by Amanda Scott
“The Stewarts hold the throne and are therefore the most powerful, surely.”
“You and I know better than that,” de Gredin said bluntly. “The Stewart name is not yet well respected, and if your nobles go against you, Parliament will go against you. You are politically astute, sir, so I know you are aware of what the consequences would be. My masters likewise understand your predicament.”
“Masters? The Pope is but one man,” Fife said, eyeing him narrowly.
De Gredin shrugged. “He is indeed, my lord, so I rarely talk with him. His holiness surrounds himself with ministers and councilors just as his grace, the King, does. In the normal course of events, it is his holiness’s secretary and others who see his edicts carried out and who communicate his wishes to others, even to me.”
“I see.”
“I am sure you do,” de Gredin said, looking at the water again. “To return to your present dilemma, my lord, one must admire MacLennan, must one not?”
“Admire him?”
“But yes, for although we cannot prove it yet, surely it was he who achieved this feat. And if one cannot simply seize victory, it is most helpful to undermine one’s enemy, is it not? Certainly, in taking your fine ship, he has done that.”
“I disagree,” Fife said, fighting another surge of anger and wondering if de Gredin had spoken so merely to provoke him. “As I represent his grace in all things, by stealing my ship, MacLennan has assaulted the Crown. ’Tis why I’ll hang him.”
“Certainly,” de Gredin said. “But first we must catch him, no?”
“First, I must find another ship,” Fife said testily. “I shall have to consider again who amongst the nobility on this coast owns a suitable vessel.”
“But to learn exactly where he goes one must depart at once, my lord. We both believe the Sinclairs are moving part of the treasure, but MacLennan cannot have loaded anything in the harbor without drawing notice. Even your unobservant lackeys would have noticed if he’d moved the Serpent to one of the wharves.”
“Aye, he’d have to load somewhere, but I now have no ship to seek him, and I don’t know this coast,” Fife said. “Do you know where he’d be likely to load?”
“That does not matter,” de Gredin said. “Doubtless, he has already loaded and gone. However, the Dutchman told us MacLennan means to sail north, and we do have a ship. In troth, we have two fast longships right here in the harbor.”
Chapter 14
The minute Giff left the cabin, Sidony remembered how she had fastened her thoughts on him the previous day to shut out de Gredin’s list of horrible methods Fife might use to question her. Picturing Giff then had soothed her fears. Picturing him now as he would be by the end of the day, handing her over to some stern bishop who as likely as not lived in Fife’s pocket, made her want to shake him.
The thought of shaking a man a foot taller and many pounds heavier than she was made her smile. Then, as she tried putting weight on her feet again, she wondered how one man could stir so many contradictory feelings in her. Most people she knew seemed relatively uncomplicated, but she did not know from one minute to the next what to make of Giff MacLennan.
He had seen nothing amiss in her ramble through the abbey woods until she had mentioned Hugo. Even then, he had seemed only amused.
He had kissed her, too, three times. The first he had stolen, the others . . .
“Faith, the man is by nature a thief!” She was standing now with no ill effects save some slight dizziness from the motion of the ship added to a lingering sense of confinement in the dimly lighted cabin and a sad lack of sustenance.
Surely, though, he would not expect her to eat alone in the cabin.
Making her way carefully to the door, she opened it and stepped outside.
The helmsman’s position was to her right, and oarsmen, two to an oar, rowed rhythmically despite a billowing sail larger than any she had seen before. In the Isles, a galley that carried cargo was called a birlinn, but this was unlike any birlinn she had seen. Not only was the Serpent longer, and wider astern, but its gunwales were stepped, higher at stem and stern than amidships—and it boasted two cabins.
The sky looked threatening, darkening under flying layers of clouds. The air felt chilly and damp but was still much fresher than the stuffy cabin.
She saw that they were in the narrowest part of the firth, and seeing an island ahead, she was certain from its high cliffs and the old stone priory atop them that it must be the Isle of May. They were entering the outermost part of the firth.
Seeing Giff coming toward her along the central plank, or gangway, running fore to aft atop the benches, she pulled the door shut behind her and braced herself.
His expression was nearly as threatening as the weather, for his eyes looked stormy, his irises all black, as he stepped down and said, “I told you to stay inside.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, looking away with a mixed sense of shock and delight that once again she’d actually said what she was thinking. “I’ve been crated up too long and I must breathe. No man on this ship is going to harm me unless . . .” She paused, then looked right at him. “Do you fear you cannot control them, sir?”
“Nay, lass, I don’t fear that,” Giff said. Her sober expression as she had asked the question stirred his sense of humor, but he suppressed it, not wanting her to think he laughed at her. To be sure, she was a sight. Her green riding dress was rumpled and streaked with dust. Her face bore dusty streaks, too, and he suspected some were the result of tears. For that alone he looked forward to bringing de Gredin to account.
“If you insist on staying outside, we’ll sit on that bench yonder,” he said, indicating the aft corner opposite the helmsman’s post. “Do not suppose you can always manage me so easily, though,” he warned. “Remember that I am master of this ship, and a ship’s master wields the powers of life and death over all aboard. I will not tolerate insubordination from you any more than from one of my crew.”
“I don’t think I am insubordinate,” she said. “I’m just hungry.”
“Well, I’ve got rolls and salted beef, so come now and sit.”
He eyed the men. Despite the strong wind, he had set them two to an oar, to reach open water as quickly as possible. Then, the oarsmen could leave the work to the sail. Those not rowing awaited their next turn by resting in the spaces between benches, known as their “rooms,” or pacing to stretch cramped legs or doing chores, such as picking old ropes apart to mix with tar for oakum to caulk the ship’s seams.
Two men talked near the forecastle, and Hob Grant stood atop it, clinging to the stempost and the backstay as he watched the water ahead. None looked Giff’s way, but he knew that not one man had missed seeing him walk there with her.
Maxwell, having taken the helmsman’s post, watched the rolling seas ahead.
“Where’s Jake?” Giff asked him.
Maxwell nodded toward the stempost, and Giff saw him kneeling in the “room” of the steerboard-bow oarsmen, near the gangway, with his arms folded on the bench and his chin resting on them. The men seemed content with him there, but if they were not, Giff doubted Jake would notice, because he was intently watching Sidony. Perhaps sensing Giff’s gaze, the lad looked at him, and his face reddened.
Giff motioned to him with an index finger.
With visible reluctance, Jake climbed onto the gangway and, easily matching his stride to the ship’s motion, made his way toward them.
Giff said quietly to Sidony, “You have that lad to thank for your release, my lady. He feared you were a boggart.”
“I must have terrified him,” she said. “But I’m glad someone heard me.”
“You might thank him for the pail, too,” Giff said with a chuckle.
She flushed but said stoutly, “Laugh all you want, sir. If he is Jake o’ the Pail, I am even more grateful to him.”
“Jake, this is the lady Sidony Macleod,” Giff said when Jake reached them.
Scarcely waiting until he h
ad swept off his cap and made a jerky little bow to her, Jake said, “How’d ye get in that wee hold, me lady?”
“A bad man put me there,” she said, smiling. “Sir Giffard tells me that you are the one I have to thank for hearing me pound on the wall.”
“I heard, but the noise fair shoogled up me internals, I can tell ye! I thought boggarts had come t’ carry us all off. Did ye no’ bring a comb wi’ ye, me lady?”
Clapping a hand to her hair, she looked at her skirt, then at Giff, clearly not having given thought to her appearance until that moment. “Mercy! How bad is it?”
“Ye look a rare mess, me lady,” Jake said without hesitation. “Ye’ve a gey fine bruise on your gizz, too. How’d ye get that?”
“The same bad man hit me,” she answered, glancing at Giff.
Having guessed the bruise was de Gredin’s doing, making yet another score to settle with the man, he said evenly, “You’re as beautiful as ever, lass, albeit quite the first woman I’ve ever met who did not think first and always of how she looks.”
She grimaced.
“Nay, then,” Jake protested. “She canna look so weel as she would wi’ her hair combed proper and them muddy streaks washed off her gizz. There’ll be a wee basin in the master’s cabin, me lady, and if ye dinna ha’ a comb, ye can use mine.”
“Thank you, Jake,” she said with her beautiful smile. “You are very kind.”
Giff put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I, too, owe you thanks for your sharp ears, Jake. You have more than repaid your debt to me.”
Jake’s eyes grew round. “I dinna ha’ to pay ye back?”
“You have done us both a great service,” Giff said. Then, sternly, he added, “But don’t ever let me catch you stealing again, for you won’t just have to make restitution next time. I’ll give you a good hiding, as well. Do you understand me?”
“Aye, sir, and me da’ said I’d no’ ha’ me sorrows to seek ’cause he’d give me a rare skelping, too,” the boy said soberly. “I’ll no’ take what isna mine again.”
He reached inside his jacket and felt around, producing a broken comb of ordinary bone and handing it to Sidony with another of his jerky bows.
Giff said, “You’ve no need to—”
“Thank you, Jake,” Sidony said, accepting the comb with another smile. “I have not one thing of my own that I am not wearing, so I am doubly grateful to you.”
“Ye’re right welcome,” the boy said. Then looking at Giff, he said, “D’ye swear I’ll no’ ha’ to pay ye back yon cat-witted shilling?”
“Are you calling me a cat-wit?”
“Nay, I’m no’ so daft. But to give the meatman a whole shilling were daft.”
A slender, warm hand on Giff’s forearm changed the words about to leave his tongue to a simple, “I do swear it, Jake.” But then he turned to Sidony and said, “I was just going to suggest that as Fife’s people brought at least some of his personal gear aboard, we may find a comb or brush amongst them.”
She tossed her head. “I’d not let a comb or brush belonging to that awful man touch me. Jake’s comb will serve me very well.”
The lad beamed, and Giff said, “Take yourself off now, Jake. Don’t annoy the oarsmen, and tell the men tending the sail that I say they have made the luff too taut and must ease it a bit.”
“Aye, sir,” Jake said, grinning and running to obey.
“How does he run like that on that narrow plank?” Sidony asked. “I have all I can do just to stand up without grabbing hold of something to support me.”
“Jake has lived most of his life on a boat,” Giff said, watching as one man at the mast signed to another to help him increase the forward curve of the sail. “I’d wager he has to make greater adjustment to lack of motion underfoot when he’s on land. You’ll grow accustomed to the motion, lass. That is, you would if you were to stay aboard her long enough,” he amended.
Making no response, she tried to smooth her skirt, then said casually a moment later, “How will you know where we are after we leave the firth behind?”
“Do you fear I’ll get lost?” he asked, smiling.
Her expression remained serious. “No, of course not. I told you, I have sailed before, and although in most parts of the Isles one can see the mainland or another island, I have seen shores disappear, especially in dense fog. But we always arrived safely at our destination. I just wondered how sailors do that.”
Forcing himself to think for the first time in years about how he did things that now seemed instinctive, he said, “We use a compass, of course, but we also observe the color of the sky and the courses of the sun, moon, or stars. When we can see a shoreline, we note identifiable points. One uses the glass to heed passing hours, too, to calculate distance. And one learns to mark the movements of the sea.”
She had put a hand to her hair, trying to smooth it, but she paused to stare at him. “Sakes, what does watching the sea’s movement accomplish, other than to note if it is rough or calm?”
“A good sailor observes many things. For example, most of the time, the waves all roll the same direction. A sailor can judge his course by them as long as he pays close heed to any changes in their nature. The closer one gets to shore, the more likely one is to encounter crosscurrents and even some that run counter to the incoming swells. Such things can give a man timely warning of hazards.”
“But surely, close to shore, there are many dangers that the waves conceal.”
“There are, indeed, and to learn of them, most captains carry a rutter, wherein they note details they’ve learned from experience or from others about every mile of coastline along their routes. They note landmarks, and they measure time, distance, tides, direction, and depth, to name just a few things.”
“Do you carry such a rutter?”
“I do on my own ship, and Maxwell has one for our present route, because Fife planned to travel this same way. I can read the waters gey well, too, lass,” he added to reassure her. “Sithee, I grew up sailing not just on the sea and sounds near Kintail but on sea-lochs, where conditions of wind and tide are particularly treacherous. Doubtless, you have been on Loch Hourn, just south of Glenelg.”
“Aye, sure,” she said.
“Its steep-sided glen funnels wind with fearful ferocity in all directions. Sakes, there, the wind can blow hard from behind one minute and broadside or head-on the next. At Dunclathy, we sailed cobles on Loch Earn, which is much the same. Oars help, but a good captain learns to expect such shifts and to read the waves as they change. Such skills prove especially useful in fog, helping one follow the water’s motions to shore and beach civilly on sand or shingle without hitting rocks.”
As he’d talked, she glanced several times at the oarsmen, fidgeting with her skirt or fussing with her hair, and Giff realized that thanks to Jake’s guileless remarks, her newfound self-consciousness was distracting her from their conversation.
He said gently, “You must want to go back inside, lass. Why do you not simply say so? Sakes, you’re even shivering!”
She flushed, met his gaze, and said ruefully, “I did not want to give you the satisfaction of telling me that I ought to have obeyed you in the first place.”
He chuckled as he got up and offered a hand. When she placed hers in it, he noted how well it fit there. “I’ll go with you,” he said. “We’ll see what my lord Fife has gifted us by way of combs and clothing and such.”
Sidony did her best to untangle her hair with Jake’s broken-toothed comb while Giff searched through the cubbies and kists that contained what gear the Earl of Fife’s men had stowed in the master’s cabin. He unearthed several fine shirts that he said cheerfully would augment his wardrobe as well as hers, a silver comb and brush—both of which she rejected disdainfully—a clothes brush, two black doublets, one edged with silver lace, and four pairs of black silk trunk hose, and a pair of boots too small for him and way too large for her that he said Maxwell might like.
“I
don’t want to wear his clothes,” she said.
“You’ll not have to,” he said. “You will be warm and dry inside the bishop’s palace by sundown. I’ve found a nice, thick wool cloak in this kist, though, that will serve you well if it grows much colder before then.”
“I don’t want—”
“See here, lass, a comb is one thing,” he interjected, looking stern. “But if you think I’ll let you freeze from pride rather than be sensibly warm, think again.”
Noting that he had left the door open so that it banged against the wall with the motion of the ship, she moved to shut it.
“Let it be,” he said. “I don’t want more scandal than we can avoid. Except for Jake, his father, and one other, they’re all Sinclair men, but I’d not be surprised to learn that even some of them suspect I somehow spirited you aboard myself.”
“But how could that be?”
“’Tis enough for them that I’ve a reputation for acting on impulse and accomplishing the impossible,” he said. “So whilst you remain aboard, we’ll avoid giving them cause to imagine that we might be doing anything improper.”
Sidony left the door alone and tried to ignore its thumps and bangs as the boat rose and fell. She could do nothing about her skirt, bodice, or riding doublet; and her hair was as tidy as she could make it without a veil or caul, but she could certainly wash her face and hands and even a bit more of herself after Giff left.
“Jake mentioned a basin, sir. Have you fresh water aboard other than for drinking, and perhaps a towel?”
“Use what water you need. We can collect more at St. Andrews if we need it. As to a towel and mayhap some soap . . .”
He found both in the washstand cunningly attached to the wall opposite the shelf beds, just beyond the trapdoor that had confined her below.