“No, just to do their bidding, which I see does keep you far too busy still to take a wife.”

The roll of Gilroy’s eyes was almost imperceptible, and yet it made me like him better.

“Not too late, you know,” the doctor told him. “I was rising five and thirty when my eldest son was born, and even after my first wife died, rest her soul, I found a second wife and went on having children. Men weren’t made to live alone.”

We were hardly alone in here, with other men all round us deep in their own drink and conversations, and a haze of pipe smoke hanging in the air. But Gilroy was not answering, and since I had learned something just last night that seemed to suit the talk at hand I ventured, “It was Plato, was it not, who said we were created whole then sliced in half like flatfish, and must ever search the world to find our matching half?”

The doctor’s face transformed with joy. “A learned man!” He filled my wine cup. “See you, Gilroy, here is a romantic soul who speaks of the Symposium and seeks his one true love. I shall revive my hopes for you, if you do keep such friends. Come, sirs, a toast to you, and to your matching halves.”

We drank, and Dr. Pitcairn’s gaze fell on the parcel I had set down at my side, and correctly guessing I had bought a blade of some kind, he inquired if he might see it, so I took the whinger from its wrapping of buff leather and both he and Gilroy looked it over and remarked upon the workmanship.

“The motto is a good one,” said the doctor. “Very fitting for these times.”

I did not own I could not read the words in Latin. Though I agreed with Helen Turnbull that a man’s worth was not measured by his education, I keenly felt the lack of mine and did not like to put that disadvantage on display. Instead I nodded and the doctor slid the blade into its scabbard and returned it to me.

“You’ll need it soon enough. And we will need all Scotsmen of good heart to stand together,” he said, “when the king comes home.”

Having seen someone across the room, he clapped a hand upon my shoulder, gave a nod and wink to Gilroy, took his cup in hand, and went to join another table.

Gilroy met my eyes by way of an apology. “The doctor is a man of forceful character, who should be more discreet about his politics.”

I broke a piece of bread and shrugged to show I was not bothered. “He did seem to think that he was in safe company.”

“He is. This is the tavern of the party of the Duke of Hamilton, and half in here are his supporters or his spies. That table there, just by the wall, is where you’ll often find the duke himself, when he is here in town in residence at Holyrood. The greatest man in all of Scotland, some will tell you, and it’s widely rumored he does keep a correspondence with the young King James in France and that, should an invasion come, he’d be the first to rise. Of course,” he said, “it’s also rumored that he seeks the crown himself, because his family by descent can claim it and he thinks his being Protestant would make him more appealing to the people than young James, and to that end he would do all he could to see that an invasion does not happen.”