Candace Robb: The Fire In The Flint

His frustration fuelled what had been a slow-growing anger directed at his family. They had trusted him with little while they were in residence, no matter how much he had begged for inclusion in the business, if not assisting in the purchase and sale of wine, leather items, cloth and various other goods then at least keeping the shipping records. Bored with Perth, he had rejoiced when his uncle Thomas Kerr had sent word that he needed a secretary in his shipyard and had hoped Fergus might come to Aberdeen. But before Fergus could depart his mother had withdrawn to the convent, his father had decided to sail for Bruges, and suddenly Fergus was needed in Perth to run what remained of his father’s business. Even his hope to accompany his father to Bruges as his apprentice factor had been killed. At first Malcolm had encouraged him in his expectations, but when the time came for Fergus to be outfitted, his father had inexplicably bowed to his wife’s advice for perhaps the first time in his marriage and had agreed that Fergus must remain in Perth to assist Maggie and watch over the family’s warehouses. Fergus had been furious; his mother had chosen a fine time to notice her youngest child. If she was so concerned about Maggie she could come out of her comfortable sanctuary and see to her herself. But his father would not be moved, and Fergus had nursed a bruised face for his insolence.

He had once adored his mother. She had ever been distant — he could not recall a single instance of her gathering him in her arms and comforting him. Her preoccupation with her visions had seemed to prevent such intimacy. But he had held her in his heart as a boy does his mother. He had judged all women against his mother’s beauty and found them wanting, against her religious devotion and found them worldly. Maggie had often teased him about his mother worship, pointing out the problems they had that other families did not, such as how impossible it seemed for Christiana to recall where she had put things, how frequently she lay abed for days, even weeks, after a vision, and how some of her predictions caused chaos in the town. But despite Christiana’s failings as a mother, Fergus had steadfastly maintained his devotion to her. It was only when she withdrew to Elcho saying little more to him than ‘Pray for me, and respect your father’, that his love had finally turned to resentment.

So when the shock of the intruders eased, he had wondered at his mother’s effort to warn him by sending the cleric David. A day later he had rowed downriver to see her and enquire whether she had any idea what had motivated the search.

The hosteleress sent a servant to inform his mother of her visitor.

‘Was anyone injured the other evening?’ Fergus asked.

The nun had drawn paternoster beads out of her sleeve and begun to mouth prayers. She did not answer at once, but completed a decade before lifting her gaze to him. ‘Dame Christiana’s maidservant has a bruised arm, but that was the worst of it, God be praised. Many things were spilled or torn, that is all.’ She intoned ‘things’ as if of the opinion that his mother had too many possessions. ‘And what of your intruders?’

David apparently had not confined his report of the incident to Fergus’s mother.

‘No one saw them, but they left a jumble of deeds and correspondence.’

The door opened. Marion, his mother’s maid, bobbed her head to him. ‘Dame Christiana says she is too ill to see anyone, but assures you that the messenger told you all she knows. The vision took all her strength. I am sorry.’

The hosteleress straightened up, looking nonplussed. ‘But her son has come all the way from Perth.’

Marion hung her head and shrugged.

Overcome with embarrassment and anger, Fergus had not trusted himself to speak. With a stiff bow to the hosteleress, he had departed. He was halfway home, struggling against the currents, before his mind cleared and he realised he’d behaved like a disappointed child. He might have treated Marion more courteously, for it was not her fault that his mother snubbed him.

For a day he had moped, having Jonet purchase twice the customary amount of ale for the two of them and proceeding to drink through his anger and humiliation. In the morning, covering his head with a pillow in a futile attempt to stop the hammering, he cursed himself for yet again behaving like a fool. The following day he had decided to set his mind on what had happened and what he ought to do about it, and wrote the letter to Margaret. He did not whine, but tried to impress upon her the importance of finding out why intruders were interested in Kerr and Sinclair property and what they were looking for. Then he had begun his second search of the houses and warehouses, occasionally overcome with the memory of his behaviour at Elcho. He considered writing to his mother expressing all his resentment, and had already put pen to parchment when he remembered that she could not read and would therefore rely on one of the sisters, the cleric David, or perhaps the chaplain to read the letter to her. That took all the joy out of attacking her.

When he told the sad tale to his sweetheart, Matilda grew quite excited and suggested that he ask his father’s and Roger’s former clerks, if any were still about, whether there were caches of money or record books that might be of interest to thieves. ‘Although I’ll warrant it’s treason against King Edward one of them is about,’ she said excitedly, obviously savouring the potential drama. ‘And no clerk would be trusted with such documents.’ She’d been favouring Fergus with smiles and flirtation for lack of a better suitor now that so many were off to war. It was Fergus’s only consolation.

Celia had not fooled James about the identity of Margaret’s visitor. He had received word from more than one reliable source that Roger Sinclair had arrived with his man, Aylmer, and headed straight for Murdoch’s inn. James thought it unlikely that Roger’s appearance so soon after someone had been searching his belongings was an accident. Robert Bruce would have as many spies as the Comyns, if not more so. James’s family had held sway over the country for so long they had become overconfident. The Bruces had never yet had the opportunity to rest on their accomplishments.

James had met Roger Sinclair occasionally in the past, before he’d had much interest in the man. Before Longshanks had stepped in to choose the Scots’ ruler for them, James had enjoyed a comfortable life as the itinerant negotiator of marriages, trade transactions and occasional ransoms for his wealthier Comyn and Balliol kin. He had been seldom in Edinburgh, and his interest in the tavern had been limited to an occasional drink with someone passing through until Longshanks’s invasion, when it had become useful for spying. Roger, an older, moderately successful merchant trading in Berwick and Perth, had been of no concern to him.

The timing of Roger’s return could not be more inconvenient for James. In considering the route that would allow him to accommodate Margaret he had become reacquainted with the location of Elcho Nunnery, not a great distance south of Perth along the Tay. Dame Christiana MacFarlane, Margaret’s mother, now lived there, the seeress who had been blessed with a vision of Margaret’s future that included a glimpse of the rightful king of Scotland riding into Edinburgh. William Wallace put much weight in prophecies, particularly those of Highland women. Wallace would like very much to know the identity of that king. Margaret need only provide her mother’s description of the king in the vision to compensate James for his trouble. He had therefore decided that escorting her to Perth would benefit both of them.

But with Roger Sinclair’s return, James would not likely be escorting Margaret anywhere. Curse the man and his belated attention to his wife.