by Mary Daheim
But, according to the Flemish trader who had called at Inverness after a stop at Sinclair’s Bay, Bothwell remained undeterred. Accompanied by a clutch of his faithful Border rowdies, he had planned to ride south the same day the Fleming had lifted anchor off Noss Head. Fortunately, his vessel had had the benefit of a favorable wind, and with any luck, Gavin Napier should be at least a half-day’s ride ahead of Bothwell.
Slowing Naxos to a trot as they entered the town through the West Port, Napier could make out the palace’s sturdy twin gatehouse towers outlined against the rose-tipped sky. Falkland’s High Street was all but deserted so late in the evening, no doubt in deference to the local curfew. While the palace guards at first eyed him with suspicion, when Napier identified himself as son-in-law to Lord Iain Fraser, Baron of Beauly, he was escorted promptly into the King’s presence.
A long, if profitable, day of hunting had left King Jamie faintly irascible. When Gavin Napier arrived, Jamie was in the company of Patrick Gray, who still clung tenaciously to his post as Master of the Wardrobe. Gray eyed Napier with hauteur; the King studied the newcomer with curiosity.
“After all these years,” James said somewhat querulously, “we finally meet face-to-face. Did you know that for some time we believed you to be an ancient pedant, bowed down with learning and dried up with virtue? We were duped, so that you might dash off to England and insert yourself in my mother’s household as a Papist spy!” Jamie had worked himself up into a fairly impressive royal rage. When Napier merely inclined his head to one side and offered no apology, the King turned to Patrick Gray. “I hate it when my subjects deceive me! Don’t look so smug, Patrick, my Apollo-like confrere, you’re no better than the rest!”
To Napier’s surprise, Patrick Gray wore a sheepish expression, though the smile he bestowed upon his monarch was engaging. “Mayhap some of us hide the truth to spare you, sire. Your responsibilities weigh so heavily.”
Jamie snorted and took a deep drink from his sapphire-studded wine goblet. “Paugh. I’ve been King since I was a bairn. If any sovereign could recognize responsibility in the dark, it’s me. Us,” he amended pettishly and drank again. “We grow weary of having others try to carry it for us.” Still peevish, he turned back to Napier, whose studied patience was fraying around the edges. “So? What gives you call to burst into our chambers this late in the day?”
Napier gazed blandly at the King, then at Gray, and back again. “I’d prefer speaking with you privately, sire.”
Patrick Gray lifted an elegant hand. “Speak freely, Master Napier. His Majesty and I have no secrets.”
Napier’s dark brows drew close together, but before he could utter a rejoinder, Jamie broke in. “A pox on your impertinence, Patrick! I’ll share with you whatever I choose to share! Now, begone. Go sort through my small-clothes or whatever needs to be done in your exalted capacity.” The King glared at Gray, who did his best to conceal his humiliation. With an offhand remark about always being ready to serve his sovereign, he made an exquisite bow and left the room.
With time running out, Gavin Napier came right to the point. He explained Bothwell’s latest brazen plot and was met with a mixture of fear and exasperation. “What was I just saying?” Jamie ranted, getting up from his chair, and crossing the room to pull the bell cord. “Protestant, Catholic, friend, foe, minister, priest—I can count on none of them to be loyal! Self-seeking, that’s the whole lot of them. Rapacious, greedy, grasping knaves on every side.” Giving the bell cord an angry tug, he stared at Napier. “What’s your game? What is it you want from this?”
“To please Sorcha,” Napier blurted. Noting the King’s look of surprise, he laughed. “She insisted I come. She’s fond of Your Majesty, as I’m sure you know.”
Jamie’s lords of the bedchamber and several servants were at the door in response to his signal. Still regarding Napier with speculative amusement, the King finally nodded. “I almost believe you. Aye,” he said, more to himself than to Napier, “in fact, I think I do.”
The King and Queen, along with Napier, Maitland, Gray, and several other important personages in the royal household, sought safety in the palace’s main tower. Some time after midnight, Bothwell and his men were sighted in the town. The alarm was spread by the watch, and though the earl and his followers surrounded the palace, no attempt was made to storm the gates. Shortly after sunrise, when the townspeople learned what was happening, they armed themselves and put Bothwell to flight. The King made a brief, yet surprisingly eloquent speech of thanks, which the good burghers cheered before heading back home to take up their daily routine. Having done his duty, Gavin Napier asked the King’s permission to return at once to the Highlands. Jamie, however, was reluctant to have him leave.
“You have shown your loyalty to us,” King James told Napier over a belated breakfast. “Strange, isn’t it, that being a Papist, you’d ride at breakneck speed to save your sovereign from Bothwell. We could use such a man at court, Master Napier.” Jamie waited anxiously for Napier’s reaction.
It came only after careful consideration. “I’m not cut out for life at court, sire, though your words honor me. I’m a plain-spoken man, who has had little success in attempts to negotiate between Scotland’s Catholic families. I intend to raise Highland ponies on some property that makes up part of my wife’s dowry,” Napier said, with a wry smile. “Talking to horses doesn’t require artful diplomacy.”
“True,” Jamie agreed, dumping the contents of a jam pot on his bread, “but it requires something even more rare—horse sense. See here,” Jamie went on earnestly, as strawberry jam oozed out of the corners of his mouth, “it’s impolitic to discuss our claim on the English throne. But it would be simpleminded to ignore the possibility. If we—I—am to some day wear the crowns of both Scotland and England, I must persuade English Catholics I don’t intend to persecute them. If I don’t demonstrate a tolerant attitude, they’ll press for a Spanish succession, since my mother”—he paused to make a rueful face—“willed her right to the English crown to King Philip of Spain. Not to mention the fact that it’s in my best interests here at home to play off Protestant against Catholic.” He shrugged, wiping at a daub of jam on his pale blue satin shirt. “I must play one faction off against the other, because it’s best for Scotland. If you won’t join the court, will you serve as special envoy to England?”
Gavin Napier was nonplussed. His efforts as envoy of the Catholic Church had failed. How could King Jamie consider involving him in what would be an even more delicate political and religious mission? Napier said as much, but Jamie merely shrugged. “You didn’t fail at bringing unity to Scotland. My, no,” reiterated the King, wiping out the rest of the jam pot’s contents with his index finger, “you brought the Highland families together—Grants, Frasers, MacKintoshes, Camerons—all those old enemies united not only in self-interest but against George Gordon’s treachery and injustice. Never mind religion; it often masks far baser motives. You unerringly fought on the side of what was right. I—we—should like to have you do the same for us in England.”
Weighing the King’s words carefully, Napier had to admit that they held an element of truth. Catholic leaders such as Gordon and Errol, Caithness, and even the will-o’-the-wisp Gray, had used their faith, rather than lived by it. They were far less interested in religion than in self-aggrandizement. Yet despite the turmoil of the past few years, George Gordon’s hold on the Highlands had been broken. If he had succeeded in ridding himself of his hereditary rival, Moray, he had also weakened his own position as a threat to the Crown. It would serve no purpose for Napier to discount his own contribution.
“Let me think about your generous offer,” Napier said at last, shifting his body in the armchair and tugging at the cuff of one leather boot. “Right now,” he went on with a grin, “I have other matters uppermost in my mind.”
Jamie turned a puzzled face on Napier and then let out his jarring laugh. “Aye, the bairn! By all means, point your steed northward and ride
to my dear Coz’s side! We’ll send a splendid gift, I promise! Indeed, if all goes well, mayhap I’ll bring it in person!”
The King’s piercing cackle followed Napier out of the room and halfway down the corridor. Somehow, the sound seemed almost musical to Gavin Napier.
The month of February had rolled round again at Gosford’s End, bringing two important visitors. While some might judge the arrival of the King of Scotland as the more impressive, for the Frasers it was Rob who had sparked the most exuberant celebration. He had come to visit his family before heading for Rome, where he would study to become a Jesuit. The cloistered life of a Recollect friar did not suit him as well as the more active vocation he could exercise as a disciple of Ignatius Loyola.
“Missionary work appeals to me,” he explained one rainy evening to the King he had not seen in six years. “You and I may not agree on religion, but I trust you will permit me to submit that there are many heathens who have no knowledge of the Gospel.”
“Oh, many,” conceded King James blithely. “A great many, indeed. And if any of them ever learn to read, they ought to have a Bible that makes sense. I like the Bible very much, don’t you, Cousin Robert?”
Sorcha stifled a giggle behind her hand. She wasn’t sure if Jamie was teasing Rob or merely being polite. Certainly the King had dispensed with formality since arriving at the head of a large troop of men the previous day. After a year of halfhearted endeavor to bring George Gordon to justice for the murder of Moray, King James had finally ridden north with a formidable army. George, like Bothwell before him, had fled across the Highlands to seek shelter from their old accomplice, Caithness. Upon reaching Gosford’s End, Jamie seemed content to give up the chase. It appeared that Moray’s tragic murder would go down as one of the great unprovoked and unpunished crimes in history.
Gavin Napier stood up and stretched in front of the sitting room’s crackling fireplace while his father-in-law poured more whiskey for everyone except Jeannie Simpson, who was already practically asleep on Magnus’s shoulder. “Drink up,” Iain Fraser urged, lifting his cup, “tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day and Sorcha and Gavin’s first wedding anniversary.” He offered his eldest daughter and her husband that familiar crooked grin and drank deeply. The others followed suit, toasting the happy couple with fulsome praise. Father Adam smiled as broadly as the rest, though he discreetly asked Rosmairi to water down his whiskey before he took another sip.
The King of Scotland appeared to be the merriest of them all. He had burst into that faintly jarring cackle, slapping his thigh, with his head thrown back and a trace of whiskey trickling into his beard. “Such irony!” he exclaimed, controlling his mirth and gazing around the family circle to which he was tied by blood as well as affection. “Here I—we, that is—are pursuing the leading Catholic lord of the realm for murdering the most eminent Protestant lord, and sharing hospitality with a passel of Papists and priests!” Lurching in his chair, he turned to Napier. “Well? You’ve had eight months to mull over our offer. What say you, Master Napier?”
A sudden uneasy silence filled the sitting room. Napier fingered his dark beard and glanced at Sorcha. “My wife and I would like to see more of England,” he said evenly. “Especially without watchdogs like Sir Amyas Paulet looking over our shoulders.”
Jamie all but jumped from his chair. “Excellent! You will serve us well at Queen Bess’s court! You know, of course,” he said offhandedly, “that our first order of business these days is to reorganize the Presbyterian Kirk.” He paused to make sure his statement had hit home. “However,” he went on in an airy manner, “we shouldn’t wish to see power concentrated in the ministers’ hands as has so often been the case in the past. Power,” Jamie emphasized, one gangling hand touching his breast, “lies here.” His gaze was level with Napier’s; the two men understood each other perfectly. Henceforth, Scotland would not be ruled by the Kirk, but by the King, and in so ordaining, Jamie would coincidentally grant qualified protection to his Catholic subjects. Napier could not suppress an exultant smile.
“I can only speak for myself,” he said to Jamie with a deferential nod, “but I think you are demonstrating a great deal of wisdom, sire.”
“Wisdom?” Jamie giggled. “Aye, some call me ‘the wisest fool in Christendom.’ I like that title. What think you, Coz?” He turned to Sorcha and gave the silver lace on her sleeve a little tug.
“I like it fine, Your Majesty,” she replied with a bright smile. “You always were canny when it came to deceiving your elders.”
“Not all of them,” interjected Dallas with a wince, as Jamie sloshed whiskey onto a petit point cushion. “I’m told you made a promise to present our new grandchild with a gift. It occurred to me that Scotland is much indebted to our Gavin—and will be again, it seems. Might a humble, doting grandmother make a request?”
Jamie was trying to keep a straight face. “For what? Denmark?” Seeing Lord Fraser roll his eyes toward the ceiling, while Magnus choked on his drink and Rob stared at the Persian carpet, Jamie slapped his thigh again and howled with laughter. “Well, Madam?” he gasped between cackles, “is Denmark too large even for your acquisitive nature?”
Dallas was the only undismayed—and unamused—person in the room. “Too large? What about Jutland, then?”
Jamie was wiping his eyes with his sleeve and shaking his head. Dallas, wearing a blandly innocent expression, which was belied only by the quick wink she gave Sorcha, primly folded her hands in her lap to present a fetching portrait of maternal concern. “Of course,” she said in a deceptively demure voice, “if Your Majesty intended a more modest gesture ….”
King James had finally regained control of himself. He blew his nose loudly and scooted to the edge of the petit point cushion. “Somewhat more modest, aye. Where’s my sword?” he asked, turning to Armand, who was standing behind the settee where Rosmairi and Rob were seated.
“I believe, Your Majesty, you are wearing it,” replied Armand, the blue eyes twinkling.
“Ah! So I am!” Jamie reached around to pull the weapon from its bejeweled scabbard. Peering at the hilt, he frowned. “I fear I’ve lost a ruby. By heaven, war exacts a terrible price!” He shrugged, then motioned to Gavin Napier. “Step forward, good Master Napier. Your perspicacious mother-in-law is right. We do owe you a debt. And we can’t send you to Queen Elizabeth’s court in our service as plain Master Napier.” James had grown quite serious. “To that end, and in gratitude, we now endow you with lands and privileges east of Inversnaid, between Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine. Kneel, sir, I pray you.”
Startled by the King’s unexpected words, it took Gavin Napier a moment to react. Then, with a glance at his wide-eyed wife, he knelt before Jamie, who touched the broad shoulders with his sword and pronounced the rite of ennoblement: “We hereby proclaim you, Gavin Napier, as First Laird of Lomond, your lands and titles to be passed down in perpetuity to your lawful heirs. So be it, in the name of the King and God Almighty.”
Jamie raised his sword and bestowed a smug smile on the rest of the company, then looked sideways at Armand. “Are you not about to spend your inheritance on the building of a fine place near Loch Ness?”
Armand, whose inheritance had finally been secured by a diligent Donald McVurrich, happily replied that such was indeed the case. Jamie lifted his palms face up. “Then the future is bright for all of my Fraser cousins! How pleased we are with this evening’s piece of work!”
“As are we,” murmured Sorcha, who came to slip between her husband and the King. “While I’m overwhelmed by your generosity, my own request would have been of a different nature.” She juggled a handful of almonds she’d scooped from a silver bowl and regarded James conspiratorially. “I should have asked if you’ve considered sending that worrisome rascal Bothwell and the Master of Gray into exile.”
Jamie’s munificent expression went blank. “Ah ….” The sovereign dug in his ear with great zeal. “Actually, that’s a brilliant suggestion, one I’ve—we’ve�
�toyed with for some time, of course. At least,” he amended quickly, “regarding Bothwell.” Jamie lowered his voice so that only Sorcha and Napier could hear. “But Patrick Gray is another matter. He may be bad—but he’s so beautiful.” Emitting a little sigh of rapture, James offered Sorcha his most winning smile. “But fear not, the Master has been mastered. He knows that if he wants to keep our favor, he must behave. That,” Jamie added solemnly, “I promise you.”
Sorcha accepted the King’s words in good faith; she stepped forward to hug her royal cousin tight. Jamie giggled with pleasure and demanded more whiskey. As Iain Fraser again made the rounds with the decanter, a now wide-awake Jeannie proffered her cup, while the King proposed yet another toast. “This time we drink to Scotland! Good family, I give you our kingdom—and the kingdom to come!”
Everyone cheered lustily at his somewhat cryptic words, even Father Adam, who made no request to water his whiskey this time. The conversation grew less formal and more raucous as the whiskey decanter was emptied, refilled, and emptied again. Outside, the rain dissipated into a fine mist, and the heavy gray clouds began drifting out to sea. In the nursery, Magnus’s son and daughter slept in their cradles next to little Adam’s brand-new trundle bed. And in her wet nurse’s arms, wee Dallas Napier suckled greedily, her tiny fists swinging as if she were impatient not just for the flow of milk, but for the future.