The Mer- Lion Read online

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  You assume me chattel, not equal, but I am neither. I am regal, descended from Dido through my patrimony... Kahina the prophetess/warrior-woman maternally. I choose my husband, not he me. Even if I were not princess, I would not consent. Even the Messenger of Allah (on whom be praise) was forbidden to take in marriage a non-consenting woman. The man I choose must be a prince among men. Are you he? Then, I set you a challenge. If you would have me, come win me. Prove yourself a king in combat against armed warriors, not unarmed rulers at their bath. Win against men who are your betters, and you shall claim the Princess and the throne of Tunisia as your own. Lose, and I claim your life—"

  "Yes, yes," Ramlah interrupted, "I know all that. I helped you write it, remember? What does that have to do with sea searches?" "Ahh, but imagine his reaction—"

  Again Ramlah interrupted. Sometimes it seemed to her that her brilliant daughter gave her no credit for intelligence. "I need not imagine his reaction. He killed the messenger. What does—"

  It was Aisha's turn to break in. "You forget, Mother. The message then went on to say that his opponents would be worthy of him for, and I quote, 'this competition shall be proclaimed in every mosque and every bazaar on this side of the Mediterranean and on the other and will be open to all who by blood and bearing of arms name themselves noble.'"

  "Aisha, you are being difficult. What is the connection?"

  "As I see it, instead of acting as an ordinary man would, rejecting or accepting my challenge out of hand, he set upon another course. I think if we checked, we'd discover his men patrolling not just the sea but every trade route out of Tunisia. Why? To forestall the competition, of course. If the challenge were not proclaimed, none would know of it. If none knew of the competition, none would come. Except Barbarossa. He could then claim his prize and enlarge his kingdom without risking his life or lifting a sword. I should be his by default."

  "But,.you had already sent word abroad even before the messenger left for Algiers."

  "I know and you know that, but our corsair chieftain didn't. Do you mink such a man would credit a mere woman with forethought and intelligence? Not he? But I wager he has discovered his mistake by now. The question is,"—Aisha's eyes glittered as if facing a wily chess master—"what will be his next move."

  She sprang to her feet and paced the floor, scattering her handmaidens to either side. If Barbarossa could have seen her striding about the silk-draped, fur-strewn room in all her naked, barbaric glory, he might well have changed his mind and attended the competition, thus changing the course of history. But he could not... and did not. He had discounted the descriptions of her charms as exaggerations.

  The prospective competitors believed the tales of her tawny beauty, however, which gave fillip to their ambitious dreams of winning a throne at the colosseum at el Djem at the end of the month of Jamad I—at the time of the winter solstice half a year hence.

  Naturally enough, this unusual competition became the talk of courts from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. Within the Christian world, jokes, sneers, and snide remarks about this woman, who so lacked pride and self-respect that she would marry a man simply because he won her, fell freely from the mouths of women who had been bought and sold, many while still in the cradle, for their marriage portions and estates. Within the Moslem world, there was much approbation for Aisha's actions. The only daughter of Sultan Suleiman the magnificent and his Roxelana, for example, regretted that she had not done something similar. She had chosen her husband from among a small, select group of nobles whose antics she'd secretly watched at the royal baths. At least, she thought, this princess's husband will come to her bed willingly, unlike mine, who had to be commanded by my father to divorce his former wife and marry me.

  Some people escaped the gossip and speculation about the competition. The Moscovites and the Brahmins, the Mongols and the Mings, the bushmen and pygmy were too isolated in 1S32 by their distance from the center of the civilized world. Others, preoccupied by their own concerns, chose to isolate themselves. For example, those within the domain of young James V, King of the Scots...

  The Mackenzies of Seafoith AD. 1503 - 1532

  Scotland

  CHAPTER 1

  Scotland was not always insular. Forty-four years before, when the late King James IV came to the throne in 1488, he brought the sun out from behind a cloud to shine on Scotland, attracting the best brains and talent in Europe to his court. Each day another ship came into port, bringing an artist, poet, merchant, inventor, or another of the like, to flourish in an open, encouraging environment. Like Lorenzo de Medici, a continent away and a little more than two decades dead, James was an all-round prince, the first Renaissance man of his country, and a politician in the best sense of the word. A warrior who preferred peace, this lusty man, whom complaisant women delighted in bedding, chose as his first and only bride, in 1503, the drab, sharpish, elder daughter of his quarrelsome neighbor to the south, Henry VII of England.

  Margaret Tudor came without eagerness to her husband. She was fourteen, less than half his age. From her vantage point in England, the English-Scottish border seemed the northern limit of civilization. But Margaret had been reared to do her duty to her dynasty. Besides, marrying the Scot made her a reigning queen and for once she would be able to outdo her younger, more popular, beautiful sister, Mary of England, her father's favorite. So she came to Scotland and assumed her place in his wedding bed. As a gesture toward the youthful inexperience of his bride on her wedding night, James removed the iron chain he had worn about his body constantly for fifteen long years in expiation for the death of his father. To Margaret's pleasure,

  he was a gentle, experienced lover. To James's surprise, his cold-seeming bride was loving, and lusted for the carnal aspects of her marital life. The next day James again wore his chain, but cold iron did not deter Margaret. She was soon pregnant—to her father's relish, and her husband's relief.

  Another who came unwillingly to Scotland's shores the year of Our Lord 1503 was Seamus MacDonal from the glens of Antrim across the North Channel. As a lad of nine, the eldest of eight boys with whom he shared a bed, he had been wakened many times late at night by sounds of weeping and his father's angry whispers. Yet it came as a complete surprise one day when his father gruffly informed him, 'Take your one clean shirt and get out'f my house. No more leaching off n me, lad. I've sold you into service." The kicking, fighting man-child had to be dragged, while his pregnant mother protested, out of the peat-roofed, one-room cottage. He and his father hadn't struggled far down the path when his mother came running after. "Wait! Sean, let me at least give the child my blessing."

  Reluctantly, the tall, giant of a man let go and Seamus flew back to his mother's arms. Hugging him against a belly swollen with its annual burden of bairn, and with tears streaming down her face, she smoothed back his shock of blond hair with a work-roughened hand and whispered fiercely, "Walk tall, my son. No man is your better. Do your duty as you see it, and may the merpeople watch over you."

  "Aren't you finished, woman?" Her husband growled. "The ship won't wait forever. If we miss it, I'll ha' to give the two pieces of silver back."

  "Hold hard, Sean. But a moment more. Remember, Seamus my love, my blessings go wi' you." Then, she held her son away from her. "Go. Tis better this way. Ireland holds no future for you, and Scotland may."

  Seamus resisted no more but took his father's hand and went with him, turning and twisting to watch his mother wave for as long as she was in sight. In the village, they went straight to the wharf and then to a small fishing boat.

  "Ho, Fergus, I bring me lad."

  The man who came hurrying from the bow of the ship was thin and wiry with the look of a man always harassed. "Tis about time. We're about to cast off. Well, don't just stand there, lad, get ye aboard."

  Without looking back, Seamus did as he was told and took a seat in the bow on a pile of much-mended nets. Within moments, the boat had left its moorings. Pe
rhaps he only imagined or wished it so, but Seamus thought he heard his father's voice calling his name. He ran back astern across the slippery deck, but the boat was well out in the channel by then, and Sean MacDonal was nowhere in sight.

  Across the North Channel they sailed, the boat not once throwing out its nets. Seamus's tears soon gave way to helpless retching as the waves tossed the ship. Shortly, land came in sight and the ship made its way up the Sound of Jura to the Firth of Lome where the fishing was good; the hold was soon filled. The bow of the boat turned into the Loch of Linnhe, all the while moving closer to Ben Nevis. The snow-covered mountain, so much higher than the hills that formed the nine glens of Antrim, filled Seamus with awe. And well it might, for Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in Scodand. Nestled at its base was the small town of Seaforth, where the master directed his ship to dock.

  Leaving the crew behind to sell their catch, the master made his way, Seamus's hand held fast in his, up to the mighty keep-on the crest of Dun Dearduil, the Castle Seaforth, home of the Mackenzies. Once Seamus saw the sable banner with gold morse sejant flying from atop the highest tower, he went along willingly. After all, hadn't his mother's last words wished the merpeople to watch over him? A Mer-Lion on a banner wasn't exactly a merperson, but to Seamus it was close enough. Across the stone bridge and over the moat they went, making their way with the blessings of the captain of the guard through the gate house with its two circular towers joined by a battlemented portcullis. From there they entered an enormous court, a vast expanse of greensward surrounded by many-windowed walls. In the comer, there was a round tower, beneath it, their destination—the castle kitchen* For four pieces of silver, Seaforth on Dun Dearduil had bought itself an assistant to the spitdogs in the kitchen.

  ' But not for long..Mer-Lion or no, Seamus refused to do dog's work. Within twenty-four hours, he had made his first attempt at escape. He had not reached the castle gate before he was brought back, whipped thoroughly, and set to spit-turning again. He was not deterred. On his next attempt, he made it all the way to the drawbridge before being stopped by the captain of the guard. Back he went, his bottom a mass of welts, to his place before the fireplace. Not for long. Again and again he tried. Eventually, he made it all the way down to the docks and was seeking passage back to Ireland when caught by the earl's men. Brought home, totally unrepentant, and looking the earl—the old one, a man in his fifties—straight in the face, Seamus vowed to continue to run away until he escaped the hated kitchens. The earl took this defiant boy at his word, for Seamus was set a new task—shoveling dung in the stables. The boy stopped running away. Once the earl discovered Seamus could clean the stalls of the famed home-bred gray destriers without needing to have these notoriously short-tempered animals removed, he was confirmed in his role of stableboy and the grays were made his special charge. Nobody envied him his new responsibility, but Seamus was happy and remained so for the next five years.

  When the old earl died in 1508, his son, also a James Mackenzie, became the Fourth Earl of Seaforth... and promptly married the only acknowledged bastard daughter of King James IV, a woman almost half the earl's age. Seamus, the new assistant head groomsman, came forward to steady her stirrup when she dismounted within the Fountain Court of Seaforth on Dun Dearduil. One look upward into her eyes, so dark blue they seemed almost purple, made him hers for life; his allegiance unofficially but incontrovertibly changed from the Earl of Seaforth to his Countess.

  It was Seamus who personally groomed her jennets... who con-, trived when she rode to be by her side... who was there to give her a leg up or a hand down when she hunted in the countryside. And when, within the year, she bellied up in pregnancy, Seamus devised a small basket-cart within which she could continue to ride out, himself riding alongside or handling the reins of the pony.

  When in early 1509 the heir was born—James Mackenzie, Master of Seaforth, Viscount Rangely, Baron of Alva—Seamus managed to find an excuse to be absent from the festivities. And when the family went to Edinburgh to present the child at court to his grandfather, James IV, Seamus contrived to stay behind. His excuse was the gray destriers; his real reason was a mixed bag of emotions—love, jealousy, fear—all dominated by an illogical dislike of the child. Over the next several years, Seamus seldom saw the child since noble-bom men-children in the sixteenth century stayed within the women's quarters while they were still dressed in feminine long gowns.

  Although 1509 was remembered by Seamus as the year his rival was born, the Scots remembered it as the year King Henry VII of England, father to the young Queen of Scotland, Margaret Tudor, died. The honeymoon peace was over and the stage set for a major confrontation between two brothers-in-law: eighteen-year-old Henry Vm and a man twice his age, James IV.

  James IV was a good king and a man Henry VIII might well have been wise to emulate in certain respects. James was a builder. The palace he designed at Holyrood, next to the Abbey of the same name, effectively turned Edinburgh into an exciting capital city with pomp and pageantry, tournaments, processions, and pilgrimages the order, of the hour. Henry stole the ideas, even the buildings, of others.

  James was innovator his royal navy—the first Scotland could boast—was not many-vesseled, but its crews were freemen, deliberately choosing their life at sea. Their bravery was greater than that of press-gangs or chained oarsmen. Henry's aim was bigger and grander ships. James was merchant, encouraging trade with Europe. Henry cared nought for trade except that such enriched his treasury, enabling him to make war. James was administrator, taking men of learning and law into hisT>rivy Council and paying them heed. Henry appointed men and then pitted them against each other, putting prime value on cunning and connivery. James was judicator, Henry, executioner. James was banker working hard to establish his country's currency and honest coinage. Henry debased both to pay for his war, and robbed the church to boot. James was statesman, marrying for the good of his country and then making peace with his father-in-law. Henry took his brother's widow as the first of six wives.

  Both men were patrons of the arts, of sorts. Henry competed unfairly with the artists, writing songs and poetry and translations that his court must, of course, praise. James acknowledged himself no poet, but having his great-grandfather's love of poetry, he saw to it that his court offered shelter and patronage to those with real talent. Moreover, he granted a patent to two burgesses to establish Scotland's first printing press and then granted them license to print more man just works of law and theology—as was the case in England. Thus Scotland could read Henry son's retelling of Aesop's fables in a Scots setting and in the Scots tongue... Dunbar's poem in celebration of the king's Tudor bride, "The Thistle and the Rose" ... and all of the works of Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. This son to the murderous Bell-the-Cat Douglas, and uncle to the Marrying Douglas, was first to translate the Aeneid directly from the original. From his The Dukes of Eneados, written in Scots, would later come the English version.

  James was not without fault, however, as Margaret Tudor was first to proclaim. Not only did he keep her pregnant with babes that all died but one, but he left a spate of living natural children around his kingdom. (These latter did not endear him to his less fertile brother-in-law.) Moreover, James was quick to acknowledge offspring if there were at least a good chance that he was the father. He saw to it that the children of his official mistresses (first, Margaret Boyd, mother of Alexander Stewart, the Bishop of St. Andrews; and later, Janet Kennedy, mother of James Stewart, Earl of Moray, and the Lady Islean, Countess of Alva and Seaforth) received benevolences and estates commensurate with their status. Henry, less wisely, attempted to elevate his one bastard son above his natural born daughter, Mary Tudor.

  That these two princes could not share their isle harmoniously surprised no one. Once the shrewd influence of Henry VII was gone, problems multiplied, beginning at the border. No longer did the English wardens suppress the wanton raids of English Borderers into Scotland, and James's wardens retaliated by ignoring the
incursions by Scots into England.

  Henry VDI compounded the problems by dabbling in European politics. In 1512, he joined with the Pope and the Emperor Maximilian in an alliance against France, Scotland's traditional ally. Against her will, Scotland was being pulled into a maelstrom not of her own choosing. Yet, it was a flaw in James IV's own character that brought Scotland to commit the folly of invading England.

  James, though forward-looking, was in one respect an atavism: he was an honorable man. Honorable in the medieval, chivalric sense of the word. In the early summer of 1513, faced with an invasion by an English army, Louis XII invoked the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland; and his queen, Anne of Bretagne, named James her champion and sent him a token, a turquoise ring, to carry while he protected her honor. James IV did the only thing a true knight could do—he went to war to defend his lady's honor.

  He issued his challenge and summoned his lords, the clans, and the Borderers. And the men came, for they loved their king. Thousands and thousands of them: barons, knights, free-holding lairds, farmers, laborers—common folk and nobles alike, plus all four Scots dukes, fourteen earls, and even three bishops. Seaforth was among those who answered the call. With him went Seamus MacDonal, now a big, blond giant of a horsegroom, who towered at least half a head higher than any of the other Seaforth retainers.

  Men from all over Scotland assembled outside Edinburgh, beneath the protective walls of the castle. After hearing Mass in the Abbey of the Holy Cross, alongside Holyrood House, the king and his lords rode out and down St. Mary's Wynd. With him for a distance rode Margaret Tudor, the princess of England whom he had the day before named regent of Scotland as mother of the two-year-old James V. In her very pregnant belly reposed the assurance James needed that his dynasty would continue. As the king and his entourage clattered by with banners snapping in the wind, pipes and drums setting the measure, those living in the noble houses lining St. Mary's Wynd rode out and joined the procession.