“We always have to answer for our actions, son. Our choices in life can help us or haunt us.”
“Or haunt those left behind,” Lyall said pointedly. “Go. I will be down shortly.”
Ramsey nodded and crossed the wall walk, but he paused at the door and looked back at Lyall, and he saw not his stepson, but the tall, golden ghost of his closest friend.
“This isyour chamber while you stay here," Mairi said as Glenna followed her inside, then stood with her back pressed against the door.
“Glenna?”
“Like it? Lud!” She laughed and faced Mairi. “’Tis a far cry from two room cottage with a grass roof, built into the side of a hill on the outermost edges of a remote island.”
Giant timber beams crossed the high ceilings, and in the room’s center, a circular iron candelabrum as wide as a trestle table well hung down from heavy chains bolted into the beams. Near a stone hearth that climbed clear upward to the roof, stood a large wooden tub filled with water, and a stool nearby held a bowl of small round soaps with flower petals in them, rare lemon citron with a long iron file, and a stack of towels folded while others warmed from a wooden rack set in front of the fire.
“The servants will bring more hot water for your bath, but there is food here.”
The table in a corner near the windows was laden with a feast large enough for five of her. She bit into a hard, sweet apple andher belly rumbled loud enough to make Mairi giggle and say, “Look at the sweets, honeyed figs, candied plums, and these spiral wheels are Catherine cakes, made with currants, almonds, cinnamon and caraway. Cook has unlocked the spice coffers in your honor.” She plucked up one and popped it in her mouth, humming as she chewed, and exchanging a gleeful look with Glenna, who tore off a piece of crusty bread swiped it over the butter, and dipped it in dark red jam. She was in heaven!
Mairi grabbed two more honeyed figs and crossed the room, moving past a large bed, where Glenna’s gaze stopped and the bread fell from her fingers.
On the bed was a gown made of the most glorious deep crimson velvet like that of her infant coverlet, but the gown had an embroidered silk panel of vines and roses made of silver thread, and the neck was trimmed in white snowy fur, as were the long sleeves. She walked over to it and touched the silken fabric, then stroked the fur, unable to believe what she saw before her eyes.
“We finished it yesterday,” Mairi said with pride in her voice. “It is the gown for the daughter of a king, the ermine fur, the fine silk velvet, and it is yours.”
Glenna lifted the gown and held it up to her body, moving and watching the skirt dance with her. The hem was perfect. The gown was hers!
“Behind this curtain is your clothing rod, and there hang the gowns we have made so far, and the cloak, but you will need more. I particularly like the deep blue. My mother chose the fabric and her handmaiden who is the finest seamstress in a hundred leagues did the embroidery on the sleeve edges. But the green is lovely, too. Your shoes are in that chest along the wall, my favorite are the green embroidered slippers with the satin ribbands but you can certainly decide your favorites. There are a dozen or more to choose from, and the cobbler is still at work. Your sleep gowns and chemises are here. The silks are so wonderful to sleep in. I stitched the red birds along---”She turned around and stopped abruptly. “Glenna? What is wrong?”
Glenna was no longer standing. She sat cross-legged on the carpet, clutching the red velvet gown to her, the ermine against her neck felt as soft as the breath of angels, and she broke down sobbing, loud throat-catching sobbing. She pointed to things in the room but sobbed nothing coherent.
She could not speak the words. After her grand fears and doubts, to stand in a room so big one could fit inside the whole cottage in which she grew up, to see the fine, large hanging tapestries, the heavy carved furniture polished to shine like metal, a stone floor not needing rushes to cover the hard dirt, but huge deep carpets with rich designs woven into them, so clean, and a bed like that on which she had awakened with fine linen sheeting as white as snow and pillows of silk and goosefeathers, fur throws and deeply embroidered heavy draperies to keep out the cold.
Even the food on the table was beautiful, apples and plums so polished she could see her reflection on their skin, the bread’s crust shining with some kind of glaze, meat of a rich dark color in a sauce that smelled of wine and thyme, small whole carrots cooked with their green tops, long beans and turnips in bright colors, a slab of the palest butter she had ever seen, and apple and pear compotes, a small cup of bright marmalade made from bitter orange, pork and cabbage, and hard boiled eggs topped with salmon roe, marzipan birds and hares and swans with candied wings atop small golden meringue boats.
Food for a royal table.
She was unable to stop her silly crying, pointing around the room, and she shook her head at Mairi, who looked horrified. Nay! Nay! All is wonderful, she thought, and raised a hand for Mairi to wait until she could get control and find her voice. “Please. These gowns,” she croaked, her breath shuddering in her throat. She took another long and deep breath and hiccupped.
“I am so sorry. What is wrong with them? I swear to you. We will fix whatever is wrong. Please do not cry.”
“Wrong?” she gasped out. “Nothing is wrong! They are perfect. More than perfect. I am such a goose.” She wiped her eyes and sniffled.
Mairi cocked her head, still frowning but clearly ready to listen.
“My story is…difficult to admit,” she stared at her lap and began. “I grew up with two older brothers, Alastair and Elgin Gordon. I adore them. I know nothing of kings and courts and nobility. When you curtseyed to me I was secretly horrified. Truly. My brothers raised me after our father died when I was barely four. The cottage I spoke of was smaller than this room, and it is the only home I have ever known. My days there were spent in the paddock or the stables, or roaming the moors and coves. For most of my life I have only worn trouse like these.” She pulled on the homespun fabric covering her legs.
“To everyone here I am the daughter of the king. But I am not. The truth is I am a thief,” she admitted. “We were thieves. Al and El and myself. Until I stole a gown, I never had one to wear. The only things I own I did not steal are my dog, my horse and my infant coverlet made for me by my mother, and I only just saw it for the first time when your brother came to the island.
Mairi’s look softened with kindness and understanding and she gave her a wan smile. “Glenna, what happened to you was certainly out of your hands.”
“But it does not change who I am and how I have lived.” Glenna looked at the crimson velvet gown in her arms. “Look at this. ‘Tis the loveliest gown I have ever seen. For me…the lass who can muck out a stable, groom, feed, saddle, and break a horse. The thief who can cut a purse from a man’s belt in a heartbeat and steal even lint from his pocket without him knowing.“ She ran her hand along the seams and looked up. “But my skills matter little, because I cannot sew a stitch. To see all of this. To have it made for me, I am…” she paused searching for words. “I am…more than grateful, particularly when I feel unworthy and so wanting.”
Mairi came and joined her on the floor, settling easily next to her so their shoulders and knees almost touched. She straightened her work apron as if it were a gown as fine that the one Glenna held. “You do not have to be grateful, dear Glenna. We made them for you, our gifts, gifts we wanted to give you, and now that I have heard your story I want to give a hundred more!” She leaned her head a little closer and said quietly, “I am certain thievery is a most helpful talent. Would that you could teach me to lift the cook’s keys to the sweets coffers!”
And when Glenna laughed, Mairi patted her hand and laughed with her, then said, “But the best secret is this: you are a king’s daughter. You do not ever have to sew a single stitch.”
30
Glenna sat by the fire with Mairi, belly full, bathed, a maid combing her long clean hair dry, and listening to Lyall’s mother talk about her son.
