Turn of the Tide (24 page)

Sigurd’s face was a question mark.

‘There is a feud,’ Grizel said in explanation, ‘and we part of it and though small-bit players have suffered much. James has a notion to stop all such.’

‘Pray God he will succeed.’ Elizabeth rested her hand on her stomach. ‘I wish my bairn to keep his father, whether that is in James’ hands or Hugh’s own.’

‘Can we not talk of something cheery? Else our guest will think the Scots are aye dour.’

Sigurd smiled at Grizel. ‘An unwarranted reputation in this company, I’m sure.’

Elizabeth rose. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I don’t sleep well the now and must needs to bed early, else I’m not fit for anything in the morning.’ Sigurd also rose, but
she shook her head at him, avoiding Grizel’s eye. ‘There isn’t a need for anyone else to keep my hours. Indeed they are hardly sociable. Grizel will be glad of your company for a
while yet I’m sure. She has sat alone many nights of late and will have to do so again. It’s a favour you do us by your visit in more ways than one.’

As he handed Elizabeth to the door, his gaze flicked to Grizel. ‘My pleasure,’ he said, ‘for I am rescued by congenial company both from the tedium of waiting my ship’s
repairs and from the likely discomfort to be had in lodgings at Leith.’

Grizel tried to concentrate on the hiss and spit of the resin beading on the split logs. From the fire, the scent of pine rose, sweet and sharp, as if it was in a forest they sat, the deep
velvet quiet of it enveloping them like a cloak.

Sigurd broke the silence, talking with obvious affection of his home, his family, the business he shared; the soft cadences of his voice eroding the reserve that she struggled to maintain.

Much later, she climbed the curving stair to her chamber and, sleep deserting her, curled on the window seat, leaning her cheek against the cool stone. And to avoid other, more treacherous
thoughts: the touch of his hand on her wrist, the glimmer of laughter in his eyes; she wondered how it would be to ride on a sleigh pulled by dogs, swathed in arctic fox and miniver. Or to bide in
a little wooden house with overhanging eaves that could, at a stretch, be touched from the ground. Or through the long dark winters to toast her toes, not at an open fire, but at a pretty
wood-burning stove set on a hearth of blue and white porcelain tiles.

Munro’s head was pressed against Sweet Briar’s neck, one hand on the dip of her back, the other brushing at her flanks, specks of salt and dust flying with each
downward sweep. He should have been occupied otherwise: seeing to the cattle lately moved into the byre for winter, mucking out, spreading fresh straw, carting clean water, hay. Instead he lingered
in the stable, doing the work of the lad rather than his own, finding in the regular brushstrokes a peace that had eluded him for weeks since. The horse for her part stood quiet, but showed her
pleasure in the extra attention by turning her head from time to time and snorting into his ear. He gave a final slap to her rump and took her head in both hands, pulling her face downwards, the
slick of saliva as she lifted her lip moistening his cheek.

‘A month now, and no word,’ he said, as if in answer to an unspoken question. ‘Not even a line or two for the sake of our mother.’ He leant his forehead into the angle
between her face and neck and felt the faint hirsel in her breathing that stemmed from a cold taken two years past, which, though it had never quite settled, seemed to trouble her not at all.

‘Is this where you’re hiding?’ Kate was framed in the doorway.

‘I thought to see to Sweet Briar myself: the lad was gey busy.’

She flashed him a ‘you might try for a more convincing lie’ look. ‘We thought we were going to have to take our dinner without you. The bairns are fair peeved with waiting. Not
to mention that Agnes isn’t best pleased that the pudding she made especial blackens in the oven.’ She linked her arm through his and, as if an afterthought, said, ‘No news has
aye been good news in the Munro family.’

He tossed the brush into a basket hanging on the wall. ‘You know in what frame Archie left.’

She faced him, gripping both his arms. ‘I know how he was when he came; and how he softened. And besides, there is Sybilla now and we cannot discount her influence. I don’t think,
for all his protests, it was pure chance he fixed on her to take back to Kilmaurs.’

‘It is William’s influence I fear; he has had three years of that. The softening . . . I should have encouraged it, not sent him off in bad fettle.’

‘And starving yourself in the stable? Will that accomplish anything? Bar irritating Agnes and the bairns. Do not think I lack concern, but I won’t destroy all that is good here for
an ill not yet come. It is a matter of weeks only; last year there were months at a stretch without word.’

‘Naught of himself is one thing, but naught of how Sybilla fares . . .’

She shook her head, placed one finger against his mouth. ‘There may be naught to tell. Or if there is, insufficient of significance to warrant the sending. She is a lady’s maid, what
in her daily concerns would interest him?’ She linked with him again. ‘Dinner.’ she said.

For the rest of the week he tried and failed to settle, despite all Kate’s efforts. At mealtimes he ate swiftly, but scarce knew what he was eating. When the children demanded his
attention, he responded absently, often saying ‘Yes’ when he would normally have said ‘No’ so that they took full advantage of his dwam, Robbie claiming wide-eyed,
‘Dada said I could,’ each time he was caught in some new mischief.

‘And the trouble is,’ Agnes complained, ‘It’s probably the truth he tells.’

Anna, who had played constantly with the wooden horse that Munro had brought from Greenock, now plagued to have a pony of her own, or failing that, to be allowed to try the latest addition to
the stable, so that he began to regret both purchases. To prove herself capable, she took to sitting cross-legged, tack spread all around her, rubbing goose-fat into the leather with a rag
scrunched into a pad the size of her fist. Munro, coming on her one afternoon, her legs thrust under a saddle, noted the shine she had worked and commended it, tweaking her plait, but failed to pay
proper attention to the question she fired at him, unaware that he had agreed to any request.

Inside he fidgeted; outside he either snapped orders at the men or missed giving them altogether, so that no one knew whether they came or went.

Realising himself to be poor company, but with no idea how to sort it and aware that Kate watched him with increasing exasperation, he took to spending, not only the best part of the day
outdoors, but the evenings as well; coming to their chamber late and rising early.

Agnes tackled Kate. ‘Can you not do something with him before the entire place falls apart? I’ve sorted him before and I will again if needs be, for we can’t
have this carry on all winter.’

‘I’ll speak to him, though I doubt he’ll settle till he can find some excuse that takes him to Kilmaurs, and perhaps it would be for the best. This quarrel with Archie is more
than a scratch and may not mend without salve. Despite that Archie was more than half to blame, Munro feels the fault is his.’

‘Whatever the cause, we all feel the brunt’ There was a speculative glint in Agnes’ eye, displaced when Maggie erupted through the door holding aloft a ribbon, Anna in pursuit.
Maggie dived behind Kate’s skirt screeching, ‘It’s mine, is, is, is,’ emphasising each word with a stamp of her small foot.

‘It is not.’ There was real anger in Anna’s voice.

Agnes whisked Maggie away, protesting still, while Kate caught hold of Anna.

‘I hate her, she’s aye taking things, an then she ruins them an . . .’

‘No, you don’t. And I’ll sort it. It’s only a wee bit ribbon.’

Anna dug her face into Kate’s bodice. ‘It’s aye ‘only a wee bit’.’

Kate’s lips twitched, but she kept her tone stern. ‘I’ve said I’ll sort it.’ She put her hand under Anna’s chin and forced her to look up. Her voice softened.
‘It’s a fine supper that’ll be ruined if we don’t get a move on. Run along and find Robbie and your father.’ She headed Anna towards the door, all thought of tackling
Munro for his ill temper forgotten.

And so the following morning, despite the change in the weather that the sky threatened, Agnes took Munro in hand and despatched him with a list of errands that would take him half way around
the county, all of them sufficiently urgent that they couldn’t be left to a better day. ‘Here’s a piece for you,’ she said briskly, ‘but we’ll not expect you the
night for you’ll doubtless bide at Kilmaurs. But mind,’ she wagged her finger at him, ‘Don’t waste over much time in the morning for I can be doing with all the pruch.
And,’ she wagged her finger again, ‘if there’s anything you can’t get, don’t just decide to bring something else. I’d rather do without than have your
choosing.’

Kate lifted her face to his, ‘Ride safely . . . if William is at home take care, however difficult he may prove; you will not aid Archie’s cause by rousing him.’

Maggie, bored with the farewells, was casting stones at the horseshoe hanging by the stable door.

‘I’m away now,’ he called as Robbie burst from the stable, a brush flying after him. He nipped smartly behind Munro.

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘So it was badness that made Anna fling the brush at you?’ Kate was struggling not to laugh.

Robbie squirmed. ‘It’s just like a girl not to see a joke.’

‘And the joke was?’ Munro too was finding it hard to keep his face straight.

‘Only that I’d rather have a boy for a twin.’

‘Did you give her a reason?’

Robbie looked at his feet.

Kate swallowed her smile. ‘You must have said something else.’

‘I’d rather have a boy than a lassie who mooned over Archie as if she was wanting to marry him.’

‘I remember a boy who followed Archie like a shadow.’

‘And wetted his hair and poked his thumbs in his jerkin and strutted . . .’ Anna was marching towards them in such perfect mimicry of her twin that Munro and Kate both laughed
outright. Robbie launched himself at Anna and brought her down, so that they tumbled on the ground, fists flying.

Kate made a grab for Anna with one hand and Robbie with the other. ‘You may knock lumps out of each other if you choose, only this isn’t the best place, for likely your clothes will
take the biggest beating.’

Maggie clip-clopped across the yard and slid to a stop, enclosing both Munro and Kate in her smile.

Munro smiled back, turned to Robbie. ‘You’re the man remember while I’m away.’

Anna wrested free from Kate, fixed Munro with a stare. ‘Do you bide away?’

‘Only a night.’

‘But you said . . .’

Noting the gathering storm in her face he sought to forestall it, ‘There’s aye tomorrow, sweetheart, or the next day.’ As she twisted away from him something tugged at his
memory but failed to surface.

Kate, judging it an appropriate moment, stepped back.

He rode west, enjoying the warmth of the full sun that followed him across the moor. Far ahead, clouds bunched on the horizon. ‘They may not be
dark yet,’ Sweet Briar pricked her ears, ‘but I hope it’s not a wetting we’ll get before we’re done.’ The going was easy, the ground autumn-soft, a welcome
respite between the hard-baked summer soil and the winter frosts to follow. High above his head an escort of swallows: a volley of arrowheads suspended against the sky. He didn’t think
he’d like to be a swallow, aye chasing the sun and not able to settle for more than a season. Below him a tower house nestled in the turn of a river, foursquare and sturdy, much like his own,
a curl of smoke issuing from the chimney. Heading towards it, strung out like beads, a line of black and white cattle, driven by a speck of a boy with a stick nearly as big as himself.
‘That’s more like.’ He patted Sweet Briar. ‘You’d rather winter in your own warm byre with sweet-smelling straw and so would I.’ He thought of the curtains
pulled around their bed, of Kate, flushed and welcoming, the heat of her drawing him, and regretted the distance he had put between them these weeks past. And senseless with it, for they shared the
same concerns, for all their method of dealing with them differed. He had a vision of Kate as she had come on him in the stable, the expression in her eyes mirroring his own. And yet, whatever her
private fears, she did not give others grief in consequence, as he did. A pity to have to spend this night away, however good the cause. Perhaps if he pressed on . . . Sweet Briar moved through a
smooth canter into a gallop and the ground sped away beneath them.