The Fire In The Flint

9

By the time the packs had been unloaded it was long after midnight. Margaret had been surprised that Aylmer and Celia were accompanied by Hal, Geordie, and particularly her uncle’s beloved Bonny. The loan of the ass touched her as a gesture of affection, though it was painful to bid farewell to the beast and Hal once more. She stroked Bonny while she fed her an apple.

Hal avoided eye contact until Daniel announced he was ready to lead the three back to Edinburgh. He glanced up then and met her eyes. Margaret took his hand and pressed it. He nodded once, wished her God speed, and then ducked out through the door of the small house into the night. Geordie bobbed his head to her and wished her a safe journey. She said the same to him.

Celia shaded her eyes. ‘It was so dark without, I thought we could not make our way, but after a time I came to see more clearly. Now the light in here seems too bright.’ She forced a little laugh.

‘At least you’ll be riding for a good part of the night with your horse following the leader,’ Roger said. ‘It will not be as difficult.’

Remembering Celia’s inexperience with a horse, Margaret imagined her discomfort and invited her to sit beside her. The maid’s first and only experience on a horse had been the crossing to Edinburgh. Although she’d sat her steed with grim fortitude, she had been in agony for days afterwards.

Margaret did not like the plan. ‘Is that safe, riding at night? Should we not lead the horses?’

‘They are accustomed to night riding,’ said Roger.

Macrath offered Celia a cup of warm ale. ‘You’ll be chilly from the walk in the damp.’

‘I am. God bless you.’ Celia glanced at Margaret as if wondering at such behaviour towards a servant.

Though Margaret was a decade younger than her maid she was responsible for her well-being. She had noticed Macrath studying Celia from the moment she arrived. Perhaps he thought them kin, with their similarly pale complexions, thick dark brows and short builds. His offering her the ale was a small gesture, but Margaret would watch Macrath for signs of designs on Celia.

Eventually the men went out to ready the horses, giving the two women some time alone.

‘We will need to ride slowly,’ Margaret said, ‘so it should be less uncomfortable than your last journey, when my brother Andrew was in such haste.’

Celia arranged her skirt. ‘I regret only that I took no opportunity to ride in Edinburgh.’

Margaret smiled at Celia’s stubborn dignity — there had been no opportunity for her to ride in Edinburgh, except on Bonny, who rode quite differently from a horse. ‘You managed so well before, you’ll find it quite familiar, I’m sure.’

Celia’s dark brows knitted together as she solemnly nodded. ‘Let us speak of something other than my coming humiliation. Had you time with Dame Janet?’

‘Yes, but I learned nothing useful from her,’ Margaret said. ‘Old Will and Bess were by her account a loving couple.’

‘I approached Mary Brewster for you today, but she said she’s had naught but trouble since finding Old Will, and then Belle slammed the door on me.’

‘How unlike Mary,’ Margaret said.

‘I found it so,’ said Celia. ‘Not even the town gossip wants to be of interest to the English. I wish I came with better news.’

‘You were good to attempt it.’ Margaret cursed Roger for all the questions that had opened up this new avenue of possibilities, only to have him rush her away. ‘How did you leave my uncle?’

‘Unhappy. You’ll be missed, have no doubt of that.’

‘It’s not only myself he’ll miss, but the companionship of his customers. He’ll have only Janet now. And Hal.’ They grew quiet, and in a little while Margaret felt herself begin to nod. ‘I need occupation. Shall we review what we’ve brought?’

The party departed in the dark of the summer night, a slow procession of riders following Macrath’s lead. Margaret was glad of the great beast beneath her, both for his warmth and the physical contact with something real, solid, alive; the countryside at night seemed an echoing emptiness, a void into which she expected the riders ahead to disappear. The watery meadows were alive with sounds, some of them familiar from the bogs around Perth, but they were midnight sounds associated with the terror of being abroad too late, hastening back to the town. The pebbly paths among boulders magnified the sounds of their passing. The woods seemed treacherous, low branches ready to catch the unwary rider and hang her. Margaret pressed down over her horse’s back.

As dawn grew in the east behind them, the procession moved further inland to the woodlands and marshes, seeking a thick morning fog to keep them safely out of sight until they reached the first day’s shelter. Margaret was relieved when just after dawn, as the fog swirled around her, word passed down the line that they were at their resting place.

It was a modest farmhouse, the inhabitants unobtrusive in their hospitality. Margaret drank a little ale and then crawled into the box bed she would share with Roger, shivering with cold and exhaustion, her limbs stiff and clumsy. Some time during the day she woke to Roger’s snoring and cuddled up to him, though the house was warming in the daylight that she glimpsed through the open door. It bothered her that they were exposed until she noticed the woman seated just without, churning butter. Closing her eyes, Margaret fell back into a deep sleep in which she dreamt of ghostly landscapes. It seemed but a moment later that Roger was coaxing her awake. Beyond the door she glimpsed the muted colours of twilight.

The sound of Celia moaning brought her fully awake.

The farmer’s wife was kneading Celia’s thighs. ‘’Tis naught to be shamed of,’ the woman was saying. ‘Warming them up stops the cramping.’

‘She’d never sat a horse until she rode with me to Edinburgh,’ Margaret told Roger.

‘Then she’s a brave woman and quick to learn,’ he said, turning to Margaret and searching her face. His own looked haggard. ‘How are you faring?’

‘Better than you, I think. Did you not sleep well?’

‘I stayed up till midday with Macrath and Alan, planning. I’ll not do that tomorrow.’

The second night’s journey began in the late evening twilight. Against the stars Margaret became aware of the great crag on which stood Stirling Castle. In the pre-dawn mists she could see neither the top of the crag nor the marshy ground beneath her. Although her mount knew to follow the others as closely as possible, step for step, she was so disoriented by the subtly rippling mists that changes in his gait unbalanced her.

A sudden loud splash and cry ahead brought her head up to see whether to pause and dismount, but Macrath did not pause. Only Celia glanced round. Even the horses seemed unconcerned when another cry followed, fainter than the first. Reminding herself not to clutch the reins or dig in her heels in panic, Margaret thought she might calm herself by reciting a decade of Hail Marys. She did not want to fuss with the search for her paternoster beads, so she used her fingers to keep track of the prayers. It seemed a good distraction until she missed Alan’s servant, who’d ridden behind Macrath and his servant, and then noticed that Aylmer, who’d been fourth in line, was also gone. Neither man rode behind her, only Roger and Alan.

A shift in her mount’s gait brought her gaze forward again. The mist was now thicker, but she heard sluggish water, and then the sound of Macrath’s horse on timber. This must be Stirling Bridge. Margaret said a prayer of thanks, for it meant that they were soon to be at the new day’s lodging. Celia’s horse neighed softly as it reached the bridge. Margaret held her breath in fear that if it balked her maid would fall. But Celia leaned a little forward and the horse continued calmly.

Margaret felt the chill of the water beneath that flowed down from the mountains as she crossed. For the length of the crossing the mist was icy on her face, warming again as she reached the far bank. There she saw that Aylmer and Alan’s servant had rejoined the company. Both were wet. Had they been in the river? When Roger reached the bank he brought his horse near hers. Margaret asked him what had happened.

‘The English had guards on the bridge — this is where tracks cross north-south, east-west. We knew of this. If God is watching over us, the bodies of Longshanks’s soldiers will float out into the firth.’

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,’ Margaret whispered, crossing herself. She had not thought to be part of the killing. Though she hated Longshanks, the guards had only obeyed orders.

‘We have passed through what is likely to be the greatest danger on this journey,’ Roger said.

The company fell into line and moved forward into the thinning mist. Margaret could see the highlands rising in the distance, which cheered her a little.

When they arrived at the day’s lodging, she was just as weary as she had been the morning before but too agitated to go to sleep at once. She ate a little and drank more of the farmer’s ale than was her custom, fighting a compulsion to watch Aylmer’s eyes as he sat across the fire from her. They were dead eyes, expressing neither remorse nor satisfaction. She began to ask him how he had learned such dispassion, but she held her tongue. He would think her lacking gratitude for his protection. She knew she must become accustomed to such violent encounters. But still she wondered how Aylmer had trained himself to be so calm afterwards. Perhaps she misread his eyes, and the emptiness was a death of soul.

Roger joined her. ‘Had you the opportunity to visit your mother at Elcho before going south at Easter?’

‘No. I last saw her at Yuletide.’ Margaret was glad to return to the ordinary, although she thought she had already told him of her last meeting with her mother.

‘Is Dame Christiana attracting pilgrims to the priory, come to seek her advice?’

‘If she is, she said nothing of it.’

With a grunt, Aylmer rose, bid them a good day, and withdrew to the pallet he was to share with one of the other men.

Margaret had relaxed enough to feel the night’s ride in all her muscles. ‘We should retire as well.’

But Roger continued. ‘Was it at Yuletide she foresaw the end of our troubles, saw us standing together, our daughter in your arms, watching the true king of the Scots enter Edinburgh?’ He sat back with a sigh of contentment. ‘It is a happy scene.’

‘Happy, yes, it is,’ Margaret said, wishing she felt so. But this was nothing she had shared with him. ‘How did you hear of the prophecy?’

‘Murdoch, I think. Yes. I recall we were at Janet’s house.’

As Margaret was when Roger had come for her. She began to think that had been no accident.

‘And you going over maps,’ said Roger, ‘receiving instructions … perhaps we shall work together, eh?’ His tone was light, but now Margaret wondered if it did not sound a little forced.

‘You know I do not live by Ma’s predictions,’ she said.

‘So you have not changed in that.’

‘No.’ Margaret rose and shook out her skirts. ‘I should step without before I sleep.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Roger said, rising with a groan. ‘By St Fillan, I grow too old for all this riding.’

It bothered her that her uncle would have told Roger of the prophecy, angry as he had been with Roger’s treatment of Margaret. It was a good reminder that she must trust no one.

A scout informed James the following evening that Margaret’s company had crossed Stirling Bridge, first dispatching the English guards.

‘Spies, all of the men, is that how it seems to you?’ James asked.

The man nodded. ‘Their mounts are too steady through it all for merchants’ horses.’

‘Not mounts they could have bought along the way.’

‘Not such horses, sir.’

No, not such horses. ‘We’ll set out after the curfew — you’ve little time to eat and rest.’

‘I’m accustomed to that,’ the scout said. He bowed and moved on to the kitchen.

James left the house, wanting a few last words with Hal.

Hal was brushing Bonny, but when James entered the stable the groom dropped his hands and, fixing his gaze on James’s boots, shook his head. ‘I cannot do it.’

James had expected argument for he had discovered to his surprise that Hal was a stubborn young man. ‘Murdoch has no need for you now that the inn is closed.’

Hal shook his fair hair from his eyes and looked directly at James for a change. ‘I don’t agree on the master’s choice of king, but the Bruce is far better than Longshanks.’

James was irritated by Hal’s echo of Murdoch’s reasoning. He burst out, ‘How can Robert Bruce be king with his father still alive?’ He checked himself, reminding himself to focus on his goal. ‘That is no cause to stay,’ he said more rationally.

‘Who would watch over Bonny and Agrippa when the master’s at Dame Janet’s?’ Hal asked.

‘If the town burns Murdoch would come for them, you cannot doubt that,’ James countered.

‘No. But if the soldiers come for Bonny while the master is away, she would be gone before he knew.’

They might continue in this vein for ever. ‘I don’t believe that is your only reason,’ James said, closing the argument.

Hal gave a little shrug and resumed his grooming.

The young man was impossible. ‘You’d meet William Wallace,’ said James. ‘Fight with him.’

It was enough to make Hal pause. He stared at James’s feet, his hair hiding his face, but his hands, clenching and unclenching, expressed his uncertainty. After a while, he met James’s gaze.

‘It was not for the fighting I wanted to go to Perth, sir,’ he said, and quickly looked away.

So that was it. James had wondered whether it was truly only for Margaret that Hal had been willing to go north. Poor fellow. He must have been heartsick at the return of her husband.

‘We need men like you who know animals,’ James said. ‘Dame Margaret would be proud to hear you had joined the fight to put King John back on the throne.’

Hal had fallen into a rhythm again with the combing and did not reply.

James was now even less willing to give up on him. They did need grooms, and young men dedicated to the cause without wife and children, or any ties that would tempt them away home when most needed. Hal was ideal. But it was knowing the cause of this stubbornness that now motivated James. He knew the pain of loving someone who could never be his — his love was a beauty of wit and surpassing grace. It was his own skilled negotiations that had joined her to his cousin. All these long years James had cursed himself. And still he dreamt of her.

‘You’re wrong about the master favouring the Bruce,’ Hal said, stepping away from the ass, his head tilted to keep his hair from his eyes. ‘He helped Master Roger only because he was Dame Margaret’s husband.’

‘Maybe.’ James gestured towards Hal’s hair. ‘For soldiering you’d need to slick that hair back, or cut it away from your face.’ He got the grin he’d hoped for. ‘You won’t have another chance like this, to be so close to Wallace. How will you keep yourself busy? You can’t groom the ass all the day. You know Murdoch can manage.’

Hal shifted feet, then dropped to a crouch, tracing something in the dirt. ‘I could not leave without telling Master Murdoch.’

‘I did not think you would. Come to my house as soon as you can.’

Still on his haunches, head down, Hal gave a nod.

James left him to his farewells, satisfied in having liberated a worthy young man.

When word of a scouting party delayed the departure of the company, Margaret and Roger took the opportunity for some time alone, finding a bench behind one of the outbuildings. The evening was soft with summer and yet held a hint of cooler air from the highlands above them. Delicate high clouds streaked the twilight sky. Margaret watched them passing as she rested her head on Roger’s shoulder. He kept an arm around her as they talked idly. They wondered whether Murdoch and Janet would wed, marvelled at Roy’s loyalty to Belle after she’d gone off for a time with another man, explored what might have happened to Old Will and Bess on Arthur’s Seat, then drifted into talk of Perth, how it had changed with the English in the country.

‘We are strong people,’ Roger said, ‘and I doubt the English will hold sway in Perth for long.’

‘It is good to be going home,’ Margaret said. ‘I have missed it more than I knew.’

‘You’ve missed Fergus most of all, I suspect.’

‘Yes. He’ll be so surprised.’ Margaret struggled straighter to kiss Roger’s cheek, a difficulty with the beard. ‘I’m grateful for this journey.’

They grew quiet watching the sky.

‘Do you hear anything of Andrew?’ Roger asked after a time.

‘I’ve had no word of my brother,’ Margaret said, feeling a wave of sadness.

‘I am sorry I doubted him,’ Roger said. ‘I grieve to think of him at Soutra with the soldiers. By blindly obeying Abbot Adam he hurt his kith, but he does not deserve such a grievous penance.’

‘They’ll not let him go, the English.’ Margaret felt a band of sorrow tightening around her chest. ‘I pray for Andrew every day.’

‘I have as well, since I understood it was a punishment.’ Roger withdrew his arm, took her hand, turning a little so that he might kiss her forehead. ‘Does your mother know of his plight?’

She studied Roger’s face, saw no dissimulation, just affection and concern. ‘No.’

‘Then we must see her, find out if she can offer us any hope.’

‘You’ve changed your opinion about the Sight?’ Margaret asked, for he’d been a non-believer.

He shrugged. ‘It seems a comfort to believe in it at such times.’

‘She’ll know nothing of his future,’ Margaret said, although her mother had once foreseen that Andrew would go through fire.

‘And the sisters can pray for him,’ Roger added.

‘The sisters’ prayers — I had not thought of that. Yes, I should go to her.’

‘And soon, I think. We’ll stop at the priory as we near Perth.’

It was too neatly tied up for Margaret’s comfort. ‘Why the haste? I’d rather see Fergus as soon as possible.’

‘It will make little difference in time, Maggie.’

‘Aye, that is my point.’ She wondered a little at her stubbornness. It would not matter a great deal. But she felt he’d manipulated her into agreeing with the plan.

‘You’ll not wish to come away once you’re home,’ he said, smiling down on her with a touch of insulting bemusement, it seemed to Margaret.

‘Have a care, Roger Sinclair. You may not know me as well as you think.’

He kissed her hand and rose, offering his arm to her. ‘It grows dark and chilly. Let’s go within.’

Margaret would have something new to ponder as she rode — an encounter with her mother, never a happy experience.