Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  It was as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from her mind. There was nothing wrong in daydreaming. Her mistake had been to tell people about it. Everyone had their secret dreams and memories; she was no different from them. Except that she had talked about them. In future she would make sure that she kept them to herself.

  Buoyed up with sudden resolution Clare ran up to her bedroom and, carefully closing the door, she pulled open the drawer in her dressing table where she kept the candles. Shivering as her towel slipped to the floor, she paused. For a moment she frowned. She wanted to stand naked before the candle flame, arms raised to draw back the veil into the past. It seemed a dramatic, almost natural gesture to make, one of which Isobel would have approved; one she might have made herself. But was that somehow wrong? Did that smack of deliberately summoning spirits? Was that what Zak and Geoff were afraid of? For a moment she hesitated, tempted, then, with sudden self-consciousness she turned away. She pulled on some jeans and a sweater.

  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, the
n 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.