Child of the Phoenix

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Seen?’ Eleyne queried.

  ‘At Scone. We met in the monk’s garden among the ruins of the burned abbey and – someone saw us … making love.’ Isobel’s broken murmur was almost inaudible.

  ‘My poor child – ’

  ‘I love him so much,’ Isobel whispered. ‘I would die for him.’

  ‘We may all have to die for him one day, when he is our king,’ Eleyne said slowly. ‘But, Isobel, child, not for that … not because he has made you betray your marriage vows.’

  ‘Yes. For that.’ Eleyne saw the passion she remembered from their last meeting blazing in the girl’s eyes again. She sighed, then in spite of herself she smiled. She kissed Isobel’s forehead. ‘Take care, my darling, won’t you,’ she said.

  Isobel bit her lip, then she scrambled to her feet. ‘You must be tired, great-grandmama. Shall I leave you a while to rest?’ The girl was so eager to see him, it was cruel to keep her here.

  ‘I think that would be nice, my child. I shall see you in the great hall later.’ Eleyne tried to quell the feeling of unease that filled her, but there was no putting it off. Isobel’s fate, like that of all of them, was already written in the flames. ‘There is someone else here, I believe, who would like to talk to you about France.’ She looked grave and raised her gnarled fingers to Isobel’s cheek. ‘Take care, my darling. Remember your husband.’ As Isobel bent to kiss her, she saw the colour flooding into the girl’s face.

  She walked slowly to the fireside as soon as Isobel had gone and stood looking down into the flames. In spite of the heat of the long summer outside, she kept the fire burning constantly now. She frowned, screwing up her eyes, but there were no pictures there. Nothing but empty heat.

  III

  August 1305

  Duncan looked from his brother to his mother and back with a despairing shrug. ‘I pray no one else falls into King Edward’s hands. The man doesn’t know the meaning of mercy.’ He had just read out a letter they had received from London.

  It gave the news that Eleyne’s great-nephew Owain, Dafydd’s son, still a prisoner after so many years in Bristol Castle, had been dragged from his cell in one of the towers and thrown into a cage. There the king had determined to keep him, like an animal, for the rest of his days.

  ‘A cage? Sweet Lady! Why?’ Eleyne closed her eyes, picturing the bars, the horror, the despair of the poor, lonely young man.

  ‘My guess is he wants to frighten anyone who might think of opposing him. He is a vindictive, vicious man,’ Duncan replied. ‘There’s another letter, mama, and I’m afraid it’s worse.’

  Sir William Wallace had been captured at last. He had been taken to London in chains, dragged through the streets and hanged. His body had been quartered. His head had been put on London Bridge and his four quarters were being set up at Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth, as a salutary example to the Scots.

  Eleyne was aware that everyone in the room was silently making the sign of the cross. ‘Poor Sir William,’ she said softly. ‘May God rest his soul.’

  She glanced at Gratney sitting at the table, a goblet of mulled wine in his hand. He was shivering and feverish, having caught a bad cold while visiting Kirsty’s chapel of the Garioch the week before. ‘So, do you still admire Edward? Would you tell your sons to follow him?’ Little Donald had been born three months earlier and flourished noisily to his grandmother’s delight, and Kirsty, as though to prove her newfound fertility, was already pregnant again.

  Gratney shook his head. ‘Mama, I’ve told you, Edward is a good king. He’s strong, he’s a brilliant tactician. That doesn’t mean I condone what he has done.’ His voice was hoarse and he reached for the flagon near him for more wine.

  ‘There is yet more news, mama,’ Duncan interrupted. ‘Lord Buchan and Isobel were in London when Wallace was tried and executed. Lord Buchan is to be one of the Scots lords supposed to represent us in the new English parliament. I understand his wife did not care for London, and has retired to their manor at Whitwick in Leicestershire for the summer.’

  Eleyne nodded, satisfied. Isobel would be out of harm’s way in England. She wondered if the girl had seen her brother while she was in London. Duncan of Fife still lived in England; still served the English king. She shook her head sadly. How could her sons and grandsons be so blind? Why did they not understand the danger? She stood up. ‘I shall go and rest and pray for Sir William’s soul.’ She put her hand on Gratney’s shoulder. ‘Take care of that cough, my son, or I shall have to dose you with one of my concoctions.’ She bent and kissed the top of his head.

  Gratney reached for her hand affectionately. ‘Not that, please, mama!’ He smiled. ‘A fate worse than death, one of your nasty medicines!’

  * * *

  The cough grew worse. Four days later it had descended to his lungs, and three days after that, in spite of his mother’s medicines and the distraught family’s anguished prayers, Gratney, Earl of Mar, died. He was thirty-eight years old. His son and heir was a baby, his daughter not yet born.

  IV

  December 1305

  Little Eleyne of Mar made her appearance four months later at Kildrummy as a blizzard raged around the cold stone walls. In spite of her tiny size, the baby snuggled against a succession of warmed wrapped stones, thrived and proved as lusty a crier as her brother had been.

  Kirsty looked wearily at her brother when he came to visit her a week after the birth. Robert, still high in King Edward’s trust, had been made little Donald’s guardian, and was now constable of his ward’s great castle at Kildrummy, in charge of overseeing the continuation of its building works. He sat down on Kirsty’s bed and peered at the baby in the crook of her arm. ‘Gratney would have adored her,’ he said gently.

  She nodded.

  ‘There is someone downstairs who would like to come up to see you and pay his respects.’

  Kirsty bit her lip. ‘Christopher?’

  ‘Who else? He’s so laden with gifts for the new mother, he will need a dozen servants to help carry them up to you.’ Robert hesitated. ‘He has asked me for your hand, Kirsty. It would be my dearest wish for you to marry him, but it’s up to you. I would never force you. I know how much you loved Gratney.’ His voice tailed away into silence as he watched his sister’s face.

  One of Robert’s closest friends and supporters, Sir Christopher Seton had declared his love for Kirsty three months after Gratney had died, and in her frozen misery she had sent him away. He had persisted, however, gently and with dogged good humour and slowly she had begun to respond to his charm. She lay back on her pillow, looking down at the baby in her arms. ‘It’s too soon, Robert. Give me time.’

  ‘Of course.’ He smiled. ‘Can he come up, or shall I send him out into the snow?’

  ‘Of course he can come up.’ She looked up at her brother fondly. ‘I should welcome a little distraction.’

  V

  February 1306

  Eleyne had remained strong when Gratney died; she had arranged the funeral in Kirsty’s chapel of the Blessed Virgin of the Garioch; she had sustained Kirsty through her tears and through little Eleyne’s birth and through her remarriage two months after that. But as a second freeze had locked the land she had fallen ill and at last she had taken to her bed. There was no fight left in her. Pale and thin as a wraith, she ate nothing, holding on to life by a tenuous thread. Even the pure spring song of a robin on a tree beyond the wall, once one of her favourite sounds, did not reach her.

  She was asleep when Kirsty tiptoed to the bed, holding little Donald by the hand. ‘Mama, are you awake?’ She lifted Donald on to the bed and sat down. She had ordered Eleyne’s ladies from the room. ‘Mama, are you awake?’ Her voice was shaking with excitement. ‘Christopher and I have just arrived and we have incredible news!’

  Donald crawled gleefully across the covers and pulled the sheets from his grandmother’s face. ‘Boo!’ he said hopefully. He adored the old lady, and pestered her unceasingly whenever he could get near her. />
  Eleyne smiled wanly. She pulled herself up on her pillows. ‘How could I not be awake when you plonk that monster on top of my frail bones?’ she said sharply. ‘Move him, Kirsty, before he breaks my ribs.’

  Kirsty swept her son on to her knee, ignoring his wails of protest. ‘Listen! It has begun! Robert has declared himself king!’ Her face was pinched with excitement.

  Eleyne leaned forward, suddenly wide awake. ‘When? Why now? What has happened?’

  Kirsty jiggled Donald up and down on her knee. ‘He quarrelled with John Comyn of Badenoch and they fought. Comyn was killed! Christopher says the fight was in a kirk but I don’t believe that, Robert would never do such a terrible thing; but the upshot was that Robert has declared himself at last. Men are flocking to his standard from all over Scotland!’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘He has taken Dumfries and Ayr and his followers have taken Rothesay. The Bishop of Glasgow is with him, and Bishop Lamberton. He has demanded that Edward recognise him as king.’ She gave a half-frightened giggle. ‘And he is to be crowned at Scone!’

  For a moment Eleyne stared at her without a word, then, purposefully, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her cheeks were bright with colour.

  ‘At last! At last!’ she cried exultantly. ‘I must get up. What a fool I’ve been to lie in bed like this. There are things to be done. A coronation to attend! And then –’ She paused soberly. ‘And then, make no mistake, Kirsty, my dear, there will be a war to fight. I suspect we’ve seen nothing yet to compare with what will come when Edward Plantagenet hears about this.’

  She walked stiffly towards the window. Impatiently she called a page to open the shutter. Suddenly she was stifled with the heat of the room. She wanted to be outside; she wanted to ride. She stepped towards the window and stared up at the sky. She could see nothing but the reflection of the candles in the glass, then, as her eyes grew used to the darkness beyond, she gasped. A shimmer of pale colour blazed on the horizon. ‘Kirsty, the sky – ’

  ‘I know, mama. We saw them as we rode in. You must come outside and see them properly. It is the cailleachan, the storm hags. They’ve sent the Merry Dancers to bid Scotland rejoice in her new king!’

  VI

  SCONE Lady Day, March 1306

  Scone was crowded by the time the contingent from Mar arrived, their numbers increased by John of Atholl with Marjorie, and Duncan and Christiana with their respective children. Eleyne’s litter was lowered at last outside the rambling, half-ruined palace and she was shown the spot where their tents were being erected. Tents and pavilions crowded the meadows around the abbey; the air was full of smoke from hundreds of fires and braziers fanned by the cold March wind and the noise of thousands of people shouting and laughing and dancing in a wild excitement.

  Kirsty and Christopher, John and Marjorie, Eleyne, and little Donald – the king’s nephew and a senior peer of the realm for all his small size – were all given places of honour in the abbey and watched with tears in their eyes as the Bishop of St Andrews, flanked by the Bishops of Glasgow and Moray and the Abbots of Scone and Inchaffray, lifted a golden coronet high and placed it on Robert’s head and the rafters rang to the cheers of Robert’s willing subjects as he faced them as their crowned king.

  ‘He should be seated on the sacred stone, and Lord Fife should be putting that crown on his head,’ John Atholl murmured to Eleyne as they stood in the closely packed crowd. ‘And it should be the true crown.’

  Earls of Fife had from time immemorial crowned Scotland’s sovereign on the ancient coronation stone. It did not augur well for Robert’s reign that tradition had been flouted not once but twice in this ceremony. But what could they do? Duncan of Fife was to all intents and purposes an Englishman now, in the household of Edward of Caernarfon, and the stone itself had been carted to England and, rumour had it, Edward had built it into a chair in Westminster Abbey: the chair on which one day his son would be crowned King of England. With it had gone the crown and nearly all the Scots regalia.

  ‘Say nothing,’ she whispered. ‘It’s so long since we crowned a proper king in this country, perhaps there are few who will remember.’

  But their memories were to be jogged the following evening at the second of the feasts to follow the crowning ceremony.

  The great hall in the palace was packed, the trestle tables groaning under mountains of hastily assembled food and wine, and lit by a thousand candles from the precious stocks of the loyal abbeys of Scotland. The noise, following the grace, was deafening.

  Eleyne was seated near the new king at the high table. Between her and Kirsty, little Donald dozed on a pile of cushions. Laughing, Robert had insisted, ‘He’s one of the senior earls of my kingdom and he’s my ward. How can he miss my coronation feast!’ And he had kissed his nephew roundly. Beyond him and his tight-lipped, disapproving queen, Elizabeth, sat his daughter Marjorie, herself only ten, but so proud and excited she was far beyond sleep.

  Kirsty looked at Eleyne across Donald’s head and grimaced. ‘Our new queen seems none too pleased at the situation. I take it, coming from a family who is so completely in King Edward’s shadow, that she does not support her husband wholeheartedly.’ She shot a malevolent glance at her sister-in-law.

  ‘It would seem not.’ Eleyne sighed. ‘I wish she could find it in her at least to smile – ’

  She broke off as a hush fell over the noisy scene and she turned to stare, as everyone else was doing, towards the far end of the hall, beyond the leaping torchlight. The lone figure of a woman had appeared in the doorway and begun to walk towards them. She was dressed in a wet, muddy cloak, the hood thrown back to reveal wildly tangled dark hair.

  ‘Isobel?’ Eleyne’s lips formed the word incredulously, but no sound came.

  Total silence fell on the great hall as the Countess of Buchan drew near the dais, her eyes on Robert’s face. As she approached him, he stood up, his crown glinting in the light of the candles. She stopped so close to her great-grandmother that Eleyne could see the dark rings beneath the girl’s eyes, the peaty mud stains on her fair skin. She looked so exhausted she seemed about to collapse, but it was with enormous composure and even triumph that she sank on her knees in front of Robert.

  ‘Your grace, I bring you the allegiance of the House of Duff,’ she cried in ringing tones. ‘I bring my brother’s greeting and his blessing and I claim the right, in his stead, to set you on the throne of Scotland.’ She raised her hands towards his in a gesture of submission and fealty and Robert took them.

  He smiled. ‘Your allegiance I accept and gladly, Lady Buchan, but I am already crowned.’

  There was a buzz of excited conversation behind them in the hall. Kirsty glanced at Eleyne and raised an eyebrow.

  Beyond Robert old Bishop Lamberton had scrambled to his feet, his eyes alight with excitement as he looked at Isobel. ‘The Countess of Buchan brings you the seal of tradition. The ancient right of the Earls of Fife to enthrone the king is not to be denied!’

  Robert looked around at him. ‘Would you have me crowned twice, my lord bishop?’

  John of Atholl jumped to his feet, and thumped Robert on the shoulder with a shout of delight. ‘Why not! By God, that would be a splendid start to your reign, Robert! Of course she must enthrone you!’

  ‘But where?’ Lord Menteith sat back in his chair. ‘The Earls of Fife have always enthroned our kings upon the Stone of Destiny, and that has gone with so much else to England.’

  Eleyne saw Isobel tense. She was trembling with excitement now.

  ‘I have the power of the stone in my hands,’ she said, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. ‘I went to St Edward’s shrine at Westminster, and I laid my hands upon it, where it lies in the chair Edward of England has had carved to hold it prisoner, and I prayed for its power so that I could pass it on to you, my king. And the stone gave me its blessing. I felt its power!’

  Eleyne’s eyes were on Isobel’s hands as they lay between Robert’s, and she saw with amusement that Robert let
go of them suddenly, almost as though they had burned him.

  Beyond the king Bishop Lamberton glanced at his colleague, Bishop Wishart. ‘This is part of the sacred inheritance of Scotland.’

  Wishart nodded. ‘We should ask the countess to perform the ceremony without delay. Tomorrow. It will be Palm Sunday.’ The old man’s face was solemn. ‘Thus may our king, Robert, enter his kingdom twice, and in the footsteps of Our Lord.’

  There was an awed silence. Eleyne felt her eyes fill with tears. The emotion amongst Robert’s followers was raw and explosive in the hall below them. Only a few, sitting near the king and queen at the high table, heard the queen’s quiet words as she addressed her husband. With a small snort of derision she gave Isobel a withering glance. ‘These are the games of children! Do you seriously expect this woman to crown you again? Surely one such farce is enough!’

  There was a gasp of horror from Eleyne’s neighbours.

  Isobel looked at the floor, her face white, her fists clenched in the folds of her muddy cloak. ‘I am here to serve my king if he desires it,’ she said softly. To Eleyne it seemed as though her love must be obvious to every person in the hall.

  ‘And he does desire it!’ Robert reached for her hand once more with a small bow. ‘Tomorrow, my lady, you shall enthrone me in the ancient manner upon the sacred hill outside the abbey before the people of Scotland.’ He smiled, then his face sobered. ‘Tell me, my lady, does the Earl of Buchan know what you are doing?’

  Eleyne saw Isobel bite her lip suddenly. ‘I have no doubt that by now he knows, sire.’ She glanced up at Robert under her eyelashes. ‘I hope this time you won’t tell me to go back to him.’ It was as if the two of them were alone in the great hall, oblivious of anyone else; Eleyne strained her ears to hear his quiet reply: ‘Not this time, my lady. This time I shall keep you with me.’