V Masters - The Castilians - A Story of the Siege of St Andrews Castle

‘Whoah, whoah. Hud your horses. Sit down and I will tell you all.’

Father knows she’s in here and she waits for him to call her out, to send her from the room – but he does not.

‘Nydie and I had a full and frank discussion. He does not think the siege will continue much longer.’

Mother huffs. ‘They’ve been saying that from the beginning and now we’re more than twelve months in.’

Bethia hears a chair creak. ‘Nevertheless the new King of France takes a different view from his father, and is close to our Queen Mother and her family. Both Nydie and I think King Henri will honour the auld alliance between our two countries, which his father all but broke, and send help soon.’

‘And surely England might equally send help.’

‘They might, but they have had ample occasion to relieve the garrison and have so far failed. In any case, although it matters to those Castilians by which means they are got out, it matters little to us – provided the town is left unharmed.’

‘Apart from that our son is among them.’

The chair creaks again, as though it is about to split. ‘As he’s made his bed, so let him lay on it.’

‘He is our son,’ wails Mother.

‘Aye, and because of his rash actions we are likely to find ourselves homeless beggars.’

Mother huffs. ‘But what of Nydie?’

‘Hugh of Nydie is a man, I have learned, who is impetuous in speech yet slow to act. The suggestion that his son and our daughter might wed was spoken aloud the moment it occurred to him. He barely remembers saying it, and was most surprised to be forced into a discussion of its merits.’

Bethia slumps against the chest and bites on her hand.

‘But why were you so long, what were you discussing if not this marriage?’

‘Take care how you speak to me, Mary. I am your husband and need not account to you for my actions or time. I have explained, but still you do not seem to grasp the gravity of our situation. Remember when your family was expelled from England, how King Henry took all your land and possessions?’

‘I am hardly likely to forget.’

‘This is what may well happen when it is discovered that our son is among the renegades in the castle.’

Mother gasps.

‘And the same is true for Hugh of Nydie. It would be of no help to our family for Bethia to marry into theirs. Norman Wardlaw is a far better option, and he is aware of our precarious situation; we are already discussing how we may together lessen the severity of any retribution.’

‘You have told the Wardlaws where Will is!’

‘Only Norman, Walter is a different matter.’

‘Well, I hope Norman’s discretion can be relied upon, for his brother has a most sinister demeanour. Have you agreed a date?’

‘I will speak with Norman.’

‘And I will look to her wedding clothes.’ Mother sighs. ‘We must have a wedding breakfast, I assume?’

‘Of course.’

‘And with such a family.’

Bethia covers her head with her apron and rocks back and forward. There is to be no escape.

Fat Norman has bought a new home for them, not any house but a tower house resting on the hills outside St Andrews. Bethia feels strange at the prospect of living away from the hustle and bustle of the streets. It is too quiet up here, although the air smells sweet and there is a view of the bay, and her town.

She stands at an upstairs window gazing at a rare clump of tall old trees nearby swaying in the wind, which must somehow have escaped the depredations of building the Great Michael. She can see a group of saplings have been planted close by, probably by the burgh council. Perhaps they are the new siccamour Father had brought from France, saying if he supplied the trees rather than paying the tax then he knew his bawbees would go where they were supposed to, and not end up swelling Provost Learmonth’s pocket. She becomes aware someone is shuffling behind her – Norman is waiting, and sighing, she turns to join him.

He waddles breathlessly following her around as she examines her soon-to-be-home. ‘You must order all as you p-p-please,’ he says. He’s still stuttering when he speaks to her, but much less than before. ‘We will have this room re-panelled, I think, for it is broken here.’ He tugs on the wainscotting and it comes away in his hand. ‘P-p-perhaps you might want a p-painted ceiling, such as your mother had done?’

Mother, following them into the room, humphs.

‘Oh, n-n-nooo, I did not mean we might have anything as f-f-fine as your…’

Bethia places her hand on his arm. ‘I do not care for painted ceilings.’

Norman flushes with pleasure, and Mother with annoyance. Bethia realises she’s enjoying herself. Perhaps she should get the painter here and he can charm her with his honeyed, and false, words. She looks at Norman, so anxious to please her – at least he’s likely to be a devoted husband.

She stops to run her fingers along the arm of the fine new chair he has bought, presumably for her use since he would not fit in it, and Norman bumps into her.

‘Take care,’ she snaps.

‘S-s-sorry,’ he mumbles, stepping back. He still smells of onions but, as his wife, she will insist he washes and changes his raiment regularly. And she’ll tell Grissel not to cook onions.

Norman leads her to the kitchens where a grinning Grissel is investigating the chill room and rattling the new milk pans laid out along a cunningly made shelf. Grissel is to join Bethia in her new home and she does not know who is more pleased – Grissel to escape the constant criticisms of Agnes, or Mother to be finally rid of Grissel. The only one, it seems, who is not happy in all of this is her, but perhaps she can find some joy in the house and the freedom that being a wife will give her. She stares at Fat Norman, his belly swelling over the top of his breeches as though he’s nine months gone with child, and sighs again. He comes to stand next to her, looking anxiously from under straggly eyebrows, his face as pink as a pig’s bottom.

‘Are you h-h-happy with the house? Is there aught you would like d-d-different?’

It would be like kicking a child to say an unkind word to him.

‘It is a fine house, Norman,’ she says, and he smiles wide enough to stretch the skin of his cheeks tight.

‘And you think you will b-b-be happy here?’

She looks up into his bloodshot eyes fringed by peculiarly pale lashes. ‘I will try.’

She leads the way outside to the kailyard, which is far larger than the yard behind her home in Southgait. Grissel bounces around it, exclaiming with delight at her new domain. Bethia looks at Mother’s face, lips puckered as though she’s just drunk sour milk, and feels a jab of satisfaction, for it is Mother who has been rushing the marriage, when Father was still taking it slowly.

She wanders out the gate, leaving Norman to show the others the newfangled hand-pump he has had installed for drawing water. As soon as she emerges from behind the garden wall she’s blasted by the wind whipping around the corner. It will be cold up here in winter without the shelter to be found in the streets. There are compensations, for the bay is laid out below her, the sea sparkling bright as the jewels Mary of Guise wore on her wedding day. She shields her eyes and gazes out. Then she’s running back into the kailyard shouting at them to come.

There are ships rounding the point and sailing into the bay. They count them and when they reach ten they think that is all, but no, after a gap a further six appear, their sails billowing white in the breeze as they follow one another beating across the bay.

‘How beautiful they are,’ Bethia says.