Kingdom of Shadows. Barbara Erskine

the corner of the room Sir Duncan Beattie emptied his glass and held it out for a refill. He had been watching Paul closely, a speculative frown on his face. ‘Aversion therapy, I believe it’s called,’ he said. ‘There are many ways of trying to cure phobias, and I suspect claustrophobia is one of the commonest. I must confess I dislike those lifts myself.’ He gave Clare a kind smile as Paul got up to take his glass.

      Clare smiled back. She had seen Diane edging closer to Paul on the sofa and she had seen Paul’s seeming indifference. She sighed. It was going to be a strained evening. A few minutes later she excused herself so that she could go downstairs to put the finishing touches to the food.

      It had been fun preparing a dinner party herself again. These days Sarah Collins was always there when they had a party, and she had been content to allow the woman to do everything once she had chosen the menu. This time, to Paul’s annoyance, she had refused to ask Sarah to come up to London to take over the organisation of the food and for the last three days she had thrown herself into the preparations, doing even the shopping and cleaning. She had her reasons, of course. She was still desperately trying to keep herself occupied; to fill every moment and to fall into bed each night so tired that she slept, dreamless, at once.

      To her surprise she had enjoyed it. She was a good cook and she had forgotten the fact. She resented Paul’s unspoken hint that Sarah could do better, and if she was tired, that was her intention. She had not wanted to allow herself one single second to think.

      She glanced round the kitchen. Outside, in the garden, it was foggy and dank. She peered through the blind and shuddered. Inside it was warm and bright. The hors d’oeuvres were laid out neatly on the kitchen table ready to take into the dining room; the casserole was in the oven, the vegetables ready, the salad and dressing prepared. She walked through and glanced around the dining room. The wine had been opened an hour before; the last of the cream roses filled a silver bowl on the centre of the table; the glasses sparkled under the lights. All was ready. She picked a box of matches off the sideboard and leaned across to light the candles in the silver candelabra, then, exhausted, she sat down in Paul’s chair at the head of the table. One quiet moment was all she needed before she went back upstairs and marshalled her guests for dinner.

      But Isobel was waiting in the shadows in the corner of the room.

7

      Mairi stared at her young mistress suspiciously. ‘What are you doing there all by yourself, and so quiet, my lady?’ She wondered for a moment if Isobel had been crying.

      The girl turned away sharply. ‘I shall ride again this afternoon, Mairi. Tell Hugh to bring a fresh horse.’

      Mairi scowled. ‘My lady, don’t do it. You’re just exhausting yourself. It’ll not help.’

      ‘It will.’ Isobel put her hands on the almost imperceptible swell of her stomach. ‘It has to.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘A fresh horse, please, Mairi.’

      They no longer stopped her leaving the castle. A countess, with her retinue, might ride where she willed, it appeared, once she carried her lord’s heir in her belly. And ride she did, galloping across the moors, regardless of the weather, until her horse was exhausted and her followers gasping. She jumped the animal over burns and gullies, and returned home aching and exhausted at dusk day after day. But still the baby inside her grew.

      It filled her with horror and disgust; she could not bear to think that anything of Lord Buchan’s could be growing inside her, that any part of him could become a part of her. Besides that, she was terrified of even the idea of childbirth. It was one of the few things of which she was truly afraid. The fear went back to when she was four years old and her brother Duncan was born.

      She remembered the time vividly – a few beautiful days at the beginning of September in the year 1289 which would remain in her mind forever as a time of blood and terror.

      The Earl of Fife had been sceptical about his wife’s joyful news of her pregnancy when she had told him. He had gazed at Joanna with hard grey eyes, scarcely a flicker of response on his youthful face, not allowing himself any hope from what would surely be yet another false alarm. It had been more than three years since the birth of their first child, and even then his wife had disappointed him. It had been a girl. Joanna had shivered, and pulled her mantle more closely around her shoulders, remembering her husband’s anger and frustration as he stood looking down at the puny mite which had for a moment been placed in her arms. But this time it would be different. She had prayed to St Margaret and to St Bride and to the Blessed Virgin herself and surely they would not let her down. With a son at his side Duncan would once again, she felt sure, become the debonair young man to whom she had come a bride from England. Then he had been thrilled to receive her as his wife, dowerless though she was, as a daughter of the Earl of Clare, Hertford and Gloucester, and close kinswoman to England’s great King Edward. Then he had treated her as precious gold.

      The whole of that long hot summer after the young earl had ridden away they had waited. Then, one day Isobel’s secure world had changed. It had been a beautiful day, but it was drawing to a close. Outside the narrow castle windows a light breeze had sprung up, bringing with it a suspicion of early autumn chill. To Joanna de Clare, standing at the window, the afternoon had seemed long and dreary, and she had welcomed the cool air after the heat of the hall where they had taken their evening meal. Now from behind the distant hills the sunshine slanted low across the misty shores of the Forth, staining the tide race with carmine and gold. Any day now her husband would return, and she, now heavily pregnant, could show him the reassuring evidence that this time her promise of a child had been well founded.

      A boy had thrown some dead fruit wood on the fire and its sweet scent had drifted across the chamber, almost neutralising the fetid stench which even the autumn winds could not quite disperse from the stagnant moat below. Quite soon they would be moving south, leaving behind them the Fife castles with their stinking piles of refuse and exhausted storerooms, all the evidence that remained to show where her household had passed the months of the long summer.

      Behind her the sound of a shrill childish giggle rose suddenly above the muted sounds of talking which had been reaching her but faintly from the fireside behind her where several of her women were seated on stools around the leaping flames. The boy was carefully feeding the greedy licking lights with the dried twigs, slipping them one by one into the red hot embers to be devoured with a quick crackling sound, and as each crumbled into hot dust the flame would reflect in the bright red kirtle of the child’s gown.

      Mairi had been young then, and nervous in her first position in the countess’s household. ‘Now, my lady, will you leave the poor little creature alone!’ Her frightened voice was raised at last in sheer desperation. At once, the chatter ceased and several pairs of reproachful eyes were raised from finely-stitched needlework. The only sound came from the crisp crackle of the fire and the mournful notes of a muted harp. Then, after a hasty glance towards the countess, the women had resumed their quiet gossip.

      Joanna watched them all for a moment. The child was on her knees at the nurse’s feet, her dark ringlets hanging around her shoulders, her scarlet gown a patch of brilliance against the drab dusty heather which strewed the floor. She seemed to be trying to bury something beneath Mairi’s long skirts as the unsuspecting young woman picked up her spindle. Another piercing giggle reached her mother’s ears as Mairi sharply pulled the sweeping folds of material away from the little girl.

      Again there was an uneasy silence. Joanna had shown herself to be possessed of an uncertain temper in the last few months and she had made it quite clear that her high-spirited daughter should be kept as much out of her way as possible in this, the smallest of the earl’s castles, where they were all forced to share the same restricted living space.

      Only the old man, sitting in the corner, did not seem to notice the strained atmosphere in the room. His long frail fingers stroked the harp strings soothingly, but his eyes were fixed on the embrasure where his mistress stood silhouetted in the bright evening light. Master Elias had been harper to King Alexander in the old days, but since the king’s