THE YEAR 1536 was an eventful one for Janet 1536 was an eventful one for Janet On April 5th, Ruth was delivered of her second son, Hugh. Marian was ecstatic. "I never thought to see one grandchild, let alone two," she chortled.

Three months later, Lady Leslie received tragic news. It was brought to her by David Kira, Esther's brother who had helped Janet's son, Charles, to flee Ottoman Turkey many years ago. From the moment he entered her presence, she knew the news was bad. Her heart began to pound violently. She attempted to observe the polite amenities, but seeing her white face David Kira spoke out "Not the sultan, my lady. It is Ibrahim"

Visibly relieved, she asked, "Dead?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"They say the sultan ordered it"

"Never! Never! He has always been too soft to take a life-especially of one whom he loves."

"It is publicly said he ordered it It must be said to save the dignity of the throne. The truth is too terrible. The sultan had been ill with a bad cold. He had asked Ibrahim, as he often did, to join him for supper. Afterwards Ibrahim slept in the anteroom outside the sultan's bedchamber, as be had done many times. Khurrem joined her lord that night and according to my information drugged him so that he slept heavily. She then took Sultan Suleiman's seal ring with his personal nigra and filling in the name of Ibrahim Pasha on an execution order, signed it with the seal. Sending it to the executioners she returned to her own apartments. The next morning the grand vizier's body was found thrown outside the doors of the Divan. He must have put up a terrible struggle, for the sultan's anteroom was covered in blood."

Janet's face was like stone. Finally she spoke. "My daughter and her children?"

"Safe, and they will continue to be so. My informant overheard the sultan warn the second kadin that he could follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, Sultan Bajazet, if she so much as glances in the direction of Nilufer Sultan, or her children."

Janet smiled grimly, remembering how Selim's father had strangled his second kadin, Besma, after she attempted the murder of Selim's four kadins and their children. She looked up at David Kira. Her eyes were green-gold ice.

"Can Khurrem be poisoned?"

"Impossible, madame. She touches nothing, not even a sweetmeat unless someone else tastes it first She keeps a special guard of both black and white eunuchs about her and rarely leaves the palace. It's impossible to a.s.sa.s.sinate her."

"Jesu! Jesu! My lord's aunt warned me that I clung in my heart to my Western Christian ethics. I should have killed Khurrem when I had the chance, instead of leaving her to destroy the empire and my son. Only Mustafa stands between her and her goal. David! Esther is to warn my my oldest grandson! He is to be protected at all costs. The thought of Khurrem's spoiled, weak oldest son following Suleiman is too horrifying. Esther is also to tell my son, Suleiman, for I dinna trust myself to write him again, that should anything else of this nature happen, I shall return from the dead claiming that Khurrem faked my death and had me imprisoned. There are more who would rejoice to see Cyra Hafise alive than the Khurrem imagines."

David Kira did his duty. For the time being the world heard no more scandal from the Ottoman Empire, and Janet was able to once again settle into her new life.

In October, Adam's fifth grandchild, Ian and Jane's second son, James, was born. Janet's woolen business thrived. At Christmas Gilbert Hay was finally married to Alice Gordon.

In May of 1538 the King James took a second wife, a wealthy and n.o.ble French widow, Marie of Guise-Lorraine. All Scotland rejoiced, for his first wife had died two years earlier, after a marriage of only six months.

Ruth's first daughter was born several days after the wedding. She was baptized Marie, but called Molly. Gilbert Hay's wife produced young Gilbert, nine months and three days to her marriage day. Charles' and Fiona's fourth son, David arrived November first. Proud of her sons, Fiona nevertheless wished for a daughter.

"Like you," she smiled at her mother-in-law, "another Janet."

The dowager countess of Sithean laughed. She was flattered, pleased, and secretly feeling very smug because of her latest letter from Esther Kira. Suleiman's fleet under Khair ad-Din had scored a great victory at Prevesa. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles; the doge of Venice, and the pope himself had thrown their combined fleets at Suleiman-and lost! Venice was destroyed as a sea power and ended up paying the Turks for the privilege of being beaten by them. It cost three hundred thousand gold ducats. The old doge died of shame and grief. Despite the propaganda hurriedly manufactured by Christian Europe, the plain truth was that from the Straits of Gibraltar in the West to Famagusta in the East the Mediterranean was an Ottoman lake.

"How can you be so pleased?" asked Maria.

"Why should I care what happens to the Germans and the Italians?" snapped Janet "You know what they did in Tunis. The good Christian knights were so kind to the populace of the city that mothers with infants and children in their arms threw themselves from the walls of the town rather than submit to further savagery!"

The following year, 1539, there was some small rebellion in the north of Scotland initiated by a chieftain on the Isle of Skye. It broke the peace that had been kept for years in the highlands. None of this affected the peoples of Sithean and Glenkirk, however, who seemed to be living in an almost perfect bucolic existence. There was no war, and those families not caught up in the royal circle and its court politics, managed to live fairly sane lives.

Ian Leslie's third son, Donald, was born and Gilbert Hay's wife produced a second son, Francis, and Queen Marie bore Scotland another James. In 1540 James Hay's wife bore another son, Ewan; Ruth had her second daughter, Flora; and Fiona got her daughter at long last-duly baptized Janet Mary after her grandmother, but called Heather because of the heathery blue color of her eyes.

Several weeks after her longed-for daughter's birth, Fiona contracted milk fever. A doctor was sent for from Edinburgh. Too many children in too few years was his verdict. He could do nothing, and a few days later, Fiona died.

Janet couldn't believe it Sweet Fiona who had been more a daughter to her than her own daughter.

Charles Leslie was devastated. He and his wife had known each other since childhood, but had been married less than nine years. He could not imagine life without his Fiona, and he had to be physically restrained from harming his aunt the countess of Glenkirk, who briskly told him, a week after the funeral, that the best thing for him to do would be remarry at once. His children needed a mother, she said. With his tide and the money coming to him one day from his mother, he could probably get himself a pa.s.sable heiress. Charles d.a.m.ned her and her pa.s.sable heiress to h.e.l.l and stormed out of the castle.

"For G.o.d's sake, Anne!" Janet exclaimed "Fiona's scarce been buried a week! In time the pain will recede and possibly Charles will remarry, but now we must give him time to purge his grief."

"He'd best do it quick! Those four unruly boys of his need discipline. Fiona was much too soft And what of the new baby? What kind of female will she grow up to be in this masculine household without the example of a good woman?"

Janet raised an eyebrow. "And what am I, dear sister?"

"You can't mean you intend to raise those children yourself?"

"Until Charles remarries, why not?"

"Why not? Why not? You're an old woman, that's why not! You'll be sixty at the end of this year!"

"I am younger at fifty-nine, my dear, than you are at fifty-two! What is age, Anne? It is but the pa.s.sing of time. It is how you feel, and I feel magnificent!"

Anne Leslie threw up her hands in exasperation and stamped back to her own home. Janet Leslie's mocking laughter followed her.

Janet was feeling far from brave. Dear G.o.d help me, she prayed to herself. To have this responsibility now. I have spent my life in service to others raising five children of my own, running various palaces, and finally for a time a government These last few years I have been free for the first time in my life; and, oh, dear G.o.d, how I have enjoyed it! However, she knew that there was no one else, and she could not disappoint either her grieving son or her grandchildren.

They were so young to be motherless, but at least Patrick who was eight, little Charles who had just celebrated his seventh year, and Andrew who was five, would have memories of their lovely mother. David at eighteen months and baby Heather would not It was sad.

Lord Hay, quietly coming in, put a rea.s.suring arm about her. "Ye'll manage, sweetheart."

"Ah, Colly! I must be getting old." A tear slid down her cheek.

"You?" He laughed. "Never, my darling! If ye live to be a hundred, ye'll nae be old! Never!" Folding her in his arms the big, bluff earl, his dark hair finally showing silver gray, comforted her. "Yer deep in a fit of the glooms, hinny. Do ye think I don't know how ye loved Fiona?" He stroked her lovely hair. "It will pa.s.s. It will pa.s.s. Right now the important thing is to help the children. How confused they must be wi'out Fiona."

Safe in her lover's arms Janet cried for the first time since Fiona's death. Great wracking sobs shook her body, and the sound of her weeping filled the chamber. Her grief gradually eased, and she buried her swollen face in Lord Hay's chest "I must look a sight" she murmured.

"I have never seen ye look lovelier, my dear," he said raising her face up. "Marry me, Jan"

"Really, Colly! I am in mourning."

"I dinna believe it!" he returned.

"What?"

"Do ye realize this is the first time in seven years ye haven't given me an outright No?"

She gave a watery chuckle. "It's my weakened condition."

"Never, madame! I will wager ye have never been in a weakened condition."

The outburst had done her good. Leaving her son, Charles, to his grief, she began to reorganize the household and the children. One thing she refused to give up, however, was her privacy. She did not move into the East Wing of the castle, but the doors between the two wings were now always open.

Each of the younger children had a nursemaid of its own and lived in the communal nursery. Patrick and little Charles had been given at age six their own quarters and a tutor to oversee them. The older boys took their main meal at mid-day with their grandmother, and when he was there, their father.

The earl of Sithean, was, however, rarely at home now. He had gone to court and offered his services to the king. At the moment those services consisted of merely being charming, witty, and gay. Charles complied with good will. Anything to forget Fiona and the four sons who only reminded him of her. He refused to acknowledge his daughter. After all, had she not been responsible for her mother's death? Once he brought home a Lady Diana Fergusson.

"Do ye intend to marry her?" asked Janet "Of course not" he replied carelessly. "She's my latest leman."

"Then take your high-bred wh.o.r.e and leave my house," she commanded. "Because you're hurt, I'll not allow you to hurt the children. They're just beginning to recover."

He drew himself up proudly, and for the barest moment she was reminded of Selim. "I remind you, madame, that I am the earl of Sithean."

"True," she agreed "but Sithean belongs to me, Charles. And I might remind you that you are the earl of Sithean because of me. Don't you ever wonder how you came by yer tide?"

"The king said ye gave forty years of yer life for Scotland."

"My G.o.d, Charles! The king couldn't care less that I spent forty years out of Scotland. What mattered to Jamie was that he spent two nights in my bed! I did not solicit his attention, of course. I simply cooperated rather than cry rape when he entered my bed." She laughed at the look on his face. "Take Lady Fergusson back to Edinburgh, Charles. I dinna care who ye sleep with, my son, but if ye must bring yer wh.o.r.e home, do bring one who's not so obvious."

Charles laughed in spite of himself. "By G.o.d, mother! There's no one like you! Shall I take yer love to the king?"

"No, but take my prayers to him and his queen. To lose one child is terrible, but to have lost both their little princes-ah well, they're both young. There'll be plenty of time for other children. Be grateful for yer own, Charles. What has happened has happened. Dinna hold Heather and the boys responsible. Fiona wanted them, especially yer daughter who looks just like her."

Charles returned to court, and through him the dowager countess of Sithean heard all the news that led her to believe a war would soon touch Scotland. However, before the year's end another personal tragedy had touched the Leslies. Anne, countess of Glenkirk, took a chill in a September rain and died suddenly. Janet and Anne had certainly never been friends, but her sister-in-law's sudden death forced her to face the possibility of her own demise.

In 1542 there were religious rumblings throughout Scotland. A pa.s.sion for reformation was sweeping the land. King James had declared for Rome and the "auld alliance" with the French. Henry of England, however, had boldly gained independence of the papacy and eagerly sought an understanding with his nephew of Scotland. They had planned a meeting at York, and Henry, arriving at the appointed time was furious to find that his nephew would not be there after all. The Scots privy council had refused to let their king join his uncle because of rumors of a possible abduction. Actually the queen, and the churchmen on James' council were fearful that Henry would convince his nephew to follow his example regarding Rome. It would have been better if the queen and the nervous priests had remembered that England was closer than Rome.

Henry was feeling particularly mean as the New Year began. His fifth queen, Catherine Howard, the "Rose without a thorn," had been proven an adulteress, and been beheaded on Tower Green. Lonely, ill, and disillusioned, Henry sought solace in a war. Once winter loosed its hold, the northern levies were called up, and under the leadership of Sir Robert Bowes, crossed over the border into Teviotdale. They were roundly defeated by Lord Gordon, Jamie's faithful earl of Huntley.

Next into the fray jumped the duke of Norfolk, anxious to get back on Henry's good side since both his nieces, Anne Boleyn, and Catherine Howard, had the unpleasant distinction of being the only two of Henry's queens to be beheaded. He was more successful putting Roxburgh, Kelso, and some smaller towns to the torch. Henry then pulled out the old English chestnut of suzerainty over Scotland, and James was forced to fight.

James mustered a force, kissed his again-pregnant queen good-bye, and marched off. He got as far as Fala Moor, and there his n.o.bles refused to go any further. Without them he had no army, and they would not they said, spill Scots blood for France, which was what it all boiled down to in the end. They disbanded, but three weeks later on November twenty-first James marched out of Edinburgh at the head of ten thousand men recruited with the help of Cardinal Beaton, and the earl of Moray-the other James Stewart With the king, and leading a combined force of men, rode Charles, his uncle Adam, his cousins, Ian and Hugh. Their neighbors, James and Gilbert Hay, rode with them. The master of Grayhaven had been ill, and left behind at Sithean. Colin had angrily protested, but Janet having a premonition, drugged his wine, and he slept for two days.

It was for naught Awaking early on the morning of the twenty-third of November, Colin Hay crept softly from Janet's bed, dressed himself warmly, slipped into the stables, saddled his horse, and left Sithean to join the others.

He reached the battlefield in time to help Red Hugh, and what remained of the Leslie-Hay contingent collect the bodies of their dead. Both families had escaped the tragedy of Flodden, but they did not escape Solway Moss. Among the dead were Adam Leslie, earl of Glenkirk. His son and heir, Ian. His nephew, Charles Leslie, the Earl of Sithean. James Hay, heir to Grayhaven. His brother, Gilbert And close to two hundred young men and boys from the three estates. The remaining men were able, by commandeering wagons, to transport the bodies back to Glenkirk, Sithean and Grayhaven.

Epilogue-August 1566 PATRICK L LESLIE, fourth earl of Glenkirk, came in from the sunny warmth of a summer's afternoon and descended to the cool, damp burial vault of the Leslies, located behind and below the altar in the family chapel. A dozen vigil lamps glowed softly.

Sitting quietly on the marble bench that had been placed for prayer and meditation, he gazed at the plaques that marked each tomb. All the plaques but one were marked simply with the occupant's name and birth and death dates.

There was his great-grandfather Patrick, the first earl, for whom he was named. He had died peacefully in his bed at the age of eighty. The earl could barely remember him-a tall, grizzled old man with thick white hair and a deep voice. Near him rested his wife, Agnes c.u.mmings.

His grandfather Adam, his father, Ian, and his great-aunt Janet's son Charles, all of whom had died at the battle of Solway Moss in 1542, were next Each lay beside his wife. His grandmother Anne MacDonald and the tiny tomb of her oldest son, who had died at the age of three. Fiona Abernethy, Charles's wife, dead in childbed of her fifth child. The earl's own mother, Jane Dundas, who upon hearing the news from Solway Moss fell dead in the courtyard of the castle, leaving five orphaned children.

Along with Charles's children, they had been raised by their great-aunt Janet Leslie. His heart swelled with love at the memory of her. She had been sixty-two then-a venerable age-but it hadn't stopped her. Shouting down some distant cousins who had appeared in an attempt to take over both sets of children and the Leslie goods and chattels, she had taken immediate charge.

Stunned at the loss of both his parents, the nine-year-old earl had wanted to cry. Softly but sternly, she had warned him that a peer of the realm, no matter how young, did not weep publicly. Later that night he had privately sobbed his heart out in her loving arms.

She and she alone had been responsible for the happiness of them all. His sisters and his female cousins had all been married to fine, loving, wealthy men. His brothers and his male Leslie cousins, Aunt Janet's grandchildren, had settled down with good livings.

The one memory that would remain with him as long as he lived was the fact that she had never seemed to grow old. For as long as he could remember, her hair had been a soft peach color, and her wonderful eyes a green-gold. He knew from a portrait of her that hung in the Great Hall, painted when she had been betrothed at the age of thirteen, that her hair had once been the same red-gold as his.

"Bless you, Cyra," he was startled to hear his voice say. Then he laughed. No one had heard him; and even if they had, they would not have understood that Patrick, fourth earl of Glenkirk, knew the wonderful secret of his aunt's past Slowly he withdrew the letter from his doublet-a letter from Esther Kira to his great-aunt. Their letters had obviously crossed in pa.s.sage-his to Esther, telling her of Cyra's death, and Esther's to Cyra, telling of the death of Sultan Suleiman on April 14, 1566.

In the years to come, those who read her epitaph, "Born a Scot she died a Scot" would think her a poor, sad spinster. They could never even begin to imagine those fantastic years between her birth and her death. As the irony struck him, his laughter echoed strangely in the silent burial vault Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, he moved toward the doorway. "G.o.dspeed, Cyra," he said, and, ascending the steps, Patrick Leslie walked back through the chapel and out into the bright August afternoon.

Other Avon Books by Bertrice Small Bertrice Small

LOVE W WILD AND F FAIR.

Copyright This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author's imagination or are used fict.i.tiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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