by Mary Daheim
“Holy God!” Jamie shrieked, batting at the parrot, which squawked raucously before flying high above their heads, circling twice, and landing on one of the heavy rods that held the dark green brocade drapes over the room’s west window.
Jamie was waving his arms at his pet, cursing and cajoling. “He ate witch’s brew! He’ll die! Or turn into a demon!”
Her composure regained, Sorcha inspected the bowl’s contents closely. She sniffed, touched the coarse powder with her finger, then put it to her tongue. James cried out, aghast. But Sorcha tasted a few grains and gave a little shrug. “Don’t fash yourself so, Sire. ’Tis nothing more than maize, or corn that the Indians eat by the bushel in the New World.”
The King of Scotland goggled at his cousin, looking as if he expected her to turn into a gargoyle before his very eyes. “Maize? Nay, nay! It was taken from those witches! At least three savants have attested to its Satanic properties!” He paused, realizing that Sorcha stood calmly before him, idly rearranging her disheveled coiffure, but otherwise quite unaltered. “I don’t believe it,” he asserted, looking very much like the petulant boy Sorcha remembered from their first meeting at Stirling Castle. “How do you know of this maize?”
Sorcha screwed up her face in the effort to recall. “Some years ago a sea captain my father knew brought some to our home. Our cook, Catriona, baked it into a sort of bread. It was very tasty.”
Jamie’s shoulders slumped, though his expression grew speculative. “Then,” he asked, eyeing the yellow meal in the bowl warily, “it might be … harmless?”
Sorcha shrugged again. “It is harmless.”
In silence, he considered the implication of her words. “Are you saying those hags might have been harmless as well?” His tone begged her denial.
“I did not sit in judgment.” Sorcha sounded more severe than she’d intended. Seeing Jamie’s stricken look, she took pity on him and his ill-founded fears. “Perhaps they wished you ill. Thoughts can sometimes be powerful weapons. If I were you, I’d consider witches less and wickedness more.”
The King gazed at Sorcha in puzzlement. “Well put, I think.” He brightened as the parrot shrieked and sailed back down to the mantelpiece. “Now put your mind at ease, dearest Coz; we shall set about our task at once to arrange your marriage with our Bonnie Earl.”
Trying not to look askance, Sorcha offered James a feeble smile. Over his shoulder, she saw the parrot stare with a seemingly critical eye, then wink. The bird would ordinarily have amused Sorcha, but now, in her pregnant, distraught state, it only seemed to mock her misery.
Francis Hay, ninth Earl of Errol, was a squarely built young man with square facial features, and square, blunt hands. His only remarkable physical attribute was a cluster of chestnut curls, which dipped gracefully over the short white ruff of his collar. To Gavin Napier, Errol looked more like a fledgling Flemish merchant than chieftain of the second most powerful Catholic family in Scotland.
Sitting across a trestle table from Errol and George Gordon, Napier braced his booted feet against a stout rung and stroked his dark beard. “My Lord,” he said, addressing Errol and ignoring Gordon’s angry countenance, “my brother, Adam, has found you a most reasonable sort. How can you involve yourself in a feud opposed to your interests and those of your Catholic faith?”
Errol shifted uneasily on the hard bench next to Gordon. The three men had agreed to meet on neutral ground, at an inn in Glenlivet. Magnus Fraser, three family retainers, and a handful of MacKintosh supporters were posted in a nearby copse, lest George Gordon not keep his word to parley rather than fight. Napier was justified in his suspicions; a scouting expedition had discovered some two hundred Gordon troops quartered across an ice-choked burn.
“My future is entwined with the fate of My Lord of Huntly,” Errol finally replied, giving Gordon a sidelong glance that indicated his ally had rehearsed him. “Our houses have a history of standing together.”
Over his tankard of ale, Gordon gave Napier a sly little smile. “Even against Queen Mary, the Hays bolted and stood with the Gordons.”
“And lost.” Napier knew the Battle of Corrichie Moor as well as any Highlander. He looked archly at Gordon. “Even now, you have surrounded Darnaway Castle, laying siege to MacKintosh and Grant leaders. Lord Fraser is there, too.”
Idly, Gordon dragged a chunk of rye bread through his platter of congealing beef gravy. “Over time, the Frasers have proved to be more trouble than they’re worth.” The small blue eyes fixed themselves on Napier, little pinpricks of censure.
Under the table, Napier clenched and unclenched his fist, but his face remained impassive. “I’m here to ask that you withdraw your men from Darnaway. If not, the Fraser clan will officially join forces with the Grants and MacKintoshes.”
Gordon rolled the chunk of bread around in his mouth and fingered a signet ring on his right hand. “They won’t,” he said in that light, deceptively good-natured voice. “They’d betray the Catholic cause.”
Napier pushed an empty jug out of his way as he leaned forward on the table. “Your cause is not Catholic, it’s cupidity. You take the Holy Mother Church’s name in vain as a sop to your greed and ambition. The Frasers want peace in the Highlands. War profits no one; it only divides men of good faith—and no faith at all.” The hunter’s gaze was piercing, like arrows loosed from a bow. “You have three days to withdraw. If not, Moray and Atholl will join the Frasers as well.”
Gordon’s mouth worked soundlessly; Errol seemed absorbed in wiping up a daub of butter sauce with his sleeve. “Don’t threaten me,” George Gordon muttered. He summoned up the pride of his clan and the vanity of his name to sit up straight and fix Napier with angry, warning eyes. “Go back to Moray or Atholl, or whoever sent you, and say that the Earl of Huntly is no weak-willed woman, to be frightened by a handful of renegade lords!” With a mighty heave, he got to his feet, almost upsetting Errol’s ale tankard in the process. “Better yet, I’ll make sure you deliver that message exactly as I give it.” He turned to scan the common room, which was all but empty on such a chill, wintry afternoon. “A Gordon, A Gordon,” he called, and before the words had echoed off the walls, Patrick, Master of Gray, and a half dozen men charged through the door.
Gavin Napier’s hand had flown to his dirk, the blade cutting through the inn’s peaty air. Gray didn’t hesitate. He flew at Napier, his own weapon unsheathed. Napier had already assessed his chances for escape. Except for the door through which Gray and the other men had entered, the inn’s only exit was through the kitchen. But instead of maneuvering himself in that direction, Napier broke right, toward the trestle table, forcing Gray to move off balance. Napier’s dirk lunged at the Master, but missed. Gordon and Errol were now armed as well, but with a powerful shove of his booted leg, Napier sent the trestle table across the floor, pinning both men to the wall. He dove under Gray’s thrusting blade, and even as the other men rushed forward, Magnus Fraser and a dozen red-and-green-clad MacKintoshes followed on their heels.
The diversion cost Gray the edge. Napier’s dirk crashed against the longer, slimmer French sword brandished by Gray. The weapon clattered to the stone floor, where Napier kicked it out of reach. Gray’s saturnine gaze raked his opponent as the dirk came within a half inch of his chest.
“My Lord of Huntly wants his message delivered accurately,” said Napier, his tone sardonic. “Will you do us such an honor?”
Gray’s handsome face was distorted with wrath. Magnus and his men had subdued the Gordon followers, holding them at bay in the far corner. A stringy-haired serving wench and the innkeeper gaped with mingled fear and excitement, while the only other occupants, two portly Aberdeen merchants, scrambled for safety under a table.
“Whoreson.” Gray spat the word between clenched teeth. “I remember you—from Stirling, long ago, with that troublesome Fraser chit.”
Even before Napier could say a word in defense of Sorcha, Magnus’s voice cut across the common room like a whip. “Lock your
lips, dung-arse, lest I cut them off!” Leaping over a chair, his sword gleaming with menace, Magnus flew at Patrick Gray.
Napier planted himself between the two men, cautioning his irate comrade with a purposeful gaze. “The Master is of more value alive than dead. For the moment.” He looked beyond Magnus to Gordon and Errol, who had managed to push the table away but were both standing uncertainly, their weapons useless at their sides. Napier planted a firm hand on Gray’s arm, but kept his eyes on George Gordon. “When you have removed your men from Darnaway, send word to Gosford’s End with Iain Fraser. We will send Gray back to you then—more or less as you see him now.” Gray glared, Gordon was an apoplectic shade of scarlet, and Errol failed to conceal his sense of shame.
The MacKintosh soldiers started backing toward the door, their hackbuts trained on Gordon’s followers. But Napier waved them in his direction. “Remember, there are many more troops across the burn.” He gave Gray a shove. “We’ll take our leave, out the back way.” He paused on the threshold, ducking his head under a low beam. “Don’t try to come after us, My Lord,” he said in a quiet mellow voice that was nonetheless laced with formidable compulsion. “In our encounters, you have always been one step too slow—or one thought too late.” Flashing the dirk in mock salute, Napier led Magnus and their men out of the common room.
Chapter 29
Dallas Fraser could not recall being so agitated since the early days of her marriage. A quarter of a century ago, during their years at court, Lord and Lady Fraser had been swept up in political intrigue, hounded by adversaries, beset by plots both grand and petty. Ultimately, Iain Fraser had chosen not to live at the center of Scotland’s turmoil, but to retire to the isolation of the Highlands, where they could raise their family in peace. While Dallas had often longed for the city she loved so well, she had understood and accepted the wisdom of her husband’s decision.
But now, caught up in the maelstrom of a Highland feud, with an unwed daughter carrying a married man’s child, with her eldest son joining forces with her daughter’s lover, and most of all, with her husband held a prisoner by Gordon of Huntly, Dallas felt like a piece of flotsam being battered by an ocean storm. Only sheer force of will prevented her from a nervous collapse. And without Iain Fraser or Magnus or George Gordon or Gavin Napier on the premises to act as targets, Dallas directed her frustrated outrage at the one source of aggravation who was present—Sorcha.
“For the fiftieth time, I tell you that addlepated Jamie has finally generated a plausible idea,” Dallas asserted, kicking at a faded, discarded holly wreath left over from the Yuletide season. “His plan to have you wed Moray is brilliant. Hasn’t the Bonnie Earl been panting after you for years?” She paused to stare down at the wreath, mute evidence of a holiday season passed with little cheer. “Even Christmas was spoiled with your father gone.” Tears welled up in the dark eyes, but she struggled mightily against shedding them.
For a fleeting moment, Sorcha pitied her mother—but not as much as she pitied herself. “It would be indecent for Moray to take a bride so soon after Elizabeth’s death,” Sorcha insisted, also for the fiftieth time. “Nor will I marry anyone but Gavin. The annulment will come; I’d stake my life on it.”
“Don’t.” Dallas bit off the word. She had regained her composure, now stomping about her bedchamber in a swirl of tawny silk. “That latest holy relic—Innocent or whoever, I’ve lost track now—is rumored to be in ill health. By the time the College of Cardinals elects a Bishop of Rome who can breathe in and out for more than six months, your poor bairn will be more marriageable than you!”
Ordinarily, Sorcha would have found her mother amusing. But after almost a week of vituperation, Sorcha was more inclined to hostility. “I absolutely refuse to become Moray’s wife. Neither the King—nor you—can command it.” She had risen from the padded footstool by the bed to face her mother, well aware of the advantage her height gave her. The green eyes glittered dangerously, defying crown and kinfolk, determined to defend the right to forge her own future.
The recent days of argument had taken their toll on Dallas, too. She gazed steadily at Sorcha, noting, yet somehow resenting, the same fierce pride, the same hardheaded obstinacy she herself possessed. Most of all, she perceived the enormity of her daughter’s love for Gavin Napier. It was a bulwark no mother could assault, and Dallas knew it.
“Fie,” she breathed, looking away and rubbing her palms jerkily against the tawny silk of her overskirts. “You should not have let him use your body,” she murmured. “We have been dishonored.”
Her head high, Sorcha put a hand over the curve of her abdomen. “I am honored to carry Gavin’s child, honored to have his love. Will Father Adam condemn me?”
Moving to a panel in the wall, Dallas turned a gilt-edged latch and gave Sorcha a baleful backward glance. Adam Napier had gone to spend the Yuletide season with the monks at Beauly Abbey. He was due to return by now, but the latest heavy snowfall of the season had detained him. “I can’t speak for Father Adam,” said Dallas, taking out a decanter of wine and two crystal glasses with the slimmest of stems, “nor do I condemn you, if it comes to that.” She poured dark red wine into the glasses and handed one to Sorcha. “I’m sick at heart, afraid for you, worried half to death about your father.” She sank into an armchair, the silk billowing, then collapsing into long, limp folds. “These past few weeks ….” Her voice seemed to swallow itself. Dallas drank deeply and cleared her throat. “I feel so … helpless. Where can Magnus and Napier be? They’ve been gone over a fortnight.”
Sorcha had been asking herself the same question ever since her exhausted arrival at Gosford’s End. Yet the complexity of the task set by her lover and brother, compounded by the winter weather, no doubt explained their prolonged absence. Taking advantage of her mother’s softened mood, Sorcha attempted to divert the conversation. “Is it true that Johnny Grant is also under siege at Darnaway?”
Dallas’s nose wrinkled at the Laird of Freuchie’s name. “Aye. So I hear. They can hang the wretch by his heels, for all I care. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be in this debacle.”
Her mother’s logic eluded Sorcha. She sipped her wine and wished she felt more like taking Thisbe out for a canter on the deep, hard-packed snow. But except for rare intervals, her usual vigor had deserted her since conceiving a child. Listlessly, she brushed at a stray lock of hair. “If only I could have caught up with Marie-Louise.” She sighed. “But the strumpet rode like the demon she is, and I was too enervated to keep up the pace.”
“Marie-Louise!” Dallas intoned the name on a scathing note. “I can scarcely believe anyone that wicked exists! I wonder, did Bothwell flee to his damnable Borders?”
“He must have. Where else would he go?” Sorcha and Dallas both swerved toward the door as Cummings called to them. Dallas bade him enter, but frowned at the disturbed expression on his usually imperturbable face.
“Father Adam is back,” said Cummings, looking very ill at ease. “He would like to see you.” Cummings covered his mouth as he coughed slightly. “He says he has bad news.”
Sorcha and Dallas both swung to their feet, firing questions at Cummings, demanding to know if the priest had word of the men they loved. But Cummings held up a hand, shaking his head in apology. Father Adam had related no details. He was downstairs, warming himself by the fire in lain Fraser’s study.
Adam Napier was more gaunt and strained than when Sorcha had last seen him. He sat in her father’s big armchair, a thick woolen blanket thrown over his useless legs. At the sight of his hostess and her daughter, he bowed from the waist, a kindly smile on his thin lips. “May God be with you,” he said in greeting, waiting for the women to sit down. But when neither moved toward the room’s other two chairs, he began to speak again.
“Even a short journey takes me a long time, I fear,” he began by way of apology. “I have spent the better part of the day traveling from Beauly Priory.”
Patience not being a virtue either Da
llas or her daughter possessed in great measure, both Fraser females briskly waved aside the priest’s explanations. “Bad news keeps ill, Father,” Dallas urged. “Please speak your piece.”
Father Adam nodded in understanding, then withdrew a thickly rolled document from his robes, which he proffered not to Dallas, but to Sorcha. “Alas, the Holy Father has ruled against an annulment. Despite his failing health, Pope Innocent was gracious enough to hear Rob plead your case. You might not agree with his conclusions, but I believe you will find them fair and judicious.”
With trembling hands, Sorcha unrolled the long sheet of parchment. It was written in Latin, a language she had learned in childhood and knew quite well, but the blow she had just received rendered her wits useless. The elegantly formed letters blurred before her eyes, the papal seal at the bottom of the page looked like nothing more than an amorphous blob. “Here,” she said to her mother in a hoarse voice, “take it. I don’t even want to touch the wretched thing!”
As Dallas grabbed the parchment before it glided to the floor, Sorcha flung herself into a chair. She covered her face with her hands, though the tears refused to fall. Dallas, her mouth set in a tight, angry line, scanned the papal verdict. “Pope Innocent indeed!” she snapped. “Pope ‘Imbecile’ would be more like it! This sounds like it’s concerned with two completely different people! It reads as if Gavin and Marie-Louise have merely had a nasty little lovers’ tiff!” She waved the document at Father Adam, whose mild dark eyes blinked at his hostess’s fervor. “Tell me, Father—is it the Pope’s body or his mind that fails him?”
“My dear Lady Fraser,” murmured Father Adam placatingly, “I was not in Rome. I’m certain your good son will write you with details. He sent this in haste, from Paris, on his way back to Compiègne.”
Oblivious of the exchange between her mother and Father Adam, Sorcha rose on shaky legs from the chair and slipped quietly from the room. She heard her mother call after her, but paid no heed. Stumbling up the stairs, she retreated to her bedchamber and collapsed onto the bed. For several minutes, she forced her mind to go blank in an attempt to erase all the disturbing, conflicting emotions that beset her. At last, she sat up, the green eyes drawn to the crucifix that hung over her bed. “Sweet Savior,” she prayed, “let good triumph over evil. Surely it cannot be Your will to allow the wickedness and snares of the Devil to overcome what is right and true. Let me be the vessel to do Your work on earth. Amen.”