Twenty-Nine
TRAQUAIR HOUSE
1298
“My lady,” a tentative voice spoke from the shadows, “they come.”
“Aye.” Mairi raised tormented eyes to her servant. “And God’s will be done.” Swiftly, she left the room and ran down the stairs. Surefooted as a cat, she descended the narrow steps, carrying no candle. She needed none. She was Mairi of Shiels, wife to the earl of Murray, and she knew every twist and turn, every knot and hold, every miss and shortened length of the slippery stone under her feet. Around and around she flew, faster and faster, until at last her slippered foot touched the rush-strewn floor of the great hall.
“Knaves,” she cried, centuries of command in her voice. “Bring it quickly. He comes.”
Moving with alacrity, footmen wearing the crest of the Murrays emblazoned on their tunics hurried to do her bidding. Within moments they returned, their muscles straining under the weight of a large, irregular boulder.
“Place it there,” she ordered, “on the banquet table. Scotland’s Stone of Destiny should not rest on the ground with the dogs.”
The men looked at one another, their faces a combination of fear and surly defiance. Only one had the temerity to question his orders. “M’lady.” Sweat beaded his upper lip and formed large wet circles under his arms.
“What is it?”
“I dinna wish to burn in hell,” he ventured tentatively. “If there be another way—”
“Art you a fool?” snapped Mairi. “If there were another way, I would have thought of it first. Do as you are told.”
Fear made him brave. “But, m’lady, what o’ the prophecy?”
“Words, knave, only words.” She whirled on him in savage fury. “I do this for all of us. For your life and the life of Murray’s heir. How dare you question me? Leave at once.”
Chastened but unconvinced, he backed out of the room.
Mairi tore the coif from her head and unpinned her hair. Braids, thicker than a man’s wrist, fell to her knees. With frantic fingers she loosened the plaits until the heavy mane fell all about her, silky fine and black as a crow’s wing. Her hair was beautiful as was the gown she had chosen. She would need all of her beauty this night. Once, not so very long ago, Edward of England had been very much a man. Mairi hoped it was still true. She had staked the life of her child on it.
Horses’ hooves clattered in the cobble-stoned courtyard. The Bear Gates stood open. There was no guard tower, no portcullis, no drawbridge to lower, no castle wall to storm. A symbol of grace and beauty nestled in a sheltered valley, Traquair was a home, not a fortress.
The wooden doors burst open, and men on horses, in full battle armor, filled the room. Mairi lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance, her eyes fixed on the circle of swords mounted above the entrance. No hated enemy would see her fear.
The line of horses parted, circling to the left and then to the right, until every inch of wall was guarded. No one spoke. She waited in trembling silence, her nails digging into her palms, for the encounter she knew was inevitable.
He came on foot, in full mail, holding his helmet under his arm. Moving with sure, impatient steps, he stopped directly before her. She would have known him anywhere. Tall, strong, incredibly handsome, magnificently royal, a man beloved by his subjects and feared by his enemies. Edward I of England was exactly as she remembered, every inch a king.
For a long time they took each other’s measure. She was the first to look away. Issuing a low, brief command, he relinquished his helmet to a horseman, who stepped forward. The knights, lined up in glittering rows, looked on impassively as he reached for Mairi’s hands.
“Please.” Unbidden, the single plea escaped her lips. She had not intended to beg. Maxwells never begged. He lifted a hand to caress her cheek. Mairi turned away but not before she felt the large knuckles graze her skin. Tears stung her eyelids. In all of her imaginings of this meeting, she had not expected gentleness. It was very unlike him. Edward, Hammer of the Scots, was not a man given to gentleness.
The hand that touched her face so sweetly was the hand of his sword arm. The same hand had severed the head of Llywylyn of Wales and carried it to London, where it sat skewered on a pike above the city gates until scavengers picked it clean. It was that hand, wielding a sword and targe, that defeated Wallace, the hope of Scotland, at the Battle of Falkirk. Ignoring his pleas for mercy, Edward ordered him strung up, drawn, and quartered, his body left, carrion for scavengers.
It was the very same hand that had closed over her throat, threatening to choke out the very breath of her life if she went through with her marriage to David of Murray. It was the hand of a builder, a statesman, a warrior…a butcher.
Never, for one moment, would Mairi forget who he was and what he had become. But neither could she forget what he had been. It made her deception so much harder to bear.
“There was a time when you begged for my touch.” His voice, low, intimate, and amused was pitched for her ears alone.
“That was a long time ago.”
He moved closer. “Was it, Mairi? Have you forgotten everything we had?”
She stared at the sun-darkened line of his jaw, refusing to answer such a question.
Edward frowned. Holy God, the woman was stubborn! He gazed at her face, surprised at the awakening hunger he felt at the mere sight of her. He thought it was finished, that the years had cured him of his impossible obsession. But now, standing within arms’ reach of her again, he realized the passage of time meant nothing. He would never be finished with Mairi of Shiels.
Eight years had passed since he’d fallen to the ground at her feet. She stood before him now, as she was then, the woman he would move heaven and earth to possess, the woman he was cursed to love and never call his own.
Mairi was done with silence. She lifted her eyes to meet his. “Take it,” she said, pointing toward the table where the large boulder rested. “’Tis our stone.”
“Aye.” Edward looked thoughtfully at the stone.
Mairi dared not breathe. Was there something beyond curiosity in his gaze? Edward was no fool. He would wonder why she had surrendered so easily.
He walked to the table and placed his hand on the granite. This was Jacob’s Pillar, the Royal Stone of the Belgic Kings brought from Dunstaffnage in A.D. 838. Scotland’s Stone of Destiny for five hundred years would now rest in Westminster Abbey. Edward’s voice was rough with emotion. “I, Edward, king of England and overlord of Scotland, claim this Coronation Stone as my right.”
Mairi turned and walked toward the stairs.
Edward’s steely voice stopped her. “You have not asked permission of your king to leave.”
She stared straight ahead, her back to him, and spoke through clenched teeth. “You will never be my king.”
He cursed under his breath and started forward. Instinctively, Mairi lifted her skirts and ran. Before she reached the stairs, his hands circled her waist, and she was flung over his shoulder. He climbed the stairs, two at a time, caring nothing for the extra weight. Mairi was not so foolish as to struggle. One slip meant instant death for the both of them. With bitter resignation she realized that Edward knew Traquair House as well as any castle of his own. She knew exactly where he was taking her.
He kicked open the door of her bedchamber and set Mairi on her feet. “Leave us,” he growled at the cowering servant. With one terrified backward glance at her mistress, the woman hurried to do his bidding.
Mairi braced herself on the back of a chair and pushed the hair away from her face. From deep within the core of her being, she summoned the courage to challenge him. “What do you want of me, Edward?”
He raked her slim, high-breasted figure with a burning glance. “Need you ask?”
“I am married,” she announced.
“Did you really believe I wouldn’t know that?” He walked to a small table near the hearth and poured a goblet of wine, grimacing as he swallowed it. “’Tis sour stuff. I prefer ale.”
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace.” Her voice was thick with sarcasm. “If I had known you intended to invade my bedchamber, I would have prepared more carefully.”
He drank off the last of the wine and removed his breastplate and pavis. “You should have expected it,” he replied calmly. Sitting on the bed, he pulled off his boots and leggings, peeled off the garters, and rolled down his hose. At last he stood before her, barefoot, in a saffron tunic and woolen breeches.
Her eyes were wide with fear and something else that made Edward’s heart beat faster. He hadn’t intended this, but perhaps it was inevitable. She inflamed him beyond rational thought. No longer counting the cost, he would carry the memory of this coupling through all the years without her. Tonight, her hair and eyes, the thin discriminating nose, the curve of her cheek, the shadow above her lip, the graceful, elegant way she moved, would be his alone. He would make her forget there had ever been another in her bed.
She made one last futile attempt to stop him. “I am wife to the earl of Murray. Would you take me in the very room I share with my husband?”
“Aye.” He leaned toward her, brushing her lips with his. “In his very bed if I must.”
“I despise you,” she cried desperately. “Would you stoop to rape?”
His calloused hands cradled her face and brushed away the tears that collected in the corners of her eyes. “It will not be rape, Mairi. I promise you that.”
She sobbed and cursed him as his mouth moved from her eyelids to her throat and then to her breast. When he removed her gown and lifted her to the bed, she was strangely submissive. He wooed her with memories, with soft words, firm lips, and skilled, careful hands. The driving force of his kiss broke her reserve. With a last despairing moan, she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him inside of her.
***
Later, much later, when her naked, sweat-dampened body lay curled against his, he spoke. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?”
She turned her head, her eyes meeting his in the shadowy darkness. “Know what?”
“The child. Did you think I wouldn’t know she was ours?”
Mairi closed her eyes. Even if she’d wanted to lie, she could not have forced the words from her throat. The time for dissembling was over. “What did you name her?”
“Margaret. I call her Maggie.”
“Maggie.” She tested the name on her tongue. “Maggie. Does it suit her?”
Edward grinned. “It does.”
“Eleanor said you wouldn’t know.”
“Eleanor is a fool,” he said emphatically. “But for the color of her hair, the lass could be you.”
Mairi’s eyes widened. “The bairn was the image of you, Edward. How can she be like me?”
“’Tis more a similarity of temperament than feature,” he explained. “She is fair, but not so fair as an English lass, and her temper is wondrous to behold.”
“Are you sure it isn’t you she takes after?” Mairi retorted.
“She is tall for a lass and slim with eyes as gray and clear as rainwater. No one who knows you as I have would believe Eleanor is her mother.”
“Does Eleanor know your thoughts?”
“Aye,” said Edward shortly. “She knows.”
Mairi bit her lip. “Then it was all for nothing.”
His arms tightened around her. “How could you do it, lass? Why did you lie? I would not have thought it possible for you to leave a child of your blood to be raised by another.”
“I had no choice. You were leaving for Falkirk. What future was there for us if you never returned?”
“But I did return,” he reminded her, “and you were gone. I was in the devil’s own temper, Mairi. I would have come for you immediately, but I learned of your marriage to Murray.” He tilted her chin up and looked down at her face. “Have you any idea what you did to me? For an entire year, I fell asleep dreaming of painful ways to murder David Murray.”
She drew a deep sobbing breath and buried her face against his chest. “Oh, Edward. I am so sorry. What have we done to each other?”
His breath was warm and soft against her ear. “I love you, Mairi. Whatever pain I’ve brought you, know that at least. You hold my heart still as surely as you did the first moment I saw you.”
Tears slipped from beneath her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. There were words to be said, and the saying of them would be difficult. “You must leave in the morning and never come back again,” she whispered. “Please, Edward. I cannot bear it if you do not.”
His lips were on the curve of her throat. Her skin burned where he touched her.
“Never fear, love,” he murmured. “I shall leave in the morning, but I’ll be back. Until the day I die, I’ll come back to you.”
***
Three weeks later
Mairi slipped out of bed and pulled on a robe over her nakedness. With a quick glance, reassuring herself that her husband still slept, she walked out of the room and closed the door quietly behind her. David Murray needed his rest. He had been with Wallace at Falkirk and now rode with Robert the Bruce. His stay would be brief, his purpose to assure himself that his wife and son remained unharmed after Edward’s visit. Tomorrow he would ride out at the head of the Bruce’s army.
Making her way to her son’s room, Mairi chewed at her bottom lip and fervently prayed that her husband would soon be on his way. She loved David Murray as dearly as she had every day of her life since she was eight years old. They had grown up together. He had been her childhood champion, her friend, her cousin, and finally, her love. He knew of her misguided passion for England’s king. He knew that he would not take a virgin bride to his marriage bed and that there was a part of her heart he would never have. Still, in the entire time they’d been wed, he had never doubted her. She was a Maxwell of Shiels, his wife, the mother of his son. He trusted her, and for all that, she’d betrayed him.
The betrayal was even more heinous than the breaking of her marriage vows. Mairi had looked directly into David’s trusting brown eyes and lied. She had lied about Edward and she’d lied about the stone. She did not tell him that Edward had carried her into the room she shared with her husband, that she had found such pleasure under his rough, large English hands that she had begged him to take her, not once, but three times throughout that endless, forbidden night. And she would never speak of the stone. For the child’s sake, David would forgive her for Edward. But he would never forgive her for Scotland’s Stone of Destiny.
Bending over the bed, she scooped the babe into her arms and buried her face in his chubby neck. He laughed, showing two perfect front teeth. “There, my love,” Mairi crooned, tickling his stomach. “You’ve waited long enough. I’ll feed you.” Baring her breast, she brought the baby’s lips to her engorged nipple and sat down in a chair. The slight clenching of her stomach and the eager pulling of the bairn’s mouth restored her calm. David need never know about Edward. The servants were discreet. This was Traquair House, home to the Maxwells. Mairi Maxwell, a daughter of the house, would command more loyalty than David Murray. Eventually he would learn about the stone. Everyone would. But perhaps Robert would be victorious, and the truth could be told.
“M’lady.” A servant stepped into the nursery. “There are soldiers and townspeople at the gates. The Bruce leads them.”
Fear, as great as any she had ever known, froze the milk in her breasts. The baby suckled to no avail. Whimpering, he stared up at his mother, confusion in his eyes. Mairi stood and handed him to the maid. “I’ll dress and find out what they want.”
A long look passed between the two women. Mairi reached out and clutched the servant’s arm. “Take care of the bairn,” she whispered. “If I know he is safe, I can bear anything.”
“Shall I wake Lord Murray?” the woman asked.
Mairi shook her head. “Say nothing. He’ll waken soon enough.”
Robert the Bruce looked down from the height of his stallion on David Murray’s wife. They were in the courtyard of Traquair House, surrounded by his soldiers and a mob of angry citizens from Selkirk and Galashiels.
“Where is Lord Murray?” the Bruce asked coldly.
Mairi lifted her chin, meeting the biting anger in his green eyes without fear. “He sleeps, m’lord.”
“Send a servant to wake him. I want him here when I accuse his wife.”
“He’ll know soon enough,” she replied calmly. “Of what am I accused?”
“Sedition.” He flung the word at her feet, expecting her to grovel and plead for mercy.
Mairi of Shiels did neither. She smiled as if the entire scene amused her. Turning to a lackey who stood by the door, she spoke. “Wake my husband, knave. Tell him his” she hesitated over the word—“his king desires speech with him.”
Robert flushed and set his teeth, waiting for the man to do her bidding. He knew that Mairi of Shiels had held him up to measure and found him wanting. Grudging admiration dimmed the anger threatening to explode in Robert’s chest. Holy God, she was magnificent. How had Murray won such a woman? He could see why she had taken Edward of England to her bed, but why had she wed David Murray? There was a time, before her marriage, when Robert had wanted her for himself. In terms it still pained him to remember, she had refused him. There wasn’t another woman in all of Scotland who wouldn’t succumb to the silver-tongued charms of red-haired, green-eyed Robert the Bruce, not even when he’d been the landless earl of Carrick. By the blood of Christ, he was more than ready to bestow royal mercy on such a lass if only she could be persuaded to look upon him with favor.
Moments later, David Murray came through the doors of Traquair, rubbing his eyes. He blinked in amazement at the entourage surrounding his king. “What is the meaning of this, Robert?” he asked quietly.
“Your wife knows better than I,” replied the Bruce.
“Mairi?” David’s dark eyes smiled at her across the courtyard.
It would do no good to spare him. “I am accused of sedition,” she said, making no attempt to soften the blunt words.
“That’s impossible,” replied David flatly.
“How do you know?” demanded the Bruce.
“I know my wife.”
“A woman who beds down with Edward of England is not a woman a man can know.”
David’s jaw clamped down angrily. “You lie, Robert of Carrick. My wife is true.”
A smile of triumph crossed Robert’s face. “Ask her.”
“I shall do so.” David crossed the courtyard and took Mairi’s hands in his own. From his trembling grasp, she knew how much this cost him. “You’ve never lied to me, Mairi. Speak the truth now.”
Despair tore at her heart. She wet her lips, forcing the ugly words past them. “I took Edward to my bed. But I did not betray my king or country.”
“That depends of which king you are speaking,” Robert broke in. “The charge for sedition is death.”
David turned on him. “If every woman guilty of adultery is accused of sedition, why are not the heads of your mistresses mounted on pikes throughout Scotland?”
“How dare you?” Robert growled.
“She is my wife,” David reminded him.
A burly lackey dressed in the livery of the Maxwells stepped forward. Mairi recognized him immediately. “What of the stone?” he shouted. “Ask her about the stone.”
“What of the stone, Mairi of Shiels?” Robert asked. “Scotland’s Stone of Destiny no longer rests on Moot Hill.”
Mairi stared at him, saying nothing. She had known it would come to this, but she had hoped for more time.
“Speak, Mairi,” Robert commanded her. “Speak or you sign your own death warrant.”
“Think what you will,” she cried. “I did not betray my country.”
“Mairi,” David pleaded. “Tell them the truth. Where is the Stone of Scone?”
“It is safe,” she whispered. “Ask me no more.”
His fingers dug into her shoulders. “They are going to kill you,” he whispered.
Her back stiffened. She lifted her head, her eyes flashing silver fire at the man who called himself king. “I am a Scot,” she said, centuries of dynastic pride revealed in her haughty voice. “Descended from Macus, king of the Isle of Man. My family has ruled the borders since the Picts of Dalriada. You are of Norman blood, Robert the Bruce of Carrick. I have a greater stake in this land of my ancestors than you shall ever have. Hear me now and leave me in peace. I did not betray my country.”
Robert stared down at her for a long time, ignoring the murmuring of peasant voices at his back. David held his breath. Suddenly, the crowd parted, and a tall woman, richly dressed, strode forward to stand before Mairi.
“Mother.” David’s bewilderment was obvious. “What are you doing here?”
Robert spoke first. “I asked her to come. Lady Douglas is Mairi’s accuser.” He nodded at the woman. “Tell your son what you saw.”
David gasped, and the color left his face. His mother was famous throughout Scotland for her second sight. There were some who called Grizelle Murray Douglas a witch. She had known of Mairi’s affair with Edward and had tried to dissuade her son from marrying her. Since Grizelle’s own marriage to the third earl of Douglas, she made no secret of her hatred for her son’s wife.
“I saw her,” she said, pointing at Mairi. “She took the stone from Moot Hill.”
“A woman, alone in the darkness, couldn’t possibly carry away a stone of that size,” David argued.
“She wasn’t alone,” Grizelle countered. “There were men and horses with her.”
The woman lied. Mairi knew it was a lie just as she knew her fate was sealed. There had been only one horse and one wagon that night. Everyone else was on foot. She stepped closer to Grizelle, gray eyes staring into brown. Her voice was pitched low so that only the two of them heard her words. “Why do you do this, Grizelle? If you truly have the sight, you know that I speak the truth.”
Mairi was so close that Grizelle could breathe her fear. The fear she would never show. She was a stone’s throw from death, and still she would not plead for mercy. She stood as she always had, proud and tall, with a regal poise unusual in a woman. For a moment there was a flicker of regret in Grizelle’s dark, witchlike eyes, and then it was gone. She hardened her heart. “I’ve waited a long time for this, Mairi of Shiels,” she whispered. “You will die accursed for your deed.”
“Which deed, m’lady?”
Grizelle’s eyes narrowed, and she stepped back. Pointing a shaking finger, she screamed, “I curse you, Mairi of Shiels and Traquair and all the daughters of your line. For your treachery they will never rest. Cursed to pay for your deed, their sleep will be haunted by the dead until they die of foul and tragic means. Only when Scotland’s Stone of Destiny is found, will the curse be lifted.”
“’Tis your own flesh and blood you condemn,” cried Mairi.
An angry murmuring swelled through the crowd. Dogs growled and barked. A baby cried.
Robert held up his hand. Again, there was silence. “Bring out the stones,” he ordered, confident Mairi would confess once she saw the instrument of her death. Four men in yokes, straining against thick ropes tied to their shoulders, dragged an enormous slab of granite into the courtyard.
“No,” gasped David. “I won’t allow it.”
“Restrain him,” ordered the Bruce.
Two soldiers stepped forward and gripped David’s arms. His face haunted, he began to struggle. “Robert, I beg of you. Do not do this,” he shouted, twisting against the arms that held him like bands of steel. “Please.” Panic caused his voice to crack. “Spare my wife.”
Mairi was pale as a ghost, but her back was straight and her eyes, gray and icy as a mountain tarn, stared at the man who would be king.
“Your end is near, Mairi,” Robert said. “Speak now or stand before your God with a lie on your lips.”
The flashing scorn in her eyes withered him. He could scarcely form the words. “Kill her.”
Two guards stepped forward. Each took one arm. Mairi looked at one and then the other. Chastened, they released her and stepped back. Quickly, with graceful, catlike steps, she walked to the slab and lay down upon it.
Six more men carried a second slab, equal in size to the first, to where Mairi lay.
“Noooo…” moaned David. The tears ran freely down his face.
With Herculean effort, the men lifted the granite slab above their heads and heaved. Mairi folded her arms across her chest and turned her head. “Hail Mary, full of grace—” Her lips moved in prayer, but her eyes never left her husband’s face. Not even when the stone landed, full force, crushing the life and breath from her body.