Thistle and Flame - Her Highland Hero (4 page)

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“I
don’t know about this, John, it just seems like
a bad idea.” Gavin, hooded against the Edinburgh March, which was colder than
the almanacs had promised, paced back and forth. “We were just at the Laird’s
apartment in town, and now we’re supposed to go raid his estate out in the
country? I know he’s the foulest sort, and one of the very few Scots nobles who
won’t do anything at all for Scotland, but I don’t know.”

“Well look at it this way,” John said, scratching
his two-fingered hand along his jaw. “Let’s hear this woman out, and then make
a decision. She says she’s got some kind of information that’ll help us, and
she’s willing to pay a pretty big sum for us to nab a – what was it? Hairpin? –
from the estate.”

Gavin kicked a clod of dirt free from the
muck-lined road, and booted it a ways down the street. Next he started digging
at a cobblestone with his toe.

“She did promise a lot,” he said, “especially for
someone who lives in a place that looks like this. And are you hearing this
noise?”

“So she’s got a lot of young children running
around. And she lives a place what isn’t big enough for ‘em all. Seems like
that’s the case for everyone who isn’t a lord these days, or an Englishman. No
reason she can’t have a few jewels socked away.”

“You’re right,” Gavin said. “Of course, you’re
right. And what am I – are we – even doing here if it isn’t to help people?”

“Exactly. What’s come over you lately?” John said
out of nowhere, stunning Gavin. “Yesterday you were going on about some girl
that you never mentioned before, that you didn’t even know, and haven’t the
slightest what she’s doing, and today you’re saying you don’t know about a job.
Ain’t you supposed to be some kind of ghost?” He waved his hands around, hopped
from one foot to the other, and Gavin couldn’t help but laugh, no matter how
dark his mood.

The hooded man shook his head. “It’s hard to say.
I think the weather’s just getting to me. I miss Fort Mary, you know. I miss
the planting season. This city business is making me sick. All the stuff all
over the streets, the smell, it’s just getting to me is all.”

“Well, we got work to do, you and me. We have a
whole list of people what’ve done horrible things, and we have to make sure
they pay for them. No one else is going to do it, you know.”

“After the war, after Charlie’s rebellion was put
down,” Gavin said scratching his stubble-lined chin. “I never thought there
would be anything I could do to help. It was hopeless. Everyone’s face was hopeless
and sallow and sunken.”

“Aye, I know,” John said softly.

“This life we’ve made, if you can call it that, it
can’t last forever. Someday we’re either going to steal everything that isn’t
nailed down and half of what is, and give it to the people to whom it all
rightfully belongs, or we’re going to get caught, yeah? Either way, it’s not
going to last forever.”

A shuffling noise inside the attic drew John’s
glance, and one of the many, many children within let out a shrill cry right
before a huge whopping sound quieted the voice.

“Must’ve hurt,” he said and laughed.

“You were saying?”

“Right, what we’ve been at so far is a child’s
game. Stealing things, giving what we take to the poor. Things are going to
change soon, and we’ve to change with them Gavin, or be swept away.”

“If we’re going to do more than just some petty
thieving,” Gavin said. “We need more than two men living atop a tavern.”

“Right and you need a bow and I a big stick. But
my point is this – Robin, yeah – he didn’t really do much of anything whilst he
was just cavortin’ around the woods and stealing things from Friar Tuck.”

Another walloped bottom and another squeal from in
the house made both of them look at the door and edge away.

“He only stole from Friar Tuck the once, and then the
fat priest joined him.” Gavin said, not paying much attention to his friend.
“It was always the Sheriff he was really after.”

“Aye, and how did he finally get the evil Sheriff?
How did he finally make the throne safe for good King Richard again?”

“John, I’m not here to start any wars. That’s just
–”

“You’re not listening to me. Robin didn’t start a
war. A little skirmish, maybe, but a war certainly not. What he did do was use
his wits. Like old Odysseus after the Trojan War. Robin wasn’t the strongest, or
the smartest or the bravest, and he didn’t have a lick of gold to his name. But
what he did have, were wits, and a plan.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we have wits. You and me, we’ve
got brains in our heads. Why not stop the games? If we’re to scamper off to
Ramsay Macdonald’s country estate and steal a gold hairpin, why not take the
chance to leave a mark? That greasy Sheriff is after you, right? Lay a trap for
him. If King George’s goon fails to catch a naughty Scot, maybe the King’s
patience will run short with him.”

“A trap? You want me to set a trap for the brute
in charge of security in Edinburgh? And you want me to do this, somehow, in the
midst of burgling a noble’s estate in the countryside? How do you think that
should all happen?”

“I dunno,” John said with a grin. “You’re Robin. I
just fight with sticks.”

“Quiet you!” A hushed voice from within the
slanted house said. “You too, Murron! Quiet! We’re to have guests, and you’re
not to speak to them or make that awful noise you’ve been making for nigh on a
week.”

The two men outside looked to each other and
couldn’t help but snicker, remembering their own mothers’ scolding.

She cleared her throat, and the door opened.

“Ach, hello there. John, right? And Gavin?”

“Ma’am,” Gavin nodded, and touched two fingers to
the drooping arch of his hood. He swept the green, brown and red of his loosely
wrapped kilt and tucked it back where it rightfully belonged, instead of on his
head. “Humbly at your service, Miss...”

“Black,” she said. “Alice Black. Or at least
that’s my taken name.”

“Taken name?”

“Aye, when my husband went into Macdonald’s
employ, he took an English name. Bit of a strange thing to do, really, but the
Laird gave him the choice of taking a new name or finding a new job after
Macdonald decided the best way forward was to pretend to be as English as
possible, though he dinna change his own name.”

“Well, then. Good afternoon to you, Miss Black, if
that’s what you’ll have us call you.”

“Oh don’t stand out there,” she said, smoothing
her voluminous skirts and moving out of the entry way. “Come in, come in. I’ve
got so much to tell you.”

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“A
h, Murron, I thought I told you not to bother
these gentlemen. I don’t know why you’re climbing all over poor Mr. Gavin.”

“Oh, she’s fine, ma’am,” he said, smiling at the
flame-haired girl who sat in his lap and tugged on his tunic’s neck lacing.
“She reminds me of a girl I knew when I was young. What’d you say her name
was?”

“Murron. She’s my eighth. Fifth that lived, that
one.”

“Five young ones,” Gavin sighed. “Lot of mouths to
stuff with food.”

“Aye, it is.”

“Blue eyes, too. Just like Kenna.”

“Kenna? Your sister?”

“No ma’am, no. Just,” he paused and swallowed.
“Just someone I knew. What can we do for you?”

“Well, as you said, this is quite a lot of mouths
to feed, especially when your husband is a house servant for a lord who tends
to underpay him.”

John elbowed Gavin gently in the side and cocked
an eyebrow.

“Underpay, you said?” He looked over at Alice.
“Underpay how?”

“When my husband joined his estate, it was to pay
off a debt that I’m not too proud to admit he got gambling, playing at the
dice, after the war. He was a soldier like most every man in Edinburgh, and
developed some particular habits. We lived in the countryside before it, a half-day’s
ride from the Castle in town. But even before the Bonnie Prince fell, there
wasn’t no money, you see. Not for simple people. No crops, and when they did
come, there was no one to buy ‘em. So we moved here and my husband took up with
Macdonald and his estate.”

“This Macdonald,” Gavin said, fiddling with little
Murron’s hair, “is he a cruel man? We’ve paid him a recent visit.”

“He doesn’t beat Red, if that’s what you’re
asking.”

“Red?”

“Aye, that’s my husband. Red Ben. He’s called that
on account of his eyebrows.”

“Red Ben Black, then?”

“So he’s styled.”

Gavin chuckled and urged her to continue.

“Right, well, Macdonald don’t beat Red, but he
also don’t pay him what he says he will. Two years, almost three ago, when my
husband took up with him, he promised no money, but to pay for all the food and
drink we needed. And to pay for our house, and then finally, if my husband
worked for him three years, his gambling debt.”

“Sounds generous, but how could he save anything?”

“He couldn’t. That was the idea, y’see. But at the
same time, he ain’t made good on anything he promised.”

“Nothing at all? He hasn’t been paying-”

“He gives us a sack of tatties of a Friday. And
sometimes after kirk he delivers a haggis. Never enough to feed all the little
ones though, and Red, he’s a big man, and he always lets the little ones eat
first so he’s never got enough.”

“What about the house? Surely he won’t let that
fall through,” Gavin said with a tiny finger in his ear.

“Do you see where you’re at presently? You’re in
the center of a house supposed to hold the whole lot of us. One room. Seven
beds. Now we never been rich, but we had more than this and Macdonald said he’d
pay for a bigger space for us, but never did. Oh and look over to here,” she
stood and walked to the east end of the house, then pointed at the ceiling.

“Roof’s fallen in. When it rains, it-”

“Soaks the floor. Been like that goin’ on a year
now, and he just won’t fix it. Says he ain’t got the money, but then he keeps
Red working all hours of the day and night so’s he canna fix it either.”

“Give us a minute, alright ma’am?” John said as he
stood.

“Right, of course.”

“What do you think,” he whispered to Gavin. “I
can’t imagine a better reason to harass some noble. Hires people, then won’t
pay what he said he’d pay? He’s exactly what’s wrong with this place.”

Gavin looked past his friend, and set little
Murron down on the ground. She had a funny waddle when she walked off, back to
her mother. He didn’t respond to John, but instead to Alice.

“How are we to get in? That estate is a ways out
of town, isn’t it?”

“It is, yeah. You’re spry boys though,” she
smiled. “And when you get there, Red’s ready to let you in. We planned it
already.”

“Now wait a tick,” Gavin sat back. “You planned it
all out without talking to us first? Without asking the people who will be
doing the actual stealing?”

“Mr. Liam,” she said, “you have quite a reputation,
especially amongst us poor folks. Red and I drew up the plan because we didn’t
think there’d be any question whether or not you’d help. As much of a demon as
you are to the Lairds, you’re an angel to us regular folk.”

Gavin’s cheeks flushed.

“I suppose there’s no reason to play about it.
What’s the plan?”

Alice stood, shooed one of the boys who had
settled by her feet, and fished a rolled up sheet of newspaper on the table.

“This here’s the back door,” she said with her fat
finger on a smudged line. “Red’ll be waiting for you right here, with the lock
undone, right as the sun drops below the trees. Be about six hours from now.”

Gavin and John looked at each other and then
nodded.

“Wait a tick,” John said. “I forgot about
something. Macdonald. This estate is where he lives, isn’t it? That apartment
was just where he keeps company.”

“Aye, he does. But as fortune would have it, he’s
traveling.”

“Traveling? Since when do Lairds go anywhere?”

“When they’ve got lasses to chase. Macdonald’s
gone to Fort Mary, so I hear. He got an offer from some farmer up there who
owes him a good turn for a wife. Macdonald’s not so young, so he takes what he can
get.”

John and Gavin exchanged another glance, but
before Gavin could respond, John said, “right – we’ll be there by dusk, and
waiting. Right Liam?”

“Aye,” Gavin said with a hollow voice. “We’ll be
there.”

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“R
ed?” Gavin said in a whisper as a man with a huge
belly and an even bigger beard opened the Macdonald estate’s back door just as
the sun dipped below the trees ringing the acreage.

“None other,” he said softly. “Dunno much why I’m
whispering. There’s no one here but the servants, and none of us cares much
what happens to Macdonald or his money. Well, except for Tam. He’s a right
shill, that one.”

Gavin nodded in return and pulled the rolled up
map that Alice Black gave he and John of the estate. There was a place at the
top of a stairwell labeled “bedroom – pin” and when he showed this to Red Ben
Black, the big man pointed him deeper into the house and led the way.

“Where’s Macdonald? Your wife said he went off to
the north?” John said as they passed through a dining hall with an empty table and
walls that were barren except for a garish display of the family plaid.

“Aye, right, he went up to Fort Mary. His valet
told me that he was to pick up some pretty little girl whose father promised
her to him. He said that back in an old uprising, the Moore man was shot, and
he found him dying on the battlefield. Saved his life. Times have changed.”

Gavin nodded and agreed. “It’s hard to watch at
times, the suffering.”

“It is that, aye,” the big man said. “Now it’s
hardly a day what goes by without – shh!”

The three of them pushed against the warm English
oak of Macdonald’s dining hall, Red Ben’s massive hands on either of the two
invaders’ chests.