James Stewart

Balvenie leads him through the rose garden, holding tight to his hand. Of all the council lords, he troubles himself with Jamie the least, though perhaps there is sense in that; he has a boy of his own, after all, and William is all but Jamie's age.

But today he walks with Jamie through the rose garden, where the bushes are at last in bloom.

"Your father planted these for your mother," he says (and a small, powerless part of Jamie's mind, the part that somehow knows that this is all a dream braces itself for what's coming next). "English roses for his bonnie English rose. They're no made for the Scottish climate, you know. The roses. It took the gardeners some time to get it right. They're nice and big now-- nice and strong. But he never did see them at their best."

"He loved her," Jamie says. (A flash, in his mind but so clearly: his mother up to her elbows in blood. She tortured them, they say, the men who killed his father, she did it herself.)

"Ach, no!" Balvenie laughs. A big man like him, with a big belly, it seems like he should have a booming laugh, but his is high, like his voice. "He loved no one but himself. That's why he died in a ditch. That's why he was stabbed in the back. Killed his own family." Balvenie turns to him, but it's not Balvenie now: David Douglas, his throat slit, and it gushes blood as he says, "Just like you."

"No," Jamie protests.

A hand-- David's?-- reaches for him and he violently shakes it off.

"I didny know, I didny want it to happen!"

His child's voice rings out bright and clear against the stone walls of the council chamber, and Balvenie shakes his head in amused indulgence, while Crichton folds his arms over his chest and Livingston just looks annoyed.

"You know that isn't right, James," he says. "Say it properly, if you please."

He mumbles, "As I will it done let it be so."

"In the King's name," they intone. "In the King's name, in the King's name."

He covers his ears to drown out the sound of it-- if he can't hear it, maybe that makes it not real, maybe they won't do anything at all and it won't be his fault, in his name.

The room is very dark and suddenly his sister Annabella is there at the foot of his bed, her nightgown and her pale round face bright in the gloom, her red hair a tangle under her cap, her doll clutched in her arms.

"Get back in your own bed," he says. Annabella does not immediately respond; she climbs up onto the bed and curls up next to him before she says, "Can't you hear them?"

And now he can: women's voices, arguing in the corridor outside. His mother's voice, high and English, and Meg's deeper Highland burr.

"--been racing from castle to castle for who knows how long," Meg is saying. "They're children, they've got to think there's somewhere they're safe, somewhere they can stop and rest."

"But there isn't!" his mother cries. "There is nowhere we can rest, there is nowhere they are safe."

Annabella huddles closer. The door flies open, and their mother rushes in, Meg at her heels. Before Jamie can ask any questions, she cries, "Come, we must go! Jamie--"

But he knows what to do already, by now. He crawls out of bed and starts for the large chest, set slightly askew at the foot of his bed. His mother lifts the lid and holds out a hand for him to take.

"That's right," she says as he takes her hand. "That's right. You're safe in here."

He doesn't say, But you just said we weren't safe anywhere.

He starts to climb in but he doesn't-- fit, doesn't-- his legs are too long and he can't hunch over enough and she starts to lower the lid, but he still doesn't, still can't--

He's awake. He's awake. It always happens sooner or later. How do you know? Because he's a grown boy crouched in a fucking chest, isn't he. And there's the sun, bright through the window, and--

"What time is it?" he calls uncertainly, though he isn't sure if anyone's around. Maybe they've just locked him in and left him, they do that sometimes. He looks to the window again, the sun. Christ, he's wasted half the day at this, hasn't he.

Ah, Christ, Jamie thinks. He’s definitely dreaming. It’s always a possibility lurking at the back of his mind here, that he’s slipped into a dream without noticing, but right now he’s certain of it.

But it’s funny— he’s never dreamed of his father before. Perhaps it’s because he can’t remember his father’s face clearly enough, but now that he sees it, sees the man standing before him, it seems so obvious. Of course that’s his father, of course that’s how he looked. It’s not a very kingly face actually, not stern the way he dimly remembers; his brows have a faint upward tilt to them, and the furrow between them is deep: his resting expression is one of vague concern.

“Look at you!” his father says. All Jamie’s life he’s heard your father was a murderer, he died in a drain, stabbed in the back— but he laughs when he sees his son. “Look at you, you’re so— you’re so tall, look at you! How’d that happen, d’you think? I’m not that tall.”

“I dunno,” Jamie says, instinctively hunching his shoulders, trying to shrink. “People say I look like you. I mean, that I look like a Stewart.”

“You do,” his father says. “You do.”

There’s something about him— he doesn’t seem solid and real in the way that other dead people here do, though he’s not quite a ghost, either: he casts a shadow, the grass presses down under his feet. So definitely a dream.

“I don’t want it, though,” he blurts out. “I don’t want to be a Stewart. I don’t want to be king.”

Something shifts in his father’s face, but it’s impossible to tell quite what it is, or what it means. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking.

He says, “You are, though. I died for that. Died to see you set upon the throne in a Scotland that was at peace, and whole. That’s what you have, that’s what you are.”

Jamie shakes his head, though he knows it’s childish. “I don’t want it. I don’t want to do that.”

His father smiles a small smile that doesn’t quite reach all the way to his eyes. “I’d’ve kept it for a bit longer if I could.”

“I wish you had. I mean, not just ‘cause— I wish I’d’ve— known you. Not just the things that people say.” He scuffs his foot against the ground. “I think I could’ve— I could do it, then. If I’d’ve seen you at it first, if I knew what it meant to— to— to be—” a murderer, a kin-killer, with dark blood black blood, died in a drain

“King,” his father finishes for him. “It means you keep Scotland safe. You keep the nobles quiet. You do whatever you have to do, and don’t let anyone stop you.”

“I canny—”

“You can,” his father says. It’s not quite gentle. “You have to, so you will.”

And then, just like in a dream, he’s gone.

"This isny Scotland," Jamie mutters to no one in particular as he flops down near the lake. The fair is being taken down at last, and it seemed a bit dreary to him, to watch it all come to pieces, so he wandered off towards the lake in search of somewhere cooler.

There's too much sun for it to be Scotland, that's what he thinks as he inspects his arms, which are definitely looking redder and more freckled than they did this morning. He can only imagine what his face is like. Speaking of which--

"Ah, shit." He hurriedly rolls over to retrieve Ursula's sketch from his pocket. Well, it only got a little bit crushed! He lays it down on the ground and tries to smooth it out. He doesn't want it, exactly, but it seems too rude by half to just throw away someone's hard work like that. He imagines what Meg would have to say about that.

So once it's smoothed out he just leaves it on the ground there, looking uncertainly down at his own face.