Archie grinned and handed his master a dark brown woolen cloak and a pair of brown leather gloves. “I dinna steal it,” he said. “Ye paid for it, my lord.”
“I’m sure I did,” Fingal replied.
“I had forgotten what a handsome devil ye are,” Janet said. She pushed a lock of her cousin’s dark hair from his forehead. “Do ye have a hat for him, Archie?”
“No bloody hat,” Lord Stewart said firmly, “and especially if it has one of those damned drooping feathers hanging from it.”
“I saved no coin for a hat, as I know how ye feel about them,” Archie said.
Together the two cousins rode the distance between the city and the king’s favored palace, the men-at-arms surrounding them. The summer day was long, but it was close to sunset when they arrived. Janet Munro sent a page for the king and brought her cousin to her lover’s privy chamber to await James Stewart. It was close to an hour before he came. Outside the windows of the small room the skies grew scarlet with the sunset, and then darkened. A serving man came and lit the fire in the hearth, for the evening was cool and damp with a hint of a later rain.
Finally James Stewart entered the chamber. He was a tall young man with the red-gold hair of his Tudor mother, and eyes that were gray in color but showed no expression at all. He held out his hand to Fingal Stewart, and a quick glance at Janet Munro told her she was dismissed. She curtsied and departed. “So,” the king said, “I am to understand we are cousins.”
“Like you, my lord, I trace my descent from Robert the Third through his elder son, David,” Fingal Stewart explained. “You descend from his younger son, King James the First.”
“I was not aware David Stewart had any offspring,” the young king replied.
“Few were, my lord. His mistress was a Drummond. When Albany murdered him, her family protected her and the son she shortly bore. Albany was too busy consolidating his position, and frankly, I believe he forgot all about her. When King James the First returned home as a man, his cousin came and pledged his loyalty.”
“A loyalty my great-great-grandfather certainly needed,” the young king remarked.
“My ancestor was well schooled in loyalty to his king, and that king saw that he was legally able to take the surname of Stewart. He also gave his cousin a house in Edinburgh near the castle,” Fingal told his royal companion.
“Where do the Munros come into your family tree?” the king asked.
“My grandfather married a Munro who was the sister to Janet’s grandfather. I believe Jan was named for her, my lord.”
The king nodded. “We are but distantly related now, you and I, Fingal Stewart, but blood is blood. Jan tells me you are loyal to me. Is that so? I am not so well loved by my earls, though the common folk revere me.” He looked closely at his companion.
“I am loyal, my lord,” Fingal Stewart said without a moment’s hesitation.
“When my father pushed his father from the throne,” the king wanted to know, “which side did Lord Stewart of Torra take then?”
“Neither side, my lord. He remained in his house below Edinburgh Castle until all was settled. He had been loyal to King James the Third and was equally loyal to King James the Fourth,” Lord Stewart explained.
“A prudent man,” the fifth James noted with a small chuckle. He had liked the candid answer he had received. “And ye, Fingal Stewart, are ye a prudent man?”
“I believe such can be said of me, my lord,” came the quiet answer.
The king looked Lord Stewart of Torra over silently. He was a big man, taller than most, with dark hair like the Munros, clear gray eyes like his own that engaged the king’s gaze without being forward, but a face like a Stewart with its aquiline nose. The king would have easily recognized this man in a crowd as one of his own family. He trusted his mistress’s advice in this matter. Janet Munro was the most sensible woman he had ever known. And he had known many women despite his youth. His stepfather, the Earl of Angus, had seen to that in an attempt to debauch him. Angus was now in exile, and his flighty Tudor mother wed to Lord Methven. However, this man now seated with James in his privy chamber was not just his kin, but kin to his reasonable and judicious mistress as well. He was not allied with any of the king’s enemies. If Fingal Stewart could not be trusted, then who could be? “Jan has told you of my visitor earlier today?”
Lord Stewart nodded. “She has, my lord. She said she believed you wanted me to go into the Borders to see to the truth of the matter if it could be done discreetly.”
“Aye, I had thought that was what I desired, but while Jan was gone to fetch you,Cousin, I thought more on it. I am not well beloved by certain families in the Borders—families allied with Angus and his traitorous Douglas kin. My justice towards them has been well deserved, but harsh, I know. If I send you into the Borders to reconnoiter the situation, someone is certain to guess why you are there.
“The situation into which I am sending you is fraught with danger if I do not strike quickly and decisively. So I have decided you will travel with a dozen of my own men-at-arms at your back who will remain with you. You will present yourself to Dugald Kerr, the laird of Brae Aisir, and tell him I have learned of his difficulties. Then you will hand him this.” He held out a tightly rolled parchment affixed with the royal seal. “I have written to the laird that I have sent him my cousin, Lord Stewart of Torra, to wed with his granddaughter, Margaret, and thus keep the Aisir nam Breug safe for future generations of travelers. The marriage is to be celebrated immediately. I dinna nae trust the laird’s neighbors, especially the Hays. If the lass is wed, the matter is settled, and peace will reign. I want it settled before I leave for France in a few weeks’ time.”
Fingal Stewart was astounded by the king’s speech. He had expected to travel cautiously into the Borders and carefully ferret out the truth of whatever situation the king needed to know about. But to be told he was to go and wed the heiress to Brae Aisir? He was briefly rendered speechless.
“Ye aren’t already wed, are ye?” the king asked him. “I did not think to ask Jan.” God’s foot, if Lord Stewart were wed, what other could he choose? Whom could he trust?
“Nay, my lord,” Fingal managed to say.
“Nor contracted?”
Lord Stewart shook his head in the negative. He was trying hard to adjust to being told to marry. How old was she? Was she pretty? Would she like him? It didn’t matter. It would be done by royal command. No one disobeyed a royal command and lived to brag on it. He dared say naught until he heard more of this, and why.
“Do ye have a mistress ye will need to placate?” James Stewart wanted to know.
