Betrayed (13 page)

The coronation of James I and his queen, Joan Beaufort, was set for the fourteenth day of May. In that same week the king stood before his parliament, declaring firmly, “If any man presume to make war against another, he shall suffer the full penalties of the law.” The pronouncement was greeted with a deep, respectful silence. In the month since the king had returned to Scotland, his nobility were learning to their great dismay that he was not at all his father's son. Rather he was his great-great-grandfather, Robert the Bruce, reborn, but, intrigued by the management of his government, a stronger king. The bonnet lairds and the general population were well pleased with this prince. The mighty were not, but it was too late. James Stewart had taken up the reins of his power most firmly. He would not be dislodged.

To Angus and Fiona's great surprise they were housed with their royal master and mistress in Perth. They had been given a small apartment with a bedchamber that had its own fireplace, a day room with a second fireplace, and two smaller rooms off the day room, one for their clothing and the other for Nelly. The windows of their apartment looked out over the river and to the bens beyond the town.

“I don't know if we are deserving of such luxury,” Fiona said, “but I canna say I dislike it.” She plucked a strawberry from a dish at her elbow and plopped it in
her mouth. “Anything we desire at our beck and call, Angus. ’Tis not a bad life, is it?”

He laughed. “Don't get used to it, lassie,” he advised her. “I promised the king to bide with him but a short while. We'll be back at Loch Brae by autumn, I promise ye. I do not intend venturing far from home again unless the king truly needs me, but once I am well out of his sight, he will forget us, I am certain, for we are really of no import to him, Fiona Hay. Remember that, and don't be lulled into a sense of false importance because ye now serve the queen at this moment. She, too, will forget.”

“I know,” Fiona admitted, “and I also will be glad to be back at Loch Brae, Angus. However, I canna help but have a wee bit of fun, since we are forced to remain at court for the next few months. What stories I'll have to tell our Morag!”

The coronation was celebrated at Scone Abbey with all the pomp and circumstance the Scots could muster. The king and the queen in their ermine-trimmed robes were both attractive in their youth, yet most dignified. There was something very assuring about the pair. And afterward when they rode, crowned, through the city, the crowds cheered mightily at the sight of their sovereigns, men tossing their caps in the air in celebration, women wiping joyful tears from their eyes.
A good king. A fair queen. And peace with England.

“’Tis a pity we could not have the stone to crown ye on, my liege,” the Earl of Atholl told his nephew.

“I was long ago crowned upon the stone,” the king said with a smile, and then went on to explain how Angus Gordon had
crowned
his prince when they had been children together in England.

“This bonnet laird is too clever to my mind,”
Atholl told his eldest son, who would shortly depart for England as a hostage. “I will not be sorry to see the back of him and his equally canny mistress. She is too close to the queen, this wench of no importance.”

Now truly king, James Stewart began to rule as Scotland had never been ruled. Immediately he forced through the parliament several new laws. Next James set about reclaiming crown properties that had been usurped or badly managed by his unfaithful vassals during the regency and the reign of the two previous weak monarchs. This was a highly unpopular move. The king complicated matters further by insisting that every nobleman and woman, every laird of the realm, bring the patent for his or her lands to be examined by the king's justices that their validity might be attested to and reconfirmed. Those who could not prove their rightful ownership of their lands and titles were carefully examined as to their loyalties over the past years. They were either reissued their rights by the king's court or had their properties confiscated. The appropriated lands were then given to James Stewart, and he, in turn, set those men loyal to him upon the seized properties to oversee them for him.

So many changes, and so quickly come. Now the king sought to better the justice system in Scotland, both civil and criminal.

“What think ye of my plan, Angus?” James Stewart asked his friend one afternoon as they practiced their skill at the archery butts.

“If yer chancellor and the men chosen for this court cannot be bribed, my liege, then the poor will at last have an honest champion,” the laird replied. “If, however, these men can be corrupted, the verdict will
go to the highest bidder.” He loosed an arrow into the center of the target.

“I shall personally oversee this court myself” the king replied. “I know men's weaknesses when it comes to riches and power.” He let fly his own arrow, which buried itself into the laird's arrow, splitting it in twain. Then, turning, he looked to his companion.

The laird was astounded, but suddenly a great grin split his face. “What a grand shot, my liege!” he said enthusiastically. “Ye must teach me how ye did it so I may equally astonish my own men.”

James Stewart laughed. “’Tis easy,” he vowed. “I'll be pleased to teach ye the trick of it. I owe ye for yer company, Angus, for it helps take the weight of my duties from my shoulders. ’Tis not easy to be a king, I am finding. There is so much to be done, and so many who oppose me, whether they say it or not.”

“Scotland has lived for too long without a master,” Angus Gordon said quietly. “It is like a horse gone wild that must be reconditioned to the bridle and the bit.
Ye
have done much already this summer, my liege. Perhaps if ye would go a bit easier, ye would have time to win more men to yer cause. There are many who are faithful, and others who would be, I know, if they were but given the chance to know ye better so they might see how worthy ye are.”

“I know that ye speak the truth, Angus,” James Stewart said, “but there is far more to do to improve life in our land than I can possibly accomplish in an entire lifetime, even were I to live to be a very old man.”

“May God see that ye do!” the laird replied enthusiastically.

“Ah, Angus, if half the men at this court were as loyal to me as ye are, I should have no fear for Scotland's future,” the king answered, his tone almost sad,
“but, alas, too many are ingrained in their bad ways. Soon I must act to make an example within the bosom of my own family if I am to put the fear of God into the others.”

While the laird kept his king company, Fiona Hay was with the queen. Joan of England had become genuinely fond of the highland girl, but the noblewomen who surrounded her were less tolerant of the laird's mistress. For one thing, she was much too beautiful— and hardly respectable. She was not from a powerful family, yet she carried herself proudly. She deferred only to the queen and the king.

“She is much too proud for a lass in her position,” Lady Stewart of Dundonald said sourly. “She should not be allowed to serve the queen. The wench is no better than a common whore.”

“Much the same was said of my grandmother, Catherine Swynford,” said the queen, who had overheard Lady Stewart's remarks. “My grandmother, like Mistress Hay, was in the lowest rank of the nobility. She had, thanks to her sister who served Queen Philippa, been given a place in the household of Lady Blanche of Lancaster. She served my grandfather's first wife. My grandfather fell in love with Catherine Swynford, but only after his wife died would she admit her affections for him.

“King Edward III, however, married his son off to a second politically expedient wife, Constance of Castile. He was forced to live in Castile for a time. He had to leave my grandmother and their children behind. His second marriage was of a short duration, for the lady of Castile died. My grandfather returned home to England to wed with Catherine Swynford.

“He spent much time in the assizes, and with the church hierarchy, making certain that his three sons and
his little daughter were legitimized. He was successful. My grandmother defied convention for the man she loved. In the end God smiled upon her, for she was a good woman at heart. Mistress Hay has sacrificed herself and her good name to provide for her orphaned sisters. I will not condemn her, nor should any of ye. I am ashamed ye would be so mean-spirited.” Having rebuked them, the queen turned her attentions to her needlework.

“Alas,” Maggie MacLeod, now Lady Grey of Ben Duff, said to Fiona, “ye are a clever lass, but ye don't have the wit to take advantage of the queen's good nature to bring yer Black Angus to the bridle.” The two women had easily become friends over the past few weeks.

“What makes ye think I want to wed with a man who doesn't love me?”

“Yer in love with him.” Maggie MacLeod laughed knowingly. “And can ye not see that the man is mad in love with ye? God's boots! He positively glowers at any man foolish enough to give ye a passing glance, Fiona lass. Have ye no eyes in yer head, then, that ye canna see it?”

“He has not said it,” Fiona replied stubbornly.

Maggie MacLeod snorted with impatience. “Surely ye are not waiting for Angus Gordon to declare himself, Fiona Hay? Ye cannot be that silly! Men are children; they never grow up. A man needs to be reassured that his suit will not be denied before he can muster up the courage to tell a woman that he truly loves her.”

“But I thought I should wait for him to say it first, and the queen agrees.”

“Blessed Mother!”
Maggie MacLeod swore. “Listen to me, Fiona Hay. I have no doubts that the king loves the queen, but the first thing that crossed his canny
Stewart mind when he decided to choose a bride was her suitability. Do ye understand me?” Lady Grey's eyes bored into Fiona's.

“Joan Beaufort was certainly the most eligible maid in all of England. James Stewart swept her off her innocent little feet with his charm and his attentions. And she, encouraged, no doubt, by her powerful Beaufort relations and by daydreams of a queen's crown blurring her vision, probably whispered shyly to our liege lord that
she loved him.
Only then, I promise ye, did he say that
he loved her.

“That is how it always is in the battle between men and women, and how it is always likely to be. If the women of this world did not take matters into their own hands, not a man would take a woman to wife.” She laughed. “How do ye think I caught Ben Duff? A more sly widower there never was, but I was a canny lass, and when my Andrew learned I was carrying his heir, there was no holding him back. He couldn't get me to the priest fast enough!” She laughed again, her bright blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

“What yer saying to me, Lady Grey, is that I have been a damned simpering little fool,” Fiona replied. “Is that not so?”

“Aye,” Maggie drawled. “Yer a highland woman, Fiona Hay, and we highlanders take what we want. We don't wait to be invited. Did ye not steal yer laird's cattle?”

“I have never admitted to it,” Fiona quickly replied, but Maggie MacLeod only laughed louder.

“Ye had better get Black Angus to the altar, lassie, before some bold baggage here at the court decides she wants him, or the king decides to give him a nice English heiress in return for his loyalty.” Then she lowered
her voice to a deep whisper. “Have ye been taking something to prevent conception?”

Silently Fiona nodded.

“Don't take any more, Fiona Hay. Let yer man put his bairn in yer belly, and for sweet Jesu's sake, tell him that ye love him before it's too late. Happiness is not an easy commodity to find in this world. Ye must hold tight to it when ye do find it.” Maggie MacLeod took Fiona's hand in hers and gave it an encouraging little squeeze.

“Now I have two friends at court,” Fiona said softly.

“I'm in good company.” The older woman chuckled.

The queen's page announced that it was time for them all to adjourn to the Great Hall, where a new group of noblemen and lairds would be coming to pledge their loyalty and have the patents for their lands examined for approval. The queen, accompanied by her women, hurried to join the rest of the court.

“God's boots,” Maggie MacLeod murmured, her eye scanning the hall and lighting upon a man. “’Tis my cousin of Nairn, Colin MacDonald. What brings him here, I wonder, for he is as independent a highlander as was his sire.”

“Who was that?” Fiona asked.

“Donald MacDonald, late Lord of the Isles,” Maggie said softly. “Nairn is a bastard half-brother to Alexander, the third Lord of the Isles, but Colin MacDonald's first loyalty is to his brother and his clan. Their interests would be unlikely to coincide with the king's. What can he be doing here? The king will go to Inverness eventually to take oaths from the northern lords. Why has The MacDonald of Nairn come all the way to Perth?”

“Why not ask him?” Fiona suggested in practical tones.

Maggie MacLeod laughed. “I don't know if he would tell me the truth. Colin can tell a lie better than any man I have ever known.” Her fingers worried her blue brocade surcoat as she considered Fiona's pragmatic suggestion. “It's been at least five years since I last saw him. He may not even know me now.”

“Ye knew him,” Fiona said dryly.

“Colin is not a man a woman forgets.”

“Ye dinna mean—” Fiona didn't know whether to be shocked or not.

Maggie chuckled. “He had his hands up my skirts when I was twelve. We mature earlier in the northwest.” She shrugged. “He was always a wild one, Colin MacDonald.”

Across the hall the subject of their discussion watched the two women covertly. A small smile briefly touched the corners of his big mouth. Cousin Maggie had grown into a very pretty woman, but the girl by her side was a rare beauty. He was about to make his way across the chamber to greet his relation and be introduced to her companion when a tall, dark-haired man came up to them. He smiled, a few words were exchanged, and then the man escorted the beauty off. Before Maggie MacLeod might turn away, Colin MacDonald crossed the room in several large steps and was at her side.

“Maggie! And prettier than ever, I see,” he said jovially, kissing her on the cheek. “How nice to see a friendly face among all these damned Sassanachs.” He spoke to her in the Gaelic of the north.