The Prodigal Son (10 page)

“Then don’t go,” Alex said.

“Ah, no; that you may not ask of me. You may ask that I swear the oath, that I stop harbouring my friends for the sake of our bairns. But you can’t stop me from listening to the word of God from the mouth of men I love and respect.” He felt her stiffen, a surprised inhalation stuck halfway to her lungs. He shook his head at her innocence. She’d thought it was only a matter of taking the oath, thereby safeguarding them all. Instead, this oath would paint him all the more effectively into a corner, because never would he renounce his beliefs.

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” was all she said, and her hand was like a manacle around his wrist all the way to Cumnock.

In general Alex enjoyed her excursions to their little market town, rare and welcome disruptions in her country life. Narrow houses – predominantly in stone but here and there old enough to be half-timbered – bordered the crooked and for the most part paved streets. A warren of closes and alleys connected the streets, there was a passable inn named The Merkat Cross that abutted the market place, a relatively new church and a number of shops, most of them sporting old-fashioned horizontally hinged shutters that when opened served as an extended roof and counter. Garbage and offal littered the streets and floated in the river, there was a pervading stench of unwashed humanity and ordure, but today she was far too aware of how tense her man was to do much more than wrinkle her nose.

For all that it was a weekday, men were streaming towards the church – men in dark formal wear and a set to the mouth that made Alex think of people fighting down waves of nausea. They dismounted and Matthew visibly relaxed in the presence of so many neighbours and friends, called like him to swear in front of the new Anglican reverend, the constable and the commanding officer of the garrisons in Ayr and Cumnock. Matthew nodded in silent greeting to Davy Williams from the farm closest to Hillview and took his place in the queue, leaving Alex to stand and witness from the side-lines with the few other wives that had come along.

Mrs Williams pulled her threadbare cloak even tighter around herself.

“Where will this end? Will we be forced into baptism at that half popish Church of England?”

“Shh,” Mrs Brown, yet another neighbour, threw a worried look around.

“Ah, no,” one of the other wives smiled. “As long as we have wee Sandy around he will be christening and marrying.”

“Not burying, though,” Mrs Williams said, “not if you want to lie in the kirkyard.”

“We must just make sure we don’t die then,” Alex quipped, earning herself several disapproving stares.

Before them, their men were one by one kneeling to swear the oath, mumbling their replies almost inaudibly. It took a long time, each man being forced to repeat in verbatim a long text in which they swore fealty to the crown, abjured any previous oaths in conflict with this fealty and swore to uphold all laws of the realm. Once they were all done, the garrison commander studied them for a long time.

“All,” he said in a braying voice. “All laws. To succour outlaws is to be in breach of the law, to participate in unlawful assemblies is to break the law. To forget for one moment that all power both in state and church lies vested in His Majesty, the king, is to violate the oaths you have all sworn.” He heaved himself up on tiptoe and swayed menacingly towards them. “I’ll be watching you. My men will be watching you – all the time.” He looked each of the men in the face before nodding to the reverend, who informed them they were welcome for services the coming Sunday.

“Go with God,” he added shrilly and hastened down the aisle in the wake of the striding officer.

“We always go with God,” Mrs Williams muttered. “We have him with us always.” There was a soft rustle of laughter from the other wives.

“Not that it will make that much of a difference,” Alex commented as they rode back towards Hillview. “His soldiers are everywhere already.”

“Aye, they are.” Matthew frowned at nothing in particular, still shaken by the threatening tone of the officer.

“Matthew?” She tightened her hold around his waist when Ham took a few gleeful capers. “Is Sandy an outlaw?”

“Not yet, but it was a wee bit daft of him to christen all those weans over at Castlehill.”

“Will it change things for him? If he’s outlawed?”

Matthew laughed mirthlessly. “Change? Aye well, not as long as he isn’t captured.” He rode in silence for some time, wondering where poor Sandy would be sheltering today, with the wind coming almost horizontal and the clouds so low one got wet just from stepping outside. He increased the pressure of his thighs on Ham, in a hurry to get back home to warmth and food and his waiting bairns.

When they got home, they found that Joan had taken to her bed again, and at Alex’ concerned questions she just smiled and assured her she would soon be alright, but that she just had to sleep, she was that tired.

“I wonder if she might be anaemic,” Alex mused, frowning at the contents of her pantry. “And if she is, what do I feed her?”

“Anaemic?” Matthew had but a vague notion what that might mean, and nodded at Alex’ attempted explanation.

“… so with all that blood loss…” Alex shrugged. “In my day and age they give you pills or jab you with a syringe. In this day and age, well it’s all in the diet.” She scrunched up her brow. “Blood sausage – and rosehips.”

The enforced diet seemed to help, even if Joan grumbled at the lack of variation, and six days later she was first out of bed, sitting in the kitchen with Lucy when Alex came clattering down the stairs with four hungry children in tow.

“Better?” Alex scrutinised her sister-in-law. There was a pinkish hue to her skin and her face had lost that grim expression, as if she were permanently swallowing back on bitter bile.

“Aye, tired but better.” Joan rocked Lucy and looked down at her. “She’s a sweet babe. Never cries, sleeps through any kind of noise.”

“She wouldn’t get any sleep if she didn’t,” Matthew yawned from the doorway.

“Nay,” Joan agreed, but there was a shade of worry in her eyes. “I fear she’s deaf.” She looked from Alex to Matthew in a silent entreaty that they laugh at this ridiculous statement. None of them did, instead Matthew picked up little Lucy and cradled her in his arms.

“Why would you think that?” Alex asked.

Joan stood up, found two copper pans and crashed them together behind Lucy’s head. Alex and Matthew jumped, but Lucy’s eyelids didn’t even flutter.

“Deaf,” Joan repeated and left the kitchen with the pans dangling from her hands.

“It could be worse, she could be deformed or blind or something,” Alex said.

“But now she’s deaf as a post,” Matthew said, “and aye, it could be worse, but it’s bad.”

Lucy twisted in his arms, her face shifting from pink to bright red. She opened her mouth and wailed, an angry sound that had her mother at her side so quickly that Alex suspected she’d been standing on the other side of the door.

“Well, she’s not mute at least.” Joan brushed at the reddish hair and traced a finger across the vulnerable skull, stopping at the small, perfect little ear. “What will Simon say?” she asked and began to cry.

Simon rode in a few days later, listened in silence to his wife’s news and reached an all-time high on Alex’ list of favourite people when he smiled, tenderly wiped Joan’s face with his handkerchief and hugged her and Lucy both.

“It’ll sort itself,” Simon assured her. This group hug looked uncomfortable for all of them, but neither Joan nor Simon seemed to think so, holding on very hard to each other. “And she’s a bonny lass.” He gazed into the wide grey eyes that were Lucy’s major asset.

“Very,” Alex said. No, not really, nose and ears overlarge in a pinched little face.

“She’s been christened,” Joan said, “Lucy Joan Judith.”

“Judith?” Simon’s brows rose in surprise. “Why would you name an innocent creature after that quarrelsome baggage?”

“She’s your aunt, and she’ll be pleased.”

Simon snorted, but left it at that.

Matthew was in the barn when the bevy of soldiers rode into the manor next morning, watching with rising ire as an indignant Simon was surrounded and prodded this way and that by men on horseback.

“What do you want?” Simon snapped, hopping from one leg to the other. “Won’t it keep until I’ve been to the privy?”

“Who are you?” the officer asked. He leaned over the neck of his horse. “You have a look of that renegade preacher about you.”

“I most certainly do not!”

“No, too fat,” the officer nodded, “a man living rough would not be quite so well fed. So who?”

“Simon Melville, lawyer.” Simon glared at him and the officer squinted at him.

“Ah, yes; now I recognise you. We met back in July.”

“We did?” Simon shrugged. “You left no impression, I’m afraid.”

“Not on you, but perhaps on your… what is it, brother-in-law?”

“That too. But first and foremost friend – best friend,” Simon said.

“Lucky him,” the lieutenant laughed and allowed Simon to hurry off.

The officer snapped his fingers, and his men spread out over the farm, some in the house, a few in the sheds and the stables, and one off to search the barn.

“And is your husband not here today either, Mrs Graham?” Lieutenant Gower asked once Alex came outside. “Mighty strange, is it not, how he is always elsewhere when we come.” He smiled down at Alex. “And yet we come by so often.”

Matthew had by now had enough and came out of the barn, hammer in one hand. The wee officer was attempting to intimidate his wife, driving his horse in tight circles round Alex, who succeeded in looking quite unperturbed.

“And what may you want with me?” he called out, striding over to join them, with Ian and Mark at his heels.

“Ah, the elusive Mr Graham. And so we meet at last.” The lieutenant smirked, bowing exaggeratedly.

Matthew gave him a nod, no more. “Not the first time.”

“No, it isn’t, is it?” the lieutenant said. “But at the time, you were… well, how shall we put it… disinclined to converse?”

“At the time I was being unjustly held and beaten – by you, as I recall.”

“Unjustly?” The lieutenant laughed. “I think not.”

Matthew was sorely tempted to pull the smirking fool off his horse and give him a good thrashing then and there. Instead he placed himself in front of Alex, arms crossed, and looked up at the officer.

“What can I do for you?”

Gower shrugged. “You know that, Mr Graham; always on the lookout for people that are attempting to evade the law.” He patted the gleaming neck of his horse and smiled down at the household. “Like Alexander Peden.”

“He isn’t here.”

“No, not today he isn’t, but one day he will be, and then it will fare ill both for him and for you.” He jerked his head at his troop and held his horse until his men were halfway up the hill. “We’ll be back,” he said, bowing in the direction of Alex before spurring his horse into a sedate canter.

“Not much of a surprise,” Alex muttered. “It seems to me they’re here more or less every other day.”

“Aye,” Matthew said, “much more often than elsewhere, as I hear it.”

Simon reappeared from the privy, spat to the side and came over to join them.

“You’ve sworn the oath and yet they come. It would seem they don’t trust you.”

Matthew laughed softly. “It would seem so, aye.”

“Without reason, of course,” Simon said, giving him a penetrating look.

“Of course,” Matthew lied, his eyes on anything but his wife.

Simon made a sound like a disgruntled pig. “I’ve told you, you’re playing with fire.”

Matthew bent down to pick up a discarded horseshoe and grinned. “For luck,” he said airily and left them standing alone in the yard.

“Is he?” Simon asked Alex. “Does he offer them board and bed for a night or two?”

Alex shook her head. “He has promised not to, and I believe him when he says he hasn’t.”

Simon rolled his light blue eyes at her.

“At least not here,” she added, chewing her cheek. Margaret’s cottage! Isolated and on the far edge of the woods it would make a nice little safe house, with the added benefit of being close to the moor. “I swear I’ll kick his balls,” she said and took off in the direction of the barn.

Matthew heard the swishing of her skirts as she made her way down the barn to where he was working on one of the walls and turned towards her.

“What exactly have you promised me?” Alex said.

He eyed her warily; there was a dangerous tone to her voice.

“Promised you? To love you and hold you, to keep you in house and food, to watch over you, to…”

“Not that! What have you promised me regarding Sandy Peden and the others?”

“Do you need to ask?”

“I just want to make sure we’re in agreement,” she said in a mild voice. “So?” she prompted at his continued silence.

Matthew exhaled and threw down the hammer. “I’ve promised not to bring them home. At least not for now.”

“And home is what? The big house? The barn and the stables? “

“All of that,” Matthew said in relief. “The house and the barn and all the buildings.”

“All of Hillview?”

He twisted.

“All of Hillview?” she repeated.

“All of Hillview,” he said, defeated.

“So if I were to go up to Margaret’s cottage later this afternoon, I wouldn’t find anyone there, would I?”

“Nay, you wouldn’t.”

“Good. And I’ll check, just so you know.” With that she left.

Matthew kicked at the hammer and slid down to sit. Damned woman, making him feel like a bairn of four caught with his fingers in the honey pot! Sandy was doing poorly, a nasty cough to him, and now he’d have to go up and tell him he had to leave. He groaned out loud and leaned his face into his hands.

“Here.” Alex’ voice startled him. A basket was placed at his feet. “I added some raspberry cordial, it helps with the cough. And I took your old cloak. I can make you a new one – there’s fabric enough.”

Before he had time to say anything she was gone, running from him.

Chapter 8

“One day it will all be mine,” Mark said with evident pride. They were sitting halfway up the slope behind the house, sharing the hot biscuits Mark had lifted behind Sarah’s back.