Kingdom of Shadows

Then she lit the candle.

Lord Buchan had returned. He stood staring at his wife, his eyes fixed on her face. ‘So, my lady, I am told you are riding dangerously long distances each day for no reason. May I know why?’

Isobel could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. She turned away from him. ‘I feel trapped here, my lord, and bored. I need the air; I need to ride!’

His eyes strayed thoughtfully to her stomach where her mantle hid the slight swell of the five-month child which all her efforts had failed to dislodge.

‘Then your desire for air must be quelled,’ he said sternly. ‘There is enough air to be had in walking the walls. The ground outside is too dangerous for riding now.’ He glanced at the heavy wooden screens over the windows. Behind them thick snow fell slowly and relentlessly, muffling the sluggish movement of the waves beneath the cliffs, smothering the ground, drifting into the rough angles of the castle walls. ‘No one should ride while this weather lasts.’ He sat down heavily on the edge of a carved oak kist. ‘As well we reached Duncairn before the tracks here became impassable. I did not expect such thick snow on the coast; inland the passes are already closed. There will be no more fighting until the spring.’ He paused. ‘I have brought visitors for you from Ellon. Our niece Alice is here, with her father. You must come down to greet her.’

In spite of herself Isobel smiled. ‘I will, gladly.’ Even Alice’s company would be better than none while she pondered ways to rid herself of her child.

Lord Buchan saw the smile, and for a moment he glimpsed his wife’s loneliness. He seldom thought of her as a person. The vast Buchan lands were still ably administered by his energetic mother, so to him, Isobel was merely a dynastic necessity, a woman to whom he was married for political reasons; a woman who was there solely to provide him with an heir. What she did when he was away was of no concern to him, save where it touched his honour or his child. ‘I told her you needed company. You should not be alone over the next few months.’ He frowned. ‘She will help organise your household and see to it that you do not grow bored. It will be pleasant for you to have a woman to talk to while you spin and weave and make clothes for the child.’

Isobel clenched her fists. ‘I do not enjoy spinning and weaving, my lord. I shall go mad if I am forced to sit and listen to women’s gossip at the loom. I cannot bear being cooped up like some poor broody hen!’ She began to pace the floor. ‘I would rather hear the conversation of men!’

Lord Buchan gave a grim smile. ‘Then you will be pleased to hear, no doubt, that your great uncle, Macduff of Fife, is here also.’

The great hall was crowded. Lord Buchan’s followers, and those of Macduff overflowed the hall out into the snowy courtyard. Alice Comyn, the daughter of Lord Buchan’s brother, Alexander, was standing, still swathed in heavy furs, her hands outstretched to the blazing fire.

She offered a cold cheek to Isobel. ‘We thought we’d be cut off on the road through the mountains. My father’s horse went into a snowdrift up to its belly. It took two others to pull it out!’ She took Isobel’s hands in hers. ‘How are you, aunt?’ Her eyes sparkled irrepressibly. Isobel was two years her junior. ‘Uncle John tells me you need company. You must be so excited, carrying his baby!’

Isobel smiled wanly, liking the young woman in spite of the ineptness of her last remark. She remembered Alice as a pert, sneaky girl, constantly creeping into corners to whisper with the pages, but now she seemed changed. Isobel sensed sympathy and warmth in the girl to which she instantly responded. She drew her niece nearer to the fire. ‘Your own marriage is arranged, I hear,’ she said softly.

Alice nodded eagerly. ‘I am to marry Sir Henry Beaumont.’ She shook her head wistfully. ‘I long to have babies of my own.’

‘It is not something to look forward to!’ The words slipped out before Isobel could stop them. ‘To know that something is growing inside you, taking you over, possessing you! Something which is going to tear you apart and perhaps kill you so that it can take life of its own!’ She shuddered.

Alice stared at her, horrified. ‘You don’t really believe that?’

Behind them the hall was noisy and hot from the flaring torches and the huge fire, which was heaped high with driftwood from the bay, and fanned by the constant draught from the doors behind the screens.

Isobel stood motionless, looking at her. Alice was her husband’s niece; his spy. ‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘Of course I don’t really believe it. If women believed that, there would be no more children.’ She put her hand on her stomach where she could feel a faint uneasy fluttering. Lord Buchan’s child had quickened.

Alexander Comyn, two years younger than his brother, Lord Buchan, was watching his daughter and Isobel with curiosity. He was a tall, vigorous man, of uncertain temper, but for the moment he was content. The warmth of the fire was finding its way into his bones and a servant was approaching him with a jug of wine. He looked at Isobel closely. She seemed pinched and thin, unhappy, but there was no doubt that the girl was with child. Thoughtfully he stroked his cheek. His only comfort at his own failure to sire a son – two daughters were all his wife had given him – was the fact that his elder brother had no heir. Now this late marriage with Isobel of Fife seemed likely to give John the son he desired. He scowled.

‘So, will Edward of England winter in Flanders?’ His brother was at his elbow.

Sir Alexander Comyn nodded grudgingly. ‘I doubt if he’ll move before the spring. We’ll have time to plan our campaign with Wallace.’

‘You support him wholeheartedly now, then?’ Macduff of Fife stepped forward from his stance near the fire. He strode over to his great niece and embraced her. He was a slight, wizened man, his hair grizzled, stiff and glittering still with clotted sleet which had not yet melted in the heat of the fire. ‘Isobel, child, how are you?’ He kissed her on the top of her head. ‘Are you well?’ His narrowed eyes surveyed her face intently. She was no longer the carefree child with the delightful giggle whom he remembered as being so like her spirited mother. He frowned, then he turned back to the Comyns. ‘You recognise now how much Scotland needs the Wallace.’

‘It appears he is the leader which we lack while our king is a prisoner elsewhere,’ Alexander acknowledged. ‘He more than proved himself at Stirling Bridge.’ At last the boy with the wine had reached him. He seized the proffered goblet and, draining it, held it out for a refill. ‘It seems that all the factions within our kingdom will follow him. Even the Bruces seem prepared to support him.’

Lord Buchan’s gaze went thoughtfully to his wife’s face. ‘Robert Bruce still broods over his grandfather’s claim to the throne – a claim which his father seems singularly ill suited to pursue. I trust neither of them.’

‘Nor I, entirely, but for Scotland’s good, Comyn and Bruce must run in harness and as long as Lord Annandale lives, his son’s pretensions are curbed. Even he sees that his father could never rule this country. He will not support a Balliol king, but while Balliol is out of the country, then he will fight for Scotland.’ He threw himself down into a chair beside the long table. ‘So, brother.’ He changed the subject abruptly. ‘You are to have an heir in the spring, I see.’ He chuckled. ‘I didn’t think you’d tame that little wild cat of yours. She looks too thin. You must see that she eats well this winter.’

Lord Buchan sighed. He sat down stiffly next to his brother, stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘I trust that your daughter will calm her down. I am weary of fighting each time I speak to her.’

His brother threw back his head and laughed. ‘So, you are hen-pecked, brother, and those scars come from your wife’s claws, not an English pike as we all thought! I’m surprised you managed to bed her at all!’ Pleased with his joke he stood up and walking over to where Isobel stood near the fire he threw his arm around her shoulders.

She shrank away distastefully, but he did not release her. ‘So, sweetheart. How are you? Is my little sister-in-law well?’

‘Thank you, Sir Alexander, I am well.’ Her voice was cold.

‘Good, because we are going to need your good offices in the spring, when negotiations resume amongst the lords of Scotland. We must bring them together if we are to eradicate the threat of England’s suzerainty once and for all. And you have influence with some of our more recalcitrant leaders, I hear. The Earl of Carrick for one.’ He raised his eyebrow suggestively.

Isobel stiffened. ‘You are mistaken, Sir Alexander. I have no influence over Lord Carrick. I have not seen him for a long time.’

She was suddenly very conscious of her husband, still sitting at the table, looking in their direction, and she wondered if he had heard his brother’s comment over the shouting and laughter in the hall behind them. There was a speculative frown on his face. As she watched he stood up and walked over to join them.

‘So, has my wife agreed to talk Lord Carrick round?’

Isobel’s heart sank. ‘I have told Sir Alexander I have no influence over my cousin,’ she said defiantly. ‘I do not see him any more.’

‘While he was fighting on the side of the English,’ Lord Buchan’s voice was silky, ‘it would have been inappropriate for you to have done so, to say the least.’

The colour flared in Isobel’s cheeks. ‘You yourself swore allegiance to King Edward not so long since, my lord!’

‘We have all been guilty at some time of bending before the wind,’ Macduff put in hastily from his position near the fire. ‘What matters is that we should all now put Scotland’s liberty before our personal ambitions and quarrels and free her of the domination of England for good. And to do that we must put our differences behind us. Sir Alexander is right. Bruce and Comyn must fight on the same side.’

Did that mean that she would see Robert again? Later, in the bedchamber, Isobel allowed herself to think about the possibility. For months she had gleaned small pieces of information about his whereabouts and at last heard the devastating news that he had come into King Edward’s peace and fought for the English rather than support the Comyns and John Balliol. It was hard to believe that his hatred of the Comyns was greater than his love for Scotland and however much she tried she found it impossible to justify his actions, but even though he had betrayed Scotland she had still prayed for him, and desperately she had hoped that somehow one day she would see him again. Sometimes she thought it was her dreams of Robert which kept her sane.

With a sigh she glanced around the room. Alice was sitting near her, her spindle lying in her lap. Her attendants were there too, clustered around the fire. Some of the driftwood which had come ashore had been brought up to the tower room and it crackled noisily, sending strange green and blue lights leaping up the huge chimney, a change from the calm glow of peat. Wood was usually far too valuable to burn. Dreamily Isobel allowed Mairi to help her out of her clothes and into the fur-trimmed bed gown in which she habitually slept.

The woman was gently combing out Isobel’s long curling hair when the door opened and Lord Buchan walked in. There was sudden silence amongst the women. Mairi’s hands fell to her sides as she saw the disgust and fear chasing one another across her young mistress’s face, before Isobel concealed her feelings with a look of wary blankness.

Lord Buchan was drunk. ‘Leave us.’ His eyes were fixed on his wife’s, but his command was unmistakably directed at the others in the room. One by one the women hastily gathered up their spinning and sewing and scuttled towards the door. Only Alice stood her ground.

‘It was good of you to come to wish us goodnight, uncle,’ she said firmly. ‘I am going to share Aunt Isobel’s bed tonight. I knew you would want to remain in the hall with my father.’

Isobel’s eyes were fixed on those of her husband. She had gone completely cold.

‘I said out.’ Lord Buchan did not even look at Alice. His brother’s joke had touched a raw nerve and he had spent the last hour, as he drank moodily in the great hall below, allowing it to fester. Alice glanced at Isobel apologetically and edged slowly towards the door in her turn. Her aunt had not moved.

‘So, at last my wife and I are alone.’ Lord Buchan moved slowly towards her. ‘I trust you will make it clear to your clucking attendants that I intend to sleep here in the lord’s bedchamber as long as I remain at Duncairn.’

‘You must not touch me, my lord!’ Isobel found her voice at last. ‘It … it might harm the child.’

‘Nonsense. Women can accommodate a man till their bellies are too big to get near them, and even then there are ways and means!’ He laughed coarsely. ‘It seems to me that you are always trying to keep me from your bed. You have to learn to give pleasure to your husband, my dear. Your body was made to please men. You must learn how to use it. Take off that hideous robe and let me see this belly of yours.’

‘No!’ Isobel stepped back sharply. ‘You musn’t touch me. Please – haven’t I done my duty enough?’

‘Your duty is to please me.’

He cornered her near the high curtained bed. Pulling open her robe he pushed it back off her shoulders and stared down. The slim child’s body had gone. Since he had seen her last she had become a woman indeed. Her breasts were full and heavy, her stomach, boyishly flat before, was rounded, her hips defined. He felt a wave of intense desire shoot through him.

‘So. You think to keep me at arms’ length, till you are delivered of my son!’ He spoke thickly as he pulled her to him. ‘Think again, sweetheart. I find you more beautiful now than ever before.’ He dropped his head to her breast, grabbing for the nipple with his teeth.

Isobel caught her breath with pain. Desperately she pulled at his hair, trying to dislodge him, and, finally managing it, she pushed him violently away from her and dodged out of reach. Her eyes were dark with temper. ‘Curse you, John Comyn! Don’t you touch me again! Don’t you so much as lay a finger on me or I shall kill this child. By the gods I swear I shall kill this child and you will never have a son!’ She could feel the wall behind her, cold beneath its tapestry hanging, and she pressed her hands against it, her eyes fixed on her husband’s face. ‘Leave me! Leave me, now.’

He had gone white. For a moment he stood completely still, staring at her, then he stepped towards her. His voice was very quiet. ‘Sorceress! Witch! Don’t you ever threaten me again!’ He caught her by the shoulders. ‘I knew the devil would claim you for his own one day! Be thankful there was no one here to hear your evil tongue, my lady. Be very thankful indeed.’ He shook her, then quite deliberately he released her and, raising his hand, he hit her across the face. Her head snapped back against the wall and she sagged forward for a moment, stunned, but already he had grabbed her arms and pushed her upright again, his eyes hard. ‘Did you hear me? You are my wife, madam. In the eyes of God and in the eyes of men and at the command of the king, you are my wife, and you will obey me.’

Still stunned, she tried to push her hair out of her eyes. The side of her face was a throbbing mass of pain.

‘At the command of our king!’ She forced herself to stand upright, her voice mocking. ‘Toom Tabard. The king of Nowhere. The king without a country. He is not our king. Our true king would never have given me to you!’

‘Ah, the father of the handsome Earl of Carrick!’ Lord Buchan raised his hand again. ‘How sad that you could not marry Sir Robert, my dear. How sad that you must be forced to love, honour and obey the husband you have.’

She dodged the next blow, trying to push past him, but he caught her easily. Pain exploded in her head as he hit her again. Blind with fury and tears of agony she clawed at his face, trying to free her wrist from his grip, then as she felt him raising his hand for another blow she sank her teeth into his fingers.

With a growl of rage he tried to pull free, pushing her away from him with every ounce of strength he had. Unable to save herself, she was thrown sprawling across the high oak coffer which stood at the end of the bed. The iron-bound corner caught her in the stomach with the pain of a turning sword blade. With a scream she staggered to her feet, clutching at her belly and as, deep in her womb, the blood began to flow, she collapsed at his feet.

Sarah Collins turned into the driveway and parked beneath the stag-headed oak. She turned off the engine and sat still for a moment staring at the front of the house. No lights showed and the curtains were undrawn. She frowned. Mrs Royland usually turned on the outside lights if she was going to be out late. Stiffly she climbed out of the car. The mist was thickening rapidly. She couldn’t see the lights of the village across the fields. The garden was very quiet.

She felt guilty about leaving Clare alone in the house, but she hadn’t wanted to spend the afternoon with her. Acutely aware that sides were being drawn up in some domestic battle, and instinctively knowing that it would be Mr Royland who pulled the punches when the time came, she didn’t want him to think she was in any way on Clare’s side. She valued her job too much. Reaching into the back of the car for her handbag and two carriers, her afternoon’s shopping, she closed the door softly and began to walk across the gravel.

The front door was unlocked. Switching on the lights she drew the curtains. ‘Mrs Royland?’ she called, suddenly nervous.

Quick footsteps crossed the landing and Casta ran down the stairs, tail wagging. The sight of the dog reassured her.

‘Where’s your mistress?’ She bent and patted the thick fur.

Deep down inside, she knew. She glanced around again uncertainly, and then she made her way into the drawing room. Closing the full-length curtains over the dark windows she put a match to the ready-laid fire. She would put on the kettle and then she would go upstairs.

Casta followed her up, keeping close at her heels. On the broad galleried landing Sarah hesitated. The dog had stopped, hackles raised. She growled slightly and Sarah looked down. She swallowed nervously. At the end of the hall Clare’s door was standing ajar. From where she stood on the landing Sarah could see the pale glow of the candlelight.

The pain grew in waves, flowing through Isobel’s body, carrying her to the edge of unconsciousness and then drawing her back. The room was hot; sweat poured from her and grew chill as she began to shiver. She was conscious of people all round her; hushed voices, hands holding hers, cool scented cloths on her face. Mairi was there, and Alice. Someone was piling more wood on the fire. She clutched at a hand, moaning as the pain came again.

Mairi was bending over her, her lips moving. ‘A Mhuire mhathair! It’s what you wanted, eudail. Be brave. It’s nearly over. The child is dead. You’re losing it now. It’s what you wanted, Iseabail, eudail … It’s what you wanted!’

When it was over she slept. The bleeding had not stopped. Around her the women glanced at one another with pale faces. Nearby the tiny body, wrapped in the silk standard of the Earl of Buchan lay in a basket. With the soil frozen they could not bury it; no one dared to throw it on the fire. No one as yet had dared to tell the earl. The foetus had been male.

When at last he was informed of what had happened Lord Buchan, white with fury, made his way back up to his wife’s bed chamber.

‘Murderess! Sorceress! You killed my child!’ He bent over the bed, his face twisted with rage.

‘No!’ Isobel stared up at him in terror. ‘It was you –’

‘This entire household knows what you’ve been doing, my lady. Riding at all hours, swallowing potions to rid yourself of it.’ He towered over her, his eyes blazing. ‘In this very room you flaunted what you intended to do! And now you have achieved it. You have murdered my son. By right, you should die.’

She shook her head desperately, too weak to rise from the pillows. ‘I didn’t … I didn’t kill him … I didn’t …’

‘Brother –’ Sir Alexander had followed the earl up the winding stair. He put his hand on Lord Buchan’s shoulder. ‘Leave it now. Nothing will mend the harm that’s done.’ He eyed the vicious bruises on Isobel’s temple and cheek grimly. ‘There will be other sons. I’m sure your wife will take better care of herself next time.’

Lord Buchan was breathing deeply, the heavy blue mantle he wore falling across the bed. The brooch on his shoulder caught the candlelight in a cold glitter.

Weak from loss of blood Isobel was barely conscious. Around her the room was full of shadows. Dimly she knew that Mairi was there. She felt herself raised and feebly sipped the decoction of bramble, acrimony and horsetail in wine which was held to her mouth, then slowly, as another wave of pain overwhelmed her, the darkness closed over her again.

Mairi stared up at the earl, her expression carefully veiled. ‘She must sleep now, my lord. She has lost much blood.’

‘Please, father.’ Alice appeared out of the shadows. ‘Take my uncle away. If we are to save Aunt Isobel’s life she must have quiet.’

Lord Buchan moved back from the high bed. His face was grim. With one last glance down at his wife’s pale, bruised face he turned on his heel and strode towards the door, his spurs ringing on the stone flags beneath the dried heather.

Sir Alexander followed him and the two women were left alone with Isobel.

Alice glanced at Mairi. ‘Will she live?’

Mairi was fumbling in the bodice of her gown. She produced a necklace of dried rowan berries strung on a red thread. Carefully she bound it around Isobel’s throat. ‘St Bride and the Blessed Virgin willing,’ she said. ‘She bleeds still. Look.’ She indicated the stain, spreading on the sheet below the covers.

‘She did want to get rid of the child, didn’t she?’ Alice gently took hold of Isobel’s hand. ‘That is mortal sin.’

‘Sin against the earl, perhaps,’ Mairi pushed the pewter wine jug back into the embers to warm it. ‘My mistress deserves better than him.’

Alice looked shocked. ‘My uncle is one of the greatest earls in Scotland.’

‘He’s too old for her.’ Mairi was unrepentant. ‘And too hard. She’s like a wild bird, my little lady. She needs gentle handling. A true mate for her would be proud of her spirit, not try and crush it. Here, let me change her linen –’

Sickened at the sight of the blood Alice turned away to the fire. She shivered. ‘Is it true she loved Lord Carrick, do you think?’

Mairi frowned. Deftly packing the moss-filled strips of linen beneath her mistress’s hips she glanced up at Alice suspiciously. ‘She’s been faithful to her husband. That I know.’

‘That’s because he’s had her watched.’ Alice squatted in front of the fire, holding out her hands to it. ‘He brought me here to watch her, too. He’s afraid of her, Mairi. I saw that just now. He can’t understand her, or control her, save by force.’

Mairi was pulling the covers over Isobel once more. ‘She needs friends, not people to spy on her,’ she commented tartly.

‘And I am her friend.’ Climbing back to her feet Alice came back to the bed. ‘But how can I make her realise it?’

‘Friendship has to be earned.’ Mairi tightened her lips. ‘And proved. I’ll sit with her now, mistress, if you wish to go and rest.’

Alice hesitated. ‘You’ll call me if anything happens?’

‘Aye. I’ll call you.’

Mairi sat unmoving for a long time in the silent, empty chamber, her eyes not leaving Isobel’s face. Only when the candles on the coffer near her began to smoke and gutter into pools of grease did she stir. Stiffly she rose and went to sit on a stool before the fire, her eyes fixed on the flames.

Macduff visited Isobel later, sitting at her bedside, holding her hands in his. She moved a little, recognising him in the light of the single candle which burned on the table at the far side of the room.