“Oh, that’s very fine work, yes,” he told me, as I handed him the whinger I had bought from Mr. Bell.

“But the inscriptions are in Latin, and I cannot read them,” I confessed.

“Ah. Well, this one is simple. Ne quid nimis. It means ‘Nothing in excess,’ which is but good advice.” He turned the blade, to read the motto Dr. Pitcairn had pronounced as being fitting for our times. “And this one, Fide sed cui vide, is more of a warning.” He handed it back. “It means ‘Trust, but beware in whom.’”

Chapter 27

Thursday, 2 October, 1707

Men were sentimental creatures, though we did our best to keep it hidden.

In the scrutore in the writing chamber I had found a secret drawer within a drawer that held a single rose, picked long ago, pressed flat with care, and faded now to shades of subtle pink and parchment—yet the faint ghost of its fragrance lingered. Whether it had been concealed there by my friend Lieutenant Turnbull, or by some forgotten owner of the scrutore, I knew not. But I knew it had been given to a man because it lay upon a paper label on which had been written in a careful hand: Whenever this red rose you see, remember her that best loves thee.

I left it undisturbed.

The entire scrutore was a cabinet of curiosities. The pigeonholes were crammed with pots of ink and sticks of sealing wax, old pens, cast-off buttons, scraps of notes tucked here and there, and stubs of candles. And on opening the square door to the main compartment that was centrally positioned at my eye level above the writing surface, I discovered a neat row of several shark’s teeth. Those, I knew, were Turnbull’s. I’d been with him on the day when he and others of the ship’s crew had gone fishing for that shark. Beside the teeth, a small brass dish of coins from different countries sat as witness to the travels of my friend, and at their center sat a blue glass bead of unknown origin.

It might be argued that as grown men we’d not come so very far from the small lads we’d been when we had gathered stones that caught our eye, or chestnuts from the fields in autumn, or a piece of bark or twig, and carried all home in our pockets.

We were magpies still, collecting treasures.

I’d been very conscious of the value of the ring I’d held from Robert Moray, when I had enclosed it in the letter I had written to his wife on his behalf. That ring had likely been a gift from her to him, from the inscription that was scribed around its inner surface, where none else would see. “Hearts truly tied none can divide,” it said.

And with his message Moray meant to send that promise back to her, that she might hold it bravely through her fears for what might happen to him. I’d wrapped the ring in paper and enclosed it in the letter and sealed both securely, and I’d placed them in the hands of the same man I’d hired last week to carry the express to Stirling. All of this I’d done on Monday morning, within half an hour of my arrival back at Caldow’s Land from seeing Moray, for I’d known I would not rest until I knew his message to his wife was on the road.