Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  Isobel looked round in growing panic. The cage was some six feet long, and about five feet deep, securely bolted into the crenellations of the wall. Beneath her feet, under the oak floor boards there was a dizzying drop: the height of the tower to the ground beneath. Above her head they had half roofed the cage with heather to give a meagre shelter from the sun and rain. She tried cautiously to stand up and found that she couldn’t without crouching.

  There was a shout below. She looked down. Two boys had stationed themselves in the scrub beneath the wall. One put his fingers to his mouth and whistled, then he stood and groped around his feet. In another moment a stone whistled through the air. It struck the heather roof of the cage and fell harmlessly back to the ground; a second followed it. It fell into the cage and skittered across the floor to Isobel’s feet.

  ‘Mother of God!’ She moved as far back as she could, but still they could see her. Still they could watch her fear.

  The boys shouted at someone in the distance and she saw two other figures heading across the green from the town. Behind them two women, alerted by the noise and curious to see what it was that had appeared on the castle walls, made their way towards her too. Isobel watched in terror. There was nowhere to hide save the privy. Desperately she crept behind the small wooden partition and pressed herself flat against the castle wall.

  Beneath the cage the crowd grew all afternoon. She could hear the shouts and cat calls, see the hail of missiles which from time to time rained down between the bars. Twice she crept out from her tiny refuge and each time she was greeted by a chorus of yells as she knelt on the cage floor, blinking in the afternoon sunlight.

  All afternoon they stayed amusing themselves at her expense. The crowd sometimes grew and sometimes thinned, but always they were there, the people of Berwick, taunting and tormenting her.

  Somehow Isobel held back her tears. She mustn’t give way. She must not give them the pleasure of seeing her suffering.

  Slowly the sun went down in a blaze of red and gold and the shadow of the castle below the cage lengthened across the ground. The evening grew chill. One by one the people below began to leave, making their way back to their homes and firesides. By the time it was completely dark the meadow below was deserted.

  Isobel was shivering violently. The wind had risen, whistling around the ramparts and through the bars. She felt her way back to the back of the cage and peered between the crenellations, through the bars of the door towards the wall walk. The guards had vanished in the darkness. The castle was silent.

  She could hear her teeth chattering violently now. Behind her and below her, all around there was nothing but a void of blackness. She peered out at it, trying to force her eyes to pierce the night, but she could see nothing and for the first time in her life she was afraid of the dark. Desperately she tried to huddle out of the wind, clutching her ragged gown and kirtle around her. Beneath her shift her legs and feet were bare.

  Then someone came. A woman, tall and slim and beautifully dressed, swathed in warm furs, with a page behind her carrying a flare, a woman who in another life might have been Isobel’s friend, her equal. Her arms were full of rugs. She beckoned one of the guards forward out of the darkness into the crazy tossing light of the flare. ‘Open the cage and give her these.’

  The guard did as he was bid. In the wildly leaping shadows he fitted a key into the lock and pulled open the barred door. The bundle that was thrust through to Isobel contained two blankets and a fur-lined cloak. Isobel clutched them gratefully in the flickering light, terrified that the wind might tear them from her grasp and snatch them away through the bars into the great black darkness behind her. The door was slammed shut and relocked, then the woman stepped closer and stared in at her. She had a haughty, stern face which showed very little compassion. Merely practicality. If the prisoner froze to death on the first night of her exhibition the lesson to the people of Scotland would be lost and her punishment cut far shorter than King Edward intended.

  She studied Isobel’s white face in the leaping torchlight and for a moment her hostility wavered. ‘I will have some food brought for you,’ she said, the wind whipping the words from her lips, ‘and tomorrow I will see you get some warmer clothing.’

  Then she was gone and Isobel was left alone once more.

  With shaking hands she fastened the cloak around her and wrapped herself in the rugs. They were warm and comforting against the wind.

  Some time later the flare appeared again upon the wall. A servant brought her a bowl of onion stew and a pasty; there was a jug of wine and, best of all, a lantern. She stood the lantern in the shelter of the privy wall, terrified that it would blow out. Behind the panels of polished horn a small tallow candle was burning rapidly lower in a pool of smelly grease, but it lasted long enough for her to see what she was eating. She drank the rapidly cooling stew and ate the pasty ravenously; then as the candle died, she sat with her back to the castle wall, cocooned in rugs, the jug of wine inside them with her, drinking from it from time to time, and staring out into the black windy night with its scattering of stars. By the time she fell into a restless sleep the jug was empty.

  The hotel room was in darkness, save for the circle of candlelight. The woman sitting cross-legged on the floor was pale too, dark like Isobel, with the same bone structure of the face, but where Isobel’s hair was long and matted and wild, Clare’s was shoulderlength and fashionably styled and glossy. Where Isobel was dressed in a torn filthy gown which had once been rich with embroidery and colour but was now bleached and stained, Clare was wearing a plain deep red sweater with a cowl neck, and trousers. Both women had bare feet. The eyes of both were closed, their faces calm as their minds reached out to one another across the centuries.

  Neil found he was shivering in the draught from the open window but he made no move to get up and close it. The rain spattered on to the sill and the blowing curtains smudged and grew wet. His eyes were fixed on Clare’s face. Her voice had been low, unemotional as if she were dictating, but his skin crawled at the words she spoke in response to his hesitant, quiet questions. ‘Talk to her very softly and persistently,’ Zak had told him. ‘I think you’ll find she will answer.’

  In his mind’s eye he could see her, this other distant woman from the past; see her shadowy shape, the muted blaze of her eyes, the ivory shade of her skin, see the bars throwing their shadows across her face. He shook himself suddenly. Christ! She wasn’t in his mind. She was real! There in the room with them. He could feel the small hairs on the back of his neck erect. He was terribly conscious of the dark town beyond the window, of the wind playing in the castle ruins above the sweep of the river, and suddenly for one crazy moment he shared her fear of the dark. It had been this time of year, surely, that she had been brought to Berwick, perhaps a little earlier.

  Somewhere in the night he heard the yelping scream of a gull and she was gone, back to the shadows and Clare and he were alone.

  ‘Clare!’ He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Clare, can you hear me?’

  Below, through the floor he could hear the steady beat of music. There was a distant whoop from the dancers.

  ‘Clare!’ His voice sharpened. ‘Clare?’ He launched himself across the room and pulled her into his arms. Her eyes flew open and she stared at him blankly for a moment. ‘Neil? What’s wrong?’

  ‘You haven’t done it! You haven’t told her to go! You let her use you; you let her possess you, Clare!’ His voice was raised in anger. ‘For God’s sake, tell her to go!’

  ‘I can’t, Neil.’ She pulled away from him angrily and got up. ‘Don’t you see? She needs me!’ She went to the window and leaned out, feeling the wind and rain on her face. A few lighted windows showed as pale squares in the darkness. Beyond them the night was black. It had been black in the cage: cold, desolate, terrifyingly black, hanging out in the darkness above the empty void.

  She glanced back into the room, biting her lip. Isobel was still there somewhere, waiting fo
r her, her loneliness tangible. Leaving the window open she turned back to the candle and stooping, she picked it up and held it high, watching the leaping shadows slide up the wall. ‘I’m listening,’ she whispered. ‘You’re not alone. I’m listening.’

  Isobel woke with a blinding headache. The green, the town walls and beyond them the countryside and the river were lost in a thick white mist, luminous in the darkness. She was stiff and shivering and her rugs and clothes were heavy with clinging moisture. For a long time she didn’t move. The wind had dropped and the world was completely silent. Somewhere in the distance she thought she could hear the gentle sighing of the sea on the rocky shingle. Slowly the mist grew pale as the darkness shrugged back towards the west. It was very cold.

  They brought her bread, fruit and wine just before dawn, then once again she was alone, watching the sun rise from the sea in a blaze of red and gold as it thrust aside the clouds and the sky behind her turned to pale green.

  It was not long before the crowds began gathering again. This time however their attention was divided. On the grass below the cage they were building a gallows. Isobel watched it from the shadows at the back of her cage with growing sickness. As the sun blazed down and the day grew hot the people below were acting more and more wildly. It was like a fair. A man came with a pipe and around him people danced; they bought pies and ale, sitting on the grass around the gallows, amusing themselves from time to time by throwing stones at her. But today their aim was lazy and nothing reached her.

  It was noon when the noise of the crowd increased tenfold and she saw in the distance that a man was being dragged out of the town streets towards the gallows. Isobel rose to her knees and edged forward in her cage, pressing her face against the bars. The attention of everyone below her now was diverted from her. No one was watching her.

  She could barely see the figure of the man. Surrounded by the crowd and by his guards he was just a puppet figure below the gallows, being pushed upwards towards the platform under the noose. Then he was standing on the platform and she could see him more clearly. They were placing the rope around his neck. He was a proud, upright man, not cowed by his treatment, his hair blowing back from his face in the wind which had arisen again from the sea. For a moment she tensed. He was too far away for her to see his features, but there was something familiar about him, something agonisingly familiar – then he had turned away, facing the sun and she could not see him any more, Seconds later there was a roar from the crowd and she saw his body swinging beneath the gallows, jerking spasmodically on the end of the hempen rope.

  Isobel closed her eyes, her knuckles white on the bars.

  Requiescat in pace –

  Numbly her lips framed the words. ‘Dear Lord have mercy upon us; Sweet Holy Mother, pray for us, have mercy upon us.’ Slowly she opened her eyes. Already they were cutting him down, throwing the body on the ground. She saw the flash of a sword blade, then heard again the roar of the crowd as someone bent and seizing the head by the hair waved it in the air.

  Miserably she turned away.

  Absolve, quaesumus, Domine, animam famuli tui ab omni vinculo delictorum.

  She hunched back against the cold stones of the castle wall, her arms around her knees and began silently to cry. Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine.

  Already the crowds were turning away, their entertainment at an end, once more seeking the excitement of tormenting the woman caged like an animal for their enjoyment, a live target better by far when the blood lust was roused, than an inanimate body which was far beyond suffering.

  Isobel barely saw them. A stone struck her on the cheek and a small trickle of blood began to run down her face, but in the main the missiles hurled at her fell short or had lost the impetus to hurt her by the time they reached the height of the cage. The sound of voices behind her stirred her from her lethargy, however, and she slowly turned to see the constable of the castle surrounded by his men on the wall walk behind her.

  ‘Did you enjoy our little show?’ He smiled at her coldly. ‘So end all traitors and enemies to the King.’

  Isobel stared at him in silence. He would tell her now who it was, no doubt. That was what he had come to do. To watch her face. To see her suffer. She clenched her fists again.

  The governor turned. He nodded to the men behind him. With them, she saw with a surge of nausea, they had a bloodstained sack. They carried it towards the wall a few yards from her cage where, she noticed at last, an iron spike protruded vertically from the stonework.

  Suddenly she knew what they were going to do. She closed her eyes.

  There was a humourless chuckle from the constable. ‘Company for you, Lady Buchan. Just so that you don’t get too lonely.’

  De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine …

  She could hear the sounds: the slight scrunch of bone and gristle on iron; the volley of yells and whistles and cat calls from below; the feet of the governor and the guards tramping back towards the staircase; and then, from somewhere overhead, the wild yelping cry of circling gulls, and already the calling of the crows.

  Slowly, forcing herself to do it with every ounce of will power at her command, Isobel opened her eyes.

  Impaled on the spike near her, young, handsome, the clear hazel eyes open and gazing into the distance, was the head of Nigel Bruce.

  30

  Paul banged on the door in frustration, then he turned and walked back down the steps. It was the fourth time he had tried the flat in Moray Place. Maybe she had been there when Mackenzie spotted her, but she was obviously not staying there now. He climbed into the Range Rover once more and drove back in a furious temper through the traffic towards the Grassmarket.

  The offices of Earthwatch were being manned by Jim Campbell. He eyed Paul cautiously as the latter walked in, recognising him at once from the newspaper pictures.

  ‘Where is Forbes?’ Paul was in no mood for niceties.

  Jim stood up behind the desk. ‘May I know who is asking?’ he asked mildly. He stood six foot two in his socks and was broad to match, but Paul did not notice, nor did he answer the question.

  ‘He’s having an affair with my wife,’ he said curtly, ‘and I want her back.’

  ‘I see.’ The casual tone conveyed the message that statements such as this were commonplace. ‘I’m afraid Neil is out of town just now.’

  ‘And Clare? Where is Clare?’ Paul took a step forward. His face was taut with anger. ‘I’ve been to Moray Place, and she’s not there.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’ Jim smiled. ‘If you’d like to give me your phone number I’ll get Neil to call you when he gets back.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Paul was controlling his temper with difficulty.

  ‘He’s away on business. If you give me your number –’

  ‘Tell him I’m at the George,’ Paul snapped. ‘And tell him I mean to see my wife.’

  Jim waited until Paul had gone, then he picked up the phone. He called Neil’s flat. ‘I thought you’d better know, Royland is back in Edinburgh,’ he said softly into the mouthpiece. ‘And he’s breathing fire and brimstone.’

  There was a subdued curse the other end of the line.

  ‘He seems to know about the flat in Moray Place as well,’ Jim went on slowly. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t open your door to anyone, and I would get Clare out of town again as soon as possible. Has she seen the papers yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Neil glanced over his shoulder towards the kitchen where Clare was engaged in making a mushroom omelette. ‘I’ve been trying to keep it from her.’

  ‘Better tell her soon, Neil. It’s on the bill boards.’ Putting down the phone Jim looked up as the door opened and sighed with relief as Kathleen walked into the office. He had been afraid it was Paul returning. ‘How are you?’ He smiled at her broadly. He had always liked Kathleen.

  ‘Fine.’ She sat down on the corner chair, unbuttoning her coat. ‘So, how is the boyo?’

  ‘Neil?’ Jim was cautious. ‘OK. Busy as alwa
ys.’

  ‘Especially with Mrs Royland, I gather.’ She leaned back in the chair. ‘That wasn’t the irate husband by any chance, was it, I saw stamping up towards the Nether Bow?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Jim shrugged. ‘It looks as though he’s not giving up without a fight.’

  Kathleen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Neither am I,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean –’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ She stood up. ‘Did he tell you where he was staying?’

  ‘Neil’s back from Berwick. I think they – he – is on his way back to Duncairn –’

  ‘I meant Mr Royland.’ Her voice was a purr.

  ‘At the George.’ He eyed her uncomfortably. ‘I shouldn’t get involved with him, Kath. He seems a nasty piece of work to me.’

  ‘So am I. Sometimes.’ She leaned over the desk and patted his head as he sat there. ‘So am I.’

  By that evening Neil had taken Clare back to Duncairn, to an ecstatic welcome from Casta. Neither Paul nor Kathleen had been in touch and he sighed with relief as they walked into the hotel. It was like coming home.

  The next morning dawned cold and wet. Catriona Fraser set the teapot on the tray and tucked the paper in beside it, then she carried it up to the double room and knocked. Clare was in bed alone. Surreptitiously Catriona stared at the beautiful lace on Clare’s nightgown as she slid the tray on to the side table. ‘There’s a bit about you and Mr Forbes in the paper,’ she said shyly. ‘There’s ever such a nice picture of you both at the meeting last week.’

  Clare slid up against the pillows, her face suddenly white. ‘Where?’ She reached for the paper.

  ‘Right there. On the front.’ Catriona passed it to her. ‘Will I pour your tea?’ She was reluctant to leave before she had seen Clare’s reaction.