The Fire In The Flint

3

Celia had noticed the stranger watching Margaret and her as they spoke and had felt an urge to shoo him away. He must have sensed that he was unwelcome for he was gone now, and Celia alone witnessed Margaret pausing at the foot of the steps, squaring her shoulders and continuing up.

Often in the past months Celia had wondered how Margaret would behave when or if Roger returned. To have left his wife of only two years for such a long while during such frightening times had been reprehensible. But he’d compounded the offence as if he never considered Margaret’s feelings: in the sole letter he’d written to Margaret he’d promised to return at Yuletide but then did not appear, and sent neither an explanation nor an apology; when at last Margaret had caught sight of him in Edinburgh he had run from her; shortly thereafter he had sent word ordering her home to Perth but provided no escort; and perhaps the most humiliating discovery for her mistress was that he had spent the time arranging safe passage to Carlisle for a wealthy Englishwoman who had stayed in the very room Margaret now occupied and he’d been a frequent visitor in the room. Although Murdoch had denied they were lovers, Margaret’s brother had assumed they were and so must most of the townsfolk.

All this being so, as time passed Celia had imagined Roger less and less welcome. She herself had never wed, nor even bedded — her former mistress having run a strict household — so she could only guess at the emotion of such a reunion as was now commencing. But having heard her mistress weeping many a night, watched her search crowds for a sign of her long-absent husband, and noted her listening for his name when the Bruce was mentioned, Celia had grown to hate her former mistress’s son and presumed Margaret felt much the same.

Dame Katherine had impetuously loaned Celia to her gooddaughter Margaret for the journey to Edinburgh to seek the murderer of Jack Sinclair, Roger’s factor, and to trace Roger’s own whereabouts. He had by then been gone months longer than he had originally planned. Oblivious to the danger of travel and the tension in English-occupied Edinburgh, Celia, eager to please the mistress who was training her to be a lady’s maid, had gone without protest. She had not understood the sacrifice she had unwittingly undertaken until they arrived at Murdoch Kerr’s tavern. The rawness and the filth had first frightened, then disgusted her. She knew that Margaret had regretted bringing her along, considering her desire to be a lady’s maid ludicrous in the midst of war. But that very war had forced them to abide together long enough that they came to appreciate each other’s virtues. Margaret had begun to confide in Celia, who did everything she could to help her new mistress’s cause. Even now only Celia and Hal knew of Margaret’s spying work for James Comyn, and Celia had grown accustomed to evading questions about her mistress’s whereabouts.

But since the murder of Old Will, Celia had wondered whether their subterfuge was as successful as she had thought. She feared that someone else had learned of Margaret’s work for Comyn and had searched the undercroft for information.

‘If you’ve naught better to do, you might help me in the tavern,’ Sim barked, badly startling Celia.

She wondered how the weasel had managed to creep up behind her. ‘I’ve rooms to ready,’ she snapped, thinking Sim her prime suspect.

‘Where’s the mistress?’

‘Busy.’ Celia picked up her skirts and hurried up the stairs before he could ask any more.

Margaret’s feet felt weighted down and her heart pounded so hard she feared she might faint before she reached the landing. So many times she had imagined this moment, but nothing had prepared her for the jolt of hearing it had finally come. At the top of the stairs she found herself irritated by the need to deal with her estranged husband on the night that a nobleman was to lodge here. The mundane practicality steadied her. This was all part of her life, her own familiar life. Roger was her husband after all, not a stranger. She smoothed her apron as she crossed the landing to her chamber door. Reaching for the latch, she wondered whether Roger would be pacing or sitting. Upon opening the door she was startled to find him standing just within, blocking what little light came through the shutters.

‘Maggie,’ he said softly, reaching out to her.

She backed away. She did not doubt it was him, but she was not ready to walk into his arms. ‘First I would see you, Roger. I must see with my own eyes that you are truly here.’ She felt for the lantern just inside the door and opened the shutter, marvelling at how steady her hands were when she felt so breathless.

Roger tucked his thumbs in his belt and watched her as she studied him. His clothes were unfamiliar. They were well made, but they hung loosely on him. She had never seen him so thin. His face — she had known to expect the four long scars on his cheek, wounds that she had seen in spring, but not the tidy beard that partially hid them. Nor had his hair been so cropped then and sprinkled with grey — he was fifteen years older than she, but he had not looked it before. Strangest of all were his eyes. They had been his least attractive feature, unflinching and, perhaps because they were such a pale blue, icy. She knew they could not have darkened, but they seemed so, darkened with sorrow, pain, suffering, she thought. The changes in him frightened her more than anything had since his cousin Jack’s death.

‘Am I much changed?’ he asked.

She was glad to find his voice familiar, deep and warm.

‘I had not thought what you might have suffered,’ she said. ‘I knew of the wounds on your face, but I had not seen how thin you had become.’

‘I am stronger than I was.’

She could think of nothing else to say. It was as if she had convinced herself that their factor’s murder, Edinburgh’s transformation into a town scarred by fires and bloodshed with the townsfolk terrified by Longshanks’s soldiers who watched every move, her uncle’s dangerous missions, the unexplained disappearances, the corpses, the dread rumours of battles — all the horror of the past months had been but a waking dream and Roger’s changed appearance now proved it real. There was no going back. Her old life no longer existed.

Roger touched her face. ‘You are as bonny as ever.’

The tender gesture closed her throat and brought tears. ‘Roger,’ she sobbed, and stepped into his embrace. He smelled of sweat, wood smoke, horses and leather. His body was harder, his grip tighter than before, and she knew that though he was her husband in name he was yet a stranger. He murmured tenderly how he loved her, had missed her, had worried about her. Although she feared his words false, all the old hopes for their marriage stirred within her. Roger pressed himself against her and she grew warm with desire, her body betraying her.

He lifted her and carried her to the great curtained bed, laid her gently on it. ‘It has been too long, my Maggie.’

She found her resolve and rolled away from him, into the curtained darkness. ‘I cannot erase the months so quickly,’ she said, ‘no matter what you have suffered. When we met for a moment on that cold, rainy day in spring you did not reach out to me, you ran. Why?’

Roger said nothing as he finished pulling off his boots, dropping them on the floor one by one. Then, with his back to her, he said in a quiet, patient voice, ‘I thought I could protect you, Maggie. Some of the English know of my work for the Bruce, and if they had witnessed our meeting they would have followed you, found some reason to question you.’ He unlaced the sides of his tunic, pulled it off, then sat cross-legged on the bed facing her.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him and sink back on to the pillows clutching him tightly. But she was frightened to lose herself in him, to fall into the role of wife as blindly as she had before. ‘And afterwards, when Janet Webster told you why I’d come here, could you not see that you couldn’t protect me in such wise?’

‘I thought you’d gone mad. My young wife, safe in Dunfermline, had suddenly decided to abandon all sense and come here, walking among the English. Don’t you remember that soldier in Perth?’

She knew of whom he spoke, one in Longshanks’s army who had grabbed her as she walked to the kirk. ‘I do, Roger. I remember how you ran from the house to defend me. I count it as one of my best memories of you — I thought at that moment that you loved me, that you had not married me simply for the show of having a young wife.’

‘What? How could you not know how much I love you, Maggie?’ Roger reached for her. ‘Come here.’

Margaret moved beyond his reach. ‘What of Edwina of Carlisle, your comrade in spying? Did you sit here on this bed with her?’

He lay back with a groan. ‘She was also working for the Bruce. You have been told that, and that she is dead.’

‘Did you share her bed?’

‘I am your husband. I have kept my vows to you.’

‘A simple yes or no would suffice.’

Roger propped himself up on an elbow. ‘No.’

‘Then why did you not tell me about her?’

He sat up. ‘God’s blood, for the same reason I didn’t embrace you on the street in spring, wife, for fear of endangering you.’

‘Am I such a simple little thing I cannot be trusted? A lap dog rather than a woman?’

Roger grabbed her shoulders. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, giving her a shake. ‘I love you, Maggie. I have thought over and over of you on High Street, calling out to me. You cannot know what that did to me, seeing you, hearing your voice. You must have seen that I moved towards you, not thinking how I might endanger you. But my companions were sharp and they drew me away, brought me to my senses.’ He pulled her to him and kissed her.

It was a passionate kiss. She wanted so to believe him, wanted to feel safe here in his arms. He was her husband. He was kissing her forehead, her temples, her neck. It was God’s will that they be here in this bed, that they comfort one another. He was so warm, stronger, rougher than she remembered, insistent, his hands everywhere, helping her undress. She shut out her anger and hurt and took pleasure in him, kissing his eyes, his cheeks, his lips. She pulled off his shirt and kissed the hollow of his neck. When he was freed from his leggings she pressed her head to his warm, flat stomach.

Roughly he pulled her up on top of him. His lips closed over her mouth with a new fierceness that felt more like anger than passion. He pressed her lower back against him with such strength she thought her spine would snap, and then rolled so that he was now pressing her down into the bedding. She could barely breathe. Her passion turned to fear. He slipped down to mouth her breasts, kissed her stomach, and then with a groan rolled away and pushed her aside.

Her body ached with desire. Her fear dissolved into an overwhelming sense of bereavement. He could not follow through with the pretence of loving her. She moved away from him, clutching a pillow as if it were someone come to comfort her, and wept.

She did not know how long she lay there, mourning something intangible, before Roger moved close to her, and lying on his side, his head on her pillow, stroked her hair.

‘I have dreamed of you. Your wild locks, so bright, rivalling the sun.’

‘You need not lie to me,’ she whispered.

‘I love you, Maggie.’

She heard a slight catch in his voice and wondered if it could be true. How she had yearned for him. She had hoped for a husband who sought her counsel, shared his thoughts, listened to her; who showed her in simple ways that he cherished her; who knew that she would worry and would find a way to tell her he was safe. Who would not lie to her.

‘I don’t think I understand what you mean by love.’ Her voice, trembling and high, made her words sound peevish. She pushed herself up, clutching the covers to hide her nakedness from the stranger lying beside her.

Roger lay on his back. He ran his hand along her shoulder with a gentle, caressing touch. ‘What happened just now — I have ridden a long way, and I wanted you too much. The heat of my passion — they say it can unman one. But we’ll have many nights, Maggie.’ There seemed a yearning in his voice.

‘You mean to stay?’

‘I mean to be a good husband to you. Teach me how.’

She was searching her memory for other nights with him, trying to recall whether he had ever said such words, and it came to her, their wedding night, after he had spent himself so quickly that he rolled away from her just as she was warming to his lovemaking. He had said, ‘I shall be a good husband to you, Maggie.’

‘You are tired,’ she said now. ‘Sleep.’

‘I cannot until you tell me how to be a good husband to you.’

Her mind was in turmoil and she did not trust what she might say. ‘Not now.’ She lay down with her back to him and tried to quiet her storm-tossed thoughts with Hail Marys.

She’d managed only a few before Roger put his arm around her and leaned close to kiss her neck.

Margaret tucked the covers up higher.

‘Maggie, we must talk.’

‘On the morrow.’

He tugged at her, trying to turn her around to face him.

‘Let me be,’ she cried, resisting him even as she searched the chatter in her mind for an excuse that would buy her some peace. She must think how to cope with his return without either dissolving in tears or shouting at him. Rolling on to her back she said, ‘I’ve not slept well since Fergus sent troubling news.’

‘So you are not angry with me, just weary?’ Roger stroked her forehead.

Oh, angry I am, Roger, but we must not yet speak of that. ‘He wrote of intruders searching our house and Da’s, and Ma’s room at Elcho as well.’

‘What?’ Roger lifted the cruisie that still burned beside the bed and brought it close to Margaret’s face. ‘In Perth?’

She nodded, turning a little from the lamp, the light startling her.

‘What did they take? Was anyone injured?’

‘No one was injured. Not there. Fergus cannot tell what is missing, but it appeared to him, as in the undercroft here, that they were after documents.’

‘Here, too?’

‘You didn’t know? I thought that was why you’ve come, to see what they took. They searched the caskets you and Da left in Uncle’s keeping. And Old Will was murdered in the wynd that night.’

Roger crossed himself. ‘How did he come to cross their paths?’

She explained how drunk the old man had been when he left the tavern, and how he’d disappeared. ‘I think he found the door ajar and slipped in to sleep off the drink.’

‘And you believe the intruders killed him?’

‘Yes. So, you see, I’ve had much on my mind and I yearn for sleep.’

‘I am not surprised to hear of such searches,’ Roger said, apparently not yet willing to let her sleep. ‘The English respect no Scotsman’s property. Nor do English abbots.’

Margaret had begun to turn away, but she sat up instead, putting a finger to Roger’s lips. ‘Do not condemn my brother until you know the truth.’

‘He raided all the kirks for the royal treasures, and now he’s confessor to the English garrison on Soutra Hill. What else can I think but that Andrew is cut from the same cloth as his abbot?’

‘You know nothing. He despises himself for obeying Abbot Adam. And as for his post to Soutra, it is a death sentence, his penance for defying Adam and going to Sir Walter Huntercombe at the castle asking for news of you. He did it for me.’

‘Is this true?’

‘Do you have cause to call me a liar? That is how I learned of Edwina’s death. Sir Walter believed the corpse found with hers was yours. But I’d seen you-’ A sob rose in Margaret’s throat, silencing her.

Roger set down the cruisie and gathered her in his arms. ‘Oh, Maggie.’

Too agitated to rest in his arms, Margaret pushed away. ‘You might explain yourself, why you lied about going to Dundee seeking a new port, why you abandoned me to help an Englishwoman.’

‘Let’s not talk of that now.’

Margaret let out a mirthless laugh. ‘How brief-lived was your resolve to learn to be a good husband to me.’

‘I meant from this day forward, Maggie. I know full well I failed you in the past.’

‘I’m to have no explanation? Will you command me to forget? Oh, but of course, you’ve always thought me naught but a child. What was I thinking to ask why you lied to me, why you lay with another woman, a false wife who-’

The slap shocked Margaret into silence. In that moment she hated Roger.

‘Don’t speak so of the dead,’ he said sharply. ‘Edwina was a brave, noble woman who died carrying messages to the Bruce.’

‘She was not returning to her husband? To England?’

‘No.’ Roger swung his legs off the bed and bowed his head. ‘God help me, I wake at night wondering how I might have prevented her death and that of her escort.’

Margaret crossed herself. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered, hearing the pain in his voice, reaching for one of his hands and holding it to her heart. ‘But if you had trusted me with the truth of your activities …’

He jerked his hand from her grasp and rose, facing her with a murderous expression. ‘I have explained my silence.’

‘What happened on the way to Dundee?’ she asked, knowing they would never heal this rift without more of an explanation.

Roger dropped his gaze. ‘I’d prefer to talk of other things.’

‘I need to know. Tell me and be done with it.’

He sat down on the bed with a sigh. ‘This is a sorry homecoming.’

‘What happened?’ she asked more gently, touching his shoulder. ‘It would help me to understand your long absence.’

Roger groaned. ‘It is painful to talk of it.’

‘I beg you.’

He gave a resigned nod and looked down at his hands, but said nothing for a moment. ‘It was what I saw at the house of my old friend George Brankston,’ he began in a quiet voice. ‘It was my custom to stay the night there on my journeys to Dundee. I was treated as kin, not a guest, and though they were seldom forewarned of my coming I was always made to feel welcome. But this time …’ He covered his eyes for a moment.

When he looked up, Margaret saw tears. It was unsettling to see his emotion over a family he’d never spoken of to her.

‘The northern army of Edward Longshanks had ridden through George’s property in the summer on its march from Dundee,’ Roger continued. ‘They’d stolen the horses, the falcons, all the livestock.’ He took a breath. ‘They raped his daughter Emma, and so injured Isabel his wife that she lost the child she carried and the use of one leg.’

‘My God,’ Margaret said. ‘Why did you not tell me of this before?’

‘Where was John Balliol in all this?’ Roger demanded loudly. ‘He should have made a last great attack, caught the army on the road. He made no effort to help.’

‘I believe our king was in England by then, along with many of the Comyns, under close guard,’ Margaret said quietly. ‘And Robert Bruce was in Carlisle helping his father protect that English city from our people.’

‘Our king.’ It sounded like a curse from Roger’s lips.

‘You can’t blame him for Longshanks’s brutality.’

Roger swung his head from side to side slowly, as if trying to stretch out a pain. ‘You asked what happened to change my heart on the road to Dundee. It had nothing to do with Robert Bruce at first. To find the family I had loved as my own so broken, so … The light was gone from their eyes, Maggie. I thought of the soldier who had grabbed you for a kiss and I knew how much worse it might have been.’

‘If you were worried for me, why did you not come home?’

‘Edwina of Carlisle was the sister of George’s wife, Maggie. Isobel feared that what had happened to her and Emma might happen to her sister. I wanted to do something. George’s family needed him there, so it was up to me. It was a beginning.’

Margaret took a deep breath. It did change things.

‘I did not go south with the intention of binding myself to Bruce. I wanted only to bring some relief to Isobel, who had always been so gracious to me.’

‘You’d promised to return by Yuletide.’

‘I am sorry, Maggie. I thought I would yet be home by then.’

‘In all that time, I received only one letter from you.’

‘I still hoped, Maggie. It would have been dangerous, perhaps impossible, to communicate with you. Dangerous for both of us. I’d left you safe in Perth, with Jack to look after you and my trade.’

‘You emptied the coffer and entrusted me to a man who was planning to take his leave to be with his lover.’

‘I left you sufficient funds to survive for a good while.’ There was a whisper of indignation in Roger’s tone. ‘I did whenever I left, ever praying but never certain I would return.’

‘There was money sufficient for but a month, and little trade to compensate.’ Margaret managed to keep her voice steady. ‘And what about before you left?’ she persisted. ‘I thought you were seeking another port for shipping.’

‘At first I was!’ he shouted, rounding on her. ‘My confiding in you would not have prevented anything that happened.’

‘I envy you such certainty.’

His gaunt, angular face was rigid with anger. She had not set out to make him so angry.

‘You refuse to believe my good intentions in all that I have done.’ His voice was as cold as his eyes. ‘You are behaving like a pampered child annoyed to discover that life is difficult.’

Margaret opened her mouth to retort, but she stopped herself, thinking that there might be a little truth in what he said. But others had been as condemning of Roger’s behaviour as she was, especially Murdoch. ‘I do not claim to be better than I am, Roger. Nor am I so simple as to believe that now you’re here all is well. I don’t think you have any idea how I worried for you, thinking you might be injured, dying somewhere-’

‘You should not have left the safety of my mother’s house.’ He’d risen and taken the cruisie to a small table by the window, settling down and pouring himself some wine.

‘You refuse to see. Jack had been murdered, Roger, and it had happened while he was searching for news of you. I feared someone wanted to keep him from discovering where you were. I feared you had been killed, or captured. No one else was going to search for you, everyone was caught up in the troubles. It had to be me or no one. Can’t you see that? I could not bear to sit day after day watching the door, wondering whether the clatter on the street was someone bringing you home shrouded, as was Jack.’

Roger began to speak, then stopped himself. He poured himself more wine, then shifted on the stool to gaze out of the dark window.

Margaret turned away from the light and, pulling the covers over her head, resumed her Hail Marys. She wished he’d stayed away.

Celia slept fitfully in a strange room, waking now and then in confusion. She could not seem to shake off the edginess of the evening.

After she had prepared a chamber for the strangers, she had thought of readying one beside Margaret’s for herself, but was uncertain whether the reunited couple would wish for more privacy. Or whether Roger would spend the night — after all that she had suffered, Margaret might not wish him to share her bed. The sun was low in the sky and the evening cool. Celia’s stomach rumbled and her mouth was dry. But if she went into the tavern someone might ask after Margaret, and Celia had not yet settled on what to say. She has a guest? She is on an errand? Visiting … who? At the kirk, perhaps. She slipped inside the little maid’s hut between the two kitchens, Murdoch’s and the tavern’s, and settled on a bench by the window where she could watch for Margaret on the steps.

Dusk came and there was still no sign of Margaret. At last, starving, parched and cold, Celia went into the tavern. It was almost empty.

‘Folk fear the English are watching us to see if more corpses crawl out of the wynd,’ Sim said.

As if his unpleasant conversation were not penance enough, Celia glanced up to find James Comyn walking towards her with his tankard in hand. He slipped on to the bench opposite her.

‘Though the day was warm there is a chill in the air this even,’ he said. ‘Where will you bide while your mistress is entertaining her husband?’

Celia should not have been surprised that he already knew of Roger’s presence, but there was something about James Comyn that made her stubborn. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. My mistress is asleep, and I was still hungry.’ She forced herself to wait for her food and drink, and then gave it her full attention. When she must look elsewhere she gazed around the room. She noticed the servant Aylmer. He sat away from the others. She noted that he was simply but tastefully dressed — she had made it her business to notice such things.

‘Has his master arrived?’ she asked James.

He followed her gaze. ‘Him? He arrived with the man I’d mistaken for Roger Sinclair. I did not think your mistress would entertain any other man in her chamber.’

Celia did not like Comyn’s smirk. She thought him like many well-born folk, seeing servants as simpletons, people to be teased and ridiculed when he wasn’t ordering them about. She made no attempt to retort. He would only smirk more. She was also dumbstruck by the news that Aylmer was Roger Sinclair’s servant.

Fortunately Comyn soon wearied of her silence and returned to his former spot by the fire. In a little while, full and now almost too warm, Celia withdrew, thinking to retire early. But as she drew near the maid’s cottage she heard voices from within. Thoughts of Old Will’s murder made her heart pound. But stubborn curiosity made her creep closer, until she could make out the quiet murmur of a man’s voice and a woman’s sigh and giggle. She could guess who the lovers were, Roy, the tavern cook, and Belle, a former chambermaid who had been forbidden on the premises. Celia went to the tavern kitchen where she found Geordie, the cook’s helper, sullenly cleaning.

‘So it’s Roy and Belle next door?’ she asked him.

‘Aye. It will be bad for them both if Master Murdoch finds out.’

Belle had left Roy for another, then returned heavily pregnant with the cook’s child, or so she said. Murdoch had not banned her because of her morals, but rather because he could ill afford Roy’s destructive tantrums whenever Belle crossed him. Foodstuffs were too difficult to replenish.

‘Well I’ll not be the one to betray them,’ Celia said. ‘Could you give me a warm stone?’

Geordie drew one out of the fire.

She carried it across to the stairs, her eyes searching the dark corners, then hurried up. All was quiet in her mistress’s chamber, and no light shone beneath the door. She chose the smaller room on the right and put the hot stone beneath the covers, then returned to the kitchen for another for Aylmer’s room. He, too, would be sleeping alone tonight.

Throughout the night she woke, thinking she heard her mistress call, but she was loath to knock on the door. She hoped Margaret was resting more easily than she was.