Candace Robb - The Fire In The Flint

James lifted his habit and used a knife to cut a strip from the shirt he wore beneath. ‘It’s but a flesh wound, I think. I was some idle bastard’s sport, a bored guard shooting at anything moving on the river.’

But it was bleeding freely, and the cloth he held to it was soon dark. Margaret read in his movements that James was shaken, and she understood. It might have been much worse, so close to his heart.

She leaned towards him once they were past Friarton Island. ‘We’ve but to show Thomas de Arroch that you are wounded and they’ll let us through.’

‘And if they don’t, it’s not my right arm, I can bloody them all. Begin guiding us to shore,’ he said.

A splash distracted Malcolm. Whatever caused it was still upriver and faint, but it was the first sound he’d noticed on the water. Which in itself was strange. He wondered whether it was a night creature or a vessel on the river. He leaned forward, cocking his best ear towards the Tay, and held his breath.

Another splash, and yet another. Oars dipping into the water, Malcolm thought. And the irregular rhythm suggested it was drifting towards shore.

He crept back to his companions and alerted them. Aylmer sprang to his feet, dagger drawn, a conditioned fighter. Though his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Malcolm did not see as well at night as he once had, and he sensed rather than saw Roger’s grim mood. Both men seemed certain they were about to engage in battle.

‘It might be but a deer crossing the river,’ Malcolm whispered. He prayed it was so. The men guarding Elcho were trouble enough for one evening, and a confrontation would only delay his reunion with Christiana.

‘Draw your weapon and prepare to defend yourself,’ Roger said.

‘They’re close now,’ Aylmer murmured.

Resisting the urge to swat at a cluster of midges, Malcolm looked a little to the side and his peripheral vision showed him a dark shape floating towards the bank. Someone was speaking softly — age had not dulled his sharp hearing. As he strained to make out the figures in the boat — for he guessed the one speaking addressed a companion — he heard a branch break behind him and drew his dagger. They were caught between two unknowns.

‘Devil take them,’ muttered Roger. ‘They’ve attracted company.’

‘Or their companions are coming to meet them,’ said Aylmer, backing away from the water towards the sheltering brush.

The marshy bank received the boat with a sucking sigh. The paddle thudded on the bottom of the boat, which rocked, the ground complaining wetly, as a man rose and stepped out on to the slippery bank. As the second passenger arose, Malcolm heard the rustle of skirts.

‘A woman?’ he murmured.

Both figures at the boat froze.

‘Who goes there?’ came a voice from behind the three watchers. Before anyone could respond, the speaker became aware of the trio in the bush and shouted, ‘Over here!’

‘It is Margaret Kerr,’ came the response from the bank. ‘My companion is injured.’

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Malcolm cried, ‘what madness is this? Roger, it is your wife.’ Hearing grunts, he turned and found Roger and Aylmer engaged with two of the Elcho guards. ‘Stop!’ Malcolm cried. ‘We are-’

Roger gave a choked cry.

Malcolm was grabbed from behind and held in a vice-like grip.

‘Roger? Oh, dear God,’ Margaret moaned in the darkness.

When a torch was shone on the scene Roger was down, bleeding from the chest and the back of one leg, and Aylmer was held firmly like Malcolm, though his captor allowed him to cradle an injured hand. Margaret knelt to Roger, and the friar held a bloody rag to his shoulder as he explained his presence to the torch-bearer. There were six guards in all, more than on the earlier nights.

Malcolm swore under his breath and was rewarded with sharp pain in his chest as the vice closed even tighter. ‘You’ve broken my ribs, you bastard. I’m Malcolm Kerr, come to see my wife,’ he gasped.

Had he not heard the agony in Margaret’s cry James might have laughed at the absurdity of the scene despite his useless, bleeding arm. A family gathering of the Kerr clan turned mayhem. From what he’d seen of the family it was fitting.

But it was far from amusing, the guards talking anxiously about the English on the cliffs across the river. Roger Sinclair was carried to the nunnery on a makeshift litter, Margaret hurrying beside him, her gown stained with his blood.

They had been taken to the priory guest house, and after much arguing about her own state, Margaret had convinced the sisters that she was able and determined to assist Dame Eleanor with Roger. As she helped the nun cut Roger’s clothes away from the wounds, he stared up at her. She thanked God his eyes were so focused. With the grace of God and the sister’s skill he should recover. When she had heard his groan she had feared the worst, and finding him on the ground, his life’s blood pooling … She choked back a sob and prayed silently.

‘Why did you come here, Maggie?’ Roger asked, his words slurred from the physick the nun had given him.

‘Lie quietly and rest,’ she said, smoothing his damp hair from his forehead.

‘What are you doing with a friar?’

‘We’ll talk later,’ Margaret said. ‘You’ve lost much blood.’ Her own gown had been so heavy with his blood and damp from the marshy ground on which she’d knelt that the sister had insisted she step out of it before she was permitted to assist.

‘Bring the hot water,’ the sister said, ‘and the clean cloths.’

Roger closed his eyes. By the time his wound was dressed he was asleep.

Weak with fatigue, Margaret did not join James and the others down below, but crawled on to the pallet the sisters had provided her in Roger’s room and let sleep carry her away.

A cough roused Malcolm from sleep. Gripping his side in agony, he struggled to sit up and reached in the dark for the watered wine the sisters had left for him. He needed something far stronger, but this would have to do. Draining the cup, he held his breath hoping to keep his rib still while he rose. By the time he stood he was gasping and dizzy. The hearth circle glowed invitingly but his bladder needed emptying before he could enjoy the heat. Outside, the sky and the river were silvered with the coming dawn and the world yet slept. He turned away from the river and considered the guest house. He could see well enough in the odd light and although he had never been permitted to visit Christiana in her chamber, he had watched her come and go there on more than one occasion and he knew the room she now called home was towards the rear. He brushed off his clothes, wincing at the touch of his own hand on his side, and headed back through the quiet yard. On his earlier visits he had not noticed the flowers that carpeted the ground beside the guest-house stairs. The blossoms were closed now, awaiting the sun, but they’d been artfully planted. And there were small trees. It saddened him to see such evidence of comfort. He’d thought of the priory as a drab place, and Christiana’s time here as a waiting, an in-between state, a limbo that she would be eager to escape, loving colour and beauty as she did.

He climbed the steps slowly so that he need not expand his lungs to breathe. At Christiana’s door, he hesitated. She and Marion would yet sleep, and he would frighten them with a knock. But to wait when so near would be agony. He might sneak in and slip into Christiana’s bed. From long memory her body would welcome him. And by the time she woke … Malcolm groaned at the thought of such pleasure, but rejected the idea. Such a dishonourable act was not the way to win her back. Taking a seat on the bench without, he listened for sounds of awakening.