Still smiling over their antics, Sorcha found the
courtyard at Holyrood deserted, except for several riders who were
just heading out through the Water Gate. She started to call after
them to wait up until she could get a mount, but one of the men
turned in the saddle, and Sorcha recognized him as the Earl of
Bothwell. Quickly, she drew back and waited until the company had
disappeared in the direction of the royal tennis courts.
So Bothwell was back, Sorcha thought to herself,
gathering up her skirts to avoid a large mound of horse droppings.
Doubtless he was following the King to Falkland, hoping for a royal
pardon of his latest misdeeds. There were, Sorcha knew, several:
Bothwell was said to have dabbled in witchcraft; he had publicly
stated that Scotland would be better off joining the Spanish
armada, rather than fighting it for England’s sake; and he had
taken part in a street brawl that had resulted in the death of Sir
William Stewart, Arran’s brother.
As always, Sorcha marveled at the blood feuds not
just spawned but nurtured by her countrymen. She was waiting for a
load of timbers to cross in the direction of Dalrymple’s Yard when
a figure in dark riding clothes appeared, leading a horse out of
Leith Wynd. Sorcha squinted against the sun and felt her heart skip
a beat. Surely, after all these months it couldn’t be he! Her mouth
agape with surprise, she waited almost a full minute until he was
abreast of Saint John’s Cross, then she rushed to meet him, her
riding hat clutched to her head.
“
Gavin! Is it truly you?” Sorcha
grasped his arm with both hands, her face glowing with pleasure.
“When did you arrive?”
“
Within the hour,” Napier replied,
forcing his voice to keep level. “I had Naxos here transported as
well.” He patted the stallion’s nose. “Adam is staying in Leith for
the time being.”
“
Adam!” Sorcha exclaimed,
embarrassed by not asking after Napier’s brother immediately. “Of
course! How is he?”
Napier’s taciturn expression didn’t change. “Much
improved, thanks be to God.” He paused to cross himself
deliberately, devoutly. “Yet the sea voyage cost him greatly, and I
fear it will be a few days before we proceed north.”
Sorcha’s hands fell to her sides. Her sudden elation
was fading fast. “You aren’t going to stay in Edinburgh, then?”
If the smallness of her voice dismayed Napier, he
gave no sign. He was walking his horse to the trough in the middle
of the Canongate. The three boys and the cat had vanished,
permitting Naxos to drink in leisurely peace. “I’m told there’s
fresh trouble afoot in the Highlands,” Napier said over his
shoulder. “Have you been north recently?”
Gavin Napier’s manner was so detached, so
relentlessly formal that Sorcha’s disappointment gave way to rage.
She snatched off her riding hat, flinging it about in front of her
like a warrior’s shield. “God’s teeth, Gavin, it’s been nigh on a
year! Aren’t you pleased to see me?” she demanded, disconcertingly
aware that she echoed Moray’s recent words to her.
Napier stopped in the process of checking the
stallion’s bridle and looked at Sorcha as if seeing her for the
first time. The hunter’s gaze was steady but guarded, an expression
Sorcha knew all too well. “Aye, why would I not be? Yet it would be
unseemly to demonstrate my delight in the middle of the
Canongate.”
“
Or the middle of paradise, if it
came to that,” Sorcha shot back. A passel of urchins had gathered
round to watch the grown-ups argue. Two goodwives who had just
emerged from the goldsmith’s shop stopped to stare. “If you can’t
express your enthusiasm here, may I ask where you intend to do it?
The Canongate Tolbooth, perhaps?” Sorcha gestured up the street
with a wave of her hat. “Well?”
Napier abandoned the stallion to focus his full
attention on Sorcha. He took a deep breath, seemed to grow
ominously taller and broader in the process, and stepped a bit
closer, lowering his voice so that neither urchins nor goodwives
could hear. “You appear oblivious of one significant fact—I am
married to another woman.” He paused to let his statement sink in.
“No, I didn’t find her in France. But I did learn some things that
may explain—if not excuse—her brutal behavior.” Napier took another
step nearer to Sorcha. “By chance, I happened to sail with a man
who remembered a blond lad with a scar on his neck who’d taken the
last ship out of Le Havre before the French ports were closed after
King Henri’s assassination. The lad’s destination was Dunbar, and
I’d stake my life on the fact that it was Marie-Louise in disguise.
She would have to put her hair up to pose as a boy, which would
have revealed the scar.” Taking a third step, Napier was all but
six inches from Sorcha’s errant riding hat. “Making these
inquiries, in addition to a great many more, as well as caring for
Adam, have taken up the past eleven months.” Napier stood where he
was but leaned down so that his chin was almost touching the top of
Sorcha’s upswept coiffure. “And what have you and Armand
accomplished in that time?”
Napier’s looming, implacable presence forced Sorcha
to rein in her temper. But she was still angry. “Armand has married
my sister and got her with child,” Sorcha asserted. “Manly deeds, I
must say, which some would find more commendable than vengeance or
rancor.” To her left, the urchins crept closer; on her right, the
goodwives pressed nearer. Sorcha glared at all of them, and Napier
as well. “I refuse,” she hissed at him, “to stand here another
moment and argue as if we were part of a public spectacle. Will you
come with me to Holyrood?”
Napier’s thumb jerked in the direction of Panmure
Close. “Why not to your kin’s house?”
“
Because Uncle Donald is very ill,”
Sorcha replied, perversely pleased that she had a good reason to
foil Napier’s suggestion.
Napier shrugged, then turned to take his horse by the
reins. The urchins and the goodwives slipped away, obviously
disappointed that what had promised to be a fine quarrel had
fizzled out so quickly.
While the courtiers and their attendants had left
Holyrood, a skeleton staff remained. Sorcha, who had consumed
nothing but sweetmeats and wine since breakfast, led Napier into
the small dining room just off the King’s bedchamber and requested
that a servant bring them food. Napier, who had never been inside
the palace before, asked Sorcha if this was the infamous room where
David Rizzio, Queen Mary’s hapless secretary, had been stabbed to
death by jealous nobles. Sorcha answered vaguely that she thought
it was, but long-ago events weren’t uppermost in her mind. She
wanted to know precisely what Napier’s plans were. And, though she
didn’t say so, most of all, she wanted to find out if they included
her.
Napier didn’t answer directly, but began instead by
elaborating on the information he’d unearthed about Marie-Louise’s
background. It seemed that her father’s family had turned Huguenot,
but when the daughter of a Scots expatriate married him, their vows
were witnessed by a Catholic priest. Marie-Louise was their only
child, and her sire doted on her.
“
But when she was about seven or so,
Catherine de Médicis ordered the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
Though Marie-Louise’s father hadn’t openly practiced his religion
since taking a Catholic wife,” Napier went on, “he was slaughtered
by his neighbors—right before Marie-Louise’s terrified
eyes.”
“
Jesu,” whispered Sorcha, surprising
herself by feeling a pang of pity for the young Marie-Louise. “I
must admit, that would leave a far deeper scar than the one on her
neck.”
“
Aye,” Napier agreed, as a servant,
looking much put out, entered the room carrying a tray of cold
quail, bread, wine, and fruit. He bristled when Sorcha asked if
there was cheese, but she ignored his ill humor and set about
decimating a quail breast.
“
I knew none of this, only that her
father had been dead for some years,” Napier said, taking up his
tale. “I can only guess that deep down, Marie-Louise harbored an
abiding hatred of Catholics. Perhaps she hated everyone who
professed to belong to a specific faith, since as a child, she must
have equated religion with evil. It’s even possible that she grew
up hating men.” Breaking off a crust of bread, Napier gazed at it
with unseeing eyes. “I also suspect that somehow she decided to use
poor Brother Jacques as her tool in destroying the King of France.
She must have convinced him that she was as fervent a Catholic as
he was. And then, as many believed, persuaded him that Henri was
too sympathetic to the Protestant cause and had to die. If Brother
Jacques questioned why she dabbled in black magic, she could
explain that so did King Henri—and she was merely fighting fire
with fire. So to speak.” Napier shook his head, as if he were
unsure that anything he had just said was credible. “I feel—and
Adam thinks so, too—that Marie-Louise will try to stir up as much
trouble here in Scotland as she did in France.”
Sorcha was picking out a tiny piece of bone from her
quail. “But Jamie isn’t Catholic. What kind of havoc can
Marie-Louise plan to make?”
Napier lifted his shoulders. “Anything to discredit
or undermine the Church, I suppose. Perhaps she’ll foment further
dissension between the influential Catholic families.”
Sorcha snorted. “As if they needed help! You
mentioned trouble in the Highlands—did you refer to Johnny
Grant?”
For the first time, Napier’s face broke into a smile,
albeit a wry one. “Aye, a name from out of your past, eh? But
that’s only part of it. Gordon and Errol are said to be riling up a
rebellion.”
“
They plot against the Crown?”
Sorcha saw Napier nod, and licked butter from her
fingers.
“
If the rumor is true, they will
damage the fragile framework of a Catholic alliance. They must be
stopped.” He poured wine for them both into pewter cups and handed
Sorcha hers. “You haven’t yet told me what you’ve learned since
coming back to Scotland,” he reminded Sorcha, the smile
gone.
The shadows were beginning to lengthen between the
openings in the red velvet draperies, making dark, shifting
patterns on the wine-colored damask table covering. Sorcha
inspected a peach, then bit into it, skin and all. She cursed
silently as a few specks of juice landed on the black suede
slashings of her blue riding habit. “I have little to report. There
are stories going round that Bothwell is using sorcery against the
King and that he may have associates. Or are they called
familiars?” Her face puckered over the distinction, but without
waiting for clarification from Napier, Sorcha continued in a rueful
voice, “Yet there is no mention of anyone like Marie-Louise, only
some goodwives from North Berwick or some such place.”
Napier washed down the last of his crust with the
wine and pushed away from the table with one booted foot. The room
was so narrow that as he leaned back in the armchair, his long legs
almost reached the opposite wall. Sorcha was sorely tempted to leap
from her chair and fall to her knees beside Napier—but she did not
dare. “It sounds too coincidental not to be Marie-Louise,” Napier
said at last, thoughtfully rubbing his beard. “While I don’t know
everything she did during the eight years of her disappearance, I’m
told she practiced the black arts in various places.”
Sorcha put her elbows on the table and rested her
chin on her folded hands. She regarded Napier levelly, and her
voice was very serious. “Do you believe in such things, Gavin?”
He returned her unflinching gaze. “By the Mass, no!
It’s superstitious nonsense. The problem is, many—perhaps
most—people do believe in witchcraft.”
“
I don’t think I do.” Sorcha
reflected for a moment, realizing that she hadn’t given the matter
much thought one way or the other. “There have been burnings and
hangings ever since I can remember,” Sorcha said, trying to dredge
up some of the crimes committed by alleged witches and sorcerers.
“Not around Gosford’s End, of course. My parents wouldn’t permit
such madness.”
“
Alas, they’re not in the majority.
King Jamie takes witches quite seriously, I hear.”
“
True.” Having disposed of the
subject of Marie-Louise, the Highland crisis, and black magic,
Sorcha was more than anxious to discuss their own problems. But
Gavin Napier was on his feet, brushing crumbs from his shirt and
stretching his arms. “I must be off to the saddlemaker’s. Naxos’s
girth is broken. And no doubt Adam is wondering what has become of
me.”
Uncertainly, Sorcha also got to her feet, brain
whirling in an effort to think of some credible reason why Napier
shouldn’t leave—or why she ought to join him. Surely he wasn't
going to simply walk away after all these months?
That, however, appeared to be exactly what Gavin
Napier intended to do. He was at the arched door of the supper
room, carefully ducking his head since it had originally been
constructed for a much shorter race of people.
Sorcha flew to him, clutching at one arm. “Gavin! By
all that’s holy, don’t you want to kiss me? Or at least hold me?
How can you be so … so cold?” Her voice quavered, and the
green eyes glistened with tears.
Napier went rigid at her touch. He drew up very
straight, just missing the outer edge of the doorway. “I can’t kiss
you. I can’t even hold you.” Deliberately, he pulled away from her
grasp. “If I do, I will keep kissing and holding until I possess
you. And that would be wrong.” He had moved just far enough from
her that his face was now in shadow. Napier spoke heavily, each
word weighted to make Sorcha believe him. “I don’t want you to be
my whore. I want you for my wife. Since that’s not possible, I
won’t demean you—or myself—by using your body, no matter how freely
offered.”