Chapter 15

H aving beached their coble on the shingle, Giff and his two oarsmen disembarked, pulled it above the high-tide mark, and set out up the path to the town. Giff had never visited the bishop’s palace and knew it had been damaged some years before, but he hoped the lights he had seen meant the bishop still lived in it.

Dusk had turned to darkness, and thanks to the lingering overcast, they had little light beyond the ambient glow of a lantern on a post at the foot of the path.

They met only a solitary young priest out taking the air. He would doubtless return soon, as it was nearing the hour of Compline. Having no notion how many townspeople would be up and about, Giff took the liberty of stopping him.

“Forgive me for intruding on your solitude, Father, but can you tell me where I might find his eminence, the Bishop of St. Andrews, at this hour?”

“He’ll be at the cathedral, my son. At the top of this path, turn left along the roadway and follow it round the curve of the cliff. You will soon come to the cathedral close. Doubtless you saw the spires from the sea.”

Thanking him, Giff acknowledged that they had. Minutes later, they reached the top of the path and turned as the priest had directed. The shadowy, dark bulk of the bishop’s palace lay ahead of them, and Giff eyed it curiously as they passed by. Approaching the cathedral with the palace behind them, he had a clear view down to the sea and saw two shadowy longships nearing the bay from the south.

Memory of the two at Leith stirred a swift reaction.

“Back to the ship, lads, and quickly, but not so quickly as to stir comment.”

Their long strides took them swiftly to the harbor path and down it. As they neared the shingle, they met the priest again, coming up.

A notion stirred in Giff’s mind, and he intercepted the man again.

The priest showed immediate concern. “You cannot have got lost nor yet found his eminence, my son. Is aught amiss?”

“Aye, Father, and it did occur to me that you may serve our purpose more quickly and spare his eminence the trouble,” Giff said glibly. “Can I persuade you to accompany us to our ship for a time?”

“Is this an emergency, my son?”

“It certainly is,” Giff said, casting an eye toward the bay’s wide entrance, where he could just make out the prow of the lead longship coming into view. “I expect that you have the authority to perform all rites of the Holy Kirk,” he added.

“I do,” the priest said. He waited expectantly. “Is someone dying?”

“No, sir, but we’ve no time to spare. Our boat lies yonder.”

The priest gave him a look, which Giff met easily enough, albeit fervently hoping the man would not demand more details. He seemed poised on the brink of doing just that, but with a glance at the two tense oarsmen, he nodded instead.

Motioning him on ahead, Giff stopped one of the men. “Can you find your way to Sinclair House from here?” he murmured urgently, pulling out his purse.

“Aye, sure, sir,” the man said, taking the money Giff gave him. “But—”

“Go there, and tell Lady Isobel that her sister is safe with me,” Giff said.

“Aye, sir, I’ll see to that right enough.”

Moments later, Giff and the other two were in the coble. By taking one pair of oars himself and carefully keeping other vessels between the coble and the two longships, they returned to the Serpent without attracting attention.

By the time the two drew near, Giff’s boat had pulled in along the landward side of the Serpent, and lads aboard her had lowered the coble’s ropes.

Giff saw that the false canvas gunwale gave the ship a much less distinctive profile. Maxwell had also had the lads ship the oars and let down more canvas to mask the oarports. The canvas did not interfere with the ladder, either, because to avoid interference from the oars, it customarily hooked over the first step at the aft end of the gunwale. Even the priest climbed aboard with ease.

Giff, following, expressed his approval to Maxwell as soon as he saw him. “She looks less like a Norse knorr now and more like an ordinary merchantman.”

“Thank ’e, sir, but we should keep low as they pass by,” Maxwell said. “I doubt they’ll see our faces, but ye’ll no’ want to take any risk. I’ve told the lads to keep low, too, and show only two or three o’ theirselves at a time, to look as if we ha’ watchmen aboard. But who’s this then?” he added, nodding toward the priest, who gazed in fascination at the rowing deck.

“I met him on the way to town and brought him back to gain protection for our passenger,” Giff said. “Thanks to these new arrivals, we dare not linger long enough to arrange her return to Edinburgh.”

Maxwell frowned. “Mayhap the word of a priest will serve ye . . .”

“It’ll take more than words,” Giff said. “But I must first persuade her of that.”

“Her ladyship and my Jake be in the aft cabin, sir.”

“Her ladyship?” The priest was frowning, but Giff ignored him and turned back to Maxwell.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “They’ll beach those two ships, so keep silent until they do. Then we’ll sail out of here, heading due east, as if we were a Norse merchant that stopped only to take on fresh water or some such thing.”

“See here,” the priest said without lowering his voice. “Where is this crisis you spoke of? I shall have to attend to it at once, because I must return for prayers.”

“I’m sorry, Father, but I cannot allow that now,” Giff said quietly. “And I must ask you to keep your voice down. We are in grave danger and will shortly require both your prayers and your good offices.”

“But you’ve just said you mean to set sail!”

“That’s true.”

“Where are you going?”

“North,” Giff said.

“But you said east! How far north?”

“About a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy miles, I should think.”

“Bless you, sir, I cannot go so far! I must get back. I came with you only because you said you had an emergency.”

“Believe me, Father, this has become a matter of life and death.”

“Whose?”

“Mine, for one, when I tell her ladyship why you are here,” Giff said dryly.

“Sir Giffard and the two men as went ashore wi’ him ha’ come back,” Jake murmured to Sidony as they waited in her cabin. “But what be they a-doing now?”

The interior was dark, so although she could discern his shape in the half-open doorway, she could see little beyond him.

“Faith, I don’t know,” she said. She wished Giff would come tell them what was happening, because if the two longships were French but flew the royal banner, surely Fife was aboard one of them. He had shown more than once that he thought the royal banner as much his as the King’s to fly. And surely, the King of Scots had not suddenly taken a whim to sail to St. Andrews.

“I could keep low and go ask them,” Jake whispered.

“Aye, sure, if you want to risk a skelping,” she said, smiling although she knew he could no more read her expression than she could read his.

His response was a soft grunt, but she knew he saw the wisdom of staying where he was. The men she could see were motionless shapes, except the few who wandered from point to point occasionally, to show that they kept watch.

“Did you note watchmen on any of the other boats here?” she asked him.

After thoughtful silence, he said, “I dinna ken they be watchmen, but men do stay aboard ships in harbor. Sithee, most o’ them ha’ no place else to sleep.”

“Then I should think there would be more lanterns.”

“Nay, they sleep wi’ the dark and rise wi’ the dawn. It’s no’ safe to keep lanterns lit, especially when the wind blows. It’d be gey easy for a fire to start, and fires dinna belong shipboard. ’Tis why me da’ willna let me carry a torch or a lantern below. He says it’d be easy for me to drop it, and then, he says, where would we be? Burnt to a crisp, he says. But I’d no’ drop such a thing, ye ken.”

“I’m sure you would not,” Sidony said, repressing a shiver. “But it is better to take extreme care when the consequences can be so dire.”

“Aye, sure,” he said. “But wait now. I think one o’ them men what come aboard wi’ the master dinna be ours at all. He looks like a priest o’ some sort.”

“A priest?” Her stomach knotted. Had Giff brought the bishop to her here? He had said he would take her to the bishop. What if the bishop was Fife’s man and Fife was right here in the harbor? “Are you sure the man is a priest, Jake?”

“We’ll see soon enough,” Jake said, still peeking out the door. “Sir Giffard be a-bringing him this way right now.”

“Mercy!”

She stood up, tried to shake out skirts she could not see and, realizing the futility of such an effort, abandoned it. Instead, she drew a long breath to steady her nerves and reminded herself of what Giff had said to her in the garden, that she had proven herself as capable as anyone of making decisions.

Squaring her shoulders, she decided that he was right. She would decide for herself what to do.

Then doubt stirred her to mutter, “But can I make him heed me?”

“What’s that ye say, me lady?” Jake asked from the doorway.

“Nothing,” Sidony said firmly.

“I should talk to her before you do, Father,” Giff said as they neared the cabin.

“First, we must talk, my son. I must know what you hope to accomplish, and I should prefer to sit whilst you tell me. All this rocking makes me dizzy.”

He was keeping his voice down, and Giff thought he had resigned himself to going with them, but perhaps the good father hoped that if he acted quickly, Giff would put him ashore again. Giff did not look forward to telling him he could not do that. The priest was going to Girnigoe. Henry would see that he got home safely, but in the meantime, no one else in St. Andrews knew that they had been there. If they could slip away now, the best Fife could do was guess where they were.

Guiding the priest to the bench where he and Sidony had sat, Giff told him about her abduction and his earlier hope that he might leave her with the bishop.

“But you can still do so, my son. His eminence would keep her safe.”

“Nay, for her abductor is a minion of Lord Fife’s, doubtless acting on his orders, and it is my belief that Fife means to hold her captive to force her otherwise powerful kinsmen to submit to his wishes. That is why he has followed us here, for it is Fife himself who sails with the royal banner.”

“Aye, he nearly always does now, does he not?”

“He does, and by my troth, Father, the only way to protect Lady Sidony now that he is here in St. Andrews is to get her away again as quickly as I can.”

“But at what risk to her reputation? Surely, his lordship will not harm her.”

“I’m told he once held a woman over a hundred-foot drop into a raging river to force her to talk,” Giff said. “He is completely ruthless, and he wants something he believes her family has, so he would certainly use her ladyship to achieve his ends. As I said, I’d hoped to give her into the bishop’s care, but as she has already been aboard this boat overnight, I doubt that even that course would serve now.”

“His eminence would insist that she marry quickly to preserve her reputation. Indeed, I can counsel no other course. Is this, then, your emergency, my son?”

“It is, although I’d not expected to marry anyone yet. No more does she.”

“Do you care for her?”

Giff said, “God help me, I do, and I want nothing more than to protect her.”

“Then it must be marriage. ’Tis the only way.”

“She won’t agree,” Giff said. “She knows me for a bad bargain by now, and ’tis true that I’d make her the very devil of a husband.”

“You must strive to be a good one,” the priest said sternly. “However, I cannot perform any marriage if her ladyship refuses to agree.”

“I believe she is persuadable,” Giff said. “She would doubtless defy me if I were to command her, but I doubt she will defy you if you can remain firm.”

“Do you want me to be firm?”

“Do you know any other way to protect her?”

“Nay, for if she has been overnight on this ship and will remain aboard days longer, since you mean to sail so far north, everyone will assume the worst.”

“Then do what you must,” Giff said curtly. “I’ll take you to her.”

“With God’s help, it should not take me long,” the priest said.

Giff grimaced, wondering what God would think about his having abducted a priest, then decided that if anyone knew about lost moments, the Almighty did.

Sidony stood beside Jake near the doorway and watched them. Giff was frowning, and the man in priestly robes looked somber, although he did not look old enough for such a grave demeanor. He seemed scarcely older than she was.

Both men stepped into the cabin, filling it so that she moved to the corner where the shelf bed met the wall with the porthole and the wee table.

Giff told Jake to go to his father and to keep low as he did. The boy’s reluctance to leave was obvious, but he went.

“This priest is from St. Andrews Cathedral, my lady,” Giff said. “He would speak with you. As you may have realized, the earl’s arrival has made it impossible for me to arrange matters with the bishop. Thus, we have little choice now.”

“Faith, I thought he was the bishop,” she said.

“No,” Giff said. “Although, in troth, I’ve not asked you your name, Father.”

“I am Father Adam,” the priest said. “My kin hail from Roxburghshire.”

“This is the lady Sidony Macleod of Glenelg in Kintail, Father. She is here, as I’ve explained, through no fault of her own.”

Sidony kept silent. She did not want to go with Father Adam any more than she had wanted to go with the bishop.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Giff said. “But you should know, lass, that the course he recommends is what your family would want and that I . . . I have also approved it.”

“Is he not to take me to the bishop, then?”

“No one is leaving the ship,” Giff said. “We are about to hoist sail.”

He left them, and Sidony watched him go, wondering what he had been about to say before, when he had begun so sternly and ended with such a mild statement.

She shifted her gaze to the priest. Feeling renewed confidence tempered by tension, she was curious to hear what he would say.

The silence in the small cabin lengthened as he seemed to study her.

She could hear the rattling thumps of the braces and halyard, the creaking of the yardarm, and then the flapping of canvas as they hauled the sail up.

Father Adam said quietly, “I think you must know the particular course of which he spoke, my lady. ’Tis also the course that I must recommend.”

“Did he tell you to recommend it?”

“I can do no less, because there is no other acceptable course for you to take.”

“My being here is not my doing,” she said, suppressing memory of what Giff had said to her earlier about that, and what Hugo and her father were likely to say. “I fell victim to a villain who stuffed me into one of the holds here, to be—”

She broke off, realizing she was about to say she had been a gift to the Earl of Fife. But without knowing what Giff had told the priest—and certain that he had not told him he had stolen the earl’s boat—she pressed her lips tightly together.

“I should prefer to talk outside, in the open, my lady, not only for propriety’s sake but to see you a little more clearly as we talk.”

“It is better if no one on the other ships sees me here, Father.”

He looked out, and she easily discerned his irritation and frustration. After a look heavenward, however, he seemed only resigned. “They have cast off,” he said. “I’m thinking that neither of us has much choice now, my lady. You must marry to protect yourself, and I am willing to perform the ceremony.”

“Do I truly have to marry Sir Giffard?”

“Is that his name?”

“Aye, Sir Giffard MacLennan. Sakes, sir, did he not tell you?”

“He just insisted that I accompany him. Does his birth match your own?”

She sighed. Steal a ship, steal a priest; what is the difference? But all she said was, “His birth does match mine, sir, but he has no wish to marry me.”

“Nevertheless, he has accepted responsibility for you by keeping you aboard this boat, my lady, and he has expressed his willingness to marry you. It is therefore meet and right that a marriage between you shall take place at once.”

“Must I do anything else if I marry him?”

She felt his shock and was sure he blushed as he said with careful firmness, “A wife must submit to her husband’s will in all things.”

“But one can have a marriage annulled, can one not?” She had heard that such a thing was possible if a bride and groom failed to couple.

He frowned. “I certainly cannot recommend such a course.”

“But it is possible?”

“It is, but only under certain circumstances. If your husband should find that you are not a maiden, for example.”

“Or if I refuse to submit to him?”

“That would be a dangerous choice, my lady. Sithee, as your husband, he would be within his rights to force your submission, so you’d do better to refuse to marry him in the first place. I do strongly recommend that you do marry, but I must in good conscience also tell you that, under Scottish law, I am obliged to refuse to perform the ceremony if you express your unwillingness to go through with it.”

The decision she ought to make was clear enough. She certainly did not want to marry a man who did not want her. But even as she opened her mouth to tell the priest she would certainly decline, a vision of her father and all the others in her family who would be furious with her, ranting at her, rose up in her mind.

She could have no doubt that, in time, others would command her obedience, and whether the priest supported her now or not, she doubted she could withstand a direct order from her father. After all, by then, heaven knew how many nights she would have spent aboard with Giff. Word traveled much more swiftly in the Isles than boats did, so she might well return to find herself the object of a truly sordid scandal. Her sister Isobel, after all, having been but one night with Michael and that only to save his life, had had to submit to such a command.

But if she agreed now to marry . . .

Her furious kinsmen faded away at the thought.

Giff had kept one wary eye on the two beaching longships and one on the open doorway of the aft cabin as he talked quietly with Maxwell.

When he saw the longships’ passengers disembark and begin wending their way up to the town, and their crews moving about on the shingle, making camp for the night, he motioned to his own men to cast off and hoist sail.

Wind soon filled the canvas, and despite a tide on the turn that would soon be strongly inflowing, they made good headway without reaction from shore. He doubted that anyone on the shore or in the harbor paid them heed as they moved east toward the open sea. It was dark enough that when they were well outside the bay they could correct their heading without anyone seeing them from town.

“Could you see just how many went ashore?” he asked Maxwell.

“Looked to be at least eight,” Maxwell said. “One were the earl, for sure. Ye canna mistake his figure, nor the proud way he carries himself. D’ye no’ think someone will tell him ye were there?”

“We saw no one taking interest in us, and this harbor is not nearly as busy as Leith,” Giff said. “But we did walk as far as the beginning of the cathedral close before I saw those longships and noted the royal banner.”

“I’d wager someone else noticed ye, then.”

“Whether anyone did or not, I mean for us to be well away before Fife thinks to order a closer look at the other boats in the harbor. And if he does nowt else whilst he’s here, he’ll stay in town long enough to speak to the bishop.”

“Aye, after flying the royal banner as he did coming in, there’d be talk if he turned about so quick and left without paying his respects,” Maxwell agreed.

“I’m guessing they’ll stop for the night. Those ships seem to have full crews and are gey fast, but few French ships come so far north, so I doubt their information about tides, distances, and hazards can be as accurate as what your rutter provides.”

“Also, the earl be a nervous sailor, sir. He doesna like small boats, nor he don’t want to sail too close to shore. He said once that, rutter or no rutter, where there be one rock poking up, there likely be dozens more lurking underneath.”

“We’ll remember that,” Giff said. “He may also assume that we’d avoid any sizable harbor and stop somewhere each night, even if we remain at sea. But I want to take advantage of this wind if we can now that we know how close he is.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” Maxwell said. “How d’ye suppose the earl persuaded them French ships to bring him here so quick?”

“I suspect it is the Chevalier de Gredin rather than Fife who is responsible,” Giff said. “His father used to be Scottish envoy to the French Royal Court in Paris, so doubtless he has powerful friends there and used their names.” And if that is not the answer , Giff told himself, we may be up against a stronger foe than we knew .

He wished he could hear the conversation in the aft cabin. One minute he hoped Father Adam would persuade her, the next that he would fail. At one point he found himself wondering if he was such a coxcomb that he just wanted her to want to marry him despite his own reluctance to enter the married state.

“D’ye think yon kirksman will persuade her ladyship?” Maxwell murmured.

“I don’t know what she’ll do,” Giff admitted. “Tell the lads to take away that canvas from the gunwales now and put out the oars. Use them for the turn, then weigh them, but keep them at the ready lest we should drift too close to shore.”

As Maxwell moved to the helm, where he could issue the orders without shouting, Giff made out the priest’s slender figure emerging from the cabin.

Something tightened inside him, warning him that he was more concerned about her answer than he’d expected. He went to meet the priest, telling himself he hurried only to spare Father Adam a possible fall on the rolling deck.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She’s willing,” the priest said. “But I must tell you—”

“Nay, ’tis enough that she’s willing, Father. I’ll do what’s right for her. ’Tis doubtless time that I thought about raising a family, as I’m sure you will agree.”

“As to that—”

“Let’s get it done,” Giff said. Despite the chilly air, his palms were sweating.

“Now?”

“Aye, sure, or she may change her mind. I don’t want to fratch with the lass, so ’tis better to get it done whilst she’s willing.”

“I cannot say I like this, my son.”

“Think, Father,” Giff urged. “To arrive at our destination as a married lady will do her more good than to arrive there as a bedraggled lass who has been stuck on this boat for a sennight with only fifty rough men as her companions.”

“A good argument,” Father Adam admitted. “But, as she is willing, you could just marry her by declaration, albeit without the benefit of blessing.”

“I’d not want that unless we had no other recourse,” Giff said, wondering why the priest seemed less determined than before but not caring as long as he’d do what they required. “I doubt that such a declaration would preserve her reputation in this instance. Having your blessing would be better for us both, would it not?”

“Aye, then, we’ll do it straightaway.”

Suddenly nervous, and hoping the priest could not read his expression, Giff said, “Do you know the words of the service?”

“I remember enough to do a proper wedding, my son, but I do think you should know that—”

“Nay, Father, if we’re going to do it, let’s get to it.”

The priest sighed. “Very well, sir. The lady Sidony is waiting.”

Giff nodded, and as he did, a most agreeable image of Sidony awaiting him in a proper bedchamber at Duncraig, wearing a thin silken dressing gown and nothing else, with her shiny silver-blond hair spilling down her back, filled his mind’s eye. His body stirred, but his lips twisted into a wry smile. A shipboard wedding night was unlikely to be particularly agreeable for either of them.

Sidony heard them before she saw them, and her heart began to pound. What had she agreed to—and with Giff MacLennan?

All very well to assume that he would not force her submission whenever the mood struck him, but what did she really know of the man? Not enough, certainly, to make such a judgment of him, let alone to be depending on it.

He filled the doorway, blocking what little light there had been.

“You’ve agreed then, lass?” His voice was gentle in the darkness, and it did something to her. Her mouth was dry, but the words came more easily than expected.

“Yes, I have agreed,” she said. “I am not sure I should have, but I am sure that everyone else would say I must, and I don’t want them all ringing peals over me and ordering me to do it after I’ve created a scandal to last all my life.”

“That’s good enough,” he said. “Come in, Father. We’re ready.”

“We’ll need at least two witnesses, my son.”

Giff reached outside the door and pulled Jake to him. “Get your da’ and Hob Grant,” he said, “and come back with them. Tell your da’ to bring a lantern.”

At last, with the portholes shuttered, a lantern glowing from a hook in the ceiling, and Hob and the Maxwells squeezed in with them, Father Adam began.

To Sidony’s surprise, the ceremony was brief, with only one delay after Giff had recited his vows, when Father Adam asked him if he had a ring for her.

When Giff said no, Wat Maxwell pulled one off his left little finger and said, “It were me wife’s, lad, but if ye’d like the use of it until ye can get one for her ladyship, ye’re welcome. I’d like Jake to have this ’un for his own lass one day.”

Thanking him, Giff took the thin silver ring and with an indecipherable look on his face, gently slipped it onto Sidony’s finger.

She stared at it as the priest asked her if she would marry Sir Giffard, and when she had agreed, he proceeded to her vows. When he put special emphasis on the last one, to swear meekness and obedience in bed and at board, she saw Giff smile. He had not had to make any such vow, of course. To add to her annoyance, she had discerned no priestly emphasis on any vow that Giff did make.

Then, suddenly, Father Adam said, “By the power vested in me by Holy Kirk, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride, Sir Giffard.”

Putting the wee silver band on her finger had stirred unexpected emotions for Giff, and the announcement that she was now his wife stirred more. As he gazed at her, his throat felt tight. Despite the fact that she wore what she had worn since he had released her from the small hold, and her efforts to smooth her hair had achieved little by way of its usual tidiness, he felt pride in what he had done.

The suggestion that he might kiss her now without consequence stirred a wish to do so at once. He put a hand under her chin, tilted her face up, and touched his lips gently to hers, smiling when her eyes sparkled in the lantern’s glow.

The priest said, “It is customary to announce your new estate to any onlookers, Sir Giffard. We must certainly tell your crew the good news.”

“Go and tell them then,” Giff murmured. “And close the door behind you.”

A moment later, the door shut with a solid click, and they were alone. His earlier fear that his body would fail him in such surroundings proved untrue.

He reached for the fastenings of her riding doublet.

“Please don’t, sir,” she said. “I agreed to marry you, but that is all.”

At St. Andrews, Fife and de Gredin, escorted by all but two of Fife’s tail, had walked to the palace and thence to the cathedral to find his eminence, the bishop. The service of Compline being soon over, he had invited them back to his palace for supper and to spend the night, as Fife had expected. He had certainly not wanted to stay aboard the longship all night, for a more uncomfortable craft he had never imagined.

De Gredin had not been enthusiastic about stopping at St. Andrews, but he had agreed when Fife pointed out that if MacLennan had found the girl aboard the Serpent , he would want to put her ashore as expeditiously as possible. And where, Fife had asked, could he be more certain of her safety than with the bishop?

Accordingly, they had finished an excellent supper at the bishop’s table and were still enjoying his fine claret when a lackey entered and said, “Beg pardon, your eminence, but a man has come from the harbor with a message for my lord Fife.”