Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Not as long as you don’t wreck it.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘You’ll be safe as long as you want to stay there.’ He swung the Land Rover north and a spattering of sleet hit the windscreen. ‘Have you decided what you’re going to do, Clare?’

  She didn’t reply. It was only just sinking in that he was taking her across town, far away from his flat and from Earthwatch. She would be alone again. Alone with Isobel.

  She shivered. ‘I should have brought my car, and saved you the journey.’ Zak was staying at the Caledonian Hotel; she could always reach him – but she had seen his expression of relief when the phone rang and interrupted them; she knew he didn’t know what to do.

  ‘It’s safer where it is. You don’t want it parked outside your front door. It’s too easy to spot, especially with that great dent.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ She desperately wanted to put out her hand to touch him. Since he had made love to her that first, violent time in the flat he hadn’t made a move to touch her. Save for the tenderness he had shown when he had comforted her after her nightmare – something he had never alluded to again – he hadn’t made a move in her direction.

  Was it true then? Had he slept with her just to win some cheap victory over her? Did he now despise her more than ever?

  He drew up at last at a house in a circle of terraced Georgian houses built around a centre garden. ‘Here we are. I think you’ll like it here. It’s more your scene, I suspect, than the Canongate.’

  Diving into the back of the Land Rover for her case he missed the look of misery which crossed her face. By the time she had climbed down from the passenger seat her expression was under control.

  It was a first-floor flat, with a large high-ceilinged living room looking out towards the gardens, with two bedrooms behind it. All were beautifully furnished – some antiques, some tasteful and very modern pieces. Between them stood some tall, glossy pot plants. Clare looked round in delight.

  ‘It’s beautiful. Who does it belong to?’

  ‘A friend.’ Neil smiled. ‘She’s a lecturer at the university. She’s taking a few months’ sabbatical.’ He slapped a walnut chest of drawers. ‘I may be a Philistine myself but she trusts me enough to give me a key just in case I find myself with a stranded female of impeccable taste who needs a roof.’

  ‘I see.’ Clare forced herself to laugh.

  Neil could sense the panic building in her again. He frowned. It was better for her if she learned to stand on her own feet. She must not come to rely on him as she had obviously relied on Paul. ‘I have to get back now. I’ve lots of things to do,’ he said firmly. ‘Will you be all right? I have to sort out Kathleen next. She’s moving out of my flat for good.’

  ‘Oh?’ Clare didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I value loyalty very highly,’ he went on gently. ‘She betrayed me when she rang your husband.’

  ‘She came back early,’ Clare said inconsequentially.

  ‘She came back to check up on us, and to make me throw you out. There wouldn’t have been room for both of you in that flat.’ He sighed. He hadn’t given Kathleen a thought when he had offered Clare the use of it. ‘She’s a very jealous woman.’

  ‘I can’t think why. There’s nothing to be jealous of, after all, is there?’ Clare straightened her shoulders. He was an attractive man, but surely the passion that had so swamped her, that had given her her first orgasm, had all been inside her head. She had been taking advantage of him as much as he had been taking advantage of her. She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I gathered we were both merely amusing ourselves.’

  Neil looked at her hard. ‘If you say so.’ He was unsmiling. He had been about to ask her what she was going to do about dinner – perhaps have a quick snack with her somewhere. Instead he turned to the door. ‘Do you still want to help with Earthwatch?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then I’ll ring you tomorrow. You’d better not come to the office until we know what Paul is going to do, but there are lots of things you can do from here. I’ll bring you some envelopes to fill. That’ll keep you busy. Sleep well.’

  He was gone before she could say a word.

  There was very little food in the kitchen. Clare poked about in the cupboards and found a jar of coffee and a couple of packets of biscuits. She made herself some black coffee and shared a few of the biscuits with Casta, then she unpacked her clothes. The flat was very silent. It felt all wrong, as if it resented her presence. It was beautiful, peaceful and asleep until its owner returned. She wondered briefly who this unknown woman was. Another of Neil’s admirers – he obviously had many. After all, he was an attractive man.

  Restlessly she paced around, listening to the wind and the hail against the windows. Winter was coming with a vengeance. She turned on the TV on the counter in the kitchen to drown the sound, and left it on for company as she went into the hall and fiddled with the controls of the central heating, trying to make it come on. She desperately wished that Neil had stayed a bit longer. The flat was very empty and quiet. Casta had remained in the kitchen, sitting subdued in a corner. Clare stared down at the key Neil had left on the telephone table in the hall, then she reached for her coat.

  The night was blustery and very cold. They walked around the streets for half an hour then Clare turned back, defeated, smelling the bitter scent of a brewery on the wind as she opened the front door and let them back into the flat. It was warm now, but emptier than ever. Casta shot past her and back into the kitchen.

  Clare stared round, sensing a slight change in the atmosphere.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, I don’t want you. Go away.’

  She went back into the hall and looked down at the phone. She had to call Zak. She needed someone, now. Crossing her fingers she dialled the hotel, but Mr de Sallis was neither in his room nor, when they paged him, in the restaurant or bars. ‘Zak! Oh Zak!’ She could feel the palms of her hands sweating.

  By the time she had had a bath she knew she couldn’t fight it any more.

  Isobel or Neil?

  If she went to bed alone, Isobel would come. The alternative was to swallow her pride and beg Neil to come back.

  Supposing he refused? She looked down at the telephone in an agony of indecision, then at last she picked it up and dialled the number of the flat in the Canongate.

  The phone rang on for a long time before she gave up and slowly went back into the kitchen. She turned off the TV and made a bed for Casta under the table with an old rug she had found in the hall chest. Then she switched off the light and closed the door.

  The silence of the flat closed round her again at once, and with it, as she sat down slowly on the carved Regency sofa in the large drawing room, came the sound of horses’ hooves, the smell of leather and horse sweat and the heavy breathing of men and animals, crowding in around her in the immaculate, cold room.

  ‘Please go away. I don’t want to know what happened …’ Her voice sounded hollow and strange, as if it came from a long way away. ‘Please, leave me alone. Please …’

  Eleyne, Dowager Countess of Mar, was waiting for them in the courtyard of Kildrummy Castle. She took Isobel’s face between her thin, heavily-ringed fingers and kissed her, oblivious of the milling horses around them. ‘Thank God, you are safe! I had such terrible dreams! Where is Robert?’

  Isobel shrugged, trying to blink back her tears. She couldn’t speak for misery.

  The castle, strong and well stocked in the fertile valley of the Don in the heart of Mar, was like home now. There they could tend the wounded properly; they could wash themselves and find clean clothes and sleep in beds after the long nights on the hard ground.

  Strathdon was quiet; the scouts reported no sightings of the enemy behind them, and slowly they began to recover from their ordeal. In the small fields the oats were ripening to a sheen of silver, and the wheat was lush and golden. The crops were harvested and stacked inside the castle, in the outbuildings clustered around the inside of the massive c
urtain walls, and even in the great hall itself sacks of grain were piled high. Their stores of food were good; they were safe and they should have been happy. But still there was no word from the west; no word from the King. It was as if he and his small band of courageous survivors had vanished from the face of the earth. The Queen and the women – his sisters, his daughter and Isobel – watched and waited daily, desperately hoping for news. But no news came.

  Isobel grew thin; there were dark circles beneath her eyes. She watched and waited with the others, outwardly cheerful, outwardly friendly with the Queen who was less hostile, more conciliatory now that Robert wasn’t there, and often she played and talked with little Marjorie of whom she had grown very fond. But inside she was torn apart. Her thoughts never left Robert; in her imagination he was tired and pale as she had seen him last; wounded, bloodstained but unbowed; still brave, still determined and still every inch a king.

  The huge army under Edward of Caernarvon – King Edward’s son – was spotted long before it entered Strathdon, winding purposefully into the centre of Mar towards Kildrummy. At once Lord Atholl, Robert’s former brother-in-law, and Nigel Bruce called a council of war in the great hall. ‘We cannot stay here. We must go on. We have to save the women at all cost!’ Atholl’s face was white and strained. ‘We must take them north. Robert is not going to come here now. He must have gone west towards Ireland. We must do as he said and go on to Norway.’

  ‘But he said he’d make his way here!’ Elizabeth put in desperately. Like all of them, she felt safe at Kildrummy.

  ‘Not now; not with Lord Pembroke and Prince Edward about to camp on our doorstep.’ Atholl frowned. ‘Somehow we have to hold Kildrummy for Robert and at the same time get you ladies away to safety, in case the worst happens.’ He glanced at Nigel who had been sitting glumly on one of the piled sacks of corn. ‘What do you think we should do?’

  ‘You’re right. We have to get the ladies away. And now, within the hour. Edward’s army will be here by tomorrow. Our informers said they were moving fast.’ He stood up. ‘What do you say, shall we toss for it, John?’ He grinned at Atholl. ‘One of us will go with the ladies and one of us will stay and hold Kildrummy for Robert.’ He fished a coin out of his pouch and bounced it gently on his palm. Lord Atholl glanced at the Queen, as though doubting whether she would approve, but she made no protest. He looked back at Nigel and nodded. ‘We toss for who stays then? I call heads.’ Every eye in the room followed the silver coin as it spun up into the air catching a slanting beam from the setting sun as it flew, and then fell to the floor. Nigel crouched over it without touching it. He bit his lip. ‘I stay it seems. So be it. I shall hold the castle for the King.’ He tucked the coin back into his pouch, his disappointment obvious.

  By dusk they were ready to leave, the women and Lord Atholl with two of his best men, all wrapped in black cloaks. They were all afraid. Capture meant death, of that there was no doubt, but the women were Robert’s weak point, the people who made him vulnerable. They had to escape. Kildrummy would, with any luck, hold the English army distracted for months – impregnable as it was with its huge stores of food and its deep wells – but they could not risk being trapped there. They had to reach Norway and safety.

  Nigel took Isobel aside as the Queen was fussing over her step-daughter’s cloak. ‘I promised the King I would take care of you, my lady.’ He gave her his boyish grin. ‘But as fate has decreed that I have to stay here John will look after you instead of me. He will keep you safe for Robert. You can trust him with your life.’

  Isobel caught his hand. ‘Can’t I stay here with you and great grandmamma?’ Eleyne had once more refused to leave. ‘When Robert comes we can all greet him together – please. You said yourself the castle is impregnable, so there can be no danger –’

  ‘No.’ Nigel glanced over his shoulder. The hall was bustling, full of men preparing for the siege. The gates and doors were already shut – all but the small postern above the deep ravine known as the Back Den, through which the escaping party would creep as soon as full darkness came. ‘You must go. It is imperative that you get to Norway.’ He was adamant.

  She bit her lip. ‘You will take care of yourself.’ Impulsively she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. Sometimes he was very like his brother – with an angle of the head, an expression in the eye which tore at her heart and, just occasionally, in his determination to be obeyed.

  He squeezed her hand and then released it. ‘I shall hold Kildrummy for the King. Don’t worry about us. There is no way the English will ever take this castle.’

  The great courtyard was lit with torches as men and women scurried to and fro – people from outlying farmsteads and villages taking cover within the great walls. Leading their horses, the small band of women and Lord Atholl and his two handpicked men slipped out of the postern gate as Lord Atholl beckoned them forward, his finger to his lips. As soon as they were through it the gate was pushed shut and they heard the heavy bolts clang home. The castle was sealed and they were outside it.

  The darkness of the deep ravine was absolute, the noise of their passing muffled by the sound of the small burn pouring over the rocks. The air smelled of cool damp moss; it was cold and dank, the rocks slippery beneath the women’s leather-soled shoes and the horses’ hooves in the darkness. Once Isobel fell. She saved herself by clinging to her horse’s neck, but her foot plunged into the icy water and she felt her ankle turn. Almost she cried out, then she felt John Atholl’s hand beneath her arm and they were moving on, creeping further and further from the castle.

  Near by a horse whinnied in the night and Isobel’s heart stopped beating. Instinctively she put her hand on her mare’s nose to stop her replying and she saw the others do the same. Somewhere near them were other riders, and they had to be the enemy.

  She saw Lord Atholl’s face, near hers, grim in the starlight. They had left it too late; they should not have waited until dark. The enemy were already here. They could hear subdued voices now and a laugh, cut off short from somewhere behind them in the trees. The English were flanking the castle, having slipped north through the broad valley as dusk fell.

  Behind them Kildrummy appeared to slumber. The castle was in darkness, the walls patrolled by the garrison, silent as they watched and waited.

  Lord Atholl glanced upwards, and Isobel, following his gaze, saw the rim of the moon appearing above the trees. He looked back towards the castle and Isobel, beside him, could feel his indecision, his panic in the darkness. Somewhere close by they heard a horse’s hoof strike a rock and a subdued curse from one of the men. Isobel swallowed, her mouth dry with fear. She glanced at Atholl. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and began to move on.

  They reached the end of the ravine. Ahead of them the track sloped away across open meadows before plunging once more into the forest which covered the lower slopes of the hills. Once in the forest they could breathe again perhaps, but the meadowland in between was open and clearly visible in the starlight. Behind them the moon was growing brighter by the second as it swam above the trees on the ridge. The small band of men and women halted beneath a clump of whispering aspen and stared across the tussocky ground. There was no sign of life. The English too had taken cover. Soundlessly Lord Atholl pointed up. A mass of cloud was streaming towards them, black against the starlight. ‘When it covers the moon,’ he mouthed, ‘get ready to ride.’ Silently they all mounted, glad that the wind in the aspens and the water on the rocks masked any sounds they might make, then they all stood watching the sky as the patchy clouds blotted out the stars in their race towards the moon. In a moment they reached it and the meadow slowly disappeared into the darkness.

  As silently as they could, in single file, they cantered across the meadow, holding their breath, hearing the movement of the horses through the long grasses and the thud of the hooves on the dry earth, but no one saw them. There was no warning shout, and long before the moonlight spread again across the silvered meadows they had
gained the forest, and were climbing steadily towards the hills.

  The first attack on Kildrummy came at midnight. From their hiding place in the mountains north of the castle they watched the fires flare, and heard the shouts of men and the scream of horses as the huge army launched itself upon the castle. Under cover of darkness Prince Edward’s men had dragged siege engines into place and already the huge machines were hurling rocks at the great walls. As first dawn broke Atholl and the women with him looked back at the distant grey-pink granite walls of the castle, so long secure in its pocket in the hills, and around it the tiny black figures moving to and fro, setting up tents, drawing siege engines closer, all the signs of a huge army, settling in for a long siege.

  Lord Atholl was tight-lipped as he stood and looked down, his eyes straining in the glare of the sunlight. He had nearly led his precious charges straight into the enemy’s jaws. He murmured a prayer for Sir Nigel and the garrison of Kildrummy, then he turned his back on the castle and headed north.

  He did not let them rest, even at night. Beneath the huge, red harvest moon they rode on through the mountains, threading their way north-west through the glens towards Strathspey. They forded the Spey in the heat of the midday sun, setting the horses into the broad river above a series of cataracts where the smooth granite glittered blue and rose and white beneath the torrents of water. Around them the air was fragrant with pine and soft uncut hay and wild autumn roses.

  Then it was on into the higher mountains and over the empty heather moors, purple as far as the eye could see. They passed a lonely loch, set in a ring of hills. On an island in the centre a castle stood sentinel in water black with wind ripples. Gulls swooped and screamed but still they dared not stop. Reining their horses towards the north they skirted it, watching for signs of life, and headed once more upwards towards the high forest, the mountain passes and the moors, the haunt of snipe and dotterel, deer and on the high passes ptarmigan and eagle.