Maggie nodded. “Is there a woman in the village who can serve as wet nurse to Davy? I’ll nurse him myself for a month or two, but then I would give him to another for his nourishment, for I need to get back to my own duties in the yard.”
“Yer husband and grandsire will forbid it,” Grizel warned.
“I’m not some meek stay-by-the-fire,” Maggie replied, “and they should both know that. Having a bairn has not changed me one whit.”
Grizel watched with amusement over the next few weeks as Maggie behaved with tender concern over her child. Her grandsire was so pleased with her that he acquiesced to her demand that the bairn be named David first.
“Every firstborn son in Scotland is called James for the king,” Maggie said. “I would name my son after my father, my uncle, my husband’s ancestor. It’s fitting for the firstborn of the Kerr-Stewarts to be called David.” She cuddled the baby against her.
The laird nodded. “Yer a clever lass,” he said.
“I would like the king to be the bairn’s godfather,” Fingal Stewart ventured. Of late he had become wary of Maggie and her fierce moods.
“I have no objection,” Maggie said sweetly.
“I wasn’t certain . . .” he began.
“Ye have but to ask me first, my lord,” she told him.
A messenger was dispatched to Holyrood, where the king was now in residence, asking if he would consent to be David James Dugald Kerr-Stewart’s godfather. The messenger returned with an answer in the affirmative along with the news that James’s new queen would be the child’s godmother. Of course, little Davy would be baptized immediately for safety’s sake with proxies standing in for the king and the queen, who was neither even yet wed to James Stewart nor yet arrived in Scotland.
The old laird nodded, pleased at the king’s answer. “He does ye great honor, Fingal,” he told Maggie’s husband.
“ ’Tis not me he honors, Dugald, but yer granddaughter. He recalled Maggie’s kindness to him before Queen Madeleine died. He repays us now by giving our son powerful connections for his future.”
Maggie smiled to herself at his words. The delight at Davy’s birth now easing, her husband seemed to be back to being a thoughtful man. The bairn was six weeks old and thriving when Maggie brought Clara Kerr into the hall as Davy’s wet nurse. Both Dugald Kerr and Fingal Stewart were surprised, but Maggie was firm in her intent. As Clara was a respectable woman who had nursed three healthy bairns, but just lost one who was born too early, the laird agreed to the arrangement. If Fingal Stewart was going to disagree, the arrival of a royal messenger put an end to his dissent.
The king would be wed by proxy on the eighteenth day of May at the great cathedral in Paris where sixteen and a half months ago he had been wed to Madeleine de Valois. Robert, Lord Maxwell, would stand in for the king at this wedding. Then after taking time for her farewells, the bride would be escorted across the sea to her new home where she would be wed again, this time with James Stewart by her side.
It was both a happy and an unhappy time for Marie de Guise. She had lost her younger son, the infant Louis, to a childhood illness just a few months prior. She was forced to leave her elder son, three-year-old François, the boy duc de Longueville, behind in France in their family’s care. But ahead of her was a new husband, and hopefully other children, one of whom would be Scotland’s next king.
At Brae Aisir, Fingal Stewart was surprised to learn that he and Maggie had been invited to the royal wedding, which would take place at St. Andrews several days after the queen’s arrival in Fife. Fingal was not comfortable going, but he knew it was a request he could not refuse. The Kerrs of Brae Aisir were not important, and even his kinship with the king would not have necessarily granted them an invitation to such a stellar event. But go they would.
“Is St. Andrews near Edinburgh?” Maggie asked.
“Not near enough for us to stay in our house,” Fin told her.
“Then where are we to stay?” she wanted to know. “We must be someplace with accommodation for Grizel and Archie. Someplace where our clothing can be hung so we do not attend the royal wedding looking like rough, uncouth poor relations.”
He couldn’t give her an answer because he didn’t know himself. Archie, however, as resourceful as ever, had gone to Iver to ask whether any of the men who had come with them originally had connections in St. Andrews. To his surprise, Iver Leslie had the answer to their difficulties.
“My late da’s brother owns an inn in St. Andrews,” he said. “I’ll send to him.”
“Ye’ll need more than just yer kinship,” Archie said. “With the king celebrating his wedding there, there will be money to be made. Ye can’t ask yer uncle to forgo his share of the profits. Besides, if ye just send to him, he can easily refuse ye. Ye must go yerself and convince him yer master is important to the king, and must have generous accommodation not just for him, his wife and servants, but for ye and yer men-at-arms as well. I know yer a man of few words, but ye must do this for his lordship.”
Iver knew Archie was right. His uncle had always been tight with a groat, and Lord Stewart had the coin to pay for what he wanted. It would not cost his kinsman.
Telling his master that he would ride to St. Andrews and obtain the needed lodging, he departed Brae Aisir. Reaching St. Andrews, he found his uncle’s inn near one of the the town’s three entries, the South Gate. Iver was relieved to learn his childhood memory had not been imagination. The Anchor and the Cross was large and prosperous looking.
Iver’s uncle, Robert Leslie, like his own father, had been born on the wrong side of the blanket in a place called Glenkirk. But he hadn’t been neglected as a child. Indeed, he had been taught to read and write and knew his numbers. When he was sixteen, he had left Glenkirk, a small purse hidden in his garments, to find his fortune. He had found it by marrying the daughter of an innkeeper in St. Andrews, working hard for his father-in-law, and was now the master of a most prosperous business.
He greeted his brother’s son cautiously. “What do ye want?” he demanded to know of Iver. His tone was suspicious. His brother had outlived two wives so far and delighted in spawning bairns like a randy salmon struggling upstream. Most were lads who had to be provided for, and twice he had sought places for his sons, but Robert Leslie had four lads of his own to see to and could not help his sibling.
The captain laughed. “Peace, Uncle. I am gainfully employed and have come to seek accommodation for my master, his wife, and their retinue for the time of the king’s wedding. Lord Stewart can pay handsomely for yer best.”
“Lord Stewart, ye say. Is he close kin to the king?” the innkeeper asked.
“The king is godfather to my master’s new son, and our new queen the godmother,” Iver replied, although he did not really answer his uncle’s question.
