Kingdom of Shadows. Barbara Erskine
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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, then 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