Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  On the deep sill, soaked with rain, stood a small jar. In it was an ointment of honey and beeswax and salt, thrice blessed beneath the moon. Mairi had made it for her; Mairi who had brought her an hour before the precious water in which a red hot iron from the forge had been dropped.

  ‘Drink it, my lady. The savine from the south is finished, but this will make you barren without making you ill as the savine did,’ she whispered, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that no one overheard. Isobel did not hesitate. She drank the water and gave Mairi the goblet, then Mairi had reached into the pocket of her apron. ‘Before your lord comes,’ she whispered, ‘you must place this ointment inside yourself. He’ll not guess if you do it quickly without him seeing. If the iron water fails, this will protect you, Iseabail, ma chridhe.’

  Throwing open the door, Lord Buchan caught his breath at the sight of his wife, silhouetted against the flickering sky beyond the window. He stood watching her for a moment, conscious of the chill which had touched his spine. Again the lightning flickered and he saw her white skin take on a blue, ethereal glow. She didn’t move. All her attention was fixed on some point far out at sea. If she heard her husband she gave no sign. Beside her the jar was empty.

  He stared at the angle of her shoulders, the line of her spine, the soft curve of her buttocks, shadowed by the pale flickering candlelight behind her and, slowly, despising himself for doing it, once more he made the sign of the cross.

  Abruptly he stepped into the room and hurled the door shut behind him. She didn’t move. Only the slight tightening of her knuckles on the stone beside the window showed that she knew he was there.

  For a moment the moon showed behind the streaming clouds. It was full, low in the east above the black jumble of the heaving water. Isobel stared at it, feeling the gentle touch of its light on her body, then as the cloud thickened again and darkness cloaked the sea, she turned and faced her husband.

  11

  Sarah Collins always walked to church on Sunday, following the long winding road into Dedham from Great Headham, allowing forty minutes for the three-mile journey. She never asked Clare if she would like to go too and Clare had never suggested it. As she left she looked back at Clare’s bedroom window, and shivered. In the church she glanced around as the congregation filed quietly in and took their places, then slowly she sank to her knees on the tapestry hassock and folded her hands in front of her face. She was still praying when the organ began softly to play the introit.

  Clare wasn’t sure what had brought her back to the present. One minute she was there in the dark, shadowed room at Slains and the next she was staring round her own sun-filled bedroom. The figures had gone, the past had retreated and she was alone again. Slowly she climbed out of bed. Her body was tense and excited, her heart thumping painfully beneath her ribs as she walked in her nightdress to the window and pushed it open. She leaned out, taking deep breaths of the fresh cold air, feeling it cool her burning face and body beneath the thin silk. She was trembling violently. Why? Why had it happened? She had not done any yoga; she had not meditated. She had had no candle, no thought of Isobel. She had been thinking of Duncairn admittedly, but in the present, not the past. She swallowed hard. Dear God! Was Geoffrey right? Was she possessed?

  Her knuckles whitened on the window sill. Had this happened to Aunt Margaret too? She put her head in her hands, then slowly she straightened. If it had happened to Aunt Margaret then it wasn’t just her; she was not mad; she hadn’t courted some kind of evil. Isobel was part of her family, as much a part of her inheritance as was Duncairn. She was returning for a reason. There had to be a reason. Clare bit her lip, staring round the room. What reason could this woman, dead now for nearly seven hundred years, have for haunting her descendants? Why was she returning again and again to tell her story?

  Slowly she forced herself to get dressed. Fawn cords, a thick sweater against the cold wind, then she brushed her hair hard almost as if she were trying to clear her head by the fierce wielding of the hairbrush. She ran downstairs to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. A faint smell of cooking was coming from the oven. Sarah must have put something on before she left for church. Only then did she call Casta. The dog came at last, peering sheepishly round the door, and after a moment’s hesitation bounded into the room, tail wagging. Clare gave her a hug. ‘We’ll go for a walk across the fields as soon as I’ve had my coffee,’ she whispered. ‘Then Sarah will be back from church and we needn’t be alone.’

  The wind was whisking leaves across the gravel, tossing the branches of the trees to and fro as she walked across the drive towards the gate, and the roar and rustle of the leaves completely masked the sound of the car driving slowly towards her up the drive. It drew to a halt near her and the driver sat still for a moment staring at her.

  Casta raced back across the lawn and jumped the low fence, barking, as Clare turned to face her visitor.

  They stared at one another for a moment then slowly Neil opened his car door and climbed out.

  ‘Mrs Royland?’ He made it sound like a question, though he had recognised her at once. He eyed the slacks, the heavy sweater, the brogues. Even in country clothes, her hair tangled by the wind and with the bare minimum of make-up she managed to look elegant. He could feel his resentment welling up again.

  The decision to drive up via Suffolk had come to him suddenly, in his hotel room after the dinner in Long Acre with his two London colleagues. Even as he drove through Dedham and found the turning which led to Great Headham he had not made the decision to go in. He just wanted to look at the house and see for himself what kind of extravagant lifestyle the Roylands led, trying to justify his irrational dislike of Clare.

  From the lane all he had been able to see was the long drive, the cluster of warm red roofs, the old peg tiles glowing beneath the blustery sunshine, and the trees around the front of the house and on the lawns which surrounded it. Almost without realising it he had turned the Land Rover in through the gates. And then he had seen her.

  ‘My name is Neil Forbes.’ He held out his hand to her formally. ‘I wonder if I could speak to you for a few minutes?’ His voice was coldly polite.

  Ordering the dog to be quiet she shook his hand warily. ‘We’ve met before, haven’t we?’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t quite remember where –’

  ‘At Duncairn. We didn’t meet, but I was there.’

  ‘Of course. You were at the castle.’ She remembered him clearly now. He had watched her, intruded on her privacy and Isobel’s …

  She pushed her hands deep into her pockets. She didn’t want to speak to him; she didn’t want to speak to anyone yet. Isobel was still too much with her. The memory of that moonlit room and the naked defiant woman still overwhelmed her, and in a strange way it still excited her. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Forbes, but it is not a very good time. As you see, I am just going out.’

  ‘It’ll only take a few minutes, Mrs Royland. And it is important.’ He folded his arms. The sexy bitch had been in bed with someone. He could see it in her eyes, in the glow on her face. And it hadn’t been her husband. Paul Royland was in Zurich. ‘I think you would want to hear what it is that I have to say to you.’ The slight undercurrent of threat in his tone was obvious. ‘It is about Duncairn.’

  Clare studied him coolly. ‘What about Duncairn?’ She was on the defensive now, wondering if he was from the oil company, or if he was somehow connected with Paul. In either case she had no wish to speak to him.

  ‘You have been offered a very large sum of money for the estate, Mrs Royland. I should be interested to know just how long it took you to accept.’ His voice was heavy with scorn. ‘I can’t believe you need the money that badly.’ He glanced disparagingly over his shoulder at the beautiful old house. ‘Did you think at all about the repercussions on the people in the village up there? Did you consider the environmental ramifications which the development of the area will bring? Did you think about Jack Grant at the hotel? Or the castle? Or the birds and t
he plants and the other wildlife? Did you, Mrs Royland?’ He took a step nearer to her.

  Clare, for a moment so astonished by his attack that she didn’t answer, was suddenly furiously angry. ‘What I do is none of your business, Mr Forbes! How dare you! It is none of your business at all! Please leave! I assure you I don’t need a stranger to point out my responsibilities at Duncairn!’ She was white with anger.

  ‘Someone obviously has to, Mrs Royland!’

  ‘No! No one has to! Least of all a complete stranger. Please leave, Mr Forbes, or I shall call the police!’

  To her fury he smiled suddenly. ‘I think it would take your local flying squad quite a time to arrive here. And you would have to reach the telephone first.’ He waited, watching with detached interest as the colour in her face, one minute animated and glowing with anger, drained away, leaving her white as before. But her eyes did not lose their courage. ‘Are you threatening me, Mr Forbes?’

  ‘Not physically, no.’ He put his hands into his pockets. He did not move any closer to her. ‘I am merely here to warn you. Scotland has always suffered from absentee English landlords. They don’t care for the country; they don’t love the land. All they care about is the amount of money they can make out ofit –’

  ‘I am a Scot, Mr Forbes –’

  ‘No, Mrs Royland, you are English. English in your heart and your methods; married to an Englishman. English to the core!’ He meant it as an insult as only a nationalist Scot can mean it. ‘And now Duncairn doesn’t want you. You do not belong there and it has never belonged to you. Keep away, Mrs Royland. Allow the people who love the place to fight for it –’

  Even as he said it, he knew he was wrong. She belonged there. The day he saw her the echoes had reached out to her, not to him. He had felt them, yes, but they had spoken to her.

  They stared at each other angrily for a moment, the leaves whirling around their feet as the wind got up again. Casta gave a quiet throaty growl as she sat at Clare’s feet.

  Neil took a deep breath. ‘I am sorry, but this is something I feel very strongly about.’

  ‘So do I, I assure you.’ She was trying very hard to steady herself. ‘As it happens I am going up to Scotland within the next day or two.’

  ‘Don’t bother. You’ll only be in our way.’

  ‘Our way?’ Clare gasped. ‘Who exactly is “our”?’ She was furiously indignant. ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘Earthwatch. We shall be co-ordinating the opposition to on-shore oil prospecting and drilling throughout the east coast of Scotland. We intend to fight Sigma all the way.’

  She frowned, trying to collect her wits. ‘How exactly do you know so much about all this?’

  ‘We have our methods.’ He swung round with an exclamation of disgust as another car turned into the drive and following his gaze Clare saw Sir David Royland’s old Bentley in the distance. Slowly it began to make its way towards them between the trees.

  With relief she turned to Neil. ‘I think you’d better go. That is my husband’s brother, and I don’t want any trouble.’

  ‘I don’t intend to make trouble, Mrs Royland. Not here.’ Neil looked grave. ‘However, as you have visitors I shall leave. I can’t expect support from pseudo-environmentalists like Sir David any more than from you –’

  ‘You know my brother-in-law?’ Behind them the Bentley drew to a halt beneath the trees.

  ‘By reputation. New jobs for rural areas – that is his ticket isn’t it? Very praiseworthy until you discover that the jobs are for newcomers and the people who have lived in the area for centuries are excluded from his concern.’ Neil climbed into his battered Land Rover. ‘I’m glad I’ve met you at last, Mrs Royland. I don’t suppose there will be any need for us to meet again. I suggest if you want to avoid any unpleasantness you keep away from Duncairn from now on.’ Slamming his car door, he turned on the ignition and reversed violently away, sending the gravel flying from beneath the wheels before he drove, without a backward glance, down the drive.

  ‘Your visitor seemed in quite a hurry.’ Gillian heaved herself out of the passenger seat. ‘I hope we haven’t driven him away.’

  Clare gave a rueful grimace. She found she was trembling. ‘You did actually, and I’m very grateful.’

  ‘Who was he?’ David walked around the car and took her arm. ‘Are you all right, Clare? You look shaken. Where is Mrs Collins?’

  Clare took a deep breath. ‘I think he was some kind of environmental campaigner. He seemed to think I’d sold Duncairn and he didn’t like it. I think he was threatening me.’

  ‘How did he know where you lived?’ David asked sharply.

  Clare shrugged. ‘He was a Scot. He seemed to know Duncairn. He knew all about the offer, the details – everything.’

  David shook his head. ‘They have very good sources, these people. They are into everything. A damn nuisance! I’m glad we turned up when we did.’

  ‘So am I.’ Clare gave a reluctant smile. ‘Come in. Sarah will be back from church soon.’

  She saw David and Gillian look at one another. Gillian nodded. ‘We’d love to scrounge a cup of coffee, Clare, darling, if that’s all right. We’re having lunch with David’s agent and his wife, so we thought we’d pop in. Just in case you were lonely, with Paul away in Zurich.’

  ‘Paul and I had a bit of a chat,’ David went on as they followed Clare indoors, ‘just before he left yesterday. We talked about the trust and other family matters, and he asked us to look in on you, to make sure you were all right.’

  ‘It was kind of you to come.’ The house was full of the delicious smell of roasting chicken as Clare led them into the drawing room. Her heart had sunk. So that was it. A deputation. The Roylands were rallying behind Paul already.

  ‘He’s worried about you, Clare,’ Gillian put in. She lowered herself cautiously into a chair. ‘You’re too much alone here. You rattle around in this great house.’

  ‘I have Mrs Collins.’ Clare was on the defensive now.

  Through the window she could see Sarah walking slowly up the drive. ‘I’m not alone, I can assure you. Besides, I enjoy my own company. Look, Sarah’s just got back. I’ll go and ask her to make us some coffee –’

  ‘No. You talk to Gillian. I’ll go.’ David was on his feet again almost as soon as he had sat down.

  Gillian and Clare sat and looked at each other a; the door closed. ‘Men!’ Gillian said comfortably after a moment. ‘I expect he wants to wash his hands.’ She gave a light laugh. ‘How silly! He could have said.’

  Restlessly Clare stood up again too. Her brain was whirling. Isobel, Duncairn, Neil Forbes – and now the Roylands. She stood staring down at the dead ash in the fireplace, trying to collect her thoughts, trying to think of something to say to Gillian who was sitting behind her. ‘Did they settle matters about the trust?’ she asked at last.

  Gillian shrugged. ‘God knows. I think Paul is being a bit crass about that. He swore to David he didn’t need the money, so why turn the whole trust on its head? Even Geoffrey thinks it’s too bad.’

  Clare thought she detected a certain uneasinesss in her visitor. She frowned. ‘I think the whole idea is stupid. I wish he’d never brought it up.’ Restlessly she glanced at the clock. ‘Where on earth has David got to? Why has he been so long?’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ Gillian said hastily. ‘Leave him, Clare. It’s nice for us to get the chance to talk.’

  ‘I know.’ Clare gave a brittle smile. ‘But still, I think I’ll go and see what’s happened. If you’re going out to lunch, you’ll need to hurry –’ She was uncomfortable and suspicious. It was unlike David to bother himself with domestic trivia; ordering coffee was not something he would normally ever do.

  She closed the door after her firmly, and took a deep breath, looking round the silent hall. The cloakroom door was ajar, the room beyond it in darkness. So much for washing his hands.

  He must have gone straight to the kitchen after all.

  The
kitchen door was half open. From the shadowed hall she could see Sarah standing near the table. Behind her on the cooker she could see the chicken in its roasting dish. Sarah had obviously been going to baste the bird before she had even taken off her coat. Clare wasn’t sure what made her stop and listen; perhaps it was the same uneasy suspicion which had driven her from the drawing room.

  ‘You do understand, Mrs Collins, I would never normally ask anyone questions like this.’ She could hear her brother-in-law’s voice at its most confidential and reassuring. ‘But we are all so concerned for her state of mind. My brother has been enormously grateful for the way you’ve kept an eye on Mrs Royland.’ He paused. From where Clare was standing he was out of sight, behind the door. ‘Tell me, is she still having these strange turns of hers?’

  Clare clenched her fists. The bastard! But something stopped her pushing open the door and bursting in. She wanted to hear what Sarah had to say.

  Sarah was nodding slowly. ‘On Friday, Mrs Cassidy rang and I went up to Mrs Royland’s bedroom to tell her there was a call. She had said she was going up to rest. That’s what she usually says when she’s going to do her meditation as she calls it.’ Clare could see the woman twisting her gloves between her fingers uncomfortably. She had scooped them off the table as David confronted her. ‘It frightens me, Sir David, it really does. And the dog. The dog won’t go near her when she’s doing it. Its hackles rise and it runs away.’

  ‘What exactly does she do?’ David asked quietly.

  ‘She sits on the floor, with this lighted candle in front of her, and oh, sir, I’m so afraid sometimes, it’s all I can do not to give in my notice and go. I can’t bear being in the same house with her, and that’s the truth. If Mr Royland hadn’t begged me to stay –’