the eve of st. john
DESCRIPTION
A story of old ScotlandTRANSCRIPT
The Eve of St John
John Mackie
The Eve of St John
by
John Mackie
A BOA BOOK • THE WEB • 2010
Copyright 2010 by John Mackie
She shivered, not from the
cold, pulling her cloak
closer round her. It lacked
but two days to the Eve of St John and the light had
not completely left the sky even though it must be
near to midnight. Sitting there beside the fire, high
on the Watchfold, she wondered at the enormity and
absurdity of her plan.
When the chance had come, she knew that she
must take it or regret forever what could have been.
The Baron riding out that morning had surprised
her. The too many years of their unhappy union had
taught her he was not the man to risk himself for any-
body or anything without a personal benefit. His an-
nouncement that he was going to join Arran to
defend the realm against the marauding English
heretics was out of character.
‘Aye weel’, she thought. ‘We live in strange
times. I may have misjudged him all these years.’
Strange times indeed. Henry had sent his army
north to force the marriage of the infant Mary to his
son Edward and to impose his Protestant heresies
on the Scots who still held to the True Faith. It was
truly ‘a rough wooing’ to be resisted. Maybe her
man had more to him than she had ever realised.
But, too little and too late. Her own wooing had
been rough and ready. She hated him for all that he
was and for all that he had done to her. The chance
was there and she meant to take it.
She had volunteered take her turn in tending the
beacon fire. The Border clans had to know that the
English were close at hand. Even the Baron’s page
and spy, English Will, accepted this. Little did any
of them know that she held in her heart and her
hope the stories of an older faith which her Irish
grandmother had taught her.
She had three nights. Everybody would think
that she dutifully tended the beacon but she truly
believed that she could use the Summer Solstice to
ask the pagan gods to grant her heart’s desire. She
muttered the well-rehearsed, summoning invoca-
tion to Aine. Nothing happened. She fancied that
she saw a flicker of movement away to the right but
put it down to her imagination.
The next day dragged its way to its weary end.
As she climbed the hill at dusk, she chided herself
for being a lovelorn fool who had put her faith in the
myths and imaginings of bygone days. There was no
way in all sanity that a living, breathing man could
be conjured to appear at her behest. But then, as she
neared the fire, she saw that he was standing there.
Joyfully and not daring to believe it, she ran the last
few yards into his arms.
She had no memory of what they talked about
and it was dawn in an instant. As she picked her way
down the craggy path to the personal prison that
was Smailholm tower, she prayed it had not been a
dream and that she could force the tryst which
would seal their love for ever.
Came the night, and she hurried up the steep
path to the signal fire. He was there again and he was
surely in thrall to her now. She blurted out her plans.
The bloodhound and English Will would be
drugged. The tower guards were hers to a man and
would see and hear nothing. Her confessor had
been summoned to Dryburgh Abbey to say masses
for the soul of some poor knight who had fallen to
the English spears.
He seemed strange and distant but she knew
now that Aine, goddess of love, had put him in her
power and that he could not refuse to come to her
chamber on the Eve of St John. Morning came all
too quickly again and she floated down the hill,
warm in the knowledge that it was only a matter of
hours before her dreams came true.
She neared the tower and saw the Baron’s
charger standing there, untended and weary. The
Baron himself was in the Hall, lying back in his chair
and looking terminally exhausted. English Will was
whispering in his ear and she took her chance to slip
past the open door up the stair to her day chamber.
Putting her finger to her lips to warn her ladies, she
composed herself at the window and looked out
over the Lammermuir Hills, mourning what might
have been.
The Baron came in and harried her ladies out.
He seemed less sure of himself than usual. It had to
be the sights that he had seen in the last few days.
She asked how the Scots army had fared and he told
her that they had won a great victory on Ancrum
Moor. But then he asked after the beacon fire and
she had a sudden, cold chill in her heart that he
knew everything and was just playing with her.
He turned and walked away, saying that he
needed to sleep. She busied herself with the usual
domestic chores of the day and went to the bed
chamber, hoping to find him dead to the world. He
was tossing fitfully and muttering under his breath.
She slipped in beside him and lay bolt awake, dread-
ing the moment when he would turn to her and claim
what all convention acknowledged to be his right.
Midnight struck and a great stillness fell. Her
lover was standing there at the foot of the bed. She
stifled the incipient scream. ‘Never fear, my lady’, he
said. ‘The Baron sleeps for now and can not wake
until I depart. Three days ago, he slew me on Eildon
Hill. Priests sing masses and the Abbey bells peal
for my soul at Dryburgh, but to no avail. The three
of us are doomed and damned for ever, the Baron
for my murder and you and I for our lawless love.’
With a tip of the Balmoral bonnet to Sir Walter Scott