Myrna and Sorcha screamed softly. Alys clung to her bridegroom. The lady Anne looked to her husband. It was Annabella who recognized the visitor. “Agnes!” she cried. Then she rushed to catch her youngest sister, who was collapsing to the floor. She sat on the hall floor, cradling her sibling in her lap. The girl was covered in the dust of the road. Her hair was matted, her garments shabby, and she was very pale. “Agnes,” Annabella said again. Her hand smoothed a strand of hair from her sister’s face.
“Am . . . I . . . home?” Agnes whispered hoarsely.
“Aye, ye’re home, and in time for the end of Rob’s wedding day,” Annabella said.
Agnes sighed deeply, and then her eyes closed as she fell into a deep sleep.
The lady Anne was now by her eldest daughter’s side. “What hae happened to her, Annabella?” She gave a little shriek. “She is barefoot! Where are her shoes?”
“We need to get her upstairs and into bed,” Annabella said.
It was then Myrna’s big Highlander husband, Duncan MacKay, stepped in, saying as he gathered Agnes up into his brawny arms, “Where do ye want me to take her, my lady? God’s blood, the lass weighs nae more than a bag of feathers,” he exclaimed.
The lady Anne looked distraught. The tower was not spacious. The chamber she shared with her husband was on the floor above the hall, their son’s chamber above that, and his sisters’ at the top. For the first time in her life the lady of Rath didn’t know what to do. She looked helplessly to Annabella.
“We must make a bed here in the hall for her,” Annabella said quietly. She called a manservant to her side and gave quick instructions. In just a very few minutes a small cot had been put next to one of the hearths. It was then covered with a feather bed, pillows, and a down coverlet. Duncan MacKay gently set the sleeping girl down on the narrow bed. “Thank ye,” Annabella said, smiling at him. Then she turned back to attend to her youngest sister.
“We must get her out of those filthy clothes,” the lady Anne said.
Together, amid the finish of the wedding feast, the two women worked to divest poor Agnes of her clothing, bathe her as best they could, and dress her in a clean night garment. The women servants had thoughtfully brought a screen to give them a modicum of privacy. When Agnes was settled, her old nurse patiently combing the tangles from her hair, the lady of Rath and her daughter, the Countess of Duin, came back to the high board, where the rest of the family was awaiting them.
The lady Anne collapsed into her high-backed chair.
Annabella sat down, quietly saying, “As soon as Agnes knew she was safely home, she fell into a deep sleep. She hae said nothing, and so we must possess our souls of patience now until she awakens and can tell us what happened.”
“I think, with both families’ permission, we may dispense wi’ the putting-to-bed ceremony. Alys and I will just go to our chamber now,” young Rob Baird said.
The Bruces agreed with the Bairds. Everyone at the high board wished the bridal couple a pleasant night, and then they were gone from the hall.
Myrna stood up. “I will sit by Agnes’s side for the next three hours,” she said without even being asked.
“I will sit by her for the next three after that,” Sorcha said.
“And I will do the hours before and into the dawn,” Annabella told them. “Ye must rest, Mam, for yer nursing skills will be needed on the morrow, I am certain.”
She was right. Agnes finally awoke the next day with a low fever. Her mother cured it with a mixture of herbs. They were all horrified by her wasted appearance, but she was not yet ready to explain it, or how she had gotten to Rath. Several days passed before, finally convinced that their younger sibling would survive, Sorcha and her family departed for their nearby home. Myrna and Duncan MacKay, along with their curly-haired daughter, Meggie, left the day after. They had not yet allowed little Robbie Ferguson to see his mother, for fear her meager appearance would frighten him. The Bruces had also departed two days after the wedding was celebrated.
“When she is strong enough to travel,” the earl told the laird, “she will come home to Duin wi’ us. She is my brother’s wife. She hae her own house there, and her bairn. Taking care of Robbie again will help her to recover.”
At first the laird protested. “She is my daughter, Angus. She is Rath born.”
“Aye,” he agreed, “but she is a Ferguson’s wife, and she does love Duin. What is there for her here now, wi’ yer heir married? ’Tis nae a grand house, Robert. ’Tis just large enough for a small family. At Duin she can live either in the castle or the fine stone house that my brother built for her. She is her own woman, beholden to neither her da nor her brother. Alys seems a sweet lass, but how long will she tolerate her husband’s sister in the same house? Nay, Agnes will come wi’ us.”
“Leave the choice to her,” the laird said.
Angus Ferguson laughed. “Nay, Robert. Agnes is a stubborn young woman. She left Duin to follow after my brother, despite our best advice, despite our pleading that she remain. She is too proud to beg to come home wi’ us. She must be told she is coming and has nae choice in the matter at all. ’Tis better that way for all of us.”
The laird thought a long moment, and then he agreed that perhaps the earl was right. That evening Agnes sat among her kinfolk and finally told them her tale. The color had begun to come back into her cheeks. Her feet, which had been cracked, roughened, and covered with blisters, were now healing. Her little son nestled in his mother’s arms as, sitting up against a pile of pillows at her back, she told them what had happened.
“When James Hamilton murdered the Earl of Moray,” she began, “the Hamiltons were almost immediately besieged by the King’s Men. There was nae place they could hide. Matthew managed to escape and come for me here at Rath. Then we went on again to France, to the village from where old Jeanne had come.”
“Why did ye nae return to Duin?” the earl asked quietly.
“Matthew no longer felt welcome at Duin,” Agnes said, lowering her eyes. “I begged him to go back, but he would nae. He said that in France he would make a new life for us. He had been a steward in a great castle, and he could hire his sword. But we never reached Jeanne’s village. We never got past the port where we landed, Har-fleur. Though we had little coin, we managed to gain shelter in a waterfront tavern. But then Matthew heard some sailors disparaging his queen. They called her a whore. Matthew got into a quarrel wi’ them over it.” Here Agnes stopped briefly, her beautiful blue eyes filling with tears. “He . . . he was killed before my eyes. They slit his throat and left him to die in my arms.” She began to sob softly. Then she continued.
“When they tried to rob him as well, I began to shriek to the high heavens. The innkeeper and his lads came to my defense, and what coin we had was saved. I used most of it to hae him buried in the churchyard, and for the priest to say prayers for him. Then I sought a vessel to bring me back across the water.”
“Ye had enough coin for it?” Annabella said.
Agnes flushed and said nothing for a few moments as they all waited to learn what else she would say.
“Thank ye for seeing that Matthew was properly buried,” the earl said to her. “I regret the pain my brother hae cost ye.”
Agnes looked up, and he could see both sorrow and anger in her lovely blue eyes. “By some miracle I found a vessel going to Leith. I told the captain my husband had just died, and showed him my few coins. ’Twas all I had for my passage, and I told him I would travel on the deck, and eat only the scraps from the table.” She paused, then went on. “He suggested another arrangement, which I at first refused, but after two nights of rain and wind I weakened, for I knew I would get sick and die if I had to endure another night on the open deck. He was a kind man, and I no virgin.”
The laird’s wife grew pale at her daughter’s words. Annabella reached out and took Agnes’s hand in hers. Agnes threw her sister a grateful look and continued onward.
“When we reached Leith I sold my boo
ts for enough coin to purchase bread. I had been able to eat little aboard the vessel, for my belly is nae a good sailor, I fear. I began walking, and I walked and walked and walked until the countryside began to look familiar again. I passed many villages and homes burned out, for they were obviously supporters of the Hamiltons. Three days ago I ran out of both bread and coin. I made certain to shelter secretly in barns, where I was able to steal eggs to eat raw. And then I reached Rath, praise God! There were times,” Agnes said as tears began to roll down her cheeks, “that I thought I should never see home or family again.”
There was a long silence as her words concluded, and then the laird of Rath told his daughter, told them all, “Ye’re a brave lass, Aggie. I’m proud of ye.”
“We’ll gie ye another week to gain yer strength back,” the Earl of Duin told his sister-in-law, “and then ye’re coming home wi’ us, Agnes.”
“Nay!” Agnes quickly cried.
“Aye, ye are, lass,” Angus Ferguson said. “Ye should hae never left us, and yer son needs his mam, but he’s a Ferguson, Aggie, and he remains at Duin, where he hae his family, his grandmam, his cousins, his aunt and uncle.”
“But how can I live?” Agnes said. “I hae no monies.”
“But ye do,” the earl surprised her by saying. “Matthew would hae accessed his gold when ye got to France and were settled. Now it is yers. Ye hae a stone house on lands belonging to him. Ye can live in the castle if ye prefer. However, there is nae question of ye living anywhere else but Duin. We want ye home again, Agnes. Yer son wants his mam.”
Agnes began to weep again, but this time the sound she made was one of relief. She looked up at Angus Ferguson. “I am grateful to ye, my lord. I will gladly come back to Duin, for I love it. It almost broke my heart to hae to leave it.”
“Then it is settled,” the earl told her.
Afterward, as Agnes lay sleeping again, the lady Anne came to where her eldest daughter and Angus Ferguson were seated together by the other fireplace. The flames were blazing brightly, the warmth of the fire taking the chill from the summer’s evening.
“How can I thank ye,” she said to the earl. “When I think how concerned I was when it was decided ye were to marry Annabella . . . Yer family’s reputation for sorcery frightened me. Yet my husband assured me ye were naught but a man who sought his privacy. I was but partly reassured. And then I met ye, and I could see yer deep and abiding affection for my child. Everything I had heard of ye was put to flight, for ye are a man of honor, of principle. Now, seeing yer kindness and forgiveness for Agnes, I think ye are nae a sorcerer but an angel come to earth, my lord. Thank ye.”
The Earl of Duin stood and took the lady Anne’s two hands in his. His handsome face turned to look into her blue eyes. “Let me assure ye, madam, that while I am nae a sorcerer, neither am I an angel.” He flashed her a warm smile. “I have done little, but even fearful ye gave me Annabella, who is the best of all women. I will do whatever ye need for that reason and that reason alone,” he assured her. Then he kissed her two hands before releasing them.
Afterward, when she had gone, Annabella told him, “Ye hae made her so happy, my darling. Thank ye for reassuring her.”
A week later, Agnes settled in a comfortable cart, the Fergusons of Duin began their journey to the southwest. With the good late-summer weather they reached Duin in good time, considering the baggage that followed them along with Agnes’s cart. Agnes had decided to live in her own home. She and her son would live in the castle until the house had been opened up again and the servants returned to serve her.
That first night back, after she had made her rounds through the hall seeing that doors were barred, candles and oil lamps snuffed out, the fires in the fireplaces banked, Annabella went to her apartment. She had dismissed Jean, and now stood gazing out upon the sea, which was silvered by a glowing full moon. Angus came up and began to unlace her yellow gown. He kissed her shoulder and the nape of her neck with slow, heated kisses. Annabella sighed.
“Ye’re happy to be home,” he said.
“Aye, and I never want to go anywhere again, my lord. Duin suits me well. The autumn is coming, the winter will follow, and by midsummer we shall hae another bairn, for I am certain now that I am breeding. If it is a lad, we shall call him Patrick or Ian or Charles or David,” she said.
“But what if it is a lass,” he teased her, pushing her gown and chemise down, cupping her wonderful firm, round breasts in his two hands.
“I dinna know what I will call a lass,” she replied, “but I know what I will nae call a wee girlie,” she told him.
He chuckled. “What will ye nae call her?” he asked.
“Mary,” Annabella said firmly. “I shall nae call a daughter Mary.”
The Earl of Duin turned his wife about to face him, laughing as he did so. “Madam,” he said, “I am in full agreement wi’ ye. We will never call a daughter Mary.” And then he kissed her hard. Nay, there would be no more Marys causing difficulty in his family. If the bairn were a lass, they would name her anything but Mary.
But on midsummer’s eve next, the Countess of Duin was delivered of a strapping son who was called Patrick. And the question of the name Mary never came up again among the Fergusons of Duin.
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Epilogue
The question of the boy King James VI’s regent raged on for six months. Finally, in the summer of 1570, the Earl of Lennox, the king’s paternal grandfather, was chosen on the strong recommendation of England’s Queen Elizabeth. Mary Stuart, imprisoned in Tutbury Castle, was furious, but there was nothing at all she could do. She held the earl responsible for his son’s character and behavior. She did not want her own son falling victim to the same man, but the choice was no longer hers to make.
The gentlemen of the Queen’s Men would not accept Lennox, for as much as Mary Stuart hated him, he hated her as well. In her youth he had been suggested as a possible husband for the child queen, though he was twenty-six years her senior. When he had been refused he had gone into England, where he had lived for many years. His son’s marriage to Mary Stuart had returned him to the limelight. Lennox held her responsible for his son’s death. With the power of the regency in his greedy hands, it was a matter of concern to many how he would treat the little king.
The Queen’s Men formed a rival parliament at Linlithgow. The Gordons came forth under the command of their earl and met the forces of the Duke of Lennox at Brechin, where they were defeated. Several months later, in February of 1571, another Hamilton rebellion was put down at Paisley. In April of that same year a group of daring commandos scaled the heights of Dumbarton in the dark of the night, capturing the formerly impregnable castle. All that was left for Lennox was Edinburgh, which was held by Kirkcaldy of Grange, now Mary Stuart’s most devoted adherent.
When the duke attempted to hold his parliament in the Canongate beneath the castle, Kirkcaldy’s guns quickly chased the parliament away. Edinburgh found itself a divided city, with two town councils and two kirk sessions. John Knox wisely withdrew from the city entirely, and the King’s Men set up in Leith, where they were besieged for the next fifteen months.
In August of that year a parliament was held at Stirling, the little king’s home.
In early September a raiding party of over four hundred men from the Queen’s Men got into Stirling in the middle of the night. They rounded up all the lords who had come for the parliament, and then remained. The king’s guardian, John Erskine, the Earl of Mar, managed to regain control of Stirling and keep the little king safe. The Earl of Lennox, however, was shot in the back and died several hours later.
The Earl of Mar quickly became the king’s new regent. It was unfortunate that a little over a year later John Erskine died of natural causes. He had been the most moderate member of the King’s Men, and until Darnley’s murder a devoted supporter of Mary Stuart. Now the regency fell to the Earl of Morton, a proper villain who had been implicated in the murde
rs of both Riccio and Lord Darnley. Morton hung onto his power until 1580, during which time Elizabeth Tudor sent a large force of men who helped him to regain control of Edinburgh Castle once again. Kirkcaldy of Grange and his kinsmen were hanged. The King’s Men had triumphed. There was no absolutely no hope that Mary Stuart would ever regain her throne.
In the years that followed her son grew up under the influence of a group of hard men. He was well educated, but timid, having spent his early years surrounded by war. It was a hard and loveless childhood, but the boy survived and even learned to think for himself. Finally, after several more years of peril during which he was influenced by his French cousin Esme Stuart, the new Earl of Lennox; and a brief captivity at Ruthven, from which James escaped; the young king declared himself emancipated and took up his throne to rule Scotland by himself. He married Princess Anne of Denmark shortly thereafter, and several years later, at the age of thirty-six, found himself not only king of Scotland, but king of England and Ireland too. His reign is well documented.
As for the Fergusons of Duin, they quietly faded once more into the anonymity that was their custom, and which they preferred above all else. But if you seek Duin Castle today, you will not find it. The legend says that that both castle and village disappeared one day into the mists that came off the Irish Sea. Neither was ever seen again. Some, however, claim to have heard ghostly pipes gaily playing in the vicinity of Duin on clear winter nights. So perhaps the Fergusons of Duin were sorcerers after all.
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