The Firebird

‘What?’

‘Well, what’s to stop us walking straight into a wall, or something? Or into the middle of a busy street?’

I couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but I could feel the touch of faint amusement in the downward glance he sent me. ‘I’m not, ye ken, walking about in a trance. Did we go off the coast path and over the cliff up by Cruden Bay?’

‘No, but—’

‘Well, then. Have some faith.’ He turned his head away again and focused on the unseen gate. ‘I’ve been doing this a while,’ he reassured me. ‘I’ll no walk ye into traffic.’

There was something in the way he said that, something sure and confident that made me feel protected. Valued. Safe.

So when he straightened from the car and told me, ‘There she is,’ and held his hand to me and said, ‘Come on,’ I took his hand without a thought, and followed where he led.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Her head was aching. They’d arrived too late last night and found the great gates of the town already shut and locked and guarded, so the farmer who had carried them the last part of their journey in his wagon had found room for them within his own house in the lower town, and they had waited there till daylight and the bells that would ring out across the walls to say the gates would soon be opening.

She had not slept well, there in that strange house, nor had she slept well since they’d come away from Ypres, feeling the constant sense of something evil riding close behind them. Father Graeme had said nothing of the danger they were trying to outdistance, and he’d done his best to cheer her through the days with conversation, and he’d told her Colonel Graeme would be waiting for them when they reached Calais.

That last had cheered her most of all, so she’d been sorely disappointed when they’d found themselves shut out by those great walls last night.

She’d wished then for the patience and good temper she had seen in Father Graeme. She’d never heard him once complain, and somehow he had brought them all this way without her ever seeing coins exchanged, relying on his robes and his resourcefulness. ‘A Capuchin,’ he’d told her as he’d set her on the final wagon, ‘gives away the things he owns, and lives but by the charity of others, as our Lord did when he lived upon this earth.’

It seemed a most uncertain way to live, and she had told him so.

‘I disagree. There may be many things uncertain in this life, but ’tis for certain we were made in God’s own image, and I’ve not yet met a woman nor a man who does not carry God’s capacity for charity, however deep it hides. I seek the good within men’s hearts, and give them means by which they may express it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it is in giving of ourselves and our possessions that we best please God – by actions, not by words. And all men do deserve a chance to earn God’s grace.’

‘Even the men who do bad things?’

He’d tucked a blanket fold around her and said, ‘Aye. Sometimes especially the men who do bad things.’

She’d remembered Colonel Graeme saying that his son had killed his best friend in a duel, and had then left his life of soldiering and so become a monk to serve his penance. She could not imagine Father Graeme killing someone.

Nor, this morning, did it seem he could have been a soldier.

He was walking, not with the bold, rolling strides of Captain Jamieson, but with his head bent humbly as he guided Anna through the morning bustle of Calais. The town made Anna think of Scotland, of the market day in Peterhead, for many of the tall and close-packed houses they were passing here were built of brick and in the Scottish style, with tiled roofs and windows set with glass. And of the women she could see, a number of them wore a green shawl like a plaid wrapped round their heads and shoulders, looking not unlike the women of the village close by Slains.

But the sense of familiarity was shattered when a raucous group of Englishmen pressed past them. Father Graeme gathered Anna closer to his side and urged her through a narrow archway in the nearest building, which delivered them into a little courtyard paved unevenly with stones that made her slip while trying to keep up. He slowed his steps to make her effort easier, and turning, led her carefully across a threshold.

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 recognised 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.’