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