The Winter Sea

XIV

COLONEL GRAEME KEPT HIS word, and stayed.

Sophia reasoned that he stayed as much because he wanted to be there to see the frigate come to herald the beginning of the king’s invasion, as because he liked the hospitality of Slains, but either way she took great pleasure in his company. She came to envy Moray, that he had an uncle so engaging and as different from her Uncle John as daylight was from darkness. He talked more than his nephew, and was quicker to observe the humor in a daily happening, but he was enough like Moray that Sophia felt at ease with him and on familiar ground.

He brought a liveliness to Slains, for like his nephew he did not sit still long. If his body ceased its motion then his mind in turn grew restless and required diversion. He had them play at cards most evenings, learning all the new games now in favor at the French king’s court and Saint-Germain. And on one rainy afternoon toward the week’s end he began to teach Sophia how to play the game of chess.

He said, ‘Ye’ve got the brain for it. Not many lasses do.’

She felt quite flattered by his confidence, but wished that she could share it. With a sinking heart she watched him set the pieces out upon the wooden board that he had laid between them on the little table in the library. There seemed so many figures, finely carved of wood with flaking paint of black or white—the castle towers, and the horses’ heads, and bishops’ mitres flanking two crowned pieces taller than the rest, their painted faces staring back at her with doubt.

‘I do not have much luck at games,’ Sophia said.

‘’Tis not a game of luck.’ He set eight smaller figures in a row before the others. Sending her a reassuring glance, he said, ‘It is a game of strategy. A battle, if ye will, between my men and yours. My wits, and yours.’

She smiled. ‘Then yours will surely win.’

‘Ye cannot start a battle, lass, by thinking ye will lose it. Now come, let me show ye how it’s played.’ He was a soldier, and he taught the movements from a soldier’s viewpoint, starting with the forward lines. ‘These wee men here, the pawns, they’re not allowed to make decisions. They can only put one foot before the other, marching in a straight line to the enemy, except when they attack. Then they follow the thrust of their sword arm, see, on the diagonal.’ Moving his pawn against one of her own, he demonstrated. ‘Now, the knights, at their backs, they can move that much quicker because they’re on horseback, and bolder…’

And so piece by piece he revealed all the players and set them in play on the battlefield. Leading her through their first game, he took time with each turn to explain all her options, which moves she could make with which men, but he did not advise her. The choice was her own, and he either sat back in approval or with a good-natured grin captured the piece that she’d placed into jeopardy.

Sophia tried to learn from each mistake, and though the colonel won as she’d suspected that he would, she felt a sense of triumph that she’d given him some semblance of a battle. And her pride grew greater when the colonel said, ‘Ye did uncommonly well, lass. Did I not say ye had the brain for it?’

‘I like the game.’

‘Aye, so I see.’ He smiled at her. ‘We’ve time for yet another afore supper, if ye like.’

Her skill improved with every day.

‘She’ll have you beaten, Colonel,’ was the earl’s opinion as he watched them idly from his reading chair one afternoon.

‘Aye, ye might be right, at that.’ With steepled fingers, Colonel Graeme eyed the board and whistled lightly through his teeth. He took his time. The piece he finally moved seemed, to Sophia, a mistake because it left a weakness in his ranks that she could then attack. But when she took advantage of the opening, she saw that the mistake had been her own, as Colonel Graeme slid his bishop silently across the board and told her, ‘Check.’

She had not seen it coming, and she stared in disbelief now at the bishop sitting poised to take her king. To her dismayed expression, Colonel Graeme said, ‘Ye have to watch the whole field, lass, and use your wits afore your weapons. When ye saw me move that knight, your first thought was to take the rook that I’d left unprotected, was it not? And so most soldiers who are new to battle think their first directive is to take the ground, to run against the enemy and do him damage where they can.’

‘And is it not?’

He shook his head. ‘Not always, no. In war, as in the game of chess, ye also must defend your king.’ His smile was wise, forgiving of her youth and inexperience. ‘No battle can be called a victory if the king is lost.’

Sophia gave a nod to show she understood, her frowning gaze directed at the board. She saw no move that she could make to bring her own king out of danger, yet she knew there must be one because the colonel had not told her ‘checkmate’, merely ‘check’. Her stubborn concentration did not waver till the countess came in search of them.

The older woman’s face was set in firm lines as she told her son, ‘We have another visitor, and one who does not sit well in my favor. He has come to us with letters from the Earl of Marischal, but there is something in his aspect which I do not trust.’

The visitor was waiting at his leisure in the drawing room—an older man who looked to be past sixty years of age, though he was large in body with a heavy-featured face and hands that seemed to swallow up the earl’s when they shook formally in greeting. He was taller than the earl, which made him well above six feet, and wore the costume of a Highlander, and would have been a fierce imposing figure had his face not held the weariness of one who had been beaten down by time.

‘By God!’ said Colonel Graeme, just now entering the room behind Sophia, ‘Captain Ogilvie!’

The countess turned. ‘You know each other?’

‘Aye, we served in France together,’ Colonel Graeme said, and crossed to greet the older man with pleasure. ‘We do share a long acquaintance. How the devil are ye?’

Captain Ogilvie seemed equally as pleased to find a comrade and a fellow soldier in the house, and stood a little straighter as he answered, ‘Well enough, though I’ve grown too old now to fight, and must seek my living elsewhere.’ From his tone Sophia guessed the change of livelihood had been a bitter tonic for him, one that he’d found difficult to take. ‘What of yourself ? I would have thought ye’d be in Flanders.’

‘Aye, well, I was given leave to come to Scotland on a family matter,’ was the colonel’s smooth excuse. ‘But I’ll be returning shortly.’

Standing to one side, the countess watched this unforeseen reunion with a guarded face that gave no hint of what she might be thinking. Sophia could not see herself what troubled the countess so much about Ogilvie. His eyes, to her, seemed kind enough when she was introduced to him.

The countess said, ‘You must be tired, Captain, if you’ve ridden from the Earl of Marischal’s this day. You must stay here at Slains until you are recovered from your travels.’

Ogilvie’s bow was deep, and filled with open gratitude. ‘You are too kind, your ladyship.’

She smiled. ‘Not at all. Come, let me call a man to show you to your room.’

When he’d left the room her smile vanished, and she turned to Colonel Graeme with an air of expectation. ‘Patrick, tell me all you know about this man.’

The colonel told her bluntly, ‘He’s deserving of your trust.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because he’s withstood more than you or I have done, in service to the Stewarts. Twenty years ago he fought for old King James, and he was one of those brave Highlanders who charged the pass of Killicrankie with Dundee and broke the English lines. And when the tide then turned again, he joined that band of Highland men who chose to follow old King James to exile. A hundred and fifty of them there were, and they sacrificed all that they had to serve James, surviving on a common soldier’s pay. There is an island in the Rhine yet called the Scotsmen’s isle, because they charged it in the Highland way, by night and wading arm in arm through water to their shoulders, and they took that island from a stronger force. The king of France considers them a legend, as do all at Saint-Germain. But there are few of them surviving. When I first met Captain Ogilvie ten years ago, the hundred and fifty had dwindled to twenty. By now it must surely be less.’

The story appeared to have moved the young earl. ‘I have heard of those Highland men, but I did not think to have one seek shelter beneath my own roof.’ Coming forward he said to the colonel, ‘Of course he is welcome.’

The countess said, ‘Yes. Thank you, Patrick, for laying my worries to rest.’

But Sophia thought, watching her, that she still guarded her features with care, as though some of the doubts yet remained.

It was clear Colonel Graeme had none of his own. The next morning, as he sat down with Sophia to resume their interrupted game of chess, the door to the library opened and Ogilvie, seeing them already there and well occupied, apologized and started to withdraw, but Colonel Graeme would have none of it. ‘Come in and join us, Captain.’

‘If you’re sure ’tis no intrusion.’

‘None at all. Besides, it may improve our game to have an audience.’

Sophia doubted whether there was anything that would improve her game this morning, trapped as she still was, her king held helplessly in check. While Captain Ogilvie settled himself in a chair by the fire, she took the opportunity to study once again the way the pieces were positioned on the board, in hopes she’d chance upon the move that would release her king from peril.

Colonel Graeme watched her closely from across the table, making no attempt to hide his amusement. ‘There is a way,’ he told her, ‘to get out of that.’

‘You would not wish to tell me what it is?’ She knew he wouldn’t. He had never told her how to move or given her advice, but in the teaching of this game he had from time to time seen fit to help her train her sight along the proper line.

He did it now. ‘It does involve your queen.’

‘My queen…’ She looked, but still she could not see it. And then, of a sudden, ‘Oh,’ she said, and made the move.

‘See?’ Colonel Graeme’s smile seemed proud of her. ‘I told ye. Now your king is safe. At least,’ he told her, teasing, ‘for the moment.’

Ogilvie looked on with partial interest, but Sophia knew he would not sit for long before the urge to tell a story overcame him. He had kept them fully entertained at last night’s supper with his tales, for having lived so long he had amassed a wealth of stories, and the telling of them seemed to bring him pleasure. Neither did Sophia have any objection to hearing them. She found them fascinating, full of bold adventure—though she would have listened, truth be told, if they had all been dull, because her heart was not so hard she could deny a man like Ogilvie, whose days of grandeur and of glory were all now behind him, the chance to live those days again in memory, while he spoke.

‘Aye,’ said Ogilvie, relaxing back into his chair, ‘’Tis often in the power of the queen to save the king. Our young King Jamie owes much to his mother. He would not be living at all were it not for her bravery in taking him over the sea.’

Colonel Graeme seemed to also sense a story coming on, and did his part to encourage it. ‘Aye, ye should tell this young lassie about all of that. She’d have been but a wee bairn herself, at the time.’

Ogilvie looked at Sophia, and seeing that she was receptive, said, ‘Well, the young king—Prince of Wales he was then—was but half a year old. It was this time of year, the first days of December, and everything wild and windy and cold. Things were going poorly for the old king then. He was losing his hold on the kingdom. Most of his generals, and Marlborough with them, had left him, gone over to William of Orange, and his own daughter Anne had just secretly flown, too. That did him in badly. A raw wound, it was, that the daughter he loved would betray him. He lost a good part of his fight after that, and cared little what happened to him, but he cared a great deal for the queen and the wee Prince of Wales. He kent the lad would not be safe, for all the Whigs had whispered round the falsehood that wee James was not the queen’s own son. The devil’s lie, that was,’ he said with feeling, ‘and how the queen could bear it, having birthed him in a room stacked full with witnesses as all queens must endure, I—’ He broke off, the strong emotion that had gripped him making further speech on that same subject difficult.

Sophia knew he’d meant to say he did not know. He did not know how Mary of Modena had withstood such slander, and Sophia did not know herself how any woman could. To carry a child and bring him to life, and then have him denied and rejected by those who knew otherwise…well, it was not to be thought of. Sophia resisted the now almost unthinking impulse to rest a hand on her own belly while Ogilvie, having recovered, went on, ‘But the old king had made up his mind that the queen and the Prince of Wales were to be sent out of London and carried to France. There were but a handful let in on the secret.’ The firelight cast shadows along his expressive face as he leaned forward and brought them both into the secret as well. He went on with the story as surely as one who had been there: ‘At supper, the night that the flight was to happen, the queen sat at table. Calm, she was. She played her part so well that none suspected. After she withdrew, she changed her fine gown for a plain common habit and took up the Prince in a bundle, as if she were only a servant he were the clothes to be washed. She’d been given two trustworthy men for her guards, and she had her own women. By secret ways, all of them passed from the palace of Whitehall, and taking care not to be seen scurried into the carriage that waited to carry them down to the river.’

Sophia fought the urge to hold her own breath as she crept in her imagination through the watchful shadows with the queen. She bit her lip.

‘The night was so dark,’ Captain Ogilvie said, ‘that they could barely see each other. And the crossing of the Thames in violent wind and rain was treacherous. But when they finally reached the other side, the coach and six that had been meant to meet them was not there. The queen was forced to shelter from the weather by a church wall, in a dangerous exposure, and so wait until her guardsman went to fetch the coach. They nearly were discovered. ’Twas but Providence protected them, as it did later on that wild night when they were almost stopped along the road to Gravesend. They escaped that too, but narrowly, and made it safely to the coast, where others joined them for the journey over sea to France. An awful voyage that was, too, but through it all the queen made no complaint. A rare, brave woman,’ he proclaimed her, ‘and ’tis by her courage we do have a king today, for if they had remained in England nothing would have saved them.’

Colonel Graeme, who, Sophia thought, would also have a memory of those troubled days of treachery, agreed. ‘It is a stirring tale.’

‘Aye, well, I had it straight from the Comte de Lauzon. He was there—he was one of the two men that guided Queen Mary that night out of Whitehall and over the river and down to Gravesend, and he went the whole journey to France with her, too. He saw all that did happen, and kept it stopped up in his memory, till one night I helped him unstop it with wine.’ Captain Ogilvie smiled, in remembrance. ‘He told me other tales, as well, but few I’d want to tell a lass.’ But he did think of one that was not too offensive, and settled himself deeper still in his chair while he told it.

Sophia half-listened, and smiled when she was meant to at the scandalous behavior of the comte, but her own imagination had been captured so completely by the story he’d just told them of Queen Mary’s flight from England into France, that hours later she was thinking of it still.

She stood a long time at the great bow window of the drawing room that afternoon and gazed upon the sea, and wondered how it would have felt to have been cast upon those rough and wintry waves, with no sure knowledge of what future lay ahead for the wee infant son you carried in your arms, and only fears about the safety of your husband in the land that you were leaving, and might never see again. How deep, she wondered, must have been the queen’s despair?

She was not aware of anybody entering the room till Colonel Graeme spoke, behind her, in a calming tone that seemed to know her mood and sought to lighten it. ‘I would not be surprised to see it snow before this day is out. Those clouds do have the look of it.’

Coming forward, he stood close beside her and let his gaze follow her own, saying nothing at all, only keeping her company.

Sophia looked a moment longer at the ice-grey swells that rose and fell beyond the window, then into the comfortable silence she said, without turning, ‘My father always loved the sea.’

He glanced at her with eyes that were astute. ‘And ye do not.’

‘I do not trust it. It does seem a pleasant sight in summer, but it wears a different face, and one I do not like to look at, in December.’

He nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘there is no sight so melancholy as the winter sea, for it does tell us we are truly at the ending of the year, and all its days are passed, its days of joy and sorrow that will never come again.’ He turned to look at her, and smiled. ‘But so the seasons turn, and so they must, by nature’s own design. The fields must fall to fallow and the birds must stop their song awhile; the growing things must die and lie in silence under snow, just as the winter sea must wear its face of storms and death and sunken hopes, the face ye so dislike. ’Tis but the way of things, and when ye have grown older, lass, as I have, ye may even come to welcome it.’

‘To welcome winter?’

‘Aye.’ He had not moved, and yet she felt his voice like an embrace, an arm of comfort round her shoulders. ‘For if there was no winter, we could never hope for spring.’ His eyes were warm on hers, and wise. ‘The spring will come.’ He paused, then in that same sure tone he said, ‘And so will he.’

He meant the king, of course, Sophia told herself. He meant the king would come. And yet she thought she saw a fleeting something in his eyes before they slid away from hers again to make a new assessment of the snow clouds that were drifting ever closer to the shore, and in that instant she could not be sure he had not spoken to her, purposely, of someone else.

They never mentioned Moray. Having learned his nephew had been well when he had been at Slains, the colonel seemed to be content to rest with that. He had not asked for any details of what Moray did, as though he deemed it not his business. They were very much alike, Sophia thought, these two men—bound by rules of honor that prevented them intruding into someone else’s privacy, and made them guard their own.

It was as well, she thought, he did not know her private thoughts this moment. She was thinking of the desperate flight of Mary of Modena, of the fear and faith and hope that must have driven such a queen to brave a winter crossing with her baby son. And now that infant, grown to be a king, stood poised to cast his own spare fortunes on those same cold, unforgiving waves that seemed determined to divide the Stewarts from their hopes, and from their royal destiny.

She tried, as Colonel Graeme had advised, to see the promise in the winter sea, but she could not. The water, greenly grey and barren, stretched away to meet the shoreward rolling clouds whose darkness only spoke of coming storms.

In all the time since she had come to Slains and first learned of the planned invasion to return the king, Sophia never once had paused to think the plan might fail. Until this moment.

From my window, I could see the breaking waves against the harbor wall. The wind was strong this morning, and the waves were coming high and fast and casting up an angry spray that made a hanging mist to all but hide the curve of snowbound beach. I couldn’t see it clearly. Further out, the sea had turned a deeper color in the shadow of the dark grey-bottomed clouds that were now gathering and blotting out the sun.

It wasn’t difficult, while standing here, to feel the way Sophia must have felt. This winter sea was not so different from the one that I had pictured through her memory. Through her eyes.

Nor was it difficult to feel the shade of Colonel Graeme close beside my shoulder. I could feel them everywhere around me, now, the people who had lived at Slains that winter. They were with me all the time, and it was harder to detach myself, to pull away. They pulled me back.

Especially this morning. I had meant to take a break and get some badly needed sleep, but all I’d managed was to make a piece of toast, a cup of coffee. And I hadn’t even finished that, and here the voices were again, beginning to get restless.

I could have closed them out, but at the window glass the wind rose to a wail and forced its way around the frame to swirl its cold around me and it breathed, ‘Ye have no choice.’

And it was right.