Candace Robb: The Fire In The Flint

While he put the documents back in the cabinet and searched for the lock, he grew concerned about the servant — Jonet should have been seeing to supper by now. It was not market day, such as market day was now that the armies were seizing all that was worth eating.

Securing both doors, Fergus and the dog headed for Margaret’s house. A chill breeze stirred from the river. There would be rain tonight.

A stranger approached, a cleric, modestly attired. As he grew close he hailed Fergus by name, albeit with a hesitance, as if making a good guess.

‘You seek me?’ Fergus asked.

The man bobbed his head. ‘I am David, come from Elcho Nunnery, sir. Your mother, Dame Christiana, sent me. I thought I might find you at the house of your goodbrother Roger Sinclair, but I encountered only a maidservant — badly frightened, she was. I think you might wish to see to her.’

‘I was on my way there,’ said Fergus, not waiting for more conversation. ‘Come along if you wish.’

He found Jonet kneeling in the midst of chaos in Margaret’s hall. It was much as his father’s had been, documents tumbling off the shelves of a large dresser. A crock of lamp oil had also broken and stained several of the parchments. Jonet was picking up the shards of crockery and weeping.

‘They took neither food nor blankets — I had them airing in the backland,’ she said, when Fergus had coaxed her up and into a chair. ‘And the oil lamps on the wall, they were not taken.’

‘Did you see the intruder?’

She shook her head. ‘I came in from the kitchen and found it like this. The Lord was watching over me. I might have walked in on the thief.’ She crossed herself. ‘But I should have heard.’

‘I am glad you weren’t accosted,’ Fergus said. ‘The hall can be tidied.’

‘But the letters and deeds, sir. Some of them are ruined.’

‘I’ll see to them. I know you are upset, but we have a visitor. We would have some wine.’

When Jonet had left them, both men stood for a moment silently surveying the room.

‘I see that I come too late,’ said David. ‘Dame Christiana sent me to warn you that intruders broke into her room and searched it last night, and she feared they might come here next.’

‘Did her chamber look like this?’

‘Far worse. It is crowded with clothing and much else. It was all pulled out, turned over, spilled, trodden on. I saw no documents, however.’

‘She sent you — she was not harmed?’

‘Dame Christiana was frightened but not hurt.’

‘God be thanked.’

Fergus said nothing else until Jonet had served them and withdrawn, but he thought the cleric’s expression had changed a little, become guarded.

‘Did my mother recognise the men?’

‘It was her handmaid who saw them. She said there were three. The room was dark when one pulled her from her bed and pushed her to the door, where another pushed her out. A third guarded her. Once they released her, she woke the convent.’

‘And my mother?’

David averted his eyes. ‘Dame Christiana had gone out to walk along the river, and thus she was saved the encounter.’

Fergus thought he left much out. ‘I would hear it all.’

The cleric put aside the cup he’d just lifted. ‘Dame Christiana-’ He hesitated, glancing at Fergus as if asking for his help.

‘She had foreseen this?’

The cleric looked relieved. ‘Yes. She knew of the intrusion before it happened, but knew not when it would occur. No, that is not quite right. She said she awakened to the terror of their being in the room and fled out of doors. I am afraid that Dame Christiana’s explanation has caused much discussion about her wits.’

Fergus could imagine. ‘My mother can be difficult to understand.’

David nodded over his cup.

Fergus recounted this event in a letter to Margaret, then debated with himself about sending it, for he could come to no resolution about what to do. He felt he’d been of no use when needed, allowing such a break-in to occur, and he admitted as much to his sister. He might just as well have gone to Aberdeen, where he had been about to become secretary to his uncle, a shipbuilder, when his father had decided he was needed at home. At least he might have been of use there.

Margaret had gone over the letter many times since Father Francis had read it to her, picking out the words she had learned to read over the summer. She feared she’d been wrong to remain in Edinburgh, that perhaps she had left Fergus with too much responsibility. He sounded frightened. And with the inn so little used as a hostelry of late, Murdoch could manage without her. Still, the countryside was dangerous, full of men with bloodlust and little to do, so she might not have found an escort to Perth.

She closed the door to the undercroft, secured the lock, and then headed for Janet Webster’s house.

Leaving Janet’s, Murdoch hurried along beside Margaret in his smuggler’s rolling, ship-born gait, barking questions to which she had no answers and would not have responded to in public even if she did have them. By now all in the town would know of Old Will’s death and they would be eager to overhear anything concerning it, even Murdoch’s litany of questions. His foolhardiness in speaking so loudly did more to convince Margaret that his shock was genuine than did all his protestations that he had been far more patient with Old Will than anyone else in town had been, or Janet’s assurances that Murdoch had been with her all night. Janet often lied for him.

Once in the undercroft, Murdoch slammed the door, then commanded Margaret to open wide the shutter on the lantern. That he did not order her to leave was even more telling.

The light picked out the scar that split Murdoch’s thick eyebrows off-centre. ‘It was a brave thing you did, Maggie, opening this door.’

She basked for a moment in her uncle’s praise but as she surveyed the chaos in the aisled chamber, fear stole her breath. Barrels, caskets, chests, usually stacked in rows, some on trestles, were turned over, spilling their contents on the packed earth floor. Wine pooled nearby. What she had seen earlier in the light from the doorway had been nothing compared with this.

‘They spent a good long while here,’ Murdoch said, sounding weary. Most of the treasures in the undercroft were booty from his years as a smuggler. ‘They took a risk in staying so long, with folk passing down the wynd to the tavern all evening.’ He began to pick his way through the overturned barrels and chests.

‘Anyone passing by would think it was you they heard in here,’ Margaret said.

‘That may be, but it was still a risk, and someone thought it worth taking. I doubt they hesitated before cracking Old Will’s head open. It’s a wonder they let him crawl away.’

Margaret did not want to think about Old Will at the moment. When fear overtook her she was of use to no one, particularly herself. She watched Murdoch crouch to set a casket upright and scoop the spilled contents back in. The ring of the coins and trinkets sounded incongruously cheerful.

‘How will you ever tell what they took?’ Margaret wondered.

‘I can see already that a few costly items small enough to fit in a man’s palm are missing. But they left much of value, so it’s not trinkets and coins they were after.’ He set the refilled casket aside and waded further into the room. ‘Follow me with the lantern.’

Margaret tucked one end of her skirt into her girdle so that she could step over the tumbled items with the lantern in hand. Murdoch had paused to wait for her. When she began to move, he continued. He swung his head back and forth surveying the damage, but stopped for nothing, heading steadily towards the furthest corner.