The Kadin - Bertrice Small [201]
PATRICK LESLIE, fourth earl of Glenkirk, came in from the sunny warmth of a summer’s afternoon and descended to the cool, damp burial vault of the Leslies, located behind and below the altar in the family chapel. A dozen vigil lamps glowed softly.
Sitting quietly on the marble bench that had been placed for prayer and meditation, he gazed at the plaques that marked each tomb. All the plaques but one were marked simply with the occupant’s name and birth and death dates.
There was his great-grandfather Patrick, the first earl, for whom he was named. He had died peacefully in his bed at the age of eighty. The earl could barely remember him—a tall, grizzled old man with thick white hair and a deep voice. Near him rested his wife, Agnes Cummings.
His grandfather Adam, his father, Ian, and his great-aunt Janet’s son Charles, all of whom had died at the battle of Solway Moss in 1542, were next Each lay beside his wife. His grandmother Anne MacDonald and the tiny tomb of her oldest son, who had died at the age of three. Fiona Abernethy, Charles’s wife, dead in childbed of her fifth child. The earl’s own mother, Jane Dundas, who upon hearing the news from Solway Moss fell dead in the courtyard of the castle, leaving five orphaned children.
Along with Charles’s children, they had been raised by their great-aunt Janet Leslie. His heart swelled with love at the memory of her. She had been sixty-two then—a venerable age—but it hadn’t stopped her. Shouting down some distant cousins who had appeared in an attempt to take over both sets of children and the Leslie goods and chattels, she had taken immediate charge.
Stunned at the loss of both his parents, the nine-year-old earl had wanted to cry. Softly but sternly, she had warned him that a peer of the realm, no matter how young, did not weep publicly. Later that night he had privately sobbed his heart out in her loving arms.
She and she alone had been responsible for the happiness of them all. His sisters and his female cousins had all been married to fine, loving, wealthy men. His brothers and his male Leslie cousins, Aunt Janet’s grandchildren, had settled down with good livings.
The one memory that would remain with him as long as he lived was the fact that she had never seemed to grow old. For as long as he could remember, her hair had been a soft peach color, and her wonderful eyes a green-gold. He knew from a portrait of her that hung in the Great Hall, painted when she had been betrothed at the age of thirteen, that her hair had once been the same red-gold as his.
“Bless you, Cyra,” he was startled to hear his voice say. Then he laughed. No one had heard him; and even if they had, they would not have understood that Patrick, fourth earl of Glenkirk, knew the wonderful secret of his aunt’s past
Slowly he withdrew the letter from his doublet—a letter from Esther Kira to his great-aunt. Their letters had obviously crossed in passage—his to Esther, telling her of Cyra’s death, and Esther’s to Cyra, telling of the death of Sultan Suleiman on April 14, 1566.
In the years to come, those who read her epitaph, “Born a Scot she died a Scot” would think her a poor, sad spinster. They could never even begin to imagine those fantastic years between her birth and her death. As the irony struck him, his laughter echoed strangely in the silent burial vault
Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, he moved toward the doorway. “Godspeed, Cyra,” he said, and, ascending the steps, Patrick Leslie walked back through the chapel and out into the bright August afternoon.
Other Avon Books by Bertrice Small
LOVE WILD AND FAIR
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 1978 by Bertrice Small
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 77-99226