“It will be some time before they can be finished,” Hepburn said.
“Scotland is at peace for now. The English prefer coming over the border and have no navy of any size with which to attack us. And they are too busy with their own civil strife to be bothered by us unless, of course, we poke the lion. The French are our allies. Who else is there? I’m a practical man, my lord. But the queen will make her own decisions in this matter. These battlements are well and strongly constructed. They will hold your artillery. I would see that sturdy wood shutters are made for the cannon ports to conceal them. I would not set my cannon on trestle benches like many do. Have good stone mounts in which to set them. I have heard that of late some are experimenting with wheels. It requires fewer men to move the weapons. The queen would have to ask her uncle, and he would have to speak with his foundry master.” The laird looked about. “ ’Tis a fair land, our Scotland,” he said, gazing out over the Firth of Forth and its surround of green hills.
“Aye,” Adam Hepburn agreed. Then he said, “The queen should be ready to receive us now. It is her custom to break her fast each morning in a small private chamber with her children. She worries about her lads. Alexander is the wild son, and unfortunately David and John follow his lead rather than young James.”
“They are braw lads,” Malcolm Scott said. “Jamie was proud of them.” He didn’t ask how the Hepburn of Hailes knew all this. The rumor had it that Adam Hepburn was the queen’s lover. Well, if he was, she was entitled to a bit of comfort. It didn’t stop Bishop Kennedy from attempting to discredit her, however.
Coming down from the battlement and reentering the great hall, they found the queen and Alix in conversation. The laird’s heart leaped at the sight of her. Seeing them, the queen waved them over and the two men joined her.
“Malcolm Scott has given me an excellent assessment of what you will need, Your Highness,” Adam Hepburn reported.
“I would say one or two more things,” the laird interjected. “They are beginning to cast cannons with cast iron now as well as bronze. Cast iron is stronger. Have at least half your supply made from it. And do not use serpentine powder. The sulfur and the saltpeter fall to the bottom of the barrels, leaving the charcoal on top. It means the powder has to be remixed on site. It can be dangerous.”
“Why does that happen?” the queen asked him. “How can it be prevented?”
“Saltpeter and sulfur are heavier elements than charcoal,” the laird explained. “The newer method is calledcorning. All of the ingredients are mixed wet and then spread out and formed into a cake, which dries hard. The cakes, when broken up into granules, have the advantage of staying dry and are easier to transport. It offers more firepower using less.” The laird did not tell the queen that the cannon that had killed the king had been loaded with too much corning. Its disadvantage was in making those loading the weapons understand they did not need as much. It was a better method nonetheless, and the king had approved it.
“The laird has suggested we set up a factory of our own to make the ammunition that you will need. And a foundry to cast our own cannon should your uncle’s help not be readily available to you,” the Hepburn of Hailes told the queen.
“You have been an enormous help to us, my lord,” Marie of Gueldres said.
“Madame, I will always be ready to aid you and the young king,” Malcolm Scott said. “I am honored you called upon me.”
“It was better that others not be aware I intended carrying out my husband’s plans to fortify the Firth of Forth,” the queen told him.
“Then if my service to you is done, madame, and with your permission, I will begin my return home on the morrow,” the laird said.
“It is but midautumn, my lord. Bide with us for a few more days,” the queen said. “I am enjoying muchly the company of Mistress Alix, and my son the company of your little daughter. She is a lively and outspoken lass. The king is not used to such.” The queen smiled a mischievous smile at Malcolm Scott.
Alix giggled. “She told the Duke of Albany this morning to mind his manners, which she thought no better than a cowherd’s when approaching his king.”
The queen laughed. “Alexander was mightily taken aback and equally offended, but the king was quite delighted to have a small defender.”
The invitation to remain had not been a request. It had been a command, and the laird knew it. He had bowed and acquiesced, but he wanted to go home. They hunted in the hills surrounding Ravenscraig over the next few days. The young king was not a particularly good horseman. Though he strove to hide it, he was afraid of the great black horse upon which they seated him. His three younger brothers took every opportunity to spook the animal, laughing as their older sibling clung to the beast. One morning, just as they had started out, the king fell off of his horse. He lay still for a moment or two.
“Is he dead?” Alexander Stewart wanted to know. “If he is dead then I am king!”
“I am afraid Your Grace is doomed to disappointment this time,” Adam Hepburn said dryly as the king groaned and sat up.
“What an unpleasant child,” Alix murmured to the laird as they rode back to the castle, for the accident had shaken the king, and their hunt that day was over before it even began. “How he covets his brother’s place.”
“If young James grows up, his brothers will give him nothing but difficulty, I fear,” Malcolm Scott replied quietly. “Come and walk with me on the beach, lass.”
She smiled a slow smile of assent and nodded.
When they had dismounted within the castle courtyard the laird took Alix’s hand, and they quickly departed across the drawbridge. The queen, seeing them go, raised a questioning eyebrow at the Hepburn of Hailes.
“I believe she is his mistress,” Adam Hepburn said softly. “They have been gone from their home for over ten days now, madame. I believe he misses her company.”
Marie of Gueldres laughed low. “He misses her body, my lord.”
“I do not enjoy being separated from you,” the Hepburn said quietly.
“Hush, my lord,” she told him. “In public we must both remain circumspect. As it is Bishop Kennedy has admonished me, although even he is not certain of what we share. I prefer he never be sure of that.”
“Why should you not be happy?” he demanded of her. “You are a widow, not a nun in a cloister.”
“I am happy, but I am also the guardian of Scotland’s king and the mother of his five siblings. Unlike a man, I may not flaunt my lover, my lord, and you well know it. Besides, there are those who, if they knew for certain, would be angry the king’s mother had taken for her lover a mere Hepburn and not an earl. They would say your family’s ambition was shameless. Are you ambitious, my lord?”
