“So quickly?” Rollo asked under his breath, brows raised.
“Perhaps he will look me in the eye this time.”
“Why, James Graham,” Charles said as they entered the library, which had been fashioned into an impromptu royal sitting room. He reached his hand out, offering his ring for a kiss. “To what do I owe this surprising honor? Last I knew, you were routing my people in Aberdeen, under the banner of your Covenant.”
“Campbell worries good Scotsmen in his teeth like a dog, and I can no longer stand with him,” James replied, ignoring the king’s sarcasm. “What I began as a noble venture has become a crass purloining of as much of my beloved homeland as he and his greedy lords can devour.”
“Oh, my.” Charles laughed. “Such righteousness!” He looked to his footman, gesturing that chairs be brought to his side.
“Sit, sit.” The king studied Rollo as he struggled into the chair, legs unbending. “What of you?” Charles asked him, skeptical distaste pursing his mouth. “I’m told your name is William Rollo.”
Rollo gave a curt and wordless nod.
Charles turned to James and asked, “You bring me a cripple? ”
“And none other.” James clapped his friend on the shoulder, his easy smile a challenge to the king’s doubt. “Rollo is an unrivalled horseman and the finest soldier I’ve known.”
“It is my understanding that Aberdeen was your first rout.” An oily smile split Charles’s lips. “How many soldiers can you have known, James? No matter, no matter.” The king’s hand fluttered, shutting down James’s response.
“Music!” he shouted to nobody in particular. “Bring Nicholas, ” he said to the first of many scattering attendants who caught his eye. “I’d have music.”
Turning to James, he said, “We shall rival Parliament in more than our wisdom. We are men of taste!”
Charles carefully preened his moustache and goatee away from his lips. “I would have you raise Scotland for me.”
“And,” James replied without missing a beat, “Iwould have your assurance that Scotland will retain the sanctity of her Kirk. Just as the clergy should concern themselves solely with matters of the spirit, the monarch should rule over matters of the state, and the state alone.”
“Touché, young man.” The king steepled his fingers at his chin, a calculating look wrinkling his brow. “I care not for bishops either, James. I shall grant your Scotsmen their ecclesiastical freedoms. You just subdue these rebel nobles and restore order to Scotland.”
Charles appeared distracted, watching his court musicians set up to play. “And now I’ve word of a Parliament-backed army to contend with.”
James began to speak, and Charles stopped him with a raised hand. “Parliament has raised what they’re calling the New Model Army. And, James, here’s the whimsical bit. They’ve donned matching coats of red.Twenty thousandmatching coats of red, to be precise.” The king’s patronizing smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“You see, Marquis, you’d be wise not to be so dismissive. These red-coated soldiers are the jackals who will feast on the carcass your Campbell leaves behind.”
Charles rose and looked down at them imperiously, his short stature barely clearing the heads of the seated Scotsmen. “A Campbell who, I might add, appears to have Scotland’s nobles tumbling over each other to swear him fealty. Your Covenanters,” he said, pointing at James, “now hold significant cities in the Lowlands.”
“Held by the Covenanters?” James asked, voice like steel. “Or is it that the Lowlands simply lie in wait for a true leader?” He let the near-treasonous statement hang. “I’ll raise your standard,” James continued, “by the same principles of liberty and self-determination that committed me to the Covenant. Just as you had no right to play politics with the religion of Scotland, Scotland has no right to depose her king. I’ll rout the vermin who would destroy my country.” James stood, towering a foot over the monarch. “The Highlands will stand with me.”
“Give us men and horses enough to cut through to the north,” Rollo said, his voice gritty. “We hold our line there.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have but the mounts you rode in on.” Charles wandered away from the men toward his court musicians, playing quietly in the corner. “I will spare you my Colonel Sibbald, an old military man who will prove helpful on the campaign. James, you shall be named my viceroy and captain-general— ”
“No,” James interrupted.
The king spun, his face blackened into a cold stare.
“Respectfully, Your Majesty,” James amended, “I decline your offer. I shall indeed raise Scotland for you. But I find I’ve become a man skeptical of empty titles.”
James walked toward Charles and bowed with a flourish. Raising his chin, he looked his king hard in the eye and said, “I need naught but my own name to fight for my country.”
In his half doze, he shifted yet again, having a remarkably difficult time getting comfortable for a man who’d spent the past two weeks sleeping on the ground. A tense day followed by a sickeningly lavish meal with the king had left James exhausted, and yet Magda’s face kept rousing him, appearing in his mind, denying him a deep sleep.
Back in Aberdeen, James had felt privy to a prized secret. Only he had held Magda close enough to discern the yellow flecks that brightened the emerald green of her eyes. And surely only he had noticed how the sun had pricked light brown freckles across the bridge of her nose, a faint dusting of color to soften the sharp lines of her features.
He pushed away the memory of that soft, broad mouth crushed beneath his, and rolled onto his belly, pressing himself into the bed, seeking relief from the hardness that seized him.
With her, he’d had the sensation of being on the brink of some great unknown. It wasn’t in his nature to turn from such tremendous possibility. Walking away from her had been like abandoning another life, relinquishing it to a sort of eternal stasis, forever unlived. James felt Magda’s loss keenly, their parting no less tragic for its necessity.
