Sophia's Secret

by Susanna Kearsley

  In the darkness of the early morning she had struck her colours and the sight of that surrender had ignited something deep in Gordon that he couldn’t quite explain, not even now. And it had stirred him into action.

  ‘It occurred to me that while I could not rescue her, I might yet do some service to the men she carried. Better they should fall into my hands,’ he said, ‘than into those of men who had no sympathy for Jacobites.’

  He’d roused his few most trusted crewmen and ordered them to get a boat at once into the water, with him in it, and they’d rowed like fury through the drifting smoke and charred debris, and beating out the other English ships nearby he’d climbed on board the Salisbury and claimed her as his prize.

  The captain of the French ship had been gallant in defeat. An able-looking man, he had managed to conduct himself, in spite of his great weariness and bloodied clothes, with consummate politeness. ‘It is kind of you to think of it,’ he’d said when Gordon, having given proof that their allegiance was the same, had offered aid. ‘There are some letters I would wish to send to France, to Paris, if that somehow could be managed.’

  ‘I will see it done.’

  ‘And one more thing. I have on board this ship a noble passenger, Lord Griffin…’

  ‘Griffin! Is he yet alive?’

  ‘He was but slightly wounded yesterday, and rests now with our surgeon, but I fear what may befall him when the English take him prisoner.’

  The English, Gordon had agreed, would not be pleased to find the aged lord, who long ago had served the old King James and who had since been living at the court of Saint-Germain. ‘What the devil were they thinking of? Why did they send Lord Griffin, at his age?’

  ‘He sent himself,’ had been the answer, with a Gallic shrug. ‘He was not told about the young king’s plans, and did not learn of them until we were about to put to sea, and then was so determined to be part of the adventure that he bought a horse and rode at once to Dunkirk, and secured himself a place on board my ship. He is a…how is it you say? A character. I would not like to see him come to harm.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Come, I will take you.’

  They had found the old man below decks, sitting calmly in the chaos of the wounded and the dead. Despite his bandaged head, he had looked fit and even cheerful, as though welcoming the prospect of adventure. He had listened to their plans politely, but had answered Gordon, ‘Oh, you needn’t bother with all that, my boy. I’ll not be harmed.’

  ‘My Lord, if the English do take a French nobleman, he will be treated with care, but if they come upon an English noble like yourself, then they will call your presence on this ship no less than treason, and will show you little mercy. They will have your head.’

  Lord Griffin’s eyes held all the patience of the aged speaking to the young. ‘I am an old man, and I’ll warrant that my bones will ache the same if I am sleeping in a palace or a prison. But,’ he said, ‘if it will give you peace, my boy, then I will come.’

  He gave consent to being carried on a stretcher, so it would appear he was more gravely wounded and could be confined, upon the Leopard, to the surgeon’s care. ‘My surgeon,’ Gordon said to both Lord Griffin and the French ship’s captain, ‘is a Jacobite, as I am, and will help to keep you hidden till we can arrange to move you somewhere safer.’

  Someone jostled past Gordon and, stepping to the side, he bumped another wounded man who lay insensible upon the deck, his breaths so shallow there was barely any movement of the stinking, blood-soaked rags that bound his shoulder.

  In that dim light the man’s pale face was difficult to see, but Gordon saw all that he needed to. He did not look away, but in a tightened voice demanded, ‘What did happen to this man?’

  Lord Griffin gave the answer. ‘He was wounded while saving the life of a young lad who had not the sense to get clear of a cannon-ball.’ When Gordon did not move, Lord Griffin thought to add, ‘The lad got out of it uninjured. I was there, I saw it all, though I confess it was that same shot brought the roof down on my head so I remember little else.’

  He rubbed his neatly bandaged temple while the captain of the French ship looked more closely at the wounded man and said, ‘I do not know his face, though by his uniform he looks to be an officer of one of the king’s Irish brigades. We have several such men aboard the Salisbury.’

  ‘My countrymen,’ Lord Griffin said, ‘will likely not be too pleased to find them here, either.’

  ‘No.’ The frown on Captain Gordon’s face grew deeper. ‘No, indeed they will not.’ And he called for one more stretcher. ‘I will take this man, as well.’

  ‘But,’ – this in protest from the French ship’s captain – ‘surely it will draw too much attention if you carry two such wounded men across on your small boat?’

  Gordon’s voice froze over. ‘I remind you, sir, that “small boat” does obey my orders, as indeed your ship must now do also, and I’ll thank you not to question my command.’

  There was no more said about it until both the stretchers had been lowered to his boat and they were rowing back across towards the Leopard. Gordon’s crewmen were all dutifully silent. Their allegiances lay squarely with his own, and he had no fears they would speak of what they’d seen, or heard. The wounded men upon the boat might well have been invisible.

  The blanket on the stretcher of the still-unconscious officer began to slip and Gordon reached to draw it up and tuck it firmly underneath the man’s uninjured arm. He turned to find Lord Griffin lying watching him.

  ‘You know him.’ It was not a question.

  Gordon answered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘His voice did mark him as a Scot.’ The aged eyes were curious. ‘And I should think a young man who could fight so fiercely in his king’s defence has done it once or twice before.’

  ‘He has. And earned himself a price upon his head that would enrich the English soldier who did capture him.’

  Lord Griffin nodded. ‘Ah. Then it is well that you did reach your friend before them.’

  Gordon turned again to study Moray’s face. ‘He would not count me as his friend.’

  ‘But you admire him.’

  Gordon thought on this a moment. ‘He is dear to someone who is dear to me,’ he said, ‘and that itself does bind us to each other, whether either of us likes the fact.’

  That said, he felt relief a short while later on the Leopard, when his surgeon gave assurances that Moray was not seriously wounded. Beneath the swinging lamps the surgeon leant in close to show the wounds. ‘You see where something sharp has caught him right across this shoulder. Not a sword, but something rougher, like a splintered piece of wood. ’Twas that which caused the bleeding, but it is now fairly stopped, and should heal in time as neatly as this wound along his side will. Two more scars he’ll hardly notice, when he wakes.’

  Lord Griffin, who had turned aside the surgeon’s offer of a hammock and was sitting in a chair against the sloping wall, glanced over and remarked, ‘It does appear that someone tries to kill the lad with regularity.’

  He too had seen, as Gordon had, the other scars that Moray bore upon his chest and arms to mark his years of being slashed and shot at on the battlefield. And hanging from his neck he wore a leather cord on which was strung a single pebble, small and black and smoothly worn, the purpose of which none of them could see.

  Lord Griffin guessed it was a charm of some sort. ‘Soldiers are a superstitious lot.’

  ‘Well,’ said the surgeon, ‘he will have to do without it for a moment, while I dress and bind this shoulder.’ But his movement to remove the stone and cord was stopped abruptly by a hand around his wrist.

  A hoarse voice, barely recognisable, said, ‘Leave that.’

  Moray’s eyes came slowly halfway open, with a waking man’s awareness. He took stock of where he was, but did not loose his hold upon the surgeon’s wrist until the latter said, ‘You have been hurt. I need to dress the wound, sir, and this stone is in the way.’r />
  A moment passed, then Moray’s hand released its grip and moved instead to take the pebble on its cord and slide it over his own head with care before he gathered it into his palm and closed his fingers round it in a small act of possession. With his gaze fixed on the surgeon’s face, he said, ‘Your voice is English.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Only Gordon saw the hand of Moray’s wounded left arm move against his thigh as though he’d hoped to find his sword still there. ‘What ship is this?’

  Lord Griffin answered, ‘You’ve no need to worry, my boy. We are on board the Leopard, and safe among friends.’

  The sound of Lord Griffin’s voice clearly caught Moray off guard and he turned his head sharply towards it, but Gordon was standing between them. The ship rolled and the lanterns swung and in the shifting bars of light and shadow Moray’s gaze met Gordon’s in a hard unspoken challenge. ‘Among friends.’ He did not sound convinced.

  ‘Aye,’ Gordon told him. ‘For the moment. But I cannot keep you hidden here for long.’ He aimed his next words at the surgeon. ‘Do you think he will be well enough to leave by nightfall?’

  Moray’s face grew wary. ‘Leave for where?’

  ‘I mean to take advantage of the victory celebrations of this day. They will increase the great confusion of these waters,’ Gordon said. ‘With so many ships and vessels and so many drunken men it should be possible to get you both aboard the fishing-smack that waits prepared to carry you across to France.’

  Lord Griffin said, ‘And what then of the men who saw you bring aboard two prisoners this morning from the Salisbury? Will they believe we simply disappeared?’

  His voice was dry, and his expression made it plain that while he did admire the plan he had his doubts about its chances for success.

  ‘My crewmen saw me bring two wounded prisoners aboard,’ was Gordon’s answer. ‘They will see me, on the morrow, hold a proper Christian burial at sea for those same prisoners who, sadly, were beyond our surgeon’s aid. We sew the bodies into sheets, and none will know that there are ballast weights in place of men inside. They will be satisfied, and both of you will have escaped the English.’

  ‘No, not both of us.’ Lord Griffin shook his head. ‘You simply cannot kill the both of us, my boy, they’ll not believe it. And besides, what would that say about the skill of your poor surgeon?’ With a smile he settled back, arms folded. ‘No, you get the young lad off, and I myself will stand tomorrow at his burial and weep, and back your story with my own.’

  Moray raised himself upon the table, to the protests of the surgeon who had not yet finished bandaging his shoulder. ‘My Lord Griffin, if there is to be but one of us escaping, I insist—’

  ‘Oh, save your breath, my boy. You are but young, you have your life ahead of you, and mine is near its end.’ He said to Gordon, ‘I have told you, there is nothing to be feared if I am taken. I have known Queen Anne since she was in her cradle, I was in her father’s Guards. She will not see me come to harm.’ He smiled again. ‘Besides, the prospect of a room within the Tower from which I may look on London in my last years does not seem at all unpleasant.’ And he paused, his words grown heavy with the weight of memory. ‘I have been so long away from home.’

  Moray had been stubborn in his arguments against Lord Griffin staying, but the Englishman had not relented, and in the end the matter had been settled only after Gordon had exploded, ‘Christ, man, I may turn you in myself and claim the ransom if you do not let it lie.’ And then, recovering his temper, he’d reminded Moray, ‘You once told me it was not a soldier’s place to ask who gave an order, but to follow it. Cannot you follow this one?’ Low, he’d added, ‘For her sake, if no one else’s.’

  Like combatants locked in equal battle both the men had held each other’s gaze in silence for a moment. Slowly, Moray’s hand had lifted and he had replaced the small black pebble on its cord about his neck, as though it were the only armour he had need of. And he’d given one brief nod.

  Sophia stared at Captain Gordon as he stood, still with his back to her, against the curving bay of windows in the Leopard’s cabin. She had not said a word through all his tale, so tightly gripped had she been by her own emotions.

  Gordon said, ‘We got him off all right. With all the rum that flowed upon our decks that night my men were in no state to notice anything besides their own debauchery. He should by now be well into the crossing.’

  Sophia knew that there was nothing she could say that would be adequate, and yet she felt the need to tell him something. ‘Captain Gordon…’ But she faltered as he turned, and only asked, ‘Do you still have Lord Griffin in your care?’

  ‘No. He was taken by the soldiers just this morning. I can only pray that he was right to think the queen will show him mercy.’

  Looking at his face, she felt ashamed that she had thought that such a man could turn a traitor. ‘Captain Gordon,’ she began again, ‘I hope you can forgive me for—’

  He raised a hand to cut short her apology. ‘It is forgotten.’ Glancing one more time across the harbour to the ruin of the Salisbury, he said, ‘At any rate, you were quite right on one account.’ His eyes came back to hold her own, intent. ‘The things I did that night were not all done because of duty. They were done for you.’

  She was silent for a moment in the face of that admission. It was hard to know a man could care so much for her that he would risk his whole profession, risk his life, while knowing that she did not, could not, answer his affection. In a quiet voice Sophia said, ‘I am so sorry.’ And they both knew she was speaking of much more than her unfounded accusations.

  Captain Gordon, still the gentleman, released her with the words, ‘You have no need to be.’ He paused, then in a lighter voice remarked, ‘In truth, I do admire your courage coming here to challenge me. I do not doubt you would have found the means to travel all the way from Slains, if you’d been called to do it.’

  She smiled faintly at the charge. ‘I might have done.’

  ‘But I am glad that you are not now in the north.’ He crossed to pour them each a glass of claret. ‘And not only for the fact it has afforded me the pleasure of this visit, but because I fear the English will demand a heavy price for what has happened here.’

  She drank, and tried to wash away the bitter taste of tea. ‘The king escaped,’ she said. ‘It may be that his ships will take him north where they may find a better landing-place.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ His eyes were older than her own. ‘But if he fails, there will be evil times ahead, and it will be as well for you,’ he said, ‘that you are not at Slains.’

  Graham turned his head towards mine on the pillow, half-asleep. ‘Lord who?’

  ‘Lord Griffin. He was on the Salisbury, I think. An old man, English, who had been at Saint-Germain…’

  ‘Oh, him.’ He placed the name and rolled more fully over to his side so that his arm slid round my waist, a now familiar weight. I liked the way it felt, just as I liked the rumble of his voice against my neck. ‘What did you want to know?’

  ‘What happened to him after he was taken by the English? Was he ever tried for treason?’

  ‘Aye, and sentenced for it.’

  ‘So he was beheaded, then?’ The penalty for treason in those times was inescapable. I didn’t know why that small fact should bother me so much – I’d read reports of countless executions in the course of researching my novels, and I knew that it was just another end result of wars and royal intrigues. But I couldn’t think of this one without seeing in my mind that old man sitting with his back against the Leopard’s slanting wall, and saying he would stay, that he would not be harmed, Queen Anne would never—

  ‘No,’ said Graham, cutting through my thoughts. ‘They didn’t kill him. There were some of Queen Anne’s ministers who argued for it, but she wouldn’t listen. Oh, she kept him captive, but she let him keep his head, and in the end he died of plain old age.’

  That made me somewhat happier. I hoped he’d had h
is chance to have a view of London from his window, as he’d wanted. Certainly King James, I knew, had never seen his hopes fulfilled. His ships had been pursued along the northern coast until bad weather finally made them give up altogether and set back to open sea, and France. And those on shore, who’d waited for his coming for so long, had been left hanging in the wind to face those evil times that Captain Gordon had predicted.

  ‘Graham?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Was anybody else killed for their part in the rebellion?’

  ‘Not that I recall.’ His voice was very sleepy now, and had I known him less well I’d have half-suspected he was ‘not recalling’ with a purpose, in the hope that I’d stop asking questions.

  ‘But the English rounded up the Jacobites and put them into prison.’

  ‘Oh, aye. Most of the Jacobite nobles and gentry were thrown into prison, then taken in chains down to London. Paraded around for the mob.’

  I was silent a moment, imagining this. Then I asked, ‘Was the Earl of Erroll with them?’

  Graham nodded, and even that effort seemed great for him because his voice had begun to grow thicker, less clear. ‘Supposedly he got so out of temper as a captive that he pitched a bottle at the Earl of Marischal, and nearly took his head off.’

  ‘Well, the Earl of Marischal must have deserved it, then.’

  I felt Graham’s mouth briefly curve on my skin. ‘You’re defending your own, are you?’

  There was no way to explain that I knew the Earl of Erroll’s character better than any historian could – that he wasn’t a figure on paper to me, but a flesh-and-blood person held whole in my memory. All of them were. I remembered their faces. Their voices.

  I was silent with my thoughts a moment. Then I ventured, ‘Graham?’

  In reply he nuzzled closer to my neck and made a muffled sound of enquiry.

  ‘What happened to them when they got to London? I mean, I know they were eventually set free, but how?’