The Firebird

‘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 spilt 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 centre, and shivering slightly she tried to pronounce them herself, minding what she had learnt 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 realised 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.