by Robyn Young
The woman kept on walking. She was almost out of sight, the branches falling into place behind her.
‘Please!’
There was silence, then the undergrowth shifted as she returned. Robert held out his hand. Without a word, the woman grasped it. The strength in her grip surprised him. He came up quickly, too quickly, biting back a cry as the weight came down on his knee.
‘Here,’ she said roughly, handing him the stick.
Robert took it, thinking of an image he had once seen in a book of a sorcerer tracing a circle in the ground with a staff, a black demon rising out of fire and smoke in its centre. He half expected the stick not to feel like wood at all, but it did. The shaft was warm where she had been gripping it.
Together, the woman holding his arm on one side, him digging the staff into the ground on the other, they made their way slowly through the woods, the dogs roaming ahead. After a time the trees thinned out and the ground sloped into a sheltered valley. As he saw the house under the hill, Robert realised Ironfoot had taken him further into the woods than he’d reckoned. Wincing with every step, he looked up as they approached the oak that towered over the dwelling. This close he had a clear view of the webbed shapes hanging from the branches. The webs were twigs, stripped of leaves and bark, their thin limbs, bone-white, bound together to make crude cages. Hanging in the centre of each like misshapen spiders, from lengths of braided twine, were objects. Robert saw a scrap of yellow cloth, a tiny silver dagger, its blade tarnished, a weathered roll of parchment, then the woman was pushing open the door of the house and they were moving inside.
A fire crackled and spat in the centre of the room, throwing a pool of amber light into cramped shadows beyond. The dogs lay down beside the flames, panting. As his eyes grew used to the shifting light, Robert saw that the chamber was crowded with things. Pots and pans clustered from the beams above, skimming the woman’s head in places. In between were bundles of herbs and flowers. Robert felt as though he were deep underground, looking up at the roots of plants growing down. The earthy smell made his head swim. There was a pallet against the far wall, heaped with furs. Skulls and bones were scattered on the floor in front of it, animal, he realised after a pause. There were smooth pebbles from the beach, tools made of wood and stone, and a brace of birds, their dead eyes like tiny beads. Most surprising of all, stacked in one corner by a bundle of skins, was a pile of books. Some were clearly very old, the boards coming away. Robert glanced at the woman, who had set her squirming pouch on a shelf beside a row of clay pots and several wicked-looking knives. He edged towards the books, intrigued. He and his brothers and sisters had been taught to read and write, but these were skills usually reserved for the clergy, the nobility and some merchants and wealthy tradesmen. This woman didn’t fit any of those groups. But neither did she fit any other; a woman of property and possessions, living on her own in the wilderness.
The woman returned from the shadows holding a stool, which she placed before the fire. ‘Brigid!’
Robert started as the heap of furs on the pallet moved and a figure unravelled from within. It was the girl he had followed here months ago. She yawned deeply and rose from the bed, her grey dress falling crumpled around her. Her large eyes fixed on him and filled with curious surprise.
‘Sit,’ said the old woman to Robert, taking the stick, ‘and fetch me water,’ she said in the same breath to the girl.
As Robert sat, the girl headed out and the woman busied herself at a shelf, grinding fistfuls of herbs with a pestle. A bitter smell rose. The girl returned carrying a bucket, her thin arms taut with the weight. She set it down by the fire then crossed to the old woman. The two of them murmured something Robert couldn’t hear. He watched apprehensively as the girl came towards him, holding a wad of linen. Crouching beside the bucket, she dipped the cloth inside. Her dress hung off her gaunt frame and he could see down the front of it to the bones that splayed across her chest. She rose and moved to him, the linen bunched and dripping between her fingers.
Robert drew back as she stretched out her hand. ‘I can do it.’
Letting him take the cloth, Brigid hunkered down beside the fire, wrapping her arms around her bony knees. One of the dogs raised its head and whined at her. Ignoring it, she watched as Robert wiped the blood from his face. ‘Perhaps he was attacked?’ she ventured, addressing the old woman.
‘I came off my horse,’ answered Robert.
‘He is an earl, you know.’
‘The son of an earl,’ responded Robert shortly, discomforted by the way the girl was speaking as if he couldn’t hear.
‘I know who he is,’ said the old woman, coming out of the shadows with a bowl of dark matter. ‘I delivered him.’
Robert went still, the cloth pausing against his cheek. When he spoke his voice sounded loud in his ears. ‘No. That’s not true. My mother had the same midwife for all her children.’ He shook his head, angered by the woman’s unchanging expression. ‘She wouldn’t have let a . . .’ He trailed off.
The old woman didn’t respond, but scooped out a handful of the herb mixture. Parting the shredded cloth of his hose she slapped it thickly on his skinned knee, making him wince, then handed him the stick. ‘Take him to the woods, Brigid. He knows his way home.’ Her eyes bored into his. ‘Don’t come here again,’ she said fiercely. ‘You, or any of your family.’
Robert let himself be led by the girl out into the dusk. The air was fresh after the oppressive heat inside and he shivered as he passed beneath the oak, adorned with its slow-turning webs. His head felt clearer and the cold of the herbs had numbed his knee, although every step still felt like a needle in his bone. He glanced at the girl, walking in silence beside him as he limped up the hill. ‘Is she your mother?’
‘My mother’s dead. I came to live with Affraig in the winter. She’s my aunt.’
‘Is she a witch?’
Brigid lifted her shoulders in answer.
Robert was about to ask if she thought her aunt had been lying about what she had said, when he heard shouts in the distance. He caught his name in the calls. ‘That’s my instructor,’ he told the girl.
‘Why do you need an instructor?’
‘He’s teaching me to ride. For war.’
The girl’s lips split in a grin. ‘You should find a better one,’ she said, skipping away across the grass.
Robert watched her go, then headed into the woods, answering the calls with a shout of his own.
With Yothre in the search party were several servants from the castle and Robert’s brothers. Niall saw him first. He gave a cry of relief and ran towards him, then came to an abrupt halt, looking shocked. Yothre came striding in behind, thrusting branches out of his way.
‘Where’s Ironfoot?’ Robert asked, as his instructor put a thick arm around his waist to support him. He kept hold of the stick.
‘We found him wandering loose near the village,’ said Thomas breathlessly, coming over with Alexander and the servants. ‘We’ve been searching for hours. What happened?’
‘I fell.’
‘But where have you been?’
‘Come on,’ said Yothre brusquely, ‘let’s get him home. No doubt his mother will want the physician to look at him.’
All the way back to the castle, Robert’s head was filled with the old woman’s revelation. He was certain it was a lie, although he didn’t see what purpose it would serve her to speak false, except perhaps to be cruel. But wasn’t that what witches did? Toyed with men’s emotions and preyed on their weaknesses? Robert’s speculations were cut short as they neared Turnberry and saw a company trailing in through the castle gates.
The men had returned from war.
Robert, trying to walk faster, grimaced in pain and frustration as his brothers ran away ahead of him, calling out in joy. Some of the men looked round at the boys’ shouts, their faces weary and sunburned. There were two carts drawn by oxen behind them. Robert let out a breath of relief as he caught sight of his grandfather
in the midst of the host. Some way ahead of the Lord of Annandale rode the Earl of Carrick on his white mare. Robert felt a confusion of emotions as he saw his father, then was distracted by one of the carts that was trundling past. He and Yothre stopped, seeing ten or more men on the back.
Robert’s eyes moved over their soiled clothes and bandaged limbs. One had a wad of cloth bound over his right eye, his cheek below crusted with blood. Another had a stump where his left hand used to be, the bulb of his wrist swaddled in linen, his face waxy white. Most were sitting hunched against the sides of the cart, lolling listlessly with the motion. Three were laid out in the middle, one of whom was covered over with a blanket, only his bare feet, livid and swollen, visible. Huddled there, decorated with their ugly wounds, they had a strange blankness about them, as if, like their bodies, their souls were no longer whole. Robert couldn’t take his eyes off them, even as Yothre led him away and the cart rumbled on, taking the injured men towards the castle. He had seen mutilated bodies once before: outlaws strung up in cages outside a castle on the way to Annandale, their flesh eaten by birds. But there had been something unreal about them. They weren’t people he knew.
8
Robert limped across the room, careful not to disturb the sleeping forms of his brothers. Alexander was curled on his side, his face in the nightlight’s glow tense with some inner concern. Thomas was on his back, one arm flung over the edge of his bed, the blanket tangled around his legs. Passing Niall, Robert saw his brother’s eyes were open, watching him. Putting a finger to his lips, he slipped out of the door.
He headed down the gloomy passageway, using the wall for support, the boom of the sea masking his footsteps. He passed the room his sisters shared. Further down, an urgent crying was coming from the small chamber adjacent to his parents’ room. The door was ajar and candlelight spilled out. Robert edged closer, his knee beneath the tight wrap of linen throbbing. He glimpsed the back of the wet nurse as she turned in a slow circle, cradling his sister Matilda, the source of the wails. Then he was moving on, heading for his parents’ room.
He paused outside, dreading to hear his father’s voice. Perhaps the council was finished already? But, no, it was still early and he hadn’t heard his father’s footsteps on the stairs. There was silence beyond. Robert pushed open the door, causing the flames of the candles in the room to flicker.
‘Is that you, Robert?’
His mother’s voice came from the bed, surrounded at the head by wine-red drapes.
‘No,’ murmured Robert, knowing she meant his father.
The covers shifted as she sat up. She parted the drapes, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. The room’s shadows were caught in her face, bruising her eyes and filling the hollows of her cheeks. The birth of Matilda the month before had not been easy and his mother had hardly left her bed since.
‘Are you in pain?’ Concern filtered through her tired voice.
Robert’s knee was aching, so too was the gash on his head that the physician had stitched, but he didn’t want this to get in the way of what he had come here for. ‘No,’ he said, limping closer to the bed, unable to imagine the old woman from the cramped house in the valley ever setting foot in this fine room, adorned with its drapes, rugs and carved furniture. ‘Tell me about my birth.’
His mother’s face filled with surprise, then she looked away. Something seized Robert inside. There had been guilt in that look.
‘Why such a question?’
‘I . . .’ He faltered. The cry of his baby sister filled his silence. ‘Matilda,’ he said suddenly. ‘It made me wonder what my birth was like. Was it difficult like hers?’
His mother stared at him, then sighed. ‘We thought for some time that you would never come into this world.’ She reached out and touched his cheek. ‘But you did.’
Robert pulled away at her touch, impatient for answers. He decided to be blunt. ‘I lied today.’ He saw her frown and he looked down, picking at a fingernail, torn in the fall. ‘I wasn’t on my own in the woods. Someone found me. Helped me.’
His mother had drawn back from him.
‘The old woman with the dogs.’
Her hand tightened around the bedcovers.
‘She said something.’ Robert met his mother’s gaze. ‘She said she delivered me.’
‘Yes,’ murmured the countess.
Robert shook his head, not wanting to believe it. ‘But she’s a witch! How could you let her . . .?’ He couldn’t finish. The thought of the old woman’s filthy hands being the first thing on his naked body made him feel sick. He didn’t stop to think that she would have been younger then. In his mind she had always been a withered crone.
‘Some might call her a witch,’ said his mother quietly, ‘others a healer.’
‘I thought Ede delivered me. You told me she delivered all your children, even Margaret.’ Robert noticed her face grow taut at the careless reference to his half-sister. His mother’s first husband had been a knight who died on crusade when she was pregnant. The knight’s comrade-in-arms, Sir Robert Bruce, had returned from the Holy Land to tell the widowed countess what had happened and the two had grown close. Within a few short months they married in haste, without securing the permission of King Alexander, who in his anger removed them both of their lands. It was only through the intervention of the Lord of Annandale that the dispute was smoothed over and Robert’s father was allowed to acquire Carrick by right of his new wife.
‘Ede did deliver you, or at least she tried. You were dying inside me, Robert.’ Her eyes had grown bright in the candlelight. ‘The labour was going on too long. Affraig lived in the village then. She was well known for her skills as a healer. She saved your life. And mine.’
Robert knew there was more to the story. Other questions crowded in. Why had his parents never mentioned this, even after Alexander had been bitten by one of her dogs? And why had the woman seemed so angry? Don’t come here again, she had said. You, or any of your family. Robert glanced round, hearing footsteps along the passage. His mother didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Why did she leave the village?’ he asked quickly. ‘Why did she go into the hills?’
‘She was banished,’ answered his mother hesitantly. ‘Your father—’ She stopped abruptly, hearing the footfalls. Her cheeks stained. ‘Back to bed with you, Robert,’ she ordered, her voice unnaturally loud.
Hearing the door open behind him, Robert turned to see his father’s pensive face.
The earl scowled and pulled the door wider. ‘Leave.’
Robert went to go, then felt his mother’s cool hand on his.
She leaned forward, laying a soft kiss by the wound on his brow. ‘No more talk of it now,’ she breathed into his ear, while her husband shrugged off his fur-lined robe and hung it on a clothes perch.
Robert headed from the room, glancing at his father, who had sat on a stool to remove his boot. The earl’s face was wan in the candlelight. Robert wondered what had happened in Galloway. He longed to go and see his grandfather and find out, but it was late, his wounds were tormenting him and he had too many other questions to fit more answers in his head.
Marjorie watched her son limp from the chamber. Her husband, rubbing at his foot, chafed by his boot, didn’t look up. He could be so loving. Couldn’t he show just a little of that to the boy? He had always told her he didn’t want his heir growing up soft and that was why he was hard on him, but Marjorie knew that wasn’t the real truth of it.
‘What is it?’
Realising she had been caught staring at him, she forced a smile. ‘I am just tired.’ She frowned as he eased his boot back on with a wince. ‘Aren’t you coming to bed?’
‘In a moment,’ he said, crossing to her.
Marjorie rested her head against the pillow. She closed her eyes as he kissed her. She wasn’t tired, she was exhausted. The labour had drained what felt like the last of her youth. Ten children was a lot for any woman to bear.
‘Get some rest.’
She f
elt the bed shift as his hand left it, heard him moving about the room, pouring a goblet of wine, opening a chest. She began to drift towards sleep, the familiar sounds of her husband soothing after so many months alone. A little while later, she heard a rap at the door. Marjorie came awake, worried Robert had returned with more questions. The boy had no idea how angry his father would be if he knew he had been in Affraig’s house. But it wasn’t her son. It was one of her husband’s retainers. She watched the earl give the man a purse. In his other hand, her husband held a rolled piece of parchment.
‘There is enough here to buy you passage to France and back. Be careful.’
‘Do not fear, my lord,’ said the man, taking the purse and stuffing it inside a pouch fixed to his belt beside his broadsword. ‘I’ll get it safe to Gascony.’
‘Deliver it directly to King Edward. I do not want some servant reading it.’
The man bowed and left, taking the roll of parchment. As her husband shut the door, the countess closed her eyes. After a moment, she felt the familiar shift as his weight came down beside her. It was less comforting now.
9
Robert hastened through the woods, holding up his hood as the rain splattered between the branches. The rushing trees drowned the distant roar of waves on Turnberry beach. The first autumn storms had come early this year. Only last week the men of Carrick had been toiling under blue skies to bring in the last of the harvest. Days later and the crops of oats and barley would have been drowning in the fields. Now, the cattle were being driven down from the higher pastures. Those that could not be fed through the winter months would be slaughtered for the meat. It was a busy time, when all hands were called to help work the land. The men the Bruce family had lost during the assault on Galloway had been sorely missed.
Robert thumped the gnarled stick into the ground, every stride propelling him deeper into the woods. He felt foolish, using the stick as his excuse, but it was the only one he had been able to think of. And think on it he had, all through the turbulence of the past few weeks.