The Gowrie Conspiracy (24 page)

He smiled. ‘We are brother and sister, is that it?’

She shook her head, looked at him earnestly. ‘No, Tam. I believe I am your daughter.’

‘How can that be?’

‘Janet Beaton was not my granddam. She was my mother, well past fifty. My aunt, her daughter, died in childbirth so she passed me off as hers.’ ‘Surely no woman in this age can have a child so old,’ said Tam.

‘What about the Bible?’ asked Tansy wryly. ‘And
sometimes
they didn’t count very well. But Janet had
extraordinary
powers. She told me that I was her daughter and that one day my father would come back.’

She paused. ‘She told me his name. And if I hadn’t guessed
that very first day we met, then my mirror would have told me and everyone else – except you – the truth.’

Tam sat up sharply. So that was what Janet Beaton meant. He thought rapidly. Will claimed that they had met when he was four years old – thirty-four years ago. That would be 1566, the year before Tansy was born.

‘She wanted you to tell me,’ he said.

Tansy looked bewildered so he told her about the wise woman and his dream vision of Janet Beaton.

At last she smiled. ‘I am glad you met again. I think she loved you very much. Maybe we – ’

‘Tansy!’ Will was calling.

‘Say goodbye to him for me,’ said Tam. ‘Explain if you can, what you think he might understand.’

They embraced and Tansy whispered, ‘One minute of our own out of time. Is that is all we will ever have together, Tam Eildor?’

Kissing her, he said gently, ‘Who knows, Tansy, who knows.’

And turning swiftly, fighting back the tears, she ran back down the path to where her love and her life, Will Hepburn, awaited her, leaving Tam Eildor to travel on that next journey through time.

Not quite The End …

The Scotsman, 11 August 1830

To the two workmen who made the discovery, dragging out a box immediately gave rise to exciting thoughts of hidden treasure. When its true identity became apparent, however, the apprentice, an Irish lad and a devout Roman Catholic, was in such a panic at the sight of a coffin that, crossing
himself
, he let it fall to the floor.

Cursing the lad, gibbering with terror, for his clumsiness, the older man in charge of the renovation work scrambled about trying to put it together again. The results were not very encouraging and he decided they had better break off their work and inform the Castle authorities of their find.

There was some argument as to whether the coffin should be carried with them, but considering its now fragile
condition
the man in charge decided that wasn’t a good idea and that it had better be left where it was.

The clumsy apprentice, quaking, swore by the Mother of God that he wasn’t going to be left alone with any coffin. There might be ghosts. The other workman laughed. A big strong fellow, he could fight anything or anyone. No ghost would bother him. Besides it was just a wee bairn’s bones. What harm could they do anyone?

Telling the lad to go with the message instead, and be quick about it, he would stay and watch the coffin. Truth to tell, he’d be glad of a wee break and taking his clay pipe from his pocket, cursing, he realised the lad had gone off with the matches.

No matter, since they had needed extra light for the job in the dim recess, there was a candle on the box beside the wall.

But what to light his pipe with?

Looking round he saw on the floor a piece of rolled paper, yellowed with age, stained and torn.

Picking it up, it crumbled in his fingers and as he tried to unroll it, spread it on the table, he saw there were some words written on it, but he had never learned to read.

Besides he was dying for a smoke.

So he held it to the candle and used its bright flame to light his clay pipe.

Puffing away happily he became aware through the smoke of a tall man standing near the entrance.

Someone in authority. That was quick. About to spring to his feet, footsteps announced the return of his clumsy apprentice.

The officials were on their way to inspect the coffin.

‘Who was that then?’ asked the pipe-smoker.

The lad looked blank.

‘You must have passed him coming in, he was standing by the door. Daft-like clothes, an old-fashioned white shirt and his arm in a sling.’

The lad shook his head. He had seen no one.
But Tam Eildor had seen enough. When the workman so obliging spread the faded document on the table, the almost illegible signatures of Janet Beaton and Margaret Agnew were for a moment faintly visible.

From his talk long ago with Martin Hailes at Kirktullo, Tam knew the identity of the baby who had lain in the castle wall near Mary Queen of Scots apartments since 16 June 1566, and the reason for the ruthless search throughout King James’s reign that had cost so many innocent lives, including the slaughter of the Earl and Master of Gowrie.

Now, seeing the workman so leisurely using the crumbling document to light his clay pipe and watching its charred
fragments
drift away into the Edinburgh skies, Tam saw that the irony was complete.

The king’s secret was safe at last. The contents of the
documents
that had haunted him destroyed forever by ‘that vile custom’, the subject of his treatise, “A Counterblast to Tobacco”.

He decided that King James would have approved.

Four hundred years ago today, Queen Elizabeth died and James VI of Scotland became James I of England, his great ambition fulfilled in the Union of the Crowns. He reigned for twenty-two years and returned only once to Scotland in 1617 to attend the General Assembly.

Perth County Council Chambers, with a commemorative plaque marks the site of Gowrie House, demolished in 1807.

After the terrible deeds within its walls on 5 August 1600, the name and arms of Ruthven were extinguished and their estates forfeited. Ruthven Castle became known as Huntingtower, the name it bears to this day. Property of HM Office of Works it is open to the public.

Regarding the fate of the two younger Ruthvens. William made his escape to France where he remained in exile and was to distinguish himself by his knowledge of chemistry.

His younger brother was not so fortunate in escaping the king's vengeance. As soon as James was crowned king of England and Scotland in 1603, he immediately had Patrick Ruthven hunted down and imprisoned in the Tower of London. There he remained for 19 years after which he was released and became a noted surgeon.

By Queen Anne's intervention, the Ruthven sisters Beatrix and Barbara were returned to her service.

Meanwhile the key historical players in the slaughter at Gowrie House were suitably rewarded. Sir John Erskine of Mar who delivered the wounded Master of Ruthven's
deathblow
received the Lordship of Dirleton Castle and lands. John Ramsay who first daggered Alexander and then killed the Earl received a knighthood and was created Lord Haddington. Even Henderson, the armed man in the turret, was not forgotten. The king gave him a lifetime pension and
his son was raised to the peerage as Lord Dunkeld.

The heir to two kingdoms, Prince Henry died in 1612, aged 16. Ironically, on 15 November 1600 the day of the
posthumous
trial of the corpses of the Ruthven brothers, Queen Anne gave birth to a son, the future Charles the First who
succeeded
his father and was fated to die under the
executioner
's axe.

The king who became known as ‘The Wisest Fool in Christendom' was a prolific author, scholar and poet. Despite his dubious reputation and the many scandals associated with his reign, his name was to be remembered with due
reverence
by generations for the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

In this fictionalised reconstruction of an unsolved historic mystery, the key issues are as depicted in contemporary
documents
and letters and actual speech used where recorded.

Tam Eildor and Tansy Scott are fictional. Not so William Hepburn, the illegitimate son of James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell by Anna Throndsen, he lived as a child with Bothwell's mother Lady Morham who mentioned him in her will. Details of his subsequent life are unknown.

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Alanna Knight has written more than sixty novels, three non-fiction titles on R.L. Stevenson, two true crime books, numerous short stories and several plays since the publication of her first book in 1969. Born and educated in Tyneside, she now lives in Edinburgh. She is a member of the Scottish chapter of the Crime Writers’ Association, and a founder member and Honorary President of the Scottish Association of Writers and of the Edinburgh Writers’ Club.

www.alannaknight.com

T
HE
R
OSE
M
C
Q
UINN SERIES

The Inspector’s Daughter

Dangerous Pursuits

An Orkney Murder

Ghost Walk

Destroying Angel

Quest for a Killer

Deadly Legacy

T
HE
I
NSPECTOR
F
ARO SERIES

Murder in Paradise

The Seal King Murders

Murders Most Foul

T
HE
T
AM
E
ILDOR SERIES

The Gowrie Conspiracy

The Stuart Sapphire