The Prodigal Son (44 page)

“Bastard!”

“Tell me,” Simon interrupted. “Are you planning to accuse your brother of murder, based on that?” He indicated the deed with a dismissive wave.

Luke frowned in his direction, assenting with his head.

“Murder, hmm?” Simon went on, creasing his brow. He tapped a finger against his pursed mouth and studied Luke in silence. “Then we should perhaps also talk about another murder; that of Malcolm Graham, in December 1653.”

Luke had gone the colour of chalk. “Da? He died of misadventure!”

Simon shook his head slowly from side to side. “Nay, that he did not. He was lured up to the pond and there pushed, or somehow forced into the water. We have a witness recalling a scuffle, loud angry voices and a splash.”

“What is it you’re saying? That someone killed our father?” Luke looked from Matthew to Simon.

Matthew nodded, quite impressed by his brother’s acting skills. If it hadn’t been for the ring presently in his pouch, he would even have believed him.

“Well, I wasn’t here,” Luke said, relaxing somewhat. “I came back the day he was buried.”

“Excellent timing,” Matthew muttered.

“So you weren’t here?” Simon repeated.

“You know I wasn’t! I’d been driven from my home.”

“By Da,” Matthew nodded, “for your sinful behaviour with Margaret.”

“The old fool,” Luke sneered. “If only he’d listened and allowed us to wed, but no, he had to stand there and tell me I was a sinful, misbegotten creature, no son of his, and then he threw me out, promising he’d kill me himself should I ever darken his door again. He shouldn’t have done that.”

“Nay, he shouldn’t,” Matthew agreed, making Luke look at him in surprise.

“He did what he thought was right. You were both too young, and Margaret was his ward, in his mind almost a daughter – your sister.” Joan came over to the table and sat down, looking from brother to brother. “I know for a fact that Matthew was nowhere close to the millpond that day, he was here, in the kitchen, repairing harness.”

“And I wasn’t here at all,” Luke insisted.

“Are you sure?” Matthew asked, digging into his pouch.

“Of course I am!” Luke snapped. Matthew opened his hand and let a small object fall onto the table. Joan gave a loud exclamation, touching it gingerly.

“Grandmama’s ring!” She looked at Matthew. “But… it was gone!”

“I found it,” a low voice said from behind them.

Luke closed his eyes.

“Ian?” Joan held out her hand and Ian inched forward, maintaining a cautious distance to Luke.

“I found it,” Ian repeated, “in a small casket in Father’s office. It was hanging off a broken chain.”

“I wasn’t here,” Luke insisted.

“Nay, but Margaret definitely was,” Simon said, making Ian gasp.

Luke lunged across the table, making for the ring, but Matthew was too quick, snatching it back and returning it to his pouch.

“You need not fear, little brother, I won’t say anything – not unless I have to.”

“It isn’t enough,” Luke said.

“No?” Matthew laughed, holding up three fingers. “Motive, a ring in your possession that Da carried on him always, and then the witness to the struggle as such. I think it will carry quite some weight. Do you wish to put it to the test? I fear the king wouldn’t be amused, would he?”

His brother was sweating, perspiration dewed his forehead, his upper lip. Well, it would, no? Matthew knew for a fact that the king had been most displeased when he received a letter a few years back, detailing Luke’s sins against his brother – penned by an inspired Sandy, no less. Defeated, Luke threw the signed statement back onto the table.

“So what is it you want?”

Simon produced several papers. “First of all, you should know that the ring and a sworn statement, signed by Matthew, Joan and myself as well as Ian, will go into safekeeping. If anything happens to Matthew it will be sent to an officer of the court, with a separate letter being sent directly to His Majesty.”

Luke slumped lower in his seat, his eyes glacial when he turned them on Ian.

“Secondly, you’ll renounce the lad.” Simon nodded in the direction of Ian.

“And you think that’s a sacrifice?” Luke spat in the direction of Ian. “That’s no son of mine!”

Ian jerked, his eyes dark with hurt, and Matthew rose, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Nay, Luke, you’re right. He’s mine – in everything he’s mine.”

Half an hour later Luke was back on his horse. He’d signed Ian away, he’d signed over the princely sum of 500 pounds sterling as a lump sum compensation to Matthew – Simon’s idea – and had set fire to the statement, reducing his threat to nothing but ashes.

Ian had stood mute throughout the proceedings, but had at one point opened his mouth to say that perhaps they should have a witness to all this, which had earned him an approving glance from Simon. So the literate one of Luke’s men had been brought in, had listened in obvious amazement when he was told that Luke was hereby renouncing his legal rights to Ian, and had then signed the document.

My son; Matthew couldn’t help it, as he stood in the yard his arm came round Ian to hug him close, thereby showing the world his son was back where he belonged – with him.

“May God grant me the pleasure of never seeing you again,” Luke said in a low voice to Matthew.

“Aye, that would be for the best,” Matthew replied. For an instant their eyes met and held, and then Matthew inclined his head in a stiff nod. “Please convey my regards to Margaret.” He felt somewhat ashamed on her behalf; today he had reclaimed a son, today she’d lost one. Luke didn’t reply. He wheeled his horse and set off up the lane.

Sandy listened as Matthew told him everything, from the sad ending of Oliver to yesterday’s confrontation with Luke.

“He’ll be back, of course,” he finished.

“Aye; Luke Graham is a most persistent man,” Sandy said. He drank some more of the beer Matthew had brought with him, belched, and bit into yet another piece of pie.

Matthew regarded the landscape spread before him. “Simon says I must leave – he says it’s but a matter of time before they corner me.”

Sandy finished his pie, brushed the crumbs off his worn and soiled coat and turned his grey gaze on Matthew.

“You should.”

“I can’t leave this, this is my home!” He looked across the bare fields and sighed. “My birthplace, the birthplace of my father and his father before him and his father… ten generations and more.”

“About time for something new then,” Sandy said. He nudged Matthew and pointed at Alex, who was walking through the orchard, unaware of them. “That’s your home. That woman is all the home you need.”

Matthew leaned back against his arms and let his eyes rest on Alex and the children that tumbled around her – all his children.

“I’m a fortunate man.”

Sandy chuckled. “She may be half-heathen, wild and wayward, but aye, you’re indeed blessed.”

And you don’t know the half of it, Matthew smiled.

Chapter 38

“You have to,” Alex said to Matthew, “and you have to do it now.”

Matthew sighed, but recognised that she was right. Mark had hovered round them the last few days, somehow understanding that things had changed, but not how.

“What do I tell him?” he groaned.

“I think you must tell him the truth.”

Matthew grimaced; it seemed a lot to load on a lad not yet eight.

“He has to know,” Alex said.

“Aye,” Matthew agreed and got out of bed. Anyhow, he owed it to Ian.

Mark looked surprised when Matthew came to find him, suggesting they should do some fishing, just the two of them. He beamed and hurried off to find his rod, throwing a triumphant look in the direction of Ian, who was told to sweep the threshing floor.

Jacob rushed over to Matthew, saying he wanted to come too, because he didn’t want to stay at home all day with only wee Daniel, and he was big enough now to go fishing, wasn’t he? Matthew shook his head; today it was him and Mark.

“You like Ian, don’t you?” Matthew asked once they were settled in position. The river flowed sluggish and dark below them, shadowed by alders that grew high enough to create a green tunnel. Mark was frowning down at his worm, at his hook.

“Aye,” Mark replied, closing his eyes when he pushed the hook through the wriggling body.

“He’ll be staying with us,” Matthew said.

“Oh aye? He already is.” Mark sounded rather uninterested.

“You know I was married before?” Matthew said.

Mark looked at him, shaking his head.

“To your Aunt Margaret,” he continued, smiling wryly when Mark’s mouth fell open into a surprised ‘o’. “It wasn’t a good marriage. Margaret was very much in love with your uncle, not me.”

“But…” Mark frowned, clearly grappling with what Matthew had just told him. “A wife is supposed to love her husband. Like Mama; she loves you.”

Matthew chuckled softly. “It isn’t always like that, and your mama is an exceptional woman. Not many men find someone like that.”

“I will,” Mark said confidently. And his wife would have many, many babies and laugh and tell them stories and sometimes chase them round the yard when they had been naughty. He thought a bit more. “Brown eyes, I think, and her name will be Mary,” he confided to his father, who didn’t quite know whether to laugh or agree.

“And if you meet a bonny brown-eyed lass called Lizzie?”

Mark shrugged. “Mary.”

Matthew reverted from the tangential excursion into his future daughter-in-law’s name.

“While I was wed to Margaret there was a child,” he said. Mark’s float was bobbing up and down, and Mark was on his feet, struggling to lift the fish out of the water.

“Look!” he sang out. “A big one!”

Matthew laughed and helped him land it, waiting until he had calmed down before continuing.

“As I said, there was a child – Ian.”

That got Mark’s attention and he turned to face his father.

“Ian? But he’s Uncle Luke’s son.”

“Ian was born in my marriage to Margaret, he was born as my son.” Matthew inhaled loudly and looked his son in the eyes. “Ian is my son. Luke tried to steal him, but now I’ve gotten him back.”

Mark didn’t say anything. He sat looking at his float, lower lip caught between his teeth. He got to his feet.

“I want Mama,” he said, sounding much younger than he was. And then he turned and ran.

Alex was singing while she stripped one line of raspberry canes after the other of its late fruit. She saw Mark come flying towards her and held out her arms, stumbling backwards when he barrelled into her.

“Oouf,” Alex said, righting them both. “You’re much stronger than you think.” She slipped a hand under his chin and raised his face to inspect him. “So he told you.”

Mark nodded and sat down at her feet. Alex sat down beside him and offered him her basket. They sat in silence, eating their way through a sizeable quantity of raspberries.

“I don’t understand,” Mark said in a low voice.

“Of course you don’t. It’s quite a mess – even if you’re an adult.” She tilted her head in the direction of where Matthew was coming down the hill. “It’s difficult for him. You see, for very many years he’s known that Ian was his boy, but Luke and Margaret tricked him. They made him believe Ian wasn’t his, and so he let them take him.” She smiled at him. “It’s enough to see you and Ian together to see that you must be brothers, not cousins. You’re both so very like him, like your father.” She chewed at her cheek, trying to decide how to tell him the rest.

“Luke had a son last year.”

“Charles,” Mark nodded. “Very ugly, like a pig with red hair on it.”

“Ah. Well, that boy now looks just like Luke, and so Luke doesn’t want Ian anymore.” Stretching the truth a bit, that was, but it elicited the reaction she wanted, with Mark leaping to his feet, his eyes going very green.

“How can he say that? Ian is… he is …” He struggled to find words, but gave up. “I love Ian,” he said instead, going a bright red. “Uncle Luke is a… a… horrible man to say he doesn’t want him anymore.”

“I couldn’t agree more, but there you are. Anyway, it means your father got his son back, and that’s good.”

Mark sat back down and helped himself to some more raspberries.

“If…” He looked at her with huge eyes. “If Ian is Da’s son, then it’s him that will have Hillview, isn’t it?”

Alex nodded. “Do you mind?” she asked, thinking that was an incredibly stupid question to be asking a seven year old boy.

Mark bobbed his head, keeping his eyes on his toes. “And will Da love me less?”

Alex caressed his head. “Of course not, you idiot.”

He laughed shakily and moved into her embrace.

“Mark,” Matthew’s shadow fell over them. “Come here son,” he said, crouching down.

Mark flew at him, winding his arms around his father’s neck.

“I love you very much, son. You know that, don’t you?”

Mark burrowed his head into Matthew’s shoulder and nodded.

“And now,” Matthew went on, “we have fishing to do.” He set Mark down and tousled his hair. “One fish won’t feed all of us, even if it was very big.”

“We can always go vegetarian,” Alex said, “only vegetables for dinner. Spinach, for example.”

Mark and Matthew looked at each other.

“Fishing,” Mark said, taking his father’s hand.

“Fishing,” Matthew agreed, winking at Alex.

After dinner, Ian and Mark were sent to move the cows down to the water meadows.

“I don’t want to take it from you,” Ian said, “you were born to it, and it doesn’t feel right.”

Mark shrugged. Da had explained several times why it had to be this way, and even if he felt hollow inside at the thought of not always living here, at Hillview, there wasn’t much to do about it.

“You were born to it as well,” he said generously. “Before me.” They trudged on in silence, with Aragorn running wild circles around them both.

“Will you miss them?” Mark asked, thinking that he’d die if his mama was taken from him. And his da, but perhaps mostly his mama. Ian stopped and broke off a dried stand of cow parsley, using his fingers to disintegrate it.

“My mam,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll miss her.”