The Border Vixen

by Bertrice Small

  “I’m not some meek stay-by-the-fire,” Maggie replied, “and they should both know that. Having a bairn has not changed me one whit.”

  Grizel watched with amusement over the next few weeks as Maggie behaved with tender concern over her child. Her grandsire was so pleased with her that he acquiesced to her demand that the bairn be named David first.

  “Every firstborn son in Scotland is called James for the king,” Maggie said. “I would name my son after my father, my uncle, my husband’s ancestor. It’s fitting for the firstborn of the Kerr-Stewarts to be called David.” She cuddled the baby against her.

  The laird nodded. “Yer a clever lass,” he said.

  “I would like the king to be the bairn’s godfather,” Fingal Stewart ventured. Of late he had become wary of Maggie and her fierce moods.

  “I have no objection,” Maggie said sweetly.

  “I wasn’t certain . . .” he began.

  “Ye have but to ask me first, my lord,” she told him.

  A messenger was dispatched to Holyrood, where the king was now in residence, asking if he would consent to be David James Dugald Kerr-Stewart’s godfather. The messenger returned with an answer in the affirmative along with the news that James’s new queen would be the child’s godmother. Of course, little Davy would be baptized immediately for safety’s sake with proxies standing in for the king and the queen, who was neither even yet wed to James Stewart nor yet arrived in Scotland.

  The old laird nodded, pleased at the king’s answer. “He does ye great honor, Fingal,” he told Maggie’s husband.

  “ ’Tis not me he honors, Dugald, but yer granddaughter. He recalled Maggie’s kindness to him before Queen Madeleine died. He repays us now by giving our son powerful connections for his future.”

  Maggie smiled to herself at his words. The delight at Davy’s birth now easing, her husband seemed to be back to being a thoughtful man. The bairn was six weeks old and thriving when Maggie brought Clara Kerr into the hall as Davy’s wet nurse. Both Dugald Kerr and Fingal Stewart were surprised, but Maggie was firm in her intent. As Clara was a respectable woman who had nursed three healthy bairns, but just lost one who was born too early, the laird agreed to the arrangement. If Fingal Stewart was going to disagree, the arrival of a royal messenger put an end to his dissent.

  The king would be wed by proxy on the eighteenth day of May at the great cathedral in Paris where sixteen and a half months ago he had been wed to Madeleine de Valois. Robert, Lord Maxwell, would stand in for the king at this wedding. Then after taking time for her farewells, the bride would be escorted across the sea to her new home where she would be wed again, this time with James Stewart by her side.

  It was both a happy and an unhappy time for Marie de Guise. She had lost her younger son, the infant Louis, to a childhood illness just a few months prior. She was forced to leave her elder son, three-year-old François, the boy duc de Longueville, behind in France in their family’s care. But ahead of her was a new husband, and hopefully other children, one of whom would be Scotland’s next king.

  At Brae Aisir, Fingal Stewart was surprised to learn that he and Maggie had been invited to the royal wedding, which would take place at St. Andrews several days after the queen’s arrival in Fife. Fingal was not comfortable going, but he knew it was a request he could not refuse. The Kerrs of Brae Aisir were not important, and even his kinship with the king would not have necessarily granted them an invitation to such a stellar event. But go they would.

  “Is St. Andrews near Edinburgh?” Maggie asked.

  “Not near enough for us to stay in our house,” Fin told her.

  “Then where are we to stay?” she wanted to know. “We must be someplace with accommodation for Grizel and Archie. Someplace where our clothing can be hung so we do not attend the royal wedding looking like rough, uncouth poor relations.”

  He couldn’t give her an answer because he didn’t know himself. Archie, however, as resourceful as ever, had gone to Iver to ask whether any of the men who had come with them originally had connections in St. Andrews. To his surprise, Iver Leslie had the answer to their difficulties.

  “My late da’s brother owns an inn in St. Andrews,” he said. “I’ll send to him.”

  “Ye’ll need more than just yer kinship,” Archie said. “With the king celebrating his wedding there, there will be money to be made. Ye can’t ask yer uncle to forgo his share of the profits. Besides, if ye just send to him, he can easily refuse ye. Ye must go yerself and convince him yer master is important to the king, and must have generous accommodation not just for him, his wife and servants, but for ye and yer men-at-arms as well. I know yer a man of few words, but ye must do this for his lordship.”

  Iver knew Archie was right. His uncle had always been tight with a groat, and Lord Stewart had the coin to pay for what he wanted. It would not cost his kinsman.

  Telling his master that he would ride to St. Andrews and obtain the needed lodging, he departed Brae Aisir. Reaching St. Andrews, he found his uncle’s inn near one of the the town’s three entries, the South Gate. Iver was relieved to learn his childhood memory had not been imagination. The Anchor and the Cross was large and prosperous looking.

  Iver’s uncle, Robert Leslie, like his own father, had been born on the wrong side of the blanket in a place called Glenkirk. But he hadn’t been neglected as a child. Indeed, he had been taught to read and write and knew his numbers. When he was sixteen, he had left Glenkirk, a small purse hidden in his garments, to find his fortune. He had found it by marrying the daughter of an innkeeper in St. Andrews, working hard for his father-in-law, and was now the master of a most prosperous business.

  He greeted his brother’s son cautiously. “What do ye want?” he demanded to know of Iver. His tone was suspicious. His brother had outlived two wives so far and delighted in spawning bairns like a randy salmon struggling upstream. Most were lads who had to be provided for, and twice he had sought places for his sons, but Robert Leslie had four lads of his own to see to and could not help his sibling.

  The captain laughed. “Peace, Uncle. I am gainfully employed and have come to seek accommodation for my master, his wife, and their retinue for the time of the king’s wedding. Lord Stewart can pay handsomely for yer best.”

  “Lord Stewart, ye say. Is he close kin to the king?” the innkeeper asked.

  “The king is godfather to my master’s new son, and our new queen the godmother,” Iver replied, although he did not really answer his uncle’s question.

  “Indeed, is he now?” Robert Leslie responded. “Well, I suppose I can make room although I was holding several chambers for last-minute arrivals who would have paid handsomely for the beds. Still, a kinsman to the king himself, although God knows half of Scotland has been spawned by the Stewarts’ loving nature, is a good guest to serve.”

  Iver smiled, satisfied, drawing a gold coin from his jacket. “This will hold the accommodation for my master until he arrives,” he said, turning the sparkling coin over in his fingers several times. “Now show me the rooms you will give my lord and his lady. Then the coin is yers.”

  “Follow me,” Robert Leslie said. He led his nephew up a flight of stairs, and down to the end of a corridor. Opening the door at the end of the hallway he said, “ ’Tis the best I have. A chamber for visitors, one for sleeping, and two small alcoves for the servants. It overlooks my garden, not the street, and is quiet.”

  Iver stepped into the apartment and looked about. Each chamber had a hearth, which was good, for June could have cold nights here by the sea. But it was clean, and he doubted there was a better accommodation in all of St. Andrews. “ ’Twill do,” he said, and flipped the coin to his uncle, who caught it. “They’ll arrive on the tenth of the month. I’ll be with them. Have ye room in yer stables to sleep the men-at-arms?”

  “Aye,” Robert Leslie said, “but ’twill cost ye more, for the town will be crowded, and any space that can be rented will be.”

  “Lord Stewart has li
ved most of his life in Edinburgh,” Iver replied. “He knows the way of the world. We are agreed then?”

  “We’re agreed, Nephew. How is yer da?” he inquired, unable to help himself.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Iver admitted. “I haven’t been back to Glenkirk in at least ten years, Uncle. Yer nearer. Do ye never go?”

  “When would I have time?” Robert Leslie said. “A man cannot be the landlord of a successful and busy inn and be somewhere else. If ye haven’t eaten, come into my kitchens,” the innkeeper said, feeling more jovial now that the transaction had been concluded, and the gold coin rested in his pocket. “And make a place for yerself in the stables tonight if ye will.”

  “I’ll take the meal,” Iver replied, “but the day isn’t half over, and I can be well on my way back to the Borders by nightfall if I leave afterwards.”

  “Suit yerself, Nephew,” Robert Leslie said. “I’ll see ye next month then.”

  Iver was relieved to reach Brae Aisir several days later and report that he had secured a decent lodging for them to stay.

  Maggie, usually so sure of herself, was very nervous about going to St. Andrews. Her earlier enthusiasm had suddenly vanished. “Could ye not go without me?” she asked her husband. “Davy is just getting used to Clara’s teat, and my milk only just dried up. I haven’t got the kind of clothes one would wear to a king’s wedding.”

  “The king has asked us. I am his kin, and he likes yer kind heart,” Fingal said. “This isn’t an invitation we can refuse. We will not be among the first rank of guests, Maggie mine. The Gordons of Huntly, the Leslies of Glenkirk, they will be. And while I have avoided the subject for fear of distressing ye, the king has been very hard on several of our border families of late. The Johnsons, the Scotts, the Armstrongs, the Humes, have all suffered his wrath. Anyone he suspects of ties with the Douglases, his hated enemies, is suspect in his eyes. I will not allow the Kerrs to be touched by this behavior. We are asked to the wedding, and we will go. We may not be garbed as well as the earls and their wives, but we shall not bring shame to our name.”

  Dugald Kerr sat by the hall hearth pretending to doze, but he took in every word Maggie’s husband uttered. Fingal Stewart was a blessing to Brae Aisir. He knew that the king, unfamiliar with his kinsman, for Fin had told him so, had had no idea the kind of man he sent into the Borders to wed Maggie Kerr. Nor had he cared. He had only wanted a portion of the revenues from the tolls the Kerrs collected. And he had taken the advice of his current mistress as to whom to send. She, of course, had offered him a member of not only her family, but the king’s. It could have been a disaster. And now thanks to his granddaughter’s good heart, the Kerrs of Brae Aisir had found favor in the sight of a volatile and fickle monarch. Maggie would go to the wedding if he had to take her himself, the laird decided.

  But it was not necessary. When the time came for them to depart for St. Andrews, Maggie’s enthusiasm had returned. She bid her grandfather farewell, promising to bring him back a treat of some sort from St. Andrews. “Mayhap a medal blessed in the cathedral to help ease the winter ache in yer bones, Grandsire,” she said.

  Their trip was relatively uneventful, but as they drew near to the ferry that would take them across the Firth of Forth into Fife, the roads became more crowded with all manner of folk going to St. Andrews. Some were guests, some merchants hoping to sell their wares to the excited folk; others were pickpockets and thieves, and many were going simply to gain a glimpse of the king and the new queen. Summer was almost upon them, and the air hummed with festivity. Iver rode a little ahead of them to secure them places on one of the ferries.

  “How many?” the harbor agent demanded to know.

  “Lord Stewart, his wife, two servants, fifteen men-at-arms, twenty horses,” Iver said. “Official guests for the king’s wedding.”

  The harbor agent nodded. “Yer boat goes out on the hour. Get yer people here.” He handed Iver a small slip of parchment. “Don’t lose this. Next!”

  Iver hurried back to help lead his party to the front of the pushing, chattering crowds. He handed the chit to the seaman seeing to the boarding, and they were waved through, across a gangway, and onto the vessel. Once on board, their men-at-arms saw to the horses, leading them into a sheltered corner on the open deck. The ferry was soon deemed filled, and it was freed from its moorings to slip out into the broad estuary.

  Fin was relieved for Maggie’s sake that it was a calm sea. There was no strong wind, only enough of a breeze to help them cross the water piloted by the ferry’s oarsmen. It was a gray day, however, with a thick canopy of clouds overhead. Lord Stewart knew how both exciting and frightening the trip to St. Andrews was for Maggie. She had never been more than a few miles from her home in all her life. And then suddenly there appeared an impressive fleet of ships making its way towards the same harbor that their ferry was directing itself.

  A shout of excitement went up from the captain, and he called down from the small pilothouse where he had been, “My lords! My ladies! ’Tis the king’s fleet, and that fine vessel in the middle of it all flying the royal lion pendant is carrying our new queen. Let us have three cheers for our own French Mary!”

  And the ferry erupted. “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”

  And at the same time the ferry full of passengers saluted Marie de Guise, the sun broke through the cloud bank, a golden ray coming forth to seemingly touch the ship upon which she traveled. The ferry passengers gasped, excited, and the talk immediately began to make the rounds of how fortunate an occurrence this obvious show of God’s approval was for both King James and for Scotland.

  Their ferry reached the other shore before the royal fleet, and the passengers quickly disembarked, for there was still a ride to make to St. Andrews, and if they were not ahead of the queen and her party, they would be delayed for hours. Those in the party from Brae Aisir were swiftly on their way. As they rode to the town Fin told his wife a little about it.

  “There has been a town here for as long as anyone can recall,” he began. “There are three gates. The North, the South, and the Church. There are two ports. West Port, which opens into South Street, and the Marketgate Port. We’re entering through the South Gate. We’ll be on South Street, which has many important ecclesiastical buildings.”

  “Where is our inn?” Maggie wanted to know. “If the queen has set her foot on Scottish soil, then the wedding will be tomorrow or the day after. My gowns need to be hung so the wrinkles are removed. Of course, they will be wed at the cathedral. Is it on South Street too?”

  “We’ll pass it on the way to the Anchor and the Cross,” Fin answered her.

  “What an odd name for an inn,” Maggie remarked.

  “Nay,” Fin said. “St.Andrews is the most important church in all of Scotland, and the town is set on the sea.”

  “Aah,” Maggie replied. “I see now. And it is really more dignified than that inn we stayed at last night, the Pig and Pipe,” she laughed. “But I loved the sign there with the dancing pig playing on the bagpipe.”

  “Did ye notice the plaid the pig wore?” her husband said. “It was Hunting Stewart.” And then he laughed too.

  They passed through the South Gate, moving down bustling and busy South Street. On the north side of the byway they passed Holy Trinity Church, the oldest in St. Andrews, even older than the great cathedral up ahead. Maggie saw why St. Andrews was thought of as the religious capital of Scotland. They rode past the chapel of the Dominican Friary, the Observantine Franciscan Friary set amid a beautiful garden named Greyfriars after the color of the monks’ robes.

  The cathedral was the most magnificent church Maggie had ever seen or expected she would ever see. Its dark stone spires soared into the partly cloudy skies above the town. It had great windows of what Fin told her was called stained glass. The glass had come along with the craftsmen to make the cathedral windows from France several hundred years prior when St. Andrews Cathedral had been built. It had taken between the years 1160 and 1318 to
complete the structure. When it had been consecrated, King Robert the Bruce had been in attendance.

  “Where will the king and queen stay?” Maggie asked, curious.

  “They will be in the castle at the north end of the town on the Firth of Tay,” he answered her. “It’s not a particularly comfortable dwelling, I’m told, but the bishop has offered it to them, and there is no other place, aside from a priory guesthouse and an inn.”

  Used to either making what she needed, or purchasing it from a border peddler, Maggie was amazed by the number of shops on South Street. If there was time, she and Grizel would certainly want to at least look in some of them. Several minutes after passing the cathedral they arrived at their inn. Iver had dashed ahead to make certain all was in readiness for Lord Stewart’s party. As they dismounted in the inn’s courtyard, Robert Leslie came forth to greet them.

  The innkeeper bowed low. “I am honored, my lord, to be able to serve the king’s own kinsmen,” he told Fin.

  “I thank ye for making a place for my wife and me,” Lord Stewart answered graciously in return. Iver had told him how impressed his uncle had been with the knowledge that his nephew’s master was related to James Stewart. And Fin had understood without the captain saying another word that the depth of that relationship had not been probed, yet was accepted as significant by the innkeeper, who needed to know no more than that the king and Iver’s master were related.

  “Let me show you to your accommodation, my lord,” Robert Leslie said as he led them into the inn and up the staircase, then down the hallway to fling open the door to the guest apartment. “We aired it out this morning, my lord, and the fires are ready to start. Shall I send a maid to do it for you?”

  “My man can attend to it, thank you, Master Leslie,” Fin replied politely.

  “There is a tray on the sideboard here in the dayroom with decanters for yer wine and yer whiskey,” the innkeeper said. “Is there anything else I can do for ye now?”