Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  She had reckoned without the aid of Hugh the smith. He found her almost at once as she stood in the courtyard, staring up at the lowering sky. The wind was so strong she could hardly stand.

  ‘Greetings, lady!’ Suddenly he was at her side, his hair blowing crazily across his eyes. ‘Do you need a horse again?’

  She smiled, for the first time, it seemed to her, in weeks. ‘I need the best you can find me, Hugh, and shod for a long journey.’

  ‘Are we going to the King of Scots?’ His words were torn from his lips.

  ‘We?’ She found she was laughing.

  He nodded. ‘You and I, and, if I guess right, half your husband’s men.’

  She could not believe it; within an hour the steward and the few knights who remained loyal to the earl were under arrest, and the rest of the men were armed and ready. In an agony of impatience Isobel mounted the huge grey stallion Hugh had led up for her – one of her husband’s favourite war horses – and gathered up the heavy gilded rein as the men assembled round her in the screaming wind, pennants flying, horses accoutred in the heraldic colours of Buchan, azure and or, their manes and tails whipping viciously as the intensity of the storm increased.

  The men were going to support their rightful king. They were following her, and they were bringing weapons and horses, but she was bringing as well something far more important. She was bringing herself as representative of the ancient house of Fife, for, without her, and in the absence of her brother, King Robert could not be properly crowned.

  Sitting with her back against an outcrop of rock Clare found she was shivering violently. The wind and rain were real, but the horses were gone. Across the broad valley she could see the sunlight slanting over the fields, but here, above the woods, the sky was black. She could feel the rain sliding down her neck; her cords were soaked and her feet in her green Wellingtons were very cold. Casta was sitting beneath a tree about fifty yards away, watching her reproachfully, her ears flattened against her head.

  Dear God, it had happened again! Without warning and without her own volition Isobel had imposed herself upon her, possessing her mind, oblivious of anything save the need to tell her story. Clare put her face in her hands. She was shaking uncontrollably. ‘What am I going to do?’ she whispered. ‘What am I going to do?’ On her lap lay the small glass bottle of magic oil, half spilled before she had jammed the lid back on. She picked it up, brushing the tears out of her eyes and stared at it. It hadn’t worked. The oil was useless – a superstitious farce. Angrily she crushed the bottle in her hand and the thin glass cracked and splintered. She threw it down with an exclamation, looking in disgust at the line of cuts which had appeared on her oily palm and the shards glittering in the rain around her feet. Scrambling up she looked round for Casta, then she dropped to her knees, sniffing miserably, trying to pick up the glass. With shaking hands she gathered the pieces and hid them carefully in a deep crevice in the rocks, then she stood up. Her happiness, her sense of freedom, had gone. She was still strangely exhilarated, but it was a spurious exhilaration: it belonged to Isobel, and to her band of mounted knights with their huge, powerful horses and the flying banners in the gale of long ago. It had nothing to do with this windswept hillside and the lonely terrified woman who was being haunted by the past.

  Pulling up the collar of her Burberry around her ears, she pushed her hands deep into her pockets and turned towards the trees. She whistled to Casta, who came at once. So the shadows had withdrawn. But for how long?

  By the time she had reached the car the shower had passed and sunshine was raising clouds of steam from the tarmac as she backed it on to the road and turned north once more. She was still shivering uncontrollably. The sun was low in the sky now, throwing slanting shadows across the hills, and on the dark side of the mountains the night was moving in.

  She stopped to fill up with petrol just outside Dunkeld. Her hands were still shaking as she groped in her bag for her credit cards and she felt very strange. She wondered for a moment as she followed the pump attendant across the forecourt to sign for the petrol if she was going to pass out. The afternoon had taken on a strange unreal quality. She seemed to be seeing the world through a glass screen. It was removed from her; distanced. Isobel’s world seemed the more immediate; its colours and smells had been sharper; its characters more defined. She was becoming part of that world, drawn against her will inexorably into it, her relationship with Isobel, who was a part of her, closer than anything she had had with a real person in her whole life.

  Climbing back into the car she took a deep breath, willing herself back to reality. In ten minutes she would be home. Somehow she had to get a grip on herself; forget Isobel and think about today. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, staring down at her whitened knuckles and with a sigh she leaned forward and turned the key.

  ‘We’re nearly home, Casta,’ she said out loud. Her voice sounded strange, strained and thin against the throaty purr of the Jaguar’s engine. She half glanced over her shoulder at the dog who was sitting upright on the back seat on the tartan travelling rug, her paws and feathers soaked and muddy and a great silly grin on her face.

  As they turned in at the gates to Airdlie at last and began to travel up the long winding drive between banks of dripping rhododendrons Clare’s spirits fell even further. Her mother had told her not to come whilst Archie was there; neither of them were going to be pleased to see her. She shouldn’t have come. From the misery and uncertainty of living with Paul she had fled almost deliberately to the sour disapproval of her stepfather. But where else could she go?

  The car drew up at last under the stately cedar tree outside Airdlie’s front door. It was a huge, mainly Victorian house in the Scottish baronial style, with an original sixteenth-century wing at the north end, complete with tower. Now in the wet evening light it looked forbidding in the extreme.

  For a moment she did not move, then slowly she pushed open the car door and climbed out. Beside her the front lawns ran down gently to the broad, rain-pitted waters of the Tay and she stood staring at the river, feeling the cold rain on her already damp shoulders as behind her the front door opened.

  She turned and stared up the long flight of steps to the ugly porch. Archie was standing there, looking down at her with unsmiling intensity. In his hands there was a shot gun.

  20

  ‘You didn’t call me, honey.’ Rex stared round his office with a slight shiver as he watched the wet sleet slide down the huge picture windows. Across the Thames he could see the light on at the top of Big Ben. The House of Commons was sitting. The street lights on Westminster Bridge cast ethereal reflections on the wet road. ‘I’ve called you three times.’

  Already the filing cabinets were empty; the in-tray on his desk held only a letter to the agent who dealt with the assignment of the company apartments. In a week or two this would no longer be his office and he would no longer have a home in London.

  ‘I’m sorry, Rex.’ Emma’s voice was frosty. ‘I’ve been busy.’

  ‘Has your husband left for the Far East?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her sigh was clearly audible. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you call? You sound as though you could do with some cheering up.’

  ‘I could. Damn it, Rex! Why couldn’t you have told me the truth! Why did you lie to me?’ Sitting on the floor in the drawing room in Kew, Emma banged on the carpet with her fist. ‘I liked you, you bastard! I thought we had things in common! I liked talking to you!’ To her fury she felt near to tears.

  There was a short pause the other end of the line. ‘So. You’ve found out about Duncairn.’

  ‘Did you imagine I wouldn’t find out?’ Angrily she pushed her hair back from her face.

  ‘I guess not.’ Rex did some quick thinking, then he shrugged. Dammit, he liked her too much to blow it by lying to her now. ‘Look, I’ll be straight with you, Emma. I got to know you deliberately. I admit it. It seemed too good a chance to pass up. I wanted Duncairn
and I wanted it at any price. But as it happens, honey, you didn’t tell me anything I couldn’t have found out from others. Paul Royland’s affairs seem pretty widely known. Anyway, he and I have an understanding now.’

  ‘You have?’ Her voice was lethargic.

  ‘Yup.’ He smiled quietly to himself. ‘I owe Paul Royland and Duncairn a big debt of thanks, Emma. Without my interest in them, I should never have had the chance to get to know you, and right now that is the most important thing in my life.’

  And he would get even with Mary. If she thought he was going to go crawling back to her, she was wrong. When she wanted to, then she could come to him. At Duncairn. Until then he needed some intelligent and attractive company.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Emma sniffed.

  ‘You’d better. Listen, honey. Let me make it up to you. I want to see you again. No strings. Just because we get along. Let me take you out to dinner.’

  ‘No.’ Emma’s face was a picture of misery. ‘Peter knows. Not that there is anything to know, of course,’ she added hastily. ‘Besides, I can’t leave Julia.’

  ‘OK.’ Rex drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I tell you what. Why don’t I take you both out? Tomorrow, for lunch. I sure would like to meet Julia and see if she’s even half as pretty as her mother and there is nothing your husband would object to in that, now, is there?’ He was at his most persuasive.

  ‘Well.’ Emma was torn. In spite of her indignation she was tempted. Something about Rex fascinated her. He was more magnetic than any man she had ever met; he was powerful, charismatic, interesting. And dangerous.

  He heard the hesitation in her voice and hammered his advantage home at once. ‘I’ll pick you up in Kew at twelve, OK? Listen, honey, I’ve got to go to a meeting. If you change your mind, call Leonie, my secretary.’ He put the receiver down quickly before she had time to speak. He was fairly sure she wouldn’t call, but not entirely certain. That was part of her attraction. She was an unpredictable lady.

  ‘Clare, darling!’ Antonia Macleod gave Clare a quick, cold kiss on the cheek. ‘How are you?’ She gave her husband a warning glance. ‘Put your gun away, Archie, and we’ll all have a drink! Come on in, darling, by the fire. It’s so horrible out here.’ She was talking quickly and nervously. ‘Archie has only just got in from shooting rabbits. The dogs are outside in the yard. They’ll be so glad to see Casta again.’ She floated ahead of Clare into the huge, wood-panelled drawing room.

  Clare stared round. The room never changed. The heavy Victorian furniture, so exactly right for the house, interspersed with a few of Aunt Margaret’s beautiful antiques. It was the same in every room where the cold, wood-block floors were carpeted with rugs, some beautiful and soft and ancient, some garish and modern; all equally expensive.

  Clare flung herself down on the sofa by the open fire. ‘You don’t seem surprised to see me.’

  Antonia looked uncomfortable. Dressed in a blue Fair Isle sweater and muted tartan skirt she was standing just inside the door. ‘Well, you did ring, dear, so, I knew you were thinking of coming. Ah, here’s Archie now.’ She stood aside, obviously relieved, as her husband appeared, followed by two black labradors. ‘Sit down, Archie, and talk to Clare while I put on the kettle.’

  ‘To blazes with the kettle.’ Archie strode towards the hearth and stood with his back to it. ‘Let’s have a drink. What would you like, Clare, old thing? Have you driven up all the way from Bucksters today?’

  Clare hid a smile. Archie trying to be nice was almost worse than Archie being insufferable. ‘I’d like some whisky, please.’ She knew he disapproved of women drinking whisky.

  Behind them the three dogs circled each other, wagging their tails. Casta gave a sharp bark and bounced up and down, but the two fat labradors merely grinned before throwing themselves down in front of the fire.

  ‘They’re getting old.’ Clare leaned forward to scratch a grey muzzle. ‘And they’re overweight. Really, Mummy, you should put them on a diet.’

  ‘The dogs have always liked you.’ Antonia accepted a small glass of sherry from her husband and sat down opposite Clare.

  ‘Of course they have.’ Still fondling the dogs’ ears Clare missed the glance that passed between her parents.

  It had taken Archie a long time to tell Antonia about Paul’s call. He had spent hours thinking about it, trying to reconcile his antipathy towards Clare and his respect for his son-in-law with the deep common sense which told him that Paul was completely mad.

  It was that evening as Antonia had finished getting ready for bed that he went into her bedroom and sat down uneasily on the velvet-covered Victorian nursing chair by her small open fire. Antonia had just climbed into the old-fashioned high bed, still dressed in her pink ribbon-trimmed dressing gown. Recognising the signs that a serious discussion was about to take place she set down the well-thumbed Georgette Heyer and took off her spectacles. ‘What’s the problem, Archie?’ she asked, hauling herself up higher on the pillows.

  ‘Trouble, old girl,’ he said slowly. And he told her exactly what Paul had said.

  Antonia had not said a word until he stopped speaking, then there was a long silence. She was staring out of the half-drawn curtains at the black reflecting glass of the windows. Outside it was pitch dark and very quiet.

  ‘What do you think?’ Archie asked tentatively at last.

  ‘I think, as you do, that Paul has gone completely mad.’

  Archie was gnawing his thumb nail. ‘They must have had a row, do you think?’

  ‘They are always rowing.’ For a moment Antonia frowned. ‘Clare has rung me twice lately. She did sound unhappy.’

  ‘You don’t think this business of not being able to have a baby could possibly have unhinged her?’ He stared hard at his feet, waiting for the explosion he knew would follow.

  Antonia swung her legs purposefully to the floor. ‘You are not telling me you believe what he told you?’ She took a deep breath which enlarged her already ample rose-bud covered bosom by several inches.

  ‘No, dear, of course not, but Clare has always been a little fey.’ He looked up cautiously. To his surprise he saw a small doubtful frown between his wife’s eyes.

  They had a cup of cocoa together an hour later, and then retired to their separate rooms without further comment. Both lay awake a long time.

  The following morning before Clare set out from her motel in Northumberland Archie had left the house. He drove the Volvo to Edinburgh where he visited his solicitor before going on to the manse of a suburban kirk where he spent an hour closeted with the minister, an old schoolfriend from Fettes. Finally before he set off back to Dunkeld he called at a shop on the Mound and bought a six-inch-high ivory crucifix. Holding it cautiously in its paper bag between finger and thumb as though afraid it might bite, and feeling just a little foolish, he went back to the car and locked the paper bag in solitary splendour in the back. When he got home he told Antonia he had spent the morning in Perth.

  Now he sat in uneasy silence clutching his own glass of neat whisky whilst his wife and step-daughter exchanged uncomfortable small talk. He was watching Clare surreptitiously. She had lost a lot of weight since he had seen her last; she was as thin as a rake with dark circles under her eyes. She was a looker, Clare, like her mother used to be, but there was definitely something wild about her – the part of her that he had always resented, the part she had from her father. Cautiously he watched her eyes as she continued to fondle the dogs. They were sensitive, expressive eyes, reflecting her every mood, shadowed by long lashes as her concentration was for the moment fixed on the animals. They were all three round her now, vying for the touch of her hands, pushing against her knees, grinning stupidly at her. He had always trusted the dogs’ judgment. They knew. He took a deep sip of whisky, reassured. Then he nearly choked. He had just remembered about witches and their familiars.

  They ate together in the high-ceilinged cold dining room and Clare, making her long drive the excuse, went to her room di
rectly afterwards. The atmosphere in the dining room had chilled her. Her parents were more than usually edgy and ill at ease and she was too uncomfortable to go with them back into the drawing room for coffee.

  Her bedroom was exactly as she had left it last time; exactly as it had been when she was fifteen. A huge room on the west side of the house looking out over the river, it was full of treasures. She closed the door behind her and looked round fondly. So many treasures and memories; her teddy bears, four of them in varying degrees of tattiness lined up on the bed, her pictures, her dressing table with the silver-backed hair-brushes Aunt Margaret had given her on her sixteenth birthday. There were faded photographs under the glass of the table, mostly of James and her father and various generations of dogs. There were still two torn posters on the wall – the Royal House of Scotland, and the clans and their tartans – and between them the Landseer oil sketch of the ruins of Duncairn Castle with a stag in the foreground.

  Slowly she knelt in front of the hearth and put a match to the fire that was laid there. The house had had central heating for ten years now, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to the huge chilly rooms. She loved having a fire in her bedroom; it seemed so right and comfortable. Undressing slowly she climbed into bed and lay staring at the merrily crackling flames. Outside she could hear two owls calling to one another sharply in a tall Scots pine.

  She awoke screaming as the bars closed around her. The eyes were closer tonight, the faces uglier, the terror more real than ever before.

  She lay for a long time, too afraid to open her eyes, clutching at the sheets. The room was ice cold, the fire long ago dead. There was a sheen of damp on the top of the bedclothes. For a moment she didn’t know where she was and she was terrified that when she opened her eyes it would be real. She whispered Casta’s name in the dark, but Casta didn’t come: she was downstairs with the other dogs. Reaching out in the darkness Clare’s hand closed round a cold soft fabric paw. It was one of her teddy bears. She sat up in the freezing room and stared round, dazed, then slowly she lay back again against the pillows. Somewhere far away one of the owls hooted.