Turn of the Tide Read online

  She grasped the edge of the table to counteract the weakness in her legs.

  ‘. . . Are murdered. Ambushed at Annock ford. We wouldn’t have known of it save that the king . . .’

  She forced herself to look at him. ‘All of them?’

  He was able only to nod, his mouth half-open as if he gagged on his tongue.

  Subsiding onto the settle by the fire she gestured to the opposite chair, all thought of normal hospitality forgotten. ‘How?’

  He stared into the flames, spoke low. ‘We know little, mistress, save that they left Langshaw Castle early, and expected to make Stirling for supper. The king they say, wasn’t best pleased when he found Eglintoun hadn’t come as he was bid and remarked on it with some sharpness. But it wasn’t till yesterday, when the messenger came from court seeking a reason for Eglintoun’s tardiness and demanding his immediate attendance, that we knew of anything amiss. Word was sent to Lady Margaret of Langshaw and others of us to follow the route . . .’ He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple moving in his throat. ‘The horse was near home when we spied her . . .’ he swallowed again. ‘It was my father’s, his trip to court a reward for fine service and his horse safe and steady, so that we knew. . .’

  Grizel focused on the scars in the leather of his boots, their age and comfort apparent in the way they moulded to the shape of his feet, the heel worn down at one side. Water had run off and lay in a puddle around his feet, steaming gently with the heat from the fire. The mud was beginning to dry on his hose, and she watched without her usual irritation as he picked at the drying flakes, his nails chipped and filled with grime. She looked up again, and, as if there had not been a long pause, asked,

  ‘You found them?’

  ‘When we came to the hill above Annock . . .’ He balled his hand into a fist, the knuckles white, his words coming in spurts and strings, as if through a mincer. ‘. . . the bodies were jumbled . . . some face down in the stream . . . others half-in, half-out of the water . . . there was a lad . . . his side open to the sky . . .’

  Grizel held her hands tight in her lap. ‘Were they . . .’ she thought of wolves, ‘. . . ravaged?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘They were all there?’

  ‘Aye.’

  Grizel in her turn stared into the fire, seeing, in the dancing flames, the Montgomeries as they had gathered in the barmkin: her father newly upright on his horse, the youngest lad who betrayed his excitement at his first foray to court by circling impatiently as he waited for the others to mount. It was a moment before she realised that he was speaking again.

  ‘The bodies . . .’ he was biting at his lip, ‘. . . they are to be dressed, and sent by cart . . .’ a deep breath, ‘. . . and those of the horses that are found . . .’

  Grizel felt a surge of anger. ‘Horses?’ She forced herself to breathe more slowly, to think of this lad, riding hard to bring the news, all the while battling griefs of his own and rising, placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Come, Ishbel will show you to a chamber.’

  He looked down, as if seeing his clothes for the first time: the mud-streaked hose, the jerkin heavy with rain. Gesturing awkwardly at his legs, said, ‘I have nothing . . . I didn’t think . . .’

  It was what he did not say that Grizel understood: that he had been dispatched, in haste and without preparation, to distance him from the sight of the bodies face down in the stream-bed. To bar him from that other journey, no doubt already underway: the rhythm of hoofbeats hammering across the moors: crops to be torched, doors to be splintered to kindling, steel to be drawn without mercy. A vision that fleetingly found an answering leap in her, the accompanying shame of it sharp. Vengeance, she thought, isn’t God’s. Not here. Not now.

  Morning dragged in with a wind that rattled the casements and chased smoke down the chimney, funnelling it out into the solar. Grizel’s response: to pile up the fire so that it blazed constantly, keeping the smoke at bay; trying and failing to ward off the images that had invaded her dreams and now crowded her waking mind also. All night she had been a child again: bug-eyed, huddled between her brothers on the turret stair, her knees pulled up to her chin, her nightgown tucked under her feet against the rising chill; listening outside the door of the hall to the tales of other butcherings. Boyds against Stewarts; Maxwells against Johnstones; Kennedys, who, failing another family to fight, savaged amongst themselves.

  Her brothers had delighted in the telling and had honoured each fresh atrocity by playing out old Montgomerie wounds: legends from their grandfather’s time, but well remembered and oft rehearsed for all that. They brandished their wooden swords, hacking and slashing at each other with whoops and cries as they circled the stump of the old castle on the hill behind Braidstane. Her part: the lady to be rescued, her bonds loosed just in time to save her from the flames, smoke from the makeshift fire of twigs curling around the barrel she perched on. Or the one surviving child hidden among the gorse, emerging to their calls, hair tangled, arms scratched. Or, least comfortable of all, the grieving widow who swooned at the news of her family all gone and required to be revived by a liberal dousing with bog water. For Grizel the child, the stories had been a delicious shiver that rickled the length of her spine.

  Grizel the adult had shivered in a very different way when, periodically, news of that sort came, and each time had thanked God that their own family enmities seemed, if not dead, at least to slumber. This new awakening so brutal, so unexpected, so impossible to thole. And yet . . . staring into the flames, her eyes rubbed red, the tears, which had eluded her on the previous evening washing her cheeks raw, she thought perhaps she should have expected some ill thing to follow hard on her mother’s death, her own widowhood: for troubles aye came in threes. And by what right should her family be immune from the sickness that had plagued Scotland for more generations than anyone would care to remember, and our own county no healthier than the rest? She stamped on a shower of sparks that arced onto the floor from an exploding log. And thought of Hugh. Eldest he might be and with a temper to match his flaming hair, but pray God she could convince him to halt the madness.

  She didn’t know how, or in what fashion, to communicate their father’s murder to her brothers and in the end sent word to George in London, as the nearest, charging him with the task of informing the others in Europe. Then there was nothing to do but wait, first for the bodies, then for her brothers, her father’s funeral delayed till their return. For the rest, they would bury them together: a single stone to tell the horror.

  Chapter Three

  Munro was in an alehouse half way up Stirling’s High Street, rehearsing his frustration at the enforced stay at court to a pair of lurchers sprawling by the turf fire. Their coats were dull and matted, their eyes oozing, though whether from the smoke or infection it was impossible to tell. One scratched sporadically at a bald patch behind his ear, likely the result of a tick. The Cunninghames had been five days at court, and had, as far as Munro could gauge, accomplished little, barring Glencairn’s small satisfaction as James cried Eglintoun for his tardiness, a satisfaction quickly dissipated as news of the murder came from Ardrossan, forcing him to busy himself professing outrage at the deaths.

  Munro was not drunk, nor even nearly so, but boredom and forced inactivity weighed heavy on him and drove him to a moment of carelessness. He shook his head at the dogs. ‘. . . Who believes him?’

  One, the younger by a good margin, thumped his tale in response.

  ‘You’re right.’ Munro glanced round – dangerous talk. Fortunate that all attention was focused on a dwarf of a man with wild hair that sprouted in random tufts of brown and white, who was perched on a table-top near to the door, gabbling. Interested in anything that might relieve the tedium, Munro swung on his stool, prepared to be amused; but catching the name ‘Montgomerie’, buried his head again in his tankard, an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He forced himself to call for another drink and downed it as if he had the whole day to waste, watching and li
stening to the man’s tale with every appearance of appreciation. The kernel of it, that someone had been careless and word was everywhere about that blame for the Montgomerie murders lay at Glencairn’s door.

  Afterwards, he headed straight for the Cunninghame lodgings. And found John. ‘Where’s Glencairn? Have you heard the news?’

  John was matter of fact. ‘Gone to James to make claim that some distant connection has over-reached themselves.’

  ‘I know now how Peter must have felt at the High Priest’s fire. It was all I could do not to react when I heard the clack. I was waiting for the challenge: ‘Aren’t you with the Cunninghames?’ Then, as John’s words penetrated, ‘How distant?’

  ‘Far enough to pass you by.’ John injected a note of reassurance into his voice. ‘Besides, you were here with us. We may both have reason to be grateful for the care that was taken to ensure our timely arrival was noted.’

  ‘I was thinking of asking leave to go home.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it.’ John poked his toe at the fire that sputtered in the hearth. ‘If, that is, you want to reach it in one piece. Worse news will come and when it does, I for one will be glad to linger. There is nowhere safer than close to the King.’

  He was right. By the end of the fortnight, word of other atrocities came almost by the hour, until the number of Cunninghames, fallen or fled, surpassed that of Montgomeries killed at the ford. Munro, directed by Glencairn, dipped in and out of the alehouses and taverns that clustered below the castle precincts, reporting daily the grim tally. Few of those gathered at Kilmaurs before the ambush had escaped.

  He brought word of Robertland, one of Glencairn’s closest kin. ‘He is put to the horn.’

  Glencairn, staring out the window onto the cobbles below, spoke without turning. ‘Banishment? That I knew.’

  ‘And has gone to Denmark.’

  ‘A chill choice.’

  William, lolling on a bench, looked up, swung his legs to the floor, headed for the ale. ‘France is gey crowded with Scottish exiles the now. No doubt he thinks to find a better billet.’

  Shame stabbed Munro. ‘It is said that many, having the misfortune to carry the Cunninghame name are, though innocent, likewise forced to flee their homes.’

  William raised his tankard. ‘You are fortunate then, on two counts. You aren’t at home, and your name isn’t Cunninghame.’

  John saw Munro out.

  At the top of the steps they halted. ‘When will it end?’

  ‘Soon, I hope. . . . The worst is likely over.’ John spoke with apparent confidence, but Munro, reading his eyes, knew it to be a lie.

  And so it proved.

  The fate of Clonbeith was whispered everywhere, and received variously in shock or horror or gleeful malice. Munro refused the offered dinner and stayed with the Cunninghames long enough only to convey the message, revulsion clear in every syllable, his preface stark. ‘I think it probably correct in essentials, if not in each particular, though it may have gained something in the telling. Credited with leading the massacre . . .’

  At his side, John shifted.

  ‘. . . Eglintoun’s brother and others with him carried the pursuit to Hamilton. A little money spent, they found Clonbeith out in a chimney . . .’ Munro swallowed, continued, ‘. . . Pollock, he that is son-in-law to the Montgomeries of Langshaw, hauled him down and, it is said, hacked him to pieces on the spot.’

  William took a seat at the table, lifted a knife and began to carve a side of ham. ‘A clever, if bloody way to distance himself from the Montgomerie murders.’

  As if to himself Munro said, ‘I still have Clonbeith’s horse.’

  ‘That I imagine,’ said Glencairn, ‘is the least of his troubles.’

  John, his glance flicking towards his brother turned Munro away from the table. ‘If you cannot eat, at least have a drink before you go.’

  The last rumour Munro brought to them was of Lady Margaret Langshaw. ‘Gone to Ireland it seems, and not expected to return. I think now that we are all accounted for. Perhaps we can go home.’

  Glencairn nodded. ‘Can’t say I’m sorry. A respite from James will be welcome. You talked of your brother. Send him to Kilmaurs: we will make a position for him there.’

  It was at once a recognition of obligation and a dismissal. In the narrow wynd that dropped towards the lower town, Munro stumbled over a pile of rubbish lying in the drain, scattering chicken bones across the cobbles. Half-decomposed cabbage leaves and assorted peelings stuck to his boot and he carried the sour whiff to his lodging, like a guilt impossible to quell.

  He returned home, wearied and with a conscience and stomach alike uneasy; even the sight of the sheep pens prepared for lambing and the fresh thatch on the stable roof failing to raise his spirits. To be met with stony silence and a chill in the atmosphere, indicating that a whisper of some sort had beaten him. The presence of the twins clamouring for attention protected him from immediate censure, but alone in their chamber Kate rounded on him.

  ‘A day or two only? It may not signify?’

  He reached out, but she twisted away as if his touch would soil her.

  ‘The Cunninghames have lost much.’ It was an unconscious echo of William.

  ‘The half of Ayrshire has lost much, and over many years.’ She sucked in air, as if to fan a flame. ‘Indeed all of Scotland is salted with old rivalries that erupt, in season and out of it, like boils, which, doctored or not, leave scars aplenty to mar our lives. Must we have part in it?’ She took a handful of twigs from the basket by the hearth, snapped them into kindling. ‘It is a dirty business, and no-one the winner, save perhaps the coffin-makers and clothiers who aye make good money of men’s folly. Cunninghame or Montgomerie, it makes no odds. . . . Dear God to think more of obligation than our children.’

  He wanted to protest that it had been their children he thought of, and her . . . and her . . . for to refuse Glencairn . . . but risked only, ‘I did but as I was bid; as I was bound to do.’

  ‘No-one is bound – save by the laws of God.’ Turning her back, she unpinned her hair, snuffed the candle, spoke into the darkness. ‘There is always a choice. If this is yours, do not look to me to share it.’

  He lay, the centre of the bed a chasm beyond which Kate stretched, rigid, unwelcoming – small consolation that women did not fully understand such matters; that it was not so easy to slough off inherited ties; that there were unpalatable duties in this life. And, sleep eluding him, he found it impossible to banish entirely the sight of the bodies at the ford. Clearest in his mind the mutilated youth close to the laird of Braidstane. Though likely younger than his own brother, Archie, the build and colouring was sufficiently similar to provide a constant reminder of what had been done in the name of loyalty. He thought on Glencairn’s pledge; decided to let Archie go. For didn’t the lad itch to get to court and had plagued long since for permission to take himself to Kilmaurs?

  Perhaps Braidstane had been equally pressed.

  He rode to town to call on his mother, leaving his horse in the care of an ostler and picking his way through the clutter of buildings that jostled the Mercat Cross. He had never understood her need, following the death of his father, to replace the fresher air and relative quiet of Broomelaw with the bustle of a townhouse, but so she had chosen, and there she had stayed. He presented her with a piece of Flemish lace. ‘It is quite the fashion and I thought to bring a little of court home to you.’

  Mary fingered the lace.

  He noted her stillness – she also has heard something. I might have saved the effort, and my silver.

  After a moment, she looked up. ‘There is something I thought to say to you.’

  A knot tightened in the pit of his stomach – what was done was done and it did no good whatever to waste time in regrets.

  ‘Glencairn’s retinue is growing?’

  He was unsure of where she was headed. ‘There are always those who seek to rise.’

  She held his gaze, her pupils
dark and distended, the irises reduced to a blue smudge around the edge. ‘There is talk . . . though I haven’t heard it direct . . .’

  Waiting, Munro thought – she plays me like a fisherman, letting out and reeling in, reducing my resistance little by little, before she comes to the landing.

  ‘A rumour only . . .’ she continued, ‘. . . but likely enough; of Archie, and a girl, and perhaps a wedding. I had thought you wouldn’t welcome the drain on your purse.’ She bit her lip, as if she spoke reluctantly and he was filled with a grudging admiration. ‘If Glencairn seeks other followers . . . you might look to your brother, else he will be always hanging on your cloak-tail.’

  Relieved that her thoughts had not been running on his own activities and glad that he could claim prior thought on the matter he said, ‘Already done. Glencairn has promised him a place. Indeed, Archie agitates to go and I would have sent him already, were it not for the lambing.’

  ‘You’ve managed without him before and can again.’ She smiled and touched the lace on her lap. ‘This is a fine piece, and well made, I am grateful for it.’

  Understanding that her gratitude extended beyond the lace he escaped before she could question him further.

  With a welcome spell of fine weather carpeting the woods in aconites: a splash of yellow that should have cheered anyone, Munro sought to smother the memory of the massacre. And without his brother’s face constantly before him might have succeeded, but for Kate. He caught the shadow of it in her eyes each time she looked at him, her instinctive recoil from even accidental touch stretching the distance between them. What speech was neccessary: for the running of the household, the sake of the children, was edged with ice. The easy camaraderie that had been the touchstone of their marriage and that he had not thought to truly value until it seemed lost became a silence beyond bearing. And the likelihood that it wouldn’t be the end of the matter, at home or abroad, lay in the back of his mind, like an awkwardly placed slub in the weave of a bedsheet: impossible to ignore however you turned.