Ashes to Ashes by Lillian Stewart Carl

alcoves. No, Michael wasn’t dragging the inventory out just to irritate Eric. He was being remarkably efficient. It would take at least a forty-hour week just to catalog the papers in this room, let alone decide what was valuable, what was useful, and what could be used to wrap the garbage. And she had envisioned herself spending quiet evenings typing away at her dissertation. As usual, reality fell far short of fantasy.
    So far Rebecca had found three snuffboxes and the Hilliard miniature that were mentioned in the notebook, and a yellowed letter written in the spidery script of the eighteenth century that was not. Of the two small daggers, the one the notebook labeled an 18th century sgian dubh looked promising. The other, a 19th century fish-cleaner, didn’t. A sheaf of letters and military orders signed by various historical personages was also duly listed, although several, including James of Monmouth and Robert Louis Stevenson, were missing. But it wasn’t surprising that some things would have been moved around in the forty years since James typed up the inventory.
    She’d even found the typewriter itself, in its case in the corner. Its age and decrepitude made Rebecca’s tired machine look positively opulent.
    What she hadn’t found was the Erskine letter. She’d have to search the inventories for it. The records of its sale to John in 1900 had percolated into academia; it had existed then. Fortuitous that Arabella Erskine, Countess of Mar, had defied discretion and written her sister about trading her newborn child for Mary Stuart’s suddenly and shockingly dead one.
    Well, Rebecca thought, if I were giving up my child to be king of Scotland, and later England as well, I’d want someone to know it.
    The file drawer of the desk was crammed with more black notebooks, James’s diaries, apparently. These were handwritten in faded sepia ink and shed newspaper clippings like a maple sheds autumn leaves. She’d have to go over those some other time.
    As she struggled to wedge the one notebook she’d removed back into the drawer, she glimpsed a bit of white at the far back corner. She pulled it out. It was a scrap of James’s handwriting, maybe an abandoned draft of a letter: “— ever problem you are having you have brought upon yourself. I cannot help you any more than I already have. Your threats are… ”
    Useless? Rebecca concluded. Interesting. Maybe James’s life hadn’t been quite as dull as she’d thought. She put the scrap inside one of the diaries, shut the drawer, and looked up.
    Above the desk was the most striking item in the room, a four foot long claymore dated to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s final defeat at the battle of Culloden in 1746. The sword looked lethally heavy, if far from sharp.
    Rebecca cleared a spot on the desk, propped her feet on it, and unfolded the 18th century letter. Inside was a curl of hair almost the color of her own, a light tawny brown. She held the paper to the light. Oh— another lock of Prince Charlie’s hair. So much of his hair was in the stately homes of Scotland that the Young Pretender must’ve worn a powdered wig for more than fashion. Unless, like modern Hollywood stars, his flunkies handed out hair only purporting to be his.
    It would be easy enough to check the handwriting on the paper against proven samples of Charles Edward’s. He was— Rebecca counted back— Mary’s grandson’s grandson’s grandson, heir to her feckless grace. If Charles really were Mary’s descendant. If James VI and I had been her son, not an Erskine… .
    Rebecca yawned. In this warm, snug room counting crowned heads seemed only slightly more stimulating than counting sheep. A beam of afternoon sun shone in the window, faded, and shone again, teasing gleams from the sword on the wall. The sound of the wind was muted into a gentle lullaby. The subtle gurgle of water was as soothing as the rush of a mountain stream. The lock of hair was soft in her hand.
    The gurgling changed