Dragonfly in Amber, Page 83

  I watched with amusement and fascination as they whirled out into the steps of the dance, for Jamie, who had met the Simpsons earlier, had told me that Simpson junior was quite deaf.

  “From all the hammering at the forge, I should think,” he had said, showing me with pride the beautiful sword he had bought from the artisans. “Deaf as a stone; his father does the talkin’, but the young one sees everything.”

  I saw the sharp dark eyes flick rapidly across the floor now, judging to a nicety the distance from one couple to the next. The young swordmaster trod a little heavily, but kept the measure of the dance well enough—at least as well as I did. Closing my eyes, I felt the thrum of the music vibrating through the wooden floor, from the cellos resting on it, and assumed that was what he followed. Then, opening my eyes so as not to crash into anyone, I saw Junior wince at a screeching miscue among the violins. Perhaps he did hear some sounds, then.

  The circling of the dancers brought Kilmarnock and myself close to the place where Charles and Don Francisco stood, warming their coattails before the huge, tile-lined fireplace. To my surprise, Charles scowled at me over Don Francisco’s shoulder, motioning me away with a surreptitious movement of one hand. Seeing it as we turned, Kilmarnock gave a short laugh.

  “So His Highness is afraid to have you introduced to the Spaniard!” he said.

  “Really?” I looked back over my shoulder as we whirled away, but Charles had returned to his conversation, waving his hands with expressive Italian gestures as he talked.

  “I expect so.” Lord Kilmarnock danced skillfully, and I was beginning to relax enough to be able to speak, without worrying incessantly about tripping over my skirts.

  “Did you see that silly broadsheet Balmerino was showing everyone?” he asked, and when I nodded, went on, “I imagine His Highness saw it, too. And the Spanish are sufficiently superstitious to be ridiculously sensitive to idiocies of that sort. No person of sense or breeding could take such a thing seriously,” he assured me, “but no doubt His Highness thinks it best to be safe. Spanish gold is worth a considerable sacrifice, after all,” he added. Apparently including the sacrifice of his own pride; Charles still treated the Scottish earls and the Highland chieftains like beggars at his table, though they had at least been invited to the festivities tonight—no doubt to impress Don Francisco.

  “Have you noticed the pictures?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. There were more than a hundred of them lining the walls of the Great Gallery, all portraits, all of kings and queens. And all with a most striking similarity.

  “Oh, the nose?” he said, an amused smile replacing the grim expression that had taken possession of his face at sight of Charles and the Spaniard. “Yes, of course. Do you know the story behind it?”

  The portraits, it seemed, were all the work of a single painter, one Jacob DeWitt, who had been commissioned by Charles II, upon that worthy’s restoration, to produce portraits of all the King’s ancestors, from the time of Robert the Bruce onward.

  “To assure everyone of the ancientness of his lineage, and the entire appropriateness of his restoration,” Kilmarnock explained, a wry twist to his mouth. “I wonder if King James will undertake a similar project when he regains the throne?”

  In any case, he continued, DeWitt had painted furiously, completing one portrait every two weeks in order to comply with the monarch’s demand. The difficulty, of course, was that DeWitt had no way of knowing what Charles’s ancestors had actually looked like, and had therefore used as sitters anyone he could drag into his studio, merely equipping each portrait with the same prominent nose, by way of ensuring a family resemblance.

  “That’s King Charles himself,” Kilmarnock said, nodding at a full-length portrait, resplendent in red velvet and plumed hat. He cast a critical glance at the younger Charles, whose flushed face gave evidence that he had been hospitably keeping his guest company in his potations.

  “A better nose, anyway,” the Earl murmured, as though to himself. “His mother was Polish.”

  It was growing late, and the candles in the silver candelabra were beginning to gutter and go out before the gentlefolk of Edinburgh had had their fill of wine and dancing. Don Francisco, possibly not as accustomed as Charles to unrestrained drinking, was nodding into his ruff.

  Jamie, having with an obvious expression of relief restored the last Miss Williams to her father for the journey home, came to join me in the corner where I had found a seat that enabled me to slip off my shoes under cover of my spreading skirts. I hoped I wouldn’t have to put them on again in a hurry.

  Jamie sat down on a vacant seat beside me, mopping his glowing face with a large white handkerchief. He reached past me to the small table, where a tray with a few leftover cakes was sitting.

  “I’m fair starved,” he said. “Dancing gives ye a terrible appetite, and the talking’s worse.” He popped a whole cake into his mouth at once, chewed it briefly, and reached for another.

  I saw Prince Charles bend over the slumped form of the guest of honor and shake him by the shoulder, to little effect. The Spanish envoy’s head was fallen back and his mouth was slack beneath the drooping mustache. His Highness stood, rather unsteadily, and glanced about for help, but Sheridan and Tullibardine, both elderly gentlemen, had fallen asleep themselves, leaning companionably together like a couple of old village sots in lace and velvet.

  “Maybe you’d better give His Highness a hand?” I suggested.

  “Mmphm.”

  Resigned, Jamie swallowed the rest of his cake, but before he could rise, I saw the younger Simpson, who had taken quick note of the situation, nudge his father in the ribs.

  Senior advanced and bowed ceremoniously to Prince Charles, then, before the glazed prince could respond, the swordmakers had the Spanish envoy by wrists and ankles. With a heave of forge-toughened muscles, they lifted him from his seat, and bore him away, gently swinging him between them like some specimen of big game. They disappeared through the door at the far end of the hall, followed unsteadily by His Highness.

  This rather unceremonious departure signaled the end of the ball.

  The other guests began to relax and move about, the ladies disappearing into an anteroom to retrieve shawls and cloaks, the gentlemen standing about in small, impatient knots, exchanging complaints about the time the women were taking to make ready.

  As we were housed in Holyrood, we left by the other door, at the north end of the gallery, going through the morning and evening drawing rooms to the main staircase.

  The landing and the soaring stairwell were lined with tapestries, their figures dim and silvery in candlelight. And below them stood the giant form of Angus Mhor, his shadow huge on the wall, wavering like one of the tapestry figures as they shimmered in the draft.

  “My master is dead,” he said.

  * * *

  “His Highness said,” Jamie reported, “that perhaps it was as well.” He spoke with a tone of sarcastic bitterness.

  “Because of Dougal,” he added, seeing my shocked bewilderment at this statement. “Dougal has always been more than willing to join His Highness in the field. Now Colum’s gone, Dougal is chief. And so the MacKenzies of Leoch will march with the Highland army,” he said softly, “to victory—or not.”

  The lines of grief and weariness were cut deep into his face, and he didn’t resist as I moved behind him and laid my hands on the broad swell of his shoulders. He made a small sound of incoherent relief as my fingertips pressed hard into the muscles at the base of his neck, and let his head fall forward, resting on his folded arms. He was seated before the table in our room, and piles of letters and dispatches lay neatly stacked around him. Amid the documents lay a small notebook, rather worn, bound in red morocco leather. Colum’s diary, which Jamie had taken from his uncle’s rooms in hopes that it would contain a recent entry confirming Colum’s decision not to support the Jacobite cause.

  “Not that it would likely sway Dougal,” he had said, grimly thumbing the clos
e-written pages, “but there’s nothing else to try.”

  In the event, though, there had been nothing in Colum’s diary for the last three days, save one brief entry, clearly made upon his return from the churchyard the day before.

  Met with young Jamie and his wife. Have made my peace with Ellen at last. And that was, of course, important—to Colum, to Jamie, and possibly to Ellen—but of little use in swaying the convictions of Dougal MacKenzie.

  Jamie straightened up after a moment and turned to me. His eyes were dark with worry and resignation.

  “What it means is that now we are committed to him, Claire—to Charles, I mean. There’s less choice than there ever was. We must try to assure his victory.”

  My mouth felt dry with too much wine. I licked my lips before answering, to moisten them.

  “I suppose so. Damn! Why couldn’t Colum have waited a little longer? Just ’til the morning, when he could have seen Charles?”

  Jamie smiled lopsidedly.

  “I dinna suppose he had so much to say about it, Sassenach. Few men get to choose the hour of their death.”

  “Colum meant to.” I had been of two minds whether to tell Jamie what had passed between me and Colum at our first meeting in Holyrood, but now there was no point in keeping Colum’s secrets.

  Jamie shook his head in disbelief and sighed, his shoulders slumping under the revelation that Colum had meant to take his own life.

  “I wonder then,” he murmured, half to himself. “Was it a sign, do ye think, Claire?”

  “A sign?”

  “Colum’s death now, before he could do as he meant to and refuse Charles’s plea for help. Is it a sign that Charles is destined to win his fight?”

  I remembered my last sight of Colum. Death had come for him as he sat in bed, a glass of brandy untouched near his hand. He had met it as he wished, then, clearheaded and alert; his head had fallen back, but his eyes were wide open, dulled to the sights he had left behind. His mouth was pressed tight, the habitual lines carved deep from nose to chin. The pain that was his constant companion had accompanied him as far as it could.

  “God knows,” I said at last.

  “Aye?” he said, voice once more muffled in his arms. “Aye, well. I hope somebody does.”

  38

  A BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL

  Catarrh settled on Edinburgh like the cloud of cold rain that masked the Castle from sight on its hill. Water ran day and night in the streets, and if the cobbles were temporarily clean of sewage, the relief from stench was more than made up for by the splatter of expectorations that slimed every close and wynd, and the choking cloud of fireplace smoke that filled every room from waist-height to ceiling.

  Cold and miserable as the weather was outside, I found myself spending a good deal of time walking the grounds of Holyrood and the Canongate. A faceful of rain seemed preferable to lungfuls of woodsmoke and germ-filled air indoors. The sounds of coughing and sneezing rang through the Palace, though the constraint of His Highness’s genteel presence caused most hawking sufferers to spit into filthy handerchiefs or the Delft-lined fireplaces, rather than on the polished Scotch oak floors.

  The light failed early at this time of year, and I turned back, halfway up the High Street, in order to reach Holyrood before dark. I had no fear at all of assault in the darkness; even had I not been known by now to all the Jacobite troops occupying the city, the prevailing horror of fresh air kept everyone indoors.

  Men still well enough to leave their homes on business completed their errands with dispatch before diving thankfully into the smoke-filled sanctuary of Jenny Ha’s tavern, and stayed there, nestled cozily into warm airlessness, where the smell of damp wool, unwashed bodies, whisky, and ale nearly succeeded in overcoming the reek of the stove.

  My only fear was of losing my footing in the dark and breaking an ankle on the slippery cobbles. The city was lit only by the feeble lanterns of the town watchmen, and these had a disconcerting habit of ducking from doorway to doorway, appearing and disappearing like fireflies. And sometimes disappearing altogether for half an hour at a time, as the lantern-bearer darted into The World’s End at the bottom of the Canongate for a life-saving draught of hot ale.

  I eyed the faint glow over the Canongate kirk, estimating how much time remained ’til dark. With luck, I might have time to stop at Mr. Haugh’s apothecary’s shop. While boasting nothing of the variety to be found in Raymond’s Paris emporium, Mr. Haugh did a sound trade in horse chestnuts and slippery-elm bark, and usually was able to provide me with peppermint and barberry, as well. At this time of year, his chief income was derived from the sale of camphor balls, considered a sovereign remedy for colds, catarrh, and consumption. If it was no more effective than modern cold remedies, I reflected, it was no worse, and at least smelled invigoratingly healthy.

  Despite the prevalence of red noses and white faces, parties were held at the palace several nights a week, as the noblesse of Edinburgh welcomed their Prince with enthusiasm. Another two hours, and the lanterns of servants accompanying ball-goers would start to flicker in the High Street.

  I sighed at the thought of another ball, attended by sneezing gallants, paying compliments in phlegm-thickened voices. Perhaps I’d better add some garlic to the list; worn in a silver pomander-locket about the neck, it was supposed to ward off disease. What it actually did do, I supposed, was to keep disease-ridden companions at a safe distance—equally satisfactory, from my point of view.

  The city was occupied by Charles’s troops, and the English, while not besieged, were at least sequestered in the Castle above. Still, news—of dubious veracity—tended to leak in both directions. According to Mr. Haugh, the most recent rumor held that the Duke of Cumberland was gathering troops south of Perth, with the intent of marching north almost immediately. I hadn’t any idea whether this was true; I doubted it, in fact, recalling no mention of Cumberland’s activities much before the spring of 1746, which hadn’t arrived. Still, I could hardly ignore the rumor.

  The sentry at the gate nodded me in, coughing. The sound was taken up by the guards stationed down the hallways and on the landings. Resisting the impulse to wave my basket of garlic at them like a censer as I passed, I made my way upstairs to the afternoon drawing room, where I was admitted without question.

  I found His Highness with Jamie, Aeneas MacDonald, O’Sullivan, His Highness’s secretary, and a saturnine man named Francis Townsend, who was lately much in His Highness’s good graces. Most of them were red-nosed and sneezing, and splattered phlegm smeared the hearth before the gracious mantel. I cast a sharp look at Jamie, who was slumped wearily in his chair, whitefaced and drooping.

  Accustomed to my forays into the city, and eager for any intelligence regarding the English movements, the men heard me out with great attention.

  “We are indebted greatly to you for your news, Mistress Fraser,” said His Highness, with a gracious bow and a smile. “You must tell me if there some way in which I might repay your generous service.”

  “There is,” I said, seizing the opportunity. “I want to take my husband home to bed. Now.”

  The Prince’s eyes bulged slightly, but he recovered himself quickly. Not so restrained, Aeneas MacDonald broke out into a fit of suspiciously strangled coughing. Jamie’s white face blazed suddenly crimson. He sneezed, and buried his countenance in a handkerchief, blue eyes shooting sparks at me over its folds.

  “Ah…your husband,” said Charles, rallying gallantly to the challenge. “Um…” A soft pink blush began to tint his cheeks.

  “He’s ill,” I said, with some asperity. “Surely you can see that? I want him to go to bed and rest.”

  “Oh, rest,” murmured MacDonald, as though to himself.

  I searched for some sufficiently courtly words.

  “I should be sorry to deprive Your Highness temporarily of my husband’s attendance, but if he isn’t allowed to take sufficient rest, he isn’t likely to go on attending you much longer.”

 
Charles, recovered from his momentary discomposure, seemed now to be finding Jamie’s patent discomfiture entertaining.

  “To be sure,” he said, eyeing Jamie, whose complexion had faded now into a sort of mottled pallor. “We should dislike exceedingly the contemplation of such a prospect as you wish, Madam.” He inclined his head in my direction. “It shall be as you wish, Madam. Cher James is excused from attendance upon our person until he shall be recovering. By all means, take your husband to your rooms at once, and, er…undertake what cure seems…ah…fitting.” The corner of the Prince’s mouth twitched suddenly, and pulling a large handkerchief from his pocket, he followed Jamie’s example and buried the lower half of his face, coughing delicately.

  “Best take care, Highness,” MacDonald advised somewhat caustically. “You may catch Mr. Fraser’s ailment.”

  “One could wish to have half Mr. Fraser’s complaint,” murmured Francis Townsend, with no attempt at concealing the sardonic smile that made him look like a fox in a hen coop.

  Jamie, now bearing a strong resemblance to a frostbitten tomato, rose abruptly, bowed to the Prince with a brief “I thank ye, Highness,” and headed for the door, clutching me by the arm.