The Fire in the Flint
Read The Fire in the Flint Online
Authors: Candace Robb
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Mystery & Detective, #Crime
Candace Robb
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446439265
Published by Arrow Books in 2004
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Copyright © Candace Robb 2003
Candace Robb has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by William Heinemann
Arrow Books
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 09 941014 1
ONTENTS
Chapter 4: Her Comfortable Sanctuary
Chapter 10: It Will Bring You Only Grief
Chapter 12: A Crook-backed Friar
Chapter 17: More Child than Man
In loving memory of my mother
,
Genevieve Wojtaszek Chestochowski
(19 March 1920–16 July 2003)
whose courageous battle with cancer showed me
what stuff women are made of
About the Author
Candace Robb studied for a Ph.D. in Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Literature and has continued to read and research medieval history and literature ever since. The Owen Archer series grew out of a fascination with the city of York and the tumultuous 14th century; the first in the series,
The Apothecary Rose
, was published in 1994, at which point she began to write full time. In addition to the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and America, her novels are published in France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Italy and Holland, and she is also available in the UK on audiobook and in large print. She is also the author of the Margaret Kerr Mystery series, set in Scotland at the time of Robert the Bruce. The first,
A Trust Betrayed
, was published in November 2000 to great acclaim.
The Fire in the Flint
is the second in the series.
Praise for Candace Robb
‘It’s … the Machiavellian intrigue that makes this such an enjoyable read. When the iron curtain came down people said the spy-thriller genre was dead. They were wrong. This is as full of intrigue as a Deighton or a Le Carré’
Guardian
‘Thirteenth-century Edinburgh comes off the page cold and convincing, from the smoke and noise of the tavern kitchen to Holyrood Abbey under a treacherous abbot. Most enjoyable’
The List
‘Meticulously researched, authentic and gripping’
Yorkshire Post
‘A rich and satisfying novel’
Publishers Weekly
‘Brilliant … Robb presents a feisty new heroine who proves to be no fool’
Woman & Home
‘Once again, Robb provides the reader with an evocative and suspenseful whodunit thoroughly bolstered by a wealth of authentic historical detail’
Booklist
Also by Candace Robb
THE OWEN ARCHER MYSTERIES
The Apothecary Rose
The Lady Chapel
The Nun’s Tale
The King’s Bishop
The Riddle of St Leonard’s
A Gift of Sanctuary
A Spy for the Redeemer
The Cross-Legged Knight
THE MARGARET KERR MYSTERIES
A Trust Betrayed
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to Elizabeth Ewan, Kimm Perkins, Nicholas Mayhew, and David Bowler, Derek Hall and Catherine Smith of the Scottish Urban Archaeological Trust, generous scholars who have fielded my questions and kept me honest about medieval Scotland and coinage; Evan Marshall, Joyce Gibb, Elizabeth Ewan, and Kirsty Fowkes who read the manuscript and made thoughtful suggestions; Jan and Chris Wolfe of the Willowburn Hotel on Seil Island who loaned me a book about Argyll, pointing out the magical glen of Kilmartin; and Charlie Robb who photographed locations, sat in on meetings, crafted the maps, and simplified travel and home with tender loving care.
ISTORICAL
N
OTE
With the death of the Maid of Norway, who was the last member in the direct line of kings of Scotland from Malcolm Canmore, two major claimants of the throne arose – John Balliol and Robert Bruce; eventually ten additional claimants stepped forward. In an effort to prevent civil war, the Scots asked King Edward I of England to act as judge. In hindsight, they were tragically unwise to trust Edward, who had already proved his ruthlessness in Wales. Edward chose John Balliol as king, and then proceeded to make a puppet of him.
Robert Bruce, known as ‘the Competitor’ to distinguish him from his son Robert and his grandson Robert, still seething under the lost opportunity, handed over his earldom to his son, who was more an Englishman at heart than a
Scotsman. He in turn handed over the earldom to his son, who would eventually become King Robert I. Through the 1290s this younger Bruce, Earl of Carrick, vacillated between supporting and opposing Edward. When he at last resolved to stand against Edward, he was not doing so in support of John Balliol, but was pursuing his own interests.
As for William Wallace, he was in 1297 and thereafter fighting for the return of John Balliol to the throne. He was never a supporter of Robert Bruce.
PIGRAPHS
‘The fire i’ the flint/ Shows not till it be struck’
Timon of Athens
, Act I, l. 22
‘… oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence.’
Macbeth
, Act I, scene iii, ll. 123–126.
ROLOGUE
Though it was close to midnight, twilight glimmered on the water meadow between Elcho Nunnery and the River Tay. Night creatures croaked and called in the background, and ahead the waters of the Tay and the Willowgate roiled and splashed as they joined at the bend beneath Friarton Island. Christiana’s bare feet cracked the brittle crust of the soil dried by the summer drought. With her next step, her right foot sank to the ankle bone in saturated ground. With a shiver of loathing, she freed herself. For the twenty-three years of her marriage she had lived just upstream in Perth, and in all that time she had remained unreconciled with this marshy land. She had grown up amidst mountains, lochs, and the high banks of the Tay upriver. She missed the sharp, fresh air and the land always solid beneath her feet. Here the
fields along the river were unpredictable, sometimes more water than land, changing with the weather, as uncanny as her mind.
Terror had awakened her. She had fled her chamber in the nunnery guest house, sensing an intruder, a feeling so strong she had thought she heard his breath, breath which she still felt at the nape of her neck. Fear had squeezed her heart and compelled her to run. Now on the marshy ground she slowed down, though still hardly daring to breathe. She glanced back over her shoulder in dread, but although the July night was light enough that she might have seen any movement, she saw no one. Gradually, as the chill of her wet feet drove away any remnant of sleep, she remembered that her handmaid had not stirred on her cot at the foot of the bed. The intruder had not been a fleshly presence then, but a vision.
Christiana struggled to reconstruct the confusing face. It had seemed that as the man turned his features shifted, changing so quickly it was as if his face were drawn in oil and his movement stirred the lines. It was too fluid to know whether any part of it was familiar. Or perhaps he’d worn many faces overlaying one another. She could not recall precisely where in the dim room she had seen him as she woke and rose breathless.