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By Root 2802 0

to the Dunbars, and to Luss and to Huntly. His wife is Marion Livingstone, and the child will be born before he could be freed of the marriage on any grounds. For what it’s worth, my lord, it doesn’t smack of personal ambition. The Princess is by nature indiscreet and defiant. He is young. Both are attractive. Flung together by someone like Simpson, they were very likely to go to extremes, especially if they believed, as two of her brothers did, that the English marriage was wrong and the King was not to be trusted. Although Crichton could hardly have put any reliance on my lord of Mar. Cochrane’s tales of what happened up north are quite disturbing.’

‘I’ve heard them,’ Argyll had said. ‘And what happened in Edinburgh. That’s why he isn’t here. Andreas volunteered to look after him. Otherwise every envoy from England and beyond will learn about the fallen bride of Earl Rivers from Johndie Mar’s frenzied lips.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Nicholas.

‘So am I. Is mairg aig am bi iad,’ had said Colin Campbell. ‘But that is what we have to work with, and we must do it. When we are back in Edinburgh, we shall confer. And meanwhile, what else?’

He told it, concisely, for what it was worth. Before the snow sealed the highways, there had been some unexplained movements among the friends of Archibald, Earl of Angus, who had been such a good ally to Sandy on the last Border raid.

‘He is planning something?’ Argyll had said.

‘They think so, in Berwick. Perhaps you would care to speak to Bertram and Yare. Yare might also advise about Crichton. They do business together.’

‘Tom Yare would do business with Lucifer. So what is de Fleury’s advice?’

‘Not to worry,’ had said Nicholas. ‘With snow like this, nothing can happen. Make the most of it.’

And, since he thought that was true, here he was, in a circle of bonfires, dragging a performance out of just about every man, woman and child of those whose shining faces surrounded him; juggling torches while men leaped over hurdles, and others danced to the pipes, and wrestled, and battered each other with poles while balancing on high, twanging ropes tied to roof-poles. Tom Yare sportingly repeated a long piece of verse with a lot of Rs in it, and children chanted and skipped. And finally MacChalein Mor his own self, stripped to the waist, long pale hair whipping, cartwheeled into the centre and danced, with high-flung hands and arched feet, while his men made mouth-music; the sound of it flittering over the snow, light as a wagtail in drink.

When it was over, and the camp was quiet, Jodi drew close to his father. ‘Could I do that?’

‘What?’ said Nicholas cautiously.

‘Make dancing-music with my mouth.’

‘If you’ve got enough breath. Two people are better.’

‘Could Margaret do it?’ Jodi said. ‘If you showed her?’

Is mairg aig am bi iad

Is mairg aig nach bi iad; co iad?

Pity who have them. Pity who have them not. What are they?

Clann.

Children.

NEXT MORNING, THE messenger burst into the camp, shouting for their lordships of Buchan and Atholl.

Bare in the crackling snow, Colin Campbell got there before they did. ‘Be quiet. What?’

Nicholas, equally unclad, came running.

It was what they had feared. Johndie Mar, knife in hand, running wild.

IN EDINBURGH, AS yet, no one knew. Enclosed in its frozen countryside, the town clung, silently smoking, to its long slope, with the Castle stark and detached on its height, guarding its secrets.

The day before, provoked into a quarrel by some impatient remark of the King’s, John of Mar had drawn steel on his brother. Drawn it, distressingly, not as a murderer with a grievance or an assassin for some noble cause, but as a spoiled lad, frustrated, looses a whip at a horse. The blade had pricked the King’s skin, that was all, before the Guard had dragged off the Prince and taken his dagger. The King, overcome, had collapsed and lain shivering on his bed ever since, with Conrad at his side. The Earl of Mar had been locked in his room, with Dr Andreas in attendance. Will Scheves, with Master Secretary Whitelaw and the Governor of the Castle, had