The Firebird

by Susanna Kearsley

  Anna’s head still ached, and she was hungry, but she knew that it was not polite to make complaints. “I am quite well, I thank you, madam.”

  Mrs. Ogilvie contained a smile. “Such lovely manners, Father Graeme.”

  “Aye, she was but lately with the Irish Dames at Ypres.”

  “The Abbess Butler?”

  Father Graeme gave a nod. “And she would be there still, had I not received a summons from my father to go fetch her hence without delay, and bring her out of danger.”

  “Danger? What could…?” Breaking off, she fixed the smile again upon her face and sat back as the landlord came to bring them bread, a jug of wine, and broth that smelled of cabbages and onions. Mrs. Ogilvie was generous with her thanks, and waited till he’d gone again before she leaned in, speaking quietly herself. “What danger could there be at Ypres for such a child?”

  It was a question Anna had been wondering herself, for Father Graeme had said nothing to her of why he had taken her away, apart from saying that the convent was not safe. She broke her bread with care, and listened.

  Quietly the monk said, “This is Anna Moray, only daughter of my cousin John. My father took great pains to hide her safely, but there was an… indiscretion at the convent. A young woman who’d been staying there did somehow learn of Anna’s true identity, and passed that information to an English spy at Paris with whom she’d been keeping company.”

  The jolt that Anna felt within her chest was so great she felt sure her heart had stopped its beating for that moment. It began again, but painfully, and sent a surge of warm blood upward, pounding in her ears.

  It was not possible, she thought, that Christiane could have betrayed her trust. Not Christiane. Her eyes began to sting.

  “My cousin Maurice Moray, Anna’s uncle,” said the monk, “is now at Paris also, and has long been trusted by Queen Mary and the king. So when my father learned, by secret channels, that the agents of the Prince of Hanover had set a plan in place to seize the child and use her as the means to turn her uncle’s loyalties, he sent to me at once.”

  Across the table, Mrs. Ogilvie agreed that Colonel Graeme had done wisely. “But where will she go from here?”

  “I’ve not been told,” the monk admitted, “but my father never moves without a plan.” He’d only eaten several bites of bread, and chased them down with a small tumblerful of wine, but now he added, “And he always minds a schedule once he’s set it, which is why I am surprised that he did not arrive ahead of us, and why I do suspect he may be waiting in some other place.”

  He looked to Mrs. Ogilvie, who nodded and assured him, “I shall stay with her, till you return.”

  He thanked her, and with one hand gave a lightly reassuring stroke of Anna’s bent head as he promised her, “I’ll not be long.”

  She kept her head down, so that no one else would see her misery. Her guilt. In memory she heard Colonel Graeme saying how, if English agents had been sly enough to catch her father, he’d have stood through any torture without talking; and that clearly was a trait of all the men of Abercairney, for her Uncle Robert had now been in prison twice, they’d said, and neither time had he been broken. So the English would expect her Uncle Maurice to be just as strong.

  Unless… unless the English captured her, and let her uncle know it.

  “Men can bear most hurts,” the colonel had confided, “but there’s few of us can bear to see the ones we love best made to suffer for our sake.”

  It went both ways, she thought, for nor could she bear to allow her Uncle Maurice to be turned against his conscience and his honor as a consequence of her mistake in trusting Christiane.

  They’d warned her, they’d all warned her to be careful, but she simply had not thought that Christiane would ever…

  “So,” said Mrs. Ogilvie.

  Remembering the nuns’ instruction that it was polite to give her full attention to an adult who was speaking, Anna clutched the little parcel of belongings on her lap with both her hands and raised her chin.

  “It has been a good while since I have dined with a young lady.” Mrs. Ogilvie was smiling. “You’ll forgive me if my manners do not equal those of Abbess Butler and her nuns at Ypres, for I fear I have been far too long in London, these past months. They do not share our Scottish ways, in London.” While she scooped a spoonful of the broth her light gaze took in Anna’s features, and again the eyebrows arched. “I must confess I am astonished I did not mark the resemblance before now. You are the image of your father, may God rest his soul. Has anybody told you this?”

  “Yes, madam.” Anna’s voice was flat.

  “I met him several times at St. Germain, although my husband would have known him rather better,” Mrs. Ogilvie remarked. “I did not know that he had married.” She said nothing for a moment, while she ate, and then her thoughts changed course. “And is your Uncle Maurice well?”

  She did not know. She hoped he was. But she could say no more than, “He was well last time he wrote to me.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Shall we have more bread?”

  It seemed a little odd to Anna that the woman did not simply raise her hand to call the landlord over, but excused herself and went across to speak to him. Odd, too, that having done that, Mrs. Ogilvie should stop again to speak to the two Englishmen, who’d taken their own table near the bar.

  Something fluttered deep in Anna’s stomach, making her uneasy. She ignored it to begin with, because Father Graeme trusted Mrs. Ogilvie. He’d said so. And he’d not have left her alone with someone who did not deserve his trust. She told herself that several times, and yet the fluttering continued, the uneasiness not helped when both the men turned round to look at her, then looked away again.

  The landlord brought the extra bread, and Anna thanked him in a small voice, and when he inquired if there were something else she needed, she replied, on impulse, “Yes, I need to use the privy, please, sir.”

  “Use the…? Ah.” His face cleared, and he gestured to another doorway at the back. “It is just there.”

  She thanked him once again, and sidled from the bench with care, her bundle of belongings clasped like armor to her chest. Across the room she saw the landlord pass by Mrs. Ogilvie and tell her something, and then Mrs. Ogilvie looked over with a nod and smiled at Anna in an understanding way. One of the Englishmen rose slowly from the table and began to walk toward the other door. But no one came to follow Anna.

  Just outside the inn’s back door she found the privy standing close beside the building, and she crouched within the foul-smelling dimness of its confines for a moment while she tried to calm the thoughts that whirled in tempo with the racing of her heart.

  She ought to stay, as she’d been told, and wait for Father Graeme here. And yet… the awful feeling would not leave her. She tried arguing against it. She was only being silly. Mrs. Ogilvie was kind, she was a friend, and she was Scottish…

  So was Christiane, a small cold voice within her pointed out.

  She screwed her eyes up tightly in that moment of decision, and then calling on each scrap of courage she could claim, she pushed against the privy door and fled into the courtyard as though every English spy upon the continent were at her back.

  She had no destination in her mind but finding Father Graeme, and for that, the church spire soaring high above the tiled rooftops of the huddled, leaning houses seemed a beacon to her. Monks were men of God, she reasoned. God was in the church. So Father Graeme would be there, as well.

  Except, when she had finally pressed her way through all the people in the alleys and the streets to reach the relatively open space surrounding the great church, she saw no sign of him. And when she tried to enter the church itself, an old man chased her out again, reproving her in French.

  She said, in English, “Please, I need to find my friend, the monk.”

  The old man answered in her language, with a frown, “No monks live here,” and waved her off toward the south. Which only brought her back
to where they had come in that morning, by the great gate in the high stone wall.

  The gate, as it had been then, was still busy with the streams of people moving round and through it, while the soldiers standing near the heavy chains of the portcullis gave approval to the passports and the papers, and the Searchers opened portmanteaus and trunks. The Searchers now seemed very busy with the portmanteaus belonging to a gentleman who stood beside a carriage while the driver tried to hold the four impatient horses dancing on the cobblestones.

  The gentleman, to Anna’s eyes, appeared to be the same age as the monk—not yet as old as Colonel Graeme, nor as young as Captain Jamieson, but somewhere in between, though Anna never found it such an easy thing to tell the age of any man who wore a wig. His shaven face was very handsome, and his clothes were very fine, and he stood tall and straight and calm, so that the hard set of his jaw alone betrayed his own impatience.

  A heavier-set man with no baggage strolled past the carriage and, tipping his hat, said, “Good morrow, Captain Gordon. I had thought you’d be away by now.”

  “Aye, so had I,” the handsome man replied, “but these men have developed quite an interest in my breeks and hose, and seem most disinclined to let me leave till they have counted every pair.”

  He was a Scotsman, Anna realized, and a day ago his voice alone would have been cause enough for her to trust him. But today she only stood and stared, and did not dare approach him.

  With a laugh the other man asked, “Have you paid them, sir?”

  “I have.”

  “Well, pay them more, and they will cease.”

  “I’ve paid already for my passage through this gate,” said Captain Gordon, “and paid more again to get a pass to go to Dunkirk.”

  “Pay them more,” the other man repeated, “else you’ll never get to Dunkirk, sir. It is the custom of this country.”

  “’Tis no less than robbery,” the captain said, but taking out his purse he offered new coins to the Searchers, who immediately stopped what they were doing and became more friendly, closing up his portmanteaus.

  The captain grinned, and thanked the other man for his advice. “Will not ye share the carriage with me?”

  “I thank you, no. I go but to the lower town, and as you see, I have a need for exercise.” He slapped his ample belly, tipped his hat again, and said, “A pleasant journey, Captain Gordon.”

  Captain Gordon. Anna suddenly remembered where she’d heard that name before. The man who’d come across with Mrs. Ogilvie just yesterday had been a Captain Gordon. Mrs. Ogilvie had been complaining to the Englishmen about the captain’s being in a hurry, and the trouble he had been to her. “He is no friend of mine,” she’d said.

  Which was, in Anna’s view, a very large point in his favor.

  She moved closer to him, wondering if she could trust him just enough to ask him where the monks lived in Calais, when someone called out, “Anna!”

  Without thinking, she turned round. She’d hoped it might be Father Graeme, but she did not see him, and her gaze began to dart around in panic as she looked for the two Englishmen, who must by now, along with Mrs. Ogilvie, have noticed she was missing from the inn. She did not see them, either; but she did see the old man who had just chased her from the church, and with him two priests dressed exactly like the priest who’d been the nuns’ confessor at the convent.

  The old man studied Anna, gave a nod, and made a comment to the priests before he shuffled off again, and wearing smiles the priests approached her.

  “Anna Moray!” called the tallest one again, “we have been looking for you. God be thanked, we’ve found you safe.”

  She saw his eyes, and she did not believe him. And apart from that, he’d called her “Anna Moray.” No one seeking her who had been sent by anyone she trusted would have ever used that name.

  She backed away a step, and then another, looking round one final time in hopes she might glimpse Father Graeme or his father in the vast confusing ebb and flow of unfamiliar faces.

  One more backward step and she had bumped against the side of Captain Gordon, who said, “Steady,” in a voice that, while surprised, was not unkind. It was that hint of kindness, she thought afterward, that gave her the idea, and the courage.

  As the two priests drew yet nearer, Anna spoke up in a clear voice, with the ladylike and proper words that she’d been taught: “I do not know these men.” And then she turned and tilted up her head to look at Captain Gordon. “Do you know them, Father?”

  He said nothing, staring down at her, and Anna held her breath.

  If he denied her, if he did not play along, then she was lost. No one would stop two priests from taking charge of any child, no matter how that child might scream and weep.

  She saw the smallest flicker of what might have been astonishment disturb the blue depths of the captain’s eyes. It seemed to Anna that he stood and looked at her a long time, as though he were seeing something he had not expected and could not believe.

  She raised her chin a trifle higher, and allowed her eyes to mutely ask him, Please.

  He told her, “No.” And then, his eyes still on her upturned face, he said, “I do not know them, either.”

  Then he raised his head and told the priests, “Good fathers, I’m afraid you do mistake my child for someone else, for my name is not Moray.” With a firm hand he laid claim to her, and turned her so her back was to the strength of him, his one arm laid with fatherly possession on her shoulder.

  Neither priest could stand against the calm ice of the captain’s gaze. The bolder one said, “Do excuse us, sir, we meant no harm.”

  “No, I am sure that you did not. Come, child,” the captain said, “get you in the carriage, for we must be on our way.”

  She let him lift her, numb, onto the seat, and there she sat, her little cloth-wrapped bundle clasped against her, while the priests bowed to the captain and backed off a step.

  The Searcher standing nearest to the captain drew a paper from his coat and read it over with a frown, and told the captain, “But this pass is for—”

  “My daughter and myself,” the captain told him, in a sure tone that left no room for an argument, and drawing out his purse again, he paid the Searcher two more silver coins before he climbed into the carriage, too, and settled on the long seat beside Anna.

  She was shaking as they rode out through the gate.

  He angled in his seat to look at her. “Are you all right?”

  She’d thought to get a lecture. She had not expected gentleness, and coming on the heels of so much turbulence it made her eyes begin to fill with tears she had no wish to shed.

  He asked, “Where are your parents?”

  “Dead.” A half-lie only, she consoled herself.

  “Where do you live? How came you to Calais?”

  She did not answer him, because she could not think of any way to twist the truth, and when a moment had gone by in silence, Captain Gordon tried again.

  “Well, have you any family left?”

  Her eyes stung as she thought of Colonel Graeme and his son, and of her uncles, and the mother she would never know, because she could do nothing but endanger them. No matter what she did, or where she went, she knew now she could never let the truth of who she was be known to anyone, or else the people she loved most would suffer for it.

  Fighting back the tears, she shook her head. “No. I have no one.”

  She could feel his gaze upon her face, as though he, too, were making a decision. He asked quietly, “Is your name truly Anna?”

  Anna thought, and then decided that much of herself was safe to keep, and so she nodded.

  “Anna Moray?”

  “No.” She could not ever claim that name, she knew. Nor could she any longer be the Anna Logan who had lived at Ypres, and been betrayed by Christiane, and who was being searched for now by those who meant to hurt her uncle. She must evermore be no one’s child.

  And yet, if all her dreams were thus to shatter, Ann
a thought, she could at least pick up the brightest shard of them, and cling to it, however much it cut, and take it with her into the unknown.

  She drew a breath, and said, “My name is Anna Jamieson.”

  Chapter 21

  It had seemed a good idea at the time.

  I hadn’t wanted Rob to drive the whole way back to Scotland in the dark, not after all he’d done to help me. And I knew his nature well enough to know he would have pushed on and not taken a hotel room here in London for the night. And while I didn’t have an extra bedroom in my flat, I had a sofa that converted to a bed that both my brother and his girlfriend had assured me was quite comfortable.

  So it had seemed a natural extension of our traveling together that, when Rob had found a spot to park along my road, I should invite him up to have a meal and stay the night to rest before he headed home to Eyemouth.

  When I’d asked him, it had all seemed very reasonable. But…

  “The trouble,” so my brother had once told me, “is you never really stop to think things through.”

  And he was right. I hadn’t stopped to think how small the flat would feel, when Rob walked in. Or how a simple, stupid thing like watching Rob eat steak-and-onion pie with salad at my cluttered table would so traitorously push all my domestic buttons, sending my mind wandering to thoughts of sitting down to dinner with him every night. I found the easygoing comfort of his company seductive, like a lazy current drawing me downstream, and every now and then I’d lose my grip upon the shore and float a little farther down before remembering I ought to swim against it.

  When Rob half-rose from his chair after dinner, intending to help with the washing-up, I made him sit again.

  “You cooked the meal,” was his reasoning.

  “Hardly. I warmed up a frozen pie. Somehow I doubt that will get me on MasterChef. Give me that plate, will you? Thanks.” There was no way, I thought, I was going to let him help out in my kitchen, a room so incredibly small that I couldn’t take two steps in any direction without bumping into the worktop. I said, “The TV remote’s there by the sofa, if you want to watch something.”