Candace Robb - The Fire In The Flint

Margaret took a deep breath. It did change things.

‘I did not go south with the intention of binding myself to Bruce. I wanted only to bring some relief to Isobel, who had always been so gracious to me.’

‘You’d promised to return by Yuletide.’

‘I am sorry, Maggie. I thought I would yet be home by then.’

‘In all that time, I received only one letter from you.’

‘I still hoped, Maggie. It would have been dangerous, perhaps impossible, to communicate with you. Dangerous for both of us. I’d left you safe in Perth, with Jack to look after you and my trade.’

‘You emptied the coffer and entrusted me to a man who was planning to take his leave to be with his lover.’

‘I left you sufficient funds to survive for a good while.’ There was a whisper of indignation in Roger’s tone. ‘I did whenever I left, ever praying but never certain I would return.’

‘There was money sufficient for but a month, and little trade to compensate.’ Margaret managed to keep her voice steady. ‘And what about before you left?’ she persisted. ‘I thought you were seeking another port for shipping.’

‘At first I was!’ he shouted, rounding on her. ‘My confiding in you would not have prevented anything that happened.’

‘I envy you such certainty.’

His gaunt, angular face was rigid with anger. She had not set out to make him so angry.

‘You refuse to believe my good intentions in all that I have done.’ His voice was as cold as his eyes. ‘You are behaving like a pampered child annoyed to discover that life is difficult.’

Margaret opened her mouth to retort, but she stopped herself, thinking that there might be a little truth in what he said. But others had been as condemning of Roger’s behaviour as she was, especially Murdoch. ‘I do not claim to be better than I am, Roger. Nor am I so simple as to believe that now you’re here all is well. I don’t think you have any idea how I worried for you, thinking you might be injured, dying somewhere-’

‘You should not have left the safety of my mother’s house.’ He’d risen and taken the cruisie to a small table by the window, settling down and pouring himself some wine.

‘You refuse to see. Jack had been murdered, Roger, and it had happened while he was searching for news of you. I feared someone wanted to keep him from discovering where you were. I feared you had been killed, or captured. No one else was going to search for you, everyone was caught up in the troubles. It had to be me or no one. Can’t you see that? I could not bear to sit day after day watching the door, wondering whether the clatter on the street was someone bringing you home shrouded, as was Jack.’

Roger began to speak, then stopped himself. He poured himself more wine, then shifted on the stool to gaze out of the dark window.

Margaret turned away from the light and, pulling the covers over her head, resumed her Hail Marys. She wished he’d stayed away.

Celia slept fitfully in a strange room, waking now and then in confusion. She could not seem to shake off the edginess of the evening.

After she had prepared a chamber for the strangers, she had thought of readying one beside Margaret’s for herself, but was uncertain whether the reunited couple would wish for more privacy. Or whether Roger would spend the night — after all that she had suffered, Margaret might not wish him to share her bed. The sun was low in the sky and the evening cool. Celia’s stomach rumbled and her mouth was dry. But if she went into the tavern someone might ask after Margaret, and Celia had not yet settled on what to say. She has a guest? She is on an errand? Visiting … who? At the kirk, perhaps. She slipped inside the little maid’s hut between the two kitchens, Murdoch’s and the tavern’s, and settled on a bench by the window where she could watch for Margaret on the steps.

Dusk came and there was still no sign of Margaret. At last, starving, parched and cold, Celia went into the tavern. It was almost empty.

‘Folk fear the English are watching us to see if more corpses crawl out of the wynd,’ Sim said.

As if his unpleasant conversation were not penance enough, Celia glanced up to find James Comyn walking towards her with his tankard in hand. He slipped on to the bench opposite her.

‘Though the day was warm there is a chill in the air this even,’ he said. ‘Where will you bide while your mistress is entertaining her husband?’

Celia should not have been surprised that he already knew of Roger’s presence, but there was something about James Comyn that made her stubborn. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. My mistress is asleep, and I was still hungry.’ She forced herself to wait for her food and drink, and then gave it her full attention. When she must look elsewhere she gazed around the room. She noticed the servant Aylmer. He sat away from the others. She noted that he was simply but tastefully dressed — she had made it her business to notice such things.

‘Has his master arrived?’ she asked James.

He followed her gaze. ‘Him? He arrived with the man I’d mistaken for Roger Sinclair. I did not think your mistress would entertain any other man in her chamber.’

Celia did not like Comyn’s smirk. She thought him like many well-born folk, seeing servants as simpletons, people to be teased and ridiculed when he wasn’t ordering them about. She made no attempt to retort. He would only smirk more. She was also dumbstruck by the news that Aylmer was Roger Sinclair’s servant.

Fortunately Comyn soon wearied of her silence and returned to his former spot by the fire. In a little while, full and now almost too warm, Celia withdrew, thinking to retire early. But as she drew near the maid’s cottage she heard voices from within. Thoughts of Old Will’s murder made her heart pound. But stubborn curiosity made her creep closer, until she could make out the quiet murmur of a man’s voice and a woman’s sigh and giggle. She could guess who the lovers were, Roy, the tavern cook, and Belle, a former chambermaid who had been forbidden on the premises. Celia went to the tavern kitchen where she found Geordie, the cook’s helper, sullenly cleaning.

‘So it’s Roy and Belle next door?’ she asked him.

‘Aye. It will be bad for them both if Master Murdoch finds out.’

Belle had left Roy for another, then returned heavily pregnant with the cook’s child, or so she said. Murdoch had not banned her because of her morals, but rather because he could ill afford Roy’s destructive tantrums whenever Belle crossed him. Foodstuffs were too difficult to replenish.

‘Well I’ll not be the one to betray them,’ Celia said. ‘Could you give me a warm stone?’

Geordie drew one out of the fire.

She carried it across to the stairs, her eyes searching the dark corners, then hurried up. All was quiet in her mistress’s chamber, and no light shone beneath the door. She chose the smaller room on the right and put the hot stone beneath the covers, then returned to the kitchen for another for Aylmer’s room. He, too, would be sleeping alone tonight.

Throughout the night she woke, thinking she heard her mistress call, but she was loath to knock on the door. She hoped Margaret was resting more easily than she was.

Fergus applied himself to the task of tidying the documents in both his father’s and his sister’s homes. None seemed of much importance, most merely recording business contacts and deals made, or proposing future arrangements. He knew there must be more. He was experienced enough to know that Roger and his father, Malcolm, must have records regarding the less respectable dealings necessary to evade a tax or buy a councilman or a courtier. He conducted a second, more thorough search of both the houses and the warehouses, not holding out much hope for finding indiscretions, but thinking he might find inventories that would allow him to determine what items, if any, were missing. But he found no such lists in either house, or indeed any lists of the property stored in them or in the warehouses.