Moray looked rueful. “So it does. But I think of it
as an investment. I’ve invited several important personages who may
be able to improve my financial state.”
Sorcha craned her neck to look up at Moray. “Such as
Uncle Donald?” Seeing Moray nod, she laughed. “I wondered. He
seemed like an odd choice of guest for you.”
The Earl shrugged and took Sorcha’s arm. “Oh,
perhaps. But Donald McVurrich isn’t quite as somber as he appears.
As with many people who’ve come from humble origins, he is
preoccupied with dignity and status.” Moray’s clear blue eyes
rested on Sorcha. Beyond the gallery doors, the musicians had
struck up a lively tune, drowning out the merry chatter of the
guests. “Alas, some men of exalted birth overemphasize their
state.” Moray’s mouth turned down at the corners. “George Gordon
comes to mind.” He shook his head with regret. “And, like others,
he considers me a rival for the King’s affection. Especially so,
since the Moray title was once a Gordon prerogative before Queen
Mary arbitrarily bestowed it on my late father-in-law. Yet,” he
went on, halting to stand by a pedestal upon which rested a marble
bust of a jutting-jawed Roman senator, “I bear him no grudge. His
enmity frankly puzzles me.”
“
So much antagonism exists among our
people,” Sorcha commented in a tone that sounded too breezy for its
subject. “Surely George poses no danger to you—nor the other way
round, I assume.”
A smile eased the concern on Moray’s face. He reached
out to take Sorcha’s hand, the warm, candid blue eyes crinkling at
the edges. “I hope not. Yet ….” He shrugged. “Enough of my
woes. Tell me, who is this fellow Napier? Surely he doesn’t come
from the Highlands.”
Sorcha assumed a bland expression. “He’s lived abroad
for years. He arrived at Gosford’s End only recently.” The evasion
wasn’t quite a lie, Sorcha told herself, and wished Moray would let
go of her hand.
Moray considered the explanation for a moment, then
nodded. “And has come to court to seek his fortune?”
“
Ah … not precisely.” Stalling,
Sorcha smiled back at Moray. “He and Rob plan to travel.” She
hesitated again, wondering if she should name their destination.
Moray had the ear of the King; perhaps he could serve as her
emissary. Yet she hardly knew the man. With ambivalent feelings,
she looked away from her host to the hem of her black mourning
gown.
“
A shame,” Moray remarked, giving
her hand a squeeze. “Napier struck me as the sort of ally I would
like to have at court. He’s intelligent, forthright, and brave. I
should have been the one to chase after Gray and Bothwell, not
Napier.” The blue eyes had turned rueful, apologetic.
“
He promised our parents he’d give
us protection,” Sorcha replied casually. She inclined her head
toward the gallery doors. “Such gay music! Don’t you feel like
dancing?” Indeed, Sorcha had heard that Moray was a superb dancer,
yet another asset which had earned him the soubriquet “the Bonnie
Earl.”
But Moray assumed a self-deprecating air. “Let us
merely say that I’m less clumsy than some.” He uttered a little
laugh and moved another step closer to Sorcha.
The sudden, intimate silence was awkward. Sorcha gave
her hand a slight tug, but Moray didn’t seem to notice. The blue
eyes were unblinking, fixed on her face as if they’d been searching
for something that had long been lost and finally was found.
“
Those drumsticks filled with
Flemish cheese,” Sorcha said, overenthused, “have they all been
devoured?”
It took a moment for Moray to focus on Sorcha’s
query. She was about to repeat it when he laughed again, this time
more heartily, if self-consciously. “Nay, unless your Lady Aunt
stuffed the rest in her bodice.” He kept her hand in his, but swung
back toward the banquet hall. “I forget what hearty appetites
Highlanders possess,” he added lightly. “Have you tasted the
candied fig tarts yet?”
The tension that had begun to creep over Sorcha like
a chill began to drain away. Yet, except for holding her hand, and
the lingering warmth of his gaze, Moray had done nothing to disturb
her. Nor would he, Sorcha reassured herself—the Earl of Moray’s
vaunted reputation had been earned not just by athletic ability and
a gift for the social graces, but by his unblemished gallantry with
women.
Edinburgh lay under a thick blanket of snow that
first week of December. From the pinnacle of Castle Hill to the
gates of Holyrood Palace, residents slowed their pace and muffled
their voices against the swirling snow that blew down from the
north.
At Linlithgow, the King had brought his new Privy
Council together. Many of the previously banished lords were
restored to favor. Arran was said to be in hiding on the western
coast. And plying the strings, as if the realm’s most important
personages were mere puppets, was the Master of Gray.
To Sorcha, these political events had but one
significance: she could not reach the King to ask permission for
Rob and Father Napier to join Queen Mary in England. By
mid-December Rob was growing as impatient as his mentor.
Immediately following a scripture lesson delivered by Uncle Donald,
Rob and Sorcha fled the McVurrich house to the snow-banked streets
of the city. The snow had stopped falling just before supper, but
the few barren spots on the cobblestones had already iced over.
Keeping close to the lanterns that hung along the Canongate,
brother and sister walked carefully in the direction of the High
Street.
“
As soon as the weather improves,
I’ll ride with you to Linlithgow,” Rob said as they approached the
Nether Bow Port that marked the end of the Canongate and the
beginning of the High Street.
“
If I’m to beg a favor of the King,”
Sorcha replied peevishly, putting a gloved hand over her nose as
they passed the Fish Market, “I'd rather wait until he returns to
Edinburgh. You could hardly make the journey to England now, with
snow barring the roads.”
“
We’re heading south, not north,”
Rob retorted, equally pettish. “Once this thaws a bit, we should
get through.”
“
God’s teeth, Rob, I don’t see why
you’re so eager to exchange one prison for another. I can’t imagine
anything more gloomy than sitting around all day in a dank English
manor house, listening to the Queen of Scots bemoan her fate and
recite French sonnets.” Sorcha ploughed purposefully through the
virgin snow, leaving deep footprints. Her black skirts were already
wet but her booted feet remained dry.
“
I’m not joining the Queen to be
entertained,” countered Rob, glancing at two footmen who strained
under the weight of a heavily curtained litter. “Not only am I
committed to serving her, but I can also be taught by Father
Napier.”
“
He can teach you here.” Sorcha gave
her brother a baleful glance. “Though perhaps if you see the Queen
in all her human frailties, the experience will dampen your ardor.
Then you can look upon lesser lassies without a prejudiced eye, and
fall in love.”
Rob shook his head, as if confounded by Sorcha’s
simplistic view. “You see things only in earthly terms, dear
sister. Can you not raise your eyes heavenward upon occasion?”
“
I can hardly raise one foot after
the other in this damnable snow,” Sorcha retorted crossly,
momentarily slowed by the drifts that had accumulated next to the
massive bulk of Saint Giles. “I can’t help it if I’m an earthbound
creature who—”
Sorcha’s words were cut short by the sound of loud
voices outside one of the entrances to Saint Giles. Several men
appeared to be arguing, and her initial reaction was that they were
drunken brawlers. But in the still night air, she could hear one of
them cry out over the others, “I’ll commit my soul to Christ before
I let my body utter your vile confession of faith! Let the Devil
take you all!”
The man was cuffed smartly by a stout figure whose
back was to Rob and Sorcha. At least two of the others wielded
clubs. Sorcha counted the men, discerning that there were four
assailants, yet only a single victim. “Where’s the night watch?”
she whispered to Rob, as they edged close to the side of the
church.
“
I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone
since we passed the Nether Bow.” He had already felt for his dirk,
but remembered he hadn’t bothered to put it on. “Damn,” he
breathed, “I wish I knew more people in this pestiferous
place.”
The stout man’s words were too low to distinguish,
but the reply was clear. “No, by the sweet Virgin, I will not! Do
what you must!”
To Sorcha’s horror, the men closed in on their
victim, wielding fists and clubs. Frantically, she turned to Rob,
gripping his arm tight. “We must stop them! I don’t care who they
are, they’ll kill that poor soul!”
She was not encouraged by Rob’s look of complete
helplessness. “They may kill us, too. We dare not, Sorcha. The man
may be a criminal.”
“
God’s teeth,” Sorcha cried, letting
Rob go and trudging purposefully through the snow. “Stop!” she
called out, within twenty feet of the men. “Stop, for the love of
God!”
The men paused, startled at the sound of a woman’s
voice. The victim was on his back, legs writhing wildly, emitting
strangled groans from his throat. Sorcha was now only a few steps
away. The stout man eyed her with contempt. “Make for your bed,
wench! We want no meddling here!”
Rob had followed Sorcha, and now stood at her side.
“Mind your manners, churl, or I’ll call the watch.”
A roar of laughter greeted Rob’s threat. “Och, ye do
just that,” said a second man as the guffaws died away. “I
am
the watch!”
To prove his statement, the man moved to stand under
a lantern that hung from the wall of the church. His chest was
emblazoned with the city’s arms, and his headgear boasted
Edinburgh’s crest.
Sorcha looked from the men, who still had their prey
pinned on the ground, to her bewildered brother. In the next
instant, the men fell once more upon the hapless victim as a
soul-wrenching scream escaped from his lips before he lapsed into
ominous silence.
The stout man stood up, turning back to Sorcha and
Rob to dust off his hands as if he’d just completed a particularly
irksome chore. “That’s how you deal with obstinate Papists, my lad
and lassie. If they won’t recant on earth, let them do so before
the Devil.”
The others had also got to their feet, retrieving
caps and clubs and other gear they had lost in the melee. Sorcha
moved closer to Rob as the stout man saluted them with a mocking
bow. “Let this be a lesson,” he said, waving a hand carelessly
toward the inert figure behind him. “And a bonnie night to ye
both.” The men were laughing and clapping each other on the back as
they turned in the direction of Fish Market Wynd.
Rob moved swiftly to the man who lay on the ground,
but Sorcha held back. She could already make out the spreading
patch of red that blemished the snow. “Is he … alive?”
Somehow, it was very important to form the words in a hopeful
voice.
“
No.” Rob slowly stood up, fixing
Sorcha with a stricken face as white as the snow itself. “Holy
Mother of God, he was a priest!”
T
he Christmas season passed
precisely as Aunt Tarrill had predicted. Despite Uncle Donald’s
reluctance to join in the festivities, he had been unable to
maintain his opposition for more than a day. When Tarrill encircled
his head with a garland of cedar, stuck a sprig of holly behind one
ear, and tweaked his beard, he capitulated. To Sorcha’s surprise,
he seemed to enjoy himself, particularly on Christmas Day, when the
wassail bowl turned magically bottomless.
By Twelfth Night, Rob was again urging Sorcha to
request an audience with the King. He had not mentioned it since
the priest’s murder, making Sorcha speculate that Rob had been
frightened out of his vocation. She would scarcely have blamed him.
And though she told herself over and over that there was no way
they could have prevented the priest’s death, even if they’d acted
sooner, she still felt guilty.
But Rob revealed that the incident had only
strengthened his desire to join the clergy. “I hesitated; I’m at
fault,” he lamented to Sorcha late one night in her room. “You
urged me on, but prudence made me stay. Now I must offer up my life
for his.”
Sorcha shook her head. “That makes little sense to
me. But,” she went on, trying to blot out a wine stain she’d gotten
on her black gown, “it’s hopeless, Rob, with the Master of Gray
overseeing everything the King does. We must wait until his
influence wanes.” Sorcha examined the dress with a critical eye,
noting to her chagrin that the stain still showed. “Unless we find
someone else to intercede,” she added and tossed the garment onto
the bed. “I considered Moray earlier, but decided it would be
impertinent. Yet now that Uncle Donald has made him a loan, I don’t
feel so cheeky.”
Rob wrinkled his nose at Sorcha as Ailis slipped into
the room, candle in hand. She was attired in her nightclothes and
looked startled to find Rob in his sister’s room so late. Sorcha
contemplated Ailis briefly, then gestured for her to stay.
“
Your apparel is sufficiently modest
for mixed company,” Sorcha asserted, with a dry smile. Indeed,
Ailis was muffled to her chin, with yards of heavy flannel
shrouding her body. The maid looked primly from Sorcha to Rob, then
moved quietly to close the shutters.
“
Uncle Donald was generous with the
Bonnie Earl, I hear. But why,” queried Rob, “would Moray want to
offer succor to the Queen when his future is in the hands of her
enemies—including her ungrateful son?”