Their journey to Edinburgh had taken almost three days’ riding in a leisurely fashion with several stops each day. But with hard riding, they reached Brae Aisir just as the dark fell the next evening. Going through the village, Maggie felt contentment at the sight of the lights burning in the cottages and some of the clan folk seated outside gossiping in the mild night air. They had sent a man ahead to advise the keep of their arrival, for the drawbridge had already been raised for the night. But as they rode up the hill road, it was slowly lowered, creaking and groaning mightily until it fell into place across the moat. Their horses clomped across the wooden bridge and into the courtyard.
Dugald Kerr was awaiting them. “Welcome home!” he greeted them.
Maggie jumped from her horse’s back and ran to him. “Grandsire, wait until ye hear of our adventures! Fin is the cleverest man alive and has done the Kerr-Stewarts a great service. Kerr-Stewart! Is not the sound of it grand? That’s what Fin called us in the king’s presence.” She hugged him, kissing his rough cheek. “Tell me that ye like it.”
“I do. I do!” the laird told her. “But come into the hall now so ye may tell me everything that transpired. Ye look tired, Maggie.”
“I am, but it doesn’t matter. I am so glad to be home, Grandsire!”
Learning they had eaten little since their departure from Edinburgh, Busby, the majordomo, saw that plates containing bread with cheese and meat were brought into the hall along with wine. Grizel and Archie had already disappeared, leaving Maggie in the hall with her husband and her grandfather. Dugald Kerr listened as Maggie recited the news of their adventures.
“Ye didn’t see the queen?” he asked.
Maggie shook her head. “Only King James, and he looks so sad.”
“Yer granddaughter touched the royal heart by weeping and declaring that the queen’s condition was not fair,” Fin told the laird. “I never knew James could be touched, but he was. I think she may have gained favor with him, which may be to our advantage one day.”
“I didn’t do it for that!” Maggie declared vehemently.
“I know, but I also know the king’s reputation. He doesn’t forget a fault or a slight, but he also remembers a kindness. I imagine all about him have been declaring their false sympathy while at the same time slyly seeking his opinion on the sort of new wife he would like. Courtiers say what they know is expected of them in order to gain grace and favor. Maggie, however, just ushered into the king’s presence for the first time, wept for a king she didn’t know, and a queen she will never know. Her sweetness reached out to him. When we departed the castle, he kissed her on both cheeks,” Fin told the laird. Then he turned to his young wife. “Someday ye may need a favor from the king, Maggie mine. I suspect he will remember ye and grant it.”
The laird nodded. “Aye, ’tis possible he will.”
“I want nothing from the king,” Maggie declared.
“Ye may one day, and if not for yerself, for one of yer bairns,” Dugald Kerr remarked sagely. “Having yer king’s favor is nae a bad thing, lass.” He looked to Fin. “Ye did well, my lord. I am now more convinced than ever that ye will be a good master for Brae Aisir, and our clan folk. Regaining our full rights when the king’s daughter marries one day was extremely clever. And now that all is settled, I should like ye both to work harder on giving me a great-grandson. I am not young and cannot live forever.” He sighed, and then seemed overcome by a bout of severe lassitude.
Fin wanted to laugh, especially as Maggie flew to her grandfather’s side. The laird was a sly old man determined to gain his way in this matter. Fingal Stewart suspected Dugald Kerr was going to live for many a long year. He kept his thoughts to himself, instead saying he thought it was time for them to retire for the night given the lack of sleep they had suffered over the past few days. The laird heartily agreed, and so Fin took his wife to bed in order that they might do their duty by Brae Aisir.
In mid-July, a royal messenger rode to the Borders announcing the death of Queen Madeleine on the seventh day of the month. She had died in the king’s arms, the messenger confided, on the night he spent in the hall at Brae Aisir. Madeleine de Valois had been a month shy of her seventeenth birthday. They had buried her at Holyrood Abbey next to the palace of the same name where James Stewart had so desperately wanted to bring his bride. The king was in deepest mourning now, and he would speak with no one other than his confessor. But the hunt had begun for a new queen. The king was twenty-five years old, and while he had no shortage of children—six sons and two daughters—he had no legitimate heirs. A new queen was needed as quickly as she could be found, and once again the hunt turned to France. It was important to maintain the French and Scots alliance against the English. There was only one woman whose birth and breeding made her suitable to be James Stewart’s queen. He had considered her previously. It was the beautiful widowed Duchess de Longueville, Marie de Guise, who had birthed two sons for her deceased husband. The Scots diplomatic mission set forth to France.
But Henry Tudor, having divorced one wife, and beheaded a second, had just lost his third queen, Jane Seymour, to a childbed fever. In the market for a fourth bride, he sought to block his nephew from obtaining an important French wife. The English ambassador set forth to press King Henry’s suit for Marie de Guise’s hand. Still in mourning for her husband, the lady was not pleased by either suit. England’s, however, she dismissed immediately.
“I may be a large woman,” she was overheard saying, “but I have a little neck.”
Similar reactions came from other noble ladies being considered by King Henry.
French king François I did approve of a union between the duchess and James Stewart. He sent to the duc de Guise saying he wanted a match between the Scots king and the duc’s widowed daughter. Marie de Guise was distressed by the news. She was not against remarrying, but the thought of leaving her country was not pleasing to her. And there was the matter of her sons, who would have to remain at Longueville as they were their father’s heirs.
Neither the duc de Guise nor his widowed daughter could refuse King François’s wishes. The duc, however, delayed giving the king the expected answer so his daughter might have time to accept what was inevitable. It was then that James Stewart came out of his mourning. His lovely Madeleine had been dead for six months. He had no choice but to take a new queen, to sire an heir for Scotland. He personally wrote to Marie de Guise in his own hand asking her for her advice concerning his dilemma, saying he hoped very much that she would become his queen. They knew and respected each other, which was as excellent a beginning as any for a good Christian marriage, his missive pointed out.
The correspondence was thoughtful and respectful, even tender. It was James Stewart at his most charming, which he could be when he chose to be. Marie was both pleased and touched by the king of Scotland’s letter, for she knew how much he had loved her cousin, Madeleine. His offer was an honorable one, and the fact he had come to her personally rather than leaving it all to the diplomats, King François, and her father, was pleasing to Marie de Guise. It showed a modicum of respect for her, for her position as one of France’s premier noblewomen. He made her feel as if the choice was really hers.
She acquiesced gracefully. She knew she would be remarried no matter her own wishes. She remembered James Stewart from their brief encounter the previous year. She realized that she actually liked him. He was quite handsome, educated enough, and from what she had heard and been told, he was a king who knew how to rule. Better his wife and his queen than she be wed at her own king’s command to some stranger. Scotland might be a rough, cold land, but she would be its queen, and being a queen was no small matter at all. And she would be helping her own native land by keeping the old alliance between Scotland and France a strong one. May 1538 was the date set.
By the time this news had trickled into the Borders, it was past Twelfth Night. Maggie had found herself pregnant late the previous summer, and she now awaited the birth of her first chil
d, who would be born sometime at the end of March. She did not like being with child. She was not allowed to ride or to practice arms in the keep yard. Her grandfather and her husband treated her like some delicate creature. She found them both extremely annoying. The past few months had not been pleasant ones for the inhabitants of the keep as Maggie constantly made her displeasure with them all known.
“The bairn will be born colicky,” Grizel said. “Yer dissatisfaction will distress it.”
“At least ye don’t predict the creature’s sex like Grandsire and Fin,” Maggie said irritably. “It’s the lad this and the lad that. Did it ever occur to either of them that I might birth a daughter? And I suppose if I do, they will both be waiting to see how quickly Fin can get me with another bairn. I hate this! All of it!”
“It’s a wife’s duty to give her husband an heir,” Grizel said as she had said probably a hundred times before. Her mistress had not had an easy time of it, and she wasn’t in the least surprised that a girl used to being so active should object to being cocooned as Maggie was being cocooned. She had been horribly sick during the first months of her confinement. When she had felt better, they had attempted to stop her from walking out of doors for fear she would harm the child in her belly. It was ridiculous, and Grizel had said so very firmly. Then she had been allowed this small form of exercise daily, but it wasn’t enough for someone as active as Maggie had always been.
“See to yer duties in the hall,” her grandsire had advised her.
“The household is under control,” Maggie replied in a tight voice. “And if ye suggest that I sit at my loom one more time, there will be murder done in the hall this day!” Maggie said, glaring.
“I don’t remember yer mam being so difficult or yer grandmother,” the laird said.
Her belly was enormous to her eye. The little dent in her navel holding the remnants of the cord that attached her to her own mother in the womb was now thrusting forth. The only comfort she seemed to obtain came strangely from the wretched man who had put her in this untenable position. Fin did not sleep with her now, but he would come to her bedchamber each night, sit upon the bed, and rub her feet and ankles for a good hour. His actions were the only thing that kept Maggie from killing him so he could not put her in this position ever again.
One afternoon when Maggie had actually managed to walk as far as the village, Midwife Agnes came to her. She had heard of Maggie’s dissatisfaction. “There is something ye can ingest after ye give birth to prevent another bairn until yer ready for one,” she said in a low and confidential voice.
“Don’t let Father David hear ye,” Grizel cautioned. “And what do ye know about such things, Agnes Kerr?”
The midwife barked a short laugh. “I’ll keep to my business, Sister Grizel, and ye keep to yers,” she said.
“I want it!” Maggie said. “Oh dinna fret, Grizel, I’ll give Brae Aisir more bairns. But I don’t want to have a big belly every year. My lord is both a potent and an enthusiastic lover.” Hearing a creaking noise, she turned. “Jesu!” she swore, for someone at the keep had sent a pony cart to return her up the hill. “I can walk, damn it!”
Chapter 9
The spring equinox came. The days were longer and brighter. On the last day of March, Maggie gave birth so quickly that there was no time, Grizel later complained, for any proper preparations to be made. Not that they weren’t ready for the child. The old carved oak cradle had been brought from the attic to be dusted and polished. A new feather and down mattress had been sewn for it. There were swaddling clothes, and tiny gowns ready for the baby.
Maggie had slept fitfully, for her back ached fiercely. Finally as the sun began to rise, she called to Grizel, who had been sleeping on the trundle. “I need wine,” she said, “to ease the pain in my back.”
“Yer in labor,” Grizel replied. “I’ll send for Agnes,” and she did.
The midwife came to find Maggie, groaning, her pretty face all squinched up. Quickly she whipped off the coverlet and gave a shriek. “The bairn has gotten itself almost out,” she cried. “Push down, my lady, and finish it,” Agnes said.
Maggie took a deep breath and then pushed as hard as she could, giving a shriek as she did, for she felt her body relieving itself of its burden. And then to her astonishment she heard the cries of an infant. She had been half sitting against her pillows. Now she leaned forward to see what she might see.
The midwife was lifting the bloodied baby up, her face wreathed in a broad smile. “Ye’ve done yer duty, Mad Maggie Kerr. ’Tis a lad, and no mistake about it,” she said.
The door between her chamber and Fin’s was suddenly flung open. Her husband stepped into the room. “I heard a cry,” he said. “Is all well here?” He looked about him.
“Yer the father of a fine lad, my lord,” Agnes said, holding the squalling infant out for him to see. “Let’s get him cleaned up and properly swaddled so he may go down to the hall to greet his clan folk.”
Fingal Stewart stared at the wet and red infant in her hands. He was not used to children and thought this one rather noisy with his howling. “Maggie?” he said, turning away from the boy and towards his wife.
“For all her troubles these past months,” Grizel told her master, “she birthed the bairn easily. I’ve never seen a quicker delivery, nor has Agnes. If she hadn’t awakened me to fetch her some wine, my lady would have had yer lad without us.”
“Maggie mine,” he said, seating himself next to her, then taking her hand up and kissing it. “Thank ye for our Jamie,” he said.
“Jamie? We have not yet discussed his name,” Maggie responded.
“Why, lovey, have ye not heard yer grandsire and me in the hall these many months talking about what we would name the lad?” he asked her. “He is James Dugald Kerr, and ’twas decided weeks ago.”
“And if this bairn had been a lass?” Maggie wanted to know. She was very angry.
“Why, there was never any doubt this would be a lad,” Fingal Stewart told his wife in reasonable tones. “We needed a lad. But had my seed been weakened by ye the night I planted it, I’m certain ye would have had a name to give a female bairn.”
Maggie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The words coming out of his mouth could have been her grandfather’s. She expected the old man to speak such words. But Fingal Stewart? Her husband, who had been so fair with her until this moment? She was outraged. “Leave me,” she said in an icy voice.
The delight of his accomplishment in producing a firstborn son now clouding his judgment, Fin said, “In a moment, Maggie mine. I want to take our Jamie down to the hall. Jesu! The lad has good-size balls on him for one so newborn.”
“Get out!” Maggie shouted. “I’ll not have ye parading my son about a smoky hall boasting to all who will listen. I will only allow Grandsire in this room to see him. Grizel and Agnes will spread the word as to his birth and health. And when I decide, and only then, will David be taken to the hall.”
“David? His name is James,” Fin said.
“His name is David, after my father, and after my uncle. Add James Dugald to it if ye will, but he is first and foremost David!” Maggie said firmly.
“We’ll see what yer grandsire says about that,” Fin told her.
“I don’t give a damn what Grandsire says,” Maggie snapped. “Or ye either for that matter. This is my son, my firstborn child. Ye did not carry this lad in yer belly for months on end, Fingal Stewart, nor did my grandsire. Yer contribution was to fuck me one fortunate night. And ye enjoyed it as ye always do. The rest of the work was all mine, and I will damned well have a say in naming my son. He will be baptized David James Dugald, and he will be called Davy. Now get out! My son and I need our rest. Yer disturbing us.” She waved him away even as Grizel put the swaddled infant into her arms. Maggie looked down at the baby, and was suddenly overwhelmed with a rush of love for her bairn. She had hated the months she had carried him, but seeing him now here cradled against her, she knew she would face a
horde of demons to keep him safe.
“Go along, my lord,” Grizel told Fin softly. “She’ll calm down eventually. Find the laird. Tell him he has a fine new great-grandson, and the Kerr-Stewarts have an heir.”
Fin nodded. “The old man will be delighted,” he said, and then he left his wife’s bedchamber through the same door by which he had come.
“He treated me as if I were some broodmare,” Maggie said darkly. “And how dare Grandsire and he choose my bairn’s name? And did ye hear him prattling about how I might have weakened his seed and produced a lass?”
The two older women burst out laughing.
“Men can be such fools,” Midwife Agnes said. “Especially after the birth of a first son. They behave as if they have done it all themselves.”
“I want no more bairns for now, Agnes,” Maggie said. “Give me what I will need to prevent conceiving. As long as Davy retains his good health, Fingal Stewart and my grandsire will have to wait until a time of my choosing for another heir.”
The midwife nodded. “He must keep from yer bed for several weeks while ye heal and recover. If he is randy, then send him to the miller’s daughter. She whores now and again to earn a bit of coin to keep her own bairn, as her da will not help her. She was seduced by a passing peddler several years ago, and the miller has never forgiven her. I give her what I’ll be giving ye. I’ll bring it in two weeks’ time to show ye how to use it.”
Maggie nodded. “Is there a woman in the village who can serve as wet nurse to Davy? I’ll nurse him myself for a month or two, but then I would give him to another for his nourishment, for I need to get back to my own duties in the yard.”
“Yer husband and grandsire will forbid it,” Grizel warned.
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