Chapter Twenty-Four
As she once more donned boy’s clothing, Tessa wondered if she would ever be able to dress as a woman again and wear the silks and laces that made her feel beautiful. Rolling what necessities they could carry into tartans bartered from Jamie’s kin, she and Banaugh bade the old couple and the boy goodbye, starting yet another trek.
They followed the track of the river, which bent to the northeast. Their host had given Banaugh directions to a ford where they could easily cross and start on their way due north, toward home. As they walked, Tessa wondered idly whether the Cairngorms were truly home anymore. Did she belong there? Did she belong anywhere? She had been in many places over the last year; which was home?
Ahead of them a steadily growing roar indicated a fast-flowing river, and the thought of a cool drink made them hurry forward toward the noise. Tessa drew a few paces ahead as Banaugh stopped disentangle his clothing from some brambles. Tessa had thrown back the uncomfortably hot leather hood that hid her bright mane of hair. Therefore it was she alone, and quite recognizable, who stepped out from the trees to find herself gazing across the river at a small hunting party standing over a stag.
They had evidently tracked the deer to the spot where it had fallen dead. Tessa silently cursed herself for carelessness as she took in a dozen faces surprised at seeing a young woman in breeches opposite them. English troops! She had only time to turn and signal Banaugh to stop before a man pointed and shouted something and the chase was on. She ducked back into the woods, stopping just long enough to call, “Banaugh, hide yourself. They will think I am alone. If I am caught, you must return home. If not, I will circle back here by morning.” With that she was off running. Half a dozen men had already mounted their horses and were crossing the ford after her. Banaugh melted into the trees as the horsemen sped by, praying they would not harm the lass if they caught her.
Tessa ran desperately, turning and twisting among the trees to avoid capture, but her bright hair was like a beacon in the dull autumn woods, and they were too many. They saw it as sport to capture this strangely dressed girl, shouting to each other and laughing at her efforts to elude them. Twigs lashed her face and the sharp thorns of berry bushes dragged at her clothing, slowing Tessa’s progress. After only a few desperate minutes, she was scooped up by a grinning soldier and hauled across his saddle. The man’s comrades congratulated him heartily while Tessa heaped on him all the curses she could remember. It made no difference, though, and he splashed across the river to the main party, dumping his prize on the ground before two men. A soldier put a hunting horn to his lips and blew two short and two long notes, a signal to the rest that the quarry had been captured.
Tessa looked up dazedly and despaired even further. Gazing down on her were Ian Hawick and another man who could only be the new king of Scotland, Malcolm Canmore.
“Mistress macFindlaech, is it?” Hawick sneered. “I wondered if we two would meet again.”
“This is the one you mentioned who is kin to Macbeth?” the young man asked Hawick. Tessa looked at him with some interest despite her predicament. He was young, perhaps seventeen or so, but he looked strong enough and had a determined set to his chin. She knew little of Malcolm, but she guessed he would not consider her a possible ally. “Pretty thing.”
“For a snake, I suppose,” replied Hawick. “This chit tried to enlist my aid to fight for her wicked kinsman, and when I told her I was King Duncan’s loyal subject and therefore yours, she attacked me in my own home.”
“You pig!” Tessa spat at him. “Tell him how you have cheated both Scots and Englishmen all your miserable life. Tell him how you planned to rape and even kill me! Tell all these fine English soldiers how you hold one Jeffrey Brixton, Englishman, prisoner and demanded ransom money from his family!”
“Hear how the girl lies, sire?” Hawick bellowed. “Am I to stand for this?”
“God’s hooks, who is one to believe?” Malcolm frowned, looking from Hawick to Tessa in bewilderment. One of the men standing nearby stepped up and whispered something in his ear. His face cleared, and he raised an eyebrow at Tessa. “It seems you have chosen badly in your lies, lass. This fellow served with Jeffrey Brixton and knows for certain the man is dead, washed overboard in a storm off the coast a year ago. Tie her,” he spoke to a soldier. “We will decide what will become of the tyrant’s niece when we reach Scone.”
Unable to think of anything that might make Malcolm listen to her, Tessa said no more. At least Banaugh had escaped. The man tied her hands and set her on a stone while they finished the ritual of field-dressing venison.
The procedure was strictly spelled out by tradition, and any man who did not know the steps necessary would have been heaped with ridicule. The stag was split open and the entrails carefully removed along with the windpipe. The carcass was then cut into large chunks. The head was removed and flung into the bushes for the birds. A piece of gristle at the end of the breast bone was also tossed aside as the “raven’s fee,” an ancient tradition of paying off the dark powers of the earth represented by these birds. The eyes, liver and entrails were given to two large hounds that accompanied the group. The meat was then divided among the party according to rank. It was bloody work, but the men went at it cheerfully, having captured both meat for the castle and an interesting prisoner in one day’s hunting.
While the others were absorbed in what they were doing, Hawick wandered over near Tessa and stood, apparently gazing at the river. He spoke out the side of his mouth. “Well, lass, you’ve been quite a trial to me, but I have won at the last.”
“At least Macbeth died fighting and not by your slimy hand,” Tessa responded.
“Aye, well, he’s dead either way, isn’t he?” Hawick sneered. “It’s too bad, though, your friend Brixton didn’t come along. He decided to stay behind and keep my sister company.”
“More likely he is locked up again in the barn. Isn’t that how Mairie keeps her men nearby?”
Hawick laughed. “I assure you, lass, he stayed of his own accord. When news came north that Sir William is dying, Mairie was quite interested. My sister has always had her eye on a title, and Lady Brixton would suit her well. As I left to go north, they were preparing to set off for York. Together.”
He wandered off, glancing slyly over his shoulder to see if his words had hit home. Tessa sat stiffly on the adamant rock, letting no sign show of her inner turmoil. Mairie had commented she could love Jeffrey if he was someone important, and now he had hopes of a title. If Mairie could get Jeffrey Brixton, she could have him, Tessa decided furiously. However, the thought of that perfect face smiling up at Jeffrey as he escorted her into Brixton Manor would not make the ride to Scone any easier.
Hawick approached Malcolm as the troops rinsed their hands in the river and prepared to depart. Tessa, watching from the corner of her eye, could tell she was under discussion. What would be Hawick’s recommendation? Her death? Certainly he would be safest if she were silenced and could not recount his crimes. Her thought was interrupted as a trooper picked her up and set her roughly onto a horse behind another man who snickered, “Hold on, girl. It’s a wild ride you’ll get with a man like me!”
He was right. It was all she could do to keep from falling as they rode through bracken and bush. The horse’s constant twists and turns through the wood and her inability to see around the man in front of her made the ride miserable. Despite her humiliation, Tessa had to hold on to the soldier’s belt, for her tied hands left no other means of balance. Thus she headed toward the ancient place of Scottish kings, where Macbeth, her kinsman, had been crowned King of Scotland only a year before.
The party arrived in Scone after riding hard the rest of the day. The castle sat in the growing dusk like a large, gray frog, its mouth open wide and its twin tower “legs” rising against the setting sun. Before the castle the small hill where the stone of Scone sat was being decorated with dozens of flags in preparation for Malcolm’s coronation. It was clear Ma
lcolm was anxious to complete the ceremony before some other nobleman decided he might have the qualities necessary for kingship. A pavilion frame had been constructed, and around the base of the hill merchants had already staked out places for themselves to sell their wares to the crowds who would gather to watch.
The gates of the castle closed for the night behind them. Curious faces took in the unusual return, wondering quite naturally what prisoner had been brought back along with the venison. Tessa held her head high and tried not to show any emotion. A glance into the crowd made her heart jump—Jeffrey! But it was not he, for the man was shorter, much heavier, and wore the plain-spun brown robe of a priest. He regarded her with no sign of recognition or interest.
Inside the castle, Tessa was escorted into the great hall where Malcolm, after being seated comfortably behind a large table, refreshed himself with a cup of wine. She was not even offered a drink of water to relieve her thirst. She looked with longing at the stone jug but said nothing.
On Malcolm’s left sat several Scottish thanes, none of whom she recognized except Hawick, who smirked at her as usual. To the right sat the English, men in a delicate position. England was Scotland’s sometime enemy, and they had helped a rebel defeat a crowned king. The fact that the defeated king had been unloved did not endear invading English troops to the Scots by any means. Scottish politics was in its usual quagmire, and England’s current government not much better. These men had to set about making Malcolm king of Scotland in fact as well as in name, and no one envied them their task.
Siward, the general who headed the English troops, mourned the loss of his oldest son, rumored to have died at Macbeth’s own hand. The old man was dignified in his grief, but implacably set against the clan macFindlaech. When Tessa’s name was mentioned, the old man’s eyes settled on her with animosity. His son was lost. Would he take revenge on the dead Macbeth by demanding the execution of his kinswoman? She met the old man’s eyes calmly and saw in them no such demand. He was a soldier in the truest sense and did not make war on women.
More dangerous was Macduff, whom Tessa had never met but remembered from her uncle’s description. He had rejected Macbeth’s claim to the throne, escaped to England to avoid pledging allegiance, and his whole family had died for it. The man’s eyes revealed he was half-mad with grief. Not just grief, she thought, but guilt, too. If he had known Macbeth’s ambition, why had he left his family in its way? Wrapped in his own thoughts, the man said little in the discussion of what should be done with Tessa.
Some, including a thane called Ross, counseled Malcolm to do away with Tessa to prevent future problems. “She is loyal to her uncle’s cause,” he maintained. “She will breed sons and teach them to hate you.”
“I had not thought to kill women on my road to rule,” Malcolm replied with judgment wiser than his years would have predicted. “The question is what to do with her? She is a threat, I admit that.”
“You could marry her,” said a young man who sat next to Malcolm. He had said little thus far, and Tessa noticed his voice broke, causing him to blush furiously. The lad could not have been more than fifteen, and since he spoke in council, must be Donalbain, Duncan’s younger son.
Malcolm’s lips twitched. “Marry her, brother? That is your solution to the problem?”
The boy blushed even deeper but made his argument clearly. “She is Macbeth’s kinswoman. You are Duncan’s son. Uniting the two clans would end the arguments on either side.”
Miriam’s astute observation had come to shocking reality. Once again she was to be the pawn of men’s political hopes. Would she never be considered as a person, allowed choices about her own future?
“My lord—” she began.
“Speak when you’re spoken to,” Malcolm barked. “Brother, I am listening.”
“If you marry this woman, you fulfill our father’s wish that you would be king, as well as continuing the line of Macbeth, who was, if nothing else, a strong king. In time you would have sons with the blood of both families to cement their claim to the throne.”
“And the streak of madness,” Ross put in bitterly.
Another lord spoke rather timidly. “Macbeth was driven mad, it is said, by witches who live on the moors, but we all know he was once a good soldier and a lively comrade.” His comment fell rather flat. No one else was about to speak well of the man they had just defeated. The man lapsed into embarrassed silence.
In the quiet, Macduff said surprisingly, “I once called him friend.” It was said with wonder, with no understanding of the demons that pursued Macbeth macFindlaech to the depths where his life ended.
A voice spoke from behind her. “My lord, might I suggest this council should continue without the lady? She seems fatigued almost to fainting.”
It was the monk. With his cowl thrown back, she saw him more clearly. His expression was kind and concerned for her, and Tessa realized she had been holding herself erect with great difficulty. Fear, exhaustion, and tension sang in her blood, making her light-headed.
Malcolm gestured, and a trooper stepped forward. “Take her to a cell and see she is fed.”
Tessa was not privy to further discussions of her fate, nor could she summon up much concern. After so many betrayals, Malcolm could do nothing to bring further shock or despair. Food was brought, some cider, and even a small pitcher of water with which she could wash away the dirt of the road. After she had rested, Tessa sat quietly in the small cell as night darkened its corners. It was overgrown with lichen and damp but otherwise tolerable, and she had seen no rats yet. What would the decision of the council be, death or marriage? It was almost funny. To some girls, marriage to Malcolm would have been the height of ambition. Tessa could find little interest in either possibility.