Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  Paul closed his eyes. ‘You shall have it.’

  Rex smiled. ‘I’m glad you made her see sense. I know you can do with the money.’ He shifted slightly in his seat, leaning with his elbow on the table. ‘You’ve gone down for quite a lot, I hear.’ His tone was casual.

  Paul stared at him. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘No?’ Rex smiled. ‘Carstairs Boothroyd. I gather the deal is off. The shares will plummet today. Anyone in heavily is going to lose a packet.’ He helped himself to a slice of toast and began to scrape a thin film of marmalade on to it; no butter.

  Paul winced at the sound.

  ‘It might have been a good deal,’ Rex went on thoughtfully. ‘But young Carstairs is not the man to see it through. There is no confidence in him in the City. I’m surprised you didn’t know.’

  Paul looked up. His hands were shaking. ‘What the hell are you suggesting?’

  ‘Nothing, Paul, nothing at all.’ He used Paul’s Christian name with a long slow drawl to it. ‘Let’s just hope you can get yourself out of this mess before anyone starts putting two and two together and wondering if you were using inside knowledge.’ He laughed. ‘If you were, it should have been a little more thorough, shouldn’t it!’ He suddenly looked up and held Paul’s gaze. His face was hard. ‘Thursday, Royland, or the deal’s off!’

  Clare was sitting at her desk in the drawing room at Bucksters. She stared dispiritedly at the pile of letters in front of her. There were requests for help for various charities; requests for her to join committees; invitations for her and Paul. No real letters. No fifteen-page effusions from friends, no notes from anyone she cared about. She picked up one and stared at it. A lunch party to raise money for the local hospice. Not lunch with a friend for a gossip, even though she had known the woman for several years now. No, she would never ask anyone just for that; it had to be an occasion to raise money. It had to be an occasion which would produce dozens of worthy ladies, all of whom knew each other just well enough for a kiss on the cheek but not well enough, ever, for a bottle of wine and a cheese sandwich and a gossip in the kitchen. She threw the letter on to the pile, and pushed them all suddenly on to the floor, burying her face in her arms. Her life was empty, useless and flat. What good was she to anyone? If she had been able to have a baby, things might have been different. She would have had a purpose then, a reason for living. She would have had someone to love her …

  Miserably she reached for the phone.

  Archie Macleod answered. ‘I will fetch your mother for you, Clare.’ She could hear the coldness in his voice. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thank you. I’m fine.’ She forced herself to smile at the wall.

  There was a long pause then she heard the receiver being picked up as Antonia Macleod walked with a shiver into her husband’s cold study at Airdlie and sat down breathlessly in his chair.

  ‘Clare, darling, how are you?’ Archie was standing just behind her, waiting for his desk. She could feel his impatience, like a tangible essence, pouring from him.

  ‘I’m all right.’ Clare steadied her voice with an effort. ‘Mummy, can I come up and see you?’

  There was an imperceptible pause. Antonia glanced up at her husband. The round, weather-beaten face with the prominent veins in the nose was half averted, staring out of the rain-swept window towards the cloud-covered Perthshire hills. Sighing, she gripped the receiver more tightly. ‘We are a little busy at the moment, darling. Perhaps later – that would be lovely …’

  ‘Good. Yes.’ Clare’s eyes filled with tears again. ‘I’ll ring you soon, then, OK?’

  ‘Do that, darling. Love to Paul.’

  Clare stared at the receiver blankly. Her mother had hung up; they had exchanged no more than a couple of sentences.

  She stood up abruptly. ‘Casta!’ She glanced at the fire. The fresh crackling logs were only just getting warm. She could see the white heart of the flame which was the firelighter. But no Casta. Suddenly panicking she pulled open the door and ran out into the hall. The house felt very empty. ‘Casta?’ Her voice echoed up the black oak staircase and round the galleried landing. ‘Casta?’ She ran towards the kitchen and flung open the door. The light was off and the room was silent save for the tick of the old clock in the corner. No lights at all, and the Aga was only gently warm. ‘Sarah?’ Clare stared round, her voice rising in desperation. ‘Sarah, where are you?’

  But she already knew. The car had gone from its customary position in the side yard; Sarah’s basket wasn’t in its usual place near the door and Casta’s lead had disappeared from its hook. They must have driven into Dedham or Colchester, leaving her alone.

  ‘Sarah?’ she called again. ‘Sarah, please. Why didn’t you wait for me?’ Tears were running down her cheeks as slowly she walked back into the hall and sat down on the bottom step of the staircase, her arms wrapped around her knees. She was shivering.

  Visualise somewhere warm, somewhere relaxed, somewhere you love to be …

  It was as if Zak’s voice had been next to her.

  Go on, relax. Unwind. Don’t screw yourself up like this. Use your mind to fight the things that depress you. Where is your favourite place, Clare?

  ‘Oh God! Go away, Zak! Stop it! It doesn’t work any more. You know it doesn’t work!’ Desperately she pressed her hands over her ears. ‘You know it’s finished. I can’t do it, Zak. It won’t happen. I’ve lost her!’

  She had tried that night after Emma and Peter had left; lit the candle; invoked the scene. And nothing had happened. There had been no trance, no shadows, no story in her head. She had remained, sitting before the candle on her bedroom floor, conscious of every detail of the room around her, conscious that the room was growing cold only because the heating had gone off. The sounds of the wind and the rustling trees were from the garden outside the window; there was no sound of the sea. Nothing. She had tried again in the morning and again there was no success. Isobel seemed to have deserted her. It was as though she had gone, slamming the door to that other world behind her. Clare would never know, now, whether Lord Buchan had found out about her visit to Robert’s chamber, never know whether Robert and Isobel had become lovers, never again see Duncairn as it should have been, a tall, proud, impregnable castle, towering above the cliffs, sentinel against the North Sea. For a moment she had panicked. Then slowly she began to feel relieved. That night, she had slept without dreams.

  She stood up miserably. Talk to someone. She must talk to someone. Slowly she went into the drawing room and picked up the phone, dialling with a shaking hand. The tone rang on and on in the silence. In Kew Emma stopped just outside the front door, hearing the phone ring in the hall. She shrugged. It was too much effort to unlock the door again. Whoever it was would call back if it was important. She turned away and walked off up the street.

  Clare stood, the receiver pressed against her ear, staring out at the rain. The bright Michaelmas daisies in the bed outside the windows were turning into brown knots on the end of their stems.

  She counted ten slow rings, then she hung up. For a moment she sat looking down at the phone, then wearily she stood up and went back to the fire, kneeling in front of it to throw on another apple log, before staring into the flames.

  In the twentieth century she was alone and depressed and it was raining. In the thirteenth it was sunny. Without warning, Isobel had returned.

  Isobel had offered no resistance when she was led back to her room, nor when her husband ordered an escort to take her, by force if necessary, to Ellon, up the long road through the eastern flat lands towards the windswept, sea-bounded north-eastern fastness which was Buchan. She swathed her face in her veil and rode, shoulders back, head erect, at the head of her husband’s men. Two women had accompanied her, Mairi and one of the Buchan ladies, Meg. She had not seen Alice again.

  Ellon Castle, the administrative seat of the earldom, rose in the bright sunlight on the banks of the River Ythan, the dowager’s sta
ndard flying from the highest tower as Isobel reined in her tired horse at last. Behind her the escort of men at arms halted. She lifted her veil, feeling the warmth of the afternoon sun on her face, and stared towards the teeming burgh, which clung around the castle in the small encircling fields of new green corn.

  She stood for several minutes, her horse hanging its head from exhaustion after the long ride. The men around her made no move to hurry her; the officers of her husband’s household had mixed views on their countess. The Constable of Duncairn thought her a spoiled child; the steward of the vast Buchan estates was deeply sympathetic to her; she was universally popular amongst the servants and lesser folk. The chaplains of the various castles, and her husband’s youngest brother, the cleric William Comyn, detested her. She was that thing most despised by the church, a beautiful and a disobedient wife; she had failed to provide her husband with an heir and wherever she went men’s heads turned, attracted by her unconscious allure, her slim, elegant figure, her natural vivacity and her bold, unmeek eyes. They all knew she hated and feared her husband; many of them knew she loved another.

  Master William was waiting with the Dowager Countess of Buchan in the great hall of Ellon Castle when Isobel at last urged her horse in over the bridge and dismounted wearily in the courtyard. She kissed them both dutifully, her heart sinking at the set expression on their faces.

  Master William curtly dismissed her attendants, and then everyone else in the hall. Within minutes it was completely empty save for the three of them. A thin, tall man, he resembled his brother only in the dark, hirsute Buchan colouring. His face had a cruel asceticism which showed no tolerance of others. There was a letter in his hand.

  ‘Your husband has written to me about you, my lady,’ he began without preamble. ‘What he says disturbs me beyond measure.’ He threw the parchment down on the table. ‘He asks me, with the help of our mother,’ he bowed sparely in the direction of the dowager, ‘to supervise your stay in Buchan and to see to it that these matters are investigated in the greatest detail.’

  Isobel stared at him. Her mouth had gone dry. She felt herself swaying slightly, overcome with weariness after the long ride, but somehow she managed to remain upright. ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ She forced some asperity into her voice. ‘What matters?’ She stepped forward and snatched up the letter, unfolding it with shaking fingers.

  It was written in her husband’s own hand, sealed with his private seal. She read it with mounting horror. He had accused her to his brother of sorcery and witchcraft; of procuring the death of her baby and avoiding conception by mortal sin. It also accused her of the intention to commit adultery, and of committing that sin in her heart and in her body with an unnamed man in the palace of Scone where the act had been witnessed. She read the letter slowly, aware of the two sets of eyes fixed on her face. Her chest was tight with panic, her stomach turning over with fear. The crabbed black script blurred and jumped before her eyes. Desperately she fought to control her features as at last she refolded the letter and threw it down.

  ‘My lord and husband was drunk when he wrote this,’ she said flatly. ‘I deny absolutely everything of which he accuses me. If he believed me capable of killing my child why has he waited so long to accuse me? You cannot believe it!’

  Master William walked slowly away from her, towards the end of the dais. He folded his arms deliberately inside the sleeves of his fur-trimmed gown, then he turned and walked back. ‘I do believe it. In your latter actions, madam, your behaviour has been neither secret nor even discreet and as to the other, infinitely graver matter of the death of your unborn child, your husband first made his suspicions clear at the very time that you miscarried. Perhaps he waited, in his love and mercy, in the hope that you might show signs of repentance and the desire to rectify the terrible deed in providing him with another son, but that too, you decided to avoid with yet another sin.’

  ‘You have shamed the house of Buchan!’ Elizabeth de Quincy hissed suddenly. She sat down heavily at the head of the long table, and rested her hands, fists clenched, on the scrubbed oak boards. ‘I thought marriage would change you, Isobel. I thought John could tame you and make you into a good and virtuous wife. I was wrong.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘He has been too lenient with you, hoping to win your trust and affection. More fool he!’ Her voice was laden with venom. ‘We will not make the same mistake.’

  ‘Indeed not.’ William’s voice was silky. ‘Mother Church, in her wisdom, has ways of dealing with women such as yourself. Harsh ways, perhaps, but we must all accept punishment if it is for the good of our immortal souls.’ He smiled at her suddenly, then his eyes hardened again. ‘The woman from Mar: it was she who taught you the ways of sorcery, I understand. She who procured for you the articles you needed for your spells? Your accomplice? She shall be questioned about her role in this affair.’

  ‘No!’ Isobel was shaking her head. ‘No, you’re wrong!’ She was frantic with fear, but already Master William had shouted for the guard and she found two men-at-arms at her elbow. ‘Mairi knows nothing,’ she cried desperately. ‘All she has taught me are a few simple remedies for the flux. She is no sorceress! For pity’s sake, you do not believe that?’

  But Master William had turned away.

  She rattled the door desperately, but it was still locked fast. There was no sound outside the chamber. Looking out across the castle walls and over the heather-thatched roofs of Ellon towards the southern hills Isobel could feel her fear turning back to anger. How dare they lock her up! She, the Countess of Buchan, in her husband’s castle. She had been brought no food and nothing to drink. There was no sign of Mairi which frightened her. Isobel was certain of the woman’s total loyalty. She would never betray her – and yet something in Master William’s implacable expression had terrified her. If only Mairi would come and they could talk.

  Twice more she paced up and down the small chamber, then she went back to the window. She was high up in the keep, under the roof, and there were no sounds from below. No sounds at all, as the long spring afternoon drew on. In the end, exhausted, she threw herself down on the floor, sitting against the wall, her arms wrapped miserably around her knees, her eyes closed. She was desperately afraid for Mairi.

  They came for her at dusk the following day as the golden glow of sunset turned to a deep misty green across the land. She was escorted back into the great hall which was illumined with a hundred flaring torches. On the dais sat a line of grim-faced men and at the centre of the line, Master William. There was no sign of the dowager. Isobel stopped, staring round, her stomach churning with fear, but the men on either side of her pushed her on. The unusual silence, the expressions on their faces, the lay-out of the chairs and stools, so that they all sat facing her in a semi-circle as she was led to the centre of the hall, all filled her with apprehension. The man on her right halted her at last with a restraining hand on her arm.

  Isobel stared at her brother-in-law, hoping her fear did not show. Slowly he stood up.

  ‘Lady Buchan, as you know, grave charges have been laid against you by your husband. It has fallen to me, in my capacity within the Church, to enquire into these charges and make judgment as to whether or not you are guilty. Specifically you are charged that by the use of sorcery you procured the death of your unborn son and that you have since that time used the blackest of arts to prevent the conception of another child, to ensnare men and to endanger the life of your husband.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Isobel burst out desperately. ‘For the love of the Holy Virgin, I swear to you, it is not true!’ She shook off the restraining hand of the man at her side and took a step forward.

  Her mind spun and dodged desperately, but nothing could change the fact that it was true. She had practised the magical arts. She had made spells, used the herbs the way Mairi had taught her, but how could they know? How, when she had been so careful? She steadied herself desperately, her eyes fixed on her brother-in-law’s hard face.

  �
�I have done nothing which was wrong!’ she repeated.

  ‘We have a witness against you, my lady.’ William’s voice was triumphant now. He turned his head towards the door and nodded sharply. ‘Bring her in,’ he called. He looked back at Isobel, folding his arms, and he waited in silence.

  The eyes of every person in the crowded hall were directed towards the door as it was pushed open and two of the Buchan men-at-arms appeared. Between them they were dragging a woman. They brought her to the edge of the semi-circle of seats and pushed her down on to her knees where she knelt gibbering with fear. It was Mairi.

  Isobel gasped. She made as if to step towards the other woman, but at once hands grabbed her arms and she was held where she was. ‘In the name of God, what have you done to her?’ she screamed.

  Mairi’s face was a mass of swollen bleeding bruises. Her hands were wrapped in dirty clouts soaked in blood. Her gown was torn to the waist. Even huddled as she was Isobel could see the cruel bite marks of the pincers on her breasts.

  She thought she was going to faint. She could feel the room beginning to spin. Her body was soaked with sweat beneath her shift. Desperately she tried to free herself from the hands that were holding her so that she could go to Mairi but they gripped her firmly. She was powerless to move.

  ‘Mairi …’ she whispered. ‘Mairi …’ It was all she could manage to say.

  William stepped towards the edge of the dais. He looked down dispassionately at the broken woman. ‘I want you to repeat what you said to your interrogators,’ he said slowly. ‘I want you to repeat every word.’

  For a moment the silence in the huge echoing hall was absolute, then with an enormous effort Mairi raised her head. ‘It was her,’ she said. Her voice was barely recognisable as she lifted the bloody lump of rags which was her hand and pointed it at Isobel. ‘A Thighearna bheannaichte! A Mhuire mhàthair! It was her fault. She told me the things to get. She told me she wanted to kill the bairn. She hated her husband. She wanted him dead so she could marry Lord Carrick!’ Her mouth was bleeding. Where her two front teeth had been there were two gaping black holes in her gum. Her words were so muffled that they were barely comprehensible. ‘It was her, Iseabail …’ She waved her swathed hand with an effort. ‘It was her!’ She was sobbing pathetically now. For one moment her eyes, swollen and bloodshot, met Isobel’s enormous, terrified ones, then she collapsed moaning into the dried rushes which covered the floor. Blood and spittle were drooling from her mouth.