“Useless?” Glynis said. “We Highlanders hold our poets in high esteem.”
From the way Father Thomas’s eyebrows shot up, he was not accustomed to disagreement.
“Why has the poor man been imprisoned?” Glynis asked, her curiosity overtaking her caution, as it often did.
“He is accused of attempting to buy the bishopric from the Pope.” Father Thomas shrugged one bony shoulder. “If Albany’s faction did not suspect Gavin had also advised the queen to flee to England with the Scottish heir, no one would care if he bought it.”
Glynis cleared her throat. “Are ye aware, Uncle, of what this new regent’s attitude is toward the Highland clans?”
“Of course I am,” he snapped. “’Tis fortunate that you escaped that God-forsaken place, for Albany has given the Campbells the crown’s blessing to destroy this Highland rebellion ‘by sword and by fire.’”
Glynis put her hand to her throat, fearing for her family back home. “What does that mean?”
“It means they have a free hand to lay waste to the rebels’ lands and murder anyone who stands in their way, including women and children,” Father Thomas said, “When the rebels submit, as they will, the Campbells are to collect the rebel chieftains’ eldest sons as hostages to assure their father’s good behavior.”
“My brother is only four years old.” Glynis felt sick to her stomach.
“Then it may just be possible to teach him civilized ways.”
If her father knew of this plan, surely he would see sense and leave the rebellion. Before Glynis could question Father Thomas further, he got to his feet.
“I must pursue my advancement independent of Gavin Douglas now,” he said, fixing his hard gaze on Henry. “It will be costly.”
Father Thomas did not wait for a response. Without so much as a fare-thee-well, he left the room with long-legged strides.
“Thomas is an important man in the church,” Peg said when he had gone, as if that should excuse his rudeness.
“Eat up,” Henry said to Glynis, as he stuffed an apple tart in his mouth. “A man likes a woman with some flesh on her bones.”
Glynis could not recover her good humor as quickly as her Aunt Peg and Henry, but she managed a weak smile and took a bite. The apples were not as tart as at home. Nothing tasted good here.
“What do ye think about James the Baker?” Henry said, looking at her aunt. “He’s a fine man. Wouldn’t he make our bonny niece a good husband?”
Glynis choked on the bite of dry tart caught in her throat. “Thank ye for your concern,” she said when she could speak, “but I don’t wish to marry again.”
“Don’t wish to marry?” Henry said, then repeated it more loudly: “Don’t wish to marry?”
When Glynis shook her head, Henry and her aunt exchanged startled glances.
“James is a steady man with a good future before him.” Her aunt reached across the narrow table and patted her hand. “It can’t hurt to meet him.”
“Thank ye kindly,” Glynis said. “But meeting the man will no change my mind.”
Bessie came in then and stooped to speak to Henry in a low voice.
“James is here,” Henry said, and gave Glynis a wide smile. “Make yourself pretty while I fetch him.”
Two hours later, Glynis was so bored she wanted to stab herself in the eye. James was easily the most tedious man she had met in her life. Alas, he was unattractive as well.
“Do ye never leave the city?” she asked after listening to him drone on about meetings of his guild. “Surely ye must long to take a sail or a walk in the meadows now and again?”
“There are pirates roaming the seas!” Poor James looked genuinely alarmed. “Besides, the sea makes me sick as a dog.”
The sea made him ill?
A wave of homesickness swept over Glynis, leaving a sense of hopelessness in its wake. She had always lived on the sea and had no notion how much she would miss it. Even when she was married to that despicable Magnus, she could hear the sea from her window and walk on the shore every day.
Glynis’s attention was brought back to the present by the sudden damp heat of a heavy hand on her thigh.
“Ye are a pretty thing,” James said, leaning close enough for her to see the spittle on his chin. “And I believe I’m just the man to tame a wild Highland lass.”
CHAPTER 23
Alex walked the city streets in the bleak hours before dawn. Occasionally, women of the night called out to him from doorways. No one else was out at this hour save for thieves and groups of drunken young men looking for a fight. But with his claymore strapped to his back and dirks hanging from his belt in plain sight, no one gave Alex trouble.
After tossing and turning on the too-small bed at the tavern, Alex had given up on sleep. He wished he could talk with Glynis about the problem of this wee girl Sabine claimed was his daughter. Glynis would give him honest advice. But he could not very well wake up her relatives’ household by pounding on their door in the middle of the night.
When the first streaks of dawn speared through the sky, he unfolded the paper that Sabine had given him and read the directions written there. What in the hell was wrong with Sabine keeping the child in the most wretched part of the city?
Alex turned down a close and held his plaid over his mouth and nose as he walked farther and farther down the hill. He was nearly to the sewage-filled loch before he finally reached the place. He pounded on the door with murder running through his veins.
A woman opened the door just wide enough for him to see her greasy hair and careworn face. Her eyes grew wide as she took him in.
“Alexander MacDonald?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
“Aye.”
When the woman opened the door wider, Alex ducked his head and stepped inside. He found himself in a low-ceilinged room lit by a single, smoky lamp. There was no one in it but the two of them.
“Where is the Countess?” he asked, though he had realized as he walked down the close that Sabine would never ruin her delicate slippers coming to this desperate place.
“I never saw the lady,” the woman said. “Her maid said ye would be the one to pay me.”
One brings deceit.
“Their ship has sailed?” Alex asked, though he already knew it had.
The woman nodded. “Aye, at dawn.”
“And the child?”
“I have her, but ye must pay me first.”
Sabine had known that, regardless of whether the girl was his or not, Alex would not be able to leave a child in this squalid place with no one to care for her. At least, he hoped Sabine had known that when she abandoned her daughter.
A ragged strip of cloth hung over the doorway to a connecting room, and he suspected the child was there. Though Alex could have fetched her himself, the woman deserved her pay. He dropped the coins into her waiting palm.
His heart raced as the woman disappeared into the blackness behind the curtain. What in God’s name was wrong with him? He was fearless sailing into a squall or charging into battle, and yet an unfamiliar frisson of terror traveled up his knees over meeting a wee bairn.
Before he had time to prepare himself, the woman flipped back the cloth and reentered the room leading a child by the hand. Sabine’s gift to him.
Alex had never lacked for words in his life, but he was too stunned to speak. Looking at the child, he had the oddest sensation that he was seeing a feminine version of himself as a wee lad. Her hair was the same white-blond his had been as a bairn, and she was long-legged as a newborn colt.
“She’s a strange child,” the woman said. “Can’t speak a word.”
“Maybe she has nothing to say to ye.” Alex noticed how dirty the child was, and a horrible thought occurred to him. “How long have ye kept her here?”
“Since she was brought to me a couple of months ago,” the woman said. “As ye can see, I’ve taken good care of her.”