“We need to get our bairns home,” Fingal Stewart said.
“I dispatched the messenger,” Maggie told her husband. “We go tomorrow.”
They departed before the sun was even up the next day, but the coming day was already bright. They had not yet reached the border when they saw Rafe Kerr riding towards them with a man-at-arms. Each man carried a boy before him on his saddle. The two lads waved and called out to their parents.
“Rafe!” Maggie waved a welcome. “Ah, how good ye are, Cousin. Ye didn’t have to bring the boys. We were happy to come and fetch them.”
“ ’Twas better I brought them, and quickly,” Rafe Kerr told her. “Da was of a mind not to let them go. Aldis took him off to calm him. He grows stranger as each day passes, Maggie. This obsession to control the whole of the Aisir nam Breug is a sickness with him, and it grows stronger. I’ll do my best to keep him under control, but beware.” He held out his hand to Fin. “I’m glad to see ye returned safely.”
“He lost his memory for a time,” Maggie told her cousin. “Imagine forgetting me! I am not certain I can forgive such an oversight.”
Rafe Kerr laughed. “Aye, Cousin, I can’t imagine such a thing.” He winked at Fingal Stewart. “I hope ye’ve chastised him properly for it.” He lifted David Stewart from the front of his saddle and handed him to his father as the man-at-arms passed Andrew to Maggie.
“Ye came home, Da! That poxy Hay said ye were dead, but Mama said nay,” Davy Stewart told his father. “Our mama never lies,” Davy confided to his companions.
“Did ye kill the Hay?” Andrew asked.
“Nay, lads, we sent him back to his brother,” Fin told his boys.
Davy and Andrew looked disappointed.
“Yer da was very brave and captured the keep right out from under the nose of the Hay,” Maggie said. “When we get home, I’ll tell ye all about it,” she promised. She looked to her cousin again. “Thank ye, Rafe.”
He nodded.
“We were raided last night in the far summer meadows,” Fin told Rafe. “Two shepherds and their dogs were killed, and a flock of sheep stolen. There will be more raids back and forth, I’m certain. Keep a watch.”
“The sheep can be replaced,” Rafe said, “but the men and dogs can’t.” He shook his head. “It’s going to get bad. The travelers are falling off, which is always a warning sign of trouble. The gossip I’m garnering says that King Henry will have your little Queen Mary for his son, Prince Edward. He’ll not take no for an answer either.”
“French Mary, I suspect, plans a French marriage for her daughter. The French king’s heir is available. She will hold to the auld alliance, Rafe.”
“God help us all here on both sides of the borders,” Rafe Kerr said.
They parted, Maggie and Fin taking their sons home again. Their daughter had been brought up from the village by her new wet nurse while they had been gone. Annabelle Stewart was now almost three months old, and Fin was enchanted with this petite black-haired replica of his wife. The news Rafe had passed on to them troubled him. As he held the tiny girl in his arms, he felt more strongly than ever the great responsibility that Brae Aisir was. He couldn’t fail his family, his clan folk, or the laird.
The news as the summer progressed grew worse. The peace treaty that had been drawn up between England and Scotland lingered, waiting to be signed. A second treaty that would send little Queen Mary to England as Prince Edward’s bride when she was ten, and he fifteen, also waited for signatures. But Henry Tudor’s arrogance was badly eroding the pro-English faction in Scotland. Any child produced by a marriage between Mary and Edward would inherit Scotland’s throne. The English king was not treating Scotland as an equal, but rather as a vassal state.
Cardinal Beaton, released from confinement, welcomed back from voluntary exile in France the abbot of Paisley, who was the Earl of Arran’s bastard half brother, along with the Earl of Lennox. The pro-French faction grew stronger with the return of these two men. Feeling more secure than she had in months, the Queen Mother removed her infant daughter from Linlithgow to the better-fortified Stirling Castle protected as they traveled by twenty-five hundred horsemen and a thousand men-at-arms on foot.
On the ninth of September 1543, little baby Mary, seated upon her mother’s lap, was officially crowned queen of Scotland.
The year came to a close, and the English parliament had not ratified the peace treaty between the two countries. Nor had they confirmed the marriage agreement that would unite the two countries. It was at this point the Scots, directed by Cardinal Beaton and the Queen Mother, suggested that the queen, now a year old, be wed to the twenty-six-year-old Earl of Lennox, who now stood second in line to the throne behind the Earl of Arran.
At Brae Aisir, other than a few more raids that summer that were beaten off, the countryside was quiet as it waited for Henry Tudor to retaliate. The Earl of Arran, the little queen’s heir, was not pleased at the thought of the Earl of Lennox marrying her. Nothing, however, came of the suggestion. The Borders lay waiting for what would come next in this drama between their rulers.
The autumn and the winter came. Annabelle Stewart was toddling all over the keep after her brothers. Both Davy and Andrew could now ride by themselves. Fin was surprised to one day come upon his wife teaching their sons the rudimentary uses of a sword. The boys had been outfitted with wooden swords just their size. He watched fascinated as they parried and thrust.
Seeing him watching them Maggie called out, “Ye’ll soon have them to teach yerself. I thought it was time they started learning. After all, they don’t live in Edinburgh.” And she grinned at him.
“Tell me when ye think they’re ready for me,” Fin said.
“Watch me, Da!” Davy called, waving his wooden sword.
“Nay, watch me!” Andrew cried.
“I’ll watch ye both,” Fin told them, and he did.
Spring returned again and with it began Henry Tudor’srough wooingof Scotland’s queen. Prince Edward’s uncle, Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford, came into Scotland with sixteen thousand soldiers, landing his men on the beaches of the Firth of Forth. A second English army even larger than Seymour’s crossed over the River Tweed, advancing forward and destroying everything in its path.
