by Mary Daheim
As always, Sorcha marveled at the blood feuds not just spawned but nurtured by her countrymen. She was waiting for a load of timbers to cross in the direction of Dalrymple’s Yard when a figure in dark riding clothes appeared, leading a horse out of Leith Wynd. Sorcha squinted against the sun and felt her heart skip a beat. Surely, after all these months it couldn’t be he! Her mouth agape with surprise, she waited almost a full minute until he was abreast of Saint John’s Cross, then she rushed to meet him, her riding hat clutched to her head.
“Gavin! Is it truly you?” Sorcha grasped his arm with both hands, her face glowing with pleasure. “When did you arrive?”
“Within the hour,” Napier replied, forcing his voice to keep level. “I had Naxos here transported as well.” He patted the stallion’s nose. “Adam is staying in Leith for the time being.”
“Adam!” Sorcha exclaimed, embarrassed by not asking after Napier’s brother immediately. “Of course! How is he?”
Napier’s taciturn expression didn’t change. “Much improved, thanks be to God.” He paused to cross himself deliberately, devoutly. “Yet the sea voyage cost him greatly, and I fear it will be a few days before we proceed north.”
Sorcha’s hands fell to her sides. Her sudden elation was fading fast. “You aren’t going to stay in Edinburgh, then?”
If the smallness of her voice dismayed Napier, he gave no sign. He was walking his horse to the trough in the middle of the Canongate. The three boys and the cat had vanished, permitting Naxos to drink in leisurely peace. “I’m told there’s fresh trouble afoot in the Highlands,” Napier said over his shoulder. “Have you been north recently?”
Gavin Napier’s manner was so detached, so relentlessly formal that Sorcha’s disappointment gave way to rage. She snatched off her riding hat, flinging it about in front of her like a warrior’s shield. “God’s teeth, Gavin, it’s been nigh on a year! Aren’t you pleased to see me?” she demanded, disconcertingly aware that she echoed Moray’s recent words to her.
Napier stopped in the process of checking the stallion’s bridle and looked at Sorcha as if seeing her for the first time. The hunter’s gaze was steady but guarded, an expression Sorcha knew all too well. “Aye, why would I not be? Yet it would be unseemly to demonstrate my delight in the middle of the Canongate.”
“Or the middle of paradise, if it came to that,” Sorcha shot back. A passel of urchins had gathered round to watch the grown-ups argue. Two goodwives who had just emerged from the goldsmith’s shop stopped to stare. “If you can’t express your enthusiasm here, may I ask where you intend to do it? The Canongate Tolbooth, perhaps?” Sorcha gestured up the street with a wave of her hat. “Well?”
Napier abandoned the stallion to focus his full attention on Sorcha. He took a deep breath, seemed to grow ominously taller and broader in the process, and stepped a bit closer, lowering his voice so that neither urchins nor goodwives could hear. “You appear oblivious of one significant fact—I am married to another woman.” He paused to let his statement sink in. “No, I didn’t find her in France. But I did learn some things that may explain—if not excuse—her brutal behavior.” Napier took another step nearer to Sorcha. “By chance, I happened to sail with a man who remembered a blond lad with a scar on his neck who’d taken the last ship out of Le Havre before the French ports were closed after King Henri’s assassination. The lad’s destination was Dunbar, and I’d stake my life on the fact that it was Marie-Louise in disguise. She would have to put her hair up to pose as a boy, which would have revealed the scar.” Taking a third step, Napier was all but six inches from Sorcha’s errant riding hat. “Making these inquiries, in addition to a great many more, as well as caring for Adam, have taken up the past eleven months.” Napier stood where he was but leaned down so that his chin was almost touching the top of Sorcha’s upswept coiffure. “And what have you and Armand accomplished in that time?”
Napier’s looming, implacable presence forced Sorcha to rein in her temper. But she was still angry. “Armand has married my sister and got her with child,” Sorcha asserted. “Manly deeds, I must say, which some would find more commendable than vengeance or rancor.” To her left, the urchins crept closer; on her right, the goodwives pressed nearer. Sorcha glared at all of them, and Napier as well. “I refuse,” she hissed at him, “to stand here another moment and argue as if we were part of a public spectacle. Will you come with me to Holyrood?”
Napier’s thumb jerked in the direction of Panmure Close. “Why not to your kin’s house?”
“Because Uncle Donald is very ill,” Sorcha replied, perversely pleased that she had a good reason to foil Napier’s suggestion.
Napier shrugged, then turned to take his horse by the reins. The urchins and the goodwives slipped away, obviously disappointed that what had promised to be a fine quarrel had fizzled out so quickly.
While the courtiers and their attendants had left Holyrood, a skeleton staff remained. Sorcha, who had consumed nothing but sweetmeats and wine since breakfast, led Napier into the small dining room just off the King’s bedchamber and requested that a servant bring them food. Napier, who had never been inside the palace before, asked Sorcha if this was the infamous room where David Rizzio, Queen Mary’s hapless secretary, had been stabbed to death by jealous nobles. Sorcha answered vaguely that she thought it was, but long-ago events weren’t uppermost in her mind. She wanted to know precisely what Napier’s plans were. And, though she didn’t say so, most of all, she wanted to find out if they included her.
Napier didn’t answer directly, but began instead by elaborating on the information he’d unearthed about Marie-Louise’s background. It seemed that her father’s family had turned Huguenot, but when the daughter of a Scots expatriate married him, their vows were witnessed by a Catholic priest. Marie-Louise was their only child, and her sire doted on her.
“But when she was about seven or so, Catherine de Médicis ordered the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. Though Marie-Louise’s father hadn’t openly practiced his religion since taking a Catholic wife,” Napier went on, “he was slaughtered by his neighbors—right before Marie-Louise’s terrified eyes.”
“Jesu,” whispered Sorcha, surprising herself by feeling a pang of pity for the young Marie-Louise. “I must admit, that would leave a far deeper scar than the one on her neck.”
“Aye,” Napier agreed, as a servant, looking much put out, entered the room carrying a tray of cold quail, bread, wine, and fruit. He bristled when Sorcha asked if there was cheese, but she ignored his ill humor and set about decimating a quail breast.
“I knew none of this, only that her father had been dead for some years,” Napier said, taking up his tale. “I can only guess that deep down, Marie-Louise harbored an abiding hatred of Catholics. Perhaps she hated everyone who professed to belong to a specific faith, since as a child, she must have equated religion with evil. It’s even possible that she grew up hating men.” Breaking off a crust of bread, Napier gazed at it with unseeing eyes. “I also suspect that somehow she decided to use poor Brother Jacques as her tool in destroying the King of France. She must have convinced him that she was as fervent a Catholic as he was. And then, as many believed, persuaded him that Henri was too sympathetic to the Protestant cause and had to die. If Brother Jacques questioned why she dabbled in black magic, she could explain that so did King Henri—and she was merely fighting fire with fire. So to speak.” Napier shook his head, as if he were unsure that anything he had just said was credible. “I feel—and Adam thinks so, too—that Marie-Louise will try to stir up as much trouble here in Scotland as she did in France.”
Sorcha was picking out a tiny piece of bone from her quail. “But Jamie isn’t Catholic. What kind of havoc can Marie-Louise plan to make?”
Napier lifted his shoulders. “Anything to discredit or undermine the Church, I suppose. Perhaps she’ll foment further dissension between the influential Catholic families.”
Sorcha snorted. “As if they needed help! You mentioned
trouble in the Highlands—did you refer to Johnny Grant?”
For the first time, Napier’s face broke into a smile, albeit a wry one. “Aye, a name from out of your past, eh? But that’s only part of it. Gordon and Errol are said to be riling up a rebellion.”
“They plot against the Crown?” Sorcha saw Napier nod, and licked butter from her fingers.
“If the rumor is true, they will damage the fragile framework of a Catholic alliance. They must be stopped.” He poured wine for them both into pewter cups and handed Sorcha hers. “You haven’t yet told me what you’ve learned since coming back to Scotland,” he reminded Sorcha, the smile gone.
The shadows were beginning to lengthen between the openings in the red velvet draperies, making dark, shifting patterns on the wine-colored damask table covering. Sorcha inspected a peach, then bit into it, skin and all. She cursed silently as a few specks of juice landed on the black suede slashings of her blue riding habit. “I have little to report. There are stories going round that Bothwell is using sorcery against the King and that he may have associates. Or are they called familiars?” Her face puckered over the distinction, but without waiting for clarification from Napier, Sorcha continued in a rueful voice, “Yet there is no mention of anyone like Marie-Louise, only some goodwives from North Berwick or some such place.”
Napier washed down the last of his crust with the wine and pushed away from the table with one booted foot. The room was so narrow that as he leaned back in the armchair, his long legs almost reached the opposite wall. Sorcha was sorely tempted to leap from her chair and fall to her knees beside Napier—but she did not dare. “It sounds too coincidental not to be Marie-Louise,” Napier said at last, thoughtfully rubbing his beard. “While I don’t know everything she did during the eight years of her disappearance, I’m told she practiced the black arts in various places.”
Sorcha put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her folded hands. She regarded Napier levelly, and her voice was very serious. “Do you believe in such things, Gavin?”
He returned her unflinching gaze. “By the Mass, no! It’s superstitious nonsense. The problem is, many—perhaps most—people do believe in witchcraft.”
“I don’t think I do.” Sorcha reflected for a moment, realizing that she hadn’t given the matter much thought one way or the other. “There have been burnings and hangings ever since I can remember,” Sorcha said, trying to dredge up some of the crimes committed by alleged witches and sorcerers. “Not around Gosford’s End, of course. My parents wouldn’t permit such madness.”
“Alas, they’re not in the majority. King Jamie takes witches quite seriously, I hear.”
“True.” Having disposed of the subject of Marie-Louise, the Highland crisis, and black magic, Sorcha was more than anxious to discuss their own problems. But Gavin Napier was on his feet, brushing crumbs from his shirt and stretching his arms. “I must be off to the saddlemaker’s. Naxos’s girth is broken. And no doubt Adam is wondering what has become of me.”
Uncertainly, Sorcha also got to her feet, brain whirling in an effort to think of some credible reason why Napier shouldn’t leave—or why she ought to join him. Surely he wasn't going to simply walk away after all these months?
That, however, appeared to be exactly what Gavin Napier intended to do. He was at the arched door of the supper room, carefully ducking his head since it had originally been constructed for a much shorter race of people.
Sorcha flew to him, clutching at one arm. “Gavin! By all that’s holy, don’t you want to kiss me? Or at least hold me? How can you be so … so cold?” Her voice quavered, and the green eyes glistened with tears.
Napier went rigid at her touch. He drew up very straight, just missing the outer edge of the doorway. “I can’t kiss you. I can’t even hold you.” Deliberately, he pulled away from her grasp. “If I do, I will keep kissing and holding until I possess you. And that would be wrong.” He had moved just far enough from her that his face was now in shadow. Napier spoke heavily, each word weighted to make Sorcha believe him. “I don’t want you to be my whore. I want you for my wife. Since that’s not possible, I won’t demean you—or myself—by using your body, no matter how freely offered.”
Sorcha listened to the leaden words with a sick, hollow feeling at the pit of her stomach. From somewhere, a small voice of memory pricked at her brain. She’d condemned Johnny Grant for his lack of fidelity and chided Moray for his duplicity. How ironic that the only man she really loved should possess the qualities the others had lacked—and that she should curse him for it. With a shaky hand, Sorcha brushed her eyes and swallowed hard.
“You’ll take care in the Highlands?” She sounded very tentative, almost wispy.
“Aye.” Napier nodded once. He had remained very still, and now the dark brows drew close together as he pulled his bearded chin. “Keep me in your prayers.”
“Of course.” Sorcha moved a pace backward, as if signaling to him that he was free to go. Still, Napier hesitated. Sorcha caught her breath and waited. But, with an abrupt swing of his body, he turned to the door and moved rapidly from the supper room.
Chapter 23
Sorcha did not go to Falkland Palace after all. She sent a messenger to Ailis, telling her of the change in plans and to make up her own mind about staying on with the court or returning to Edinburgh. Sorcha went back to Panmure Close, and that night, over snifters of French brandy, she poured out her heart to Aunt Tarrill.
“I wondered,” Tarrill remarked as the church bells tolled midnight. “It seemed you’d left certain gaps in your recital earlier today.”
While Tarrill was understanding, she had no real advice to offer her niece, nor had Sorcha sought it. But separated from her mother and Rosmairi, temporarily deprived of Ailis’s company, she’d desperately needed a sympathetic female’s ear. And Tarrill Cameron McVurrich was a woman who not only listened but kept a confidence. For perhaps the first time in her life, Sorcha understood the abiding bond between her aunt and her mother.
During the next few weeks, Uncle Donald recovered from his frightening collapse and resumed his banking duties. Ailis had shown up on the McVurrich doorstep two days after Sorcha sent her message. She was not keen on staying at Falkland without Sorcha and reported that the arrival of the Earl of Bothwell had created an atmosphere of unease.
By coincidence, it was Bothwell who occupied Sorcha’s thoughts late one sultry afternoon as she raced the rain clouds back to Panmure Close. She had been to the dressmaker’s in the Lawnmarket trying on a new russet-and-gold riding habit. As she hurried away from Castle Hill toward the old Weigh House, she noted a handsome coach turning into Currier’s Close. Sorcha’s curiosity was piqued. She paused, feeling the first drops of summer rain on her face. Bothwell’s house was in Currier’s Close, and unless she was mistaken, that was where the coach was heading. Sorcha stepped back against an old brick wall and watched the coachman bring the horses to a halt. A moment later, the footman scrambled down from the back of the coach and raced round to open the door for a tall, black-clad figure wearing an enormous white hat that concealed her face. But the height and carriage of the woman were unmistakable. Marie-Louise was indeed in Edinburgh and staying at Bothwell’s town house while the Earl waited upon the King. There was no reason why the wretched woman shouldn’t show herself in Edinburgh. As far as the Scots were concerned, she was just another French émigrée at best and, at worst, Bothwell’s mistress. Neither was a crime.
The rain was coming down much harder, and out over the Firth of Forth, lightning slashed the lowering gray skies. Sorcha picked up her pace, though her mind was going far faster than her feet. It had been more than a month since she’d seen Gavin Napier. Very likely he and Father Adam had left some time ago for the Highlands. She had no idea of their precise destination, though it occurred to her that they might pay a call on her parents.
Almost slipping on the wet cobblestones by Saint Giles, she skirted the Market Cross and the Butter Tron. She
must write at once to Gosford’s End and relay her information about Marie-Louise. Even if Gavin and Adam Napier didn’t stop there, Armand d’Ailly would pounce on the news, though it seemed unlikely that he would leave Rosmairi before she had delivered their babe.
Turning into Panmure Close, Sorcha noted that her hair had come undone and drooped in damp tendrils around her face. She had not, in truth, been as careful about her toilette during her stay at the McVurrich house. Not, she thought ruefully, that it made much difference—Gavin Napier hadn’t even noticed the dramatic change in her appearance. Suddenly, she was angry with him, infuriated at his indulgence in self-pity. Why, she wondered fiercely, as she yanked at the wrought iron gate, had he bothered to consider becoming a priest, when he’d already made a martyr of himself? Was he any less misguided than Brother Jacques?
Sorcha paused in midstep at the entrance to the McVurrich house, overcome by an odd sense of being watched. Fleetingly, she felt guilt assail her for being so hard on Gavin Napier. It was as if she were back in the nursery at Gosford’s End, allegedly learning her prayers from one of the Beauly monks who had instinctively known that she was thinking of smoked salmon and steamed mussels instead of the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria.
Sorcha fumbled inside her cloak for her calfskin purse. She took out a little mirror, ostensibly rearranging her coiffure. In the glass, she could see a man whose sudden interest in the wares of a fruit seller was suspicious. Sorcha couldn’t be positive, of course, but she would have wagered that he was the footman she had seen in Currier’s Close.
It came as no surprise the following morning when Sorcha received a note asking her to meet Marie-Louise at the Clockmill House on the edge of town. Studying the note, as well as the pigeon-toed lad who had delivered it, Sorcha crossed out Marie-Louise’s suggested meeting place and substituted Croft-an-Righ. Sorcha’s choice was just west of Clockmill House, but unlike Marie-Louise’s choice, which stood surrounded by trees off the main byway, Croft-an-Righ was closer to the busy Water Gate entrance to the city, and thus, Sorcha decided, considerably safer. She would further ensure her well-being by having Ailis and Doles follow her at a discreet distance.