Hetty gave her a stern look. “My lady, ye must not. For once in your life, I pray ye—me, Hetty, who kens ye best—heed the dire consequences of such an act.”
But Marsi rarely heeded consequences. Before her doting parents had died and left her a ward of her aunt, the Queen of Scots, most consequences had been pleasant ones. And when they were not, they were nearly always soon over.
However, now that Annabella was dead and could no longer protect her, the consequences of remaining to face Albany would likely be worse than anything she had ever known.
“I could pose as your assistant, Hetty, and help you look after Jamie.”
“And I could help ye look after Marsi, Hetty,” James said.
Henrietta looked dourly at Marsi. “Good lack, what was I thinking to tell ye that ye must not?” she muttered. “A body would think that after knowing ye for all of your seventeen years I’d ken better nor to challenge ye so.”
“Is anyone else to go?” Marsi asked. “Any of Jamie’s gentlemen?”
“Nay, for the King’s grace kens fine that some of them be in Albany’s pay, and nae one save Albany kens which ones. We’ll leave before they arise, I expect.”
“Then there is naught to stop me,” Marsi said. “I must get some of my clothing, but then I’ll come back here.”
“Ye’ve nowt that be suitable for a maidservant to wear, my lady! Nor would ye fool anyone for long in such a menial guise, for ye were no born to it.”
But now that she had made up her mind, Marsi dismissed such objections without hesitation. “I can easily talk as a common maidservant would, Hetty, as you know gey well, having often scolded me for doing so. I shall say that I served Annabella and that she gave me some of her cast-off clothing. She did give it away, after all. Then I can say that since you and I hail from the same part of Scotland, when my position ended with her grace’s death, I offered to help you.”
“I can say that I know her well, too, Hetty, for I do,” Jamie said.
“Faith, but I can also say that I just want to go home,” Marsi said. “After all, wherever we go from here, we are likely to go north or east. If worse comes to worst, I can tell whoever escorts us to take me to my uncle Malcolm at Stobhall in Perth. He wants me to marry his second son, and I can tell you, Hetty, if the choice is between a toady of Albany’s and my dullard cousin Jack, I’d prefer Jack.”
Two hours earlier
Striding across the flagstone floor of the royal audience hall at Turnberry, the tall, broad-shouldered young knight filled the room with crackling energy even as he dropped to a knee before its sole, elderly occupant and bowed his head.
“You sent for me, sire?”
“If you are the knight that other men call Hawk, I did, aye,” the King of Scots murmured, his raspy voice barely above a whisper. “I have sore need of you, lad.”
“I am Hawk,” Sir Ivor Mackintosh said, fighting to conceal his dismay at how much the King had aged since the only other time he had seen him, three years before. “How may I serve, your grace? Your messenger said it was gey urgent.”
“ ’Tis my Jamie,” muttered Robert III of Scotland, a king who had never sought or enjoyed his exalted position.
Ivor said gently, “Jamie, my liege, your younger son?”
A log shifted in the nearby fireplace, and sparks leaped before the King nodded and said, “Annabella… m-my Queen…” Pausing when his voice cracked, he added with tears welling in his pale blue eyes, “Annabella feared mightily for Jamie. Sithee, she had great fear of my brother, Albany. I canna believe he would harm a child, but ’tis better, I trow, to see the laddie safe than to weep for him if Annabella should prove to be right.”
“But what, exactly, are you asking of me, sire?”
“Albany sent a message a fortnight ago to say that he has business here that can nae longer wait upon the pleasure of those most concerned in it. He will be here tomorrow or Tuesday and he wants to take Jamie into his own custody. The Bishop of St. Andrews once told me that he can keep our laddie safe at St. Andrews Castle. You also ken Bishop Traill, he said, and St. Andrews as