Kingdom of Shadows. Barbara Erskine

alone,’ she commanded.

      ‘My lady –’

      ‘Leave me! I’ll call you when I’m ready.’ Her voice wavered for the first time.

      She waited for the door to close, then, carefully holding the box clear of the water, she opened it.

      The powders were ready; crushed herbs and tree bark, the ash of a burned piece of parchment on which a spell had been written and the charcoal remains of a poor burned frog. With a shudder she tipped the mixture into the water, and throwing the box to the ground she gently stirred it in around her. She had already swallowed some of the powder, dissolved in wine; this ritual cleansing would complete the spell which Mairi had herself told her, long ago, and would rid her of Lord Buchan’s child.

      When the water was quite cold and she was shivering violently she called Mairi back.

      ‘Quick, give me a towel.’ She climbed awkwardly from the bath, and ran, swathed in the towel to stand by the fire. Her teeth were chattering audibly. ‘Throw on more peats, Mairi, I’m so cold.’ Outside, the wind was rising; the polished horn shutters in the windows rattled and the dried heather on the floor stirred uneasily in the draught.

      ‘I won’t bear his child!’ Isobel cried as Mairi approached with a neatly folded clean shift from one of the coffers. ‘I won’t. I’d die rather!’

      Mairi shook her head sadly. ‘It will be as God wills, my lady.’

      ‘No! It will be as I will!’ Isobel shook out her hair. She snatched off the towel and stood for a moment, naked in the firelight, looking down in distaste at the roughly woven unbleached cloth which was covered in little bits of the herb and bark that had been clinging to her damp skin.

      Mairi shrank back. Such blatant nakedness was suddenly shocking. The child she had bathed a thousand times before had become a stranger.

      As she watched, Isobel held the towel high and flung it on the fire. It smoked and blackened on the smouldering peats, then it burst into a brilliant flame which leapt crackling up the chimney. Both women stared at it for a moment, then, shaking with fear, Mairi hurried forward and wrapped Isobel’s chilled body in the shift. When she turned away the little hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end. Glancing over her shoulder at her mistress, Mairi crossed herself secretly.

      ‘You’re not afraid of me, Mairi?’ Isobel asked suddenly.

      ‘Of course not, my lady.’ Still unnerved, Mairi didn’t look at her. She stooped to pick up the box near the bath and closing it reverently she put it down on the table.

      ‘I meant it, Mairi. I will not carry that man’s baby.’ Isobel spoke with a new authority, no longer a child.

      ‘I believe you, my lady.’ Mairi shivered again.

      ‘And now it is over.’ Isobel was staring into the fire. ‘Soon the blood will come, and I shall be free of it!’

6

      ‘James Gordon is here, Mr Royland.’ The voice on Paul’s desk rang out suddenly in the silence.

      Paul turned from the window and pressed the intercom switch. ‘Thank you, Penny. Could you ask him to come in?’

      He smiled wearily as the door opened. ‘I’m sorry about lunch last week.’

      James shrugged. ‘No problem. Did you talk to Clare?’

      Paul nodded slowly. He threw himself down into a chair, gesturing at his brother-in-law to do the same. ‘We discussed things at some length.’ He hesitated, giving James a quick appraising glance. ‘I want this conversation to be completely confidential. It is to ask you about Clare.’

      James sat down slowly. His expression was carefully guarded.

      ‘As you predicted,’ Paul went on, ‘she is adamant in her refusal to contemplate the sale of Duncairn. Irrationally so.’ He paused again, allowing the words to hang for a moment in the air. ‘It is of course a very difficult time for Clare. The discovery that she can never have children has upset her enormously. It is perfectly understandable that her entire outlook on life is a little disturbed at the moment. The problem is that she is allowing her emotional distress to interfere with her business acumen.’

      For the first time James’s face flickered. ‘I never thought my sister had any business acumen at the best of times.’

      Paul looked at him sharply. ‘Indeed?’ he said. ‘Well, I assure you she has. Which is why she would be the first to be furious if she found that she had missed out on a massively profitable deal while the balance of her mind was disturbed.’

      James let out a soundless whistle. ‘That’s a bit strong, surely.’

      Paul stood up restlessly. He walked across to the window and stood looking down into Coleman Street for a moment in silence. When he spoke it was with extreme care. ‘I understand that there have been times, even from her earliest childhood, when Clare has had periods of, shall we say, strangeness?’ He put his hands in his pockets, leaning forward slightly, as if studying something below on the pavement.

      ‘Hardly strangeness.’ James was staring at Paul’s back. ‘She’s always been highly strung, I suppose. And Aunt Margaret used to call her fey. But I don’t think that means what one thinks it does, does it?’ He gave a forced laugh.

      ‘It means doomed to die young.’ Paul turned sharply, leaning against the window sill.

      James licked his lips. They had gone rather dry. ‘I’m sure Aunt Margaret did not mean that.’

      ‘What then?’

      James hadn’t realised before what hard eyes Paul had. Brown, like nuts; expressionless in the handsome, slightly overweight face.

      ‘I think she meant slightly spooky; seeing ghosts, that sort of thing. Like those nightmares she used to get all the time.’

      ‘She still has them.’

      ‘Does she?’ James glanced up at him.

      ‘And she is still suffering from claustrophobia. That has something to do with the nightmares, I think.’

      James hesitated uncomfortably. ‘I don’t know that it does, actually,’ he said at last. ‘I think that may be my fault.’ He stood up and slowly paced up and down the carpet. Paul was watching him, a frown on his face. ‘It was when we were children,’ James went on after a second or two. ‘A game that got out of hand.’ He glanced up at Paul with an apologetic smile. ‘Aunt Margaret used to tell us stories about Robert the Bruce, Scottish history, battles and stuff.’ He paused again. ‘One of the stories was about a woman who was put in a cage and left there to die.’ He shuddered. ‘It was pretty horrible really. Clare was obsessed by it and Aunt Margaret would go on about it; it never seemed to dawn on her that Clare was really upset by the whole thing. Anyway, we used to play Robert the Bruce games: the Battle of Bannockburn, that sort of thing. And once we played the woman in the cage.’ There was a long silence. ‘Kids can be pretty cruel, can’t they, and there were times when I thought I hated Clare. She was older than me, and I always thought she was mother’s favourite, so I didn’t have too much conscience about what I did.’ He stopped pacing the floor. Looking down he kicked viciously at the carpet.

      ‘And what did you do?’ Paul prompted softly.

      ‘I locked her in a cage at Airdlie.’ James resumed pacing the floor. ‘There was a cage at the back of the stables – a small run really, where grandfather kept his dogs. I found an old padlock and pushed her in and left her there. It was quite late at night. Completely dark. There was no one around.’

      ‘How long was she there?’ Paul’s eyes were fixed on his face.

      ‘All night. We started playing after we were supposed to be in bed. The grown-ups were having a dinner party. No one noticed