The Devil's Recruit (Alexander Seaton 4) Read online

  I closed her hand over them and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll make him some more.’ I went over to the recess in the wall where Deirdre, clutching her doll, was pretending to sleep. I kissed her too, and leaned across her, a finger to my lips, to rub the sleepy head of our three-year-old, Davy. The mischief in the smile he gave me told me that he would tax his mother’s heart more often even than did his brother.

  Upstairs, Zander was waiting, his bottom lip protruding a little, and his eyes fixed on the stairhead in a determination not to cry. He moved sideways a little to make space for me as I sat down beside him. ‘Your mother is very sorry about the drumsticks. I will make you some new ones.’

  He nodded, the tears threatening to brim over. ‘It is because she is worried. She is scared you will go away with Lieutenant Ormiston, and that she will never see you again.’

  ‘We did not want to go away, yet. We only wanted to look at the ship.’

  ‘And did you get a look at it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sullen still.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘It is a Dutch merchantman, a hundred feet and five hundred tons.’ His face was brightening and his voice becoming more animated as he went on. ‘And we saw the soldiers, the recruits, at their exercises. And they say they took on boxes of pistols and muskets at Dundee, and gunpowder, and that they are bound for Gluckstadt.’

  ‘I hope they will have taken on plenty of hides and barrels of dry biscuit.’

  ‘I did not see any of that.’

  ‘Oh,’ I looked at him ruefully. ‘Then the soldiers will be very cold, and very hungry, for they will sleep out in the open fields, and find very little to eat as the winter takes hold.’

  He thought about this a while. ‘Will I get any supper tonight?’

  I shook my head. ‘Perhaps the next time you will think of your mother at home and waiting for you. Now you go down and say you are sorry, and get off to your bed.’

  He turned towards me as he set his foot on the third step from the top. ‘Do you think we should tell the sergeant? About the biscuits and the hides?’

  Something, some indiscernible fear crept into my chest and stomach. ‘The sergeant?’

  ‘Yes. He is always there, watching. He keeps to the dark corners. The boys are all afraid of him. He has a bad leg, but he can limp as fast as others run, they say. His face is covered in scars, but no one sees it – he keeps his hood up. And he has a patch over his eye. James said the right, but I knew it was the left. I was right and now he owes me a penny.’

  The fear tightened. ‘How do you know you were right?’

  He looked surprised at my question. ‘Because I saw it. All the other boys ran away when he came towards us. James wanted to too, but I called him a coward, so he stayed. Some of the boys had said the man was a Spaniard, because of his skin. But he speaks Scots, and we could understand him.’

  ‘He spoke to you? What did he say?’

  ‘He asked us our names, and when we told him, he asked us who our fathers were, and then he smiled and went away. His face did not frighten us so much when he smiled.’

  I lowered my voice. ‘Zander, did you tell your mother of this?’

  He shook his head, the sullen look returning. ‘No. She did not let me speak.’

  ‘Don’t tell her. You promise me?’

  ‘I promise,’ he said, in the manner of a little boy well-used to the giving of such promises. ‘Can I go down to the ship again? If I tell you first?’

  I looked at the child who had filled my heart for nine years, the bastard son of another man, and I felt my nails press into my own palms. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You cannot.’

  4

  At Baillie Lumsden’s House

  William shook his head as he mopped the last of the stew from his bowl with a hunk of the bread we had shared. ‘I do not think it is anything to be concerned about. The poor fellow must be so used to children running at the sight of him, he would have been intrigued by two who did not, and probably said the first thing that came into his head.’

  As ever at this time of day, the cookshop was filled with advocates, notaries and clerks. I usually took my mid-day meal in the college, but the principal had given me business to do out in the town this afternoon, so I had taken the chance to spend a half-hour with my lawyer friend William Cargill here instead. I had drawn William aside from his favoured table by the fire, to a bench where we might talk more privately.

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘The recruiting sergeant?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I don’t think so. I have seen Lieutenant Ormiston and the other officers, but the sergeant has never taken my notice. I think that is the way he prefers it. I have heard he has been greatly disfigured by his injuries, and rarely shows himself ashore.’

  ‘He comes out at night,’ I said, ‘when they make their tour of the inns and alehouses. He’s Ormiston’s watchdog. The innkeepers and brewsters are always glad when he has gone from their place. He has not his master’s power to charm, it seems, and does not encourage conversation, but I suspect they are two halves of the one coin.’

  William signalled for the cook’s boy to bring us more ale. ‘You are not much taken with the lieutenant, are you, Alexander?’

  I did not see any need to deny it. ‘It takes more than a studied manner and a fine cut of clothing to endear a man to me,’ I said. ‘And I do not like his pretending to know more of me than he does.’

  William looked at me pointedly. ‘How many of your own scholars have taken ship for the wars when their college days were done?’

  ‘Too many,’ I said. ‘Many more than will come back.’

  ‘Aye,’ said William sombrely. ‘But those who have gone will speak of old teachers, fondly remembered. There is nothing sinister in Ormiston knowing your name, or in his sergeant taking a moment to speak kindly to the only two boys in the town not to run away from him.’

  I conceded that William might be right, and our conversation moved on to other things – the unwelcome interest of English archbishops in the affairs of our kirk and the king’s ill-judged meddling in the business of our burgh council. William kept his voice low. ‘Can Charles truly believe we will allow interference from Whitehall that we would not take from his father in Holyrood? This will not end well.’

  ‘Hmmn, I fear not,’ I said. ‘And I am to go to Baillie Lumsden’s house later today.’ Despite his wealth and influence, the baillie was strongly suspected of sailing too close to the wind in matters of religion and politics. He was also the cousin and namesake of Matthew Lumsden, the old student friend of William’s and mine whom Sarah had decried the night before, and who was openly and defiantly Papist.

  ‘Oh?’ William was interested. ‘What is the college’s business there?’ We had finished our meal and were stepping out on to the street.

  ‘I don’t know yet. Dr Dun said Lumsden would explain it to me, but I am not altogether at ease about it. I noticed a power of armed men at the baillie’s door as I passed by his house this morning.’

  William raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Yes, but those are there for …’

  ‘For what?’

  A mischievous smile had come upon his face. ‘Truly? You do not know? Well, I daresay you will soon find out.’ He slapped me hard on the back. ‘Courage, my friend. Courage!’ And he was still laughing as he disappeared from view into the depths of Huxter Row.

  It was with some trepidation, then, that I approached Lumsden’s residence on the Guest Row. With five storeys of towers and turrets, it was better proportioned than many castles I had seen, and one of the grandest houses in the burgh.

  The armed men I had seen in the morning were still there, and I had to have one of Lumsden’s servants vouch for me before I was allowed in. I was directed up the west turnpike to wait upon the master in the small parlour there. As I reached the head of the stair, a maid went past, carrying a tray of wine and cake in to the great hall, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her.
I had my hand on the handle to close it when a voice from inside rose above the soft female murmur that had been coming from the room.

  ‘Isabella, shut the door for the girl before we all freeze to death! I never knew a house of such draughts.’

  I placed the voice at the same moment as my eyes fixed on the young – perhaps not so young now – woman who had risen to close the door. I had not seen her in nine years, but I knew her instantly. Isabella Irvine, niece to Sir Robert Gordon of Straloch, friend to Katharine Hay whom I had loved and abandoned before I properly knew what love was. Isabella Irvine who, on our one and only meeting all that time ago, at the house of her uncle, had made it clear to me that she despised me more than anyone else on earth.

  The shock on her face matched my own, and a small, surprised ‘Oh!’ escaped her throat before she recovered herself sufficiently to continue the process of shutting the door in my face. But she had not moved quickly enough, for again came the commanding voice, a little more forceful this time.

  ‘Wait! Mercy, girl, is that not Alexander Seaton you are about to disfigure? Mr Seaton? Are these the manners the town of Aberdeen has taught you? Show yourself, man!’

  And so I stepped into the room and found myself in the presence of Katharine Forbes, Lady Rothiemay, fifty years old, five years a widow of the murdered William Gordon of Rothiemay, mother to his sons, one of whom had been burned to death in a tower, the other, a child of nine, who had been forcibly taken from her care by a kinsman seeking to control her lands. In her grief and fury, beyond the power or inclination of the law to assuage, Katharine Forbes was at feud with more interests than I had friends. No longer the sylph-like sacrificial bride she had been thirty years ago, she was nonetheless slim and striking still. There was scarcely a grey hair among the chestnut folds on her head, and a little faded though they now were, her startling blue eyes could put the fear of God and the love of woman into any man in the North.

  ‘Your Ladyship,’ I made my long-disused bow, ‘I had not realised …’

  ‘No doubt you had not. Your head was rarely out of a book. But you must be the only man in Aberdeen who didn’t know I was in residence here with Lumsden.’

  ‘The guard …’

  ‘Indeed. Would that others had as little interest in my movements as yourself, Mr Seaton. But enough of that. Tell me, when were you last at Banff?’

  ‘Three months ago, in the summer.’

  ‘And all is well with the good doctor?’

  I knew my friend Dr Jaffray had several times tended to Lady Rothiemay and her children when their own physician from Huntly could not be got. ‘All well.’

  She nodded, satisfied. ‘Good. Tell him he must visit me the next time he is in Edinburgh. Tell him to bring with him a deck of cards. He relieved me of twenty Dutch florins the last time I saw him, and I would win them back.’

  I glanced briefly at Isabella Irvine. ‘You are going to Edinburgh?’

  It was Lady Rothiemay who replied. ‘Aye, that cesspit of ministers and politicking. My enemies are busy, defaming me daily before the Privy Council, and it will not be long, I’d wager, until they have me on the back of a cart headed down to one of the castle jails.’

  This was enough to rouse Isabella at last. ‘No, my Lady, your friends …’

  ‘My friends can only do so much without they set a noose around their own necks.’ Her voice softened and she smiled at the younger woman. ‘You have surely seen enough of the world by now to know that. Anyhow, I doubt Mr Seaton takes any great interest in our affairs.’ Living as I was in a town constantly agog at the depredations said to have been visited upon her foes by men loyal to Lady Rothiemay, I did not demur. She turned slightly to address me once more. ‘I hear you are still regent at the Marischal College. Can no place be found for you at King’s?’

  The lady was suspected of strong sympathies with Rome, and I judged it best not to mention to her my forthcoming call to the ministry. ‘I am content at Marischal, your Ladyship.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it. I will get Dr Forbes to work upon you.’

  I took this opportunity to turn the conversation away from myself. ‘Dr Forbes tells me your son does well in the schools.’

  She softened further. ‘Aye, he does. And he is to bring him here to me tonight. Only God knows when he might see his mother again.’

  ‘I will pray that it might be soon.’

  She inclined her head a little. ‘Thank you, Mr Seaton, but I begin to wonder if God listens to prayers when the name of Katharine Forbes is mentioned. And your own boy does well with Mr Wedderburn here?’

  Jaffray had told me before that this woman forgot nothing about the lives of those in whom she took an interest. ‘He makes progress, but at the moment he dreams of nothing but being a soldier.’

  ‘That is as it should be. And your daughter, what age is she now?”

  I told her that Deirdre was almost seven.

  ‘Then she might make a pupil for you, my dear.’

  In my anxiety to avoid the undiminished odium that radiated from the eyes of Isabella Irvine, I had not noticed Christiane Rolland, the young sister of the French master, Louis, seated rigidly on a stool a little to the left of her, quietly sipping at her wine. She seemed a small thing, a delicate article of fine china, in this room of power and substance.

  ‘Christiane, I am sorry, I had not noticed you there.’

  She nodded back, attempting a smile. ‘Mister Seaton.’

  Lady Rothiemay was pleased. ‘You know my young friend then.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Her brother is a former scholar of mine, and a friend.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. That is something in her favour.’

  I dared not glance in Isabella Irvine’s direction to gauge her reaction to this remark, but I was certain Lady Rothiemay had, and I began to suspect that her companion’s hostility to me had not gone unnoticed. Her Ladyship waited a moment, then continued, ‘Your business here today is not with Baillie Lumsden, but with me. You may have heard that I have it in mind to found a school for girls here in the burgh of Aberdeen. I had my own schooling here, and whatever my troubles in the world have been since then, they would have been a lot worse without it. I intend to provide for a schoolmistress who will teach the girls to write and sew, and do anything else whereof they might be capable.’

  ‘Which is often much,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed it is, and has to be. A woman without husband or father to protect her must live on her wits, and without lawful employment is a person at once vulnerable and suspect everywhere she goes. If it is in my power to prevent even one young girl from falling prey to the evils that the world holds ready for her, then my money will be well spent. The town council will only accept my gift on the understanding that they have a voice in the appointment of my schoolmistress. I made it known that I wished you to be that person.’

  ‘Me?’ I was somewhat surprised. ‘I am … honoured, but why me?’

  She looked at me a long moment. ‘Because you are a Banffshire lad, and will not be caught up in the interminable politics of this town. And also, I know something of your wife, and I am of the view you are not a bad judge of women.’

  There was nothing I could say, and she seemed pleased with this state of affairs. ‘Christiane here is one of the candidates for the post, and I have had several others. I wish you to be present at their trials in two days’ time, to give me the view of the college on the candidates that I might make my decision.’

  My heart sank at the very thought of it, but I knew I was unlikely to find a way out of the task.

  ‘Now,’ said the lady, addressing the other two, ‘I have some other business to discuss with Mr Seaton, and it is not for the ears of young women. Isabella, you might profitably spend an hour with Christiane here – see what George Jamesone plans to do with that garden of his. You would do well to remind Jamesone that it was myself that recommended those fellows to him in the first place, and Lady Lindsay is now in very high dudgeo
n with me after his poaching them.’ As Isabella was following Christiane Rolland out of the room, Lady Rothiemay added, ‘And Isabella, I will detain Mr Seaton here no longer than a half-hour, then you may safely return without fear of encountering him again.’

  Her young companion curtseyed and made her exit, partly confused and partly infuriated.

  The light outside was fading and the room becoming cooler, despite the fire that already burned in the vast sandstone hearth of the hall. ‘Pull over those drapes, would you, Mr Seaton? Little enough light gets in at those windows anyway. I would be happier in the small parlour, but Lumsden thinks he must keep me here in state. We could light another candle, though – I can hardly see your face.’

  I did as I was bid, then took a seat in the velvet armchair across from her.

  ‘You must give Isabella a little time. She has nursed her wrath against you many years, and I had not warned her to expect you here today. Perhaps I should have done.’

  ‘She has grounds for her dislike of me. She has been a constant friend to one I badly wronged.’

  Lady Rothiemay shook her head impatiently. ‘It is nonsense, and I have told Isabella that. Katharine Hay would have had no life with you, disgraced and penniless as you were. You knew that nine years ago, do not pretend otherwise.’

  ‘I … I was angry at what I had lost myself. I did not think of her, at first, I …’

  It was so many years since I had spoken of this, and to so few people, that I could not believe I was talking of it so openly to the woman before me.

  ‘Well, whatever your reasoning, the outcome has been the right one, and Isabella understands less of the affairs of men and women than she thinks she does. I fear she may have made a bad choice of her own.’ She pondered a moment then put the thought aside. ‘No matter. That is a subject for other ears. What I want to talk to you about is Seoras MacKay.’