by King, Susan
He heard Hamilton's horse neighing as he drew nearer. Hamilton struggled to handle his mount, balancing the bundled child in his left arm. The pale horse floundered again, its back legs sinking now. It lurched sideways, strained to climb out, and tipped rider and bundle into the thick black water.
Behind him, Tamsin screamed. William felt the ground slide beneath his mount's hooves. He flung himself from the horse, booted feet sinking to the ankle, and took a step, dropping to his calf, pulling up, running on. As he crossed the bog, he sank again and again, to the ankle, to the knee, once to the hip, every step uncertain in the oozing mire.
Ahead, the pale horse found solid ground and pulled itself free, loping away in the darkness. Hamilton, though, stayed in the dark slime, shouting out, waving.
"Malise! I am coming!" William called. He was not the only one in the watery part of the bog, now, for he heard shouts and splashes behind him, and turned to see the others dismounting, leaving their horses behind.
He ran on, sinking, rising, until he was covered in muck and wetness, mired and slowed by the weight of his wet clothes and the mud in his boots, which pulled him down with each step.
He was within twenty feet or so of Hamilton now. He saw the man's face in the moonlight, saw the infant's small, pale head. When he heard her thin, angry wail, he felt a rush of relief.
"Malise!" he shouted again. "Stay there! Wait!"
He lurched forward, but fell again, his strength and power working against him now. The thick, porridgy mass began to suck at his legs and hands as he tried to gain a hold. The musty odor was overwhelming. No matter how hard he strained, he could not seem to get closer to Hamilton.
He saw Hamilton struggle too, sunk chest-deep now in a black hole of watery muck. He held the baby high while she cried plaintively. William turned in desperation, and saw the others coming toward him, saw them sink and fall and stumble.
"Stay back!" he yelled. Seeing a rough patch of grass, he rolled onto it, lying on his side. He tried to slither ahead, but felt his hands plunge into the ooze.
"Will!" He looked behind him. Tamsin crawled toward him on her belly. Baptiste and John Faw were behind her, both sunk to the knees, dragging a long, thick, leafy tree limb. Someone must have gone off to cut the thing, William thought gratefully, knowing the branch would be useful.
Tamsin inched closer. "William!" she called.
He began to protest, but realized that she could help. He twisted on the relatively firm bit of earth he had found, and stretched out a hand toward her.
"Come here," he said. He caught her wrist and pulled her toward his little turf island. She slithered up and half sat, leaning against him, both of them coated in slime.
"Tamsin," he said. "You can reach Hamilton and the bairn. You're lighter than any of us here. We're sinking with each step, but you can go farther, and more easily."
She nodded, breathless, understanding. "Could they drown?" she asked. "Can he not climb out?"
"He's sinking," he said, wiping a hand over his face. He had lost his helmet somewhere, he suddenly realized. "He canna find a hold to climb out. We have to reach him soon."
She nodded without comment. Once again, he was struck by her ease of acceptance, by her ability to handle strain and fear. A reiver's daughter, he thought proudly, and rested a hand on her shoulder in a quiet gesture of love, reassurance, and gratitude.
Behind them, Baptiste edged the end of the tree limb toward them. William caught hold of it and got to his knees.
Ooze seeped through his breeches, but the scrap of ground, tufted with long grasses, was secure. He hefted the sturdy tree limb and began to slide its length over the treacherous stretch that lay ahead, hoping to discover, with its far end, another solid place to anchor it like a bridge.
"Will! Will!" Hamilton called out, waving an arm. "Jesu, help me here!" He hugged the infant close to his head as he shouted. She worked an arm free and batted about, screaming. Hamilton nearly lost his grip on her writhing little body, wrapped in wet silks.
"Oh, God," Tamsin said in a choked voice.
"He willna let her go," William said, trying to balance the heavy tree limb.
"He willna let her go." Tamsin repeated the words while William eased the long limb toward Hamilton. The frontmost end hit fluid, tilted, and began to sink.
Tamsin left the turf patch to slip feet first into the bog, while William held one end of the tree limb fast. She slithered forward into black water, breast-high. With one hand on the tree limb, she glided toward Hamilton. At the other end, she strained to lift the limb out of the mire. It was stuck fast, and sinking deeper.
The baby cried, an insistent whimper now. Hamilton's face was pale and stricken, his hands dark with mud as he tried to keep the baby above the level of the bog that sucked him deeper.
Tamsin pulled, futilely, at the tree branch. William slid into the bog with her. The mud sucked at each wading step he took. He sank chest-high in muck. He felt the tree limb jostle behind him, and looked back to see John Faw and Baptiste stabilizing it.
The infant's tremulous wail piped across the bog in an eerie echo. That helpless, frightened sound ripped through his heart. William forgot who the child was, what she represented. He responded only out of his profound need to protect. Even toward Hamilton, in that moment, he felt only the natural pledge of one human toward another in need.
He gave a powerful groan and surged through the bog, breaking its clinging grip on his feet. And found, through some miracle, a firmer base for his step.
He dipped down in the ooze and shifted a shoulder under the tree limb, lifting it free of the mire. He slid it forward, balancing it on his shoulder.
Hamilton reached out to grab the far end. William pushed it steadily closer, balancing, waiting. Tamsin extended her left hand toward Hamilton.
"The bairn!" she called. "Give me the bairn!"
Her hand was clearly exposed in the moonlight, a narrow curving wedge and thumb. William saw that she was not even aware of it, nor did Malise notice.
"Take her!" Hamilton cried. He held the little flailing bundle toward Tamsin. She strained her arms to the length of her reach, and a moment later, swept the child into her embrace. Securing the baby in her left arm, she snatched hold of the tree limb with her other arm and began to shift backward.
William stretched his hand out to touch Tamsin's shoulder. He grabbed hold of the soggy back of her gown and dragged her toward him, while she held the wailing infant, who clung to her neck. He shoved them toward Baptiste, and John Faw, who crouched behind him on the solid, grassy patch.
Once Tamsin and the little queen were pulled to safety by the Romany men, William turned back. He felt a lurch of the tree limb he still held as Hamilton pulled on it. William strained to hold the heavy branch up, his feet sucking down again.
As Hamilton dragged forward along the tree limb, William stepped back, shifting by increments, like a giant with the weight of the globe on his shoulders. Muck slopped at chest level as he sank farther himself in his efforts to pull the other man free.
Then he felt a slight lift in the burden. John Faw and Baptiste had hold of the tree limb, and now drew it back with steady, reliable power.
"Rya!" John Faw yelled, reaching out to him. "Take hold!"
William stretched an arm back and grasped the man's wrist. The old Romany was like a bull, powerful and compact. He strove to pull him until William felt the bog give up its hold.
Soon he shifted up to sit on the grassy patch, and took hold of the tree limb with the Romany men. Together they pulled Hamilton closer. John Faw and Baptiste slipped away, heading back to the shallow part of the bog.
William turned to watch Hamilton heave himself onto the solid patch. They sat beside each other, breathing heavily, coated in slime.
"Dear God," Malise said. "By hell. I am a fool."
"Aye." William sniffed, wiped his arm over his brow.
"I meant her no harm," Malise said. "I spoke with some Scottish nobles,
who convinced me that if the wee queen were to wed my nephew, the regent's small son, things might go well for Scotland, and for the Hamiltons, and for Mary Stewart too."
"Ah," William said. "Is that what this was about?"
"Aye." Malise lowered his head. "We thought to keep her safe, we did, with this plan. Safe from King Henry."
"Foolhardy," William said. "The lot of you."
Malise put a hand over his face. "By God, Will Scott, I owe you my life. And you and the gypsy lass saved our queen."
"The gypsy lass," William said, "is my wife."
"Aye. Your wife." Malise slumped. "Katharine's stepmother."
"She is that." William looked at him. "I've taken bairns from you before, Malise. Your own daughter, and then the rights to your granddaughter. For those, I am sorry. But for this last one, you'll have no apology from me. And you'll face the dowager queen and your government. And your regent." He got to his feet and held out a hand.
"Will Scott," Malise said. "I had no hand in your father's death. I want you to understand that. I confined you, as a lad, because 'twas my appointed task to do that. But I didna hang your father myself. You saved my life this night, and our queen. I owe you the truth, and I will tell you the tale of that day, when we have time to talk together."
William stared at him, numb, exhausted. All he could do was nod. Malise got to his feet, but did not take the hand William offered. He stepped into the shallow part of the bog and made his own way back without a word, as William did for himself.
Ahead, near the two black horses, William saw Tamsin. She waited for him with the infant queen wrapped in a gypsy horse blanket, safe in her arms. William trudged the last few steps toward them. He reached out.
She ran to him with a faint cry of relief. He scooped her, and the babe, into the circle of his arms, profoundly glad to feel Tamsin's slender warmth against him, and content to hear the queen of Scotland squalling indignantly at his ear. Tamsin was laughing and crying all at once, and he smiled against her damp, peat-scented hair.
He laughed again, as she did, wordlessly, breathlessly. While the baby sucked at her dirty little fist, he kissed them both, slimy and sweet and tearful under his lips.
Tamsin looked up at him, and he tipped her chin up with a finger, grazing his fingers along her besmirched cheek. He touched his lips to hers again. She was warm and gentle under his mouth, and she was all he would ever need in his life.
He looked up and saw Perris coming toward them. He clapped William on the back, and then bowed to Tamsin.
"My lady," he said. "Lady of Rookhope. We all owe you an enormous debt. You kept Scotland's queen safe."
"We all did that," she said, smiling at him.
Perris held out his hand. She offered him her grimy right hand, and he kissed her fingers as if she were a queen herself. "I will certainly recommend some reward for both of you," he said.
William saw that Tamsin fisted her left hand, burying it out of sight in the baby's wrappings. He frowned and put an arm around her. Then he realized that she might do that for the rest of her life, out of habit. No matter how often he told her that she was beautiful, or how often he told her that he loved her—and he would do that daily, he knew—she might always keep some of that uncertainty about herself.
"Lovely lass," Perris said. "Fortunate man," he said to William, and smiled ruefully. Then he walked away.
William turned to Tamsin, and lifted the little queen out of her arms, balancing her sweet, blessed weight in the crook of one elbow. Tiny hands grabbed his neck, and a round, warm, silky head rested against his cheek. He hugged the infant to him, and closed his eyes briefly as a powerful flood of love, of simple, endless thankfulness, washed through him.
Then he reached out and took Tamsin's left hand in his, and kissed the small wedge that curled over his fingers, never taking his gaze from hers.
The tearful smile she gave him, lit by moonlight and by her own inner happiness, made her incandescently beautiful in his eyes. And her happiness, he thought, was reward enough.
Epilogue
"There's comfort for the comfortless,
There's honey for the bee,
There's comfort for the comfortless,
There's nane but you for me."
—'The False Lover Won Back"
"Nine hardheads!" Archie stared across the table at Tamsin. "You took all nine hardheads again!" He made a sound of disgust and threw his cards down on the table.
Tamsin scooped the pile of small coins toward her. "Be glad you dinna play with better coin than that," she said. "I willna empty your pockets this way, either of you. Hardheads are near worthless." One by one, she dropped the dull, thin coins into a velvet pouch, letting them clink to underscore her victory. She grinned mischievously at her father and her great-uncle.
"There, see ye," Cuthbert said. "She has yer own wicked smile, Archie Armstrong. Och, Tamsin, tell true. How is it ye win at the cards each time?"
"'Gyptian tricks," Archie muttered. "Fast-and-loose."
"Luck," Tamsin said, frowning at her father. "And skill with remembering the cards."
"Luck! 'Tis near impossible to play Ombre wi' ye, lass. I've won thrice in all these months o' riding here to Rookhope for a bit o' the cards. But thrice."
"She is good wi' the picture cards," Cuthbert admitted.
"I dinna know why you fuss each time I win," she said. "When you play at the cards with Lady Emma, you never fuss about losing. And she is just as good as me, if not better."
"Why begrudge Tamsin a wee bit o' luck?" Cuthbert asked. "The gypsies used to think her muckle bad luck to be around."
"Aye," Archie grumbled. "Bad luck for those who play at the cards wi' her."
Tamsin smiled and stood, smoothing her skirts. "'Tis late. I must go see to the bairnies."
"Wi' our hardheads?" Cuthbert said. "What are we to gamble wi' when ye've gone up to sing ballads to yer bairnies?"
"If 'twasna so cold, we'd be out riding a raid into England, and nae sitting here at the cards," Archie said.
"My bones are too auld for that, if yers are nae. And 'tisna the merriment it used to be," Cuthbert reminded him, "now that Jasper Musgrave sits in his bed all the day and barely speaks, and eats porridge like a bairn."
"Aye," Archie grunted. "I willna steal livestock from a man who's had an apoplectic fit." He slapped the cards down on the table to mix and restack them. "I barely got Jasper back home to his castle before he took ill, that time I took him by the sly—and I'll remind ye o' my cleverness, for I bagged his head good on the way home, and he never knew 'twas me had him fast for a week. And when the regent sent men to arrest him, we had the news that he was so upset that he had a muckle bad fit, and lost his speech and was put to bed. Now that his son is in a Scottish prison with that Malise Hamilton, I feel pity for Jasper, I do."
"You and Jasper have plagued each other since before I was born," Tamsin said. "I think you both must miss it."
"Aye," Archie said. "But I've other matters to take my notice, now." He wiggled his brows.
"Did ye ask her yet?" Cuthbert said in a low voice.
Archie flushed pink. "Nah."
"Ask her," Cuthbert hissed.
Tamsin pinched back a smile, watching her father glance across the chamber. Lady Emma sat sewing on a bit of linen, and talking quietly with Helen and Perris. As if she knew Archie watched her, Emma looked over her shoulder and smiled. Archie cleared his throat and dropped the cards.
Tamsin glanced around the room, and realized that William, who had left their company a while ago, still had not returned. She wondered what delayed him. She found herself immediately listening for his step, and for his laugh, which had grown louder and heartier, and far more frequent, in the eighteen months since their marriage before a priest.
Archie reached into the leather purse at his belt and withdrew a copper coin. "Look what I have," he said, holding it up so that the firelight glinted on the shiny metal.
"Ababbie!" Tamsin s
aid.
"Aye, a babbie, minted in honor o' the wee queen's coronation at Stirling, two weeks after you and Will rescued her from that wicked plot. Rare they are to find, too."
She held out her left hand. He dropped it in the little cup of her palm, and she held it up. "Oh! A bonny wee portrait of our Queen Mary."
"Hah, our lass likes a sparkly thing well, she does. 'Tis that dark gypsy blood in her," Archie said to Cuthbert. He reached up and snatched the coin from her hand. "Ye'll see that again when ye win it from me, lass."
"I'll play Primero, then," she said. "My nine hardheads for the babbie."
"Bah, Primero," Archie said. "'Tis a bairnie's game!"
"What is a bairnie's game?" William asked over a loud din as he entered the room.
"William! Oh, and the wee rogues! Dearlings, what is the matter?" Tamsin hurried toward William, whose arms were filled with two blanketed bundles. Their twin, dark-haired sons, six months old and wailing to a crescendo, looked around tearfully and hopefully when they heard their mother's voice.
She took one of the boys, Allan, from his arms, and left William to joggle little Archie. "I'm all out of bairnie's games," William said. "I went up the stair, and heard the wailing, and found the poor nurse exhausted. I told her I would take them down here for a bit. And Katharine too, who wanted to come down as well—" He turned around. "Kate? Where did you go, lassie? Ah, there you are!" His voice lifted with delight.
She toddled around the door and peered up at him silently, her thumb securely in her mouth, dark blue eyes wide and staring beneath a cap of thick, dark curls.
"She looks tired," Emma commented.
"Come here, sweetheart, come see the babbie I have!" Archie called, holding out his bright coin. Katharine waddled over to her grandfather and climbed up into his lap. Helen swept forward and lifted little Archie from William, while Emma came and took Allan from Tamsin, the women eager, as always, to lavish their love on the children.
Perris sat down to begin a new game with Archie and Cuthbert, and William took Tamsin's arm, leading her toward the window. They stood looking through the open lower shutter upon a winter twilight, the sky streaked with violet, orange, and indigo, reflected over the snowy hills.