Candace Robb - The Fire In The Flint

‘And Roger?’

‘He knows what I do of Roger, but if you know anything more …’

She had not yet told James of the letters, and she felt unsure about what to say. So she began with her father.

Wallace listened so unresponsively that Margaret wondered at times whether she had lost his interest. But he interrupted her once to ask if she could describe one of the sterlings, which she could not, and when she had exhausted what she knew he asked a few questions that made it plain he had listened closely.

He sat back against the rocks, nodding thoughtfully, and gradually a bemused smile spread across his sun-browned face.

‘Your father takes bold risks,’ he said.

‘Over-bold this time,’ said Margaret.

‘He was poorly informed,’ said Wallace.

James chuckled. ‘You think he might be of use, William?’

Wallace shifted forward, leaning an elbow on a bent knee, his eyes alight. ‘We need such men. Too many consider the risk and lose heart.’

Margaret thought him mad, but kept her own counsel. She let them talk a while as she thought about the letters. Aylmer was nothing to her, but Roger — she felt a lingering, perverse loyalty to him. She turned instead to the news that her mother was guilty of two additional deaths. Throughout her childhood Margaret had feared her mother’s visions would come to some horrible disaster, and they finally had.

‘God help them,’ she prayed.

‘What?’ asked James.

Margaret realised she must have voiced the thought. ‘I was praying for the men caught on the cliffs.’ She crossed herself. ‘I must go to my mother. She must hear and understand what she has done.’

‘The deed is done,’ said James.

‘I see your point, Dame Margaret,’ Wallace said.

She was glad of the great man’s support, and puzzled by the angry look James gave him.

Shortly it was agreed that James would escort her downriver at deep dusk. Wallace’s goal was not Christiana’s contrition, but rather he hoped that to regain her daughter’s respect she would be willing to explain the visions concerning the true king’s identity.

Margaret tried not to be disappointed in Wallace’s self-interest, for it provided her the opportunity to confront her mother. Perhaps they would both be satisfied, she thought, and that was a doubly good result.

Malcolm did not think to use his wife’s new favour with the English to depart the town openly. At the far end of dusk he led Aylmer and Roger through the backlands, slipping through the shadows. He was buoyant with hope, his senses alert, his step confident. He would recover his wife, heedlessly set aside when his head was too full of intrigue to realise how he needed her beside him. He thanked God for this chance to win back his Christiana, the light of his life. He did not let his thoughts rest overlong on the capture of Wallace’s men. Christiana could not have foreseen the damage she would do by recounting her vision. Poor, foolish woman. He would cherish her all the more for her innocence. For that is what it must be, that she was unaware of the evil in men’s hearts.

Once in the boat they kept close to the weedy bank, and only Aylmer, manning the oars, sat upright.

‘Do you really think we’ll get past the de Arroch guards?’ Roger muttered.

‘She’s my wife. They have no right to deny me, and I’m bringing you to speak for me.’

‘The English will be watching. Thomas de Arroch and his companions will not want to alarm them.’

‘It is dark.’

‘They’ll have torches.’

‘Quiet,’ Aylmer muttered.

Both withdrew into silence.

Leaving Jonet at the camp, Margaret and James made their way to the river under escort as dusk lingered into the summer night. Margaret moved too eagerly in James’s opinion. She did not sufficiently understand the danger of this mission.

‘You can still change your mind,’ he said, as the men removed a screen of branches and brush from a small boat.

‘I must do this,’ Margaret said. ‘The English will hardly report to Ma that two more men died, and she must ken the mortal cost of her loose tongue.’

‘You do understand that we might die on the water? The English will be watching the river.’

‘Two in a small boat will not alarm them,’ said Margaret, ‘is that not what Wallace said?’

‘He said perhaps.’ And he had not wished to dissuade her, damn him.

Margaret looked out over the river. ‘It’s too dark. They’ll not see us well enough to aim their arrows. But you can still allow me to go alone as I requested.’

‘No.’ James could not let her face death alone, or whatever lesser danger might befall her. He felt responsible for her involvement in this cause despite her argument that she had chosen it. He had heard the hesitation in her voice as she told Wallace of the documents she had taken to Ada. That Aylmer was the Bruce’s kinsman had made her deed more dangerous than she seemed to realise. She was but a woman, with no training in defending herself.

By necessity, there would be little conversation once they were on the river. James would use the time to consider how he might teach her what she needed to know, for it was clear she was determined to carry out her mother’s prophecy of mingling with soldiers.

The three men set down on a stretch of river bank near Elcho with enough brush and small trees to screen them from the guards. While Roger and Aylmer crouched beneath the trees and planned an approach that would not alarm the de Arroch men, Malcolm left them and wandered down closer to the river bank. Though he believed the guards would recognise him soon enough, he would wait a little longer to see whether the two came up with a better plan. He wanted nothing to go wrong. All he wanted was to set sail for Bruges with Christiana and leave this troubled land, and whether it was for a time or for good he did not care.

He let his mind wander back to their last meeting. Christiana’s words had sent him away, but there had been something in her gestures, her voice, her eyes that hinted at a passion that all her prayers had been unable to still. He might have pleasure of her yet, and he would be gentle with her, slow and patient, attentive to her desire. He grew hard planning the only strategy that interested him now.

‘Down!’ James said, pulling the oars out of the water and folding forward. He had guided the boat close to a ship docked just north of Perth, unusually far upstream from the shipyard but fortunate for their stealthy purpose as there were soldiers on the bank beyond.

Margaret hesitated, not knowing what was more terrifying, looking up at the hulking mass of the ship or crouching blindly in its shadow. She had never been on the river at night, much less with a ship towering above. What by day was a fascinating beehive of activity was now a thing out of her most frightening dreams.

James reached out and pulled her down.

He used the paddle just to steer the skiff safely downstream now, so they had slowed to the summer current. Margaret’s heartbeat slowed, too, and she was beginning to believe they would make it to Elcho without incident when she heard the soft singing of an arrow and then James’s groan. She sat up and saw that they had just passed Greyfriars’. James pressed her back down and bent low over her.

‘Where is your wound?’ she managed to whisper.

‘Left shoulder. I don’t think it’s deep.’

They huddled so for what seemed an eternity, their shallow breaths mingling. Margaret could hear James’s heart racing.

Finally James straightened. ‘Cursed luck. One arrow and I caught it. You’ll have to steer, Maggie.’

She straightened up and, taking the paddle, turned the boat so that she was facing downriver.