“He had best remain clear of Brae Aisir. I will not have my wife insulted in a public place. Had he not been drunk, I would have been forced to kill him,” Fin said.
“ ’Twould not have been an auspicious start for our visit, my lord. I do not doubt that whatever small favor we have garnered from the king would be lost by such actions,and more,” Maggie told him pointedly.
They moved through the town from South Street to North Street and followed along with others who had been invited to tonight’s festivities and were also making their way to the castle. Maggie looked about her and decided that she and Fin fit in quite nicely. Reassured their garments were suitable, she felt her courage return; she laughed softly at herself to realize she had been frightened by something as foolish as fashion. She had never been a woman who cared that much for gowns and fripperies. But she also realized that a woman who attended a king’s reception before his wedding to a French duchess needed a respectable wardrobe, and she was glad she had one.
They reached St. Andrews Castle, and in the courtyard their horses were taken from them while their men-at-arms found themselves invited to sit at the trestles that had been set up in the large open enclosure. Maggie, her hand on her husband’s arm, followed along as they walked with other guests to the great hall of the castle. It was a damp evening, but the big fireplaces in the hall were heaped high with logs, and took the chill from the night. The king and Marie de Guise had not yet joined their guests.
“Every lordling in Scotland must be here,” Maggie said, looking about. She saw no one she knew. And the variety of clothing was striking. Many were dressed in the same style of fashionable garments as she and Fin. But others, Highlanders, she immediately realized, came in leather breeches, their plaids pinned with their clan brooches slung across their chests, and over one shoulder. They wore caps with eagle feathers on their heads, and their hair was unfashionably long, some with it tied back, others with it left loose about their shoulders.
“Aye,” Fin agreed. “The northerners have come to gain a sense of this man who has barged into their territories, forcing them to his will.”
“Do ye know any of them?” Maggie asked, curious.
“Nay,” he said. “I have spent most of the last years as a mercenary in France and the Italian and German states. Those Highland chiefs do not venture far from their own lands.”
There was a musicians’ gallery above the end of the hall where they had entered.
In it a dozen or more musicians sat playing. Servants passed among the crowds, offering small goblets of wine. At the other end of the hall a dais was set up. An awning of wide cloth of gold and royal purple stripes was set over it. On the dais were two high-backed chairs with carved and curled arms. A tufted purple cushion had been placed on the flat seat of each chair. One chair, however, was smaller, and lower than the other. Maggie moved forward to get a better look at what had obviously been set up as thrones.
At that moment the doors at the far end of the hall were opened. A flourish of trumpets sounded from the musicians’ gallery, and a stentorian voice pronounced, “My lords and my ladies, the king and the queen.” The crowds parted to either side of the hall, making an aisle for the royal couple to move forward to their thrones. Maggie panicked, realizing that in her effort to see the dais better she had become separated from her husband. She stood silently in the very forefront of the crowd, her heart hammering nervously as King James and Marie de Guise came forward.
When the couple had almost reached their destination, James’s eye caught Maggie’s, and she curtsied lower than she had ever curtsied in her life. “Aah, here is the lady of Brae Aisir, wife to my kinsman, the Stewart of Torra.” Raising Maggie, the king said, “Marie, I present to you Lady Margaret Kerr. Where is Fingal, Maggie?”
“I am here, my liege,” Fin said, pushing his way through the crowd. He bowed elegantly to the king, and then kissed the new queen’s outstretched hand. “I salute ye, madam, and the great house of Guise from which ye sprang. Welcome to Scotland,” he said in perfect French.
Marie de Guise broke into a smile. “I thank ye, my lord,” she answered him in her own native tongue. “Ye have obviously lived in France.”
“I have fought in France, madam,” he answered her.
“We must speak again,” Marie de Guise said, “and your lovely wife, my lord.”
“We will be honored, madam,” Fin said.
“My kinsman is not an important man,ma chérie,” the king told her. “But he is the kind of man you can have complete faith in, for his branch of the family have never betrayed their kings. Not even once. Their motto isEver faithful, unlike many you will meet this night among my great lords.” His gaze met Fingal Stewart’s. “Thank ye for coming, my lord and my lady.” Then, with a bow to them, the king moved on with his new wife to gain the dais and sit upon their thrones.
It was to be the highlight of their visit to St. Andrews, for they did not get close to the king and his bride again. As the king himself had said, they were not important. It made no difference to Maggie. She stood in the great cathedral on the twelfth day of June, watching as the king was formally married to Marie de Guise. She partook of the wedding feast in the castle’s great hall that day from a trestle in the back of the chamber.
They had departed the celebration early that night, for in the morning they would begin their return trip to the Borders. Their life was there rather than among the high and mighty who surrounded the king and his new queen. But Mad Maggie Kerr would never forget those few wonderful days she and Fin spent in St. Andrews.
Chapter 10
Ewan Hay had never been more surprised in his life than he was when Mad Maggie Kerr’s husband had without a single word sent him crumbling to the floor. As he sat dazed upon the floor of the Anchor and the Cross, Ewan tasted the blood in his mouth, and at least two of his teeth felt loose. But there was no time to feel sorry for himself, for the landlord’s two sturdy sons pulled him up, and hustled him out the inn door, tossing him rudely into the street.
“Dinna come back!” the taller of the two said to him.
“Ye have no right,” Ewan blustered. “I paid for my accommodation!”
“Ye forfeited it when ye insulted the wife of the king’s kinsman,” the innkeeper’s son said. “Begone with ye now!”
“I want my money back!” Ewan yelled as he got to his feet.
“What ye’ll get is a beating ye’ll ne’er forget if yer not on yer way by the time I count to three,” came his answer. “One! Two! Three!” The innkeeper’s son stepped forward menacingly, his two big fists balled tightly, his look fierce.
Ewan Hay turned and ran. The laughter that followed him didn’t help his mood. His stomach rolled, and stepping into an alley, he vomited much of the sour wine and ale he had consumed that day. Then he stepped out of the narrow passage, straightened his garb, dusted himself off, and followed along with the crowds headed for St. Andrews Castle. He managed amid the excitement and confusion to gain entry into the great hall before the king and queen arrived.
As he wandered through the jovial crowd of guests, he suddenly spotted Mad Maggie Kerr in her peach velvet gown. He edged himself closer and closer to her. Her husband was nowhere in sight. Ewan had wanted her for years, although she didn’t know it. He had first seen her when she was about thirteen, riding across the moors. She had been hell-bent for leather, leaning low over the neck of that great dapple gray stallion of hers, her skirts hiked high, her bare white legs visible to anyone with eyes to see. Her rich brown hair had been blowing in the wind, and Ewan Hay thought she was the most beautiful and desirable girl he had ever seen. She hadn’t seen him.
She never saw Ewan Hay as he watched her ride the moors, or at the meetings of the border chieftains when she came with her grandfather and he had been with his brother. He fantasized about seducing her; about riding her down, taking her from her horse, and having his way with her in the heather. She would fight him, of course. And each time he considered it, his cock grew to iron in his breeks. He imagined her clawing at him in a desperate effort to avoid his possession. He imagined her screaming at him, cursing him, as he impaled her and fucked her until she fainted.
