best that we leave soon.’
So already he planned his escape from her.
‘Would you not rather bide at home in Perth?’ he asked. ‘You said you’ve lost sleep for worrying about Fergus. And you are right, he is too young and lacks the experience to deal with such problems.’
‘I had no choice but to leave him there alone,’ Margaret said, suddenly feeling defensive. So Roger meant to send her off to Perth. Damnable man, meddling with her plans.
Aylmer joined them.
‘This is my manservant, Aylmer,’ Roger said.
Aylmer bowed. ‘Dame Margaret and I have met.’
‘Of course,’ said Roger.
Aylmer was a little taller than Roger and of a muscular build, but his moon-shaped face was unscarred, so Margaret did not take him for a soldier, or thought he had not been one for long. His speech was more like James’s than Roger’s. She guessed him to be part of Robert Bruce’s household, particularly with such an English name.
‘Well, what do you think of riding to Perth, Maggie?’ Roger asked. ‘Murdoch has his Janet, and no tavern. He’ll have little need of you.’
‘Who would escort me?’
Roger gave a surprised laugh. ‘We would ride together, Maggie. I do not mean to leave you here among the English.’
Margaret glanced over at Hal, saw his arm pause over one of the horses. ‘I must consider,’ she said.
‘Consider?’ Roger cried. ‘It is decided, Wife.’
She would be damned if she would be ordered about. But she checked her impulse to take issue with his declaration when she noted Aylmer’s sly smile. They would discuss this in private.
Fergus learned that only two of his father’s former clerks were presently near Perth. John Smyth, who had been dismissed under suspicion of theft, lived a few miles out in the countryside. Fergus did not think it wise to prime a thief’s memory of his da’s business with questions about records. The other clerk was now employed by Elcho Nunnery.
Elcho – Fergus’s face burned with the memory of his humiliation there. He cursed his mother for sending a messenger warning him on one day, then refusing to see him the next. Considering that she had been well enough to walk along the river the night of the intruders, he guessed her sudden illness was either from the damp or from the lethargy that came over her after a vision, and far more likely the latter. Often as a child he had crept in to see what horrible spots or sweats she suffered in one of her frequent illnesses and never had he witnessed anything more frightening than her sleeping with her eyes opened.
But he had a right to hear what she knew, no matter how exhausted she was. It was her interference that had trapped him in Perth. He resolved that he would return to the nunnery and refuse to leave until he had spoken to her. He had his rights. And while he was there he would talk to his father’s former clerk.
Dame Katrina, the hosteleress, received him, tactfully making no mention of his previous abrupt departure. He explained his double errand, impressing on the elderly nun that he would stay as long as he must to speak with his mother. She sent a servant to inform Dame Christiana of his presence and to fetch the clerk. Even she did not believe his ma would agree to see him at once.
The clerk was an elderly man who had worked for his father when Fergus was a child. He described a leather-bound casket, the type often strapped behind a saddle, in which Malcolm had kept his private papers.
‘Oft times he sailed with it,’ the clerk said, ‘but I recall a time when he left it in the keeping of Father Stephen, late of St John’s in Perth.’
Fergus recalled the small chest of which he spoke and was almost certain his father had carried it with him when he’d departed. Perhaps there was nothing of substance to be found at home or in the warehouse.
After the clerk had returned to his work, Dame Katrina brought Fergus a plain but filling midday meal, with a mead so sweet he was still sipping it with pleasure in mid-afternoon, when his mother at last appeared. She bowed slightly to him, and Marion, close behind, said that he should join his mother out in the garden. One of the guest-house servants already held open the door.
Fergus gulped the last of the mead and followed.
His mother settled on a bench in the sun. Though her gown was a simple cut it was of fine wool, a blue-grey to match her eyes. Her veil and wimple were white and completely hid her red-gold hair. Fergus was sorry for that, but he supposed she felt more a part of the community so clothed. Even so, she was beautiful.
She proffered a hand and smiled a little at Fergus’s greeting, then patted the bench beside her.
‘Come, my son. Sit beside me and tell me how you bide upriver.’
‘You know how, Ma. The houses were searched before your messenger arrived to warn me. Who is searching, Ma, and for what?’
‘Fergus, Fergus, you have ever been hasty in speech and too quick to anger. Calm yourself. Speak first of the little things. Give people ease before you attack them.’
He knew his approach was clumsy, but she made it necessary. Years of being diverted by her had forced him into blunt tactics. She had made him tenacious. Gathering his mental armour about him, he sat down beside her and took her hand. Here her age had begun to work, enlarging the joints, raising the veins. He was sorry for that too.
‘How goes the household?’ his mother asked, easing her hand from his and angling herself so she might see his face.
‘Jonet and I are managing, though we have not enjoyed meat in some time.’
‘You were never one for the hunt.’
‘Ma, there are soldiers in the wood – ours and theirs.’
‘Ours and theirs? You mean the Scots and the English?’
‘You know that I do. Do you have any idea what documents someone is after?’
‘Do we know they are after documents?’
‘That is what they searched through in both houses,’ Fergus said, relieved that she had
at last addressed the matter, though her eyes looked vague. ‘Did they not search for them here?’
‘It was impossible to ken what they hoped to find, or what they took. But they have not returned, praise God.’
‘You might better praise the prioress,’ Fergus said, ‘engaging her kinsmen in standing watch over Elcho’s gates.’
His mother reached out, touched his knee. ‘What? She has set guards at the gates?’
‘She did not tell the community?’
‘Perhaps the others, but not me.’ His mother covered her face with her ageing hands for a moment, then pressed her palms together and bowed her head, murmuring a prayer.
‘You had not thought there might be further danger?’ Fergus asked. He should not be surprised by his mother’s lack of comprehension, but he had thought that seeing her belongings tossed about, and considering the state of the kingdom, she might have understood that she was in danger.
‘Dame Agnes believes that my visions are personal,’ she said, ‘that they do not apply to others and so I am wrong to share them. Yet she seemed angry that I had not gone to her at once when I woke with a vision of intruders.’
‘Were you frightened?’
‘Yes. So frightened that I ran out of the postern gate down to the river. I feared that they were at my heels, ready to – But when at last I stopped I realised that it could not be real, because Marion had not awakened. Do you see? I had no cause to rush to Dame Agnes.’
