Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  Sarah sat down with alacrity, facing Clare. Within ten minutes she felt as if she had been there for ever.

  James was enjoying himself. Airdlie was his, even if his parents did live there. He loved the house, the gardens, the river and the moors. Not for long, mind you. More than a week and he’d probably be as mad as poor old Clare, but out on the hill with his step-father and the guns and the dogs he was deliriously happy. It was such a change from the City, and he was glad to be out of the City for a while. The press comment about Paul and Clare and the rumours about Paul were all becoming a bit embarrassing.

  Sitting at the breakfast table he opened his copy of The Times. Opposite him his mother, neatly dressed and coiffed, was ladling out the porridge.

  ‘Oh God, there’s another bit about Duncairn here.’ James folded back the paper. ‘Earthwatch has held a public meeting there to protest against onshore oil drilling on sites of special scientific interest. Where is Archie’s Scotsman? That will probably have more about it.’

  ‘Don’t let Clare see it, for goodness’ sake.’ Antonia put a bowl down in front of him. ‘She’s furious enough with that Forbes man as it is.’

  ‘Here it is. On the front page.’ James had rescued the Scotsman from his step-father’s chair. ‘Oh God –’ He read on in silence.

  ‘What does it say?’ Antonia glanced at the door in agitation in case Clare appeared.

  In spite of Sarah’s meticulous relaying of Paul’s instructions that Clare was to be watched and guarded at all times, Archie had decreed, with one glance at his wife’s thunderous face, that just keeping her in the house was sufficient restraint for the time being, and Clare had been released from her room as usual as soon as she awoke that morning.

  ‘They’ve got hold of some story that Clare wanted to contest Aunt Margaret’s will!’ James read incredulously. ‘That Duncairn was not enough for her and she wanted money too. Is that true?’ He turned to his mother in indignation.

  ‘No, of course it’s not true.’ Antonia was visibly distressed. ‘Really, that man is impossible! How could he even suggest such a thing?’

  ‘Paul will probably sue him this time.’ James put down the paper and turned to his porridge, shamelessly spooning sugar into his bowl. ‘Meanwhile what on earth are you going to do with Clare? You can’t keep her here for ever. The whole thing is ludicrous.’

  ‘I know.’ Antonia looked up at him unhappily.

  ‘Then why do it? Surely to God you’re not afraid of Paul? There’s nothing wrong with her, you know. Or nothing a day or two in the fresh air wouldn’t cure. Paul is a sadistic bastard, if you ask me, and Archie’s no better. He seems to be enjoying this whole set up. Like the dreadful Mrs C. God, she was bad enough in the south! Here, she’s like a female Visigoth! It’s bloody bad luck on Clare.’

  ‘What is?’ Clare came in, closely followed by Sarah Collins. Clare was wearing some old jeans and a sloppy green jersey which James vaguely recognised as one of his old ones. Her face was pale and unmade-up, her hair longer and straighter than he remembered it. It dawned on him for the first time to his surprise that his sister was a very beautiful woman.

  ‘Keeping you cooped up inside,’ James answered. He stood up and pulled out a chair for her, ignoring Sarah, who sat down humbly at the far end of the table. ‘Why don’t you come up on the hill with us?’

  ‘Why not indeed?’ Clare tightened her lips. ‘I suggest you ask our step-father.’

  ‘I have.’ James shrugged.

  ‘And he told you the lies Paul told him.’ Clare picked up the paper. She glanced at it half-heartedly, then she stiffened. ‘There’s a bit about Duncairn here. They’ve held another meeting there.’

  James exchanged glances with his mother.

  ‘It’s Mr Forbes again I’m afraid, dear,’ Antonia put in. ‘I’m sure Paul will deal with him. You musn’t let it worry you.’

  ‘Worry me!’ Clare stared at her. ‘Did you see what he said about me?’

  She couldn’t use the phone again. Four times she tried but on each occasion either her mother or Sarah came in. She had no intention of speaking to Neil Forbes with either of them listening. What she had to say to him was for his ears only. She was hurt and angry. She had told him the truth and he had ignored it; he was turning his campaign into a vendetta against her personally. Furiously pacing the floor she began to chew her thumbnail. She had to get to Duncairn. Only there would she be able to clear her name and fight Paul, but first she had to get out and take one of the cars.

  The nights had been the worst. Three times she had had the nightmare. She had awakened each time, crying and trembling, aching for Casta who would have comforted her, but Casta had been banished to the gun room with her step-father’s dogs and she was alone. Between the dreams she fought Isobel. Oh yes, she wanted desperately to know what had happened when Robert led his men into the ambush, but she was afraid now that if she allowed Isobel back it would make Paul’s accusations true. What if her mother or father came in whilst she was away in the past, as Paul had done? What if they saw her?

  Miserably she distracted herself, taking piles of books to bed with her, fighting sleep and fighting Isobel, and growing more and more exhausted. Isobel was there, she was certain of it, trying to reach her, trying to tell her what happened from behind some thin veil in her mind, as desperate to contact her as she was to avoid being contacted.

  Each night she lay in bed, watching the streaks of moonlight crossing the old tower room and each night she wondered if Margaret too had lain there watching; if she too had seen Isobel – perhaps from that same bed. The thought comforted her marginally. If Aunt Margaret had seen Isobel and knew her story, Aunt Margaret who was undeniably sane, surely it could not be so bad to want to know what had happened all those centuries ago?

  When Isobel finally won, that was the excuse Clare had used to herself. Somehow it made it seem as if it were her own considered, free decision. She waited, relieved that the struggle within herself was over, pacing up and down to keep herself awake until two in the morning – she had borrowed an old wristwatch of her mother’s now – and then at last she sank to the floor, and raising her arms, she looked into the shadows and let the past sweep her up in its story once more.

  Isobel found herself clinging to Mary, the two women separated from the others suddenly by a riderless horse, its ears back, its high saddle soaked in blood, the huge hooves as it thundered past, throwing up clods of mud. Mary fell back with a shriek, her fingers slipping on the coarse wet sterns of heather and Isobel, falling on her knees beside her, put her arms around her, sheltering her as best she could behind a mound of gorse.

  ‘Where’s Robert? For God’s sake, where is Robert?’ Mary was sobbing with shock.

  Isobel shook her head in despair. Her face was white, streaked with mud, her gown, borrowed from Mary’s meagre box the night before at the guesthouse by the peaceful shrine, now as torn and stained as her previous one had been. The horses which had carried their supplies – a few gowns, some spare weapons and some medical supplies from Kildrummy – were gone. There was no sign of the Queen or Marjorie. In the mist all they could do was listen to the sounds of shouting, the screams and the clash of blade on blade. Once or twice they saw shadowy figures battling out of the murk. Each time they fled further back down the glen, away from the noise of battle, and each time the battle followed them, as relentlessly the King’s small desperate army was beaten back. The fighting was hard and bloody, their enemy not English, but men from the Highlands, men of the Lord of Lorne.

  The women, herded in panic to the back of the line, watched as best they could in horror, helpless as the clouds settled over the bloody scene, the rain slanting down, turning the swiftly reddening ground to mud. Somewhere a horse screamed; it fell thrashing to the ground, its windpipe severed. Its rider fell, saved himself, slipped and went down, a broad sword through his ribs in the vulnerable gap in his mail beneath his arm.

  Then at last they saw Robert. Sword in
hand he hacked his way back towards them, beside him two men, unrecognisable for the blood running down their faces, and with them were the Queen and Christian, with little Marjorie. ‘Back,’ Robert yelled into the mist. ‘Back. Save the women.’ He gestured behind him along the glen with his sword arm. ‘Jettison everything which slows us down and retreat, back into the mountains. Hurry!’

  The small lochan was beside them now, black beneath the mist, the waters deep and still. One by one the men hurled their heavier weapons in, together with the few coffers that remained on the milling horses – then they turned and fled along the glen, urging the women with them, whilst Robert stood, shoulder to shoulder with the remnants of his army, protecting them, fending off their pursuers.

  He glanced at Nigel who fought at his right hand. ‘Go with the women!’ he shouted, breathlessly. ‘Back to Loch Dochart. There is a castle on the island. Get them across to it. They’ll be safe there. Hurry man! We’ll defend your rear!’ He whirled as another onslaught hurtled towards them out of the mist.

  Nigel did not hesitate. Shepherding the horses and women before him, with the wounded men who were still able to run or ride, he turned and began to run south down the broad, rain-shadowed glen. Throwing their remaining weapons into the lochan so that they could make better speed, the injured men turned to follow, all glancing in anguish over their shoulders to where their king and the remnants of his army still fought desperately to protect their retreat against a foe that so outnumbered them.

  The weather saved them, the low clouds rolling over the ground, touching the heather and grass with soft, thick mist which wrapped them round and sheltered the weary, injured party as they trailed, exhausted, south into Glen Dochart, Robert and his band of surviving fighting men behind them all the way. They followed the track up the eastern side of the loch this time, a narrow path, close to the still water, and there Robert halted the exhausted men who were still unhurt, drawing them up across a path so narrow that it could scarcely take two horses abreast, where the granite cliffs came down almost to the water’s edge, prepared to hold the position whilst his brother led the others on until they reached safety. In the centre of the loch, on a small island, stood the castle, its murky shape seeming to dissolve and reform in the mist as they watched. Summoning all his strength Nigel shouted across the water, his voice echoing off the tower.

  A flock of jackdaws rose from the battlements, crying mournfully, circled and resettled in the ivy-grown walls. Again Nigel repeated his cry for a boat, and at last they saw two figures appear outside the postern gate, their dark cloaks scarcely visible in the murk. The bedraggled party on the shore watched as the two men pushed a boat into the water and climbed in, rowing slowly and steadily towards them across the rain-pocked water. ‘The lord of Glendochart is away from home,’ one of them called as they reached the shore. He scrambled to his feet, dropping his oars, and leaped into the shallow water near them. He glanced round doubtfully at the dishevelled band of men and women.

  ‘He would not grudge us shelter, man.’ Sir Nigel had already waded out into the water and grabbed the gunwale of the boat. ‘Take us to the castle and give us shelter, for pity’s sake. I have women here, and wounded men! Your king’s wife and child –’

  The boatman stared at the huddled figures, obviously uncertain, glancing back at his companion who still sat in the bow of the boat. It was the companion who nodded. ‘Aye, let them come. I’m sure Sir Patrick would give them shelter were he here.’

  Isobel was in the first boatload, sitting in the stern huddled beside Robert’s queen, both women acutely conscious of the closeness of the black water as the laden boat laboured slowly back towards the castle. Isobel bit her lip, her anguished thoughts still with Robert, though her eyes were fixed, mesmerised, upon the thick weed parting like tresses around them as the water slid past. A patch of mist cleared suddenly and looking up she could see the far shore of the loch, thick with oak and alder, silent beneath the high ridge of mountain which sheltered the glen to the east. To the west the towering shoulder of Ben More was lost in cloud.

  Their boat laboured on slowly to the jerky oar strokes through the shallow, peaty water. In front of them two wounded men lay moaning, their blood seeping out on to the bottom boards to mingle with the loch water as it swilled about their feet.

  It took twelve trips to ferry everyone across to the castle.

  Isobel stood on the island beneath a tall Scots pine, staring across the misty water to the spot where they had last seen Robert. Evening was drawing in now, and the mist was closing around them once more. The ring of invisible mountains enclosed the loch in silence. There was no sound or sign of the rest of Robert’s party. She bit her lip, shivering violently as she pulled the checked plaid someone had given her more tightly around her shoulders and she peered into the murk. Strange figures and patterns danced before her eyes as she strained them against the mist, but there was no sign of anyone alive – friend or enemy.

  ‘Come inside, lady.’ There was a hand on her arm. ‘Please. We need you to help with the wounded.’ The old man who was beside her smiled sadly. ‘The King will come soon, have no fear. We have lookouts on the loch side to meet him.’

  Reluctantly Isobel went with him into the castle, unwilling to turn her back on the darkening water.

  Inside she found a scene of unbelievable horror. The wounded had been laid in rows on the floor of the main hall of the tower, a small, comparatively primitive structure which had arisen to preserve the shrine and ancient monastic buildings which clustered on the tiny island where St Fillan himself had once lived. Now it was hot and crowded, lit by hundreds of rush lights and a few smoking flares. Isobel stared round, appalled. The crowded room was full of the stench of blood and sweat and fear. Near by on the floor a man was moaning, his face a pasty yellow as he watched the blood from his half-severed arm pump out on to the beaten earth floor. She glanced at the old man beside her in dismay.

  ‘Help him! For God’s sake help him!’ she cried. She fell to her knees, with the last of her strength ripping a strip of material from her gown and desperately trying to bind the man’s wound with it.

  The old man shook his head. ‘I will bring salves and ointments from my kist, but he has already lost too much blood, lady.’

  The wounded man’s eyes were glazing now and his moans were growing fainter. Isobel cradled his head in her lap, willing him better, her hand clasping the fingers of his good hand, but it was no use. Even as she watched his grip loosened and his hand fell away, his head rolling sideways on her knee. ‘Help the living, lady. Leave prayers for the dead until later.’ The old man touched her shoulder gently. ‘See there. Bind that man’s leg –’

  Isobel eased the dead man’s head from her lap, reaching down gently to close his eyes, then she got up, shaking and sick, and went to the next man on the ground – and then to the next and the next. Mary was working with them too, and in the distance she could see Christian struggling to tie a blood-soaked bandage around a man’s eyes as he screamed and fought her, covering her in his blood. Sickened she looked away and saw the Queen, standing pressed against the wall, her arms around the King’s daughter, watching. The little girl was sobbing in terror. Isobel spared them only one glance – then she turned back to the man she was tending.

  Suddenly Robert was there in the doorway. She saw him staring round, his gaze going from woman to woman, visibly counting heads, and she saw him sigh with relief. His right arm was stained to the elbow with the blood of his enemies. At his shoulder stood the Earl of Atholl and Sir Neil Campbell, both near collapse with exhaustion. She saw Sir Neil search frantically for the sight of Mary amongst the survivors. He found her, and she saw his face relax into a weary smile.

  Behind them Sir James Douglas staggered into the hall. He threw himself down on to the ground beside two other wounded men, and she saw that he was trying to staunch a vicious sword slash on his arm with a strip of rag. Leaving the man she was tending with a gentle encouraging
smile she came and knelt beside Sir James and took the cloth from his hand.

  ‘Let me, Sir James.’ She tore another strip from her ragged cloak and bound it tightly round his arm. He grinned at her through gritted teeth. ‘They nearly did for us, there, my lady.’ He glanced up at Robert who was standing near them, leaning on his sword. The King’s face was grey. He had lost his cloak, with its precious brooch, and his mail was split open down his left arm from shoulder to wrist.

  Isobel scrambled to her feet. ‘Robert! You are hurt!’ she cried. Her voice was shaking. Beneath the split, tortured rings of the mail she could see the torn tunic and the jagged angry rip in the flesh.

  ‘Leave it!’ His voice was curt. ‘Help the badly wounded. And you, madam, leave the child. You help them too.’ He addressed his queen who was standing, her arm still around Marjorie, frozen in a daze of fear and horror.

  By daylight eleven of the men in the hall were dead. Some dozen others were critically wounded. Of the five hundred of so men who had ridden the morning before up Strathfillan, less than two hundred were still with them. Slowly a picture of the ambush had emerged, and they had put together the story of who their enemy had been. They had been led by John Macdougall, the son of the Lord of Lorne, in revenge for Bruce’s murder of the Red Comyn, who had been his wife’s cousin. With upwards of a thousand men he had led a march across the mountains to intercept the Bruce and his men at Dalrigh. Robert had grimaced at the irony of the name when he heard it. Dail Righ, the King’s Meadow. What fate had ordained that they meet there, to be totally and completely defeated and humiliated? But at least he and his women and a proportion of his friends had escaped.

  Sir Nigel and the women did not know how close he had been to death, when, pursued by three of Lorne’s men the night before, on the narrow path above Loch Dochart he had been cornered, and had survived only after a desperate hand-to-hand fight during which the three men, a father and his two sons, so the story was told later amongst Bruce’s men, were all killed by the King single-handed. In the fight he had lost his cloak, and the precious brooch which held it in place, a brooch which later the Macdougalls were to produce and treasure as a relic of the battle, but he had escaped with his life.