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our kirk and the king’s ill-judged meddling in the business of our burgh council. William kept his voice low. ‘Can Charles truly believe we will allow interference from Whitehall that we would not take from his father in Holyrood? This will not end well.’
    ‘Hmmn, I fear not,’ I said. ‘And I am to go to Baillie Lumsden’s house later today.’ Despite his wealth and influence, the baillie was strongly suspected of sailing too close to the wind in matters of religion and politics. He was also the cousin and namesake of Matthew Lumsden, the old student friend of William’s and mine whom Sarah had decried the night before, and who was openly and defiantly Papist.
    ‘Oh?’ William was interested. ‘What is the college’s business there?’ We had finished our meal and were stepping out on to the street.
    ‘I don’t know yet. Dr Dun said Lumsden would explain it to me, but I am not altogether at ease about it. I noticed a power of armed men at the baillie’s door as I passed by his house this morning.’
    William raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Yes, but those are there for …’
    ‘For what?’
    A mischievous smile had come upon his face. ‘Truly? You do not know? Well, I daresay you will soon find out.’ He slapped me hard on the back. ‘Courage, my friend. Courage!’ And he was still laughing as he disappeared from view into the depths of Huxter Row.
    It was with some trepidation, then, that I approached Lumsden’s residence on the Guest Row. With five storeys of towers and turrets, it was better proportioned than many castles I had seen, and one of the grandest houses in the burgh.
    The armed men I had seen in the morning were still there, and I had to have one of Lumsden’s servants vouch for me before I was allowed in. I was directed up the west turnpike to wait upon the master in the small parlour there. As I reached the head of the stair, a maid went past, carrying a tray of wine and cake in to the great hall, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her. I had my hand on the handle to close it when a voice from inside rose above the soft female murmur that had been coming from the room.
    ‘Isabella, shut the door for the girl before we all freeze to death! I never knew a house of such draughts.’
    I placed the voice at the same moment as my eyes fixed on the young – perhaps not so young now – woman who had risen to close the door. I had not seen her in nine years, but I knew her instantly. Isabella Irvine, niece to Sir Robert Gordon of Straloch, friend to Katharine Hay whom I had loved and abandoned before I properly knew what love was. Isabella Irvine who, on our one and only meeting all that time ago, at the house of her uncle, had made it clear to me that she despised me more than anyone else on earth.
    The shock on her face matched my own, and a small, surprised ‘Oh!’ escaped her throat before she recovered herself sufficiently to continue the process of shutting thedoor in my face. But she had not moved quickly enough, for again came the commanding voice, a little more forceful this time.
    ‘Wait! Mercy, girl, is that not Alexander Seaton you are about to disfigure? Mr Seaton? Are these the manners the town of Aberdeen has taught you? Show yourself, man!’
    And so I stepped into the room and found myself in the presence of Katharine Forbes, Lady Rothiemay, fifty years old, five years a widow of the murdered William Gordon of Rothiemay, mother to his sons, one of whom had been burned to death in a tower, the other, a child of nine, who had been forcibly taken from her care by a kinsman seeking to control her lands. In her grief and fury, beyond the power or inclination of the law to assuage, Katharine Forbes was at feud with more interests than I had friends. No longer the sylph-like sacrificial bride she had been thirty years ago, she was nonetheless slim and striking still. There was scarcely a grey hair among the chestnut folds on her head, and a little faded though they