She tried, as Colonel Graeme had advised, to see the promise in the winter sea, but she could not. The water, greenly grey and barren, stretched away to meet the shoreward rolling clouds whose darkness only spoke of coming storms.

In all the time since she had come to Slains and first learned of the planned invasion to return the king, Sophia never once had paused to think the plan might fail. Until this moment.

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The Firebird

* * *

Only once before had Anna been inside an inn, and that had been a year ago with Colonel Graeme and the captain, on their first night after being landed from the ship that had just carried them from Scotland. She’d been too exhausted then from all her travels to be much impressed with anything she saw, but now, despite her aching head, she looked around with interest at the low beamed ceiling and the roughened walls and trestle tables pushed beneath discreetly shuttered windows. The inn’s landlord, with his apron strings tied sturdily around his ample middle, was settling an account with two men standing at the bar, but when he turned and saw the monk he gave a nod of welcome and said something briefly in a language Anna recognized as French, but did not understand.

The two men turned as well, and looked at Father Graeme with distaste.

The nearest of them said, in cultured English, “Faith, another begging Capuchin. Get out your purse, Ralph, for we’ll have no peace from him until he’s had a coin.”

If Anna had been larger, she’d have struck them for their insolence, but Father Graeme took it in his stride. His face and voice stayed calm. “God’s blessings on you both,” was all he said, “and it is certain that your charity will find a like reward, but if ye seek to give, give not that coin to me, but to our landlord here, that he may bring some broth and bread to feed this child.”

The man’s companion looked disgusted also as he said, “A begging child as well. May God preserve me from a Papist.”

Anna’s blood ran warm with anger as the first man tossed a few coins on the bar before the landlord, but the monk laid a calm hand upon her shoulder, and the landlord, without changing his expression, pushed the coins back to the man and told him, “No payment is required for me to serve a man who serves the Lord.”

The Englishman appeared prepared to argue till a woman’s voice—a Scottish voice—said lightly, from the dimness behind Anna, “Come now, gentlemen, do not so soon forget your manners.”

Everybody gave the woman coming down the staircase from the floor above their full attention. She was somewhere in her middle years, yet pretty in her face and movements, and her gown, while simply cut, was meant to catch the eye. She showed a daring flash of ankle as she raised her skirts a fraction so as not to trip as she came down the final steps, and looking at the Englishmen she fixed them with a bright fair smile that gave her unlined face a youthful aspect. “Father Graeme is a good man, and besides, he’s not a man to trifle with. Before he wore those robes, he fought alongside my good husband in the wars in Catalonia, where I’m told his sword arm was the strongest in his regiment, and so it would be wise,” she said, “to speak to him respectfully.”