Chapter Thirty-Six
Cillian Brodie’s funeral, three days after his death, is an august affair attended by what is left of the McKenzie clan, Johnathan Moore and the household staff of number four Glenfinlas Street, excepting Douglas who has not returned.
Also, the Bishop of Edinburgh, Mother, James McLevy, Ina Hamilton and some ne’er-do-wells who reside in the vicinity of the Water of Leith.
The grounds of St Columba’s are awash in daffodils.
It’s a crisp, bright day and Winifred is put in mind, as she always is in the first days of spring, of the smell of grass being scythed.
She feels a twist of sorrow that the world continues.
After Brodie is interred, Winifred declines to accompany her great niece and her husband home to Glenfinlas Street or to return to the convent with Mother. She dreamt last night that she and Brodie recuperated side by side on the yellow sopha. She wishes they had.
‘I’m not ready,’ she explains. ‘I’ll linger.’
Alone in the graveyard she crouches with one hand on Brodie’s freshly filled grave; the other on Eilidh’s, at the head of which there is a newly raised stone.
He must have arranged it for the inscription is in Gaelic Thig crìoch air an t-saoghal, ach mairidh gaol is ceòl.
The world may come to an end, but love and music will endure.
The old nun’s face twists as she cries, mourning the loss of the people who knew her best, and tortured with regret that she’s only forgiven them now that they’re gone.
She wonders what her life would have been like if she hadn’t entered the convent.
Eilidh wanted her to stay at Glenfinlas Street.
So had he. Pride, she thinks. The sin of it.
At length, she pulls herself upright with some difficulty for her wounds still pain her.
Anderson’s draughts make her woozy so Mother has arranged for powders to be sent from the convent’s infirmary, and Winifred’s head is muddled with grief alone now.
She sends away the carriage and walks slowly back to the house as a penance.
Cook has prepared meat pies piled tidily on a tray and a carafe of warm, honeyed wine in the drawing room.
It’s only family now. Johnathan helps Winifred into a yellow satin chair and fetches her a drink.
‘Thank you, dear,’ she says, as he returns to his wife’s side on the sopha. The couple have settled into the bedroom upstairs over the last few days. The sheets are more rumpled than the McKenzie laundry has seen in years, Johnathan relishing his wife’s new independence.
‘To Mr Brodie,’ Araminta raises her glass and so do the others. Once they’ve drunk, she raises her glass again. ‘To Berenice McKenzie,’ she says.
Winifred’s eyes dart to Johnathan who’s as bluff as ever.
‘She seems extraordinary,’ he grins. ‘Of course, once I found out my wife had a family, I knew they would be.’
‘You told him.’ Winifred is shocked.
Araminta nods. ‘I did. Everything.’
‘Quite the tale,’ Johnathan adds cheerfully.
‘I’m all for Minty having her freedom. I mean, why shouldn’t a lady manage her own money?
Minty’s twice as bright as I am, that’s for sure.
Education as well! She’d be an asset to a university department.
I can’t see what kind of fellow wouldn’t be in favour. ’
The women lock eyes. They know exactly the kind of fellow.
Winifred lets a sip of warm wine slip down her throat.
‘We’ll need to manage this carefully,’ she says.
The truth, like the world of women, lies between the lines.
Bringing it into the world will be dangerous.
The bishop has evaded talking about what he’s done, Mother said.
A whiff of the backroom deal already pervades the business.
Araminta nods. Over the last two days she has researched the matter. ‘I don’t believe an edict such as this can simply be added to the law. That was a foolish hope.’
‘No,’ Winifred confirms. ‘The monarch can’t do that anymore. It’ll have to pass parliament. And that will require power behind it.’
‘The Whigs,’ Johnathan says. ‘Melbourne seems a decent chap. It’s only a matter of time,’ he adds wistfully, as if the velum in his wife’s possession is not more than three hundred years old.
‘A worthy queen would be a start,’ Winifred continues with a sigh. ‘I wonder if she will be.’
‘Who?’ Johnathan isn’t following their train of thought.
The women pause. ‘King William’s niece,’ Araminta says. ‘She’s the next in line.’
‘But she can’t be more than a child . . .’ Johnathan objects.
‘Seventeen,’ Winifred says stoutly. She’s checked. The princess will gain her majority in May, in only a few weeks. The old king is ill; if rumours are to be believed, dying. ‘Several kings have been crowned as far younger children,’ Winifred posits.
Johnathan searches his memory. Medieval kings, perhaps.
‘Can you help, darling?’ Araminta chimes. ‘I’ll need an audience.’
‘An audience?’
‘With the princess,’ she spells it out. ‘Victoria. Of Kent.’
Johnathan squirms. ‘I know a few chaps at Buckingham House through the Geological Society,’ he manages.
‘We can’t tell more men,’ Winifred says definitely.
‘No, we can’t, Johnathan,’ Araminta agrees.
‘Perhaps if you wrote to the princess, I might see that she gets the letter,’ he offers.
The women take this in.
Winifred says, ‘That may work. Araminta, you must tell her that in Scotland you uncovered a royal treasure and explain the service our foremothers performed for the Stuart queens. Let’s hope she’s intrigued. I would be.’
When Johnathan leaves the room Winifred turns to her niece. ‘I may be able to see to it through the bishop but there will be trades and more secrets.’
‘Let’s give Johnathan a chance,’ Araminta replies, and Winifred squeezes her great niece’s hand.
‘When I die—’ Winifred starts.
‘We’ll take a plot on the other side of them,’ Araminta says and realises that it’s a sign of her having a family now, that she need not be told her great aunt’s wishes.
*
The same day Cillian Brodie is interred, Thom makes it to London.
He elected not to sail but to ride. At Carlisle he forwent his disguise and clothed himself once more as a gentleman.
The roads are not bad now the weather is brightening and on the third day he rides into town through Essex, past the market gardens and into the east of the city, the oldest part of the capital.
He feels he is truly at home when at last he passes the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street.
The smell of woodsmoke is on the air, the sound of passersby talking, a mist of rain as he trots past the Mansion House; all the comforts of England.
He’s grubby from the journey, but he doesn’t want to wait so he dismounts at the inn at Blackfriars and pays a boy to see to his horse.
Then, with the crown in a leather bag which he procured just outside Edinburgh, he walks north through Covent Garden to the Grand Order, rapping on the door the requisite number of times and giving the password to a sallow-faced servant.
In the inner sanctum, the Grand Master waits. He rises as Thom enters.
‘I have it,’ Thom announces showily, and places the leather bag on the desk, drawing out the crown and unwrapping it from its linens.
That it is an extraordinary, intricate treasure is immediately apparent, even here in a room where not one square inch of space survives without ornamentation; a collection of golden clocks on one wall, another skirted with strange, stuffed animals and a mural overhead depicting the signs of the Zodiac in the night sky.
Thom holds up the crown which catches the light, glowing gold and green, the creamy pearls reflecting the flickering candles.
The Grand Master smiles without a hint of warmth.
‘I’m afraid your travels are not over, Brother Thom,’ he says.
Thom shifts. He expected this to be a moment of triumph. He anticipated elevation within the order. Something is wrong. He momentarily hopes he won’t have to return to Scotland. His legs suddenly feel sore from the long ride. Perhaps, he thinks, he ought to have bathed.
The Grand Master takes the crown and examines it. He lets out a short and violent tut.
‘Master . . .’ Thom cuts in. The man surely does not understand what he has achieved. Thom wants to explain the lengths he had to go to, the lack of support from Angus McGhie, the amount of money he expended. The hardships he endured. The McKenzie women’s wickedness and how, finally, he triumphed.
The Grand Master wraps the crown back in its linen. ‘We’ll have to release it to the Tower of London,’ he says. ‘To save our embarrassment.’
‘Embarrassment, sir?’ Thom isn’t following. ‘Do you mean after everything I’ve done, we aren’t going to keep it?’
‘Everything you’ve done? You killed a man, injured another two and’ – the Grand Master lifts a letter from his desk, one which is graced with the seals of not one, not two but three bishops – ‘repeatedly attacked an elderly nun. You kidnapped a married lady. You misled a magistrate. As far as I can see, you didn’t even think to hide your actions.
Good God, you might as well have invaded with an army, Harry.
Cromwell did less damage in Scotland. I told you to be an ill wind not a damn hurricane. ’
‘But I got it!’ Thom objects. ‘I wouldn’t have got it otherwise.’
The Grand Master sighs. He doesn’t intend to argue with this brute, a personage he’s clearly over-advanced in the order’s business. Thom’s father was the same, he recalls. Poor decisions made under pressure. It’s perhaps in the breeding.
‘I’ve given an undertaking that you’ll leave the country,’ he announces.
Thom’s temper flares. He’ll not be set aside like this. ‘How dare you treat me like an errant schoolboy after all I’ve done,’ he snarls. ‘This is nothing but lily-livered nonsense—’
‘You idiot,’ the Grand Master snaps. ‘I’m saving you from a murder charge for which you would most assuredly swing. I want you to understand I’ve not done this for your benefit, but for ours. Let that be an end to it.’
Thom’s jaw hardens. ‘I shan’t leave. My home is here. You said there’d be a reward. You promised advancement.’ The Grand Master doesn’t grace this with a reply. Thom, furious, pulls a knife from his jacket. ‘A Hermit always keeps his promise,’ he growls.
The Grand Master has had enough of this debate. He considers it beneath him. He’ll not be threatened, here, in his own inner sanctum. He unholsters a pistol concealed under the altar with one hand and with the other raps Thom’s fingers sharply with his walking stick. Harry drops the knife.
‘The palace shall have the crown. That will be the forfeit. Don’t put yourself in a position where you must forfeit something greater. Go home,’ the Grand Master says. ‘Have them pack your things. You know where to get help while you’re away, should you need it.’
Thom nods. The order has outposts. His family has friends.
‘I’ve had funds made available, but if you’re not gone by sunset tomorrow, they’ll be withdrawn and I’ll do no more for you,’ the Grand Master adds.
Thom turns. For a moment he thinks he’ll walk out of the lodge.
He imagines going to Rome and the dark-eyed women he might demean there.
He’s heard of brothels on the Arno where girls are bought as slaves and must do whatever you want.
He almost takes a step towards the door.
But then fury overtakes him. He’s done everything the master asked.
He captured the crown of the Stuart queens.
He outfoxed the Jewel Keepers. He should be covered in glory, yet the master has just treated him like some kind of novice.
A mere child. He picks up his knife and turns.
If the Hermits don’t value his contribution, he’ll take the damn crown with him, by God.
He moves fast as a phantom, brandishing the blade as he knocks the master’s gun to the ground.
He kicks the ceremonial staff across the floor, reaching for the bauble and pushing the Grand Master away simultaneously.
He’s a young buck at the height of his power.
‘I deserve respect,’ he barks. ‘You couldn’t have done it without me. ’
The Grand Master doesn’t panic. He observes. ‘Put it down,’ he says, his tone tart as he draws himself up.
Thom laughs. ‘I’m not a dog, old man. I can’t be trained. I defeated the McKenzie women. That’s more than anyone else has ever managed!’
He never thought in a thousand years that he’d speak that way here, of all places. He’s always respected the order. It’s been bred into him.
‘Put it down,’ the Grand Master repeats coolly.
Thom moves forward. He presses his knife to the old man’s neck.
His eyes shine, the tradition of respect melting away.
Perhaps there are no boundaries left, he thinks.
‘I remind you, you’re unarmed,’ he sneers.
He’s about to break the skin, when he feels cold steel against his jugular.
Glancing over his left shoulder, he sees the servant has a blade too.
Thom jabs backwards with his elbow, like a piston, and the servant falls to the floor.
He turns once more to the Grand Master, but the wily old fox has reached his gun.
‘I’m going to have to execute you,’ he says, cocking the trigger.
Thom is smiling. ‘Execute me?’
‘We haven’t had to deal with a traitor for generations. The tradition is for seven men to pull your heart out, here on the altar.’
A chill blooms in Thom’s blood, then he steels himself.
He’s nothing to lose then. He makes to thrust the knife.
But the master hasn’t lost the edge of his younger days.
He fires without restraint. The lodge is well insulated.
The walls are a foot thick. No one can hear what happens inside.
He empties the barrel three times though his first shot goes through Thom’s heart.
‘Even your father would be shamed by your actions, Harry. Even he,’ the Grand Master tells the corpse.
He helps the servant to his feet. ‘Throw the body in the river,’ he says.