Amanda Scott (5 page)

When he looked at his trees, Sir Renfrew did not see lush green oaks, beeches, and Caledonian pines. He saw good English gold, and he was no fool. Much as he owned, he knew that he needed more. He was burning five tons of timber for each ton of iron he produced, and at such a rate a bloomery denuded its forests more rapidly than anyone had expected, and then had to be moved.

The bell rang and rang to announce the tapping, and children who had been gathering dead wood for fuel from the forest floor ran from every direction to see the grand sight of molten metal pouring like the devil’s own blood from the furnace mouth. One small one, holding her skirt to her chin and flying barefoot over the pine needles, rocks, and cones in her path, tripped over a root and sprawled right at Sir Renfrew’s feet. Tangled in her skirt, she fell again when she tried to get up, and began to wail in frustration.

Bending over, he picked her up, set her on her feet, and dusted her off. “Cease yer bleating, lassie,” he said kindly. “Ye willna die of a wee fall, ye ken.”

“I want tae see the deevil’s fires,” she sobbed.

“Aye, sure, and so ye will. Yonder they spew from the furnace, and they’ll be pouring forth the whole livelong day, so ye canna miss seeing them. Here,” he added, reaching into his pocket for a halfpenny when she looked at him with her lower lip extended and tears spilling down her pale cheeks. “Here’s a wee copper bit to make ye smile again.”

Blue eyes widening, the child took the halfpenny and clutched it in her grimy fist. Beginning to turn away, she remembered her manners and bobbed an awkward curtsy before dashing off to see the tapping.

He watched her go, then turned when he heard his furnace manager’s voice call out behind him.

“It looks to be going well, MacIver,” Sir Renfrew said with a nod. “Ha’ ye the figures yet from the last run?”

“Aye, sir. Took just over a hundred pounds o’ wood, that ’un, but this’ll tak’ more. We’ve no so much o’ the hardwoods left till we can cut more, and whilst the pine burns hot, it burns gey quick as well.” He handed Sir Renfrew a sheaf of papers. “Mr. MacPhun said tae give ye this, sir. ’Tis the list o’ them what still owes the furnace stores for flour and meal and whatnot.”

Sir Renfrew scanned the list. “Did he tell ye who owes the most?”

“Aye, Gabhan MacGilp.”

“He owns a cow, does he not?”

“Aye, a fine one, and a wee pony as well.”

“Tell MacPhun to go and put my brand on the cow. Tell him MacGilp can buy her back when he pays his shot for his supplies. That will bring the others in quick enough, I vow.”

“Most ha’ no siller tae pay,” the man said uneasily.

“They’ll find a way. Tell them they can work extra hours in the gravel pits or loading gravel and tobacco if they want to earn more, or they can sign on with one of my ships.”

“Aye, I’ll tell them, but most work eighteen t’ twenty hours the day, as it is, and the ones wha’ fancy a life at sea ha’ gone wi’ the boats already.”

Sir Renfrew, being of no mind to listen to paltry excuses, turned away without reply. Then, bethinking himself of another matter, he turned back and called to the man, “Has MacKellar returned yet from Mingary?”

“Aye, sir. I saw him ride up tae Dunbeither House earlier when I were up on the ridge top. Likely he stayed the night wi’ his granny at Shielfoot. He’ll likely be along straightaway.”

Sir Renfrew nodded and dismissed the man, then turned and walked up to the furnace. Built from bricks he had imported all the way from Wales, it was huge, two stories high. Such height was necessary because the charcoal and iron ore were poured into the closed furnace from above. Then, from below, a set of bellows blew the furnace to the great heat required to melt iron from the ore. A huge iron wheel, turned by water running along a lade from the River Moidart, powered the bellows.

Although that particular bloomery had been in operation little more than a month, the clinker dump—the pile of slag from the reduction process—was vast. He walked past it to the sheds behind it, where the ore and charcoal were stored. A short distance beyond that, men were building a second kiln to produce the charcoal from the cut wood.

Charcoal burned hotter than fresh-cut wood, which meant more sustained heat from even the softest timber, but a solitary kiln could not produce it quickly enough, so presently they were burning only small amounts of charcoal compared to the tons of wood they burned. With two kilns, he would be able to produce more of his own bricks, too, which would eliminate the necessity of purchasing any more in Wales. Scotland produced few bricks, so at the rate the bloomeries were sprouting, there would be a good market for the ones he did not need himself right here, just as there was a market in England for his gravel and the tobacco he shipped duty-free. Sir Renfrew was an entrepreneur with an eye to the main chance.

He was mentally measuring the pile of charcoal in the shed when MacKellar found him. “I’ve brought yer reply from Mingary, sir,” the man said, touching his cap and holding out the folded missive.

Breaking the wax seal that bore Kintyre’s signet, Sir Renfrew read the earl’s bold, black scrawl swiftly and with increasing annoyance, then looked up to find his henchman eyeing him warily. “Hold yer whisst, man,” Sir Renfrew said. “I’ve never yet killed a messenger for bringing me bad news.”

“It’s bad then, sir,” MacKellar said, adding with a frankness that Sir Renfrew would put up with only from one who had served him long and faithfully, “I feared it. The earl’s a proud man, they say. Still, he offered me hospitality, so I couldna be certain of his mind.”

“He’s a Highlander, MacKellar. He’d not deny ye hospitality, even if he were one that still acts as if the incident at Glencoe happened yesterday instead of nigh onto seventy-five years ago.”

“I’m kin wi’ the Campbells,” MacKellar said, “so I’d no blame him if he refused me. My family had naught tae do with it, mind, but it was a Campbell who began it by claiming hospitality and then betraying his hosts when he led the soldiers in to murder them in their beds.”

Grimacing, Sir Renfrew said, “Ye’re but one man, MacKellar, and if ye think that even an army could attack Mingary in the middle of the night without warning, ye paid little heed to the place.”

“Nay, then, it couldna. I saw no men-at-arms on the walls, but the castle sits on a promontory high above sea and forest, and his dogs would give warning, sure enough. I never saw the like o’ them, I can tell ye. As big as ponies, some are.”

“Aye, so I’m told.” Sir Renfrew stared at the missive in his hand. “We must do something to bring Kintyre to his senses, though. I ha’ made him a generous offer, and this reply offends me. I must show him it’s not wise to do that.”

“Will ye write him again, then?”

“Nay, I willna repeat myself, MacKellar. Did ye see Lady Bridget?”

“Aye, sir, I did, for she was in the courtyard with her maid when I arrived, and I’m thinking she’s as bonnie as ever they say she is.”

“Then I shall wed her.”

“Um…begging yer pardon, sir, but I did hear…” MacKellar fell silent.

“Speak up, man. What did ye hear?”

“Well, they do say that Lady Bridget has a temper, sir, that she is not kind.”

Sir Renfrew dismissed the criticism with an impatient gesture. “What about it? D’ye think I canna tame the lass and bend her to my will?”

MacKellar smiled. “Nay then, sir. The lass will learn what’s good for her soon enough.”

Sir Renfrew chuckled. “I wouldna mind if it takes a bit o’ time. I enjoy a challenge, MacKellar. I’ll most likely enjoy it more than the wee lassie will.”

His smile fading, MacKellar said, “Aye, sir, ye will that.”

London

T
HANKS TO THE STATE
of the roads throughout Scotland and northern England after weeks of intermittent rain, the party from Balcardane took nearly three weeks to reach London. A retinue of servants riding saddle horses accompanied three heavy traveling carriages bearing Balcardane’s coat of arms elegantly painted on their doors. Pinkie occupied the lead carriage with the countess and Lady Agnes, along with Chuff and the earl on those occasions when the men chose not to ride their horses. The children followed in the second carriage with their nurse and a nursemaid; while the ladies’ personal maids and the men’s valets followed in the third with Fergus Owen, who would serve in London as the earl’s house steward.

In addition to the three coachmen, others who accompanied the party included four grooms, three footmen, and several men-at-arms to protect them from the highwaymen and footpads for which English, and even Scottish, roads were infamous. Their baggage traveled ahead by wagon, accompanied by more armed outriders. The servants wore Balcardane’s green-and-gold livery, and the men-at-arms wore his colors and carried his banner. All in all, Pinkie decided, they must present as grand a sight as any royal procession.

The earl and Chuff rode as frequently as they could, one or the other occasionally taking young Roddy up with him as a special treat.

The earl had traveled to London twice before, but that afternoon everyone else got a first glimpse of the vast city from the top of Highgate Hill, after the lead carriage had passed through an ancient low-arched brick gateway so narrow that but for their coachmen’s skill one or another of the carriages must have scraped its sides. Because there were buildings in the way, their view was not as panoramic as it might otherwise have been. Nevertheless, they saw a sprawling metropolis much larger than Pinkie had dared to imagine, and they could see the River Thames to the south, like a silver ribbon binding the city in place.

Long before the party clattered onto London’s cobbled streets, people had turned out to watch their passing, and the closer they drew to the metropolis, the larger the crowds seemed to be. This was especially true in the village of Islington, which, with all the activity surrounding its passenger and mail coaches, was as bustling a place as any Pinkie had yet seen. The road to that point was not paved, and the horses’ hooves and wheels of passing coaches flung muck all about, so that the ladies had long since put up the glass, and even when they reached the city’s cobblestones, they felt no immediate inclination to let it down again.

At first, Pinkie thought that the crowded streets in London were the result of curiosity similar to what they had met before. Then she realized that although many did turn heads to watch them pass, just as many paid them no heed. The packed footways were marked off from the roadway by posts clearly intended to mark a boundary for pedestrians, but doorsteps to shops and houses jutted into the footway, making it necessary for the pedestrians to step frequently into the road. And there the rapidly moving vehicles seemed utterly to ignore them.

Pinkie thought the city resembled nothing so much as a giant, noisy anthill. Carts, wagons, coaches, and pedestrians bustled everywhere along the wide road and the narrower ones intersecting with it, into courts and yards and alleys that twisted away through narrowing and widening lanes into rectangular pockets that seemed to have no outlets. She saw buildings that rose to heights of four, five, and even six stories; and, in some places, stone or brick walls lined the road. From time to time she would see a truly fine structure, such as a church or a hospital, and twice she saw sedan chairs with a gentleman inside swaying along between two, or sometimes four, chairmen.

Tradesmen’s signs hung over the shops, swaying in the breeze that wafted up from the river. One hung tipsily from a single chain, its other having come loose, and threatened to clout the head of any unwary pedestrian who walked beneath it.

Even with the windows up, the din was ear-shattering. The dowager countess, though generally talkative, had remained unnaturally silent since Highgate Hill, too busy watching the passing scene to talk, other than to point out certain amazing sites when she saw them, of course. In the busy street, however, the noise precluded any rational conversation.

Above the racket of iron wheels and horseshoes on the cobblestones, sounded a constant clanging and ringing of bells—not only church bells but handbells. Dustmen, sweeps, knife grinders, and postmen all carried bells of one sort or another. Adding to the din was a cacophony of cries from the costermongers and other assorted vendors who littered the pavement, all of whom tended to dart from the footways out to the vehicles—or even to dash in front of them—crying their wares without ever seeming to stop for breath.

Their voices rang in chorus with the bells, making it difficult to know just what each one was saying: “Brick dust! Buy my cod! Knives to grind…dainty live cod! New-laid eggs…last dying confessions…sixpence a groat…Scissors to grind!…of all the malefactors…Cat’s meat…chairs to mend…fresh cat’s meat!…executed at Tyburn last week! Buy my roasted pig! Crab, crab! Oysters, buy my oysters! Will ye crab? Artichokes! Swe-e-e-e-eep, fresh artichokes!”

Before long, the pace slowed considerably, and soon all three coaches were creeping along in a jam of street traffic. Pinkie had given up trying to make sense of it all by then, and just gazed out the window, fascinated, resisting the urge to cover her ears. She would have liked to hold her nose though, had she not feared to offend passersby, for the stench of raw sewage running along a kennel down the middle of the road was nearly as overpowering to her senses as the din.

As they negotiated the turn into Oxford Street, she could see the other two coaches just behind. The window of the second one was down, and Roddy hung out precariously, prevented only by his nurse’s firm grip on his jacket from falling into the road. His delight was clear in his wide eyes and open mouth, and Pinkie envied him his ability to ignore the noise and the press of unwashed humanity.

After a time, the coach turned again, into Park Street, and the din abated at last Bells still rang, but they seemed more distant and less deafening; and when Mary suggested letting down the windows again so they could see better, neither Pinkie nor Lady Agnes objected.

Sedan chairs appeared frequently now, a number of them holding fashionable ladies instead of gentlemen. Vendors still cried their wares, and once a woman thrust a bunch of lavender in through a window, but she released it and backed away with a bobbed curtsy when the earl tossed her a sixpence. Pinkie picked up the little nosegay and inhaled its agreeable scent with delight.