Candace Robb - The Fire In The Flint

*

‘That scheming whore,’ Celia muttered as they left the room. ‘She’s been gone a good long while.’

Out on the landing Margaret saw that her father had gone down below and picked a fight. ‘Wait up here,’ she said to Celia. ‘I have a plan.’ She hurried down the steps.

Roger stood behind her father, pinning his arms behind his back, and Aylmer stood to one side holding a cloth to his bloody chin and swearing under his breath.

‘You’re a liar,’ Malcolm growled.

‘I searched your son,’ Aylmer said thickly, ‘but I did not beat him. I fought off the English who had fallen on him.’

‘Liar!’ Malcolm shouted. ‘Wallace’s men said you kicked Fergus hard in the gut after finding nothing of use on him.’ He struggled to free himself but Roger held tight.

Margaret moved to stand between her father and Aylmer, facing the latter, looking him in the eyes. ‘You kicked him after he’d already been beaten?’

Aylmer began to turn away from her, but Margaret reached out for his chin. He lifted an arm to hit her.

‘Aylmer!’ Roger said sharply.

The Bruce’s kinsman dropped his hand. ‘I’d been injured chasing off the robbers. And then to find nothing of use on him …’ Aylmer swore and pressed the cloth to his chin. ‘Wallace’s men. So that’s where the brat was headed.’

‘Go on, Da, you’ve played father long enough today,’ said Margaret, disgusted with all three. ‘Hurry before the English discover you here. Your son is sleeping comfortably, he’ll mend.’

‘We must talk, you, Roger and me.’

‘I’m not talking to Roger. You talk to him — you were so eager to have me wed him, see what you make of him.’ She headed for the steps.

‘Where are you going?’ Roger demanded.

Ignoring him, Margaret gathered her skirts and climbed up to the solar. Celia still stood on the landing.

‘Come within,’ said Margaret, leading the way to her chamber.

Once inside, Margaret locked the door and with Celia’s help slid a clothing trunk in front of it. Then she knelt to the casket in which Roger had stored some rope.

‘It won’t reach all the way down to the kitchen garden,’ said Margaret, ‘but I’ve worked the ground so it’s quite soft.’

‘Why are we sneaking out of the house?’

‘I thought we might find Jonet at Da’s house,’ said Margaret, ‘searching for the sterlings. No one has taken care not to mention them in her hearing.’

Celia helped Margaret tie the rope to the sturdy bedstead.

*

James sat in a corner of St John’s Kirk hoping to see Margaret. He’d had misgivings about sending Fergus on with only Malcolm, a man of quicksilver moods and loyalties. Neither was he confident that either of them could be trusted not to mention James’s part in the rescue. But over and above those good reasons to seek reassurance from Margaret, he had news of her brother Andrew. Wallace had received it from a courier out of Edinburgh. James knew Margaret feared for her brother and would be grateful for word that he was well, or had been weeks ago when he’d sent the missive to Father Francis at St Giles naming some of the Scots who were spying for the English.

Old memories stirred as Margaret stepped into her father’s house. The cupboard near the hall door had the marks where she and Fergus had nicked it with their wooden wagon. She found the scar on one of the beams where Andrew’s attempt at a knife trick had gone astray. Beneath one of the windows was the bench on which she had been sitting when Roger first tried to win her favour. Yesterday she had been too absorbed by Mungo’s needy affection and Aylmer’s intrusive presence to feel the pull of the past, but this afternoon it was powerful.

‘It is a pretty house,’ said Celia, running a hand along a carved shelf.

Margaret thought it looked bare, austere, but that was only in comparison to what it had been. ‘You’ve seen Ma’s room at the nunnery. This house was as full of colour and almost as crowded as that when Ma lived here. We needed a cook and a servant at the least to keep things tidy, two servants when we were little, and a nurse.’

‘Will such times ever come again?’ Celia wondered. ‘You might have valued a lady’s maid in better times.’

‘What will be left when the English are routed?’ Margaret shivered, seeing the future as a vast void. ‘I’d rather think about the present.’

They both looked up as a board creaked in the solar above.

‘She might not be alone,’ Celia suggested in a whisper as she held Margaret back. ‘Perhaps a few knives from the kitchen?’

‘I’ve something better.’ Margaret led Celia to a trunk beneath the steps. Her father stored an assortment of weapons in it. But as she knelt to it she saw that it no longer bore a lock. Lifting the lid, she found the trunk empty but for a few old pairs of shoes. Edgy now, less confident in her plan, she sat back on her heels and listened to the cautious noises above. ‘I hear only a woman’s tread,’ she said.

Celia nodded. ‘What is still up there?’

‘Da’s clothes, things Ma left behind, Fergus’s belongings.’

‘She won’t be there for ever,’ said Celia. ‘Might we just sit down here and wait for her to discover us? She can’t escape.’

‘Go out to the kitchen for the knives while I wait here.’ Margaret settled on the trunk.

But she was soon on her feet at the sound of Celia’s voice in the yard, loudly denying that anyone was in the house. Footsteps came to the landing above.

‘Who is there?’ the maid called timidly.

Margaret moved beneath the open steps and held her breath as Jonet began her descent, readying herself to catch the maid as she came down. As Jonet’s shoes appeared Margaret considered grabbing an ankle through the steps. She might get some pleasure out of the woman’s tumble. But two men suddenly rushed in from the yard door, sending Jonet fleeing back up to the solar.

Impatience sent James from the kirk and through the backlands to Margaret’s house. He moved slowly, in the character of the elderly friar. He reasoned that there was nothing suspicious in an old friar giving Margaret news of her brother. He might do so in Roger’s presence without compromising anyone.

It was Aylmer who opened the door. He had not the courtesy to invite the old friar to step within, but he did leave the door ajar as he withdrew to fetch Margaret. Roger and Malcolm were in the hall, tensely facing each other across a table spread with documents. James saw no sign of Fergus but his father’s presence reassured him that the party had arrived.

Roger suddenly rose and approached the door. ‘I’m Roger Sinclair. My man says you have news of my wife’s elder brother?’

James had not seen Roger closely since he’d suffered the injury to his cheek. In fact he had not seen him since shortly after Christmas. He noted with interest the changes in the man, the loss of weight, the scarring and hardening.

He bowed to Roger. ‘One of my brethren saw Father Andrew at the great hospital and found him passing well and eager for news of his family.’ He was thinking how implausible the account sounded, a friar freely speaking to the confessor of the soldiers, when the sound of wood splintering came from the solar.

With a cry of alarm, Roger disappeared within.

James thought it best to depart.

The two men warned Margaret away from the steps and went after Jonet. Relieved to see Celia unhurt, Margaret asked what had happened.

‘They came for Jonet, calling her a thief and a traitor,’ Celia said. ‘I fear-’ She stopped, distracted by Jonet’s cries and curses.

Margaret found it no pleasure to see the hysterical maid slung over the shoulder of one of the men and borne down the steps like a haunch of venison.