I settle and try to listen to the vicar’s words as he speaks about Paden and kingship and his role as a ruler. The divine right of kings.
Blair leaves her mother alone and goes to the pulpit to speak. There’s a moment of silence while she breathes and I see her concentration before she starts to speak.
Her voice is clear and unwavering. She doesn’t talk about him as a king, but as a father: how he’d carry her on his shoulders, teach her to play cards, read her bedtime stories and hold her when she was upset.
I don’t want her to ever be upset and I wish I could thank Paden now for how he looked after Blair as a little girl. I wish I could talk to him about his daughter, apologise for how I might hurt her heart and tell him how I want to guard it with my life.
Blair talks about him as a husband to her mother and about their family life, the side no one but them saw. She talks about family holidays and hikes up the Trossachs and around the loch and I see her as I always have; a normal girl who became a normal woman who’s wearing a crown with her head held up high.
“You’re in love with her.” Ivy’s words are murmured quietly enough that no one will hear.
“Completely.”
She sits down, leaving no papers at the lectern and carrying none with her, and I realise that she’s said the speech without her notes. She hugs her mother, the two of them together and I hope they don’t feel alone.
Lachlan and her cousins are seated behind her, their faces painted every shade of grief they have access to. I hope that they feel it, that they understand the loss and don’t just see the opportunity, but I’m not certain. Not for some of them.
There a hymn, sung by the choir, something about heaven and Jesus and other words that are meant to give comfort. The voices soar up to the ceiling of the cathedral like gilded birds and Blair turns round and sees me. Her eyes stay fixed on me and I see a tear drop down her cheek.
I mouth the words, telling her I love her and there’s a hint of a soft smile.
* * *
I drive Ivy and I up to the castle, following the hearse over the motorways and then on the minor roads. There is a cemetery in the castle grounds, from which a view of the loch and towards the mountains can be seen. This will be Paden’s final resting place, a spot where his wife and daughter can visit and look at the water and the eagles as they soar. It’s peaceful and serene, the view immense and wild.
We walk up the hill to the place where he’ll be buried, the pallbearers following behind.
This is without the pomp and ceremony of the cathedral. This is without the grand high ceilings and stained glass. The choir is replaced with the sound of birds as they dance in the air and the incense isn’t a patch on the fresh air that surrounds us.
There are around a dozen people, my father isn’t one of them thankfully. Blair walks over to stand next to me, her hands in her pockets and I take a step closer to her and put an arm around her waist.
She doesn’t pull away. No one looks at us. This isn’t about rumour or speculation, and the people there are the immediate ones; Paden’s wife, brothers, members of his household who worked for him for years.
The words are said once the coffin is lowered, committing him to the ground. Blair stays in my arms, her head resting on my shoulder and I press a kiss to her head. From me. From Ben.
I let her go so she can pick up a handful of earth and drop it on to her father’s coffin, her lips moving and forming words that she doesn’t say out loud. She returns to me, her mother coming over to us and embracing her.
It doesn’t start raining. I always thought that it should rain at a burial. That the weather should shed its own tears, but today there’s the smell of spring. Birds call. Snowdrops and daffodils sway in the wind that’s no longer brutal and any remaining snow has melted, other than on the tops of the Trossachs where there’s snow all year round.
Her mother hugs me and then Ivy; Ivy giving her words of comfort meant to soothe and then it’s done. We walk away from the grave with its fresh soil and view over the loch.
When we’re a few hundred yards away I turn around and see a tall, wide figure wearing a heavy coat and hat.
I know who it is immediately, even though it’s only the back of him that I see, paying his final respects to a man he loved and wishing he could be where I was now.
* * *
The call to Micky’s office is more like a summons. He sends me a message via a butler that he wishes to have a meeting, gives a time. I get there ten minutes early, déjà vu creeping over me like dry rot. I am half a foot taller than him and have twenty years of youth on my side, but Micky scares the shit out of me.
He opens the door just as I’m about to knock, the wide grin on his face telling me he knows exactly how I feel and he’s enjoying it. A lot.
“You wanted to see me?”
He laughs. “You make me sound like a fucking head teacher.”
“That’s how I was feeling. And I never had good experiences with head teachers.”
He shrugs. “Didn’t have much to do with them myself. Never really went to school to find what they were like.” He ushers me into his office.
