Turn of the Tide (30 page)

When Patrick knocked at the door half an hour later, he found them seated in the window reveal. Kate, her head bent, was mending a long tear on the hem of her dress, Munro doing
his best to distract her.

‘Safe and sound, as you see.’ He rose, pulling Kate with him. ‘Patrick Montgomerie, Braidstane’s brother. He also was looking for you.’

Patrick bowed, ‘And wouldn’t have found you, not by his description: he didn’t have you so pretty.’

Kate managed a stiff, ‘You have my thanks.’

Munro said, ‘Have you time for a bite? It would give Kate a chance to become acquaint.’

‘I am sent to Leith to find Hugh and bring him back with me.’ Patrick was shaking his head with every indication of regret and Kate, Munro’s eyes on her, said, ‘Perhaps
another time then. Do you stay long in Edinburgh?’

The words were fine enough but there was little of encouragement in either her tone or her expression.

‘Long enough to see that Hugh doesn’t get into bother, or if he does, to pull him out of it.’

‘A winter away will have cooled him surely, forbye his new responsibilities.’ Munro turned to Kate. ‘They have a bairn, just five months.’

Patrick re-directed his smile. ‘And your namesake.’

Munro, sensing a slight relaxation in her, tried to develop the topic. ‘Who does she favour?’

Patrick ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Without her bonnet: a cat with the mange.’

Kate tried to suppress her laughter.

Munro pressed the advantage. ‘Serious though?’

‘Serious: her mother. But as to temperment . . .’ He shrugged, ‘. . . as you know, Hugh isn’t always steady.’

‘Is any man?’ The coolness had returned to Kate’s voice.

Patrick appeared to consider. ‘Some . . . and those tedious.’

‘Folk don’t die from tedium.’

‘I’ve come close. But have always been brought back from the brink,’ He enclosed her in his smile. ‘Mostly by a pretty face and a kind word.’

‘Kind words need earning.’

Munro withdrew his arm, but before he could say anything, Patrick slapped himself on the side of his head.

‘I almost forgot. Failing to find you between here and the Canongate, I called at our lodgings to explain my delay, for we bide in Airlie House that Robert, Master of Eglintoun has taken
and I have two womenfolk watching for me and must account for every minute. They charged me with an invite for you both for tomorrow. Around noon. It will be hard words I earn indeed if I
don’t bring your promise with me.’

Munro ignoring Kate’s bent head, said, ‘Tomorrow then.’ He saw Patrick to the door. ‘I’m sorry she wasn’t more welcoming.’

‘She sees danger in our contact and with justice.’ Patrick was picking at the painted stair-rail. ‘Don’t fret, Elizabeth will thaw her. Women have their own ways of
getting on, especially with a bairn to admire.’

Patrick gone, Munro stood by the window staring over the roofs of the houses towards the open ground beyond, the razor-edged cliff that cut the horizon rust-red against the deep green of the
hill. In the distance, near the West Port where the houses backed on to the Park, he could see squares of linen draped over the bushes. A woman emerged and began to gather in the cloths: one,
lifted by the wind, evaded capture and she stretched up to grab hold of the corners and jerk it taut before folding. From nowhere, ringing in his ears, the voice of Lady Margaret Langshaw.
‘There will be a white napkin hanging. Beyond that I cannot do more.’ He shut his eyes against the image of her hand at her throat, the slender fingers still clutching the child’s
shift. And squeezing around it, other pictures. A line of riders strung out along a ridge. The ford at Annock, the banks unmarked. He pressed his head against the sharp edge of the window moulding,
welcoming the pain, seeking to halt the memories that pressed on him. The horses trampling the edges of the river, spooked by the smell of blood. Water flowing red over the rough stones, dragging
at the bodies. The face of the young lad. Why did Kate have to bring it all back? An unjust thought, but one he carried with him through the rest of the day and into their bed also, the mood of the
morning broken.

‘Can you not bide at peace?’ Grizel was sitting on a bench under a walnut tree in the garden of a house on Edinburgh’s Canongate. ‘Pacing won’t
bring them any quicker, forbye that it may drive me mad.’

Elizabeth perched on the edge of the bench, stood up again. ‘I can’t settle. Patrick has been gone for ages.’

‘Give him time.’ Grizel checked off her fingers as she spoke, ‘One, he had half the High street to traverse to check on the Munros. Two, it isn’t just a step to Leith.
Three, he doesn’t know what vessel Hugh comes on, and he can’t just take himself onto any ship he pleases without permission. And four, we don’t even know how far out the ships
were when the cannons were fired or if they are berthed by now or not.’

Elizabeth halted beside a climbing rose trained against the wall, ‘I know. But it’s the end of a long winter.’ She plucked a rose and systematically began to detach the pale
pink petals, one by one.

‘You at least know that Hugh comes, whereas I . . .’ Aware that she betrayed more of her feelings than she intended, Grizel shifted focus. ‘I wouldn’t let our hostess see
that you destroy her roses for they aren’t so plentiful she can afford the loss.’

Elizabeth looked down at her fingers, the tips stained pollen-yellow, and at the ground where the petals curled. ‘I didn’t realise.’ She tossed the stem onto the soil at the
base of the plant and trod it in with the toe of her shoe, scuffing up the soil around it. ‘. . . Did Sigurd give you any reason to suppose he might accompany the King’s
fleet?’

‘Only a hint, and even that may have been my imagination, but I sent back word, that it was our intention to meet Hugh on his return.’

‘Well then.’

Grizel worried at her lip. The single evening she had spent with Sigurd, while the November rain pelted on the windows and they crept nearer and nearer the fire and each other, had blurred so
that she had come to fear to depend on her own recollection.

As if she read her mind, Elizabeth said, ‘I don’t doubt his interest in you. If he can, he will come.’

Hugh was in the cabin he shared with Alexander, cramming the last of his possessions into his bag, when the ship’s bell sounded. Easy to pack on his outward journey, it
was much harder in the home strait.

Alexander had laughed each time Hugh bought some new trinket for Elizabeth or the babe to add to his growing pile. ‘It’ll likely be wasted effort. Lad or lass, the bairn will take
precedence and you be relegated to second place.’

Hugh refused to rise to the teasing, and first in Oslo, then Elsinore and finally Copenhagen had sought for tokens to sweeten his return.

It had been gone two in the afternoon when the small fleet docked in Leith. With the cannon-fire salutes from surrounding ships ringing in his ears, the fears that had fermented in him all
winter, slow and feeble like the third brewing of ale, surfaced, suddenly strong. He didn’t know how Elizabeth had fared, or if indeed he was a father, and chafed at the thought that James
would expect his presence in Edinburgh until the festivities surrounding their homecoming and the coronation were done. Perhaps he would be able to slip away . . . he could be home and back in
three days if he pushed, and likely miss little, for despite that Maitland had been chivvying the corporation for months, the word was that the city was not yet prepared for all the victualing
required, the preparations for the coronation at the Abbey likewise incomplete. He hurried to the deck.

James stood at the prow, Anne by his side, slightly pale still from the rough weather that had threatened to disrupt her journey for the third time. James’ mouth was close to her ear as he
gestured to the crag that dominated the Edinburgh skyline and the castle that straddled the rock beneath it. Though common knowledge that James wasn’t overly keen on the castle, his favoured
residence Holyrood, the castle was visible and impressive and no doubt James wished to show pride for his Queen’s first sight of the capital. Hugh pushed his way to the rail.

The windows of the warehouses bounding the quay were packed tight with folk clapping and cheering and craning for a glimpse of the young Queen. A cheering which redoubled in volume as the couple
disembarked through the covered way erected for the occasion. It was covered in tapestry and cloth of gold, the colours glowing in the sunlight, the cobbles beneath carpetted with Turkish rugs.
Cannons from the castle joined in the salute as James and Anne walked the short distance to the King’s Wark which, though the customhouse, was now to do double duty as a temporary royal
lodging. Anne’s corn-coloured hair and pale complexion made a pleasing contrast to James: ginger as a child, his hair had deepened to a rich auburn and his skin, unmarked by the pox, was
sallow.

Alexander hadn’t followed James down the gangway, instead battling his way to Hugh. He looked up at the people who hung from the warehouse windows. ‘If it’s looks she is judged
by, then her popularity won’t be in doubt.’

Hugh was watching James and Anne’s progress along the quay. ‘She carries herself like a queen – for all that she is little more than a child and in a foreign
country.’

‘A child who has been bred to royalty and to the responsibilities that entails. She was but nine when a Danish marriage was first thought on, and she might have come to it sooner had not
her father made difficulties over the dowry.’

‘Or not at all, had not her sister been promised elsewhere.’

‘True. Had the Orkney issue been settled sooner, then it would have been Elizabeth we feted and not Anne.’

The ship was beginning to empty, the courtiers following James and Anne in a slow stream towards their temporary lodgings.

Alexander moved towards the dock. ‘Are you coming? The word is that Elphinstone waits at the King’s Wark and has the task of presenting the oration.’

‘No doubt as dull and predictable as the Sermon of Thanksgiving to follow.’ The King and Queen had passed beyond their view, the crowds that milled on the quayside thinning, heading
for the church, hoping for another glimpse of the royal pair. Hugh was just about to broach the question of whether or not it would be possible for him to make for Braidstane and be back in time
for the state entry into Edinburgh, when they were hailed from the quay. Patrick took the gangway in two strides to appear at their side.

‘You didn’t drown then.’

‘What are you doing here? I thought you in France.’

‘You may blame two ladies. One here with a need that called me home and one in Paris with a need that drove me away.’

‘The need that drove you away isn’t hard to guess, but who called you home?’

‘Elizabeth, failing a husband . . .’

‘She doesn’t ail? And the bairn?’

‘Both well, and here.’

‘Here?’

Patrick looked at Alexander. ‘Is he wandered?’

Alexander laughed. ‘I hadn’t noticed, but then, it wouldn’t be that much different from usual.’

‘Where’s here?’ Hugh shook Patrick.

Patrick detached himself and rubbed at his arms. ‘A house that Robert Montgomerie has taken on the Canongate – she and Grizel and the bairn. And looking to three ladies, forbye the
babe, makes soldiering seem easy, I can tell you. I’m fair exhausted.’

‘A lass, then.’ Hugh was grinning.

‘And bonny with it.’

Alexander placed a hand on Hugh’s shoulder. ‘Away with you. You’ll not be missed the night, and if you are, I’ll make your peace with James. Though I don’t think
there’ll be the need. He’s likely to look kindly the now on a husband’s desire to be with his wife and in this circumstance.’

Elizabeth was still in the garden when Patrick and Hugh came through the archway. She was sitting in the late afternoon sunshine, a pamphlet of Andrew Melville’s, on the
relative merits of bishops versus a presbtery, open on her lap. He had a way with words, whether you took to him or not, but she had read the first page three times and still couldn’t have
given the gist of it.

Her back was to the entrance, so that Hugh was able to slip behind her and grasp her waist.