by Mary Daheim
“Highlanders seldom make good farmers, but they love the land,” he told her. “I’m an exception, since I love the land enough not to want it wasted. You forget, my sole source of income now derives from my farmlands.”
Dallas was sitting on an overturned bucket, watching her husband candle the eggs. “It’s just that I’ve never seen you in such a capacity before. Every so often I feel as if I don’t know you as well as I thought.”
“Man of multiple talents am I,” Fraser grinned, placing the basket of eggs on the hen house floor. “But,” he added, kneeling next to her and lifting the drab olive skirt, “essentially, the same simple bridegroom you married all those years ago.”
“Not here, Iain!” Dallas protested as he slipped his hand between her legs. “This place smells!”
Fraser sniffed experimentally. “A bit. But you smell good, lassie, like clover.”
“More like chicken droppings if we stay here,” Dallas retorted, finally pulling away and knocking over the bucket in the process. “Besides, we have to get our eggs to market.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Fraser picked up the basket. “A farmer’s life is hard. So much sacrifice is required just for survival.”
Their life during those weeks at Dunbar was filled with tension and tenderness, laughter and love, quarrels and quietude. Dallas did the cooking and cleaning, grumbling all the while. They both wished the children could have come, too, but didn’t dare send anyone to fetch them from Edinburgh. Indeed, the message Fraser had dispatched to Cummings did not pinpoint their hideaway, lest it should fall into the wrong hands.
The folk they met in the Dunbar marketplace regarded them with curiosity. Newcomers were always treated thus, but the tall man with the hawklike profile and the indolent arrogance wasn’t like any chicken farmer they’d ever seen before. As for his spouse—well, even dressed as badly as most of the other local women, she seemed both too lush and too refined for a farmer’s wife. Yet Oliver McVurrich had vouched for the couple and all Dunbar knew what an honest man he was.
But the news of Bothwell’s acquittal shattered the idyll. Fraser had already made up his mind to see the Queen when a new report reached Dunbar: James Stuart had left Scotland, ostensibly to make a leisurely tour of England and the Continent.
“Bothwell and Mary are steering their craft straight into the eye of the storm,” Fraser asserted. “Didn’t I tell you this would happen?”
“You’re prescient, Iain,” Dallas said, half-jokingly. Arguments or attempts to keep him at Dunbar were doomed to failure, as she recognized from experience. As for Fraser, he did not delude himself into thinking he could dissuade either his Queen or the man who had been his friend from their heedless course; still, his deeply ingrained loyalties required that he at least try.
Dallas knew it was pointless to remind Fraser of the dangers he would face upon his return to Edinburgh. With unwonted stoicism, she kissed him good-bye on the third morning of April, stifled one last urge to insist he let her come with him, and watched until he and Barvas cantered out of sight along the coastline road.
The Queen was in Edinburgh, somewhat recovered and making ready for the official opening of Parliament. The session called to sit upon Bothwell’s murder charge had been a special one and not attended by the sovereign.
Fraser entered the city the morning after he left Dunbar, coming up through the long, steep Vennel and mingling with the usual influx of tradesmen, peddlers and farmers. Dressed in his rustic clothing, no one noticed him leading Barvas between several other far less magnificent specimens of livestock. He headed directly for the Cameron house in Nairne’s Close.
Glennie was astonished to see him on the front stoop, though whether his appearance or his presence amazed her most, he could not tell. “I almost didn’t recognize you with that beard!” she exclaimed, after he’d stepped into the hallway. “Where’s Dallas? Is she all right?”
“She’s out gathering eggs right about now,” Fraser grinned as Glennie’s blue eyes grew even wider. “Didn’t you know your sister always longed for the rural life?”
Walter and Marthe both appeared before Fraser could offer any detailed explanations. After they had recovered from their own surprise, he became serious, impressing upon them the need for keeping his visit secret. “I must see Tarrill,” he said, between mouthfuls of Marthe’s cornmeal cakes. “Is she at court?”
Glennie told him that she was, but returned most nights to the flat in Blackfriars. Fraser asked if she could get a message to Tarrill, requesting her to stop at the Cameron house. Hesitantly, Glennie agreed. “Donald usually escorts her to their place since the Exchequer is so near Holyrood. You won’t do anything to endanger Tarrill, will you, Iain?”
Fraser cocked an eyebrow at his sister-in-law. “We’re all in trouble just now,” he said dryly, “whether we know it or not.”
The message which Daniel and Jamie guilelessly carried to Holyrood not only invited Tarrill to stop off at the Cameron house but to bring the two Fraser boys with her for a cousinly visit. A second message was enclosed with the first, addressed to Cummings but to be delivered by Tarrill. Fraser would need a change of clothes and some money.
Tarrill, Donald and the two small boys arrived shortly after seven. Magnus climbed all over his father with delight and Robert demonstrated his ability to walk. Fraser promised them both special treats since he had missed their birthdays.
“You always do,” Magnus said bluntly. “Why don’t you and Mother stay home?”
Somewhat guiltily, Fraser explained that he and Dallas did not want to go away, that certain evil people had forced them to leave, and that he hoped some day soon they could be together for always.
“In most families like ours the children don’t live with their parents anyway,” Fraser pointed out. “They are raised by their guardians. It’s a custom among the wellborn, but one which your mother and I don’t favor.”
Magnus allowed that he was glad, told his father he thought his beard looked funny, and ran off to play with his big cousins. Fraser then sat down with Tarrill and Donald to work out a way to see the Queen.
“Maybe,” suggested Donald, “it would be easier to get the Queen out of Holyrood than to get you in.”
Ultimately, they agreed. In happier times, Mary Stuart had delighted in dressing as a peasant girl or even as a young lad and going about the city incognito. It was an avocation she’d inherited from her father, who traveled the country in many guises, even that of a Gaberlunzie. Tarrill would suggest that the Queen take her mind off her troubles by dressing as a simple burgher’s wife and going to Blackfriars to visit the McVurrich flat.
“I’ll tell her that I know we could never entertain her royally there, but that I want so much for her to see our first home,” Tarrill said ingenuously. “You know how she is about love and romance—the idea will be irresistible.”
Fraser agreed the plan might work. “Your lass is as cunning as she is fair,” he grinned at Donald. “I’d watch out for her, if I were you.”
“Aye, I do that,” Donald beamed, gazing proudly at his wife.
Mary Stuart, attired in a homespun skirt of grey muslin and a simple blue bodice laced in with a darker blue stomacher, arrived with Tarrill in Blackfriars late the following afternoon. The Queen had opened Parliament that day and the idea of going from elaborate robes of state to the homely garb of a burgher’s wife had instantly appealed to her.
Tarrill was dressed in a similar costume and both women were giggling when they ascended the stairs to the McVurrich flat. Outside in the close, two royal retainers waited, having followed the Queen from Holyrood at a discreet distance.
“To think I traveled from the palace to the Tolbooth this morning surrounded by hackbutters and men-at-arms!” the Queen exclaimed as Tarrill turned her key in the lock. “But now, I go like the breeze, virtually free of encumbrance.”
Iain Fraser, still bearded, but wearing his own clothes, stood waiting by a tall window which looked out i
nto the street. When Mary Stuart came through the door, he made a deep bow.
“Welcome, Your Grace. Circumstances have reduced me to becoming the McVurrich valet.”
But the Queen did not find his remark amusing. Her expression froze and she turned abruptly to Tarrill. “You knew he was here?”
Flushing slightly, Tarrill nodded. “It was prearranged. My brother-in-law has been most anxious to see you privately.”
“You tricked me!” the Queen railed at Tarrill. “You lied! I’ll not have you attend me again!”
Tarrill began to protest, but Fraser interrupted. “It was my doing, Your Grace. Tarrill behaved as any loyal kinswoman would. If she’d told you the truth, would you have come?”
Mary Stuart held a long white hand against her throat.
“No. You broke ward, you’re an outlaw. I don’t deal with criminals.” Haughtily, the Queen swept towards the door.
“If,” Fraser remarked coolly, “criminals offend you, why does my lord Bothwell stand so high in your esteem?”
The Queen stood stock-still, then turned slowly to look at Fraser. “I don’t understand you. Lord Bothwell was acquitted.”
Fraser picked up a china comfit dish and examined the pattern of cherry blossoms around the rim. “No one believes he’s innocent, least of all Edinburgh’s good citizens.” He set the dish back down on the sideboard and forced the Queen to look directly at him. “No one who was at Craigmillar one night last November would believe it either.”
Tarrill had uttered a little gasp but the stunned Queen didn’t notice. “You?” Mary Stuart breathed. “You were at Craigmillar?”
Fraser carefully avoided the anxious gaze of his sister-in-law. “I’d hardly admit it if I had been. That would mean I’d broken ward not once, but twice.”
“Laws, rules, restrictions mean nothing to you!” the Queen cried, taking the offensive and advancing angrily on Fraser. “You’ve lived outside the law so long you don’t know the meaning of integrity or honor!”
If Mary Stuart had been a man, Fraser would have struck her. As it was, his mouth tightened in the black beard and the hazel eyes turned as hard as onyx. “Do you mean to tell me,” Fraser demanded between clenched teeth, “that though all other malcreants in this realm are forgiven their sins, real or imagined, I am not?”
The Queen could not help but glance at Tarrill, who looked as helpless as she was confused. “I mean you are still an outlaw,” Mary Stuart said with unwonted harshness. “You are fortunate you haven’t landed in the Tolbooth long before this. You put yourself above crown and council, Iain Fraser. You always have, in typical, arrogant Highland fashion.”
His dark face blazed with a fury which only the greatest effort at self-control kept in check. “You’d cast old friends aside to go your heedless way? You will see injustice done to me and no justice at all for those who are guilty?”
The nerves which throbbed so close to the surface almost gave way in the face of Fraser’s onslaught. But Mary Stuart was committed, body and soul, to her course of action. “I have finally found someone in whom I can put total trust,” she asserted in a voice that trembled. “Someone who not only cares for the realm but for me as a woman. I willingly put my fate in Bothwell’s hands!”
“You are as unjust as you are misguided, madame,” Fraser said coldly. “For the sake of a man, a man I once called friend, you would throw away Scotland!”
“Scotland!” The word was spoken with startling scorn. “I, who have been Queen of France, who could be Queen of England, I can hold onto a poor country like Scotland with little effort!”
Sorrow filled the hazel eyes. “Oh, madame,” Fraser said softly. “You have made a terrible mistake! You are guilty of great misjudgment, but not so great as mine for serving you as sovereign.” This time it was Fraser who turned away, walking slowly back to the window. Outside, the chilly spring haar filtered down Blackfriars Wynd.
“Unless you prefer being a chicken farmer’s wife forever, I suggest we go to France.” Fraser sat at the scruffy little table in the croft’s tiny kitchen, trying to sort out their future. He was also trying to figure out what Dallas had cooked for supper.
“Kail brose, with barley bannocks,” she informed him crossly, after deciphering his puzzled countenance. “It’s what people in the country are supposed to eat.”
Fraser grimaced slightly but realized this was no time to chide Dallas about her haphazard efforts in the kitchen. He’d already explained to her what had happened in Edinburgh. The Queen would no longer keep to her agreement not to confiscate his properties. Before long, he and Dallas would be landless. Even the town house would be taken, rumored to fall as booty to Morton for one of his Douglas adherents.
Dallas’s initial reaction had been predictable. She’d stormed about the croft, berating the Queen, cursing Bothwell, damning Morton, reviling Lord James.
“James is sulking in London,” Fraser reminded her.
“He’s still at the bottom of all our troubles, mark my words.” She waved a wooden ladle at him and managed to almost tip over a pitcher of cream in the process. “As for that swine Morton, I think he’s always had his eye on the town house, either for himself or one of his loathsome kin. It better not be Delphinia!”
“She has a fine house already.”
“And don’t think I don’t know how she got it!” Dallas could not resist the barb but Fraser did not react. He was still dwelling on his disillusionment with Mary Stuart and the wreck of his own dreams for Scotland.
He had remained in the capital for only two days, hiding out at the Cameron house while making arrangements through Walter Ramsay for Cummings to sell off the treasures in the cellar and as many of the household furnishings as possible. As soon as these matters were taken care of, Fraser would return to collect the children. It was risky but he would not entrust their safekeeping to anyone, not even Cummings.
Their household staff would be dismissed, Fraser told Dallas, except for Cummings, Flora, Ellen and the French cook. Meg could come, too, but she was being courted by a young lad from Colinton and preferred staying in Edinburgh.
“I prefer staying in Edinburgh,” Dallas snapped, her chin on her fist. “How long will our money last once we get to France?”
Fraser dropped his napkin beside the plate. “A year, maybe more. I’ll find some way of providing for us, lovey, don’t worry.”
But she did. Most of all she worried he might return to piracy. “When do we go?”
“Before the first of May. We’ll take ship from Leith. You’ll go with me when I return to Edinburgh, we won’t stay more than a few hours.”
Dallas was on her feet, banging plates, kettles and pans together in a noisome, full-blown rage. “I’m trying to be gallant about this, Iain, but it’s damnably difficult! My whole life is bound up in Edinburgh—I never went more than thirty miles outside the city until I married you. All my kin are there, my old home, our own home.” She dumped the cooking gear into a tub of water by the hearth and turned back to her husband. “To think I was ever foolish enough to believe that marrying you would solve all my problems!”
Fraser had not been listening; after much experience with his wife’s tirades he had schooled himself to turn a deaf ear when it suited his mood. Still, he understood why she was so angry and he was not unsympathetic. “I don’t much like surrendering property I’ve risked my neck to get in the first place,” he said reasonably. “But if I don’t leave the country my neck won’t be worth a ha’penny. Though I’ve been outlawed for some time, until now I’ve always felt that the Queen would make sure no serious harm was done to me or my properties. But times have changed, most of all, the Queen has changed.”
Her fury temporarily spent, Dallas sank back down into her chair. “Addlepated slut,” she muttered. “Mary Stuart has all the brains of a poached egg. To think I actually cared about her, that I found Bothwell good company.”
“I feel the same—they were both close to me for a long time.” He
reached across the table and gave her hands a squeeze. Dallas was slumped in the chair, the orange blouse turning her skin sallow, the thick hair more unruly than usual, the sensuous mouth petulant, and the hands Fraser held were scratched and reddened.
“Maybe that tenement in the Cowgate wouldn’t have been any worse,” he said with a wry grin.
But Dallas only stared at him. “Maybe,” she said.
Later that night, lying next to her sleeping husband, Dallas fixed her gaze on an open space in the thatched roof and tried to imagine what life would be like away from Edinburgh. The experience in London was no means of comparison; no matter what might have happened, she had known her stay would be temporary. The same was true with her sojourn to the Highlands—Dallas had planned on being there but a fortnight, and even when she had realized she could not flee Beauly with her son, she had still counted on an early return to Edinburgh.
But this was different. Perhaps she’d never walk up the High Street again, never climb Our Lady’s Steps, never sniff the wood smoke in Peebles Wynd, never haggle over prices in the Flesh Market. And never walk up to the front door of the elaborately carved house in Gosford’s Close and feel the pride of possession.
Dallas turned over, to see the outline of her husband’s dark head against the pillow. She was poignantly reminded of the night they were married when he had slept after taking possession of her unwilling body. Even then she had felt something stir deep within her and it suddenly occurred to her that the tears she had shed that night had welled up out of a sense of love. Her brain had not known what her heart did—that she already loved Fraser and was afraid of losing him.
Her mouth curved in a bittersweet smile as she moved closer to her husband and slipped an arm around his chest. He stirred slightly and murmured her name, just as he had done on their wedding night at the town house in Gosford’s Close. Dallas had come close to losing him so many times, in so many ways. She vowed to herself that she would not lose him now.