Like Chaff in the Wind (33 page)

“War?” Alex squeaked. “Here?”

Sandy sighed. “No, Alexandra, I think not; there are no lords and earls hastening to the cause, not this time, and so…” He spread his hands in a defeated gesture.

Well, thank heavens for that. Alex snuck a look at her husband, sitting like a pillar of salt in his chair.

“And what will you do?” she asked Sandy.

“Me?” The minister stood up, brushing at the dark cloth of his overlong coat. “Why, I will fight it of course. As long as there’s breath in my body, I will raise my voice in defence of my Kirk, and if I must, then I’ll die for it as well.”

“Oh.” Alex swallowed.

“I’ll stand by you,” Matthew clasped Sandy’s hand in his. Alex stood and left the room.

Her cloak, her new boots and she was out of the house, making for the moor. Her belly protested, a sharp pain digging into the small of her back as she puffed her way up the slope. For some minutes she stood leaning against the stem of an elm, willing the pain to recede. No great matter; it happened all the time that women had early contractions, and this one had been very short, however painful. A couple of deep breaths and she pressed on, but now at a slower pace. From below came the sound of her name, loud and clear Matthew’s voice carried through the crisp October air. He caught up with her just at the edge of the moors, face red with exertion.

“What?” he panted. “Why did you just walk out like that?”

“I’m not too fond of fanatics.”

“Fanatics? Who? Sandy? Me?”

“To hear it yes; all that crap about dying in defence of his faith.” She made a face. “Let’s just say I don’t much fancy being the widow of a bloody martyr, okay?”

“A widow?” He laughed and took her hand. “Nay, lass, you’re being fanciful. It will not come to that, and I’ll not do anything daft, but I will help as I can, aye? And as yet we don’t know how things will develop, do we? The king – or rather his accursed Anglican counsellors – may back down.”

“You think?” Alex shook her head.

“What…” He hesitated. “…well, do you know what will happen?”

“I have no idea, okay? All I remember is that Scotland had it pretty rough under the last of the Stuarts.”

“The last?” Matthew echoed.

“Not this one,” Alex said, giving him an irritated look. “This one will be followed by his brother, and then…” She wrinkled her brow. “…his nieces.” She hitched her shoulders; she didn’t give a rat’s arse as to the fate of the Stuarts, but all this religious stuff, it scared the daylights out of her. Matthew would never compromise on his faith, he’d lost too many years of his life to win the right to proclaim his beliefs.

She had to stop several times on the way down, waving away his concerned suggestion that he carry her.

“It’s nothing,” she said, giving him a faint smile. Too soon; they were only in early October, and the baby wasn’t due in six weeks or so. Once inside, she was ordered to bed, and she gladly complied, lying curled on her side while she willed the contractions to stop. Sandy popped his head in somewhere mid-afternoon to bid her farewell, urging her to pray for herself and the bairn. If she’d had the energy, she’d have thrown something at him, as it was she yawned. A few hours later Matthew came up with a tray.

“Are you still hurting?” Matthew sat behind her, massaging her tense shoulders.

“Not as much. I guess it’s just been a bit too much lately.”

“You should have said. You’ve been working far too hard for a nursing mother with a new babe in the coming.”

“It’s all mostly done now,” Alex yawned, “so I’ll just rest up for a couple of days.” She leaned back against his hands. “A bath,” she said dreamily. “A long, hot bath…”

*

By the time Matthew came back after arranging for the hip bath to be brought into the kitchen, she was fast asleep, his pillow crushed to her chest. He stood for a long time looking down at her and stooped to rest his cheek against hers. A hand drifted up to caress his head.

“I love you,” Alex whispered. “So very, very, much.”

And I you, he thought, straightening up, God’s gift to me, that’s what you are, Alexandra Ruth.

Chapter 44

2007

“Are you sure?” Magnus looked back down the road that led to Cumnock.

“Yes,” Isaac nodded, hunching deeper into his thick down jacket. This excursion was a little secret between him and Magnus, an innocent Friday outing that would end with a meal back in Edinburgh. “I’m not,” he added a bit later, squinting at the landscape around him. “I don’t see any trees.”

“Probably all cut down ages ago,” Magnus muttered. They crossed the Lugar Waters and Isaac brightened.

“Yes, down there, look, just follow that road.”

“Road?” Magnus looked at the dirt track.

“Well it’s a road if you’re on a horse,” Isaac said defensively.

Magnus parked and got out, shivering in the gusts of ice-cold air. November, and after a couple of minutes he could feel his nose begin to run with the cold.

“Come on then,” he said to Isaac, now hanging back against the car. “I’m freezing my balls off.”

Isaac giggled. “Me too.” He skipped over to take Magnus’ hand. They walked in silence up the long inclination, hand in hand.

“Why don’t they want me to talk about it?” Isaac asked.

Magnus scratched at his nose with his free hand and hitched his shoulders.

“It scares them. And I suppose they’re worried that if you talk about it, you’ll remember it, and they would prefer you to forget.”

“I don’t want to forget, and even if I don’t talk about it, I still think about it. You know, Mama and Matthew and Mark…” He half sobbed. “Even Rachel. Even if she was only a baby.”

Magnus drew them to a stop. “Of course you do. And now it all seems like a magical adventure, doesn’t it?”

Isaac nodded. “Why…” he began, but fell silent.

“Why what?”

“Why mustn’t I tell the police?”

Magnus sighed; the police had been a pain in the nether parts, convinced that Isaac had been abducted by his mother – after all, they still had open files on Alexandra Lind.

“Would they believe you, do you think?”

Isaac thought about that for some time. “No.”

They crested the hill, and when Isaac saw the house, he began to run, his bright red woollen scarf streaming behind him.

“Mama! Matthew! I’m back, it’s me, I’m back!” He slowed as he got closer. The windows were dark and uninviting, and the whole place looked deserted, halfway to becoming a ruin.

“They’re not here,” Isaac wheeled towards Magnus. “It’s here, but they’re gone!”

“Oh, Jesus…you already knew that. I’ve tried to explain it to you.”

“But they can’t be dead!” Isaac kicked at him. “They can’t be! I saw them last summer and they were alive, you hear? My Mama and Matthew, they were here, and they’re not dead!”

Magnus regretted having ever agreed to come here. Isaac had wheedled and nagged for weeks, and Magnus had finally caved in, assuming the boy just needed to see that the place he’d experienced existed. Too late, Magnus realised that Isaac had been hoping to find it all intact, a small soap bubble of suspended time.

“I thought you’d understood,” Magnus said, sitting down on a collapsed stone wall to pull Isaac onto his lap. “I tried to explain that when you were here, it was very long ago.” Isaac snivelled and rubbed at his bloated face.

“I do understand,” he said in a small voice. “Here,” he added indicating his head. “But not here.” He put a hand on his heart.

Magnus rested his cold cheek against Isaac’s head. “No, the heart just won’t let go, will it?”

They both stood up, and Magnus took Isaac’s hand.

“Be my guide, describe to me how this looked.” So Isaac did, and they walked for hours around the empty house and the few remaining outbuildings.

“That’s the graveyard,” Isaac said, pointing in the direction of a rowan tree. “The tree is to protect the souls.”

Magnus followed Isaac up to the small space, now sadly overgrown. Tall, yellowing grasses covered the headstones, many of which had crumbled or fallen flat, quite a few leaning crazily against each other. A rosebush, impossibly ancient, hung over a small stone that still, surprisingly, stood, and there was one, no, two, more that looked relatively whole and undamaged – but old, very old.

Magnus wanted to leave, the hairs on his body sprouting like antennae with disquiet. He wasn’t going to look; not try and decipher these old battered stones, and see if perhaps his daughter lay beneath one of them. Isaac had let go of his hand and was hunched down beside the rowan, his fingers extended to trace the words on a small, weathered stone.

“Look,” he said, turning to Magnus. “Look Offa, it’s for me!” The inscription was barely legible, eroded by wind and water, but still possible to make out. “
Never forgotten, always present
,” Isaac said out loud and hugged his Offa hard. “That’s the way it is, isn’t it?”

Magnus nodded. “Yes, I carry her with me always.”

*

They were silent all the way back to Edinburgh, and once they were inside, Isaac shrugged off his jacket and rushed up the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to, I have to paint it as it was. Now, before I forget.”

Magnus heard the door to the studio slam shut and sank down to sit on the stairs. Not once since he’d come back to them, had Isaac painted, refusing to enter the room where he’d found Mercedes’ magic picture. He supposed it was a step in the right direction that the boy now wanted to paint, but just in case he climbed the stairs and opened the door.

“We’ll keep the door open, okay?” he said.

Chapter 45

Alex had her arms sunk to the elbows in a dough when she heard the horses. A quick glance out of the kitchen window and she cursed, wiping hands clean of the sticky dark rye. He had quite the nerve, did Luke Graham, to come riding down their front lane, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Bastard!

She placed a hand on her stomach and gulped down long breaths of air. This child was a miracle; Rachel was a miracle, because if Luke Graham had had his wishes come true, their father would have been dead. Breathe in, breathe out. It hadn’t happened. Her Matthew was alive and safe, and they had years and years before them – time aplenty to make up for the year and more Luke had stolen from them. God! She wanted to… To her surprise, Alex found herself gripping the musket. How had that happened? She had no memory of retrieving it from Matthew’s study. Carefully
, she set it down and stepped outside to face this most unwelcome visitor.

He hadn’t come alone. Maybe he hadn’t dared to, or maybe Luke Graham no longer could do without servants. She stood on the stoop, one hand on her belly, the other on Mark who was hanging on like a leech to her skirts, and watched Luke ride the last few yards down the lane. Weak sun glimmered on his silver nose, and to her huge irritation Alex’s just couldn’t keep her eyes off it. Vaguely she wondered how it was fixed into place, but the resulting images were a bit too disturbing.

Luke had dressed up, velvet breeches in a mossy green, a short coat of the same colour piped in palest yellow, a froth of lace at cuffs and neck and a most impressive hat, adorned with ostrich feathers. Silk stockings, a heavy cloak and shoes with silver buckles – very dashing, the effect further enhanced by the sword at his side and the pale yellow gloves.

He dismounted and bowed. She stood stiff and silent. Luke did a slow turn, for all the world as if he was coming home – well, okay, to some extent he was – and said something to one of his men before returning his attention to her. Mark shuffled, Luke glanced his way and froze. It almost made her laugh, the way his mouth fell open at the sight of her son. She ruffled Mark’s hair, so like Ian’s, and finally met his eyes. Green and bright, they locked into hers.

“Sister,” Luke said, nodding again in her direction.

“Sir,” she replied, distancing herself from any blood ties that might exist between them. She made no move to invite him inside – no way was she ever going to be under the same roof as this creep of a man.

“I have come for my wife,” Luke said after a couple of tense moments. She continued to stare at him, and to her grim amusement he scuffed his feet, the pale skin on his neck shifting to a rather unattractive dark red.

“I’m sure you can find your way. You know, up the hill, take a right by the old oak and there you are.” With that she retreated inside, slamming the door hard. Her legs gave way and she sank down to sit.

“Mama?” Mark crouched down beside her.

“I’m okay, it’s just…” She patted herself on the belly. Where was Matthew? The mill; she slumped with relief. Nowhere close to Margaret’s cottage.

*

The miller’s lad came rushing up the slope, eyes huge.

“What?” Davy the miller said, sounding exasperated, “What is it lad?”

“…” Andrew replied, pointing down in the direction of the main house. Davy rolled his eyes and winked at Matthew, who smiled back. Wee Andrew might be well-grown and bonny, but there was not much but wood between those two ears.

“The master’s brother,” Andrew said between gulps of air. “He’s here.”

Without a word, Matthew turned on his heel and set off down the hill – in the direction of Margaret’s cottage. Halfway there, he came across Ian who was throwing acorns in the stream.

“Your Da,” he said curtly, and Ian flew to his feet.

“Here?”

Matthew just nodded, and Ian ran off, with Matthew following much more slowly.

He stood under the trees and watched Ian – his son, goddamn it – rush into Luke’s arms. His hands closed into fists, the muscles in his legs bunched, and for a few seconds he wallowed in the pleasing fantasy of dismembering his brother, tearing one limb after the other off him, while Luke shrieked and begged for mercy. Sweetest Lord; he shouldn’t be here, not this close to a man he would gladly rip to shreds, not caring one whit who saw him do it.

In the clearing Ian was doing a little dance, head tilted back to laugh at Luke. Matthew swayed, his pulse loud in his ears. He took a step in their direction, took another, and there came Margaret, leaping like a doe towards her husband, face alight with joy. He just couldn’t watch.

Matthew turned away, steadying himself against the gnarled trunk of an oak. You’ll hang, he reminded himself, you’ll dangle like a sack of barley from the gibbet; not worth it, man, no, he isn’t worth it, and you have a wife and bairns to care for. He heard Luke laugh, a sound that faded away as the little family left the clearing, making for the cottage. With a groan he straightened up and walked off downhill, wanting to ensure his wife and bairns were unharmed.

In the yard he found Mark staring with huge eyes at Luke’s horse. Not a mare anymore, but still a chestnut, no doubt chosen so that its coat would match the colour of its rider’s hair. It was a splendid animal, with long clean lines and not one single mark of white. It rolled its eyes and stamped when Mark got too close, and Matthew lifted him out of the way.

“No, son, that’s a high-bred horse. You must keep your distance.”

Mark nodded and backed into Alex who’d come out of the house.

“You okay?” Alex wondered in a low voice.

“Nay, I should stay away, but I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“We’re fine,” Alex said. “I think your hoity-toity brother was sort of pissed because I didn’t invite him in.” Her face screwed up in distaste. “Rather a cobra than Luke Graham in my house.”

Matthew was sorting out all these new words; Hoity-toity? Cobra?

“Venomous snake,” Alex explained and then stuck her nose in the air to show him what hoity-toity meant. “They’ll be back down any moment,” Alex said nervously. “So why don’t you go? Take a walk up the hill or something.” She was watching his hands, and Matthew followed her eyes; not clenched, but so stiff the fingers stood straight out. He nodded and turned to go at the exact moment when Luke and his family appeared from under the trees.

Even then things could mayhap have been avoided if Luke had not chosen to look disdainfully at him and laugh.

“So you made it back, did you? I had hoped you’d find the colonies so much to your liking that you’d never return.”

“Luke!” Margaret gasped.

“Matthew…no,” Alex moaned, but it was too late, and Matthew was on his brother, punching him, tearing at him, cursing this spawn of Satan, this misfit, this maggot of a man. He took Luke by surprise, throwing him to land on his back with Matthew on top of him, and for some long seconds Matthew was certain that this time he would put an end to him, this time he would kill his brother with his bare hands. He squeezed, Luke’s eyes bulged. He did it again, and Luke’s mouth opened wide. But then Luke began fighting back, and in his hand appeared a dirk.

“No!” Margaret lunged and grabbed at Luke’s knife arm. Alex was on Matthew, her arms around his neck, crying as she pleaded with him to stop, please stop this, and what about the children, for God’s sake, Matthew, the boys!

Alex kept hold of him as he got to his feet. He was trembling all over, his right ear was ringing from where Luke had clapped him one, and when he wiped his mouth he noticed he was bleeding. Luke was a mess and the silver nose had been knocked askew, baring his maimed face to the world. Matthew couldn’t stop himself from staring. He heard Mark ask of someone what had happened to his uncle’s nose, but he didn’t catch the reply, all of him focused on his brother.

Luke rose. The dashing courtier was in serious disarray, his fashionable coat torn, the elegant linen shirt flecked with blood and dirt. At least his breeches were whole this time, Matthew thought fuzzily, not like that day four years ago when Alex had hindered him from literally cutting his brother’s balls off.

Luke’s hands shook when he adjusted the nosepiece back into place. At his back hovered his two grooms, having wrested themselves free from the restraining grips of Samuel and Gavin.

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” he said to Matthew, cupping his nose. Matthew almost spat in his face; what was he on about? With a heave he shrugged off Alex’s restraining hold, and tore off his shirt to display his scarred back. There was a collective gasp from the household, Margaret exclaimed, and even Luke, bastard that he was, looked stricken.

“Forgive me? Nay brother, you have the shoe on the wrong foot. It is I that won’t forgive you. Not for your attempts to murder me and my wife—”

“Luke! You didn’t!” Margaret exclaimed.

“Ridiculous,” Luke blustered. “Unsubstantiated accusations, and—”

“Don’t pretend innocence, dear brother,” Matthew interrupted. “Had it not been for good friends and quick wits, Alex and I would both have been dead by now.”

“I—” Luke began, but Matthew just raised his voice.

“And what about the years you’ve stolen from me, first with your false accusations that led me to gaol, then by having me sold as a slave.” Matthew inhaled, grinding his teeth to force the red veils of anger into submission. “I took a wee bit of your nose. You’ve damaged me for life, and you stole my son.” He heard Alex gasp behind him, but he couldn’t stop, not now. He raised his finger and pointed at Ian.

“My son, Luke, mine. And you know it as well as I do. You need but look at him to see it. Every line of him shouts to the world that he’s mine. Mine!”

Ian shrank back against his devastated mother. If Luke had been red with rage before, he was now a deathly white, eyes the colour of a mountain cat’s.

“Ian is my son. But you’ll pay for these slurs on my manhood.”

“Manhood? You don’t have a manhood. You connive and scheme, you backstab, and when you can’t beget a son of your own you steal mine! And—”

“How dare you?” Luke interrupted, his voice shrill. He took a step towards Matthew, sword pulled halfway free. Matthew grabbed at what was closest, a pitchfork. Ian made a strangled sound and threw himself towards Luke, blubbering with fear. Both men froze. The sword slid back into the scabbard, the pitchfork was lowered.

“Go,” Matthew said, “be gone, Luke Graham.”

Luke backed away, shielding his wife and son.

Alex came to stand beside him, and they watched in silence while Luke got his family onto his horses and set off up the hill. At the top Luke wheeled his horse, rearing it to kick with its forelegs.

“You should have been dead, brother.”

“But I’m not, am I?” Matthew called back.

“Not yet,” Luke shouted, brought the horse down and without a backward glance rode off.

*

“Right,” Alex said in a carrying voice. “Show’s over, everyone. Sarah, take the children inside, will you? Janey, there are windows to be washed.” She stood with hands on her hips, waiting until they all scurried away to resume their tasks. Then she walked off, leaving Matthew to stand half naked in the deserted yard.

It took time for Matthew to collect his thoughts. His body was shaking with tremors, and he sank down to sit on the ground, staring at his hands. If Alex and Margaret hadn’t intervened, he or Luke would have been dead by now. The shivering increased and Matthew found his shirt and put it back on, fumbling with the lacings.

Where was Alex? He felt abandoned, a wee lad in a yawning plain of nothingness, and he desperately needed his Alex to somehow put the scattered pieces that were him together again, but she had just walked away. He got to his feet, his brain unscrambling itself to give him a clear rerun of the whole incident. And then he knew why she had left him sitting alone in the yard.

Alex was in the kitchen garden, working her way up an empty bed. In all her movements, in the set of her shoulders, he could see she was not only upset, but furious. He dropped a hand onto her shoulder and she shrugged it away.

“Alex,” he wheedled. “Come here.” She shook her head and sank her wooden spade into the earth. “What has changed? You knew Ian was mine already before.”

“But he didn’t, and you didn’t see the look he gave you.” She turned to scowl at him. “And what about Mark? He’s too small to understand, but he heard you, didn’t he? He heard you say Ian is your son. You’re such an idiot!”

“Surely it isn’t that bad,” Matthew tried, ignoring the insult.

“You think? You just gave away our son’s birth right by announcing to the world that you have an older son.” She clumsily got off her knees, threw the spade to the ground, and strode away.

Matthew sighed and dragged his hands through his hair. She was right: it had been a foolish thing to do, and even if Ian was legally Luke’s lad, not his, he had inadvertently opened a window through which Ian, aided and abetted by Luke, could attempt to claim Hillview. His eyes followed Alex as she crossed the water meadow, forded the stream, and continued up the farther slope. She dropped out of sight below the trees and he got to his feet to go after her.

He found her by the millpond, sitting on a rock and throwing pebbles into the water. Her cap lay discarded, her hair bared to the world, and at his approach she threw him a look over her shoulder. Blue, blue eyes, regarding him in a way that made him twist inside.

“I’ll never let any harm befall Mark,” he said.

She sighed and looked away. “I know you won’t. The problem is that you won’t be around, will you? The issue of inheritance sort of depends on you being dead to begin with.”

He smiled crookedly at her matter-of-fact tone. “I’ll speak to Simon, but I’m sure there is no legal issue.”

Alex plopped yet another stone into the millpond. “Probably not. I suppose that by Luke taking him as his, Ian is no longer your son in the eye of the law. Not unless Luke decides he must renounce the boy. And he’ll rage about having had the boy foisted on him, that you disowned him despite knowing he was yours.”

“But that’s not the way it was,” Matthew protested.