Alex tried to say something, but the wind snatched the words out of her mouth. She stood as close as she could, her lips an inch from his ear.
“I said it could be worse!”
Oh, aye; a privy was no great matter. He turned them both towards the house, shivering in his icy clothes. Alex screamed, loud enough to make him jump. She stumbled, crashed into him so heavily they both fell.
“What?” Matthew staggered to his feet, using both hands to hoist Alex back up. He fumbled for his dirk, thinking that mayhap she’d seen a wolf, hungry and mean as it came out from under the trees. She whimpered against him. He bent his head to her mouth.
“Look, look up the slope!”
Matthew squinted. Night was giving way to grey day, and the snowfall was less heavy, allowing for some visibility. All he saw was white; white on the ground, trees caked with white ice, white in the air.
“There’s nothing there,” he said, his mouth at her ear.
“Yes there is,” she insisted, hot breath tickling the skin of his neck and jaw. “Oh God, there definitely is. Just behind the rose bushes.” She attempted to burrow her way in through his clothes, all the while emitting a series of low, dissonant moans. He looked again and his arms came up to hug her to him.
“Oh dearest Lord, nay, not like that!” He was already moving in the direction of the silent shape, dragging Alex with him. “Please, no, not like this, aye?”
Mrs Williams didn’t hear him. She would never hear anyone again, if it wasn’t the sweet voices of the angels of heaven. She sat with her back against a tree trunk in nothing but her shift. Her hair had frozen into stiff, long strands, her skin was a mottled blue and grey and her eyes stared wide and sightless. The shift lay in icy pleats high on the thighs, and her uncovered arms hung by her sides. The naked feet were bloodied and torn, and from her right wrist hung a blue ribbon threaded through an iron wrought key.
“She was going home,” Matthew said, trying to close the glassy eyes. “The poor woman was walking home to die.”
Chapter 22
It wasn’t much of a welcome party. No sooner had Simon and Joan arrived from Edinburgh before they all set off to attend the burial of Mrs Williams, with Alex filling them in on the way.
“Poor lasses,” Joan said, coming over to stand by Alex.
“Yes.” Her eyes followed the last remnants of the Williams family as they were led away from the grave in which their mother had just been buried, together with the boy that predeceased her by no more than a day. “Do you think she meant to?” Alex asked, wiping her hands down her skirts.
“Aye, I do, she dropped garment after garment.”
The sudden thaw that followed on the ice storm had revealed a trail of discarded clothing, up the slopes and onwards towards the Brown farm.
“You do that when you get too cold,” Alex said, “so that in itself doesn’t signify.”
“You undress when you’re cold?” Joan blinked with astonishment.
Alex nodded. “As your body chills to below normal temperature the blood gets pulled back from your hands and feet and you start feeling hot. Well, that’s what they say anyway.” She smiled sadly and tightened her grip round Daniel. “Let’s hope she died believing it was a summer day, warm and welcoming.”
“Aye, let‘s hope.” Joan’s tone belied her words.
Alex scanned the small group of people for Matthew. He’d disappeared the afternoon after the storm and had been gone for several hours, waving away her questions with a curt comment that he needed to be alone. Now he stood in a small knot of men, and even from here Alex could hear the low, angry voices as they looked in the direction of the newly filled in grave. Round the men hovered Mrs Brown, waiting for her husband to take her home.
Three days to Christmas and Alex had never felt less inclined to celebrate this holiday, feeling angry with God for letting innocent people suffer on His behalf. They’d had a terrible argument about it yesterday, she and Matthew, and hadn’t quite been able to make up yet, both of them throwing wary glances at each other.
“How can you think God cares?” Alex had yelled at him. “He’s obviously busy with a hell of a lot of other things, isn’t he? Too busy to hold a protective hand over people who have been ousted from their home because of their faith in him.”
“They’ve been taken into his presence,” Matthew attempted to argue.
“How do you know? Maybe they were predestined to suffer and die and never make it to heaven. After all that’s what you believe, isn’t it? That some people are chosen to live lives that may lead to heaven, while the majority, well they’re just chaff, extras. And hey, God is probably somewhat blasé by now. All the people who’ve died on his behalf throughout the ages, it must at times make him yawn and go out to make himself some popcorn while thinking about what movie to watch. Besides, it’s much better TV to watch an early Christian martyr be torn apart by lions than it is to see a poor woman freeze to death out of desperation.”
“You blaspheme!” Matthew had gasped, backing away from her.
“I do? Tough; that’s what you get when you marry a woman who was raised on rational thought rather than blind faith.”
And that was where things stood at present; Matthew pretending to be fast asleep when she got into bed last night, she pretending she was just as heavily asleep when he rolled out of bed this morning.
“But surely…” Joan shook her head after listening to Alex’ brief recap. “You can’t mean that. God is always right.”
“Really? To me it seems he’s either very blind or extremely uncaring.” She was seriously mad at God; horrible, white bearded man to sit there among his angels in eternal paradise and let the little people die for him. Alternatively, of course, God wasn’t a Presbyterian and had no great fondness for them. Joan looked aghast when Alex voiced this out loud.
“Well you don’t know, do you? He might be Catholic, you know. As far as I know all Christians were Catholic for the first 1500 years after Jesus, so heaven should be littered with them. Or,” she added, unable to resist it, “God is Jewish. Yes, that probably makes the most sense. The Jews are his chosen people, and it was to them that he first spoke.”
Joan had gone pale; without a further word she walked off.
“Oh dear,” Alex muttered, “no sense of humour whatsoever.”
“You forget that they were raised very strictly,” Simon said, still laughing at the idea of God being Jewish. “To Malcolm, Kirk was something very serious, and his children spent much time with their nose in the Bible and being catechised.”
“And look what fine examples they all turned out,” Alex said caustically. “Especially the baby brother.” She added saffron to the dough she was setting, mixing in honey, raisins and salt. The saffron had cost her far too much, but on seeing it at the apothecary she hadn’t been able to resist it. She covered the dough with a cloth and set it to swell before turning her attentions to the ham.
“It’s difficult to question truths you’ve grown up with,” Simon said, leaning against the kitchen wall. “In the Graham home there was only the one true Kirk, and that was the Kirk of Scotland, legacy of the saintly John Knox.”
“And in your home?”
Simon shrugged. “My father was a lawyer, spent his life with his nose deep in the business of his fellow men. It is somewhat disenchanting, that… My mam was a papist, a Highland lass.” He chuckled. “She only agreed to me being raised in the Kirk on account of it helping Da in his business to be seen as a firm Presbyterian. But in secret she taught me both my rosary and all about the saints. ” He inspected a wrinkled apple before biting into it. “Da knew, but didn’t disapprove. It was his opinion that an open mind was a valuable asset – in religion as much as in other things. Not that he said that out loud, or I wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near Joan Graham.”
“It’s all so incomprehensible to me, I feel entirely out of context.” She heaved herself up to sit on the table, dangling her legs. “I’m not even sure…” She shook her head. “ There are days when I’m not sure God exists at all.”
“Aye, I have such days too. But best not mention them to Joan.”
Alex laughed and slid back down onto the floor. “I won’t.”
“Not now, not this close to Christmas,” Alex said next day, looking out through the door at the three riders in the yard.
“Apparently. You stay here,” Matthew said, lifting his hand to her cheek. “I’ll be right back. Simon, Ian, come with me, aye?”
Together the brothers-in-law went out into the frost covered yard, with Ian hurrying after them. Joan came to stand behind Alex. It was a grim conversation, with Matthew shaking his head repeatedly. Simon took a step forward, hands in a placatory gesture, and after some minutes the lieutenant drove his horse round in a tight circle, crossed the yard in the opposite direction of the one he had come, and set his mount towards the moor, his two men falling in behind him.
“Now what?” Alex asked once they were all inside again.
Simon rolled his eyes. “They’re but making the rounds, wishing us all Christmas cheer.”
“We were advised to stay at home over the coming days,” Matthew said in an irritated tone. “And we were reminded yet again as to the dangers of supporting confirmed outlaws or attending any unlawful assemblies.” He looked worried. “They’re after Sandy, a novel sort of fox hunting. ”
“Will they find him?” Joan asked, sounding just as worried.
“Not without dogs and much luck, and Sandy is no fool. He’ll have the wits to lie still.” He met Alex’ eyes and sat down to finish his interrupted breakfast.
“You’re more concerned than you let on,” Alex remarked several hours later.
“I am.” He threw a look out of the window at the fading light of the December day. “He isn’t well, and these last few days of icy weather have left him in bad shape. If he has to run…” Matthew shook himself. “Only one way to go; he’ll have to go into the river.”
“Let’s hope the soldiers follow their own advice and stay home, busy stuffing their goose,” Alex said, “and then let’s hope they get really, really drunk – all of them – so that they leave us in peace for some days.”
Matthew tried to smile; it didn’t work very well.
Four young faces to kiss good night, one baby to feed and tuck into his cradle and then she slipped into bed to wait for Matthew. She could hear his voice, a dark murmur from below interspaced by Simon’s higher range and occasional bursts of laughter. It made her feel safe, to lie half-asleep in her bed and hear the man she belonged with. Her man, her Matthew… she stretched out her hand to caress his pillow.
“Dear God, hold him in your hand and keep him safe,” she prayed. She laughed at herself. “I know, I know. First I say I’m not sure you even exist and then I ask you for a favour. But if not for me, then for him, God. Because he’s a good man and does his best – he always does his best.” She curled onto her side, Matthew’s pillow in her arms.
He wasn’t sure she ever woke properly. He wasn’t sure if he himself was awake, but he had a clear memory of bidding Simon a somewhat unsteady good night and coming into his bedroom to find his wife sleeping, his pillow held to her chest. After that it was all very fuzzy, but his cock had somehow found its way inside of her, and she was moving against him, but he could swear she was still asleep, and he was in a whisky powered dream, anchored to reality only by her body, and the warmth of her around his standing cock.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair. “I love you so very much, my bonny Alex.” Easier to say when she couldn’t hear it, and he mumbled it over and over again, his long body folding itself round her to keep her safe and to make sure she never, ever left him. “My Alex,” he murmured, slipping his hand in under the pillow to cup her breasts. She grunted something unintelligible, but he thought he could make out his name. My own miracle, he thought dizzily, my gift from God.
“You could have woken me,” Alex sounded disapproving, but the smile lurking at the corner of her mouth destroyed the effect. Matthew yawned and stretched.
“You’re more biddable when you’re asleep. I can do all I desire with you then.” He kissed her on the cheek.
She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh! What did you do? Finish a whole cask of whisky on your own?”
“Nay,” he sat up far too fast and squinted at the sudden headache that shot up from the base of his skull. “Simon helped.”
“Oh dear,” Alex grinned, “I can see a major hangover coming on.”
Matthew slumped back in bed with a groan, covering his eyes with his arm.
“You sleep, and I’ll make you some breakfast.”
His stomach cramped at the thought of food. “Nay, I’ll just sleep.”
“Simon as well?” Alex asked Joan, who just shook her head.
“Those two and a quart, and you never know how they’ll end up. They must have sat up through most of the night.” She kissed Lucy on the top of her head and set her down, watching with maternal pride how her daughter hurried over to Ian.
“Thank you, Ian,” Joan said, “I don’t know how we manage without you in Edinburgh.”
“Do you like it? Living there?” Alex asked.
Joan made a noncommittal sound, pulled back her hair into a messy knot and secured it with her hairpins.
“Well enough. Simon has plenty of work and I’ve found someone who may be able to help me with Lucy. A woman of our age, deaf since childhood.” She kneeled down to help Ian adjust Lucy’s clothing. “Go on, off with you both. And the dog.”
Ian took Lucy by the hand and led her off in the direction of the stables to go and feed the pigs, with Rachel skipping beside them, rosy with excitement.
“She has a thing about the pigs,” Alex sighed, smiling at the exuberance of her daughter. “She’s even managed to teach one of the piglets to sit.” She slid her eyes over in the direction of the pantry and the waiting Christmas ham. “Not that it helped him much,” she murmured tongue-in-cheek, making Joan burst out in laughter.
Alex broke off a piece of the saffron bread, planning the day as she munched. Christmas celebration in the Graham home was mostly for her benefit, as the Scottish Kirk tended to frown on excessive celebration of this holiday. Over the years Matthew and she had developed a compromise version of the festivities, with him insisting that the reading of the Scriptures had to be the focal part of the day while agreeing to a full out Christmas feast – even if he drew the line at presents. Alex made a mental list of the foodstuffs she needed to put the final touches to, starting with the minced meat pies.