The Prodigal Son (23 page)

“With Sandy,” Alex said.

Matthew nodded, ate some of his pie but shoved it away from him half-eaten. Alex scooted closer and rested her head against his shoulder. He rubbed his cheek against her head.

“Don’t mind me, Alex. It’s not a good day.”

In response she slipped her arm around his waist and kissed his cheek.

“I’m glad you helped him stay,” Matthew said, standing up with a grunt.

“Mmm? Oh, Ian. I did it for his sake. The poor kid needs someone in his corner.”

“And for my sake as well.” He smiled at how her cheeks reddened. “It’ll be the last time I’ll have with him as a lad. I don’t think Luke will renounce the lad, but he’ll punish him for coming running to me – Ian won’t be coming back to Hillview.” He sighed, bent to kiss Alex and went outside.

Ian stood with his back pressed to the wood panelling of the dark hallway. Renounce him? Could Father do that? But Mam wouldn’t let him, no of course she wouldn’t, because Mam loved Ian – even now with Charles in the house.

“Mam,” he breathed, sliding down to sit on the floor. He missed her so much it hurt, he wanted her to laugh in his ear and tell him what a fine lad he was and how proud she was of him. Ian leaned his chin against his knees and exhaled. If only Father had come himself instead of sending Mr Brown. He closed his eyes and there in his head was his father, and he was laughing, telling Ian not to be such a daftie, for surely he knew he was loved. But Ian didn’t; not right now, sitting in the dark and draughty hallway with a borrowed shirt flapping round his legs and no one in the whole world he could truly call his own. Not even Mam; not anymore, not after Charles.

Chapter 18

Alex reread the note before folding it together and putting it aside. Just deciphering the handwriting had been an issue, and the contents themselves didn’t exactly help. A very oblique warning, but a warning none the less… Alex dug into her apron pocket for a coin or two for the messenger, a scruffy boy about Mark’s age who was wolfing down the bowl of stew Sarah had served him.

“Who?” Alex held up a tarnished half-crown.

The boy’s eyes widened. “A man.” He extended his hand for the coin.

Alex shook her head. “Better than that.”

“A soldier.”

“Young? Old? Fat? Go on, what did he look like?” She flipped the coin, and the boy’s eyes followed it up into the air and down.

“I don’t know, he was just a soldier.”

“An officer?”

He hitched his shoulders. A man with a sash on a horse had given him the letter to deliver and that was what he’d done.

“He had a scar, here.” He placed his hand to cover most of the right side of his face. “Like snakeskin – and no hair.”

Once the boy was gone Alex sat down and read the short message again.
Beware; an ambush can be ambushed, the attackers be attacked
. Why address it to her? She tapped at the paper.
An ambush can be ambushed
… and tomorrow some of the men fined for their participation in the disrupted meeting on the moor would be transported from Cumnock to Edinburgh, there to be bonded overseas with their families.

Alex sighed; her brave, high principled man was off to play some kind of latter day William Wallace by freeing those men, and apparently this was exactly what the soldiers were hoping he would do. And we all know how Wallace ended his days, Alex thought; hung, drawn and quartered.

Matthew read the note, read it again. They knew; somehow they’d had word of the planned ambush, and now… Sweetest Lord, it would be a bloodbath, farmers ranged against fighting men. And he’d said so, repeatedly he’d warned them, saying this was too dangerous, too risky.

“I hope you’re not planning on taking part,” Alex said.

“How can you think I’d do something that daft? Do you seriously think I’d put you all at risk for a gesture bound to fail?” He crumpled the paper and threw it at her feet.

“Is it? Bound to fail, I mean.”

“Aye, I think so, and I will take no part. Who sent this to you?”

“I have no idea.” Alex bent to retrieve the paper. “Literate at any rate, and with a scar.”

“Scar? Have you seen him?”

“No, but the boy who delivered it said he was an officer, badly scarred over half of his face. Like snakeskin, he said, I suppose he means puckered, and apparently he’s bald.”

“Wyndham.” Matthew stood stock still. “Oliver Wyndham. Now how have you managed that, you a most devout Puritan last I saw you?”

“So this is a friend of yours?”

Matthew gave her a grim look. “Not as such. But he owes me his life, like.”

“He does?” Alex settled herself on an upturned bucket, looking so much like a lass waiting for a story that Matthew smiled.

“It’s no tale of honour and gallantry. It’s rather the sad story of two young lads, a worldly-wise whore and what can befall you if you’re not careful where you leave your heart.”

“Aha, a morality.” Alex looked at him expectantly.

Matthew snorted, torn between amusement and irritation.

“To us she was a glamorous creature, all bared skin and ruffles with eyes the size of saucers and a wonderful mouth.” His cheeks heated at the expression on Alex’ face. “Nay,” he muttered, “not like you do. I… well, you were the first to…” His hand strayed to his crotch.

“And the last,” Alex informed him, making him laugh.

“Oliver and I were what? Eighteen? Both far from home and always the youngest, surrounded by serious men who fought for principles and such.”

“And you were only there to have a good time,” Alex said, waggling her brows.

“Nay, that we weren’t. But at times it’s difficult to live only for duty, and especially when you are but a lad.” He handed her a harness, a cloth and some grease, indicating she might as well do something useful while she sat listening. “For months we were cooped up, ordered to stay in camp, one day after the other full of the utter boredom of siege work. And the siege of Colchester was long – all summer it lasted – and it was hot. Relentless the sun shone from dull blue skies and in the city people starved and died while we sat outside and waited.” All around the army camp fields had lain abandoned and untended, the air hung heavy with the stench from endless privy ditches, and over it all that constant, scorching heat.

“And she was an army whore?” Alex asked. “I didn’t think Puritan morals allowed such.”

“They don’t,” he said. “But men will be men, and months – years – away from families and wives make even the most moral of men prone to fall for the carnal itch.” He smiled, shaking his head. “An angel we thought her the first time we saw her, both of us too innocent to see her for what she was. She followed the army, she and her fellow workers, and we were ripe for the plucking, all of us. Restless and itching, bored of ourselves and our comrades at arms, and these lasses sang and made eyes at us and threw long manes of hair about. They were good at what they did, they were…”

His voice trailed off and he smiled at the memories of himself, young and inexperienced and convinced he was in love with French Marie – no more French than he was, but he didn’t know that at the time. And Oliver equally in love with her, and both of them certain they were the sole recipients of her true affections. Alex laughed when he told her this.

“But the lady didn’t mix business with pleasure, did she?” she said.

No, she hadn’t, and she’d made that very clear to both of them one night.

“We drew lots, Oliver and me, and he won and I swore to no longer importune the fair Marie, to leave the field free for him.” Agreeably drunk they had made their way to the whores’ end of the huge encampment, Matthew to witness as Oliver begged for her hand in marriage.

“First she laughed at him, telling him she had no patience with callow lads, but when he continued to wheedle and beg she had him thrown out, and he was so incensed by this behaviour that he grabbed a candlestick and set fire to the canvas sides of the tent.” Shrieking women in different states of undress, a grim and angered madam, and poor Oliver was sent flying into the conflagration, head first. “The buff coat saved him, but when I got him out, one side of his head was one raw blister, his hair, eyebrow and eyelashes all gone.” Matthew had thrown his friend over his shoulders and legged it, pelted with all kinds of hard and unsavoury objects by the angry, frightened whores.

Matthew fell silent. Oliver had been in agony for days, and the surgeon had despaired for his life and his eyesight in that order. But he lived, and where once he had been a handsome, spirited young lad he became a bitter, twisted man.

“We never spoke much afterwards. He requested transfer elsewhere and whenever we met he would avert his face and hurry off with nothing but a hasty nod.” No doubt making a comparison between his own diminished state and that of his erstwhile companion, Matthew sighed.

“Apparently he still remembers you,” Alex said standing up. “What will you do? I suppose you must try and warn them.”

Matthew looked away. “Aye, I must try.”

Alex watched as he saddled up Ham. “Why is he warning you, do you think? Because he owes you or because he still holds to his original convictions?”

Matthew tightened the girth and backed Ham out of his stall. “I don’t know, I would hope it’s because of convictions.” Once outside, he swung up in the saddle and indicated the scrap of paper in Alex’ hand. “Burn it.”

The soldiers rode in late next afternoon. Dishevelled and dusty, they charged down the lane towards the yard with swords drawn. Jacob shrieked and hid himself against Alex’ skirts, calling loudly for his da.

“Your husband, ma’am,” the lieutenant barked, holding in his sweating mount. The horse frothed at the bit, and its flanks heaved, the large hoofs sliding over the cobbles. The officer swept the people in front of him with angry, bloodshot eyes, and Alex shooed her children indoors.

“Your husband! Where is your husband?” He glared at Alex, frowned at Ian who stood by her side. His eyes flew over the household, returned to Alex.

“He’s in Cumnock,” Alex said. She studied the officer’s right leg. The breeches were dark with blood, and from the way he was sitting, she’d warrant he’d been badly hurt. Well; she wasn’t about to offer first aid and a cuddly blanket.

“I think not, mistress. We both know where he’s been.”

“In Cumnock,” Alex nodded, “all day.”

He dismounted, swaying when he set the foot of his injured leg on the ground.

“I’ll wait for him.”

“By all means, but don’t expect any hospitality.”

The lieutenant was still there when Matthew rode in, accompanied by an officer and two dragoons. Well, well; Mr Wyndham himself, given his disfigured face. On one side dark, scaly skin covered everything from his brow all the way down to his jaw. The lieutenant muttered something to one of his men, eyeing Wyndham with mild dislike. It clearly didn’t go down well, to see the new commanding officer riding side by side with Matthew, and in particular when the major leaned across to clasp Matthew’s arm. There was a hiss to Alex’ right, a vicious comment as to the need to purge the army of all erstwhile dissenters and Puritans. Alex shaded her face against the low October sun. Matthew looked tense.

“Mr Graham,” the lieutenant challenged once the party drew halt. “I’ve reason to believe you took part in a foul ambush on my troop earlier today.”

“Today?” Matthew sounded bewildered. “I’ve been in Cumnock since early morning.” He dismounted, handing Ham’s reins to Ian. “Rub him down properly.”

“That’s not what I hear,” the lieutenant snapped.

“No?” Matthew nodded in the direction of the major. “Well then you must talk to Major Wyndham. I’m sure he’ll vouch for me. After all, being interrogated by an army officer must be a valid alibi.”

The lieutenant squinted at his commanding officer. “Interrogated?”

“Most certainly interrogated,” the major said. “Did you think me a fool, lieutenant? A man of such staunch Presbyterian beliefs as Matthew Graham must be closely watched.” He smirked as he said so.

“Oh,” the lieutenant said, sounding impressed.

Oliver Wyndham was not a discreet man. Alex fumed at the way he inspected her, their home, even their children. His eyes inventoried every building, narrowed as he scanned fields and meadows, livestock and people. There was an amused look on his face as he studied her rudimentary garden – at present no more than two huge rosebushes clambering over wooden trellises – and it broadened into a derisive grin when he studied the main house. Belatedly he remembered his manners, bowed and introduced himself, and Alex curtsied, but chose not to invite him in. He did a slow turn and smiled. As the lips on the damaged side of his face didn’t stretch, it was a lopsided smile, more of a grimace.

“Very different from my home down in the Cotswolds.”

“I can imagine,” Alex said, irritated by how his eyes had stuck on her chest.

“So grey,” he muttered. “Somewhat dull to a southerner, I’m afraid.”

“One uses what one has,” Alex said. “And here it is stone for the most part.”

“A material as recalcitrant as the Scots,” the major said. Alex ignored his barbed comment, her eyes on her own personal chunk of Scottish granite. Matthew’s jaws were working, his shoulders rigid.

“But even stone shatters when sufficient pressure is brought to bear on it,” the major continued. “Like today.” He laughed, his inquisitive eyes leaping from Alex to Matthew.

“Today?” Alex said.

“Oh yes, Mrs Graham. We crushed the rebels today, we will continue crushing them, we will persecute and plague them until they submit to His Majesty’s mercy and deliver each and every one of those damned preachers to us.”

The lieutenant was beaming at the major, the dragoons were grinning like halfwits. Matthew’s face had gone an unhealthy dark hue, eyes a bright, dangerous green.

“They will never give them up,” Alex said, choosing the pronoun with care.

“Of course you will,” the major said. “Sooner or later you will.”

Matthew wanted them gone. He wanted to rage and kick and ram his hand through a plank, all in a desperate attempt to get rid of the sour taste in his mouth. A right mess this was; despite his warnings, they’d gone ahead with the ambush, and as he heard it the soldiers had been taken by surprise when the hillside sprang alive and came charging towards them, huge boulders bouncing across the road. Three soldiers dead, several wounded, and ultimately nothing had been achieved – not when the troops held in reserve swung into action. More than fifteen dead, twenty or so imprisoned, no doubt to hang. He had no idea how Sandy had fared, nor Tom Brown and wee Paul….. well, he was dead, he’d seen his body on the way home. Better dead on a hillside than in a gibbet, better to fall face first into the heather than have a noose strangle your life out of you.