Legacy (25 page)

He left her at the gates of Traquair. The journey home took longer than usual because they stopped several times to eat. George remembered her condition and watched carefully for her skin to pale and the blue color to appear around her lips. The first time it happened, only minutes after they’d found her mare, he’d given her food from his pack. After that, whenever a croft or farm loomed in the distance, he insisted they refurbish their supplies.

Jeanne was grateful for his solicitude. The weight of the child and the effort of keeping her emotions under control had taken their toll. She was exhausted. Without George, she would never have managed the journey.

***

For days after her return, Jeanne searched once again for the stone. She found nothing. Each time, she’d ventured further into the darkness of the same tunnel, only to be disappointed again and again. She was sure she remembered the way. The passage was the same, as was the staircase with its irregular stone steps, but the light was gone and the room with it. It was as if it had never existed outside of her own mind. Finally she gave up, and with her decision, all emotion seemed to leave her. She walked and talked and slept and ate with a curious detachment that terrified everyone around her.

A fortnight later they came for her, a company of men mounted on horses and dressed in full mail. Bonnets hid their faces, and she didn’t recognize their voices. With trembling lips, Flora announced their arrival, and Jeanne went out to meet them.

“Lady Jeanne Maxwell.” A man in gray armor seated on a dancing brown stallion spoke. “You are under arrest.”

“On what charge?”

“Witchcraft.”

The word hung, suspended on the air between them.

“I am no witch,” Jeanne said at last.

“Do you deny that Grania Douglas was your teacher?”

Jeanne lifted her chin. “Grania was my friend. She was no witch.”

“Do you deny that she claimed to have
the sight?
”

“Every woman in the Highlands claims it,” said Jeanne contemptuously.

“Do you have it, Lady Maxwell?”

Instant denial sprang to her lips, but the words were never spoken. Images of Flodden Moor filled her mind. Her hesitation sealed her fate.

“Seize her,” the man ordered.

Two men dismounted and held her arms. Jeanne did not struggle. “Where will I be tried?” she asked their leader.

The man looked at her for a long time. The hard-bitten brown of his eyes glittered through the slit in his bonnet. The stallion fidgeted and pawed at the ground. With a harsh command and a swift jerk of the reins, the man brought him under control.

“You’ve already been tried,” he said shortly.

“By what law?”

“Mine.”

“Why do you do this?” she whispered.

He didn’t answer. She saw his eyes move over the walls and gables of Traquair House. “Prepare the scaffold,” he ordered.

Within moments a rope was twisted and thrown over the oak tree she and John had climbed as children. There was no platform, no keening of the pipes, no jeering crowds. The face of her accuser was unknown. Jeanne looked upon the proceedings as a curious observer with the same cloudy detachment that had governed her actions for the last several weeks. Even when she was lifted to the saddle of the brown stallion and the rope was placed around her neck and tightened, she did not protest.

The brown-eyed man shouted the command and flung her from his saddle. The rope was pulled taut. Searing pain closed around her throat, her neck snapped, and there was no more pain, only darkness. Jeanne Maxwell was dead.

Traquair House

1993

I walked Ian to his car, conscious of the possessive curve of his hand under my elbow.

“Are you going to tell me what happened in there?” he asked.

“Maybe you’d better tell me,” I said, looking at my watch. An hour and a half had passed while I had watched Scotland fall to her knees.

He frowned and leaned against the car. “You were unusually quiet when your parents first came down,” he told me. “Do you remember that?”

I shook my head. “The last thing I remember is your face after you finished stoking the fire. You looked as if you were in shock.”

The look on his face told me he knew much more than he was saying. “You’re tired,” he said, kissing me on the forehead. “This business about your mother must have affected you more than you realize. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His back was toward me as he opened the door of his car.

“Jeanne Maxwell is dead, Ian.” My words stopped him cold. There was no need for further explanation.

The silence stretched out between us. “I know,” he said at last, his voice low.

“What are we going to do?”

He must have sensed my desperation because he turned back to me and took me in his arms. “We’ll work it out, Christina,” he said. “Somehow we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Jeanne found the stone,” I whispered into his shirt. “But it wasn’t there when she looked for it again. Why wasn’t it there?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Maybe the timing was wrong for her. Maybe it was already too late.”

“How will we know when it’s too late for us?”

“It won’t be,” he said fiercely. “Trust me. It won’t be. I’ll come back tomorrow, and we’ll look together. Do you remember enough to recognize familiar landmarks?”

“I think so.”

“Good.” He squeezed my hand and released me. “Get some rest. I’ll be here early. Ask Kate to fix her famous scones but tell her—”

“What?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. I’ll tell her myself.”

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to tell Kate anything, but since I really had nothing but intuition on which to base my suspicions, I kept silent. When Ian’s car disappeared through the gates, I walked back into the house.

“He’s certainly a personable young man,” my father said, “but marriage? Are you sure, Christina?”

“Why do you ask?”

He frowned. “You didn’t say a word the entire time he was here.”

“I’m perfectly sure. We have a lot in common,” I assured him.

“Such as?” My mother smiled expectantly.

“An interest in history, our ancestry, the fact that our families have been neighbors for centuries”—I ticked each attribute off on my fingers—“books, food, music, education. Just about everything.”

She sighed. “Your living in Scotland will be hard on us. Boston was far enough, but Scotland.” She looked at me and smiled tremulously. “I’m very happy for you, Chris. Now, before I get emotional, I’d like to look around the house.”

I left my mother to her wandering, said good night to my father, and started up the stairs to my room. The day had been too long already. At the landing, I turned and nearly bumped into Kate. The moment stretched out, and neither of us spoke. Finally, it was too late to pretend politeness. Without a word, I moved around her and continued down the hall toward my room.

“May I offer my congratulations, Miss Murray,” she called after me. “Your mother told me the news.”

There was no reason to keep silent. After all, neither Mother nor I had done anything to be ashamed of. I turned around. “Do you know who my grandmother was, Kate?”

Something flickered in her eyes and then disappeared. “Why would I know anything of the sort?”

“We both know Lord Maxwell was my grandfather. You must have known it from the beginning. I want to know who my grandmother was.”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Don’t you know, or are you honoring a confidence?”

“My loyalties are to the people of Traquair.”

She had cleverly twisted her answer, but I was too tired to pursue the issue. I rubbed my aching temples. “Ian will be here early tomorrow,” I said. “I know you’ll be busy fixing breakfast for everyone else, but he’d like a batch of your scones if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Ian Douglas has never caused me trouble, Miss Murray.”

Obviously my engagement had her approval. “Oh, by the way.” I’d almost forgotten. “Tomorrow the house will be closed to tourists. Ian and I will be working upstairs.”

“You’re looking pale, Miss Murray. Is there anything I can get you?”

Was it my imagination, or had she deliberately ignored my comment? She didn’t seem at all curious to know the reason Traquair would be closed or what Ian and I would be working on. It was very unlike her.

I looked at her closely, hoping the implacable calm of her face would crack and reveal something of her thoughts. She stared back without blinking. Her eyes glittered. Kate Ferguson reminded me of a witch in a fairy tale. Suddenly, I was afraid. I turned away. “No, thank you,” I murmured. “All I need is sleep.”

“Good night, Miss Murray.”

I closed the door and, for the second time since I’d arrived at Traquair House, slid the lock into place. The woman was evil. I could sense it. The pieces were coming together. I knew there wasn’t much time left. I sensed that Kate knew it too.

The headache came just as I was drifting off to sleep. This time I was ready for what came with it.

Shiels Castle, Scotland

1278

“Ring around the rosies,

Pockets full o’ posies,

Ashes, ashes,

All fall dead.”

The circle of children dropped their hands and fell to the ground, shrieking with laughter. The air smelled of smoke and charred flesh. White flakes, soft and warmer than snow, drifted down, settling on their heads, their clothes, the grass where they played. Clouds of ashes rose where they fell, burning their lungs, rendering them invisible from ten feet away.

At first, caught up in their private world of illicit glee, no one noticed the small boy standing by himself, his brow furrowed, his bottom lip thrust out in a scowl. Finally, a girl smaller than the others turned around and saw him.

“There you are, David,” she called to him. “Come and play.”

Mutinously, he shook his head.

“Come,” she begged. “We are uneven without you.”

“I don’t want to,” he mumbled.

Another boy with thick legs and matted hair rose to his feet. He swaggered toward David Murray until he stood within an inch of the smaller boy’s chest. Thrusting out an accusing finger, he poked him roughly. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “Annie wants you to play.”

David’s stomach clenched. He was only twelve, no match for the burly fourteen-year-old Donal MacPhee. The bully outweighed him by more than a stone, but today it didn’t matter. Today, David wanted to use his fists, to feel bones snap and skin give way. Today, he wanted to assuage the ache in his heart with physical pain.

He took the first hit directly in the face, and his nose broke. There was no pain. Anger gave him courage. Clenching his fists, he charged the bigger boy and knocked him to the ground. Instantly, the children rallied around, urging them on, the blood lust strong in their hearts and voices.

Out of nowhere, into the concealing circle of ash and smoke, ran a child, a girl of no more than eight years. Her eyes blazed with fury. Fearlessly, she threw herself into the midst of the writhing bodies. “Stop,” she shouted. “Leave him be. Leave him be, at once.”

Instantly, the circle of children backed away, their eyes lowered. Donal MacPhee, his hand raised in a punishing fist, looked up through a swollen eye and grimaced. Slowly, he lowered his arm, pulled away, and stood up. David lay on the ground, his face a smear of blood.

Trembling with anger, the girl turned on the children. “Go away,” she said through clenched teeth. “All of you. Go away.”

Without question, they obeyed. All except David. She was Mairi of Shiels, daughter to the laird. It was unwise to cross a Maxwell of the borders. It was the height of stupidity to cross Mairi. She had a dreadful temper and a powerful father. There were those who swore she was possessed, not in the presence of the laird, of course, but in the whispered darkness and flickering fires of small crofts that dotted the countryside. Already, Mairi had enemies. There were only a few who called her friend and no one more than the boy with the bloodied face who lay at her feet.

From that first day at Shiels when David had found her in the woods, sobbing wildly as she attempted to free the mangled carcass of a rabbit from a poacher’s trap, she had claimed his loyalty and his love. That was two years ago, when he’d come to the borders to be fostered to the laird.

For David Murray, the only child of a kindly, but distant father and a self-serving mother, Mairi’s penchant for championing the abused and the lonely was a balm to his bruised spirit. The children were never far apart. When Mairi’s mother died, only David could comfort her. When David’s puppy was found in the woods, its small body dismembered by wolves, only Mairi had the nerve to brave the boy’s white-faced stillness and offer him another hound. When Mairi learned to ride her pony, it was David who boosted her to the saddle. When David learned his letters, Mairi sat at his feet. When he practiced his swordplay, she watched from her perch on the wall. When the fledglings she saved from the cat died in her hands, it was David’s arms that soothed her. Neither child minded not having anyone but each other. Together, they were enough. Until yesterday.

Yesterday, David’s father rode across the drawbridge into the courtyard of Shiels. One look at his face had sent the servants scurrying to heat water for poultices. Their efforts were wasted. He lasted less than ten hours, and because of the nature of his illness, his remains were burned immediately. Nothing Mairi could do or say made a difference to David. He was an orphan, a child. Without a father, he was nameless and alone. What would become of him without his father? His mother would remarry. There would be other children. Her allegiance would be to them and to her new husband. He didn’t blame her. What else was there for a woman? But how could he bear to leave Shiels? How could he bear to leave Mairi? He could smell the fragrance of her hair as she bent over him.

“David,” she murmured, touching his swollen face with cool hands, “are you hurt?”

He turned his head to the side, avoiding her eyes, and kept silent.

“How dare they do this? Those, those—” she fumed, searching her eight-year-old vocabulary for language strong enough to suit the occasion. “Vermin.” She spat out the word. “I shall ask my father to kill them.”

Against his will, David started to smile, then grimaced. The side of his cheek throbbed unbearably. Mairi’s passions frequently took a violent turn.

“Are you too hurt to walk?” she asked anxiously.

He shook his head and sat up. “What are you doing here, Mairi? Your father will skin you alive if he finds you outside the gates.”

“I was worried about you,” she replied.

“You needn’t be.” He tested his cheek and the skin around his eye gingerly. “I can take care of myself.”

“I can see that,” Mairi retorted. “Where would you be if I hadn’t come?”

“I didn’t ask you to follow me,” he lashed out.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

Remorse flooded through him. “Don’t cry,” he said hoarsely. “I am not myself today.” He stood and held out his hand. “Come. I’ll take you back to Shiels.”

She took his hand. They walked in silence through the powdery grayness. “Are you dreadfully sad?” she asked at last.

David shook his head. “I hardly knew him.”

Mairi frowned. “Then why did you run away?”

He sighed. His nose throbbed, and he felt as if he’d aged a lifetime in the last day and in doing so left her far behind. “I didn’t run away.”

“What is the matter, David?”

Mairi knew nothing of subterfuge. She always came directly to the point and expected others to do the same. She would know if he lied.

Haltingly, he spoke. “Now that my father is dead, I am heir to Bothwell.”

She did not understand. “That is good. As the earl, you can do as you please.”

Gently, he tried to explain. “My mother will send for me, Mairi. I must leave Shiels at her command.”

Mairi’s face paled. Her fingers tightened over his palm. Words were beyond her. Only death would be worse than losing David.

One look at the despair in Mairi’s eyes chastened him. He uttered a curse he’d overheard from the groom. Whatever turn his future took, he had no right to wound Mairi. Clumsily, he attempted to reverse his mistake. “Pay me no mind, lass. I know nothing of what my mother intends. Worrying will do only harm.”

Her smile was a wonderful thing to behold. David, on the verge of burgeoning manhood, caught his breath. Mairi was still a child, but someday soon she would be beautiful. The promise was already there in the thin bones of her face, in the elegant sweep of her brows, in the perfectly formed lips and wide, clear eyes. He swallowed and looked away. There, on the ash-covered pony path leading to the castle, with the odor of smoke and death filling his nostrils, David Murray made a promise to himself. He vowed to return to Shiels when Mairi was a woman.

Traquair House

1993

For the first time since I was a little girl, I longed for the comfort of my parents’ king-sized bed. Snuggled between their bodies, wrapped in the warmth of unconditional love and a down-filled comforter, I knew that nothing would harm me. Now I had no such assurances. Mairi would find me no matter where I was. Her life would unravel before me in living color like a videotape whether I liked it or not. And with every heightened, larger-than-life experience, my time dwindled. What if I failed?

Cold sweat gathered in the hollow between my breasts. My heart pounded. I was afraid with a gut-wrenching, despairing kind of paranoia I’d never experienced before. I was afraid to sleep, afraid to confide in anyone, afraid to be alone. Good Lord! What was happening to me?

I looked at the clock. It was after eleven, and I couldn’t sleep. Hot tea and the warmth of the kitchen hearth appealed to me. The hall was dark as I closed the bedroom door and felt my way along the wall, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. The glow of the banked fire cheered me. I filled the teakettle with water, turned on the burner, and pulled the rocker close to the hearth. It was easy to think here in the cozy darkness with the fire throwing an arc of light across the ceiling, leaving me and the rest of the room in shadow. Tomorrow Ian and I would begin our search. I shivered in anticipation. Somewhere inside these walls lay the secrets of my ancestors. With luck and perseverance, those secrets would be revealed for the first time in seven hundred years.