Chapter 17

T o the oars, lads!”

Sidony heard Giff shout the words as he motioned Ned Blegbie to descend. She watched as Giff moved swiftly about, giving orders to the men. When he sent Jake to “man” the compass, she smiled at Jake’s air of importance as he obeyed.

From that moment through the rest of the day, Giff paid her little heed. She ate salt beef and a roll at midday, and talked with Father Adam, but when the priest began asking questions she felt ill equipped to answer or that seemed too personal, she excused herself and returned to the aft cabin to nap.

Supper included hard rolls and a stew of salt beef and flour dumplings in thin gravy that, despite rolling waves, the men had cooked over a fire pot without mishap.

Giff sat with her to eat the hasty meal but otherwise continued to keep his mind on the sea and the longships following them. Then, to her surprise, an hour before sunset, he took the ship into a bay, dropped anchor, and sent the coble ashore with a number of archers. Then he climbed the mast himself to watch the open sea.

The coble returned in an hour with jugs of fresh water and game bags, and they weighed anchor. When Sidony retired to the cabin at last, Giff put his head in to say, “I’ll be along soon, lass, but I won’t stay long. Once we reach Peterhead, I’ll want to keep a sharp eye on our course, because we’ll have seventy miles of open sea before us with no land in sight as we cross the Moray Firth. To miss Sinclair Bay and end up in the Orkneys, or worse, would utterly ruin my reputation.”

Since she had no fear that any such thing would happen with him in control of the ship, she just smiled, then prepared quickly for bed and got in to wait for him.

“Why did we stop in that bay?” she asked when he entered.

“Because I couldn’t stomach that stew again. Tomorrow we’ll have rabbit.”

“But what if Fife had caught us?”

“Aye, well, that was another reason. Those galleys are faster than this ship, but they stay about an hour behind us. I wanted to see if they’d stop, too, and they must have, because they are back there now, just as before. They seem to be watching us, mayhap thinking we’re daft enough to lead them to the treasure.”

She liked listening to his voice. When he said they needn’t bother with a lantern, she agreed and asked if he was really concerned about their course.

“Nay, for the stars are peeping out, but the weather’s trying hard to brew a storm. Hugo would say I’m a fool not to put into shore until dawn, but the plain fact is that I don’t trust Fife, and the sooner we make Girnigoe, the better I’ll like it.”

They talked about nothing in particular until Maxwell rapped on the door and said they had passed Cairnbulg Point. Then Giff bent down, kissed her too swiftly, and left. The next morning, the skies were dark again, crosswinds blew, and no one could doubt that the storm that had threatened for a sennight would strike soon.

Giff believed the storm would hold off long enough for them to reach Girnigoe, but the dark hours of the night had tested his skill. The turbulent clouds had parted often enough to track a few stars, and the compass held steady, but when day broke with still no sign of land, he hoped he had not miscalculated badly.

Rabbit stew at midday raised his spirits, but it was hours more before Blegbie, on the masthead, sighted land ahead and shouted the welcome news. Then he added, “Them ships be a-closing their distance, sir, and there be a half dozen more o’ them!”

Learning that they were not all longships, Giff signed to Maxwell to follow him to the forward cabin, banishing the priest without ceremony as they entered.

“Let’s see that rutter again,” Giff said as he unrolled a map on the shelf provided for the purpose. Confirming the detail he had recalled, he said, “We’ll let them get as near as they like, then cut in close round Noss Head soon after dusk.”

“We’ve almost two hours till then, sir. We’ll be cutting it gey close.”

“I mean to, but if we time it right, Fife and his reinforcements will have other concerns to occupy them whilst I make my landing and confer with Prince Henry.”

“Aye, I see that,” Maxwell said, casting his own glance at the rutter. “If I may ask ye, how long d’ye mean to stay at Girnigoe?”

“Just a day or two to replenish stores; then I’ll be taking our cargo west.”

“I expect ye dinna mean to leave Jake and me at Girnigoe, or do ye, sir?”

“I’ll need you, Maxwell, and I expect you’ll want to keep Jake with you.”

“Aye, sir. The lad were so afraid o’ losing me after his mam died that I promised I’d keep him with me. I’ve kept me word till now, but I dinna like the sound o’ what lies ahead, what wi’ this storm coming and all,” he added.

“Prince Henry would look after him if we asked him to,” Giff assured him.

“That’d be kind o’ him, but I’m right against breaking me word to Jake.”

“We’ll see, then.”

It occurred to Giff that doubtless Sidony should also stay at Girnigoe, but he found himself profoundly reluctant to leave her there.

Heaven only knew when he’d be able to return and collect her.

More than that, she was his now, and he did not want to part with her.

The wind grew more contrary, setting the sail aflap as fast as it refilled the canvas, so that the men at the braces had all they could do to control the yardarm.

The water grew rougher, the waves higher, and darkening clouds sped from the west only to collide with darker ones racing from the east.

Sidony, well wrapped in Fife’s voluminous black wool cloak, watched as the clouds tried to pile one atop another. Towering, puffy white ones and billowing gray-to-black ones, all at different levels, seemed to fly in all directions.

The waves, too, were contrary, and the nearer they drew to the headland, the more contrary they grew, until the sea looked like a great pot stirred by a madman.

Giff paused in his continuing rounds to say, “Art cold, lass?”

“No, sir, I love the wind, but I gave up trying to keep my head covered.”

He grinned. “This blow doesn’t frighten you, then.”

She shook her head, unwilling to tell him that his presence reassured her. “How close are those other boats now?” she asked.

“They’re gaining, because they’re lighter on the water than we are, but we’ll reach Girnigoe by nightfall.”

She did not want to think about Girnigoe. She had met Prince Henry of Orkney more than once, but she had never met his countess. And since, married now or not, she could not imagine any woman approving of her voyage aboard a ship full of men, she did not look forward to meeting her.

But two hours later, the Serpent rounded Noss Head to enter Sinclair Bay.

Giff marveled, as he had before, at the magnificent bay stretched before him. Six miles wide at its entrance, the bay’s semicircular shoreline, which was bold and rocky everywhere else, subsided for four miles to low sand hills against a backdrop of impressively sheer precipices. Innumerable deep fissures, or “goes,” penetrated them, creating gloomy caves or deep, watery chasms open to the sky. And here and there isolated pillars of sandstone called “stacks,” resembling tall pickets of land, thrust skyward from the turmoil of the breakers.

“Sir Giff, me da’ said to tell ye them ships be nobbut a half hour ahind us.”

“Thanks, Jake.” As they continued around the headland, Giff watched for the castle as he measured the rhythm of the rapidly ebbing tide with an experienced eye, grateful that Henry kept observers posted to warn him of approaching vessels.

A mile west of the headland, Castle Girnigoe, chief stronghold of the ancient Earls of Caithness and the Sinclair family, loomed on a bold, tonguelike peninsula of land a hundred feet above the southeast end of the bay.

Girnigoe’s main tower stood fifty feet and five stories high, and its curtain wall, where it fronted on the sea, stood at the very edge of the craggy precipice. At the foot of that precipice, a steep-sided goe wide enough to shelter a good-sized boat ran in deep behind the castle’s high, tonguelike perch.

What came into view on Giff’s left, in the shelter of the deeply curved inland face of Noss Head, he admired even more—four of Henry’s galleys, well manned.

Ordering the sail down, Giff directed his oarsmen toward the goe.

The wind had dropped significantly as they rounded Noss Head, but the rolling waves remained contrary, and the rock-girded inlet left no room for error.

He prayed that the capricious winds would not decide to blow straight at them from the north or northeast until the ship was safely inside the goe. The Pentland Firth, where storms raged more dangerously than elsewhere and currents and winds often changed direction in a blink, lay less than ten miles away.

He spared a thought for the ships pursuing them, hoping their captains knew naught of the Caithness shoreline. If they but followed where he had led, he could perhaps avoid a battle in the unpredictable bay. Clearing his mind of such thoughts, he focused it on his oarsmen and the impending landing instead.

“It is so beautiful here, so stark and crisp,” Sidony said, her voice startling him out of his concentration on his narrow target.

“It is,” he murmured, throwing her a quick smile and wondering as he often had since he’d met her just what it was about her that calmed him so one moment and then shoogled up his internals, as Jake would say, the very next.

“Do you know Countess Jean?” she asked. Her voice was quiet, but a note in it caught his attention.

With another quick look, he saw the strain that disturbed her usual serenity.

“Don’t fret, sweetheart,” he said. “She won’t bite you. Henry won’t let her.”

“Women don’t need to bite to hurt, sir.”

Still watching closely, knowing he was on course, he put an arm around her shoulders and drew her nearer. “She won’t hurt you either, because I won’t let her.”

He held her tight, and she drew strength both from him and from his words as she gazed in fascination at the sheer pillars of rock with seawater boiling around their bases. Her worry about the countess slid away, replaced by puzzlement as the sheer wall ahead of them drew too rapidly closer.

She was more accustomed to beaching boats, and the sandy beach some distance away to the right looked as if one could beach nearly any boat there, albeit perhaps not high enough to be safe from a storm-driven tide.

But the unwelcoming pillars and sheer rock dead ahead of them looked far more dangerous. She had every confidence in Giff, but . . .

“Are we not going to hold water soon and drop anchor?”

He chuckled. “Nay, lass, we’d have a time with her if we did. Look there, just ahead now, and you’ll see an inlet with a landing like the boatsheds we call nousts at home, with rings and narrow wharves on each side to hold her. You can see Henry’s men waiting now, too. They’ll see that she stays safe overnight.”

“What of Fife?” she asked.

“I’m hoping he and his lads will be kept busy, any that make it this far.”

She glanced at the four galleys, apparently lying in wait in the lee of the headland, and thought she understood him.

The boats that had been following still had not come into view when Giff directed men on the bow to cast lines to those waiting and shouted, “Hold water, lads!” Calling quickly for them to ship their oars, he kept a close, measuring eye on the flanking rock faces as the ship drifted perilously between them. Others aboard the ship cast more lines to men waiting on either side to catch and secure them.

The ship eased to a stop in surprisingly calm water.

Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney—tall, broad-shouldered, and still Viking fair at thirty-six—strode grinning to welcome them.

The plank went out, and stepping onto it, Giff offered a steadying hand to Sidony as she followed. When she reached the landing, he released her to shake Henry’s hand, saying, “All’s well. Fife’s right behind us, as you may know, but I’ve married the lass—the priest is yonder—and I’ll tell you about it all presently.”

Henry greeted Sidony warmly, and if he was shocked to see her or to learn of her marriage, she saw no hint of it. Leaving Captain Maxwell and Jake to supervise the men, and taking Father Adam with them, she and Giff followed their host up a narrow, precipitous flight of steps cut in the solid rock, through an archway at the top that opened into a walled forecourt, where they faced Girnigoe’s main tower.

Jean, Countess of Orkney, received them on the dais at the west end of the huge, vaulted great hall, where a bow window overlooked the darkening land mass west of the castle. The countess, a plump, comfortable-looking young woman as fair as her husband, relieved Sidony’s mind by greeting them as warmly as he had and expressing only delight upon learning of their marriage.

“But you must be exhausted,” she said to Sidony. “I always am after a sea voyage, and to have arrived here so quickly from Leith! You must not have set a foot to the ground until you arrived here!”

Sidony acknowledged the truth of that statement with a laugh, saying, “And if Sir Giffard hadn’t held on to me, I’d have tumbled right into the water, coming up your steps. I vow, it felt as if each one of them lurched as I set foot on it.”

“And so it always is, aye, but the sensation passes off quickly. Come now, for I know the men want to talk as they sup, so I’ll show you to your chamber myself. It grows late, so I’m thinking you won’t want your supper here in the hall but will want a bath, a light meal in your chamber, and then a comfortable bed for the night.”

Gratefully, Sidony agreed and asked her if perhaps she had a robe to lend her, explaining that she had only the clothing she stood in to call her own.

“My dear! But how came that about?” Hearing the explanation as they went up to the third floor of the tower, Jean exclaimed and assured Sidony that she would provide whatever clothing she needed. “Not that we’re at all the same size, my dear, for I’ve a few inches more than you in all directions, but we shall make do.”

The chamber to which Jean showed her opened off a gallery with narrow arched windows that revealed only blackness beyond. But as oil-burning cressets suspended at each end of the gallery lit the passage, she could not see enough to tell if the storm clouds that had threatened were breaking up or thickening.

“I’ll have them bring your supper straightaway, and a tub as well,” the countess said. “The lads can fill it whilst you eat. You need not hurry, either, because it will be some time yet, I’m sure, before Sir Giffard joins you.”

“Joins me?” Sidony heard the squeak in her own voice.

Her hostess smiled. “I’d not dare put him anywhere else to sleep on what must be the first night you’ve had to enjoy each other’s company in real privacy. But I’ll send my woman to you with something pretty to wear after your bath.”

She went, leaving Sidony to stare at the large bed that dominated the chamber.

Henry turned Father Adam over to his chaplain with assurance that he would arrange his return to St. Andrews on one of his ships. Then he ushered Giff to the high table, saying, “We’ll put up privy screens, for we’ll be eating alone and thus can talk freely. Jean will see that Sidony gets a bath and anything else she needs.”

Giff’s body stirred at the thought of Sidony in a bathtub, but Henry diverted him after telling a gillie to set the screens, by saying, “What happened to your tail, Giff? The last report I received had them closing in behind you.”

“If they do come into the bay, how dangerous would that be?” Giff asked.

Henry shrugged. “Girnigoe is impregnable, and my boats should keep Fife civil. If he demands entrance here, pretending his father’s royal banner gives him that right, I’ll allow it, but he’ll bring no more than six of his men in with him.”

“He has twice as many boats as you have below. I cannot name three lairds in Lothian who would support him, let alone six, and I know of none on the east coast with more than one boat. However, the two longboats fly French banners.”

“What of de Gredin?” Henry asked, frowning. “He was in this business last year before I brought him here, and claims connections both to France and the Pope.”

“Aye, and he is still in it,” Giff said. “He captured Sidony and stowed her on Fife’s boat. I stole the boat and found her, which is how we came to be married.”

Clearly shocked and a little amused as well, Henry demanded the whole tale. So, as they ate, Giff told him everything, omitting only certain private details.

Reassured that Sidony had suffered no great harm and that the Stone was safely aboard the Serpent , Henry expressed astonishment at de Gredin’s renewed relationship with Fife. “Those other ships must have come from de Gredin, then,” he said at last. “Can he really have got them from his holiness?”

“I doubt the longboats belong to the Pope. Vatican ships always carry cargo. As to the others, they may be warships. We’ve seen little more than their sails.”

“But why not stop you at sea, then? You say they’ve kept their distance.”

“Fife cannot have full control of those ships,” Giff said. “Moreover, he may not have risked letting de Gredin think we have the Stone. Fife may not quite believe it himself, come to that. But if he needed de Gredin to follow us and de Gredin cares only about the treasure, my guess is that he hopes I can lead them to the whole thing.”

“In any event, you will stay here until we can think what to do about them,” Henry said. “That landing can be reached from land only through the castle, and as few as four men with pikes or lances can defend it against anyone trying to approach it from the sea. But we dare not move your cargo until Fife leaves.”

“I’ll stay a day for my lads to rest and to load more stores, and I’ll need one of your rutters with details of the Caithness north coast,” Giff said. “But I mean to leave before dawn the day after tomorrow.”

“Don’t be daft, lad. It is raining already, and the storm that’s about to erupt will turn the Pentland Firth into a churning cauldron and keep it so for days.”

Giff grinned. “Can you think of a better way to stop Fife?”

“You’ve eighty miles to go betwixt here and Cape Wrath,” Henry reminded him. “You’d be lucky to get five without foundering, and even if the Fates let you make it past Cape Wrath, the storm could follow you right down the west coast.”

“I won’t mind if it does,” Giff said. “Storms energize me, Henry, and Fife fears them. Moreover, no captain from France or Rome is likely to know these waters well enough to risk following us into that cauldron you’ve described.”

“You’ll leave Sidony here, of course.”

“I don’t know yet,” Giff admitted. “I mean to ask her what she wants to do.”

“You cannot take her with you on such a trip!”

“We’ll see. She says she is tired of others always making her decisions.”

“Well, she cannot make this one. Your plan is too reckless. Not only would you endanger everyone aboard, but you’ve forgotten the importance of your cargo.”

“Nay, I have not. But I have faith that St. Columba will protect us on this voyage if on no other, Henry. That cargo I carry is sacred, after all, and the omens have been good. A man either believes in them and in his own course, or he fails.”

After that, Henry reserved argument and changed the subject, demanding news from home, but Giff knew he would hear more before leaving. So, an hour later, when one of Henry’s men reported that five of the pursuing ships had run aground on the long shoals off Noss Head over which the Serpent had skimmed on the rapidly ebbing tide a half hour before them, he took the news as yet another strong omen of approval.

Bidding Henry good night, Giff accepted a jug of brogac, another of claret, and two silver goblets as a wedding present. Then, recalling the image of Sidony in the tub, and eager to discover if other portents he had noted might also favor him, he hurried to find the bedchamber that he was to share with her.

He was halfway up the stairs when the image of his lass in the tub altered to one disapproving of what she had called his impetuosity. Henry had been less polite, calling him reckless, just as Hugo had before him.

Giff disagreed with all of them. To be sure, he had great respect for Henry and Hugo. He cared about the lass, too, and was coming to like her more each day. But she scarcely knew him yet and knew even less about how to ensure victory.

So why, he wondered, did her words linger so clearly in his mind?

Sitting by a cheerful fire on a pile of large, stuffed, embroidered cushions, bathed, well fed, smelling delightfully of lavender from the fine French soap Countess Jean had provided, and wearing the countess’s lace-trimmed cambric shift and soft yellow velvet robe, Sidony heard the latch and drew a quick breath.

When she saw that Giff had two jugs and as many goblets, she decided she would feel less vulnerable on her feet and stood up in Jean’s slippers to face him.

He stopped in the doorway and stared at her, the expression on his face bringing a flush of heat to her cheeks that seemed to spread all through her. Jean’s own maidservant had attended her, had even washed her hair and brushed it dry at the fire. Soft and silky, it spilled over her shoulders and down her back to her waist.

He whistled low and said, “You, my lass, are a sight to steal any man’s heart.”

Though pleased, she nonetheless nearly reminded him she was not his lass, until she recalled that before God’s Holy Kirk, she was. That thought and the sight of him recalled her to her vows and to the fact that she found her marriage less disturbing and more acceptable each time she clapped eyes on him.

His widening smile increased the strange sensations he always stirred in her.

Stepping inside, elbowing the door shut, he said, “You had that robe from Jean, did you not?”

“Aye,” she said. “She has been most kind, but it is a trifle large.”

“You look like a child wrapped in its mother’s clothes.”

“I am not a child,” she said indignantly.

“No, sweetheart, I can see that. Is the water in that tub still warm?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It has been sitting some time now, but I’m sure you can find someone to bring you more hot water.”

“I don’t want to wait,” he said, his expression openly hungry now.

The look set her nerves atingle with warning and something else that made her hesitate to say more. But she gathered her wits long enough to say with grave dignity, “If you want to bathe, sir, I can walk in the gallery whilst you do.”

“Nay, lass, you’ll help me. ’Tis a wife’s duty, after all, and you vowed—”

“I know what I vowed, and there was naught in it about baths!”

“There was something about obedience, though. You seem resistant, so doubtless you want practice.” He handed her the goblets. “Hold those,” he said.

Watching him warily, she obeyed. He poured from one jug into each goblet. It was not wine. Sniffing it suspiciously, she said, “Is this brogac?”

“Aye,” he said. “Have you never tasted it?”

She shook her head.

“Well, I’m going to have my bath, and you can sit and watch me and sip your brogac. I’ll even tell you a bard’s tale or two to pass the time, if you like.”

“Very well,” she said, seeing naught to lose by obeying such a request.

Giff set the jugs on the low stool by the hearth where she had put his brogac and watched as she curled up on her cushions like a kitten, goblet in hand. She was too far from the stool to set the goblet on it, and setting it on the floor from her deep nest of cushions would be difficult. Satisfied, he tested the water. It was tepid, but it smelled deliciously of her soap, and the fire had kept it from turning icy, so it would serve well enough. He would prove to her that he was not reckless, but he would also prove that she ought to remember warnings when he issued them.

The bruise on her chin had faded, and her cheeks were rosy from her bath.

He burned to touch her, but as he pulled off his clothing, he turned away when an unfamiliar voice of forethought whispered that he might otherwise frighten her. Then he sank into the tub, picked up the ewer beside it, poured water over himself, and soaped himself all over. Dripping water and soap, he smiled at her.

“Have you ever helped bathe a man, sweetheart?”

She shook her head. “My father says it is not a fit task for a maiden.”

“Even a maiden can bathe her husband. You may help me, if you like.”

Shifting in a way that told him his words had stirred sensations through her body that she was trying to ignore, she said, “You said you’d tell me a bard’s tale.”

“We could do both.” He dipped the ewer to refill it.

“I’d rather just hear the story,” she said, sipping her brogac and making a face. “This is very strong, I think.”

“One grows used to it, and ’tis the drink of the Isles, but if you do not think you can tolerate it . . .” He paused, saw her sip again, and thinking things were going well, he said, “I know many Highland tales. Is there one you’d like to hear?”

“Aye, there is,” she said, taking another sip.

“Which one?” he asked as he bent forward to pour water over his head and rinse the soap from his hair.

“I want to hear how you came to believe that if a person loses the right moment to do something, he will never find another.”

He stopped moving with one hand still on his head as the past surged up and chilled him to the bone.

Ruthlessly suppressing the flood of memory, he said carefully, “’Twas nobbut an old French proverb I once heard: ‘All the treasures of the earth cannot buy back one lost moment.’ My father said it, and I took it to heart.”

“What moment had you lost to make him say that to you?”

The memory swept through his mind again, stronger than ever. Setting down the ewer, he drew a deep breath and let it out. Then, measuring his words, he said, “I do not want to talk about this tonight, lass. ’Tis nowt.”

She leaned forward, hands cradling the bowl of her goblet, unaware that her robe gaped enough to show the soft mounds of her breasts and her deep cleavage. Her hair spilled forward, too, a glowing, palely gilded sheet of silk in the firelight.

“It cannot be nowt,” she said softly. “I’ve seen a sad look sometimes cross your face without cause, and you speak of lost moments too often for it to be nowt to you. Whatever happened must have been dreadful.”

He had never felt so vulnerable, so unmanned. But when he looked at her and saw the gentle intensity in her eyes, he wanted to tell her, to explain. The thought that he could tell her felt strange, and he could think of no easy way. He feared that her gentle, understanding demeanor could too easily turn to repugnance.

Her gaze held steady, her manner remained serene, and her trust in him flowed from her in waves, assuring him that he could say anything to her. Even so, he knew what he risked, and he knew, too, of only one way to say it.

“I killed my brother,” he said and, to his shock, felt tears spring to his eyes.

Dashing them away, aware that he sat in rapidly cooling water with wet strands of hair hanging over his face, he reached for his goblet, meaning to drink it dry, but she was there before he could lift it, and she held on to it firmly.

“Wait,” she said. “I would hear the rest first. How old were you?”

“Eleven,” he said curtly. “Lass, I cannot sit like this and talk of such things.”

As if he had not spoken, she said, “How old was your brother?”

“Thirteen.” He realized she meant to have the tale, and having begun, decided to tell it quickly. “He taunted me. I don’t recall what he said, but he made me angry, then ran, saying I couldn’t catch him. Duncraig sits on basalt cliffs above the sea. I’d played there the day before and fallen into a crevice, a small one but enough to trip a careless lad and make him look foolish. I knew he was heading for it but not how near the cliff it lay. I had that moment to stop him, but I hesitated. And he was lost.”

“He fell?”

“He . . . he tried to jump it, stumbled, and plunged to the rocks below.”

A tear spilled down his cheek and he shivered, eleven years old again, seeing the spirited, beloved boy who had never aged beyond thirteen vanish before his eyes again as he had on that terrible day.