Dragonfly in Amber
Page 73

"Better call me a witch," I said. "It's as close as you're likely to get."
On my way out to the courtyard next morning, I met Lord Balmerino on the stairs.
"Oh, Mistress Fraser!" he greeted me jovially. "Just who I was looking for."
I smiled at him; a chubby, cheerful man, he was one of the refreshing features of life in Holyrood.
"If it isn't fever, flux, or French pox," I said, "can it wait for a moment? My husband and his uncle are giving a demonstration of Highland sword-fighting for the benefit of Don Francisco de la Quintana."
"Oh, really? I must say, I should like to see that myself." Balmerino fell into step beside me, head bobbing cheerfully at the level of my shoulder. "I do like a pretty man with a sword," he said. "And anything that will sweeten the Spaniards has my most devout approval."
"Mine, too." Deeming it too dangerous for Fergus to lift His Highness's correspondence inside Holyrood, Jamie was dependent for information on what he learned from Charles himself. This seemed to be quite a lot, though; Charles considered Jamie one of his intimates—virtually the only Highland chief to be accorded such a mark of favor, small as was his contribution in men and money.
So far as money went, though, Charles had confided that he had high hopes of support from Philip of Spain, whose latest letter to James in Rome had been distinctly encouraging. Don Francisco, while not quite an envoy, was certainly a member of the Spanish Court, and might be relied upon to carry back his report of how matters stood with the Stuart rising. This was Charles's opportunity to see how far his own belief in his destiny would carry him, in convincing Highland chiefs and foreign kings to join him.
"What did you want to see me for?" I asked as we came out onto the walkway that edged the courtyard of Holyrood. A small crowd of spectators was assembling, but neither Don Francisco nor the two combatants were yet in sight.
"Oh!" Reminded, Lord Balmerino groped inside his coat. "Nothing of great importance, my dear lady. I received these from one of my messengers, who obtained them from a kinsman to the South. I thought you might find them amusing."
He handed me a thin sheaf of crudely printed papers. I recognized them as broadsheets, the popular circulars distributed in taverns or that fluttered from doorposts and hedges through towns and villages.
"Charles Edward Stuart, known to all as The Younge Pretender" read one. "Be it Known to all Present that this Depraved and Dangerous Person, having landed Unlawfully upon the shores of Scotland, hath Incited to Riot the Population of that Country, and hath Unleashed upon Innocent Citizens the Fury of an Unjust War." There was quite a lot more of it, all in the same vein, concluding with an exhortation to the Innocent Citizens reading this indictment "to do all in their Power to Deliver ye this Person to the Justice which he so Richly Deserves." The sheet was decorated at the top with what I supposed was meant as a drawing of Charles; it didn't bear much resemblance to the original, but definitely looked Depraved and Dangerous, which I supposed was the general idea.
"That one's quite fairly restrained," said Balmerino, peering over my elbow. "Some of the others show a most impressive range both of imagination and invective, though; look at this one. That's me," he said, pointing at the paper with evident delight.
The broadsheet showed a rawboned Highlander, thickly bewhiskered, with beetling brows and eyes that glared wildly under the shadow of a Scotch bonnet. I looked askance at Lord Balmerino, clad, as was his habit, in breeches and coat in the best of taste; made of fine stuff, but subdued both in cut and color, to flatter his tubby little form. He stared at the broadsheet, meditatively stroking his round, clean-shaven cheeks.
"I don't know," he said. "The whiskers do lend me a most romantic air, do they not? Still, a beard itches most infernally; I'm not sure I could bear it, even for the sake of being picturesque."
I turned to the next page, and nearly dropped the whole sheaf.
"They did a slightly better job in rendering a likeness of your husband," Balmerino observed, "but of course our dear Jamie does actually look somewhat like the popular English conception of a Highland thug—begging your pardon, my dear, I mean no offense. He is large, though, isn't he?"
"Yes," I said faintly, perusing the broadsheet's charges.
"Didn't realize your husband was in the habit of roasting and eating small children, did you?" said Balmerino, chortling. "I always thought his size was due to something special in his diet."
The little earl's irreverent attitude did a good deal to steady me. I could almost smile myself at the ridiculous charges and descriptions, though I wondered just how much credence the readers of the broadsheets placed in them. Rather a lot, I was afraid; people so often seemed not only willing but eager to believe the worst—and the worse, the better.
"It's the last one I thought you'd be interested in." Balmerino interrupted my thoughts, flipping over the next-to-last sheet.
"The Stuart witch" proclaimed the heading. A long-nosed female with pinpoint pupils stared back at me, over a text which accused Charles Stuart of invoking "ye Pow'rs of Darkeness" in support of his unlawful cause. By retaining among his intimate entourage a well-known witch—one holding power of life and death over men, as well as the more usual power of blighting crops, drying up cattle, and causing blindness—Charles gave evidence of the fact that he had sold his own soul to the devil, and thus would "Frye in Hell Forever!" as the tract gleefully concluded.
"I assume it must be you," Balmerino said. "Though I assure you, my dear, the picture hardly does you justice."
"Very entertaining," I said. I gave the sheaf back to his lordship, restraining the urge to wipe my hand on my skirt. I felt a trifle ill, but did my best to smile at Balmerino. He glanced at me shrewdly, then took my elbow with a reassuring squeeze.
"Don't trouble yourself, my dear," he said. "Once His Majesty has regained his crown, all this nonsense will be forgotten in short order. Yesterday's villain is tomorrow's hero in the eyes of the populace; I've seen it time and again."
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," I murmured. And if His Majesty King James didn't regain his crown…
"And if our efforts should by misfortune be unsuccessful," Balmerino said, echoing my thoughts, "what the broadsheets say will be the least of our worries."
"En garde." With the formal French opening, Dougal fell into a classic dueler's stance, side-on to his opponent, sword-arm bent with the blade at the ready, back arm raised in a graceful arc, hand dropping from the wrist in open demonstration that no dagger was held in reserve.
Jamie's blade crossed Dougal's, the metal meeting with the whisper of a clash.
"Je suis prest." Jamie caught my eye, and I could see the flicker of humor cross his face. The customary dueler's response was his own clan motto. Je suis prest. "I am ready."
For a moment, I thought he might not be, and gasped involuntarily as Dougal's sword shot out in a lunging flash. But Jamie had seen the motion start, and by the time the blade crossed the place where he had been standing, he was no longer there.
Sidestep, a quick beat of the blade, and a counter-lunge that brought the blades screeching together along their lengths. The two swords held fast together at the hilt for only a second, then the swordsmen broke, stepped back, circled and returned to the attack.
With a clash and a beat, a parry and a lunge in tierce, Jamie came within an inch of Dougal's hip, swung adroitly aside with a flare of green kilt. A parry and a dodge and a quick upward beat that knocked the pressing blade aside, and Dougal stepped forward, forcing Jamie back a pace.
I could see Don Francisco, standing on the opposite side of the courtyard with Charles, Sheridan, the elderly Tullibardine, and a few others. A small smile curved the Spaniard's lips under a wisp of waxed mustache, but I couldn't tell whether it was admiration for the fighters, or merely a variation on his normally supercilious expression. Colum was nowhere in sight. I wasn't surprised; aside from his normal reluctance to appear in public, he must have been exhausted by the journey to Edinburgh.
Both gifted swordsmen, and both left-handed, uncle and nephew were putting on a skilled display—a show made more impressive by the fact that they were fighting in accordance with the most exacting rules of French dueling, but using neither the rapier-like smallsword that formed part of a gentleman's costume, nor the saber of a soldier. Instead, both men wielded Highland broadswords, each a full yard of tempered steel, with a flat blade that could cleave a man from crown to neck. They handled the enormous weapons with a grace and an irony that could not have been managed by smaller men.
I saw Charles murmur in Don Francisco's ear, and the Spaniard nod, never taking his eyes off the flash and clang of the battle in the grass-lined court. Well matched in size and agility, Jamie and his uncle gave every appearance of intending to kill each other. Dougal had been Jamie's teacher in the art of swordsmanship, and they had fought back to back and shoulder to shoulder many times before; each man knew the subtleties of the other's style as well as he knew his own—or at least I hoped so.
Dougal pressed his advantage with a double lunge, forcing Jamie back toward the edge of the courtyard. Jamie stepped quickly to one side, struck Dougal's blade away with one beat, then slashed back the other way, with a speed that sent the blade of his broadsword through the cloth of Dougal's right sleeve. There was a loud ripping noise, and a strip of white linen hung free, fluttering in the breeze.
"Oh, nicely fought, sir!" I turned to see who had spoken, and found Lord Kilmarnock standing at my shoulder. A serious, plain-faced man in his early thirties, he and his young son Johnny were also housed in the guest quarters of Holyrood.
The son was seldom far from his father, and I glanced around in search of him. I hadn't far to look; he was standing on the other side of his father, jaw slightly agape as he watched the swordplay. My eye caught a faint movement from the far side of a pillar: Fergus, black eyes fixed unblinkingly on Johnny. I lowered my brows and glowered at him menacingly.
Johnny, rather overconscious of being Kilmarnock's heir, and still more conscious of his privilege in going to war with his father at the age of twelve, tended to lord it over the other lads. In the manner of lads, most of them either avoided Johnny, or bided their time, waiting for him to step out of his father's protective shadow.
Fergus most definitely fell into the latter group. Taking umbrage at a disparaging remark of Johnny's about "bonnet lairds," which he had—quite accurately—interpreted as an insult to Jamie, Fergus had been forcibly prevented from assaulting Johnny in the rock garden a few days before. Jamie had administered swift justice on a physical level, and then pointed out to Fergus that while loyalty was an admirable virtue, and highly prized by its recipient, stupidity was not.
"That lad is two years older than you, and two stone heavier," he had said, shaking Fergus gently by the shoulder. "D'ye think you'll help me by getting your own head knocked in? There's times to fight wi'out counting the cost, but there's times ye bite your tongue and bide your time. "Ne pétez plus haut que votre cul, eh?"
Fergus had nodded, wiping his tear-stained cheeks with the tail of his shirt, but I had my doubts as to whether Jamie's words had made much impression on him. I didn't like the speculative look I saw now in those wide black eyes, and thought that had Johnny been a trifle brighter, he would have been standing between me and his father.
Jamie dropped halfway to one knee, with a murderous jab upward that brought his blade whizzing past Dougal's ear. The MacKenzie jerked back, looking startled for a moment, then grinned with a flash of white teeth, and banged his blade flat on top of Jamie's head, with a resounding clong.
I heard the sound of applause from across the square. The fight was degenerating from elegant French duel into Highland brawl, and the spectators were thoroughly enjoying the joke of it.
Lord Kilmarnock, also hearing the sound, looked across the square and grimaced sourly.
"His Highness's advisers are summoned to meet the Spaniard," he observed sarcastically. "O'Sullivan, and that ancient fop Tullibardine. Does he take advice of Lord Elcho? Balmerino, Lochiel, or even my humble self?"
This was plainly a rhetorical question, and I contented myself with a faint murmur of sympathy, keeping my eyes on the fighters. The clash of steel rang off the stones, nearly drowning out Kilmarnock's words. Once having started, though, he seemed unable to contain his bitterness.
"No, indeed!" he said. "O'Sullivan and O'Brien and the rest of the Irish; they risk nothing! If the worst should ever happen, they can plead immunity from prosecution by reason of their nationality. But we—we who are risking property, honor—life itself! We are ignored and treated like common dragoons. I said good morning to His Highness yesterday, and he swept by me, nose in the air, as though I had committed a breach in etiquette by so addressing him!"
Kilmarnock was plainly furious, and with good reason. Ignoring the men whom he had charmed and courted into providing the men and money for his adventure, Charles then had rejected them, turning to the comfort of his old advisers from the Continent—most of whom regarded Scotland as a howling wilderness, and its inhabitants as little more than savages.
There was a whoop of surprise from Dougal, and a wild laugh from Jamie. Dougal's left sleeve hung free from the shoulder, the flesh beneath brown and smooth, unmarred by a scratch or a drop of blood.
"I'll pay ye for that, wee Jamie," Dougal said, grinning. Droplets of sweat ran down his face.
"Will ye, Uncle?" Jamie panted. "With what?" A flash of metal, judged to a nicety, and Dougal's sporran flew jingling across the stones, clipped free from the belt.
I caught a movement from the corner of my eye, and turned my head sharply.
"Fergus!" I said.
Kilmarnock turned in the direction I was looking, and saw Fergus. The boy carried a large stick in one hand, with a casualness so assumed as to be laughable, if it weren't for the implicit threat.
"Don't trouble yourself, my lady Broch Tuarach," said Lord Kilmarnock, after a brief glance. "You may depend upon my son to defend himself honorably, if the occasion demands it." He beamed indulgently at Johnny, then turned back to the swordsmen. I turned back, too, but kept an ear cocked in Johnny's direction. It wasn't that I thought Fergus lacked a sense of honor; I just had the impression that it diverged rather sharply from Lord Kilmarnock's notion of that virtue.
"Gu leoir!" At the cry from Dougal, the fight stopped abruptly. Sweating freely, both swordsmen bowed toward the applause of the Royal party, and stepped forward to accept congratulations and be introduced to Don Francisco.
"Milord!" called a high voice from the pillars. "Please—le parabola!"
Jamie turned, half-frowning at the interruption, but then shrugged, smiled, and stepped back into the center of the courtyard. Le parabola was the name Fergus had given this particular trick.
With a quick bow to His Highness, Jamie took the broadsword carefully by the tip of the blade, stooped slightly, and with a tremendous heave, sent the blade whirling straight up into the air. Every eye fixed on the basket-hilted sword, the tempered length of it glinting in the sun as it turned end over end over end, with such inertia that it seemed to hang in the air for a moment before plunging earthward.
The essence of the trick, of course, was to hurl the weapon so that it buried itself point-first in the earth as it came down. Jamie's refinement of this was to stand directly under the arc of descent, stepping back at the last moment to avoid being skewered by the falling blade.
The sword chunked home at his feet to the accompaniment of a collective "ah!" from the spectators. It was only as Jamie bent to pull the sword from its grassy sheath that I noticed the ranks of the spectators had been reduced by two.
One, the twelve-year-old Master of Kilmarnock, lay facedown on the grassy verge, the swelling bump on his head already apparent through the lank brown hair. The second was nowhere visible, but I caught a faint whisper from the shadows behind me.
"Ne pétez plus haut que votre cul," it said, with satisfaction. Don't fart above your arsehole.
The weather was unseasonably warm for November, and the omnipresent clouds had broken, letting a fugitive autumn sun shine briefly on the grayness of Edinburgh. I had taken advantage of the transient warmth to be outside, however briefly, and was crawling on my knees through the rock garden behind Holyrood, much to the amusement of several Highlanders hanging about the grounds, enjoying the sunshine in their own manner, with a jug of homebrewed whisky.
"Art huntin' burras, Mistress?" called one man.
"Nay, it'll be fairies, surely, not caterpillars," joked another.
"You're more likely to find fairies in that jug than I am under rocks," I called back.
The man held the jug up, closed one eye and squinted theatrically into its depths.
"Aye, well, so long as it isna caterpillars in my jug," he replied, and took a deep swig.
In fact, what I was hunting would make as little—or as much—sense to them as caterpillars, I reflected, shoving one boulder a few inches to the side to expose the orange-brown lichen on its surface. A delicate scraping with the small penknife, and several flakes of the odd symbiont fell into my palm, to be transferred with due care to the cheap tin snuffbox that held my painfully acquired hoard.
Something of the relatively cosmopolitan attitude of Edinburgh had rubbed off on the visiting Highlanders; while in the remote mountain villages, such behavior would have gotten me viewed with suspicion, if not downright hostility, here it seemed no more than a harmless quirk. While the Highlanders treated me with great respect, I was relieved to find that there was no fear mingled with it.
Even my basic Englishness was forgiven, once it was known who my husband was. I supposed I was never going to know more than Jamie had told me about what he had done at the Battle of Prestonpans, but whatever it was, it had mightily impressed the Scots, and "Red Jamie" drew shouts and hails whenever he ventured outside Holyrood.
In fact, a shout from the nearby Highlanders drew my attention at this point, and I looked up to see Red Jamie himself, strolling across the grass, waving absently to the men as he scanned the serried rocks behind the palace.
His face lightened as he saw me, and he came across the grass to where I knelt in the rockery.
"There you are," he said. "Can ye come with me for a bit? And bring your wee basket along, if ye will."