“I’m afraid it might be a bit dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Lizzie’s eyes lit up. “What is it ye plan to do?”
###
Finn returned to the abbey that evening at the appointed hour. Hidden by darkness, he followed the wall that encircled the grounds until he reached the back gate behind the abbey’s kitchen gardens. He found a monk’s habit hidden behind the bush next to the gate, tossed it over his clothes, and tied the rope belt. Holding his breath, he leaned his shoulder against the gate, then smiled as it creaked open. Until this moment, he had not been sure the monk’s courage would hold and he’d leave the gate unlocked.
After pulling the hood low over his face, Finn quickly crossed the garden and entered the abbey church through the side door the monk had shown him earlier. Keeping to the shadows beyond the reach of the church’s burning candles, he moved on silent feet along the wall until he reached the opposite side of the church and the decorative arched doorway that was the king’s entrance from the palace.
He ducked through the arch and ran up the steps that the king would walk down to enter the church. The stairway was black save for a flickering candle at the top, where he found the monk waiting for him in front of a heavy oak door reinforced with iron.
“Thank you for your help,” Finn said in a hushed voice as he pulled the habit off and gave it to the monk. Beneath it, he wore his best tunic and breeches. When the monk made no move to unlock the door, he said, “Ye do have a key to it?”
“Nay,” the monk said. “The lock is on the palace side of the door, and it’s only opened when the royals come into the church to pray.”
Finn waited, hoping the monk did not bring him here for nothing.
“With the queen’s hurried departure and custody of our young king changing hands, however, all is in confusion,” the monk said. “No one seems to be responsible for locking the door.”
“Then luck is on my side,” Finn said.
“I doubt that verra much,” the monk said before he snuffed out his candle and slipped away into the darkness.
CHAPTER 5
Finn walked down the long, dimly-lit corridor, pleased to find it empty, and followed the sounds of voices and music that should lead him to the great hall where the feast was being held. As he neared a corner, he suddenly found himself face to face with a pair of burly palace guards who came around it from the other direction.
“What business do ye have back here?” one of them demanded, moving his hand to the hilt of his sword. “Ye should be in the hall with the rest of the guests.”
“A lady invited me to slip away to her bedchamber. If ye saw her,” Finn said, spreading his arms out, “you’d know I couldn’t say nay.”
“I see no lady,” the guard said.
“She returned to the hall before me.” Finn lowered his voice. “She didn’t wish her husband to see us return together,”
“Men who look like him have all the luck,” the other guard said with a sour expression.
Finn tilted his head and grinned. “I won’t be so lucky if her husband catches me.”
“Ah, go on, ye bastard,” the first guard said with a laugh, and waved him on his way.
Finn smiled to himself. The hard part was over. He was in.
His chances of carrying Lady Margaret Douglas out of the palace under the noses of the royal guards and half the Lowland nobility were slim to none. If the opportunity presented itself, he’d take it, but his goal tonight was simply to study his quarry so he would recognize her and know how best to approach her when she was outside the palace.
Surely the woman had to leave it sometime to visit a shop on King’s Street or to ride in the wood next to Holyrood. If he was lucky enough to get a chance to speak with her tonight, he might even persuade her to meet him for that ride. She would not be the first woman to decide to meet him against her better judgment.
When he reached the great hall, it was crowded with nobles dressed like peacocks in colorful silks and velvets. They were all milling about, presumably waiting for the king to arrive and take his seat at the high table. Finn moved along the fringes of the crowd, picking up snatches of whispered conversations.
“I thought we were rid of the damned Douglases for good.”
“The Douglases are like the weeds in the garden. They always come back.”
“The queen is furious about losing control of the king.”
“God help us, what kind of king will the lad make? He’s thirteen, and they say he wept like a babe when he was separated from his mother.”
“Perhaps he wept about being put under his stepfather’s thumb. I’d weep too.”
