by Faris, Fiona
“I was not aware that any of the stores could not be accounted for,” she addressed Sanderson coolly.
Sanderson spread his hands as if the evidence had been laid bare in front of them, there in the courtyard, as clear as day. Both Gilbert and Margaret were looking at her, waiting for her to account for the missing ale.
“Well, all I know is that there are two firkins of ale missing from the cellars,” he said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I can’t say whether you were aware of it or not.”
The hairs on the back of Elizabeth’s neck rose as a chill of realization ran down her spine.
He has me there, she thought. She could not gainsay him on that point. For all she knew, the ale could very well be missing. Aye, ‘For all she knew…’ That was the card that trumped her.
She felt the ground sway beneath her feet. She opened her mouth, hoping that a response would come out, though she knew not what it could be. No response came, and she let it close again.
“Perhaps,” Sanderson ventured with sly timidity, “if you had attended to your duties more diligently, rather than spent so much of your time up on the fells by the old shieling, you would have been aware of the thieving that was going on right under your nose.”
Elizabeth’s blood ran cold. How did he know she had been to the old shieling? Had he been stalking her?
“It is just two firkins of ale,” Gilbert pointed out in Elizabeth’s defense. “It is hardly a costly loss.”
Sanderson raised his eyes in surprise at his master’s uncharacteristic show of weakness.
“But, Sire, it is the precedent of the thing, rather than the thing itself. Yes, it may just be only two firkins of ale. But, if it is countenanced, then who knows what more may be encouraged and where such leniency might end? It may be two firkins of ale today and a kist of silver tomorrow. You know much better than I do, as a soldier and statesman, that if you give a span, they will take an ell.”
And, there, the trap is sprung, Elizabeth thought, not without a certain admiration for Sanderson’s cunning.
Her resolve melted, to be replaced with the desolation of defeat.
She ventured a glance at Margaret. Her mistress’ face was etched with disappointment, but it also bore a thoughtful look, as if she were trying to fathom the reason for Elizabeth’s lapse in diligence.
“We will speak of this after dine,” Margaret told her, before gathering up the hem of her gown and heading towards the tower house door, closely followed by her husband.
Should Elizabeth confess the reason for her frequent absences from the castle in the last weeks? Dare she? Or should she keep Duncan secret from her master and mistress, deny herself that possible mitigation of her crime, and leave them to conclude that her lapse was due entirely to their misplaced trust and her own incompetence?
Elizabeth bit her tongue. She knew full well that discovery of her unchaperoned dalliances with Duncan Comyn would land her in even deeper water with the Hays.
Just as Margaret and Gilbert reached the tower house door, with Elizabeth and Sanderson in close attendance behind them, Nicholas came scampering out. Without slowing, he threw himself at his parents, and they caught him up between them in an embrace, before setting him down on the ground again for their inspection.
“My!” Margaret said. “I swear, you have grown so much during my two months away. Look at you! You are so much taller.”
“Not as much as he has shot up since I last saw him,” Gilbert observed. “And what is that I see?” he added, indicating to the wooden sword looped through his son’s belt.
Nicholas drew his sword with enthusiasm.
“Yes, Ewan made it for me, and Jamesie has been showing me how to slash and parry.”
Gilbert took a step back, drew his own short-sword, and adopted a defensive stance.
“Let me see, then. Lay on, MacDuff!”
Nicholas swung his sword around his head and brought it slashing down towards his father’s thigh. Gilbert easily parried the blow with the flat of his blade, before bringing it up and across in a featherlight counterstroke towards Nicholas’ neck. Nicholas, however, deftly brought his blade up and deflected the counterstroke away from its target and wide to the side, leaving Gilbert’s torso exposed.
“I would have gutted you there,” Nicholas pointed out, “with my dirk… if I’d had it on me.”
“Then I’m glad you did not have it with you.” Gilbert smiled, replacing his sword in its belt-loop, “for I will need my guts for the feast. Tell Jamesie he has taught you well.”
Nicholas smiled smugly, his satisfaction at having impressed his father bubbling over into his face.
“I surely will, my Lord,” he replied with gusto. “Would you like me to fetch my dirk?” he went on eagerly. “Lizzie made it for me. She carved the handle from a heather root. It is very handsome.”
Gilbert looked over at Elizabeth, his eyebrows raised, clearly impressed.
“Did she now?”
“And who is ‘Lizzie’?” Margaret added archly. “Her name is Elizabeth; how many times need I remind you?”
“Father?”
Gilbert ruffled the young lad’s mop of light blond hair.
“Not right away,” he told him gently. “Perhaps later, after dine. I am sure it is a very fine dirk; only I’m famished, and I am sure your mother is too. Let us go in and see if you can eat as well as fight like a warrior.”
Her fondness for the family suddenly flared in Elizabeth’s breast and consumed her.
More than a pang of guilt at her being not quite honest with them stabbed her heart.
Chapter Thirteen
Slains Castle
The Great Hall
Nicholas turned and dashed through the door and up the stairs ahead of them, towards the Great Hall on the second floor. From the kitchen, adjacent to the storerooms on the ground floor, and with deep satisfaction, Elizabeth heard the clash and clatter of pots and dishes as they passed: the sounds of the feast being prepared. The scent of meat beginning to roast and of freshly baked bread wafted through the kitchen door.
At least, Elizabeth thought, I can be confident of my diligence in preparing the Great Hall for the homecoming feast. As soon as the advance riders had arrived the previous morning to announce the Hays progress, she had begun work on the preparations. She had held conference with the cook and determined the bill of fare, ensuring that the kitchen had sufficient provisions from the stores and sufficient beasts had been slaughtered. She had the old rushes gathered up from the floor and burned, the floor thoroughly sluiced and swept, and fresh rushes put down and strewn with aromatic herbs. The fire basket in the hearth had been scraped and blackened and the wall-hangings taken down and aired on the laundry green behind the main tower. The tables had been scrubbed, the table knives polished, and fresh candles of fragrant beeswax had replaced the stinking tallow ones in the sconces around the walls. Everything had been made ready with the care and attention to detail that Lady Margaret set such great store by. Upstairs, the solar had been likewise refurbished and the beds aired. Elizabeth had been determined that nothing would be amiss for the Earl and Countess’ homecoming.
She was relieved that no further fault in her housekeeping could be cast up to her.
Gilbert and Margaret, Elizabeth and Nicholas took their seats at the high table on the dais.
The rest of the household came and went in the body of the hall. Blacksmiths and fletchers, men-at-arms and grooms, stable lads and parlor maids, all milled around, chatting and laughing, while they waited for the food to arrive, their various offspring and the castle’s various hounds and ratters scurrying beneath the tables and wrestling together in the rushes. Babes suckled at breasts, and toothless old crones in wimples and shawls muttered at the whole clamjamfry under their breaths.
Gilbert and Margaret surveyed their household from their elevated position, occasionally bestowing a nod or a smile to someone who caught their eye, while Nicholas racked his brains to find some
thing to say that would bring their attention back to him.
Elizabeth’s head spun, and her ears buzzed, with the incessant babble of the castle folk. As the hall filled and grew warmer with the heat of all those bodies, the air also soured with the staleness of their body odors.
She could not wait for the feast to be over, when they would withdraw to the solar. She knew that she would have some explaining to do, and while she looked forward with trepidation at having to face the music for her lapse in supervising the stores, she also wanted to get it over with without having to disclose too much about the circumstances that surrounded that lapse. If the master and mistress delved too deeply into why Elizabeth had been neglecting her duties by spending so much time away, her secret would surely be discovered. She began to watch impatiently for the food to be brought in.
Nicholas was sitting by her side, next to his father. He was fidgeting too, his brows drawn down in anxious concentration. Suddenly, his face brightened as he remembered something that might serve to recapture his parents’ attention.
“Someone has been unkind to Lizzie,” he announced. “She was crying in her chamber but would not tell me who the rascal was; otherwise, I would have cut off his ears.”
Elizabeth’s heart leaped in her bosom. She gave a little start of fright and laid a hand on Nicholas’ arm.
“Hush now, Nicholas.”
Margaret leaned forward with concern.
“Is this true, Elizabeth? Who has upset you?”
The first platters were starting to be brought in from the kitchen. Thick steaming slices of boiled sheep’s brains and thin gray blankets of tripe, mounds of roasted pigeon and sheep’s trotters, were borne to the top table by serving girls, where the Earl and his family were afforded first pickings, before being taken on a circuit of the hall, followed by other maids bearing pitchers of wine and ale.
Elizabeth suddenly felt nauseous, not from the rich earthy aromas of the offal and game, but from the fear of being found out.She covered her discomfiture by fussing with the morsels on Nicholas’ trencher.
“It was nothing,” she assured Margaret, without meeting her eye. “I just had a falling-out with Ewan over… over some silly matter concerning the garden, that is all.” With a weak shamefaced smile, she flicked her eyes up to Margaret and quickly dropped them again. “I’m afraid I let my emotions get the better of me. I was annoyed with myself that I let Nicholas see me. Poor lamb, he must have gotten quite a fright.”
“Did Sanderson insult you?” Gilbert asked with concern. “For, if he did…”
Elizabeth’s anxiety spiked again. God forbid that Gilbert should speak to Sanderson about the matter. For then she would surely be caught out in a lie.
She blushed.
“No, no! Nothing like that,” Elizabeth quickly reassured him. “It was just a silly argument to which I overreacted. I’d had a fretful day, and my nerves were overwrought.”
She ventured a glance at Lady Margaret, who was looking at her again with that quiet, thoughtful look with which she had contemplated her before in the courtyard.
Did she suspect something? Elizabeth wondered. Margaret had always had an uncanny ability to see right through her and into the deepest recesses of her soul.
The trepidation she felt at their impending interview after dine in the solar increased. She resumed her apparent preoccupation with Nicholas’ supper.
Unexpectedly, and in a manner that was equally unexpected, it was Nicholas who came to her rescue.
“If Ewan has upset Lizzie, then he ought to be punished,” he pronounced, with a nod of finality.
Gilbert repressed a grin of amusement.
“Oh, yes?” he inquired. “And what punishment would you recommend?”
Nicholas frowned, giving the matter his full consideration.
“He should be hung, drawn, and quartered like my grandsire was,” he decided, “and the quarters hung around the castle as a warning to others not to upset Lizzie.”
“‘Elizabeth’!” Margaret cried furiously, slamming the flat of her hand down on the table. “Her name is ‘Elizabeth’. Why don’t you remember that?”
Elizabeth had given a little start and stared at Margaret in astonishment. Nicholas’ eyes swam with tears, and his bottom lip quivered, but he refused to cry.
“Margaret,” Gilbert chided softly. “The lad meant nothing by it. He does not know…”
Margaret wiped her fingers on her napkin, and then threw it onto the table and stood.
“I know,” she said, struggling to regain her composure. “I am sorry, Nicholas,” she continued, addressing her son but not trusting herself to look at him. “I should not have been so short with you.”
She glanced around the table, keeping her eyes lowered. Faint lines of strain marked her forehead and spread from the corners of her eyes.
“I fear I too am a little overwrought,” she explained, “with all the excitement of court and the travail of the journey home. I think I will retire.”
Elizabeth sprang to her feet.
“Do you wish me to attend you, milady?”
Margaret waved her solicitude aside. “No, no, I think I will go straight to bed. We will postpone our interview until the morning.”
“As you wish, milady.”
Elizabeth resumed her seat.
“Come, Nicholas,” she said, returning her attention to her charge. “Eat your meat. I don’t want a rumbling tummy keeping me awake in the night.”
Margaret walked slowly, her eyes lowered, and her hands clasped demurely across her stomach, to the private staircase that lay through a doorway to the side of the dais.
“What’s wrong with mámag?” Nicholas asked, using the Gaelic that Gilbert had been striving to cultivate in him.
“She was upset by the reminder of your seanair, your grandsire. He, too, you’ll remember, was hung, drawn, and quartered for upsetting the English king.”
Nicholas considered this with another troubled frown.
“Was my grandsire… my seanair a bad man, then?”
Gilbert gave a rueful grin.
“No more than Ewan Sanderson is,” he replied. “Like Ewan, your seanair upset people from time to time – goodness knows, he drove me to distraction from time to time with his prevaricating,” he added to himself, “– but he was killed unjustly by an evil tyrant. He was a patriot, and not a traitor like the English king said. Our good King Robert thinks your seanair was a good and courageous man, still grieves his passing, and avenged his murder.”
Nicholas remained silent for a few moments, mulling over his father’s words.
“I still think Ewan should be punished for upsetting Lizzie,” he eventually said.
“Perhaps,” Gilbert replied, “but justice demands that the punishment fits the crime, and I think hanging, drawing, and quartering poor Ewan for making Elizabeth cry would be a little unjust, don’t you think? And especially since Elizabeth has said that Ewan did not upset her all that much.”
Nicholas made a face, as he reluctantly conceded that the demands of justice outweighed his thirst for vengeance.
Elizabeth shot a quick look to where Sanderson sat in the hall, chewing his meat between the stumps of his teeth.
She was not sure she could be so magnanimous towards him.
She shivered at the memory of his cloying touch and prayed that, now that her master and mistress had returned, he would not dare to molest her again.
Chapter Fourteen
Slains Castle
The Great Hall
As the meal ended, and the maids swarmed around the tables to clear away the empty platters and replenish the pitchers of wine and ale, Gilbert beckoned his three lieutenants from the body of the hall with a twitch of his fingers.
James Robertson, Matthew Fitt, and Aonghas MacNeacail, all in knee-length mail tunics and yellow and red surcoats – the colors of the Bruce – saw his signal and made their way up to the high table.
“Come and join me, men, for
a few flagons.”
The men mounted the dais with long, purposeful strides, their mail clinking softly with each step. Elizabeth could smell their musky male odor as they passed her, and her heart louped like a doe in the forest. Aonghas, the oldest and most senior of the three, took the seat on the Earl’s right hand, which had been vacated by Margaret; James and Matthew sat opposite him with their backs to the lave in the hall.
These were real men, Elizabeth reflected, hardened warriors, with weathered faces and battle-scarred hands, their strength evident in the unhurried self-confidence with which they carried themselves, in how they planted their feet surely and firmly as they strode across the dais, as if they were marching fearlessly into battle, or would not be gainsaid in their claim to the ground on which they trod, and how they lifted their seats from the table as lightly as if they were made of straw rather than the heavy oak wood that Nicholas could hardly scrape across the floor.