uncle's must be a cousin of mine. My family was unexpectedly expanding once again.
I was so intrigued by the idea of these new relations that I gave no thought to the problem of how we were to get in through the city gates until we were almost at them. But I need not have worried. No papers were being asked for, now that the invasion panic was over.
Uncle Blair surprised me by walking straight up the High Street of Edinburgh and turning into a narrow close without hesitation.
"You've been here before?" I asked.
"Aye, in my youth. When my father—that was your grandfather—died, I had to come here to sort out the title to Ladymuir. It's a fine city, no doubt, but awfully stinky."
We had to flatten ourselves against the wall of the narrow canyon-like close to let a couple of laden packhorses squeeze past.
My grandfather! I thought. Another relative!
"And your mother," I said. "What was she like?"
I'd never thought of my other grandmother. Granny had been more than enough for me.
He seemed to find the question difficult.
"She was a good woman," he said at last. "She loved the Scriptures. She spared not the rod on her children." He smiled suddenly. "Your father, Danny, he was a rascal. She never managed to beat the spirit out of him. A rover, he was, by nature. Full of mischief. I miss him to this day."
The horses had passed by now. We went on down the close, trying to avoid the worst of the putrefying slime under our feet. Uncle Blair turned in through a low entrance, and I followed him, hardly noticing the narrow stone stairway we were climbing.
Uncle Blair knocked on a door. It swung open. A short, red-faced woman stood gaping at him, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Hugh!" she said at last. "What brings you here? We heard you'd been taken prisoner."
She was looking anxiously past him as if she feared to see a cohort of Black Cuffs at his heels. Her eyes came to rest on me.
"Praise the Lord, Sarah," said Uncle Blair cheerfully. "I'm a free man. He has delivered me from the pit and the miry clay. And this your wee cousin Maggie. Danny's daughter."
"Danny!" Sarah's face lit up. "I heard he had a daughter. I can't believe she's grown up already. Come away in, dear, and let me see you. There's a look of your father, maybe, around the eyes." She turned to call over her shoulder. "Thomas! You'll never guess who's here!"
***
They were kind people, Cousin Thomas and Cousin Susan, but they made little impression on me. They were more concerned with their tailoring business than with matters of religion. They were alarmed at first to be harboring one of the notorious covenanting prisoners of Dunnottar, but when Uncle Blair explained that he'd been freed and that no more charges stood against him, they were reassured. They listened, horrified, to his account of the prison vault, tutted over his hands, deplored the state of his clothing, then moved the subject on as if to dwell on such things was somehow indecent.
"You're not the first I've heard of, to slip out of their clutches," Cousin Thomas said with a nod. "There's quite a few who have passed money into the right hands and have been let go. There's a price for everything, if you know how to go about it. How much did the Laidlaws pay to free their brother, Sarah?"
They began to discuss the price of freedom as if it was a length of woolen cloth. Uncle Blair sat by in polite silence, but I could see that the conversation troubled him as the puzzle of his release weighed on him again.
I didn't know how late it was, but through the narrow window I could see that the shadows were lengthening toward sunset. Cousin Sarah was busy at the table, rolling out the oatcakes for our supper. I tugged at Uncle Blair's sleeve.
"There's a person who helped me that I promised to call on when I came back to Edinburgh. May I go out, Uncle? I won't be long."
Uncle Blair nodded, but Cousin Sarah raised her eyebrows. Before she could say anything, I had fled down the stairway and was running up the close.
Musketeer Sharpus was waiting for me. He stepped out of the High Kirk's great doorway so suddenly that I was startled. I'd been trying to frame my gratitude into suitable words, but at the sight of him I found I couldn't say