by Candace Robb
‘More than a chance,’ said Andrew. ‘Surrey behaves as if he is fighting against idiots, and that his mere presence will send terror through the ranks of his opponents. We all know that isn’t true – and so do the other English commanders.’
‘Then why are you not smiling, Father?’ asked Sandy.
‘Because I have come to know the men I served, and most are good men who will be much mourned, just as those who may be lost to us this day.’
On that dour note the servants dispersed, making excuses about work that needed doing.
‘I should leave you two in peace,’ said Ada to Andrew and Maggie. ‘Matthew, why don’t you come out to the kitchen?’
Suddenly Andrew and Maggie were alone in the hall except for the young man by the fire.
‘Who is he?’ Andrew asked.
‘Archie,’ said Maggie. ‘I’ll explain about him later, after you’ve told me about your time at Soutra and the English camps. You’ve had such an adventure.’
‘I might call it many things, but not adventure, Maggie. Still, it wasn’t so horrible at Soutra.’ He told her about his friendship with Father Obert, and how he had arranged for Andrew’s release. ‘Now it’s your turn, Maggie. How did you come to be here, in the centre of the fighting?’
‘I came as a spy for James Comyn. To find out why his messenger had faltered.’ She nodded towards the young man by the fire.
‘Damn him! Why didn’t Comyn send his own kinswoman into danger – why you?’
Andrew realised he’d said the wrong thing even before Maggie snapped, ‘I chose to come, Andrew.’
What a stubborn lass she was still. ‘Aye, for you didn’t understand what you’d risk.’
‘I’m no one’s fool.’ She said it with a quiet authority.
Andrew, remembering their arguments in Edinburgh, saw how much she had matured. ‘At least you’ve had Ada,’ he said. ‘She’s a one for keeping misfortune at bay.’
But he was playing his old role with her. In truth he was feeling oddly numbed. It seemed as if he’d been moving through a dream since he’d left the camp, and he half believed that he was in the battle down below and was cruelly teasing himself with thoughts of freedom.
‘What is it, Andrew? What’s wrong?’
He tried to describe what he was feeling.
‘I should have guessed,’ said Maggie, ‘after what you said earlier, about them being good men. This is the sort of thing I want to understand, Andrew. This struggle has taken over our lives. I want to understand it.’
‘For that you’d need to talk to Balliol, Bruce and Longshanks.’ All at once Andrew was overcome by the thought of the lives that might be lost by twilight. ‘God help us.’
‘What can I bring you? We have a little ale left, and cheese and–’
Andrew held up his hands to stop her litany. ‘My body is fine, Maggie. We brought some provisions from the camp, and I shall dine with Fathers Piers and John tonight. I understand that food is in short supply in town.’
Maggie smiled at herself, and in that moment she was lovelier than ever. ‘I’m forgetting that you’re no longer the skinny boy who had to be coaxed into sitting still and completing a meal. I’m just so happy you are here. I feared so for you.’
Despite her smile Andrew saw a great sadness in her eyes, and taking her hand he told her again how sorry he was about Roger.
She took a deep breath and bowed her head. ‘I was unkind to him when last I saw him. It’s difficult to forgive myself.’
‘God would have reunited you if that was meant to be, Maggie. You risked your life to find Roger – that required more love than most wives are ever asked to give. Remember that.’ He kissed her hand and pulled her to him, kissing her forehead and holding her tightly for a while as she silently wept.
The moment was interrupted by knocking at the door. The butler emerged from somewhere in the hall – Andrew wondered how he had managed to be so invisible – and opened the door to a tiny woman.
‘I would sit with my son for a while,’ she said.
Maggie nodded to the butler, ‘Evota is welcome, John.’
As the woman entered the room she noticed Andrew and almost stumbled. While she gazed on him he was struck by the hardness of her eyes, as if she had closed them against intruders. He wondered what had made her so fearful of others.
Ada joined them. ‘Maggie will tell me all you’ve told her, I know, but I must ask how you knew we were here, Andrew.’
‘Sir Simon Montagu had a word with me last night.’
Ada winced at the mention of his name.
‘Simon,’ said Maggie. ‘I hadn’t thought to ask how you knew.’
‘It was he who told me of Roger’s death, suggesting that your son Peter might find Maggie a good match. I don’t mean to insult you, but he made it seem a threat.’
Ada crossed herself. ‘My son.’ She glanced at Maggie questioningly.
‘We’ve not yet spoken of him,’ said Maggie.
Something had both women holding their breath.
‘Has he tried to force the match?’ asked Andrew.
‘Let’s go without, get some air,’ Maggie suggested, nodding towards Evota and Archie, who were quietly pretending not to listen.
‘Yes,’ said Ada. ‘I have a favour to ask of you, Andrew.’
By now it was early afternoon, and shouts and a steady roar came from down below. The battle must be engaged. Andrew crossed himself and prayed for the souls of those who were falling. Ada and Maggie had paused at the sounds and crossed themselves as well, both bowing to pray. They were all one in this moment, shocked by the nearness of death.
The women set two benches in the shade beneath the eaves, away from the door and the one tiny window that looked out on to the kitchen and beyond to the backlands.
In daylight Andrew noticed with some surprise that Ada had at last begun to age beyond the whitening of her hair. Fine lines encircled her mouth and eyes, and her flesh had sagged a little. He wondered if his mother, too, was showing her age.
It was Ada who began. ‘I bore five children, four to Simon Montagu. Peter is the only one of my adult children I’ve met, and I will always regret that I did. He might yet be alive had I not come to Stirling.’
‘That is not true,’ Maggie interjected, and Andrew could see by the way she sat forward that she was impatient for Ada to come to the point.
But Andrew thought she had. ‘Your son is dead?’ he asked.
Ada dropped her gaze to her lap, where she was clasping her hands together so tightly that her fingernails were white. ‘Murdered. Just without this house. The boy inside fought with him, Peter withdrew to the garden shed, and while he lay there he was stabbed in the heart.’
Andrew was caught off guard by her bluntness. ‘God grant him peace,’ he whispered, and then looked up at the sky, trying to think of something comforting to say to her, but he could only wonder at their kindness to the man’s murderer. ‘Archie followed and killed him?’
‘No,’ said Maggie. ‘I don’t think Archie killed him.’
‘Have you asked?’
‘Archie’s leg was broken, Andrew. He could not have been near the shed after that.’
‘Would you say Peter’s requiem, Andrew? It would mean so much to me if you would.’ Ada was looking at him, her face composed. ‘Please don’t feel that you need to comfort me, for I did not like him. He caused much grief here in Stirling and no doubt elsewhere as well.’
‘But Sir Simon spoke as if Peter were alive,’ said Andrew.
‘He does not know. I feared what he would do, whom he would blame.’
‘Where is your son now?’
‘At the kirk.’
‘Why did Archie attack your son?’
‘Peter controlled Archie’s family with fear,’ said Maggie. ‘And Archie suspected him of murdering the woman he loved.’
Andrew looked from one to the other. ‘You’ve witnessed more horror here than I have while travelling with an army.’
; Neither woman responded.
‘Well if Archie didn’t strike the mortal blow, who did?’ Andrew asked.
‘Archie’s sister told me that Roger’s partner was looking for Peter that night,’ said Maggie.
‘Roger’s partner?’
As Maggie explained who Aylmer was, Andrew thought that he did not know half of what his sister had suffered since she’d seen him off to Soutra.
He turned to Ada. ‘Certainly I will say Peter’s requiem.’
‘God bless you, Andrew,’ said Ada.
Maggie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
They talked a little more about family matters, Maggie telling Andrew how Fergus had carried a message to Murray. ‘James says he is fighting with Wallace this day, and Hal as well.’
‘Uncle Murdoch’s groom?’ Andrew asked.
Maggie nodded. ‘He’s gifted with animals.’
‘Uncle must have been furious when he left.’
‘Only because he’ll worry,’ said Maggie. ‘He thinks of Hal as his son.’
‘What will you do now, Maggie? If we don’t win the day, if the English release the guard on the town, will you stay here?’
‘We’ll talk of that by and by,’ she said.
James Comyn had plans for her, Andrew imagined.
‘What will you do, Andrew?’ Ada asked. ‘Will you return to Sir Francis?’
‘He’ll have no need of me. I don’t know what I’ll do. I thought I’d seek Bishop Wishart’s advice.’ The bishop of Glasgow made no effort to hide his animosity towards Edward Longshanks. ‘I believe he’ll sympathise with my estrangement from my abbot.’
‘I still fear Abbot Adam,’ said Maggie. ‘Is the bishop–’
She was interrupted by a shriek. It came from the house. The servants went running towards it from the kitchen. Maggie was the first to follow. Andrew and Ada were right behind her.
The scene in the hall was very confused by the time they reached it. John knelt beside the shrieking Evota, who appeared to be bleeding from her shoulder. Archie was on the floor near her, moaning and kneading his injured leg with one hand, while in the other, which was held in the air by Sandy, he clutched a knife.
‘He’s gone mad,’ Evota sobbed. ‘My poor boy, the head wound has addled his wits. He tried to kill me!’
‘Murderer!’ Archie shouted. ‘Show her no pity, the murdering whore. She killed Johanna. Ask her. Ask her, Father! She’ll not lie to a priest.’
‘God help us,’ Maggie whispered. ‘Can it be true?’
Celia had knelt down by Evota to examine the wound. ‘It is not deep. You are in no danger,’ she told the woman.
Andrew crouched down beside her. ‘What is your son talking about?’
The woman looked up at Celia. ‘But the blood!’
‘It is the sort of wound that bleeds freely, Evota, but it is far from mortal,’ Celia assured her.
‘Celia, come away,’ Maggie said. ‘Let Andrew talk to her.’
The maid left with a sigh of frustration. ‘I’ll fetch a rag to staunch the flow.’
‘I tell you he’s confused,’ Evota said.
‘Why would your son call you a murderer?’ Andrew asked. ‘Who was Johanna?’
Sandy had taken the knife from Archie and let him go. Maggie now knelt by him.
‘My leg,’ he moaned, ‘I think it’s broken again.’
She and Sandy helped him back to the pallet.
‘Why do you think your mother killed Johanna?’ Maggie asked him.
‘She told me. Just now. She was trying to make me understand what she’d done, how it was for our family, but you saw what she’d done, you saw Johanna. They said her head was beaten in. She did that, the bitch who calls herself my mother.’
‘We’ve got to live, you stupid boy,’ Evota cried. ‘You were paid good money by Father Piers. We depended on that. Your sister had to go whoring because Johanna rejected you and then you’d have naught to do with her. You good-for-nothing lovesick ass!’
Andrew looked up at Maggie. ‘Do you understand what they’re talking about?’
‘Yes.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Poor Johanna.’
Andrew took the wounded woman by the chin and held her so that she must look at him. ‘Did you beat a woman to death?’
Evota whimpered. ‘All I asked her was to favour Archie, sleep with him – she’d slept with all the soldiers at the castle, why not my son? Then he would go back to work as a messenger.’
‘Selfish cow,’ Archie shouted. ‘Johanna wasn’t like that.’
‘She wouldn’t agree?’ Andrew asked quietly.
‘She hit me. Hard. On the mouth. And she said she’d tell Father Piers and wouldn’t use Archie any more. They’d find another messenger. My son wasn’t good enough for her, the whore. He wasn’t English, that’s what she meant.’
Andrew let her go and drew away from her, sickened by the hatred in her eyes, her voice. The young man was sobbing. When Maggie looked up, her face was wet with tears, too.
‘What should we do with them?’ Ada wondered aloud. ‘I don’t want them here. Who is the law in the town now?’
Andrew shook his head. ‘There is none.’
Celia had brought a bowl of water and some rags, and now knelt to Evota, who stared at the ceiling wide-eyed, breathing in a laboured wheeze.
‘Go for Dame Bridget,’ said Maggie to Sandy. ‘I don’t know what to do for Archie’s leg.’ She rose and joined Andrew and Ada.
‘Had you any sense of her guilt, Maggie?’ Ada asked.
‘When she was startled to see a priest here in the hall, I wondered, but anyone might have,’ said Maggie.
‘Was this Johanna the woman over whom Peter and Archie fought?’ Andrew asked.
Ada nodded. She looked spent.
‘Was she a friend of yours, Maggie?’ Andrew was still trying to grasp all the implications of what had just transpired.
‘She was the source for the messages Archie carried to James’s men, which is why we met.’ She explained about Johanna’s English lover. ‘When she met me, I knew she was in danger, but I didn’t know whence came the threat, and I didn’t know what to do.’
‘Of course she was in danger,’ Andrew said. ‘But if anyone was responsible for that it’s James Comyn, using her as he did.’
‘He’s forced no one to fight for his kinsman, Andrew. Johanna wanted to do something for the cause.’
‘So why do you feel guilty?’
‘I told you, I kenned she was in danger, but I didn’t know what to do with the knowledge.’ Her voice had risen and she pressed a hand to either side of her wimple as if trying to close her ears to some noise. ‘I don’t understand how to use the Sight.’
‘My God, Maggie.’ Andrew reached her in two steps and laid his hands gently on hers. ‘The Sight? Tell me you’re not accursed with it.’ But he knew by the suffering he sensed in her and the fear in her eyes that she was.
‘I pray it’s God’s gift,’ she said. ‘I pray He’ll show me how I might use it for good.’
Ada had gone over to the wounded woman. ‘Take her home, John. Let her daughter tend to her. We’ll get no justice for Johanna by hanging this woman. Dame Bridget will advise us where Archie might go. I’m sick of them.’
Maggie broke away from Andrew. ‘The war has done this to them, Ada. They would have done none of this if Longshanks hadn’t torn apart their lives.’
‘You don’t know that, Maggie.’
Maggie turned back to Andrew. ‘You must feel you’ve walked into a house of madness.’
‘How could this town be otherwise, trapped between the castle and the camps?’ He put his arm around her. ‘How long have you known about the Sight, Maggie?’
‘Not long. Only you, Ada and Celia know. And Ma, I think. I’m going to Great-Aunt Euphemia, if I can. I want to learn about it, not let it destroy me like it has Ma. Let’s not talk of it any more today.’
’Thank God. Andrew did not think he could bear more.
RESOLUTIONS
Far off shouts and shrieks rendered the late September day the tinge of horror, as Margaret sat in the backland with Ada and Andrew. The delicate brandywine did little to ease the tension and chill that lingered after John led Evota away and Archie was moved out of the house to the kitchen. Celia was supervising the removal of the bloodstains in the hall, but no one could ever erase Margaret’s memory of Johanna’s suffering. She doubted Archie would ever forgive his mother; at least he had been spared the sight of what she’d done to his beloved.
Andrew’s encounter with the guards below had frightened Margaret. She prayed that James had managed to outwit them. She prayed for him, Fergus and Hal, and William Wallace, whom she’d found a kind, noble man. She wondered what the future held, what defeat might mean to all of them.
What had begun as a happy reunion was now not ruined, but subdued. The town was very quiet, though now and then she and her companions lifted their heads as folk who’d been watching the battle from the heights wandered home loudly sharing the hopeful, yet horrible news that the English were being slaughtered and being left to die in the carse, and their survivors retreating.
‘Is it possible?’ Margaret asked Andrew.
He looked drained by the confrontation between mother and son. ‘Nothing is impossible, Maggie. It is God’s to choose the outcome, though it is mankind’s sorry way to play it out by killing their own.’
‘I know that this is an important battle,’ said Ada, ‘but Longshanks has never been a man to accept defeat. I fear for us even if we win the day.’
Margaret looked to Andrew, who looked away.
‘Tell us about the journey from Soutra Hill,’ Ada suggested. ‘Are the fields ready for harvest?’
‘It was a ghost land,’ Andrew began, but the clatter of horses out in the square distracted them, and all three hastened out to the street, fearing trouble. Most of the household were already there. In fact, townsfolk lined the square.
Andrew craned his head to see the approaching troop. ‘That’s Sir Marmaduke Twenge,’ he said, pointing out a man who was clad in armour and riding a destrier.
The soldiers riding and walking behind him were bloodied and wore expressions that were a mixture of exhaustion and defeat. One dismounted in the market square, looking around at the houses as if uncertain where to go, and then approached Margaret.