Apparently listening more than she’d guessed, Trick grimaced. “I expect they were angry.”
The older man nodded. “His actions incited a rebellion that eventually led to his end. But I get ahead of myself.” He wetted his papery lips. “After the coronation, his last scheduled stop was at nearby Falkland Palace. All the local nobles were invited, and your mother went, of course, along with her family. Every able-bodied commoner was drafted to help with the banquet, myself among them, although I wasn’t even Niall’s age yet.”
“Did the banquet go badly?” Kendra asked, pulling her fingers from Trick’s.
“Not at all. We all thought it a roaring success, the entertainment more impressive than any we’d ever seen. But by then Charles had tired of Scotland—no doubt as much as we had tired of him—and at three the next morning, he woke the household and announced that he’d decided to leave immediately. Everyone at Falkland scrambled to ready his belongings for travel.”
“What sorts of belongings?” Kendra asked as Trick reached over and took her hand again, resting it on his lap and trapping it there with his own on top. Neither Niall nor Hamish seemed to notice, but, scandalized, she couldn’t help thinking what was beneath the the folds of tartan on which her hand rested.
Nothing.
“You wouldn’t have believed what he’d brought along,” Hamish was saying, his gaze glazed with memory. “My eyes boggled, they did. Besides clothing and furnishings fit for a palace—he slept in his own Royal bed—King Charles traveled with his household goods, personal treasures, jewelry, and his entire kitchen including the Royal plate. Half a ton of silver and gold. Not for him to be eating off plain Scottish dishes or drinking from plain Scottish cups. It was this we were ordered to help pack for his return to London.”
“Half a ton?” Kendra said. “It must have taken you all night.”
“The smells of the banquet still hung in the air, and we had but a few hours to get it done. Charles couldn’t wait to leave. At first light, he set out. On the journey up they had crossed the River Forth by the bridge at Stirling, but this day the king was too impatient to take the long way around. His men found three boats to cross the firth from Burntisland to Leith and loaded two of them with as much as they possibly could. When his goods wouldn’t all fit, Charles insisted the rest be loaded anyway, till everything was aboard and the vessels rode low in the water.”
Trick frowned and shifted, draping an arm around Kendra’s shoulders. “Were you there to see it?”
“Nay, but I’ve heard stories. It was storming something awful, that I do remember. The wind blew fiercely, and the waves tossed the boats as they piled the treasure chests aboard. King Charles was rowed to the third vessel while his domestics and servants went with his goods. Twenty-five people on one of those boats…and only two lived to tell the tale.”
“Oh, no,” Kendra said. “What happened?”
“The rest of them ended up at the bottom of the Firth of Forth, along with the treasure. Safe aboard another boat, Charles could see the vessel founder and sink, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing anyone could do to save any of those lives.”
A chilling vision. Kendra leaned against Trick’s side, taking comfort from his warmth. “Charles must have been furious.”
“Aye, that he was. Folk claimed the sinking was an act of God to avenge his religious misdeeds, but he decided that witches were responsible and rounded up people to punish. It was injustice of this sort that led to our siding with the Roundheads in the Civil War, wrong though we were to do so.”
Trick’s fingers traced lazy circles on Kendra’s shoulder, and her free hand curled in her lap. The one on his lap felt hot against the wool. Keeping her face passive, she nodded at Hamish. “Were the chests ever recovered?”
“Nay, lass, for the Forth is cold and deep. They lie there to this day.”
He briefly closed his eyes. Eyes that looked familiar, Kendra thought and wondered why.
“But the treasure,” he said when he opened them, “is not in those chests.”
Trick’s hand stilled on her shoulder. “Pardon?”
“You must understand, the people were angry well before the witch hunt. After the banquet, your mother stole from her chamber and met me in the storeroom along with Rhona and Gregor—the four of us were best of friends, even then. The Yeoman of the Buttery had been charged with packing the kitchen, which included the Royal plate. John Ferries was his name. Shorthanded, he was, and willing to accept whatever help he could find. So we helped.”
He fell silent.
Trick reached for his goblet. Niall put a hand over his father’s atop the coverlet. “Tell them how you helped, Da.”
Hamish sighed. “First we helped get John Ferries drunk. Then we helped fill the chests, but not with gold and silver plate…” He drew a long breath, a dramatic pause. “With rocks.”
Trick choked on a sip of his spirits. “Rocks?” he repeated incredulously.
“Aye.” Shifting on the bed, Hamish looked less than proud of what he’d done. “The treasure we spirited away. Poor John Ferries’s body washed up on shore shortly thereafter, so the secret remained between the four of us. The Royal plate remains hidden to this day.”
“Where?” Kendra breathed.
“If you’re willing, I’ll send Niall to show you. First thing tomorrow.”
Trick failed to see the point. Intriguing as the story might be, he was planning to leave for home tomorrow. He needed to complete the king’s mission. And make a fresh start with Kendra.
He gave her hand in his lap an experimental squeeze, smiling to himself when the pulse at her wrist sped
