by Fiona Faris
Both bathed from a pitcher and bowl. Then Margaret dressed in her finest celestine-blue gown and a surcoat of orange-tawny embroidered with silver fleurs-de-lys. She brushed out her hair, which reached almost to her waist, and plucked out a thin tress to plait into a narrow braid with which to circle her crown.
Joan had discarded her customary kirtle for a popinjay gown and surcoat of vert. Her unruly hair she drew back into a long flowing ponytail. She even condescended to wear stockings and shoes.
“You have remembered to put on your braies, haven’t you?” Margaret enquired archly.
Joan stuck out her tongue.
Suitably attired for the occasion, they descended to the hall.
Chapter Three
The hall had been lavishly furnished to receive Sir Simon’s guests. Late afternoon sunlight poured through the high windows on the south-facing wall, filling the high-ceilinged room with a cheerful glow. Fresh rushes had been strewn on the flagstones and sprinkled with fresh herbs. A harpist stood in the musician’s gallery at the opposite end of the hall from the raised dais on which Sir Simon, Lady Maria, and his guests already sat at the table. He tuned his instrument while the rest of the household chattered excitedly at the benches arranged in lines in the body of the hall.
As soon as they entered, Margaret wished for the ground to open up and swallow her. At her father’s table sat the same two knights that she and her sister had earlier that afternoon watched cavort in all their naked splendor in the Boat Pool.
Margaret slid a sideways glance towards Joan, who was beaming from ear to ear and breathing hungrily, and Margaret suspected not in anticipation of the food. Margaret’s heart turned somersaults as they stepped up onto the dais, approached the table, and curtseyed their obedience to their father.
“Ah, my precious gems!” Sir Simon exclaimed at the sight of them, his eyes lighting up with unalloyed pleasure. “We were beginning to think you had been lost.” He shifted in his high-backed chair, which was carved with pointed steeples, intricate arches, and biblical scenes. “Let me introduce you to our guests, Sir Gilbert Hay of Lochorwart and Sir Patrick Fleming of Boghall.”
The men’s eyes glowed ardently as they appraised the daughters of their host.
Margaret and Joan inclined their heads demurely, in acknowledgment of their inferior station and in submission to the superior sex, though Joan, Margaret noted in alarm, was desperately trying to suppress a smirk.
The knights remained seated but leaned back to bathe leisurely in the radiance of the beauty that stood before them. They took in the tall, willowy grace of the elder sister and the equally tall litheness of the younger. They could have been twins, sharing the same silvery blonde hair, duck-egg blue eyes, long limbs, and fair complexion; only, the younger comported herself with a greater athleticism and with slightly lesser grace and vulnerability than her older sibling.
“Your beauty’s fame is not exaggerated,” Sir Gilbert remarked gallantly. “Its reputation precedes you and is greatly deserved.”
At that, Joan gave a throaty purr and a feline flash of her eyes, which evoked a look of puzzled amusement from Sir Patrick. Margaret kept her eyes demurely lowered, but she could not help but smile at Joan’s impudent allusion to the earlier conversation they had overheard.
“Nicely put,” Sir Simon said. “Now, my dears, please be seated. The castle is famished and clamors for the feast to begin.”
He clapped his hands, and the serving folk began to carry in the first steaming platters.
Sir Simon occupied the center chair, with his wife seated on his right and Sir Gilbert on his left. Margaret thus noted that Sir Gilbert was the senior of the two knights – since he had been favored with the place of honor on her father’s right hand. Margaret had been placed on Sir Gilbert’s other side. Sir Patrick sat next to Lady Maria, with Joan next to him. Joan looked almost elegant, Margaret reflected approvingly, tall and lithe in her green gown. But her brow was tanned and her hands, Margaret noticed, were marked with little nicks and grazes from their misuse on the training field, cliffs, and trees.
Wine was poured from large beaked flagons, and the first courses were served.
“You keep a fine table, Sire,” Sir Patrick observed in compliment.
“Aye,” Sir Gilbert concurred. “We have lately been traveling the length and breadth of the realm and have seldom enjoyed finer.”
Lady Maria dropped her eyes and smiled contentedly at the praise. Sir Simon shifted his hand to cover Lady Maria’s where it lay on the table and gave it a warm squeeze.
“Thank you, sirs. I am indeed blessed in having such a virtuous lady as my tablemate. Lady Maria keeps my household measured.”
Lady Maria’s smile bloomed more fully, and she colored with pleasure at her husband’s words.
“Our compliments to the lady of the house,” Sir Gilbert proposed, raising his wine goblet in salute.
“Hear, hear!” Sir Patrick followed suit.
Sir Simon’s expression became mischievous.
“Of course,” he said deviously, “not having been blessed with a son, this well-run household will pass in due course to the husband of my elder daughter, Margaret.” He dug Sir Gilbert softly in the ribs with his elbow. “My hope is that she will prove as virtuous a lady as her mother has, as I am sure she will, having benefited from the tutelage of such a paragon of household virtue as Lady Maria.”
Margaret felt her spirits soar. Never had her father so openly invited the attention of a potential suitor. He had virtually handed her to Sir Gilbert on a platter, like that on which a serving wench was at that very moment proffering him a roasted pigeon.
Sir Gilbert speared one of the pigeons with his knife and transferred it to his trencher. He turned his head and caught Margaret’s eye.
“The Lady Margaret’s husband will be a lucky man indeed,” he murmured before Margaret could avert her eyes to her lap.
The look and his words thrilled her. Her heart felt like it was in her throat so that she could not have spoken even had she felt at liberty to. It seemed that her father’s dithering was at long last over and that he had designs to marry Oliver and Neidpath to Lochorwart. The prospect sent shivers down her spine, as a sudden breeze sends ripples across the surface of a pool. Sir Gilbert was indeed a handsome catch. She could just imagine him bedding her in the master bedchamber upstairs. That thought warmed her and stirred a longing in her loins.
Sir Patrick turned to Joan.
“Are you too looking forward to being wed?”
She looked him straight in the eye, boldly, and, as it were, appraisingly. He felt suddenly uncomfortable beneath her scrutiny, as if she were taking his measure, considering his possibilities.
“I fear there will be no fairytale ending for me, sire,” she replied with ironic regret. “I am but the poor goods in all of this commerce. I just hope to avoid being palmed off cheaply onto a bonnet laird as his cowherd and breeding mare. I would rather have a good strong man, of whatever station, who could meet my measure and allow me the liberties I currently enjoy of my father at Neidpath.”
Lady Maria choked on a morsel of bread. Sir Simon threw a solicitous arm around her shoulders, while Sir Patrick proffered her a goblet. Joan looked quite pleased with the effect she had provoked.
Margaret bore down a look of intense disapproval on her sister.
“Your… impertinence… ill becomes you,” Lady Maria spluttered. She gulped down a large mouthful of wine. “I apologize on behalf of my daughter, Sir Patrick, though I would disown her as any pupil of mine.”
“There really is no need,” Sir Patrick placated. “She was just giving a truthful response to the question I put to her. Maybe the impertinence lay in my question rather than in her honest answer.”
“Stuff and nonsense!” Lady Maria replied. “She is much too forward in her words. She should not have expressed herself so… so… brazenly.”
Sir Simon chuckled as he rubbed his hand deep into the hollow between La
dy Maria’s shoulder blades.
“If the fault lies anywhere, then it perhaps lies with me,” he said. “What Joan said is, of course, the truth, though she could maybe have expressed it a little nicer. Whoever marries Margaret will gain a fine lady to manage his household, while he who marries Joan will gain a fierce ally in all the travails of life, such is her nature. For the rest…” he added, waving a hand at each of them, like a shopkeeper indicating the quality of his wares, “well, you can see for yourself. They are both comely lasses.”
He smiled fondly at both of his daughters.
“In the absence of a son, I am afraid that I have indulged Joan a little,” he went on. “My good lady, Maria, might say that I have ‘spoilt’ her. From her earliest childhood, Joan always showed a propensity and aptitude for more boyish pursuits, which I have not discouraged…”
“Which you have positively encouraged,” Lady Maria corrected, shooting her husband an accusing look.
“Perhaps,” Sir Simon considered, pursing his lips. “She rides, she hunts…”
“She spars on the practice field with sword and staff, scrambles the corries in search of birds’ eggs, she consorts with page boys and others who lie beneath her station…” Lady Maria enumerated.
She runs barefoot and scuddie-arsed beneath her kirtle, Margaret silently added, and leers at knights as lasciviously as squires leer at scullery maids.
“The point is,” Sir Simon raised his voice to reassert his authority, “that we should perhaps not blame the girl for her nature, which I have shaped in my fondness for her, daft old bugger that I am. Condemn, if you will, but condemn me for my folly and not Joan for her innocence and sincerity.”
He then turned to Sir Gilbert and drew a line beneath the matter by asking:
“But what news do you bring, Sir Gilbert? What mischief is afoot in the wider world beyond our petty troubles here at Neidpath?”
Sir Gilbert leaned forward, and setting his goblet aside, placed his elbows on the table, making a steeple of his hands. This was a subject that warmed him.
“Exciting times, Sir Simon, exciting times. Great events have been taking place, and affairs are coming to a head.”
Around them, the din had grown louder as the beer and wine flowed down the throats of Sir Simon’s retainers. Shouts and laughter pealed out from the benches that lined the hall. Here and there, singing broke out in ragged clusters. Beneath it all ran a steady hubbub of chatter, while above the heads of the rabble, the dulcet trills and runs of the harp sounded largely unremarked.
Sir Gilbert, Sir Patrick, and Sir Simon drew themselves into a close huddle to make themselves heard to one another without having to be eavesdropped by the lave.
“As you will no doubt have heard,” Sir Gilbert went on, “in the last few weeks Robert the Bruce has been crowned King of Scots at Scone, as tradition demands, on the Stone of Destiny in the Earldom of Fife. The late king, John, let it be known that he would not be returning from exile to Scotland but would be contenting himself with the fruits of his estates in France. The other claimant, Comyn, of course, met his end at the Bruce’s hand at the Church of the Greyfriars in Dumfries in February. Sir Patrick’s father was with the Bruce when the deed was done – a nasty, brutal business, but a necessary one.”
Sir Patrick nodded emphatically, a grim look weighing down his features.
“With the kingdom thus united under the Bruce,” Sir Gilbert continued, “all that is left for peace to be restored is for King Robert to drive King Edward of England’s army of occupation from his realm. Then we shall be free again.”
Sir Simon pursed his lips and nodded.
“But has the Pope not excommunicated the Bruce for defiling the sanctuary of the Greyfriars with Comyn’s blood?”
It was Sir Patrick who answered.
“Aye, but letters are being prepared at Arbroath Abbey to petition the Pope to at least recognize the independence of the King of Scots from the overlordship of the King of England at least in principle if he will not yet absolve King Robert of his sin in person.”
“A subtle difference,” Sir Simon observed. “Will the petition succeed, do you think?”
Gilbert snorted.
“That will depend on the disposition of Christendom at the time it is received,” he pointed out. “King Edward is a power to be reckoned with, along with France and Spain. The Pope must maintain a balance between them, by playing the one against the other, so that none can rise to dominance and challenge the Church’s power. If the Pope thinks that Edward needs to be taken down a peg or two, he might be minded to recognize our king’s sovereignty. If not… well, he won’t much care.”
Sir Simon’s eyes were bright with excitement. He grabbed Sir Gilbert’s arm and drew him to him.
“Christ!” he exclaimed. “It is like we are pawns in a much larger game of chess.”
“That we all are,” Sir Patrick observed philosophically. “Ultimately, even our most petty domestic squabbles are part of and affected by God’s divine plan, so much of which is beyond any man’s ken. Such is the human condition. Every enterprise carries a risk.”
Sir Gilbert looked at him impatiently; such metaphysical speculations hardly advanced their mission in relation to the Frasers.
“Aye, well… the divine plan maun tak care o’ itself, as any husbandman will tell you; we hae oor ain cattle tae tend… What we want to know, Sir Simon – the reason for our visit – is whether you are with us and for King Robert?”
‘Tending his own cattle’ was precisely what Sir Simon had been up to since the dreadful tragedies befell his country. With the death of the seven-year-old Maid of Norway, the third of King Alexander’s granddaughters, and his nearest heir, several parties had advanced legitimate claims to the throne and been at daggers drawn since. Scotland had been teetering on the edge of civil war, and it was all Sir Simon could do to keep his family out of the fray. He knew that, if he threw in his lot with a losing side, his lands and titles would be forfeit and his family left destitute. Hence his endless vacillation over to whom he should marry his daughters. Marriage would create an affinity with the families he married them into; he was loath to make Oliver and Neidpath hostage to another family’s political fortunes.
Sir Patrick gleaned the misgiving that still lingered in Sir Simon’s heart.
“Your reluctance is understandable and carries no disgrace,” he reassured him. “It has been common practice over the past few years for we lesser nobles especially to be continually switching our allegiance from party to party, faction to faction, just to ensure our survival. Even the three main claimants to the throne, the Balliols, the Bruces, and the Comyns, have at one time or another submitted and sworn fealty to King Edward, to avoid forfeiture and even execution, and to ensure that they live to fight another day.”
“But,” Sir Gilbert once more took up the thread, “with the kingdom now united under the Bruce, all that is left for peace to be restored is for King Robert to drive the English from our realm. With peace restored and uncertainty removed, the lie of the land will then be much plainer, and the kingdom can prosper.”
“And hence our mission,” Sir Patrick explained.
Gilbert looked over his shoulder to make sure he was not being overheard. He did not seem overly concerned that Margaret was sitting hard by his side, privy to every word. She was but a woman, after all; she would not be understanding much of what was being spoken.
“We are on a mission from King Robert, who seeks to enlist the arm of the Frasers in the upcoming campaign against Edward’s presumption. We have been journeying around the realm to rally support for his great cause of freedom. King Robert would raise a great army to defeat the English in the open field, to make a decisive victory that would send Edward homeward once and for all.”
“So, what say you, Fraser?” Sir Patrick urged. “Will you join the king’s great cause?”
Sir Simon was beginning to feel dizzy as his head turned back and forth, from one knight to
the other. He was stirred by their passion, but his thoughts were confused. He’d had too much wine, and the noise of the hall was beating in his brains like the wings of a startled covey of quail bursting from the forest.
“I need to think more on what you have said,” he insisted, closing his eyes and raising his hands to forestall any protest. “In any case, we are boring the ladies with all this talk of politics, which they must find tedious.” He waved the whole subject aside with an impatient flutter of his hand. “We will talk further on the matter when we withdraw to my cabinet.”
“As you will, sire,” Sir Gilbert conceded.
The remainder of the meal passed in idle, inconsequential chatter. Sir Gilbert charmed Lady Maria and was gallant and attentive to Margaret’s needs. Margaret bloomed in his presence and behaved with impeccable decorum, observing all the niceties of courtly manners.