The Fire In The Flint (Margaret Kerr Mysteries 2) Read online

  The Fire in the Flint

  Candace Robb

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781446439265

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books in 2004

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  Copyright © Candace Robb 2003

  Candace Robb has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by William Heinemann

  Arrow Books

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 0 09 941014 1

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Praise

  About the Author

  Also by Candace Robb

  Acknowledgements

  Historical Note

  Maps

  Epigraphs

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Old Will

  Chapter 2: A Visitor

  Chapter 3: A Good Husband

  Chapter 4: Her Comfortable Sanctuary

  Chapter 5: Vows

  Chapter 6: So Much Sadness

  Chapter 7: A Trap?

  Chapter 8: A Man of Questions

  Chapter 9: A Death of Soul

  Chapter 10: It Will Bring You Only Grief

  Chapter 11: Treacherous Sands

  Chapter 12: A Crook-backed Friar

  Chapter 13: This Purgatory

  Chapter 14: Who is the Law?

  Chapter 15: Awakening

  Chapter 16: Kinnoull Hill

  Chapter 17: More Child than Man

  Chapter 18: A Strong Thread

  Chapter 19: Cursed

  Chapter 20: Bold Risks

  Chapter 21: Mayhem

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Further Reading

  In loving memory of my mother,

  Genevieve Wojtaszek Chestochowski

  (19 March 1920–16 July 2003)

  whose courageous battle with cancer showed me

  what stuff women are made of

  About the Author

  Candace Robb studied for a Ph.D. in Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Literature and has continued to read and research medieval history and literature ever since. The Owen Archer series grew out of a fascination with the city of York and the tumultuous 14th century; the first in the series, The Apothecary Rose, was published in 1994, at which point she began to write full time. In addition to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and America, her novels are published in France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Italy and Holland, and she is also available in the UK on audiobook and in large print. She is also the author of the Margaret Kerr Mystery series, set in Scotland at the time of Robert the Bruce. The first, A Trust Betrayed, was published in November 2000 to great acclaim. The Fire in the Flint is the second in the series.

  Praise for Candace Robb

  ‘It’s … the Machiavellian intrigue that makes this such an enjoyable read. When the iron curtain came down people said the spy-thriller genre was dead. They were wrong. This is as full of intrigue as a Deighton or a Le Carré’ Guardian

  ‘Thirteenth-century Edinburgh comes off the page cold and convincing, from the smoke and noise of the tavern kitchen to Holyrood Abbey under a treacherous abbot. Most enjoyable’ The List

  ‘Meticulously researched, authentic and gripping’ Yorkshire Post

  ‘A rich and satisfying novel’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘Brilliant … Robb presents a feisty new heroine who proves to be no fool’ Woman & Home

  ‘Once again, Robb provides the reader with an evocative and suspenseful whodunit thoroughly bolstered by a wealth of authentic historical detail’ Booklist

  Also by Candace Robb

  THE OWEN ARCHER MYSTERIES

  The Apothecary Rose

  The Lady Chapel

  The Nun’s Tale

  The King’s Bishop

  The Riddle of St Leonard’s

  A Gift of Sanctuary

  A Spy for the Redeemer

  The Cross-Legged Knight

  THE MARGARET KERR MYSTERIES

  A Trust Betrayed

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to Elizabeth Ewan, Kimm Perkins, Nicholas Mayhew, and David Bowler, Derek Hall and Catherine Smith of the Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust, generous scholars who have fielded my questions and kept me honest about medieval Scotland and coinage; Evan Marshall, Joyce Gibb, Elizabeth Ewan, and Kirsty Fowkes who read the manuscript and made thoughtful suggestions; Jan and Chris Wolfe of the Willowburn Hotel on Seil Island who loaned me a book about Argyll, pointing out the magical glen of Kilmartin; and Charlie Robb who photographed locations, sat in on meetings, crafted the maps, and simplified travel and home with tender loving care.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  With the death of the Maid of Norway, who was the last member in the direct line of kings of Scotland from Malcolm Canmore, two major claimants of the throne arose – John Balliol and Robert Bruce; eventually ten additional claimants stepped forward. In an effort to prevent civil war, the Scots asked King Edward I of England to act as judge. In hindsight, they were tragically unwise to trust Edward, who had already proved his ruthlessness in Wales. Edward chose John Balliol as king, and then proceeded to make a puppet of him.

  Robert Bruce, known as ‘the Competitor’ to distinguish him from his son Robert and his grandson Robert, still seething under the lost opportunity, handed over his earldom to his son, who was more an Englishman at heart than a Scotsman. He in turn handed over the earldom to his son, who would eventually become King Robert I. Through the 1290s this younger Bruce, Earl of Carrick, vacillated between supporting and opposing Edward. When he at last resolved to stand against Edward, he was not doing so in support of John Balliol, but was pursuing his own interests.

  As for William Wallace, he was in 1297 and thereafter fighting for the return of John Balliol to the throne. He was never a supporter of Robert Bruce.

  EPIGRAPHS

  ‘The fir
e i’ the flint/ Shows not till it be struck’

  Timon of Athens, Act I, l. 22

  ‘… oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

  The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

  Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s

  In deepest consequence.’

  Macbeth, Act I, scene iii, ll. 123–126.

  PROLOGUE

  Though it was close to midnight, twilight glimmered on the water meadow between Elcho Nunnery and the River Tay. Night creatures croaked and called in the background, and ahead the waters of the Tay and the Willowgate roiled and splashed as they joined at the bend beneath Friarton Island. Christiana’s bare feet cracked the brittle crust of the soil dried by the summer drought. With her next step, her right foot sank to the ankle bone in saturated ground. With a shiver of loathing, she freed herself. For the twenty-three years of her marriage she had lived just upstream in Perth, and in all that time she had remained unreconciled with this marshy land. She had grown up amidst mountains, lochs, and the high banks of the Tay upriver. She missed the sharp, fresh air and the land always solid beneath her feet. Here the fields along the river were unpredictable, sometimes more water than land, changing with the weather, as uncanny as her mind.

  Terror had awakened her. She had fled her chamber in the nunnery guest house, sensing an intruder, a feeling so strong she had thought she heard his breath, breath which she still felt at the nape of her neck. Fear had squeezed her heart and compelled her to run. Now on the marshy ground she slowed down, though still hardly daring to breathe. She glanced back over her shoulder in dread, but although the July night was light enough that she might have seen any movement, she saw no one. Gradually, as the chill of her wet feet drove away any remnant of sleep, she remembered that her handmaid had not stirred on her cot at the foot of the bed. The intruder had not been a fleshly presence then, but a vision.

  Christiana struggled to reconstruct the confusing face. It had seemed that as the man turned his features shifted, changing so quickly it was as if his face were drawn in oil and his movement stirred the lines. It was too fluid to know whether any part of it was familiar. Or perhaps he’d worn many faces overlaying one another. She could not recall precisely where in the dim room she had seen him as she woke and rose breathless.

  On the river bank she stopped and tried to calm herself by listening to the water and imagining it washing away the residue of fear. But her attention was drawn across the river to the cliff overhanging the opposite bank. In the midnight sun someone standing at the edge would be able to see her. She felt too vulnerable for calm.

  Her mind eased a little when she remembered that the sisters would soon awaken to sing the night office; then she might seek sanctuary in the kirk. Turning her back on the disturbing cliff, she was puzzled to see lights multiplying in the priory buildings, flickering as the candle- and lamp-carriers moved in and out of the window openings and doorways. They were moving across the yard, not in the direction of the kirk but the guest house whence she had fled.

  Perhaps they had been awakened by the intruder she had foreseen. She must go back, she might be able to help – why else would God have warned her? As she walked towards the nunnery she heard women’s cries and the authoritative barks of the prioress. The voices drowned out the river’s quiet song. She called out to the lay servant guarding the nunnery gate, and two sisters ran out to her, one with a lantern swinging so wildly beside her that Christiana had to shield her eyes against the dizzying dance of light.

  ‘Dame Christiana! We feared you had been taken!’

  ‘Are you injured?’ the other asked.

  ‘Your handmaid cannot be consoled, fearful you’re dead,’ said the first.

  Christiana could not bear the dancing light. ‘Steady the lantern, I beg you.’

  The sister complied, and Christiana was now able to focus on the two who seemed to speak as one. ‘As you see, I am neither dead nor injured, thanks be to God. Is the intruder still in the grounds?’

  ‘You knew about them?’

  ‘Them,’ Christiana said. So there had been more than one. She had not the energy to explain. ‘Forgive me, but I must see my chamber.’ She pushed through milling servants and sisters and into the guest-house garden, which looked trampled in the moonlight. Two voices came from the opened door, one reassuring, one pitched high with emotion. Christiana stepped over the threshold.

  Dame Katrina, the elderly hosteleress, sat holding a servant’s hands as she said, ‘You are not to blame.’

  ‘I should have heard them on the steps!’ the servant cried.

  Christiana interrupted. ‘Did they enter the hall?’ she asked.

  Both women started. The servant shook her head.

  Christiana hurried out and up the steps to her chamber. She found her handmaid Marion weeping in the protective arms of Prioress Agnes.

  ‘Marion, calm yourself,’ Christiana said with a sharpness that she had not intended. She inclined her head. ‘Prioress Agnes.’

  Marion glanced up, her eyes widening in surprise, and cried, ‘You are safe! Praise God.’ She rubbed her eyes as if to clear her vision and make certain she’d seen aright.

  The prioress rose from the bed, hands clasped before her waist, ever dignified. ‘Where have you been, Dame Christiana?’ Her handsome face twitched with emotion. She disapproved of women withdrawing to nunneries after their children were grown but while their husbands yet lived. She’d made it clear to Christiana that she’d expected trouble and now it had arrived.

  ‘I walked to the river.’ Christiana took in the room, the upturned chests, the emptied shelves. ‘Did they harm you, Marion?’

  The handmaid shook her head, her breath coming in gasps.

  ‘Did you see them?’ Prioress Agnes asked.

  ‘I was not here.’

  Agnes studied Christiana, then apparently decided to believe her, for she said, ‘There were three men. They pulled Marion from bed and shoved her out of the room in her shift, barefoot—’ Her gaze travelled down to Christiana’s muddied feet. ‘Her shrieks woke us all. I see that you, too, are barefoot. You ran out like that without cause? You were not fleeing from the men?’

  ‘I had a vision of what was to come,’ said Christiana. ‘I confess I fled, thinking I had truly seen them in the flesh. But afterwards I understood that God had sent the vision to me as a warning.’

  ‘What were they after?’ the prioress asked sharply. ‘Did the Lord tell you that?’

  Christiana shook her head. ‘I have prayed that He take the Sight from me. I am too simple to use it. I have not the wit to ken the meaning.’

  ‘We shall discuss this in the morning,’ Agnes said in a tight voice. ‘Now see to your maid.’

  After Prioress Agnes withdrew, Christiana sank down on the bed and picked up a small wooden box, emptied of its physick powder.

  ‘They have ruined all your medicines,’ Marion said. ‘And torn one of your veils.’ She lifted a square of unbleached silk.

  Something in the simple gesture made it real to Christiana. Her home had been invaded, her treasured belongings thrown about, ruined. The medicines were not a serious loss, Dame Eleanor here at the priory was a skilful apothecary and healer with plentiful stores. But the clothing and the furniture held memories that would now be soiled by their handling this night. Most upsetting was the torn veil – it had been a gift from her daughter Margaret, a generous gift that she could ill afford since her husband deserted her.

  The anger that arose in the pit of Christiana’s stomach was vaguer than the fear that had sent her out into the night, but it settled there throughout what was left of the night and into the next day. Neither food nor prayer dislodged it.

  1

  OLD WILL

  In the evenings throughout spring and into the summer of 1297, many of the folk of Edinburgh congregated in Murdoch Kerr’s tavern trading rumours of war. The English still held the castle that loomed above, crowning the long, narrow outcrop on which the town c
rouched, and their soldiers were bored and nervous, ready to take offence and resolve any slight with violence. The Scots townsfolk who had survived the initial siege and the periodic purges of suspected traitors, who had nowhere to escape to or no inclination to leave the town to the enemy, trod the streets and wynds with care. They voiced their complaints behind closed doors, or in the smoky, noisy safety of Murdoch’s tavern.

  Elsewhere the tide was turning. King Edward Longshanks had considered it unnecessary to stay in Scotland, believing his deputies and troops sufficient to administer the conquered people. He had either overestimated his governors or underestimated how much the Scots valued their freedom. The occupying English were losing ground in the north. Folk spoke of Andrew Murray’s skirmishes from Inverness along the north-eastern coast to Aberdeen, and William Wallace’s to the west and up into Perthshire and Fife.

  Margaret Kerr, niece of Murdoch, the taverner, spent much of her time in the tavern of late, ensuring that customers were well served. She had come to Edinburgh in early spring seeking news of her husband Roger Sinclair. Once she had learned he had joined the struggle to restore Scottish rule she’d resolved to stay in Edinburgh and do her part.

  Strangely, her mother, Christiana MacFarlane, gifted with Second Sight, had predicted her daughter’s involvement in two visions: ‘I saw you standing over a table, studying maps with two men. One was giving you and the other orders, concerning a battle’; ‘On another day I saw you holding your baby daughter in your arms, your husband standing by your side, watching the true king of Scots ride into Edinburgh.’ For most of her nineteen years Margaret had suffered the stigma and deprivation of being daughter to a woman who walked more often in the spirit world than on solid ground. She’d found no practical value in her mother’s visions. But now they had given her the courage to keep her ears pricked in the tavern for information that might be of use to those fighting to restore the rightful king, John Balliol, to the throne of Scotland.