Turn of the Tide (5 page)

Glencairn nodded. ‘Can’t say I’m sorry. A respite from James will be welcome. You talked of your brother. Send him to Kilmaurs: we will make a position for him
there.’

It was at once a recognition of obligation and a dismissal. In the narrow wynd that dropped towards the lower town, Munro stumbled over a pile of rubbish lying in the drain, scattering chicken
bones across the cobbles. Half-decomposed cabbage leaves and assorted peelings stuck to his boot and he carried the sour whiff to his lodging, like a guilt impossible to quell.

He returned home, wearied and with a conscience and stomach alike uneasy; even the sight of the sheep pens prepared for lambing and the fresh thatch on the stable roof failing
to raise his spirits. To be met with stony silence and a chill in the atmosphere, indicating that a whisper of some sort had beaten him. The presence of the twins clamouring for attention protected
him from immediate censure, but alone in their chamber Kate rounded on him.

‘A day or two only? It may not signify?’

He reached out, but she twisted away as if his touch would soil her.

‘The Cunninghames have lost much.’ It was an unconscious echo of William.

‘The half of Ayrshire has lost much, and over many years.’ She sucked in air, as if to fan a flame. ‘Indeed all of Scotland is salted with old rivalries that erupt, in season
and out of it, like boils, which, doctored or not, leave scars aplenty to mar our lives. Must we have part in it?’ She took a handful of twigs from the basket by the hearth, snapped them into
kindling. ‘It is a dirty business, and no-one the winner, save perhaps the coffin-makers and clothiers who aye make good money of men’s folly. Cunninghame or Montgomerie, it makes no
odds. . . . Dear God to think more of obligation than our children.’

He wanted to protest that it had been their children he thought of, and her . . . and her . . . for to refuse Glencairn . . . but risked only, ‘I did but as I was bid; as I was bound to
do.’

‘No-one is bound – save by the laws of God.’ Turning her back, she unpinned her hair, snuffed the candle, spoke into the darkness. ‘There is always a choice. If this is
yours, do not look to me to share it.’

He lay, the centre of the bed a chasm beyond which Kate stretched, rigid, unwelcoming – small consolation that women did not fully understand such matters; that it was not so easy to
slough off inherited ties; that there were unpalatable duties in this life. And, sleep eluding him, he found it impossible to banish entirely the sight of the bodies at the ford. Clearest in his
mind the mutilated youth close to the laird of Braidstane. Though likely younger than his own brother, Archie, the build and colouring was sufficiently similar to provide a constant reminder of
what had been done in the name of loyalty. He thought on Glencairn’s pledge; decided to let Archie go. For didn’t the lad itch to get to court and had plagued long since for permission
to take himself to Kilmaurs?

Perhaps Braidstane had been equally pressed.

He rode to town to call on his mother, leaving his horse in the care of an ostler and picking his way through the clutter of buildings that jostled the Mercat Cross. He had
never understood her need, following the death of his father, to replace the fresher air and relative quiet of Broomelaw with the bustle of a townhouse, but so she had chosen, and there she had
stayed. He presented her with a piece of Flemish lace. ‘It is quite the fashion and I thought to bring a little of court home to you.’

Mary fingered the lace.

He noted her stillness – she also has heard something. I might have saved the effort, and my silver.

After a moment, she looked up. ‘There is something I thought to say to you.’

A knot tightened in the pit of his stomach – what was done was done and it did no good whatever to waste time in regrets.

‘Glencairn’s retinue is growing?’

He was unsure of where she was headed. ‘There are always those who seek to rise.’

She held his gaze, her pupils dark and distended, the irises reduced to a blue smudge around the edge. ‘There is talk . . . though I haven’t heard it direct . . .’

Waiting, Munro thought – she plays me like a fisherman, letting out and reeling in, reducing my resistance little by little, before she comes to the landing.

‘A rumour only . . .’ she continued, ‘. . . but likely enough; of Archie, and a girl, and perhaps a wedding. I had thought you wouldn’t welcome the drain on your
purse.’ She bit her lip, as if she spoke reluctantly and he was filled with a grudging admiration. ‘If Glencairn seeks other followers . . . you might look to your brother, else he will
be always hanging on your cloak-tail.’

Relieved that her thoughts had not been running on his own activities and glad that he could claim prior thought on the matter he said, ‘Already done. Glencairn has promised him a place.
Indeed, Archie agitates to go and I would have sent him already, were it not for the lambing.’

‘You’ve managed without him before and can again.’ She smiled and touched the lace on her lap. ‘This is a fine piece, and well made, I am grateful for it.’

Understanding that her gratitude extended beyond the lace he escaped before she could question him further.

With a welcome spell of fine weather carpeting the woods in aconites: a splash of yellow that should have cheered anyone, Munro sought to smother the memory of the massacre. And
without his brother’s face constantly before him might have succeeded, but for Kate. He caught the shadow of it in her eyes each time she looked at him, her instinctive recoil from even
accidental touch stretching the distance between them. What speech was neccessary: for the running of the household, the sake of the children, was edged with ice. The easy camaraderie that had been
the touchstone of their marriage and that he had not thought to truly value until it seemed lost became a silence beyond bearing. And the likelihood that it wouldn’t be the end of the matter,
at home or abroad, lay in the back of his mind, like an awkwardly placed slub in the weave of a bedsheet: impossible to ignore however you turned.

May came in soft and mild. And to Braidstane, all four brothers come together. Meeting at the entrance of the hall, Grizel flung herself at Hugh and he crushed her against him.
She searched his face. Anger she saw, and a weariness that was little to do with his journey from Holland. She could see he felt this death more keenly than their mother’s. And not without
cause. For his last parting from father was not well done. Dear God, she thought, meaning it as a prayer, let him bide awhile and find some other focus. Her voice was muffled, ‘I am sore in
need of you all.’ She hadn’t meant to cry, but the pressure of Hugh’s arms enfolding her, the imprint of his jerkin buttons stamped across her breast, the sharp stab of his nails
biting into her arms, all combined to force her pain, dammed these weeks past, to well up, threatening to engulf her.

He held her and rocked her and eventually, when the flow subsided, spoke over the top of her head, as if a prepared speech, learnt by rote. ‘I am come home,’ he said, ‘and when
the estate is sorted, I will have to look to other pusuits, for my commission is sold.’

‘There are debts . . .’ she began doubtfully, ‘. . . and not a few calls on us that weren’t looked for.’

He waved her words away. ‘Tomorrow is soon enough for that, the now . . .’

She felt his deliberate lightening.

‘Know you your duty, sister? We are fair starved and like to ransack the kitchens.’

Watching as they attacked the capons and the fruit pies and the ale brought from the stillroom, she thought with a spark of envy how men could aye be distracted by their belly. Though, given the
formalities that must be faced, she doubted that the mood would last long.

She had misjudged Hugh. He pored over the estate finances, questioning her closely for the explanatory details that gave life to the bald figures, seeming to find a satisfaction in seeing the
books in order and in discussing which accounts were immediate and which could wait the transference of other funds. It was an unlikely answer to her prayer, but an answer none the less.

Whether, or for how long it would have lasted, they were not to know, for fast on her brothers’ heels came a new summons from court. It little pleased the King to have his nobles fighting
like stags at the rut, and he commanded Hugh, as the new laird of Braidstane, along with Robert Montgomerie, Eglintoun’s heir, to meet with Glencairn to swear that all enmity between them was
at an end.

Grizel, as soon as she saw the messenger and understood from whence he came, feared for Hugh. Her fear well founded. He raged: against the King, against Glencairn, against the whole Cunninghame
connection.

‘Friendship. Hah! Whatever others feel, I’m not for dancing to James’ pleasure in this. Not even . . .’ as she turned to him, her face taut, ‘. . . for your
comfort. It is too much to ask. Do you wish that I swear and smile and be a laughing stock of all?’

Though she spoke quietly, there was steel in her voice. ‘We have lost our father, is that not enough? And had you been here, I would no doubt have lost you too. If this is truly a chance
to halt the killing I would wish for that.’

A letter had come from John Shaw, Hugh’s close friend, counselling caution, but despite Grizel’s hopes it seemed but fuel to the fire. ‘Blood will out,’ Hugh said.
‘The Cunninghame taint aye stretches far.’

Knowing the injustice of the remark and suspecting also that it bore the stamp of a private pain, she left him to his rant, warning the others, ‘Leave be for now; sense will prevail, if
left to stew a little.’

That her sentiment owed less to past experience and more to a dogged hope she would not have cared to admit. Yet so, to her great relief, it proved. Two days later as John left to return to his
studies at Padua and George to his duties in London, Hugh and Patrick, with a small following, set out to travel in their father’s footsteps to court, and to the meeting with Glencairn.

At the last, knowing that it made him sick to think of it, she grasped his bridle. ‘Compliance with James’ command is as necessary to our well-being as breathing, you know that.
Promise me, whatever the provocation, you won’t rise.’

He covered her hand with his and repeated, ‘I won’t rise.’ Then, as if he feared to promise too much, ‘But will make enough of a play of it to pass.’

And with that she had to be content.

Munro was in the lambing field, halfway through the skinning of a dead lamb when the messenger arrived from Kilmaurs, sweated and muddied from the ride. A ewe butted against
the makeshift gate of the sheepfold, bleating. Munro raised his head at the rider’s approach, but continued with his task. The setting on of an orphan lamb was a delicate job at the best of
times and one that must needs be done quickly, else the loss was double. He finished the skinning, then tied the lambskin, still warm, over the back of another, smaller lamb, who wobbled under the
extra weight. She made a few experimental wiggles of her rump in an attempt to cast the unfamiliar burden, then stood quivering, head down. He picked her up and placed her in the fold, allowing the
ewe to nuzzle at the skin he had applied, guiding the lamb to the teats that hung, pendulous and oozing. He held the lamb against the ewe, and worked the teat, squirting milk into the lamb’s
mouth until it latched on and sucked greedily, tail flicking. Satisfied, he wiped his hands on a rag and turned to the man who waited by his horse. ‘Well?’