Candace Robb - The Fire In The Flint

Ada listened to all of it attentively, asking no questions though her eyes were alive with emotion, which Margaret found comforting.

‘And yet I weaken at his touch,’ Margaret added in a hushed voice, then blushed and looked away, thinking she had said too much. The last was not something to share with others, no matter how close. She closed her eyes and drank down the spicy tisane.

Ada was bent over the next document by the time Margaret was composed enough to open her eyes.

‘I am glad to know all this,’ said Ada. ‘Now I know your mind.’

‘I feared I’d said too much.’

Ada pressed Margaret’s hand, then tapped the letter. ‘As for this,’ she said, ‘it contains further arrangements for the king’s use of your father’s ships, acknowledging that Malcolm will be sailing on one of them.’ She regarded Margaret. ‘The first of these you found in the possession of Roger’s servant, or whatever he is. This one, too?’

Margaret was only half listening. That Aylmer had one of Malcolm’s letters was suspicious, but to have two was damning. She needed to know whether these letters had been in her father’s casket at her uncle’s tavern, whether Aylmer and Roger were the intruders who murdered Old Will.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ Ada said. ‘It is strange that this man is collecting information about your father, indeed letters that belong to him.’

‘I very much fear that Roger and his servant collected these documents in Edinburgh, and that Old Will, the boller I mentioned the other day, caught them in my uncle’s undercroft.’

‘And one of them murdered him to keep him silent.’ Ada took a deep breath. ‘This is a terrible business. What will you do now?’

‘Put these back before they are missed,’ Margaret said, rolling up the letter and returning it to the basket. ‘There was another, but I think I know what I need to know.’

‘Don’t be so certain. Let’s read them all.’

‘I have what I need.’ Margaret rose.

Ada caught her by the arm. ‘How do you know, Maggie? You’re frightened, and with good cause. But the more you know the better prepared you will be.’

She was right. Margaret could hardly run away. Settling back down, she drew out the third document she’d found in the false bottom of Aylmer’s casket.

Ada unrolled it, and as she glanced through it she nodded. ‘So. Aylmer is no servant but kin to the younger Robert Bruce. The Bruce places his trust in him.’ She paused as she read further. ‘He is to assist Roger in making his way to Perth, introducing him to those who can help him in such travel.’ She paused again, frowning as she read, then set down the document and looked at Margaret. ‘He says that Malcolm Kerr is someone with ties to both Edward and John Balliol and therefore would be a prized spy, unless he cannot be persuaded to be constant.’

‘And then what?’

‘It is left to Aylmer’s imagination.’

Margaret’s hands had grown cold. Her heart felt fluttery, as if she were ill. She prayed that her father was well away. Yet she also wished she might ask him where he had kept the two letters.

Ada sighed and shook her head as she returned the document. ‘When you wed Roger I rejoiced for your good fortune. I imagined pretty children tucked to your breast and an attentive husband sitting beside you. Clearly I have not your mother’s gift of prescience.’

‘Much good hers did me. She kept her misgivings to herself.’ Margaret hugged her friend. ‘Bless you for coaxing me to hear the last letter. And for not telling me to stay out of trouble.’

‘It is far too late for such advice. Our king is fortunate in having your support. But go with care, Maggie. Do not let Roger and the Bruce’s kinsman see your fear.’

Fergus had made little progress. As he’d left the relative safety of the town he had begun to doubt the wisdom of travelling alone armed with the sketchiest of instructions as to the route, merely a drawing his father had once made to illustrate a tale and the names of a few landmarks and towns along the way. It was little to guide him, and provided no checks to judge whether he strayed. He spent the night in an outbuilding on his father’s property in the countryside, out of the way of the cousin who farmed the land. He was too agitated to sleep, anxiously debating whether to return to Perth or to seek out the Wallace near Kinclaven, a destination he knew. He guessed it must be someone in Wallace’s camp with whom Maggie communicated, and perhaps it was someone from that camp with whom he might journey to Aberdeen. He also missed his dog. He should have brought Mungo, for no one would care for him, not properly. Perhaps he should return to town and confer with Maggie. But to return to Perth was to risk seeing Matilda and that would be a reminder of his mistaken ardour. She had made him feel the greatest fool in all the land. Mungo was worth a hundred Matildas. And therefore Fergus should go back for him. What to do? He had never faced a more difficult decision. The birds were greeting the dawn when at last he felt himself being pulled down into sleep.

By the time he woke and went out to relieve his bladder he found the foreshortened shadows of noon. Back inside he chewed on the bread and cheese he’d left too long in the pack and resumed his debate.

*

On leaving Ada’s house Margaret turned away from the river, needing time to compose herself before facing Roger, who might be home for the midday meal. She felt ragged, as if her stuffing were being nibbled by mice and birds and parts of her were already cut off from her heart and head. And she was giddy with fear, unable to still her mind. To the few who greeted her she responded absently. Those who pretended not to notice her were far more intrusive, their eyes boring holes into her back. When she found herself on Southgate, she sought a moment’s quiet in her father’s house. Fergus’s dog Mungo greeted her with an anxious bark and led her to the door. He preceded her into the hall but stopped abruptly and growled upon discovering Aylmer.

The Bruce’s kinsman rose from her father’s favourite chair, cup in hand. His moon face was expressionless.

He’d made himself right at home. ‘What is your business here?’ Margaret demanded, interrupting his greeting. Intruders deserved no courtesy. She trembled with anger and feared that he’d already missed the papers, although she thought it unlikely.

Aylmer pressed his free hand to his ear. ‘Can you quiet the dog?’

‘He recognises an intruder,’ Margaret said, but she crouched down and tried to calm Mungo. He stopped barking but kept his eyes on Aylmer. Mungo was a good guard dog.

‘Thank you, Dame Margaret.’ Aylmer stepped away from the chair and offered it to her, then resettled on a bench nearby. Mungo moved to lie across Margaret’s feet. ‘I was sent to fetch your brother Fergus,’ said Aylmer, ‘but Jonet says he did not come home last night or this morning, and that dog has barked all the while.’

Margaret reached down to pet the dog. ‘Mungo seldom barks for nothing.’

Aylmer dismissed the comment with a sniff.

‘Did Jonet mention anyone coming to the house?’

‘No. But I was visited earlier by some angry men claiming your father is in Perth and demanding to see him.’ He regarded her intently.

‘What men?’ Margaret said as off-handedly as she could manage.

It must have been convincing, for he looked disappointed. ‘You are not surprised by the claim that your father is here?’

‘I’d already heard that rumour. What men, I ask you?’

‘Only one gave his name — Gilbert Ruthven. As their spokesman he demanded the sterlings owed to all of them by Malcolm Kerr.’

‘Everyone’s eager to call in their debts,’ Margaret said, amazed by her calm voice.