The King gazed at Sorcha in puzzlement. “Well put, I
think.” He brightened as the parrot shrieked and sailed back down
to the mantelpiece. “Now put your mind at ease, dearest Coz; we
shall set about our task at once to arrange your marriage with our
Bonnie Earl.”
Trying not to look askance, Sorcha offered James a
feeble smile. Over his shoulder, she saw the parrot stare with a
seemingly critical eye, then wink. The bird would ordinarily have
amused Sorcha, but now, in her pregnant, distraught state, it only
seemed to mock her misery.
Francis Hay, ninth Earl of Errol, was a squarely
built young man with square facial features, and square, blunt
hands. His only remarkable physical attribute was a cluster of
chestnut curls, which dipped gracefully over the short white ruff
of his collar. To Gavin Napier, Errol looked more like a fledgling
Flemish merchant than chieftain of the second most powerful
Catholic family in Scotland.
Sitting across a trestle table from Errol and George
Gordon, Napier braced his booted feet against a stout rung and
stroked his dark beard. “My Lord,” he said, addressing Errol and
ignoring Gordon’s angry countenance, “my brother, Adam, has found
you a most reasonable sort. How can you involve yourself in a feud
opposed to your interests and those of your Catholic faith?”
Errol shifted uneasily on the hard bench next to
Gordon. The three men had agreed to meet on neutral ground, at an
inn in Glenlivet. Magnus Fraser, three family retainers, and a
handful of MacKintosh supporters were posted in a nearby copse,
lest George Gordon not keep his word to parley rather than fight.
Napier was justified in his suspicions; a scouting expedition had
discovered some two hundred Gordon troops quartered across an
ice-choked burn.
“
My future is entwined with the fate
of My Lord of Huntly,” Errol finally replied, giving Gordon a
sidelong glance that indicated his ally had rehearsed him. “Our
houses have a history of standing together.”
Over his tankard of ale, Gordon gave Napier a sly
little smile. “Even against Queen Mary, the Hays bolted and stood
with the Gordons.”
“
And lost.” Napier knew the Battle
of Corrichie Moor as well as any Highlander. He looked archly at
Gordon. “Even now, you have surrounded Darnaway Castle, laying
siege to MacKintosh and Grant leaders. Lord Fraser is there,
too.”
Idly, Gordon dragged a chunk of rye bread through his
platter of congealing beef gravy. “Over time, the Frasers have
proved to be more trouble than they’re worth.” The small blue eyes
fixed themselves on Napier, little pinpricks of censure.
Under the table, Napier clenched and unclenched his
fist, but his face remained impassive. “I’m here to ask that you
withdraw your men from Darnaway. If not, the Fraser clan will
officially join forces with the Grants and MacKintoshes.”
Gordon rolled the chunk of bread around in his mouth
and fingered a signet ring on his right hand. “They won’t,” he said
in that light, deceptively good-natured voice. “They’d betray the
Catholic cause.”
Napier pushed an empty jug out of his way as he
leaned forward on the table. “Your cause is not Catholic, it’s
cupidity. You take the Holy Mother Church’s name in vain as a sop
to your greed and ambition. The Frasers want peace in the
Highlands. War profits no one; it only divides men of good
faith—and no faith at all.” The hunter’s gaze was piercing, like
arrows loosed from a bow. “You have three days to withdraw. If not,
Moray and Atholl will join the Frasers as well.”
Gordon’s mouth worked soundlessly; Errol seemed
absorbed in wiping up a daub of butter sauce with his sleeve.
“Don’t threaten me,” George Gordon muttered. He summoned up the
pride of his clan and the vanity of his name to sit up straight and
fix Napier with angry, warning eyes. “Go back to Moray or Atholl,
or whoever sent you, and say that the Earl of Huntly is no
weak-willed woman, to be frightened by a handful of renegade
lords!” With a mighty heave, he got to his feet, almost upsetting
Errol’s ale tankard in the process. “Better yet, I’ll make sure you
deliver that message exactly as I give it.” He turned to scan the
common room, which was all but empty on such a chill, wintry
afternoon. “
A Gordon, A Gordon
,” he called, and before the
words had echoed off the walls, Patrick, Master of Gray, and a half
dozen men charged through the door.
Gavin Napier’s hand had flown to his dirk, the blade
cutting through the inn’s peaty air. Gray didn’t hesitate. He flew
at Napier, his own weapon unsheathed. Napier had already assessed
his chances for escape. Except for the door through which Gray and
the other men had entered, the inn’s only exit was through the
kitchen. But instead of maneuvering himself in that direction,
Napier broke right, toward the trestle table, forcing Gray to move
off balance. Napier’s dirk lunged at the Master, but missed. Gordon
and Errol were now armed as well, but with a powerful shove of his
booted leg, Napier sent the trestle table across the floor, pinning
both men to the wall. He dove under Gray’s thrusting blade, and
even as the other men rushed forward, Magnus Fraser and a dozen
red-and-green-clad MacKintoshes followed on their heels.
The diversion cost Gray the edge. Napier’s dirk
crashed against the longer, slimmer French sword brandished by
Gray. The weapon clattered to the stone floor, where Napier kicked
it out of reach. Gray’s saturnine gaze raked his opponent as the
dirk came within a half inch of his chest.
“
My Lord of Huntly wants his message
delivered accurately,” said Napier, his tone sardonic. “Will you do
us such an honor?”
Gray’s handsome face was distorted with wrath. Magnus
and his men had subdued the Gordon followers, holding them at bay
in the far corner. A stringy-haired serving wench and the innkeeper
gaped with mingled fear and excitement, while the only other
occupants, two portly Aberdeen merchants, scrambled for safety
under a table.
“
Whoreson.” Gray spat the word
between clenched teeth. “I remember you—from Stirling, long ago,
with that troublesome Fraser chit.”
Even before Napier could say a word in defense of
Sorcha, Magnus’s voice cut across the common room like a whip.
“Lock your lips, dung-arse, lest I cut them off!” Leaping over a
chair, his sword gleaming with menace, Magnus flew at Patrick
Gray.
Napier planted himself between the two men,
cautioning his irate comrade with a purposeful gaze. “The Master is
of more value alive than dead. For the moment.” He looked beyond
Magnus to Gordon and Errol, who had managed to push the table away
but were both standing uncertainly, their weapons useless at their
sides. Napier planted a firm hand on Gray’s arm, but kept his eyes
on George Gordon. “When you have removed your men from Darnaway,
send word to Gosford’s End with Iain Fraser. We will send Gray back
to you then—more or less as you see him now.” Gray glared, Gordon
was an apoplectic shade of scarlet, and Errol failed to conceal his
sense of shame.
The MacKintosh soldiers started backing toward the
door, their hackbuts trained on Gordon’s followers. But Napier
waved them in his direction. “Remember, there are many more troops
across the burn.” He gave Gray a shove. “We’ll take our leave, out
the back way.” He paused on the threshold, ducking his head under a
low beam. “Don’t try to come after us, My Lord,” he said in a quiet
mellow voice that was nonetheless laced with formidable compulsion.
“In our encounters, you have always been one step too slow—or one
thought too late.” Flashing the dirk in mock salute, Napier led
Magnus and their men out of the common room.
D
allas Fraser could not
recall being so agitated since the early days of her marriage. A
quarter of a century ago, during their years at court, Lord and
Lady Fraser had been swept up in political intrigue, hounded by
adversaries, beset by plots both grand and petty. Ultimately, Iain
Fraser had chosen not to live at the center of Scotland’s turmoil,
but to retire to the isolation of the Highlands, where they could
raise their family in peace. While Dallas had often longed for the
city she loved so well, she had understood and accepted the wisdom
of her husband’s decision.
But now, caught up in the maelstrom of a Highland
feud, with an unwed daughter carrying a married man’s child, with
her eldest son joining forces with her daughter’s lover, and most
of all, with her husband held a prisoner by Gordon of Huntly,
Dallas felt like a piece of flotsam being battered by an ocean
storm. Only sheer force of will prevented her from a nervous
collapse. And without Iain Fraser or Magnus or George Gordon or
Gavin Napier on the premises to act as targets, Dallas directed her
frustrated outrage at the one source of aggravation who was
present—Sorcha.
“
For the fiftieth time, I tell you
that addlepated Jamie has finally generated a plausible idea,”
Dallas asserted, kicking at a faded, discarded holly wreath left
over from the Yuletide season. “His plan to have you wed Moray is
brilliant. Hasn’t the Bonnie Earl been panting after you for
years?” She paused to stare down at the wreath, mute evidence of a
holiday season passed with little cheer. “Even Christmas was
spoiled with your father gone.” Tears welled up in the dark eyes,
but she struggled mightily against shedding them.
For a fleeting moment, Sorcha pitied her mother—but
not as much as she pitied herself. “It would be indecent for Moray
to take a bride so soon after Elizabeth’s death,” Sorcha insisted,
also for the fiftieth time. “Nor will I marry anyone but Gavin. The
annulment will come; I’d stake my life on it.”
“
Don’t.” Dallas bit off the word.
She had regained her composure, now stomping about her bedchamber
in a swirl of tawny silk. “That latest holy relic—Innocent or
whoever, I’ve lost track now—is rumored to be in ill health. By the
time the College of Cardinals elects a Bishop of Rome who can
breathe in and out for more than six months, your poor bairn will
be more marriageable than you!”
Ordinarily, Sorcha would have found her mother
amusing. But after almost a week of vituperation, Sorcha was more
inclined to hostility. “I absolutely refuse to become Moray’s wife.
Neither the King—nor you—can command it.” She had risen from the
padded footstool by the bed to face her mother, well aware of the
advantage her height gave her. The green eyes glittered
dangerously, defying crown and kinfolk, determined to defend the
right to forge her own future.
The recent days of argument had taken their toll on
Dallas, too. She gazed steadily at Sorcha, noting, yet somehow
resenting, the same fierce pride, the same hardheaded obstinacy she
herself possessed. Most of all, she perceived the enormity of her
daughter’s love for Gavin Napier. It was a bulwark no mother could
assault, and Dallas knew it.
“
Fie,” she breathed, looking away
and rubbing her palms jerkily against the tawny silk of her
overskirts. “You should not have let him use your body,” she
murmured. “We have been dishonored.”
Her head high, Sorcha put a hand over the curve of
her abdomen. “I am honored to carry Gavin’s child, honored to have
his love. Will Father Adam condemn me?”
Moving to a panel in the wall, Dallas turned a
gilt-edged latch and gave Sorcha a baleful backward glance. Adam
Napier had gone to spend the Yuletide season with the monks at
Beauly Abbey. He was due to return by now, but the latest heavy
snowfall of the season had detained him. “I can’t speak for Father
Adam,” said Dallas, taking out a decanter of wine and two crystal
glasses with the slimmest of stems, “nor do I condemn you, if it
comes to that.” She poured dark red wine into the glasses and
handed one to Sorcha. “I’m sick at heart, afraid for you, worried
half to death about your father.” She sank into an armchair, the
silk billowing, then collapsing into long, limp folds. “These past
few weeks ….” Her voice seemed to swallow itself. Dallas drank
deeply and cleared her throat. “I feel so … helpless. Where
can Magnus and Napier be? They’ve been gone over a fortnight.”
Sorcha had been asking herself the same question ever
since her exhausted arrival at Gosford’s End. Yet the complexity of
the task set by her lover and brother, compounded by the winter
weather, no doubt explained their prolonged absence. Taking
advantage of her mother’s softened mood, Sorcha attempted to divert
the conversation. “Is it true that Johnny Grant is also under siege
at Darnaway?”
Dallas’s nose wrinkled at the Laird of Freuchie’s
name. “Aye. So I hear. They can hang the wretch by his heels, for
all I care. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be in this
debacle.”
Her mother’s logic eluded Sorcha. She sipped her wine
and wished she felt more like taking Thisbe out for a canter on the
deep, hard-packed snow. But except for rare intervals, her usual
vigor had deserted her since conceiving a child. Listlessly, she
brushed at a stray lock of hair. “If only I could have caught up
with Marie-Louise.” She sighed. “But the strumpet rode like the
demon she is, and I was too enervated to keep up the pace.”
“
Marie-Louise!” Dallas intoned the
name on a scathing note. “I can scarcely believe anyone that wicked
exists! I wonder, did Bothwell flee to his damnable
Borders?”
“
He must have. Where else would he
go?” Sorcha and Dallas both swerved toward the door as Cummings
called to them. Dallas bade him enter, but frowned at the disturbed
expression on his usually imperturbable face.
“
Father Adam is back,” said
Cummings, looking very ill at ease. “He would like to see you.”
Cummings covered his mouth as he coughed slightly. “He says he has
bad news.”