Kingdom of Shadows (71 page)

He rolled off her and lay still, his face in the pillow.

Wide-eyed in the dark Clare dared not move. She wasn’t sure what had happened. Had the thought of her consorting with devils put him off? Cautiously she edged away from him.

She lay still a long time, waiting for him to move or speak. He did neither. Then at last she heard his breathing grow steady and regular and she guessed he must be asleep. Cautiously she crept out of bed shrugging her nightdress back into place. She found his dressing gown on the floor, and holding her breath, she began to grope in the pocket for the key to the door. It wasn’t there. She patted the floor around her desperately, wondering if it had fallen out. In the darkness she could see nothing and she dared not turn on the light. Falling on her knees she ran her hands over the floor in wider and wider circles, feeling the edge of the carpet and the boards beneath it under the bed, rubbing her hands over it again and again until her fingers were sore.

She couldn’t find it. After a long time she gave up. For a moment she thought she would cry again, but somehow she stopped herself. Wearily she climbed to her feet and for a moment she stood looking down in the darkness towards the place where her husband lay, then slowly, shivering with cold, she felt her way across the room. She found the door to the tower and opened it. Slipping through she pulled it shut behind her and groped her way upstairs. It was very cold. She didn’t put on the light. Thin beams of silver moonlight lay across the floor. She could hear the wind moaning softly in the trees outside.

She walked to the centre of the room and sat down cross-legged in a patch of moonlight. The broad old oak floorboards were bitterly cold. She looked up at the moon through the narrow window and she raised her hands in invitation. ‘Come to me,’ she whispered. ‘Isobel, come!’

In the bedroom below Paul began to cry.

24

Nigel Bruce was standing in the solar of the Snow Tower in the great fortress of Kildrummy Castle, staring out of the window towards the west. Behind him the new Queen of Scots was pacing the floor, a letter in her hand. ‘My father says I should go to him,’ she said slowly. ‘He says there can be no hope for Robert.’

Nigel clenched his fists. ‘As far as we know my brother is still free. He will not fail us!’ He turned to her. ‘And I should be with him, not here!’ He waved his arm helplessly to encompass the room.

‘We should all be with him.’ Isobel was sitting in the window embrasure on the far side of the solar. Outside she could see the long shoulder of a hill shrouded in black storm cloud. It was very hot.

Fleeing soldiers had saved her life after the Battle of Methven, meeting her and her two escorts in the hills near Perth.

At first she and her companions had not believed them. They had listened incredulously to the story of the defeat and of Robert’s flight into the hills. Isobel was in despair at their tale, and more anxious than ever to get back to Methven, but her escort would take no chances. Already doubtful about the wisdom of turning back in the first place they stood as the exhausted soldiers moved on, and debated what to do.

Duncan and Malcolm were the Stewart’s most trusted servants. They had been guarding their charge with almost frenzied weariness, well aware that she was their king’s sweetheart, and now they were more conscious than ever that they must take no chances with her safety; so when, in the distance, they saw a party of armed men scouring the glens, their minds were made up. Even from their hiding place they could recognise the distinctive device of argent and azure bars, with an orle of martlets gules on the shields of the men of the Earl of Pembroke. The sight made Isobel more frantic than ever, but it convinced Duncan and Malcolm that they must turn back.

When they tried to go north again however, their retreat was cut off; every track and path seemed to be patrolled by marauding bands of English soldiers, and they found themselves doubling back again and again as they tried to head away from Perth. Each night Isobel lay wrapped in her cloak on the ground trying to sleep whilst near by the two men talked quietly, huddled against the dew-wet chill of the summer nights. Not once did they dare to light a fire.

In the end they had managed to turn east, following the tracks which led into the heart of the high mountains, secret paths known only to the deer and rabbit as the mists closed over the mountain tops, but even there they had seen parties of armed men searching for the scattered survivors of Methven, and several times they passed burned-out farmsteads, the ground still smouldering, where men who had supported the Bruce had lived. The vengeance of the English was swift and brutal. The women and children who had lived in them were already dead or captured or scattered. In the first few days they never saw anyone, other than the distant enemy, alive.

Their horses were exhausted, their own shoes already worn to holes from leading their mounts on the steep, uneven ground, their clothes in rags as they circled in the rough terrain day after day trying to break through towards Kildrummy, Duncan and Malcolm taking it in turns to scout. They skirted round hamlets and villages, everywhere hearing the same stories of the revenge that had been exacted on the king’s followers who had been captured and, shuddering with horror, they turned north again. It was days later when, exhausted and dejected, they at last returned to Kildrummy and they found they were the first to bring news of Robert’s defeat to his queen and his family. None of them wanted to believe that Robert’s courageous thousands could have melted away until there were but a few hundred left, but it seemed that they must do so as the small garrison waited desperately for more news. None came. The mountains of Mar, shrouded in the haze of a summer heatwave, were empty and silent. Their king had vanished into the hills of the west. All they could do was wait.

Then at last letters came from the south – one from the Earl of Ulster for the Queen, and others giving further news of the atrocities being carried out by the soldiers of the English on the people of Scotland. They confirmed that the dragon banner had been raised. No quarter was being given; even the women and children of the King were not to be spared if they were caught. Rape and murder would go unpunished if perpetrated on the family and friends of the outlaw king.

Elizabeth de Burgh shivered. She looked down again at her father’s letter, and then at her husband’s brother. ‘My father says I should go to him, but my place is with Robert,’ she said at last.

‘But Robert said you should stay here.’ Nigel was impressed by her courage. As he had got to know her better he had begun to admire, if not to like, his brother’s wife. She did not approve of what Robert had done, but she was prepared to stand by him because he was her husband and he thought highly of that kind of loyalty. He himself was in an agony of indecision. He wanted desperately to go to his brother’s side, as he felt sure their other brothers, Thomas and Alexander, would have done by now, but Robert’s orders had been clear: Nigel was to keep the women out of harm’s way at Kildrummy.

He smiled reluctantly at the Queen. ‘You will all be safest here.’ Then he glanced at his sisters.

Christian was sitting by herself on a low stool, a spindle in her hand. She had spun nothing; the carded wool lay untouched in a basket by her feet as she sat, preoccupied, staring into space. This great castle had been her home until the death of her husband, Gratney, and it had been the scene of much happiness. Now it was the seat of her son, Donald, who until his majority would be his uncle Robert’s ward. Now she was the wife of another man, Christopher Seton. Perhaps already she was a widow again. Christopher, one of Robert’s most trusted friends, had been captured after Methven; that much they had heard in one of the letters. Surreptitiously Christian wiped away a tear. She was as proud as all the Bruces. She would not add to Nigel’s problems by weeping and wailing in her worry.

Mary was more cheerful. The man she loved, Neil Campbell, was still with Robert as far as they knew, and as far as they knew neither man had been wounded, for surely they would have heard if Robert and those close to him had been hurt?

Isobel sitting a little apart from the others bit her lip in frustration. Although the King’s sisters had made her welcome, and the Princess Marjorie openly adored her, the Queen’s enmity was always there and in the presence of the royal ladies she tried to stay in the background, tried to maintain a tact which was foreign to her and difficult to keep up. She wanted to jump to her feet, to throw herself at Nigel Bruce, drag him to his horse if necessary, and force him to take them to Robert. She knew how much he wanted to go to his brother and she knew it wouldn’t take much to persuade him, but she managed to keep silent, comforted by the thought that Eleyne of Mar, upstairs in her own solar, knew how she felt; Eleyne who had so much patience herself. So she did nothing, sitting staring out of the window, her hands in her lap, waiting for the Queen to decide what to do.

The decision was made for them. Gilbert of Annandale arrived with two companions late one night. Their horses were exhausted and one of the men was hurt. Gilbert was grim faced. ‘The King is in hiding in Drumalban; he has decided that it would be best if you all joined him there.’ He was speaking to Nigel, but his glance swept the ladies who were standing anxiously around them. His gaze rested on Isobel for a moment and he frowned again. ‘The Earl of Pembroke is set on capturing the royal family, Sir Nigel, and no quarter is to be given. I don’t have to tell you the danger. The King feels he can give you all more protection in the hills to the west. He has his men there, and much support. We should set out at once.’

Nigel nodded, his face lightening. ‘At last! I have been a nursemaid for too long!’ He bit his lip, and bowed hastily towards the Queen. ‘Forgive me – I did not mean … Itis just that I want to be with Robert! I want to see some fighting!’

Gilbert grinned. ‘You’ll see enough fighting soon enough, Sir Nigel, have no fear. More than you want, no doubt.’ He sighed. Later he took Nigel on one side and talked to him alone for a long time. When he had finished Nigel’s face was very serious.

They left a small garrison at Kildrummy, and with them the dowager Countess of Mar who refused to budge. ‘I am too old,’ she said when they tried to persuade her to leave. ‘I’ll be all right. No one is interested in an old woman. You go on, and God go with you.’ So at dawn the next day the party of horsemen set off south-westwards. From Strathdon they would head through the hills towards Braemar and then into the mountains of Atholl, keeping to the lonely tracks where the sun blazed down on the tightly-budded heather.

The hills were shrouded in a haze as the horses picked their way through the glens. Once or twice overhead Isobel could hear the eerie scream of a golden eagle as it circled, a glittering lookout high above them. The air was sharp with heather, and sweet with the scent of whin and pine.

Nigel rode up beside her, his horse lathering. ‘Gilbert thinks Robert will ride to meet us on the banks of Loch Tay.’

Isobel smiled across at him, her heart giving a little jump of happiness. ‘I can’t wait to see him and be sure he is all right.’ She was very fond of Nigel. He was a younger, slimmer version of Robert, gentler, lacking his brother’s ruthlessness, with dreamy eyes and a kindness which touched her heart. She glanced ahead, to where the Queen was riding beside her little step-daughter. ‘Queen Elizabeth will be glad to see her husband.’

‘And he her.’ He grinned. ‘But not half so glad, I suspect, as he will be to see you.’

Isobel blushed. ‘Where will we go? Do you know?’

Nigel shrugged. ‘Gilbert says Robert doesn’t have many men. Many who weren’t killed or captured fled. He has to gather his strength once more. The losses after Methven were terrible, far worse than we imagined.’ He glanced over his shoulder to where his sisters rode at the back of the file. ‘Gilbert said they have news of Christopher. I’ve not said anything to Christian yet. He’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ Isobel stared at him. ‘But we had heard he was captured –’ She stopped, her heart in her mouth. ‘They killed him?’

Nigel nodded. Sir Christopher Seton, the King’s brother-in-law, had been castrated and then disembowelled – a signal to them all of the kind of treatment they could expect if they were taken. He shuddered beneath his mail. He had told Gilbert to keep the details of Christopher’s death to himself. There was no point in distressing the women yet. They would no doubt hear soon enough. He forced himself to smile at Isobel again. She was vivacious, excited, looking forward to whatever was to come, not realising in her innocence what could lie ahead for them all. He wanted to spare her, too, for as long as possible. She was very beautiful as she rode beside him, her dark hair escaping from her veil, her face already dusted with gold by the fierce summer sun. Not for the first time he found himself envying his brother his easy way with women and the string of mistresses he managed to maintain around the country. Of them all he found the Countess of Buchan the most attractive, and he suspected that she was the one that Robert found the hardest to put out of his mind.

He glanced up as the fierce yelping cry of the eagle sounded closer. It was very loud in the breathless air. Beneath him his horse sidestepped nervously. He looked round. He had posted outriders on both sides of the column. There were scouts ahead of them and behind, and yet still he felt uneasy. The responsibility for the women was a heavy one and he felt it deeply.

That night they camped in a lonely glen, the women sleeping wrapped in their cloaks near a broad burn which threaded through soft grass and clouds of meadowsweet, lulling them to sleep with its quiet murmur. It was a warm night, the moon high and soft, its light spilling across the ground, casting shadows over the scree of the mountain side. Near by the horses were grazing peacefully, with two men on watch beside them.

Isobel lay awake, gazing up at the sky. In spite of her exhaustion after the long days of riding, and the nervous tension which beset them all, she was lost in daydreams. Soon she would see Robert again. This time he had sent for her – asked especially for her, so Gilbert had told her with a wink – and somehow they would find a way to be alone together.