Clue 13 Linlithgow Palace and the crown.
Brodie arrives with the tray and Araminta shoves the notebook back into the desk. She lifts the map of Linlithgow elegantly and shoos him into the hallway. ‘My aunt is asleep.’ She pauses and then whispers, ‘I shall go to Linlithgow, Brodie. Have Davey bring round the carriage. Will he know the way?’
‘I’ll check, ma’am. He’ll need to leave town westwards, then proceed through Corstorphine village and north of Broxburn. The new canal runs to Linlithgow, it’s easy enough to follow it.’
‘Broxburn,’ Araminta repeats. Place names here sound foreign still. She glances back into the drawing room where Winifred’s breathing is even. It’s only just after midday, she reasons. There’s plenty of time to drive twenty miles and still have an hour or two of light. She imagines bringing the crown back to her great aunt by the time the old woman wakes. She smiles at the celebration that will ensue. She’ll need help, though. ‘Fetch Eleanor,’ she directs the butler, quietly. ‘I think you ought to join us too. Are there tools, Brodie? A spade? A crowbar? We shall also take Douglas.’
Brodie glances protectively in the direction of the drawing room.
‘We’ll leave Agnes at the door for when she wakes,’ Araminta says.
The butler hesitates. ‘I think my first duty is to look after...’ he starts, but the mistress cuts him off.
‘She’ll be so pleased,’ she gets out. ‘We’re almost there.’
Brodie raises an eyebrow. He still isn’t sure what it is that’s almost upon them.
‘Madam,’ he tries, starting to form some kind of sentence, but Araminta is off, taking the stairs down.
‘Come along,’ she says.
Brodie abandons the tray on the iron stand built into the banister. As he closes the drawing room door he peeks at Winifred, propped in place, and for a second, he allows himself a smile before he turns to the tasks in hand.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mother cannot sit still. This is unusual, if not unheard of, for a nun of her experience and a woman who since childhood has practised decorum in all things. Unlike Sister Winifred, Mother did not come to the convent as a reaction to a lost love nor did she have a terror of married life. She was simply a devout young woman who, unlike Winifred, and indeed Grizel, forswore the gossip of old Edinburgh in favour of singing psalms. Her mother despaired of her – a child who looked forward to Sunday morning in church more than Sunday afternoon with her family, but the church has always felt like home to Mother. Jesus called her long before she became a postulant at the age of sixteen, and she’s remained inspired by the poetry of the bible for more than seventy years.
Now she frets back and forth in her study and has opened the window for she feels suddenly unaccountably warm. Sister Gloria waits, tired and still-eyed, in a chair beside Mother’s desk as the thick chill of February seeps across the room. Mother has known all her life that men frequently disrespect women and often lay down rules to restrain them, but what Gloria has told her is an escalation. Before she dispatched the younger nun, she imagined the worst. Now it seems she did not go far enough. ‘John Knox,’ she gets out, as if the ancient minister’s name is a curse. Her eyes flick to Gloria, who, realising that this might be a question rather than an exclamation says, ‘Yes, Mother. There were numerous papers, but I believe it was Reverend Knox who started the sect. The Hermits. It seems likely he named the order for St Giles, the patron of his own kirk. Originally it appears there was an inner group of ministers who monitored thewomen in their congregations but during the time of the witch trials the sect became more secular. They’re led from London now and not allied to the church as far as I can see, apart from broadly being Christian. Much of the symbolism they employ is masonic. Their stated mission is defence of the realm. I can’t say what they mean by that.’
Mother clenches her fists though Gloria can’t see this, for the sleeves of Mother’s robe cover her hands. She’s trying to reason why these Hermits are pursuing Sister Winifred, Winifred’s great niece and her maid. In life, Knox concerned himself with matters of state quite as much as his congregants’ private lives, and the pursuit of the McKenzies, it seems to Mother, must have a larger significance than, say, an inheritance left by Eilidh McKenzie or Winifred taking orders. Defence of the realm, she ponders. Mother’s forebears attended the Stuart court like the McKenzies did.
‘Knox hounded Mary Queen of Scots, did he not?’ she says, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes especially papery today.
‘Yes, Mother,’ Sister Gloria confirms. ‘He wrote a book objecting to her reign as a Catholic queen, but he wasn’t in favour of women ruling whatever their religion. Queen Elizabeth of England declined him a knighthood on account of his stance.’
‘The reverend didn’t believe in the divine right of kings, then?’
Gloria’s expression shifts. ‘Not in the matter of queens,’ she says.
It interests Mother that instead of Knox interpreting Mary’s reign as God testing his obedience, he interpreted it as God expecting him to sort out the crown’s succession. She feels personally affronted by this, given her family’s close ties to the Stuarts. She recalls rumours when she was a child that the McKenzies had tried to save the queen and that, as a result, they were entrusted with some kind of relic. Something valuable. But that’s centuries ago. Why would this blow up now? A smiletwitches on her lips. Then a sudden thought stills it. The old king is dying. George’s brother, William, is childless. It’s his niece who will take the throne. Knox would be appalled. The girl is little more than a child. She’ll be the first regnant queen in more than a century. Mother’s face drains of all colour. ‘You can go,’ she tells Gloria. ‘Get some sleep,’ she adds.
She watches from the window as the younger nun crosses the garden to her quarters. The sky is blue today, and a hawk is wheeling lazily back and forth. Mother draws a deep lungful of freezing air and allows it to refresh her. It seems odd that here, in the middle of the Scottish countryside, she, a simple nun, might come to the conclusion she has; that these men are a threat to the throne. Mother never felt a grand calling. God’s voice has always been quiet. She’s had little interest in matters of state over the years and cannot even recall the Hanoverian princess’s name, but she’s Lizzie MacDonald quite as much as Sister Winifred is Saoirse McKenzie. And she’s worried for her friend, for her friend’s great niece, their maid and indeed the young heir to the throne. Now she has some proof, at least, that the Order of the Hermit is a force for harm. The modern Church does not venerate Knox. Far from it. She glances at her desk but knows she cannot commit her suspicions to paper. And whether she’s right about this or not, something is afoot. She must go herself and she must go at once. To the bishop.
*
Harry Thom watches Winifred’s arrival at Glenfinlas Street from the garden of one of the houses on the north side of Charlotte Square. He peers with increasing interest as the large items, swathed in cloths, are unloaded by Davey and the butler and brought inside. Now he sees the carriage brought round again and the butler, footman and coachman climbing aboard, the footman with two spades and a garden fork and the butler with a large hammer and chisel. Lastly, Araminta and Eleanor ascendinto the box. The McKenzies’ house has held a fascination for Thom for a long time, and as he calculates it, the only people inside now are the old nun and the below-stairs women. He must find out where this motley party is going.
As Araminta’s carriage recedes, he steps out from his hiding place and strides to the front door. He doesn’t ring the bell, but tries the handle. Like every house in proximity to the square, it isn’t locked. Who would dare break in, in broad daylight, in the New Town where many folk have upwards of seven or eight staff? He smiles at their foolish confidence. Inside, the McKenzies’ house isn’t as grand as he’d imagined. The hallway is not wide, a single marble statue making it feel crowded. The furnishings are old-fashioned. A fancy mirror all the rage three decades ago on the pale green wall. Pausing a second, he listens to the ticking of a clock. He can hear no other movement. He checks the room to his right, which is a dining room, and behind it a morning room which appears unused. Then he climbs the stairs, glancing out of the window on the landing at the mews where he interrogated Davey a few days earlier.
As he emerges into the first-floor hallway, a maid rises from her chair outside the drawing room.
‘Who are you, sir?’ the girl asks nervously.
Thom does not hesitate. He grabs her by the hair and bangs her head off the wall. She doesn’t even have time to scream before passing out. He lets her body drop to the floor without checking if she’s still breathing. Then, twisting the brass handle, he opens the drawing room door and for a moment is almost confused by the riot of detail and colour; sunny yellow walls peppered with too many paintings and a library at the far end. On the sopha Winifred is asleep. He notices the image of Clementina propped on the carpet next to the mirror. ‘Catholic nonsense,’ he mutters.
Winifred stirs. She opens her eyes. At first she doesn’t recognise him.
‘The fire,’ she directs, sleepily, assuming he must be bringing wood from a cart outside, dressed as he is in shabby, workaday clothes.
