THE CHAINS OF FATE an utterly compelling and romantic historical saga (The Heron Quartet Book 2), page 17
My thoughts shall evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.
(The Marquis of Montrose)
The instant that Francis and Malise had disappeared from view down the track into the dawn gloom, I was hustled back to my bed by Grainne, and she and Elizabeth Graham confined me there with direst threats of the revolting remedies to be inflicted on me should I dare to disobey. I had much time, therefore, to brood on Francis’s departure during the next few days, reliving again and again in my mind every detail of those last all-too-brief hours we had shared in love and friendship before war again intruded violently between us. Nor did I have the comfort of Drake’s presence: although Francis had left his dog tied up without any intention of taking him to Montrose, the animal had lost patience at being left behind yet again, had slipped his collar half an hour after Francis and Malise had ridden away and had not been seen by us since. I was limited to books, and the chore of catching up with the journal I had begun on leaving Oxford, and the conversation of Grainne and Elizabeth, spiced by that of Jasper and a rather wan and reduced Henrietta, whose illness had brought her quite low, and was heartily glad when eventually allowed to lead my normal active existence, several days after my lover and Grainne’s had gone.
There had been no news at all of Montrose’s capture, and now, of course, our chief sources of information had left us. Gib, self-centred as ever, was simply not interested, and Sandy was too involved with the preparations lor harvest. Grizel had as little to do with us as possible and ungraciously ignored my illness. I began to feel superfluous, unwanted, unwelcome, and Gib’s mother did everything possible to confirm that, even to the extent of cornering me one afternoon, the first day of September, and demanding how much longer Grainne and I were going to stay.
I had long ago recognized that Grizel was only dangerous to those who feared her — face her out, and she was defeated. ‘I do not know, Mistress. It is very pleasant here, and your husband and sons have made us very welcome. Besides, we are here by express invitation of my great-aunt, and she has not yet made us feel that our presence here is unwanted.’
The hard blue-grey eyes dropped. ‘Aye, well,’ said Grizel, ‘I was wondering if ye planned to bide here till winter. Come November and ye’ll no’ leave Liddesdale, wi’ a’ the snow and the cold, till February.’ And she walked briskly off, the keys jangling at her waist, the model of a Presbyterian housewife. Not for the first time, I pitied Sandy.
And then the miracle happened. It was the Sunday following that brief conversation, and we heard the news at church, delivered in a voice quivering with anger and a frenzy of indignation by Minister Scott.
Montrose had met with the Irish, in the hills above Atholl. There were just a thousand fighting men, with their women and children. With these, and four hundred bowmen under Lord Kilpont and eight hundred men of Atholl, he had opposed seven thousand well-armed, well-disciplined soldiers of the Covenant, including cavalry and cannon, musketeers and pikemen. And had so utterly routed them that it was said afterwards that a man could walk from Tippermuir to Perth without touching the ground, so numerous were the bodies of the fallen: and just two men out of Montrose’s ill-equipped rabble of an army had been slain.
In the gloomy little kirk, the walls running with damp, the people of Liddesdale prayed for deliverance from the Devil’s instrument, the Marquis of Montrose, and his pack of naked Irish savages: and silently, in counterpoint, Grainne and I and Elizabeth Graham prayed for his victory.
When we returned to Catholm, even Gib was shaken far enough out of his cosy self-absorption to say, ‘I didna think they would do it, but now they have, let’s crack a bottle and drink tae Tippermuir!’ And in a mood of delighted, carefree holiday, we did; only Grizel, her mouth a sour line of anger, disapproval and disappointment, taking no part.
‘Tae Montrose! Good fortune, and may he ha’ more victories!’ Gib cried, raising his wine-cup high: and we all, even Sandy and Jasper, echoed it wholeheartedly.
And so began the famous year of victories, the annus mirabilis, during which Montrose’s ragged undisciplined army of wild Irish kerns led the stolid Lowland Covenant forces up hill and down dale and over the misty, ethereal Highlands like a mocking malevolent will-o’-the-wisp. It was the kind of warfare that called to my own heart and, I knew, also to Francis’s: no stern battles with thousands of men dourly swaying to and fro at push of pike, no dreary sieges or interminable manoeuvres: but instead, a kind of sharp and deadly game of hide-and-seek in which the soft-centred Lowland soldiers never knew, in their blundering passage through the alien mountains, where Montrose would strike next; whether that tumble of rocks hid an ambush, or if the ragged skirts of cloud drifting across the mountainside would lift to reveal the inhuman Irish, kilted and bonnetted, armed with axe and spear and knife, musket and bow, hurtling down towards them to the unearthly screeching of the pipes. And I longed uselessly and desperately, woman though I was, to be with them, sharing the freedom and the comradeship, the marches in all weathers, the rain and cold and comfortless lodgings on the cold ground, and the marvellous wild, fey magic of Montrose and the victories to which he inspired them. Malise and Francis had that, and I envied them painfully.
Hard on the heels of the news of Tippermuir came tidings of another victory. Montrose had left Perth and marched north towards Aberdeen. Outside the gates of that city he had met a Covenant force twice the strength of his own, and once more had routed them. The sack of Aberdeen which had followed the battle lost nothing in the Minister’s telling; this was the fate meted out to the godly by sub-human Irish savages, and we were all urged to pray and fast most diligently and earnestly for God’s intervention, so that the King’s Lieutenant would not wreak further destruction on the luckless towns bordering the Highlands. In vain: for Montrose vanished like smoke into the mountains and, despite reports of his death, emerged to plunder and burn Covenanting property: all this with a lumbering enemy army under the Marquis of Argyll, weighed down with superior equipment and inferior initiative, toiling dourly in pursuit. At the castle of Fyvie they finally caught up with him: and Montrose, like the tiger at bay, turned and rent them sorely, and beat them off.
And now winter came down, the Scottish winter of which I had heard vague and terrifying reports. At Catholm the hills were obliterated in icy rain and wind, the bracken again turned to the colour of blood on the fawn slopes, and the cattle and sheep were kept close; the surplus who could not be fed were slaughtered and their meat salted down for the long, dark hungry days ahead. The peat fires in the house burned sullenly and smoked abominably, and I was glad of the warm garments Grainne and I had made at Nantwich the year before. And if it was cold here, so cold that the hard black night sky seemed to crackle and spit stars, and the Northern Dancers glittered and flickered in their frosty, frozen display above a bleak landscape grey with ice, then how much colder must it be amongst the northern mountains, where there could be frost in July and snow in October, and no shelter for a ragged, fugitive army with nothing to warm their limbs or fill their bellies but the warmth of their leader’s inspiration and hope and purpose, and the bright comforting memories of their three brief victories?
We craved news, but there was no means of getting it except from the Kirk, and that was naturally biased. The authorities in Edinburgh appeared to share the same casual attitude to the truth as did the Parliament men in London: Montrose’s death from fever had been confidently and optimistically reported, and quite often news leaked into Liddesdale of his overwhelming defeat. After a few days of hedging, muttering and fresh tidings from other sources these invariably turned out to be at first not quite so overwhelming, then a stalemate, then an unlucky costly victory, or else no battle at all. Of Malise and Francis we had not a word; when they had ridden away from Catholm that August morning, it might as well have been to Elfland. Nor did anyone at Castleton, fortunately, seem to realize their true whereabouts: Great-Aunt was very industrious in answering enquirers with vague waves of the hand and complaints of, ‘Why, somewhere fighting in England, I believe, you know how uncommunicative these modern young men can be.’ Thus leaving the curious questioner with the quite unwarranted impression that her grandson and his friend were with Leslie’s Scots army somewhere in the north of England. Moreover, Francis was something of a bird of passage to the local people, a shadowy, infrequently-seen outsider, and Malise had for so long been the butt of his more popular, well-known, outgoing elder brother that I do not think that the possibility of his being a ‘traitor-rebel’ with Montrose ever crossed the minds of any of the Kirk Elders, let alone the Minister.
*
But news of a different sort we did have, and very welcome it was too. Gib went to Carlisle in early December, half-protesting because of the weather, but persuaded into it by his grandmother’s fierce tongue, the long list of household wants and, not least, the prospect of two or three unsupervised carefree days in the town. He came back with two laden ponies, a much-reddened nose, and a letter addressed to Grainne and myself.
It had evidently been months on its journey. The superscription had been much overwritten, rained upon, smudged, smeared with dirty fingermarks and stained with what looked suspiciously like beer, but was still miraculously legible beneath it all. ‘To Mistress Sewell and Mistress Heron, Catholm Tower, Liddesdale on the Scottish Borders near Carlisle’. And the hand, swift and flat as if the writer was in too much of a hurry ever to form her letters properly, was my cousin Lucy’s.
Lucy, with her warm, affectionate, impulsive heart, her pretty face and exasperating but endearing habits — compulsive gossiping, jumping to unwarranted conclusions, matchmaking with the most unsuitable raw material, desperate passions for absurd and melodramatic stage-plays — was Francis’s young sister and, after Grainne, my dearest friend. We had left her in Oxford with her youngest brother Jamie, the acidly brisk Widow Gooch who kept the house, Holly’s sister Heppy for their maid, and three people I preferred, for different reasons, not to think about — my husband Sir Dominic Drakelon, our son Kit, who would now be sixteen months old, and my other cousin, Meraud Trevelyan, who more than anyone else had caused the tragedy of my marriage. The separate emotions had existed without her — Dominic’s lust for me, Francis’s love, his eldest brother Simon’s hatred of him — but she had been the catalyst to set everything boiling together, a poisonous brew that had brought grief and rage and hatred in its fumes.
The letter doubtless carried news of all these people within its crumpled folds: and I was half afraid to read it. But read it I must, and Grainne with her usual good humour bore both it and me up to our tower chambers, away even from the children, to open it.
The contents bore a strong resemblance to Lucy’s wayward mind (she always took great care to keep her personal appearance neat), being untidy, undisciplined, disorganized and extremely badly spelled for one who read so widely. It was dated from the previous August, 1644, and so had taken four months to reach us.
My dearest Thommazine and Granya, as you cann see from the above we are all still at Pennyfarthing Street, though thatt is no thanks to your hideous husband, Thommazine, who has done his levell best to persuade us to leave lock stock and barrell, but dear Simon called him a Vile Bastard and other worse termms and there was a fearfull Quarrell but since thenn we have not been troubled by Domminnic at all. I do humbly begg both your pardons for not having writ before but I wished to be sure you had reached Cattholmm safe and was waiting for a letter fromm you butt it never came so in the end I lost patience and writ regardless with all our news. First of all, we received tidings nott two weeks ago that my Mother is brought to bedd of a fine boy named Hugh which considdering her Age is verry surprising. It is strange for Simon and Jamie and I to think we have a new little baby brother though of course he is not a Heron but a Trevellyann. I long to hear your news of Francis and if he be well or nott and if your Reconncilliationn has come about with Success. I wish you would write though of course with this Warr you may have done so many times and the letters gone astray. The Widdow asks me to tell you that Adultery is none so badd as it is made out though how she knows I cannott tell. Simon grieved much thatt you hadd gone away butt I think thatt he understood whenn we told him of what Domminnick had done and he was greatly joyed to find that he had one brother besides Jamie still alive and as I said he has protected us all against Domminnick’s rages for Domminnick seemed to think it was all our fault that you had gone, especially the Widdow’s and I do believe he would have done her harm except that Simon came between them and thenn followed the Quarrell I told you of. You will want to know what has happened to your child, well after that Quarrell Domminnick removed himm fromm the house to his own lodging and did not even take his Nurse Eliza (this being in October so that Kitt was but two months old) but has engaged a new nurse for him whom I like not for she has a comely face and her dresses are too fine and the Widdow calls her a Brazen Strumpett and Doxy and other names (we saw her once walking with Domminnick in the street she hanging most boldly on to his arm). But a friend of the Widdow who lives nearby them says the child thrives and grows daily more like his father so maybe you are well ridd of themm boath. For ourselves we do well though Meraud is low and listless since we all had a Fever in July, and Jamie talks daily of joining the King’s Army though Simon has forbidden him to do anything of the sort. Simon wedd Nann Blagge at last at Christmas and she was quickly with child but miscarried so she was still with the Queen till Her Majesty escaped to France and Nann is now with the baby Princess Henrietta in Exeter and Simon still with the Prince Rupert. He was hurt a little at Long Marston Fight but nott badd so he writes though the Prince’s great Dogg Boy you told me of was slain, and thousands of good menn. How I wish this Warr was over and that we were all back at Goldhayes again as we used to be butt I do nott know if it will ever fall thus again and fromm what I hear if we do nott make haste it will nott be a Heron house but a Trevellyann one. Now I am running out of paper so I cann only give you brief news of how it is in the Town which is fearsomely crowded, we have five Officers quartered on us and two of their servants in the stables and whenn it is fine weather menn sleep in the street so there is much Fever as you cann imagine, and in June I think the Town came near to capture for Waller’s forces came verry close but we were saved by the Action at Cropredy and now the danger they say has gone. I have no more space save only to say that Captain Ashley writ to me once secretly and I have sent himm a letter assuring himm of my undying Affection and telling himm that Francis is not after all deadd for I know it will please him. I pray for you both every night and we all desire to hear from you, you need nott fear for Domminnick never comes here and Simon knows where you are I really do not have any more room to write so I remain your most loving and affectionate friend and cousin Lucy Heron and Jamie and Meraud and the Widdow send their love.
The last lines were written up the sides of the paper where she had been able to find space, so that the letter was edged like a sampler, and the style and flavour of it brought my dear Lucy, my sister in all but name, back to me like a breath of warm southern air in these inhospitable northern mists. Grainne watched me blink away the moisture from my eyes and said, ‘Do you miss them?’
‘Oh no, not really. I mean, we can’t just go back now, if — if anything happens we might never know about it if we were in Oxford. I think we must stay here till they win — or lose. But just reading it, it’s so like Lucy, it’s almost as if she were in the room with us. I would so like to see them all again — even Simon.’
‘Even Simon. It does seem as though he has had a change of heart over you and Francis. Maybe he has learned his lesson. I’m glad he’s married Nan at last, though it can’t have been much of a marriage so far.’ She eyed me speculatively. ‘What do you make of the news from Goldhayes?’
‘Worrying,’ I said bluntly. ‘What did she mean, a Trevelyan house? I thought that Richard was suspicious, you know, there was always something a little too glib and slippery about him — and how keen he was to stay behind peacefully to look after the house while we all went off to war, the underhand rat! And then he married Mary, and now this baby. I reckon I know what he was after: Meraud was to try her beauty and her wiles to snare Simon and he would be the second line of attack and lay siege to Mary so that if the King failed and dragged the Herons down too, he would be left in possession of the estate. After all, his mother was a Heron, and he’s now wed to old Sir Simon’s widow, so his claim’s good.’
‘But isn’t everything entailed?’
‘Goldhayes and the immediate lands around it, yes, I think they are, and can only pass to Herons in the male line. But there’s land elsewhere in Suffolk and in Essex and Norfolk and Cambridge, and property in Ipswich, and ships and a house in London … very tempting to an unscrupulous younger son with no inheritance. If Simon and Francis were killed or exiled then Jamie would have the house, but as he’s still only sixteen I don’t think he’d have the knowledge or the wit to gainsay his mother and stepfather if they gained control of the rest. I don’t know. I don’t think they’d have the boldness to do it, not if the other trustees had any say in the matter, but Ambrose Blagge doesn’t care about Goldhayes, John Sewell is getting old and Sir Thomas Jermyn likewise. Oh yes, it worries me, but I can only hope that Simon and his lawyer have wrapped the estate all up so successfully that neither Richard Trevelyan nor the Parliament’s men can get their greedy paws on it. And there’s John to see fair play, he’s honest. And we’re too far from it all to do more than sit and worry and raise our choler, and as that won’t do any good at all to us or to them I suppose we’d better try and forget it.’
‘I should imagine,’ said Grainne, ‘that any child of Mary and Richard Trevelyan’s would not be ill-looking. But I tremble to think of its mental characteristics.’
‘An infant Machiavelli, and totally selfish,’ I said, only half-joking. ‘Always supposing there’s nothing wrong with it — she must be all of forty-three or four, and I believe children born of women that age quite often prove defective in some way.’
