by Faris, Fiona
These are the sort of men Lady Margaret would mate me with, she thought. Men who fight, the aristocracy in the order of things. Elizabeth felt frail and shy in the presence of such bull-like men and was at the very same time both thrilled and awed by their powerful virility.
“Shall I take Nicholas away, my Lord, to let you discuss your business?”
Gilbert eyed the boy thoughtfully, though just for an instant.
“No, Nicholas has earned the right to attend council with his display of swordsmanship in the courtyard earlier.” Gilbert took up a pitcher and poured a small splash of wine into his son’s beaker of water. “James! I believe you’re to be commended for training such a bonnie fighter.”
Nicholas beamed with pleasure through sleepy eyes. He must have thought he had died and gone to Heaven. Elizabeth smirked.
The men laughed in complicity and Aonghas slapped the boy heartily on the shoulders, almost dislodging him from his seat.
“Cuimhnich an-diugh, ach seall air adhart – Remember this day but look ahead,” he told him with deep solemnity.
Elizabeth shrank into a small silent presence that, she hoped, would not intrude upon the bonhomie of the men.
“Will you take another draught, Lady Elizabeth?” Matthew asked, taking up the pitcher as swiftly as Gilbert laid it down.
Elizabeth inclined her head. Matthew caught and briefly held her eye as he filled her cup. A small butterfly fluttered in Elizabeth’s stomach. She blushed and returned a coy smile.
“Thank you, sir,” she said, before dropping her eyes to the table again.
The men began to talk of the continuing war in Ireland and in the north of England, which was being fought to keep up the pressure on Edward II to concede a favorable settlement in the peace negotiations at Northampton, but also to further King Robert’s vision of a Greater Scotia, uniting the kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland under Bruce rule. As they talked, they drank and picked at the remnants of the feast on the table. They also talked of the Disinherited and their plans to restore the Scottish throne to the Balliols.
“Do you think there is any danger here from that quarter, my Lord?” James asked.
It was Aonghas who answered, his voice a deep garrulous rumble.
“There is talk of them having men trying to stir up sedition in the heartlands of the Balliols and Comyns. They might have some joy in Galloway, where the Balliols still have some followers, but here in Formartine, we roup’t the Comyns during the Harrying. I doubt they could raise a rabble here in the northeast.”
“I agree,” Gilbert said, “but it would do no harm for us to remain vigilant. The Disinherited have spies and provocateurs everywhere; we would not want them to be making any mischief, however little, especially when all the king’s attention must focus on the Irish and English campaigns.”
As the conversation proceeded, Elizabeth found it more and more difficult to follow its thread. Matthew kept replenishing her cup. She resolved several times to drink no more, but she relished the velvety smoothness of the thick red wine on her tongue, its sweet syrupy flavor, the warmth of it slowly suffusing her veins. The wine, combined with the heat in the hall and the perfumed scent of the beeswax candles burning in their sconces on the walls, and in the iron candlesticks the maids had brought and placed on the table, lulled her into a sumptuous drowsiness that weighed heavy on her eyelids.
Her attention drifted from the men’s words and she reflected instead on how comfortable her life had become at Slains, a far cry from the harshness of the streets of Peebles she had lived on as a child and the cruelty of her later life as an orphan drudge in the King’s Castle. She longed to snuggle beneath the comfort of her fresh, clean sheets and warm blankets, safe from harm, her stomach full.
Elizabeth yawned.
Gilbert smiled at her indulgently.
“I think it is time that you took my wee lieutenant off to bed, Elizabeth,” Gilbert remarked, nodding at Nicholas, whose arms lay folded on the table head, his head rolling on top of them.
She met the eye of Matthew, the youngest of Gilbert’s three lieutenants, and he raised an amused eyebrow in return.
“The very youngest, I meant,” Gilbert added with a grin, noticing the exchange between them and realizing the unintentional innuendo he had made.
James and Aonghas shook their heads and chuckled into their flagons.
Elizabeth swallowed the embarrassment that rose in her gorge and blushed profusely.
She stood and lifted Nicholas into her arms, where he immediately fell asleep against her breast, his head on her shoulder, his bare thighs soft and warm beneath her arm, the soft regular pulse of his breathing on her neck. Bidding the men a good night, she bore her little knight into the passageway by which Margaret had previously withdrawn.
As she passed through the doorway, she ventured a glance back towards the high table and caught Matthew Fitt watching her, a small smile of enchantment playing on his lips.
The narrow passageway between the hall and the spiral staircase that led to the family’s private apartments was dim and dank. Behind her, Elizabeth was pursued by the roars and laughter of the castle folk as the ale and wine liberated their spirits from their grim lives of toil and constant fear of plague and hunger and war. For most of them, Elizabeth reflected, feasts such as the one they were enjoying so raucously were a brief respite from their daily woes and the ever-present specter of death that stalked them. It was part of a lady’s care to provide her people with such moments of succor.
Elizabeth drew in a hiss as her elbow scraped the rough stone of the passage wall. The space was constricted, but the air was blessedly cool after the muggy heat of the crowded hall. She thought again of the cool linen sheets that awaited her in her chamber, the soft silence of the night, and the inviting arms of slumber.
“A good night to you, Lady Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth gave a little gasp and a start as Sanderson slid from the shadow at the foot of the stairs and blocked the end of the passageway.
“Mister Sanderson,” Elizabeth whispered her reply, once she had regained her composure.
Sanderson jerked his chin at the sleeping child that clung to her breast, his arms hooked around Elizabeth’s neck, and his knees clamped to her sides, beneath her arms.
“We maun be careful not to wake the lad.”
Elizabeth took a step forward to indicate that she would pass.
“Aye,” she whispered. “The poor wee soul’s exhausted. He needs his bed. If you would just be so kind…”
But Sanderson continued to bar her way. He took a step towards her until they were but a few inches apart and lifted his arm to plant the flat of his hand on the wall beside her head. Elizabeth twitched her face away from the odor of his stale sweat and the reek of wine on his fetid breath.
“I am sorry that you have been jilted by yon Comyn chiel.” He frowned.
Elizabeth looked at him sharply with alarm.
“It fair breaks my heart to see you traikin’ up to yon auld shieling every other day, with your wee posy of flowers, only to traik back down again, sair disappointed.”
Elizabeth’s eyes flashed with fury in the semi-darkness.
“Have you been stalking me, you ugsome auld ghoul?” she asked, the words coming out like a hiss, as a shiver wriggled down her spine at the very thought of it.
He grinned and began to croon softly, mockingly:
“Oh, who's the bride that carries the bunch
O’ thistles blintering white?
Her cuckold bridegroom little dreads
What he shall ken this night.
‘Oh, who's been here afore me, lass,
And how did he get in?’…”
“Be quiet! Or you’ll wake the child.”
Sanderson chuckled.
“I trust you didn’t let him steal your virtue,” he went on, “before he threw you aside… Oh, I forgot! You had no virtue for him to steal; you lost that lang, lang syne. Didn’t you, hen? Let’s hope in
stead, then, that he hasn’t left you with bairn.”
She spat in his face.
He brought his arm down from the wall and slipped it around her waist, drawing her to him, careful not to wake Nicholas. He gripped her buttock.
“My, you’re a nice wee handful!” He breathed raggedly. “I’d still be happy to take you on, even if you were to be carrying his get.”
He squeezed and kneaded her buttock with his sharp fingers.
Elizabeth whimpered a protest and squirmed away from him as much as she could in the confined space and without dropping her precious burden.
“I’m really not surprised that he spurned you,” Sanderson continued in a breathy rasp. The country is no doubt rife with rumors about you and your provenance. As soon as he found out you were a ruined woman, he’d have dropped you like a tinker’s clarty auld clout.”
Tears sprang to Elizabeth’s eyes, and she tried to shoulder her way free and past him, but he held her fast.
“That’s the way it’s always going to be,” he assured her. “For all the Countess’ grand designs, as soon as your provenance is found out, no gentleman will countenance you as his mate. And, trust me,” he added pointedly, with a wink, “such secrets ay have a way of leaking out.”
She twisted around and put her shoulder to his chest, shielding the child, and made a concerted effort to shove past him, but he released his grip on her rump, grabbed a handful of her hair, and used his body to push her back against the rough stone.
“And how do you think the Lady Margaret would take it, were she to discover that her wee pet lamb had been servicing a vagabond,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers. “And how would Sir Gilbert react, were he to discover that that same vagabond was an enemy of the realm. You would be out on the road where you belong in jig time.”
He released his grip on her hair and traced his fingertips fondly down her tear-drenched cheek.
“But dinna fret, lassie. I’ll still take you on.” He outlined her lips with his grubby fingers. “My proposal still stands. Think on it.” He dropped his hand and stepped to the side. “Now, away and take the laddie up to his bed and, if you’re minded, come back down and gi’e me a little something on account. I’ll tarry awhile in the storerooms.”
Elizabeth glared at him as she squeezed past him in the direction of the stairs.
“Don’t waste your time, Ewan Sanderson. Hell will freeze over first before I’d lie with you.”
As she placed her foot on the bottom stair, she could hear Sanderson snickering behind her in the semi-darkness.
That snicker was so ominous that it made her shiver as much as the memory of his touch.
Chapter Fifteen
Slains Castle
Solar
The following morning
The next morning, after she had broken her fast, Elizabeth presented herself to Margaret and Gilbert in the Earl’s cabinet in the solar.
The Earl looked tall and regal in his blood-red surcoat, trimmed with ermine. He wore yellow hose with pointed slippers, and on his head, a black velvet cap. Margaret was less ostentatious in her favorite plain blue gown, with her long silver-blonde hair woven into a thick plait at the nape of her neck. The small leaded window in the room was open, and from the courtyard below came the sound of industry being resumed after the morning meal.
“Please, Elizabeth.” Margaret smiled at her fondly. “Come and sit by me.”
She indicated to the narrow high-backed chair beside her own.
Gilbert stood by the mantelpiece, one hand gripping a lapel of his surcoat.
“Apart from the unfortunate incident of the missing ale, the household seems to have fared well in my absence, under your management,” Margaret informed her. “I am well pleased.”
“Sanderson made too much of the ale business,” Gilbert added. “Ale is forever disappearing from castle cellars; it is almost to be expected. And, forby, it was remiss of Sanderson not to have informed you when he discovered the theft. It would be unreasonable to expect you to have known of the incident without such intelligence. I have spoken to him about it, and he will not be so remiss again.”
Margaret smiled impishly.
“I suspect he was simply being thrawn because his nose was out of joint over not having been left in charge of the household.”
Elizabeth nodded but suspected there was more to Sanderson’s behavior than mere petty jealousy.
“Thank you, ma’am, milord,” she said, bobbing to both.
“However,” Margaret went on, her brow creasing, “I am more concerned by your frequent absences.” She shot Elizabeth a look of indecision. “It is true, isn’t it, that you have been taking yourself up onto the fells, unchaperoned, for hours on end, instead of attending to your duties? It is not just another libel by Sanderson to cast you in a poor light.”
Elizabeth looked down at her fingers, which she was twisting fretfully in her lap.
“I am afraid it is true, ma’am,” she murmured.
Margaret raised a look of concern to Gilbert, who shrugged impatiently as if he did not see the problem. The castle was still standing; apart from the disappearance of a few firkins of ale, the household had been managed efficiently despite Elizabeth’s stravaiging around the countryside. Where was the harm?
“And have you been… alone during your excursions?” Margaret asked.
“Yes, ma’am, quite alone,” Elizabeth replied quietly, still looking at the fingers working in her lap. Alas! she added to herself.
There was an edge of sadness and regret to her words that raised Margaret’s suspicions.
“Did… Did something happen while I was gone?” she inquired cautiously. “Something to… upset you?”
Elizabeth remained silent. Her chin dropped lower onto her chest, and her fingers worked more frantically.
Margaret let the silence that had fallen over the room mature for a few moments.
“You know that you can always confide in me,” Margaret said gently. “We are both very fond of you and would do anything to assure your happiness and well-being. You have become… well, like a daughter to me. We want only what is best for you. It is what you deserve after all you have suffered. And I have not forgotten the comfort you brought me when I was a hostage in my own home at Neidpath—”
“I met a man.” Elizabeth’s voice was a small, almost inaudible sob.
“A man?” Margaret echoed, glancing quickly at Gilbert and fearing the worst.
“He saved me from the sea. I met him later, quite by accident, by the wood above the cliffs on the edge of the moorland. He was kind and witty and… and… so gallant and well-mannered…”
“What did he do to you?” Gilbert asked ominously, his hand shifting unconsciously to the long dirk in his belt.
“Nothing!” Elizabeth cried, looking up. “He did nothing. We arranged to meet again, by the old shieling up on the fell, but… when I arrived, he was so cool and distant from me. He looked at me with such distaste, such hatred, as if I had somehow betrayed him…”
“Did he molest you?” Margaret asked, reaching out to clasp Elizabeth’s hands in her own.
“No, no… But he said the most hateful things, about me, and… and… about this family.”
Gilbert’s jaw was set tightly. A small muscle below his ear flexed.
“What was this man’s name?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Elizabeth hung her head again in shame and despair.
“Duncan, my Lord; Duncan Comyn…”
“A Comyn!” Gilbert turned away from the two women and paced his cabinet like an enraged animal. “You have been trysting with a Comyn?”
“I’m sorry, my Lord,” Elizabeth wailed.
Margaret slid from her chair. Kneeling before Elizabeth, she clasped her tight to her bosom.
The sluicegates opened, and Elizabeth melted into floods of tears against her mistress’ shoulder.
“There, there, my dear. Don’t cry so! It is no great thing. No harm
is done. You were just ill met, that is all. It is of no graver a sin than the loss of the ale… Isn’t that so, Gilbert?”
But Gilbert was elsewhere. He was gazing at the window, his brow furrowed in deep reflection.
“What?” He awoke at the sound of his name. “No, no, it is no great matter at all… A Comyn, you say…” It was almost as if Gilbert was talking to himself. “I wonder who this Comyn is and what he is doing here…”