There was a difficult silence. Then Sir James, nephew of that Douglas lady whose bastard son was now Bishop of Aberdeen, swore savagely at Gil, flung away across the room and sat down in the great chair Tib had vacated. The two young people turned to face him, Michael putting his arm round Tib, at which his father glowered.
‘How often?’ he demanded. ‘How many times has this happened? How long — ’
‘A month or more since we met,’ said Michael, his deep voice very shaky. ‘But that was the first time we — ’
‘Our Lady be praised!’ said Douglas. ‘Wi any luck she’ll no howd from the one service, there’ll be nothing you’ll need to gie your name to.’
‘But we want to — ’
‘Michael,’ said Gil quietly. All three looked at him. ‘You can’t be wedded. There is an impediment.’
‘What impediment?’ said Tib in alarm.
‘I’d have thought you’d be ware of it. Quite apart from the question of Michael’s future and your lack of a tocher, there’s the mutual spiritual relationship. Michael is our mother’s godson, you’re my sister and I’m godson to Michael’s father. Holy Kirk won’t — ’
‘But Gil, a dispensation, surely? It’s no as if it was real — ’
‘At a cost of £10 of Flemish money,’ said Gil, ‘which is near £25 Scots the now. Four or five years’ excess rents for a wealthy household, Tib, and we’re no wealthy.’
She stared at him, then turned her head to look at Michael.
‘No need of marriage, then,’ she said bravely. ‘I’ll be your mistress. There’s plenty clerks have a lady in keeping. Look at — ’
‘You deserve better,’ said Michael, going scarlet.
‘Better! A trollop like her! And I’ll not help you to ruin by buying you a dispensation, either,’ declared Douglas. ‘You’re bound for the Kirk, my lad, and service to the Crown. I’ll not have my plans set aside to satisfy a pair of radgie pillie-wantouns!’
‘Father,’ said Michael, his voice stronger, ‘I’ve no need to be a priest, surely, to serve the Crown? I’ve no notion to the priesthood, I canny — ’
‘What’s that to do wi it? You’ll do as you’re bid, Michael, or I’ll beat the daylights out of you. I’ll see you established on the ladder to fortune afore I dee, if it’s the last thing I do.’
Gil bit his lip, but neither of the young people noticed the infelicity.
‘Sir,’ said Tib from within her lover’s arm, ‘our families are old friends. I–I ken you were at school wi my own faither. Will you no be a faither to me, now he’s gone?’
Good, but ill-timed, Gil thought, flinching from the noise as Sir James boiled over at her in a torrent of indistinct rebuttals. If only his head was clearer. He was aware of little more than his own smouldering rage at the utter stupidity and self-indulgence of such behaviour.
‘I think we’re agreed, sir,’ he said firmly, cutting across his godfather’s tirade, ‘that this should never have happened and it should go no further.’
‘Gil!’
‘Aye, very likely,’ said Sir James, ‘but what do we do now, eh? That’s what I want to know of you, Gilbert. Or where’s your uncle? What’s David got to say about it?’
‘But we love each other!’
‘Father, I — ’
‘Be silent!’ roared Sir James, ‘or by the Deil’s bollocks I’ll have your tongue out!’
Gil suddenly recalled his father saying in exasperation, Trouble wi James is he’s more talk than thumbscrews, till you put a blade in his hand.
‘What we do now — ’ he began.
‘What we do now,’ broke in another voice, ‘is sit down quiet wi a drink and a bite.’
Dorothea came forward from the kitchen stair, Maggie behind her with a steaming jug and a platter of little cakes.
‘Good day to you, sir,’ she said, and bent her knee in a curtsy to the gaping Douglas. ‘It’s good to see you so little changed, after all these years. I’m right glad Maggie sent to tell me you were here in my uncle’s house.’
‘Dorothea,’ he said, recovering himself. ‘Sister Dorothea. Aye, well, it’s good to see you and all, lass. Are you well? No need to ask if you’re happy.’
‘I am indeed, sir.’ Gil set a stool for her, and she smiled quickly at him. ‘Shall we all be seated, and these two miscreants may serve us?’
Maggie set jug and platter down on the low cupboard at the end of the hall, and assisted Tib in finding the pewter beakers and pouring spiced ale for Michael to distribute. Then she stationed herself by the cupboard, obviously hoping to be unobserved. There was quiet movement on the kitchen stair, which Gil took to be Lowrie waiting to learn his friend’s fate. So that really was him with Maggie, he thought, when she came to wake me.
‘What’s done,’ said Dorothea, cutting across Sir James’s continued complaints, ‘is no to be undone, though I dare say many lassies wish it might be.’
‘I don’t!’ said Tib defiantly from where she stood with the platter of little cakes. ‘I don’t regret a thing.’
Michael slid her a glance under his eyebrows, and they exchanged a complicit smile. Gil found himself grappling with another surge of combined anger and envy.
‘Aye, but what do we do next?’ demanded Sir James. ‘Michael, come over here to my side, away from that wee trollop.’
‘Wait,’ said Dorothea. ‘We wait, sir.’
‘Oh, we do?’ he said. ‘And what use of waiting? Michael’s future is determined, madam, he’ll no step aside from it whatever comes to one ill-schooled lassie.’
‘You forget, sir,’ said Dorothea, rigidly sweet as a sugar-plate saint on a banquet table, ‘that Michael is my mother’s godson.’
‘Aye, and what Gelis Muirhead will say about this I canny think!’
‘I can,’ said Gil quietly.
Michael shivered, and Tib put her chin up, but Dorothea cast him a repressive glance and pursued, ‘Aye, sir. My mother is a Muirhead. Kin to Dean Muirhead of this chapter, kin to the Boyds whose daughter Marion goes with child to the King, kin to your cousin Angus’s lady.’
‘No need to involve Mother!’ said Tib sharply. ‘Or any of you! We’ll sort our own future. We love each other, we don’t need more than that.’
‘Aye, and how will you do that?’ Gil demanded over Douglas’s indignant spluttering. ‘What will you live on? Where? You can’t be married, what will you do? You need your kin to find Michael a place and some sort of income.’
‘We’ll think of something,’ said Michael. ‘I’ll determine in September next, we’ve got till then.’
‘Determine?’ repeated his father. ‘Determine? What makes you think I’ll pay for you to finish your studies, let alone take your degree? Do you ken what I laid out for your brother Robert at the end of his four years, in fees and graces to one regent or another? Why should I put out the same for a thankless loun such as you’ve proved to be? I’d sooner take you home wi me this day and put you down the bottle-hole.’
Gil, watching, thought this was perhaps the first time either Michael or Tib had realized that matters really might not fall out as they wanted. Horrified, they drew closer together; Michael transferred the jug to his other hand and put his arm about Tib again, and she shrank in against him. Dorothea said gently, ‘If you do that you’ll prevent him following the path you’ve set out for him, as well as any other path, sir.’
‘Aye, I will that,’ said Douglas fiercely.
‘Our mother might have a word to say about that, too,’ Gil commented.
‘It seems to me, Sir James,’ said Dorothea. Everyone looked at her. ‘It seems to me that there are several problems.’
‘Just the two,’ said Douglas.
‘There is Michael’s future,’ said Dorothea, ignoring this, ‘there is Tib’s future whatever it is, and if in some way these should be together there is the question of what Holy Kirk will say about it.’ Gil nodded. ‘None of them is simple, and all of them involve waiting a longer or shorter time.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Sir James. ‘Michael will do as I’ve planned for him. There’s a post for him wi the Treasury at Stirling next autumn, and he — ’
‘No!’ said Michael urgently. ‘Father, no! I’d sooner teach in the grammar school!’