The Firebird

  He was sitting on the bed but fully dressed, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. “And what is this I hear?” he asked her. “Pining for the likes of me? Ye want to have more sense.” But he was smiling when he said it, and she thought that he looked privately as pleased to see her as she was to be there.

  He looked paler than he should have been, more shadowed round his eyes, and she regarded the new bandage round his leg with some suspicion. “Did they take the seton out?”

  “They did. And straightaway my leg became so melancholy from the loss,” he said, “that it refused to carry me. ’Tis why I could not come to see ye these past days.”

  His straight face did not fool her, and she told him so. “A leg can never tell ye what to do.”

  “Ye think not? Wait till you are my age, lass.”

  That didn’t fool her either, because he was not so old. His hair was brown still, and had not begun to whiten. When he saw how she was watching him, he flashed a sudden smile that made his face look even younger. “If ye want the perfect truth,” he said, “the day they took the seton out I fell into a fever, and the surgeon would not let me leave my bed. But you can see he kept me occupied.”

  Her own gaze followed his to where a small round table had been pulled up close beside the bed, a chessboard and its pieces set in waiting at its center.

  Captain Jamieson was watching her. “The colonel said it was a game ye like to play,” he said, “and so I thought it best to practice.”

  It was such a lovely chessboard that she could not take her eyes from it.

  The captain told her, “Come,” and with an effort moved his leg aside to make a place for Anna to sit on the edge of the bed, within reach of the table. “Will ye be white or black?”

  She chose the black, because the black king was her favorite still, and this king was more beautiful and detailed than the one she’d learned to play with in the Earl of Erroll’s library. His beard was curled, his crown made gold with gilt, and she could see the ermine cuffs upon his robe. The other pieces were as finely made, with one exception. “Why,” she asked, “did no one paint the pawns?”

  “They are small men.”

  That made her rise to their defense. “But they are brave. They are the first to march to battle.”

  “And the first to fall.” His glance was difficult to read. “I only meant the pieces here are small in size and would be difficult to paint. ’Tis likely why they were left plain.”

  “Oh.”

  “What mark would ye give them, then?”

  She frowned, and thought, and was not sure.

  The captain said, “Perhaps it is their brave hearts that would mark them, like the Bruce.”

  She knew the story of King Robert, called the Bruce, that ancient Scottish king who after his own death had sent his heart upon Crusade to keep his promise made to God and to his men, and so had earned the name of Braveheart.

  “But our hearts,” said Captain Jamieson, “we carry close inside us, as do these wee soldiers here, and none will ever know our worth but by our actions.”

  Anna watched him move his first pawn out into the wooden field of inlaid squares, and without knowing why, she said, “I’ve always liked the pawns the best.”

  The captain paused, and looked at her, and seemed about to make reply when suddenly she realized, “But the Abbess Butler says that games are idle pastimes that do not please God.”

  He took this in without a word, the corners of his mouth turned slightly upward in a smile that held no humor. Then he said, “The Abbess Butler is a very wise and loving woman, and I do not doubt she would allow this one transgression, though I’d argue God is more accomplished in the game of chess than either of us, having played so long with living pieces. And, like you, He seems to like His pawns.”

  She heard the bitterness, but did not understand it, so she simply said, “Is that because He sees into their hearts, and sees their braveness?”

  Captain Jamieson glanced up at that, and when he spoke the edge had left his voice. “Aye, let us hope He does.”

  And satisfied, she moved her own pawn forward then, a small courageous soldier on that field of dark and light.

  ***

  May came, with all its brightness, and the sound of birdsong filled the convent’s garden every morning, and the sun fell warm on Anna’s shoulders as she helped the nuns in cheerful silence do their work.

  She liked to feel the earth between her fingers, and the crushed green scent of herbs, and best of all she liked the task of pulling out the stealthy, spreading weeds that always sought to bind and smother the more useful plants and flowers.

  Her efforts pleased the abbess, who while watching her one morning said, “Now do that with your thoughts as well, pluck out the needless vanities and worries, and you’ll find you grow the straighter for it.”

  Anna liked the abbess. She liked all the nuns, in fact. They could be stern when it was warranted, but mostly they were kind and smiled often, and they had a peace about them that she knew she’d never have herself. There were but half a dozen each of lay sisters and choir nuns who, together with the abbess, formed the whole of that community, and Anna by this time had learned their faces and their names, and some few details of their lives before the convent.

  On the rainy afternoon when Captain Jamieson next came to visit for their walk within the church, she shared what she had learned about one of her favorite nuns: “…and she was born in Scotland, too, and speaks the same as you and I do, and her true name is Maclean,” she told him. “Mary Louisa Maclean. Is that not a bonny name? Her mother’s father was an earl, the Earl of Kilmar…” Here she faltered in her memory, and the captain guessed.

  “Kilmarnock?”

  “Aye. He died, though, and her uncle died as well, and so her cousin is the earl now. But he fights against the king.” And with those few words she dismissed him from her thoughts. “Her father, though, does serve King James. His name is Alexander. Have ye met him?”

  “If he’s Sir Alexander Maclean,” said the captain, “then yes, I have met him.”

  “She says he’s a good man. He left her in Scotland,” said Anna, “the same way my own father left me when he came to follow the king. But,” she added, “he fetched her across at last, for he did not wish to leave her with those who thought wrongly and served the wrong faith.”

  Captain Jamieson glanced round the quiet interior of the small church, with its silver lamp burning a light in the dimness. “And what is the right faith?”

  “The nuns say there is but one true faith to follow.”

  “And what do you say?”

  He was asking a serious question, she knew, so she answered him with honesty. “Colonel Graeme is a Catholic, but he says he loves my mother and my mother is a Protestant, so I think God must surely love as broadly as the colonel does, and see the good in all men.”

  “See the brave hearts of his pawns, ye mean?” The captain’s smile showed faintly. “Are they teaching ye philosophy, the nuns?”

  She wasn’t sure. “But I am glad there is a Scottish nun.”

  “She makes ye feel at home, then, does she?”

  “Aye. She’s very bonny, and she sometimes tells me tales about the queen at St. Germain. I think she would have liked to stay there best of all, and not become a nun, but by the time she came across from Scotland,” Anna said, “her father had another wife and daughter, so there wisnae any place for her with them.”

  She sobered for a moment, and she wondered if her mother, since her father’s death, had found another husband, and borne any other children. She would have to ask the colonel when she saw him next, for he seemed to know much about her mother.

  Captain Jamieson was watching her, but he did not intrude upon her thoughts. He only strolled along in silence for a while, and then he said, “That is an interesting tale, and I am glad ye’ve found a countrywoman here to keep ye company, but I am not so certain she’d have wished for ye to tell me all she
said to ye.”

  “Why not? It is no secret.”

  “Perhaps not, but it is not your tale to tell.” His sidelong glance held not reproach, but patience. “My mother, when I was a lad, liked to say ‘all that’s heard in the kitchen should never be told in the hall.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means what ye hear among family and friends, ye should never repeat among strangers.”

  “But you’re not a stranger,” she told him, as though that were obvious.

  “Am I not?”

  “Of course not.” Impulse made her slip her hand into his larger one as she said, “Did ye ken my father’s buried in this church? He has a stone, the abbess says.”

  They found it on the inner wall, a monument very elaborately carved of white stone, with stone flowers that spilled to each side, and below them a central rectangular frame held the words that she couldn’t make sense of, for all the nuns’ teachings.

  “’Tis nothing but your father’s name in Latin,” said the captain, and he read: “Ioannis Moray D’Abercarni. These initials here, above the name, they mean ‘To God, the Best, the Greatest.’ Deo, Optimo, Maximo.”

  It came as no surprise to her that he could read in Latin, for truthfully it seemed to her the captain could do anything.

  More words were woven with the other carvings round the frame that offered images of life and death. From either side a human skull grinned down, one sprouting what appeared to be an eagle’s wings, the other with the soft wings of an angel.

  Anna stared with wide eyes at the skulls, and the densely carved flowers beneath that appeared to be living on one side and dead on the other. Two words were set right at their center, and shivering slightly she tried to pronounce them herself, minding what she had learned of her letters: “Mem… memen…”

  The captain said, “Memento mori.”

  She asked, “What does that mean?”

  He slanted a quiet look down at her, letting his gaze rest a moment on her troubled face, then his hand tightened warmly on hers, reassuring. “’Tis nothing ye need to be thinking of. Look, see those unicorns up there?”

  She liked the unicorns. Reared up on their hind legs and facing one another, they seemed to be dancing.

  “They’re the unicorns of Scotland,” said the captain. “And that oval piece between them shows your father’s shield, as differenced from his father’s and his brothers’, with the chevron there between three stars.”

  “Are those words Latin, too, beneath the unicorns?”

  He nodded. “Sine Labe. ’Tis the motto of your grandfather, and all of Abercairney.”

  “So it is my motto, too.”

  “Aye.”

  “What does seen-ay lah-bay mean?” she asked him.

  “Without stain.” Again his mouth curved slightly in the way it sometimes did, into what might have been a smile had it not been so tight and fleeting. “A noble motto, to be sure, though few men ever can achieve it.”

  From looking at his face she could not tell if he were speaking of himself or of her father. From the things she’d heard him say to Colonel Graeme in their travels, it was plain he’d known her father well. She fancied they’d been friends.

  She asked him, “Captain, did ye fight in the same battles as my father?”

  His head turned as he looked down at her and answered, “Aye.”

  “And did he ever mention me?”

  “He did not know he had a bairn at all, while he was fighting here in Flanders. And ’twas likely just as well. It would have made his falling harder, if he’d known that he was leaving ye behind without a father to defend ye.”

  “Did my mother never tell him?” It was worse, somehow, to think that he had died not even knowing she existed.

  Captain Jamieson said gently, “There was hardly time. Your mother did the best for ye she could. She kept ye safe.”

  She looked at him, and suddenly she realized something else. “You kent my mother, too?”

  He nodded. “Aye.”

  Her breath caught, and so many questions tumbled over one another in her mind that she could scarce make sense of them, but one above all others needed asking. It was difficult. She held his gaze for courage. “Do ye think she’ll ever come for me?”

  She knew he would not lie to her. It was not in his nature. He exhaled as he shifted once again to ease his injured leg and said, “A woman cannot travel with the freedom of a man.”

  “Does she live far away, then?”

  “Far enough.” His eyes were cast in shadow, but she thought he must have seen her disappointment, for he gave her hand a gentle squeeze again and looked away. A moment’s silence fell between them.

  He said, “Anna, when my leg is healed I must go to the king, and do what he would have me do, and for this next while, till the king has found a place where he may settle and be safe, my own life too must be unsettled.” His quiet voice cast back a hollow echo from the wall of ancient stone with all its marble monuments. “But this much I can promise ye: When I am done my duty to the king,” he said, “I’ll take ye to your mother.”

  Anna hardly dared to hope. She had to tell herself again the captain did not lie, and still she asked him, “Truly?”

  He was looking at her father’s stone, the oval shield and motto. “Truly. But it may yet be awhile afore I can come back for ye. Both Colonel Graeme and myself have paid the nuns to keep ye for the year, if it proves necessary.”

  Anna sagged inside. A year seemed far too long to wait.

  He turned again and seeing her expression said, “It may not come to that. I will not leave ye caged here any longer than I must.”

  So he did understand about the bars. She sought to balance things by telling him again, “The nuns are kind.”

  “Aye, so they are, and they’ll take care of ye. But while I am away ye do your part, and guard your health. ’Tis one advantage of the cloister, that it keeps much illness out, but in the winter months ye must dress warm and not fall ill,” he said, with such insistence that it made her think again about the little girl he’d had himself once, and had lost.

  She did not feel it would be right to ask him how his daughter died, because it might call details to his mind that brought him pain. She only paused, and thought, and then asked, “Captain Jamieson?”

  “Aye?”

  “Is your daughter… is she in the same place as my daddie?”

  For the painful space of several heartbeats she thought he might never speak, but finally he said, “Aye.”

  “And do ye think he’s taking care of her, as you are taking care of me?”

  This time as he looked down at her his mouth curved not at all, and yet she thought his eyes looked as they did when he was wont to smile. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Well then,” she told him, wrapping her small fingers still more tightly round his own, “she will be fine, I think.”

  And so they stood awhile, with Anna gazing upward at the unicorns of Scotland held forever frozen in their dance, the three stars fixed in stone between them, and she prayed a very selfish prayer: she prayed the captain’s leg would take a long, long time to heal.

  Chapter 16

  She knew the day when it arrived, because he would not look at her. He took her hand as always while they walked, but he was holding it more closely and she’d chattered on some minutes before realizing his gaze had not yet lifted from the floor.

  He limped still, but his jaw no longer tightened with each step of the offending leg, and when she looked to where the bandage just above his knee had always been, she only saw the fabric of his breeks now lying smooth.

  She stopped, and made him stop as well, and said, “Your leg is healed.”

  “It is.”

  “And you will go now to the king.”

  He gave a nod. “Aye. ’Tis my duty.”

  She had practiced for this moment, for she’d wanted him to see her being brave. The small betraying tremor of her lower lip was overr
idden when she raised her chin. “When will ye go?”

  “This afternoon.”

  Too soon, she thought. It was not fair.

  He seemed to read her thoughts. His voice was gently understanding when he asked, “And would ye wish to be a soldier still, and always be in duty bound to leave the people ye hold dear, as I must?”

  Did he hold her dear? Her heart swelled proudly as she nodded. “If I were a soldier, I could follow you.”

  “Brave lass.” His gaze fell warm upon her upturned face. “Ye’ll follow me already, with your feet or no.” And seeing that she did not understand, he tapped the left side of his chest with his free hand and said, “I have ye here now, in my heart, and where I go I’ll have ye with me there, to keep me company.”

  His gesture had reminded him of something, for he reached inside his jacket now and drew from it a long and folded piece of paper. “I have something for ye.”

  Anna had to let go of his hand to take the paper, for she needed her two hands to hold it properly. She eased the stiff folds open and saw lines of words in bold black ink. The letter “T” she recognized, and here and there the letter “M,” but all of it was written as a grown-up wrote, the slanted letters joined to one another, and she could not understand the words for all she’d never wanted more to know the trick of reading. Feeling frustrated, she asked, “What does it say?”

  “It is your song,” he said. “The cradle song I sang ye, of the maiden and her wandering. The music’s there as well—ye see these notes across the top? When ye have learned to read the words, ye can apply yourself to learning those as well, and then ye’ll know the way to sing it.”

  Anna held the treasured paper with one hand while with the other she reached up to let her fingers skim the little blots of ink with stems that danced across the top part of the page, above the words, to make the music. It had been so many days since they had spoken of this song, she’d thought for sure he had forgotten. “You remembered.”

  “Aye. Did I not promise ye I’d write those verses down?”