The Devil's Recruit (Alexander Seaton 4)

by S. G. MacLean

  An hour or so later, after the disappointed candidates had been dismissed and Ruth Grahame told her good fortune, I asked that I might have a few words in private with Christiane.

  ‘It would hardly be decent, I think, that such a man …’

  Lady Rothiemay silenced her. ‘Such a man? Dear God, Isabella, his crime is nigh on ten years old, and a thing to be got over. He is a regent in the college, long married, and’ – here she fixed me with a shrewd stare – ‘I am very lately informed, soon to be inducted a minister of the kirk of this burgh. If the girl is not safe with him then there can be little hope for her.’

  And so I was shown in to the warm and well-lit parlour in which Christiane had been left. The room was furnished for a woman: there were intricate crewel-work drapes at the window and an oriental rug on the floor that I was at a loss to avoid stepping upon. That Lumsden’s wife was content to have this item underfoot rather than on a wall, or at the very least, draped over a table, spoke as much for his wealth as an examination of his accounts would have done. Christiane was seated on a light walnut chair by the fireplace, a dish of sowens untouched on the small side table at her elbow. She looked only a little better than she had done an hour before, and little further from the tears that had threatened her earlier.

  She was startled out of some reverie by my arrival and made a flustered attempt to stand.

  ‘Please, Christiane, sit back down a minute. I would like to talk to you, and then I will take you home to your brother’s.’

  She swallowed. ‘There is no need, Mr Seaton … please do not trouble yourself.’

  ‘There is no trouble in it, although there would be from your brother, I think, if I were to allow you to make your own way home when you are plainly ill.’

  I knew she was not ill, but could not think how better to begin drawing out of her whatever it was that so troubled her.

  ‘I … it is not that.’

  ‘Then what, Christiane? I have known you many years now, and your brother. Whatever you have to tell me, you will be telling to a friend, not a college regent, nor minister, or anything else I might be to the rest of the town.’

  She lowered her head, disconsolate.

  ‘Christiane, whatever is wrong will not be mended by your misery.’

  She looked at me now, with eyes that were red and tears that threatened to spill out here in the parlour. ‘Then maybe it cannot be mended.’

  ‘Christiane,’ I said gently, ‘I saw Louis the other night. He spoke of – problems – with two of his scholars. I may be wrong, for I am certain Louis has no idea of this, but does your distress have anything to do with Seoras MacKay?’

  She nodded and dissolved into breathless sobs. When she had regained some of her composure she said, ‘I think he is following me.’

  ‘What?’ I had been ready for many revelations, but not this one. ‘But you know, surely, that Seoras has been missing for three days?’

  ‘And I think he has been watching me for three days.’

  I remembered her brother’s nervousness on the night I had met him after the meeting of the kirk session, his vague suspicion that someone was watching his house. I had thought then that it might have been the recruiting sergeant; now I could not imagine what cause Archie would have had for a vigil over the French master and his sister – I could not think that he would even have known them, for Louis would have been barely nine when Archie had last set foot in Aberdeen. The idea that the unseen watcher might be Seoras MacKay had never entered my head.

  ‘Why do you think it’s Seoras?’

  The colour rose in her cheeks and I thought I knew. ‘Seoras made advances to you?’

  She gave the merest nod, never lifting her eyes from the hands that twisted in her lap.

  ‘You rejected him.’

  ‘He could not believe it. I do not think it had ever happened to him before.’

  ‘Did he give up?’

  ‘For a time. It seemed to amuse him, and then …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Then I think Hugh must have said something, must have told him how – how he felt.’ She looked up, pleading. ‘I am not that sort of woman, Mr Seaton. I do not look for the attention of men.’

  I put a hand over hers. ‘I know you do not, Christiane. Did Hugh also tell you of his feelings?’

  She nodded miserably. ‘It was horrible. He is so good, so kind. He has spent his whole life in Seoras’s shadow, and if I could have returned his affections, I would have done.’

  ‘But you could not?’

  She shook her head. ‘It would have been to do him a disservice, and I told him that. He deserves better than me.’

  ‘How did he take this?’

  She lifted her head and looked me in the eye. ‘With dignity, and as a gentleman.’

  I could believe this, and I could have wished for Hugh that Christiane felt differently.

  ‘But then,’ she continued, ‘Seoras began to allude to it, comments here and there, little mockeries. I did not rise to them and neither did Hugh. I think this annoyed Seoras more than anything else.’

  I felt we were coming to the point. ‘What did he do?’

  She looked at me directly. ‘He came after me all the more. He started to court me. He thought I would be flattered.’ I saw in her face how wrong Seoras MacKay had been. ‘I have never been so insulted in my life.’

  ‘He did not try to force you?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Christiane?’

  ‘The last time. Before the lesson on Monday afternoon. Seoras arrived early when I was alone in the house. He was telling me how – practised – he was, how much he might teach me.’ She closed her eyes as if she could still see him before her. ‘He pulled me to him and began to kiss my neck. I struggled to get away but only managed to scratch his cheek, which made him laugh and hold me all the tighter. If Guillaume had not arrived back unexpectedly, I do not know what he would have done.’

  ‘What happened when Guillaume came back?’

  ‘Seoras let me go. He whispered to me that I might have the spirit to interest him yet. He said I should look for him, for I had begun to intrigue him, and little enlivened him more than the chase. Then he left, tossing a coin on the table as if I was … as if I was …’

  ‘It is all right.’ I knew it pained her greatly to talk of this, but there were other things I had to ask. ‘What did Charpentier do?’

  ‘Once he had assured himself that I was not harmed, he went out in to the street after Seoras, but he could not find him. He wanted to find Louis and tell him.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘I begged him not to. Louis has few enough pupils. He cannot afford to turn away those that might give offence to me, but he would have done.’

  ‘And Hugh?’

  She did not answer me, but chewed at her bottom lip.

  ‘When did you tell Hugh, Christiane?’

  ‘On Monday afternoon.’

  ‘And how did he react?’

  ‘He went into a fury. He swore he would kill him.’ She looked up at me, pleading. ‘He did not mean it, Mr Seaton – they were words said in heat. I think Seoras has done this – effected this disappearance – to draw trouble down on Hugh. I have seen movement in too many shadows, at times when I have gone out on the street, when I have been in George Jamesone’s garden with Guillaume and Jean, even today, in this house: movements, creeping about, whispers.’

  She had her head in her hands and I could see her worries had brought her to the brink of exhaustion, and perhaps were threatening her senses. I had known Seoras for a wild boy, and thoughtless, sometimes, but I could never have imagined him so cruel. After what she had confided in me, I could not with any certainty tell her that he would not torment her, or Hugh Gunn, in the way she now imagined he was doing. All I could say was that I believed he would be found soon, dead or not.

  Despite all she had just told me, her answer still shocked me. ‘I wish I could care which it was.’


  I was glad that Isabella Irvine chose that moment to appear in the doorway. ‘Your brother is here to take you home, Christiane.’

  I followed the two women back in to the Great Hall where Louis was waiting for his sister, and then I stopped dead as through the door at the other end of the room stepped Lieutenant William Ormiston, evidently having come in to the house by the east tower.

  It took him a moment to arrange his face in an appearance of pleasure.

  ‘Mr Seaton, I had not expected to meet you here.’

  ‘Aberdeen is a small town, Lieutenant. I am to be found in most places, at some time or another. I am on the point of leaving.’ I put on my hat, but Lady Rothiemay spoke and I could not make my exit. ‘It is Lieutenant Ormiston, is it not?’

  ‘At your Ladyship’s service.’

  ‘Ah,’ she smiled, a little dangerously. ‘You know me then.’

  It gave me some pleasure to see Ormiston deprived of his easy charm a moment as he struggled for some means of telling the most notorious woman in the north that there were few who did not know her. ‘Your Ladyship is …’

  ‘Infamous, I do not doubt. But you will not know my young companion. Isabella Irvine. This is Lieutenant William Ormiston, Isabella, who recruits our young men for service under Field Marshal Leslie in Sweden, if I am not mistaken, for the defence of our brethren abroad.’

  Isabella dipped her head slightly at Ormiston’s bow. He had not noticed the French master and his sister, and they had been forgotten by everyone else in the introductions, but Christiane had noticed him. She stared at him, then looked at Isabella, and her face was a picture of confusion. When she saw me watching her she quickly turned away, pulling on her brother’s sleeve. Louis, not judging himself of interest in this gathering, quietly led her out of the room and down the west stairs.

  I would have slipped out after them but Lady Rothiemay spoke again and I was trapped. ‘I had not realised you already knew Mr Seaton here.’

  ‘We have met,’ said Ormiston.

  Isabella lighted me with a glance. ‘I do not imagine Mr Seaton was signing up for the wars.’

  I was spared the difficulty of defending myself by Lady Rothiemay. ‘Mr Seaton has his own battles to fight here, no doubt, and it will do Scotland no good to be denuded of all her young men. Nevertheless,’ she turned her attention again to Ormiston, ‘I hear volunteers for foreign service are not as forthcoming as they were in former years.’

  ‘It is true,’ the lieutenant conceded. ‘The wars have gone on so long, and with such reverses for the Elector Palatine’s cause, that most who were impassioned to fight for that cause are dead along with Frederick himself. The Protestant hopes that were raised by the triumphs of the King of Sweden fell with him at Lutzen, and it is no easy thing to revive them in the name of a little girl, or indeed a beautiful woman.’ He spoke of the Swedish king’s young successor, his daughter Christina, and of Frederick of the Palatinate’s widow, Elizabeth Stuart, sister of our own king and a refugee in the Hague.

  ‘Elizabeth Stuart has more mettle, I think, than did her husband,’ said Lady Rothiemay. ‘And now she must look to her son’s interests, as I must to mine. My older son was cut off in the prime of his life, and my younger is only now entering upon his college studies, but I can promise you that he will one day serve your cause. In the meantime, I would advise you to look to the countryside around for what is not to be found here in the town. There are many shiftless bodies amongst the tenantry of my neighbours that are prone to turn to mischief if not suitably employed. A turn in your ranks would relieve this land of an unwanted burden. I am sure Donald MacKay would lend you some of his men to assist you.’

  Ormiston looked now to Lumsden. ‘Donald MacKay? Lord Reay?’

  Lumsden nodded. ‘He landed from Sutherland yesterday with forty men, on their way to join the recruit bound for Hepburn’s regiment in France. He thought to have paid a visit to his son at the Marischal College, but the boy is missing. Lord Reay has sworn to search the town from top to bottom until he is found.’

  Ormiston took a moment to digest this information. ‘I should pay my respects to my colonel then, offer my assistance in the search for his son.’

  ‘You served under his Lordship?’ Lumsden enquired.

  The lieutenant nodded. ‘I went up the Great Glen, my brother and I, from Lochaber, to join his brigade at the first call, in ’26. We sailed from Cromarty with many other Highlanders. Two thousand men, in all, he raised then. Within a year we were reduced to eight hundred, but we were not dismayed. I fought under him for Denmark and then Sweden; I fought under his command at Stettin, Damm, Colberg. My brother fell at Stralsund. I myself saw Lord Reay hold Oldenburg against Tilly’s forces.’ He was reflective. ‘I owe him much. I will send to him, to offer whatever is at my disposal.’

  ‘There will be no need for that,’ said her Ladyship. ‘We expect him within the half hour.’

  ‘Here?’ I interjected. ‘He is searching the house?’

  Lumsden laughed. ‘You have a low enough opinion of me, I think, Alexander, if you think me a candidate for hiding renegade students from their fathers.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ I said, cursing again my foolish tongue. ‘But I know that Lord Reay is bent on little else but finding his son.’

  ‘As well he might be,’ said Lady Rothiemay, ‘but Donald has had as many enemies as I myself, and will come tonight to tell me what entertainment I am to expect at the king’s pleasure.’

  She had lost me, and I looked to Lumsden for some explanation. He glanced at Ormiston and made the decision to proceed. ‘Five years ago, when Lord Reay was in London raising forces, at the Marquis of Hamilton’s request, to go and fight for Gustav Adolph, a rumour was brought to him suggesting that Hamilton planned to use the forces in rebellion against the king himself. Lord Reay passed on this intelligence and instead of being rewarded for his loyalty found himself thrown in to the Tower of London for nigh on two years, by which time the Swedish king was dead and he himself was near ruined.’

  Isabella Irvine placed a hand on Lady Rothiemay’s shoulder. ‘It shall not happen to you.’

  Her Ladyship smiled grimly. ‘You are young yet, Isabella, and I fear, in spite of all, too innocent. Listen tonight to what Donald MacKay has to say, and see if you do not then understand the iniquity of enemies who have the ear of power. You should realise by now that some in this world have to make their own justice.’

  I had heard too much, and was eager not to be here when MacKay arrived. I hastily repeated my intention of leaving. I think that Lumsden was glad, for my sake, to see me go. He accompanied me as far as the stairs and murmured quietly to me as he did so. ‘It would be better, perhaps, not to noise abroad all that you have heard in here today. Lady Katharine is not as prudent with her words as might be politic.’ It was a warning that was scarcely necessary, and I assured him that no one would know from me that anything other than the selection of a schoolmistress had been discussed in his house that afternoon.

  Lumsden bade me farewell, and as he turned back into the room neither he nor Lady Rothiemay can have seen what I saw, in the oval glass that hung on the wall across from the door. It was William Ormiston, feigning interest in the Dutch still life that hung above the sideboard on the west wall, delicately running the tip of his finger across the base of Isabella Irvine’s exposed neck.

  10

  Night Visitor

  He had charmed her, as I had known he would, and she delighted him, to the point where he could not take his eyes from her as she moved around the room, dishing out our supper, pouring ale into the beakers and refilling them time and time again, ushering Zander to his bed.

  He alone of the three children had been still awake when the mysterious stranger had, as arranged, walked quietly, without knocking, into our home at eight o’clock that night. It had been on pain of every punishment, every deprivation of freedom and favour he had ever known, should he breathe a word of the night-time visitor to anyone – even
to James Cargill – that Zander had been permitted to remain downstairs to meet Sergeant Nimmo. His excitement, when I had told him two hours earlier on his return from school who was to visit our house that night, had been such that he could not at first speak. He certainly could not eat. And then he could not stop speaking until the arrival, at last, of the sergeant had all but struck him dumb.

  The time Zander had been permitted had gone by in a blur, for all of us, I think. For Archie, after initial, nervous civilities to Sarah, had given all his attention to the boy. By the time Zander had finally climbed the stair to his bed, any doubts his mother or I could ever have had as to what he would be had been quite thoroughly dispelled: he would be a soldier, and nothing else. There can scarcely have been a detail of the war craft of Gustav Adolph, mighty King of Sweden, Lion of the North, that the nine-year-old Zander Seaton did not know, a siege he could not describe, an enemy commander he was not ready to denounce.

  Most of all, and what almost broke my heart to see, Zander was utterly transfixed by the beauty of Archie’s sword. After his mother’s initial protests, he was allowed to hold it, to feel its weight – surprisingly light – to be shown how a cavalry officer might thrust or cut with equal efficacy. After the boy had reluctantly trudged up the stairs, to dream more spectacular dreams than he had ever before imagined, I ran my finger over the flat side of the blade where Archie had left it resting on the table. With my finger I traced the finely engraved initials of my friend, and the words sub jugum, ‘under the yoke’, the motto of his family. The silver plate of the pommel was inlaid with three escutcheons in brass, the Hay coat of arms. I fitted my hand around the pommel, marvelling how it did not quite fit my grip, but did Archie’s exactly.

  ‘Has no one ever questioned how a simple sergeant came to possess such a weapon as this?’ I said, turning it over so that the gleaming blade caught the light of the candle on the sideboard.