Chapter 9
Awakening Sunday morning to the sound of her bedchamber door closing and the sweet smell of ambergris filling the air, Fiona blinked at the sight of Lady Sutherland, garbed in scarlet and blue, beaming at her from her bedside.
“I ha’ kept your Leah waiting on yon landing,” her ladyship said. “Sithee, your lord father be wi’ his grace now, but he entrusted me with a message tae give ye.”
“W-What is it?” Fiona asked, sitting up and clutching the coverlet to her chest.
“Tae put it plain, his grace has asked Bishop Wardlaw tae wed ye tae Sir Àdham on Tuesday, here in the Blackfriars’ chapel.”
“Tuesday!” Fiona stared at her in shock. “This Tuesday?”
“Aye, Fiona-lass. Sithee, the Captain o’ Clan Chattan and the rest of Sir Àdham’s party will leave St. John’s Town Wednesday morning. The two o’ ye must go wi’ them.”
Stunned, recalling that Àdham had said his people might go soon but yearning to cry out at such unseemly haste, Fiona managed nonetheless to stifle her outrage, knowing that Lady Sutherland had no power to mend the situation.
Realizing that her mouth was agape, she shut it.
Lady Sutherland put a warm hand on her shoulder, saying, “I ken fine that ye were no expecting this. But ye must get up the noo. We’ll attend the Lady Mass today, and her grace would like tae see ye afore we break our fast. I’ll send Leah in tae assist ye.”
Minutes later, Fiona was nearly ready to depart.
“I do not need a formal caul for a Lady Mass, Leah,” she said as she twitched a fold of her lavender gown into place and slipped her feet into matching slippers. “Prithee, just a plain white veil. I must go straightaway to her grace.”
With the veil neatly pinned in place, she hurried to the Queen’s antechamber, where Lady Sutherland awaited her.
“I’ll take ye straight in, child,” she said with a fond smile. “Her grace was delighted tae hear o’ your wedding. For the nonce, we just want tae be sure ye’ll have all that a bride requires tae be comfortable and confident.”
Having no idea what to say to that, Fiona kept silent.
Signing to a maidservant at her grace’s door to open it, Lady Sutherland swept Fiona before her as if she were shepherding a lost sheep back to its fold.
When they entered, Joanna, her honey-blond hair plaited into a knot at her nape, was standing on a low stool while her attire woman arranged the gold-brocaded, dark green silk overdress, or houpland, that her grace wore. Its black velvet belt nipped the dress in below her breasts, just above the open vee where the houpland’s skirt split to reveal her rose-velvet underdress. When she stepped off the stool, her skirts puddled on the floor and the belt’s trailing ends lost themselves in the folds.
Then, the attire woman and her minions were gone, and Fiona was alone with the Queen and her mistress of robes.
“Have you decided what you want to wear, dearling?” Joanna asked her.
Stunned by the question, Fiona said the first thing that came to mind. “My blue silk gown is my favorite, but Father prefers the emerald-green, so I’ll likely wear one of those.”
“I thought so,” Joanna said. “However, love, every bride deserves a new gown for her wedding. I ken fine that you have not had anything new for an age. I have, though, and we were much the same size before I began increasing.”
Fiona glanced at Lady Sutherland. Then, lest she seem ungrateful, she said, “’Tis most generous, your grace. But I must not impose—”
“Prithee, do not deny me this pleasure. I have some lovely new gowns I shall never wear, because they’ll be unfashionable before I fit into them. ’Tis all Jamie’s fault, of course,” she added with a chuckle. “It is also his fault that you are in this position. I know he has cause for what he has done, but I also know how you must feel. I was in much the same position, after all, when he asked me to marry him.”
“You had just two days to prepare?” Fiona exclaimed.
“A few more than two,” Joanna admitted. “But when one knows how long parleys for most royal marriages last and how long the wedding planning takes after the betrothal, I vow, it felt as if it all happened in a flash. Then, overnight, I was on a horse riding to Scotland beside your King, with a train of courtiers following us.”
She related some amusing tales about that journey, and by the time they set out to attend the Lady Mass, Fiona’s qualms about accepting her help had fled.
As they walked, Fiona realized that the Queen’s other ladies all knew of her odd betrothal. “We know you had no time for a formal betrothing,” Lady Malvina confided cheerfully as they walked together. “Moreover, if his grace says one is betrothed, then one is betrothed. Are you excited, Fee? I must say Sir Àdham is not the sort of man I want to marry, but he knocked Caithness down to protect you, so he must be hard-smitten. My father says it is unnecessary to like one’s husband. I do like Hamish, I suppose, but I feel no passion for him. If he were not so wealthy . . .”
“I do like Sir Àdham, Vina,” Fiona confessed when she paused. “I do not know if I will like living in the Highlands, though.”
Malvina gaped. “The Highlands! Why, I thought you would live near Ormiston Mains. My father said that you have an estate there. Is that not so?”
“That estate is part of my tocher,” Fiona said. “But a woman lives with her husband, Vina, not the other way round.”
“I suppose you must, then. But in the Highlands? Mab Gordon told me that newly wed Highlanders spend their first night in a dreadful shack whilst their neighbors crowd round and shriek or sing at them and horrid pipers pipe all night long. They cannot move into their own house until the second day, Mab said.”
“Have mercy, Vina!” Fiona begged. “I’m nervous enough about this as it is.”
“Is he wealthy?”
“I don’t know,” Fiona said, smothering a sigh. “I still have much to learn about him, but I doubt it. I will have my tocher, though.”
“I, too, when I wed,” Malvina said, frowning. “Hamish said he will look after it for me.” More confidently, she added, “But Sir Àdham will take good care of you, Fee. Thanks to Caithness, we know that much.”
Fiona heard more such talk throughout the day. She heard, too, that Lady Sutherland had arranged for some of the ladies to take flowers from the gardens into the kirk. Father Prior had even assigned two lay brothers to aid their arrangement.
Sunday afternoon, Ormiston visited and the two of them drew up a list of what he should bring her when he visited Castle Finlagh.
“I fear that a Highland castle will be a barren place, sir,” she said after listing the things she most desired. “Mayhap you should also bring the furnishings from my bedchamber, so I can have something that will make me feel at home.”
“You must ask your husband about that, lass,” Ormiston said with a fond smile. “The distance from Ormiston to Perth is a three- to four-day journey. It must be a five or six days’ journey from Perth to the coast of the Moray Firth, which is where Nairn lies. I will arrange to stop with friends along the way, but I’m afraid I can bring only those personal things you said you would miss most.”
She had suspected as much. In fact, she had known she would be far from home, but she had had no idea how far. She hoped he was wrong about the distance.
Later, the Queen’s ladies made much of measuring her to be sure that her wedding dress would fit. Tradition forbade a bride to try on her dress and ordained that its laces be untied, a fact that Fiona recalled from Davy’s marriage to his wife, Robina. However, there were other traditions of which she knew less or nothing.
Shortly before supper, when she begged leave to refresh herself, Lady Sutherland said, “I’ll go wi’ ye, child. I would talk more wi’ ye.”
“Aye, sure, my lady,” Fiona said, wondering what she had done now.
When they reached her chamber, Lady Sutherland looked it over as if she had never seen it before. Staring at the bed, she said, “’Tis just as I thought.”
“What is, madam?”
“Even were this wee chamber no on the ladies’ side o’ the residence, it could never serve for proper bridal bedding. That bed be much too sma’.”
Unable to think of an acceptable response to such a statement, Fiona finally said, “It is a bit narrow. But I have found it comfortable.”
Lady Sutherland gave her the same speculative look she had given the bed. “Your mother died when ye were but a bairn, did she no, dearling?”
“Aye, when I was seven,” Fiona said.
“And your sister Gellis married dunamany years ago, aye?”
“Aye, madam, before I was born, for she is the eldest.”
“You are not close then, I think.”
“Gellis and her family live in Galloway, so I rarely see any of them.” Not, Fiona added mentally, that I miss her.
“Then, unless ye’ve talked o’ such matters with young women whose ken be greater than yours, I expect ye ken little o’ what a man expects of his lady wife.”
“I can run a household,” Fiona said. “I like children, and they like me.”
“But d’ye ken how bairns come tae be born?”
“I think so, although the exact manner is not clear in my mind,” Fiona said. “Robina, my brother Davy’s wife, explained much to me. But hearing is one thing, the doing is often altogether different, I think.”
“Then, let us talk a wee bit longer, child.”
“Getting married? What the deevil d’ye mean, married?” Hew Comyn demanded of his cousin that evening. They had met at the sole alehouse in the village of Bridgend, where Dae’s family lived, across the bridge from St. John’s Town. Since it was well before suppertime, and a Sunday, the place was much quieter than it might be on another day.
Even so, Hew lowered his voice when he said, “We canna let that lass marry anyone. What if he takes her away someplace? How will we capture her, then?”
“But he will take her away, won’t he?” Dae replied. Swilling a deep draft of his ale, he wiped his lips on his sleeve before adding, “They say it be a Highlander a-marrying her. So, he’ll take her home wi’ him, aye?”
“Who is he?”
“I dinna ken, but I’m thinkin’ it may be the same chappie we saw whilst we waited on the Inch that night. Some’un pointed him out at yon alehouse in the High Street, and he’s big and brawny like that ’un we saw. I didna get a close look at either one o’ them, but they did say she’s tae marry a knight o’ the realm, knighted by Jamie hisself. I dinna think we dare irk such a man.”
Hew agreed that it might be dangerous but knew better than to say so. If he did, his nervous cousin might demand that they abandon the plan altogether.
“I’ll tell ye who the man is,” a grim, gravelly voice behind Hew said, startling him to his feet.
“Sir!” he exclaimed as he turned to face his father, Comyn of Raitt.
Eyes narrowed, Raitt was plainly unhappy with him. “’Tis twice now ye’ve failed tae follow directions,” Raitt said. Glowering at his nephew, he added, “Ye’ve done nowt tae aid him, Dae, but ye might get tae your feet when I speak tae ye.” When Dae hastily obeyed, Raitt added, “We’ll move tae yon corner. I dinna want tae make a gift o’ this discussion tae anyone else wha’ comes in.”
When they had seated themselves at a table there, Raitt leaned across it toward his son and muttered, “First, ye bungled getting Donal Balloch’s message tae Alexander that we carried here from the west. Now, ye two ha’ failed tae capture the lass. So ye’ve likely spoiled what chance we had tae force Ormiston tae back us against James.”
“Only because some chap came along and foiled our first attempt,” Hew said. “Dae said he’s heard the chap be a Highlander, so—”
“That chap is Sir Àdham MacFinlagh, foster son o’ me irksome neighbor, Fin o’ the Battles. And, just as Dae told ye, James knighted him . . . at Lochaber.”
“Sakes, I wouldna recognize him if I’d seen him, for I’ve scarce clapped eyes on the man since he were a bairn,” Hew said. “Moreover, I ha’ lived wi’ Dae’s kinsmen here since our Rab died, as ye ken fine, since ye sent me tae them then. I dinna ken what ye—”
“Hush yer gob, and I’ll tell ye what ye’re going tae do!” Raitt snapped.
Àdham had also discovered that news of his intentions had swept through the royal court. Some people expressed less pleasure than his grace and Ormiston had, though.
Caithness was the first to congratulate him, Monday morning, while Àdham was breaking his fast in the alehouse taproom. “So ye’ve snatched that lovely lass from everyone else’s grasp, have ye?” the young earl said with a broad grin. “Ye’re nobbut a heathenish thief, cousin!”
“Don’t tell me that you wanted her,” Àdham retorted. “You told me when we first met that you intend never to wed.”
“I did not say I wanted to marry her,” Caithness said with a cheeky grin.
“Have a care,” Àdham said. “Thanks to his grace and her lord father, her ladyship and I are as good as betrothed now, so—”
“Not unless ye’ve bedded her,” Caithness said, raising his brows. “That is the custom in this shire, and I thought ’twas likewise in the Highlands.”
When Àdham moved to stand, Caithness said hastily, “I cry pardon, cousin. My tongue ran away with my good sense. I make you my deepest apologies.”
“Her ladyship is unlikely to look twice at a rogue like you in any event,” Àdham said with a grin. “And, as the wedding takes place tomorrow morning, and his grace would take umbrage if I knocked you on your backside again . . .”
“I beg ye’ll do nae such thing,” Caithness said, ruefully rubbing his jaw. “I’m still sore from the last time. Besides, I came to tell ye that I mean to ride as far as Blair Castle with your party on Wednesday. I’ve had my fill of my father and a number of his kinsmen.”
“Has Atholl offended you, then?”
“Every day, aye. My lord father despises my friends, my clothing, my taste in wine, and most of all my politics. Sithee, I like Jamie, and so did Atholl when Jamie returned from England. Sakes, he hied himself off to greet him. But now he and”—he shot a hasty, speculative look at Àdham—“and others who oppose Jamie talk of matters that sound to me distressingly like treason.”
Àdham said, “You speak of my uncle, Sir Robert Graham, I think.”
“I do. If it offends ye to hear me say such things of him . . .”
“Nae, Alan, but take care where you say them.” He shot a meaningful look toward the tapster wiping off a nearby table. “You are welcome to ride with us,” he added. “I know not what plans Sir Ivor has made for each day’s travel, but I doubt the ladies will want to ride farther than Moulin.”
“Dinna be daft, Àdham, Wednesday night ye’ll stay at Blair, all o’ ye. My father said he’ll stay in town till the end of the month. Even my stepmother is away now, so I can house your entire party.”
“I doubt Atholl will approve of your housing a party of Mackintoshes, though.”
“Perhaps not, but I do often house my friends. Moreover, your bride will be more comfortable at Blair. I’d wager the lady Fiona has never slept on the ground.”
Since Àdham had not spared a thought for her ladyship’s past travel habits, he said, “I’ll talk to Ivor. You’re certain that you will be the only Stewart at Blair Castle?”
“Aye, as certain as we can be that ye’ll be the only one kin to a Graham.”