The Beauty of the Mist (3 page)

Charles, where are you? she called out silently. For once in your life, react with some decisiveness to your aunt’s foolishness. Come after us, my boy. Come after your sister. Come, Charles.

When she broke the silence, her tone was decidedly softer.

“Oh, Maria. I do wish I could be of some help. Surely, one of the other longboats from our galleon will be catching up to us soon.”

Maria’s eyes shot up at once at Isabel’s change of tone.

“I’d like to think so, too. But we’ve been rowing in this fog for hours now.” She looked around her. “We don’t have any idea where we are or where we’re going.”

“Don’t be silly, child.” Isabel chided. “You’ve been keeping us on a course as straight as an arrow shot. A very good job indeed, considering it is your first time at this sort of thing. We should land in Denmark anytime now.”

Maria smiled weakly in the direction of her aunt. “Or England in about a month!”

“Now, child.” Isabel scolded half-heartedly while trying to peer through the dense mist.

Maria watched her aunt’s expression. At last she showed signs of awareness, her complaints silenced. For the first time since disaster had found them, it seemed that Isabel was seeing the real danger. In the pandemonium on the burning ship, the men lowering the longboats amidst shouts and panic, there had been no time to think. They had spotted the French warship less than a day out of Antwerp, and then the chase had been on. Their mistake had been flying the Spanish flag. The flag of the Silver Fleet. That had given the French motive enough to attack. Every pirate and privateer in the German Sea knew of the treasure troves of silver and gold that the Spaniards were bringing back by the shipload from the New World.

At the first exchange of cannon fire, the captain had turned their small ship in an effort to flee to the north, hoping the open seas and the high winds would give them the edge. But he had been wrong. The French ship had been faster. From that point on, everything in Maria’s mind tumbled together in a whirlwind of action. Shots, swords, screaming men. Blood. She rubbed her cheek against her shoulder and wiped away the tears that were stinging her eyes and spilling over.

“I am sorry, Maria.”

The younger woman stopped her rowing and looked at her aunt.

“I am sorry for this. For bringing you with me.” Isabel slumped backward and looked skyward. “At my age, you would think I should have more wisdom, more insight into the demons running loose in the world.”

“But you do, Isabel. I value your wisdom.”

She turned her gaze back to her niece and smiled gently. “I should not have tried to interfere in your future. I should have left you to the comforts of the life that you have always been accustomed to.”

Maria leaned over the oars and tried to get closer to the older woman. This was not the aunt she had always known talking. This was fear of what lay ahead. Thoughts of the end. “Don’t say these things to me, Isabel. You and I both know what you did was right.”

“But it wasn’t. Can’t you see?” she cried. “This is the final proof of it. Do you know how many times I have sailed between Antwerp and Spain in my life? Hundreds of times. And only once—twenty years ago—did any ship I was on ever come under attack. But this time—”

“You’ve had good luck in the past. That’s all. My luck is different.” Maria tried to gather all her strength. “My dearest Isabel. We might die here at sea, or we might become fish bait, as you so delicately put it, but know the truth! I would welcome such a death rather than accept once again...so meekly...the life Charles has negotiated for me.”

“Choosing death over a life as the queen of Scotland!” Isabel rolled her eyes. “You are being too dramatic, child.”

“I am not.” She said matter-of-factly. “This flight...this trip...sailing with you for mother’s castle in Castile. This has been the only thing I have done in my twenty-three years of living that has been of my own free will. It’s not Scotland that is the problem. Do you know how painful it is to have your life planned from the age of three? I have been told whom to befriend and whom not to befriend, what to do and what not to do, where to go and where not to go. Whom to marry to and whom not to marry. And all that...twice!”

Isabel could not help the smile that broke across her lips.

“I know, my dear. I know. But all this ordering about you’ve been subjected to—even twice—has never been able to so much as dampen your spirits. Never!”

“But it has.” Maria couldn’t stop the tears that were rolling down her face. “This time, this second marriage, this desire of Charles to have a Habsburg on every throne in Christendom. This Scottish business...it was my undoing, the stone that crushed me. I cannot go through with it.”

Isabel just watched. She’d known it. As agreeable and submissive as Maria had always been, who could be surprised that she might not relish the idea of marrying a second time? And once again to an adolescent, sixteen year old king. The idea was unthinkable. To everyone except Charles, that is. He could not see the match as dismal, but Isabel could. And that’s why she’d come for Maria.

“If, God willing, we survive this,” Isabel said. “You know that your brother will come after you, don’t you? If we are lucky enough to reach Castile, he’ll lay siege to your mother’s castle, if need be.”

Maria nodded. “Of course. He’ll expect me to honor his agreement. To go through with this dreadful marriage.”

“What will you do then, child?” Isabel asked. “We must decide on our plan.”

As she continued to pull on the oars, Maria watched the blood trickling from her hand and dripping blackly onto the gray wool of her dress. She could not and would not go to Scotland. She would refuse to marry James V. She would disobey her clever, manipulative brother.

“I will become insane. They will see that I have become what my mother was before me. They call her Juana the Mad. Before I’m through, they’ll give me the same title. It will be quite believable. Like mother, like daughter. I will rant and rave and howl at the moon. I’ll out-Herod Herod in my madness. I’ll tear at my dresses, weave bones in my hair, and run naked in the rain.”

There was silence. Maria looked up and saw the wide-eyed expression of her aunt. Isabel was trying to speak, but no words left her mouth. Only a strange croaking sound. Maria watched her mouth open and close again.

“What, aunt?”

“Run!” Isabel’s voice was a raw whisper. “Run like mad.”

Maria’s head snapped around only to see a huge ship looming just yards away, rising up out of the fog like some ghostly apparition. She had never seen a ship this large. But by the time her weary brain could register the reason for her aunt’s fear, it was too late. The small float crashed forcefully against the ship’s black hull.

Maria had forgotten to stop rowing.

She was no sailor.

Like a snake striking out at his prey, the sailor’s line shot out toward the pitching longboat.

The small craft bobbed helplessly at the ship’s side. Aboard the
Great Michael
, a crowd of seamen lined the rail and hung from the rigging, straining for a clear look through the thick, concealing mists, ready for action. The occupants of the longboat made no move to board the larger ship, and the Scottish sailors waited impatiently, casting quick, questioning glances at their master for their next move.

“Where in hell did that boat come from?” John Macpherson exploded, pushing through the rugged throng.

“It looks like it’s a solitary boat, m’lord,” his navigator replied. “And only three men, at that.”

“Bring them up!” he ordered sharply.

“Is that wise?” a voice broke in.

John did not even turn to acknowledge the question from the tall, blonde-haired woman who glided quickly to his side. Caroline.

“What happens if they are armed?” she continued. “Even if they pretend to be friendly, isn’t it possible they could cut all our throats as we sleep?”

Without answering, John turned his head and frowned threateningly at Sir Thomas.

“Come, come, Caroline,” her husband offered gently, taking his wife by the elbow and pulling her from the railing. “I think Sir John is the man to decide that.”

John continued to peer over the side as a number of his men lowered themselves down the ropes.

“
Women
, m’lord!” came the return shout from one of the sailors. “Two women and a man.”

The cry drew a slew of astonished men to the edge. John leaned forward, watching as another sailor scurried down the side. “Bring them up! Now!”

“They’re bloody Spaniards, m’lord!

“I don’t care if they’re the devil’s own sisters!” John shouted angrily.

“This one’s dead, m’lord,” the sailor called up, pointing at the male in the bow of the boat. “He’s got a hole in his chest the size of my fist.”

“Bring them up!”

“Even the dead one?”

“For God’s sake, man!” John fumed, his patience gone. “Aye! Of course, the dead one, as well.”

The sailors below, hearing the fury in their commander’s tone, hastily secured the boat to the ship and started at once.

Seeing at last that his men were hustling, John stepped back, letting the ship’s mate take charge. Turning around, he stopped short at the sight of the delegation crowding around him. For the first time since they’d left port, the noblemen and women had found something entertaining enough to draw them out of their comfortable cabins. Like a bunch of children, they were jostling one another for a better view of the newcomers.

And he didn’t like it a bit. His men didn’t need the distraction. Not now.

Moving toward Sir Thomas, who was standing with Caroline and his daughter Janet by the mainmast, John spoke to him quietly. A few words were all that were needed to be said, and the aging warrior leaped into action. John knew this was exactly what the knight desired. A chance to be involved and a chance to be useful.

Turning back to the railing, John ignored the cacophony of complaints resulting from Sir Thomas’s blunt efforts to usher as many of the women and men as he could belowdecks.

Refusing the offers of help from the pushing throng remaining on deck, the Highlander silently thanked God that so far during this journey they’d been spared any attack at sea. Not that the
Great Michael
couldn’t hold her own in any fight, but John was sure that the chaos he would have to deal with on board would be much more difficult than any enemy assault.

Moving through the crowd, John saw David and the mate carefully helping an elderly woman down onto the deck from the rail. From the blood-soaked cloak, it was obvious that she had sustained an injury. John held back an instant as she took the arm of one of his men and tried to walk a few steps. Not being able to support her weight, however, she suddenly leaned heavily against the sailor and sank slowly to the deck.

John moved hastily to the woman and crouched before her.

“She is wounded,” a woman said from behind him. “Her shoulder.”

John turned toward the strained voice of the other survivor who had just been brought aboard. He noticed how, once on board, she politely but firmly rejected the assistance of his men. As she crossed to where the older woman lay, she wobbled a bit, but quickly regained her footing. She, too, sported black spots on her torn, gray dress that he was sure had to be blood, but she didn’t appear to be in as grave a danger as the elder woman. Whatever their condition now, these women had obviously survived an ordeal far more serious than a row in the cold fog.

Taking his eyes away from the other, John pulled back the blood-soaked cloak gently and looked at the wound on the older woman’s shoulder. These two must be survivors of the battle they’d heard earlier today. The older one had received what—from the burn on the surrounding skin—looked like a wound from a musket shot. But the damage was not life threatening, he decided, should the injury not fester.

“Ship’s mate,” he called over his shoulder. “Have the surgeon up on deck to look at her wound.”

Then he stood and turned to look at the other woman who now stood only a step away.

Maria saw him rise and her breath caught in her chest. Crouching before Isabel, the man had not looked as intimidating as he did now. A fierce scowl clouding his swarthy face, he towered over every man on deck. Quickly, she tore her eyes away from him and fixed her attention on her aunt’s face.

“And you,” he asked shortly. “Any injury?”

“None.” She whispered simply, turning and stumbling once more as she knelt beside Isabel.

John looked at the small, water-soaked figure at his feet, and his heart warmed to the bedraggled creature. He’d heard the tremble in her voice. There was a childlike quality about her—an uncertainty—that made him wonder for a moment from what depths she had conjured the strength to survive the ordeal of being adrift at sea.

The gray wool dress that the woman wore beneath her cloak must have been clean at one time, but it was now ruined with dark stains and sea water. Almost as if she could read his thoughts, the young woman pulled her heavy cloak tighter around her, making it nearly impossible for John to ascertain anything more about her.

Laying her fingers lightly on her aunt’s cold, limp hand, Maria fought off the desire to run away from the gaze of the giant standing behind her. She could feel his eyes burning into her even as she tended to Isabel. For a brief moment, she thought that perhaps the mariner knew who she was, but her attention was diverted as her aunt began to murmur in her unconscious state.

She seemed quite young, John thought, but a strange bittersweet sensation swept over the Highlander as it occurred to him that nearly every woman he met now seemed to be quite young. The attention she showed to the other indicated that they must be related somehow. Mother and daughter perhaps.

“There is blood on your cloak. Are you certain you have no wounds?”

“None,” she responded evenly. “It’s the sailor’s blood. Not mine.”

She did not even turn her head when she answered, but he could see the shiver. The shock, John thought. Being cold and wet and left in a boat drifting at sea can test the mettle of the toughest men.