Kingdom of Shadows (61 page)

The chapel was in darkness, save for the ever-burning sanctuary light which showed up the newly painted walls and the carved and gilded cross above the altar. Crossing herself she knelt before the crucifix, staring up at its outline in the dim light, and fervently she began to pray. The gods who had blessed the stone of Scone and sanctified it had walked this sacred spot a thousand years before Christ and they were here still, even in this chapel, to give their blessing to the new King of Scots.

‘Isobel?’

Her name was whispered so softly she thought it part of the silent echoes. For a moment she didn’t move, then, startled, she scrambled to her feet. There was a movement from a faldstool at the side of the altar, and she saw a figure materialise out of the darkness.

‘Robert?’ Her heart thumped uneasily as he approached her. ‘What are you doing here?’ He was dressed only in a simple tunic. He had laid aside his robes and crown.

He smiled. ‘I came to keep vigil as I did the night before I was given my spurs. See,’ he nodded towards the altar and she realised for the first time that a naked sword lay on the altar cloth. ‘I came here yesterday before my crowning and I have come again to pray and keep vigil before my enthronement. I need all the strength that my prayers can give me.’

‘It will be a hard task winning Scotland back from the English,’ she said quietly.

The simple words conveyed clearly just how much he had to accomplish. For a moment they were both silent, contemplating the enormity of the undertaking upon which he had embarked.

‘No, it won’t be easy. But I shall do it,’ he said at last. ‘I have God and the right behind me.’ He spoke softly, but his voice was very certain. He caught her hands suddenly. ‘I am glad you came to me. I wanted you to be here. I wanted you to be the one to enthrone me.’

They stared at each other. In the semi-darkness their mutual longing was tangible.

Isobel drew away. ‘Not tonight,’ she whispered. ‘Tonight you belong to Scotland. Later you will belong to me.’ She smiled up at him, and falling on her knees she kissed his hand. ‘Good night, your grace. May the gods be with you always. I shall leave you to your vigil now.’

Rising she turned away and silently she let herself out of the chapel.

The following day dawned fine. The sky was a vivid cold blue, torn with racing puffy clouds. Clusters of early daffodils danced in the wind and the air was sharp and clear. In the distance the mountains still showed their caps of snow. On the Moot Hill, outside the abbey, on the sacred place of enthronement they had placed another stone, a lump of granite carved from the living rock of Scotland. The bishops blessed the stone and sprinkled it with holy water, then they anointed it with oil. In England the king himself was anointed, but here, in Scotland, where the ceremony was more ancient and more primitive, the crowning and the enthronement of the king were the more important acts. When the men of God had finished, Isobel knelt before the stone and placed her hands upon it, willing into it the power and the magic which she had felt flow through her in the shrine of St Edward the Confessor. Around her the watching crowds fell silent. There was a breathless hush.

Rising, she stood back for a moment, looking beyond the palace and the abbey and the forests which surrounded it towards the distant hills. She was dressed now in velvets and rich furs, her kirtle trimmed with silk embroidery, and on her head was a diadem of Scottish silver found for her amongst what survived of the royal regalia, so carefully hidden through the wars by the Bishop of Glasgow. Every eye was on her now.

She drew herself up and taking a deep breath she turned towards her king. Stepping towards him proudly she took his hand and led him to the stone, covered now by cloth of gold, and after he was seated on it she placed the crown upon his head once more. All the people who were watching, crowded dozens deep around the strange flat-topped manmade hill which was the most sacred place in Scotland, roared their approval and their assent until the echoes rang.

Several paces from Robert stood his queen, dressed in blue, scarlet and gold. She was scowling. ‘This is asinine,’ she hissed at the Earl of Atholl, standing at her side. ‘We shall be king and queen for the summer if we are lucky! Robert cannot defeat Edward of England. No one can!’

The earl, who had been watching the scene attentively, glanced at her with obvious anger. ‘This king will reign for longer than a summer, madam. Be sure of that!’ he retorted tartly. He wasn’t the only one that day to compare the beautiful dark Countess of Buchan with her wild silver eyes and her passionate loyalty, to the silent golden Queen, and find the latter wanting.

The new King of Scots summoned the Countess of Buchan to his presence that evening as the sun set in a blaze of crimson  The tractor had s behind the western hills. He was standing alone in one of the antechambers, staring out across the forests, his face lit by the dying sun.

‘Isobel! We have only a moment before I have to meet my counsellors. I just wanted the chance to tell you that I was proud of you today.’ He stepped towards her into the shadowy room. ‘Scotland will remember you for ever.’

She smiled. ‘And so, I hope, will Scotland’s king.’

He smiled. ‘Isobel.’ He was suddenly very serious. ‘I am under no illusions about what lies ahead. Nor must you be. If you follow me there will be hardship and danger. My family already know it and they have chosen to support me. Will you do the same?’

‘Do you really have to ask?’ She smiled at him. ‘I will follow you to the edge of the world if you ask me, my love.’ She put her arms around his neck, and standing on tiptoe, she reached up to kiss him.

He gathered her into his arms hungrily. ‘Dear God, Isobel, but I want you! It will be so hard having you near me. I’m not sure I am going to be strong enough to bear it –’

‘You won’t have to bear it, your grace.’ Her lips were on his neck, his ears, his throat, and then again claiming his mouth. ‘I shall be there every time you summon me. I am yours to command. You will find a way.’

‘I’ll have to find a way, my love,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘God, but I want you now!’

Behind them the door opened suddenly and fell back against the wall with a crash: Elizabeth de Burgh, the Queen of Scots, stood there. She was smiling. ‘So, the private conference his grace is engaged in, and which his fawning subjects are so anxious I should not disturb, is with the daughter of the Duffs, a murderess and a witch by all accounts.’ She folded her arms as Isobel drew guiltily away from Robert. ‘What have you to say, my lord? Or has she bewitched you as well?’

Robert eyed his wife coldly. ‘If she has, madam, it was a long time ago. I have known my cousin of Fife since she was a child.’

‘And loved her as a cousin, no doubt.’ Elizabeth’s voice was sarcastic. She moved away from the door. ‘As well it is nothing more,’ she gave Isobel an acid-sweet smile, ‘because I shall see to it she never has the chance to be alone with you again, my lord!’

The tractor had stopped right in front of the car. Climbing slowly down from the cab a man walked towards it, a torch in his hand. Casta, who had been cowering trembling in the back seat of the Jaguar began to bark sharply and Clare started violently. She could still see the shadowy room, the three motionless figures, and streaming candles, but as well she could see the outline of the windscreen, opaque with frost, and beyond it the cautious wavering beam of torchlight.

Desperately she pulled herself together, trying to regain some kind of a grip on reality. With numb fingers she groped for the ignition key and turned on the power, then she fumbled on the dashboard to find the lights. The powerful headlights flooded the field, bathing the tractor in a silver spotlight. She tried to lower the window, but it was frozen solid. Putting her whole weight against it, in sudden panic, she pushed open the door.

‘Hello?’ A voice greeted her at once. ‘Are you all right? I saw the car there, from the road.’

‘I skidded!’ Clare climbed out stiffly, gasping at the cold. She winced at the pain from her bruised shoulder. ‘And I couldn’t get back on the road. The car is stuck.’

‘Is it damaged?’ The torch beam shifted abruptly from her face back to the dented wing.

‘I don’t think so, or only superficially. Oh please, can you help me?’

‘I reckon I can.’ The man nodded thoughtfully, his words slow and ponderous. ‘I can drag you out easily enough with the tractor. I’ve a rope in the cab. Just you hold on now. It’s luck I was passing.’

It took him half an hour in the icy wind to attach the rope and gently ease the Jaguar round and back on to the road. Then, having given all her tyres a hearty kick, presumably to test their soundness, he offered Clare a drink from his Thermos. The tea had been fortified by about half a pound of sugar and a large measure of whisky. Clare gasped, her eyes watering, but it was just what she needed to kick the blood back into circulation around her veins.

She was back on the road at ten past five. It was still pitch dark.

She stopped for coffee at an all-night café in Aberdeen before setting out on the last leg of her journey. Exhausted, still numb with shock, she pulled the car out on to the road and headed north again. This time there was a slight lightening of the darkness in the sky across the sea to the east.

21

Neil stirred and opened his eyes. Beside him Kathleen lay on her face, her hair spread across the pillow, her naked shoulders looking somehow very defenceless. He leaned across and drew the tumbled blankets over her before getting up and walking over to the window. Streaks of green light were illuminating the sky above a haze of rose. High up he could see a flock of white gulls, their wings stained crimson by the sun he couldn’t yet see. With a quick glance at Kathleen he began to pull on his trousers, a shirt, two sweaters and his thick jacket. He could see the white frost on the grass now.

He let himself silently out of the hotel and, hands in pockets, made his way across the crisp grass into the teeth of the wind, towards the sunrise.

He saw the dog first. The retriever, nose down, tail wagging, exploring the stand of trees behind the hotel. He stopped. She had a dog like that. Clare Royland. He frowned.

Walking briskly across the uneven frosted ground he headed towards the castle through the first hollow cold of winter. The sky was losing its green; the crimson was spreading upwards now from its intense centre, where any moment the sun segment would appear above the sea, staining the waves into a vast inverted V of colour.

She was sitting on a fallen lump of masonry, the fur coat wrapped tightly around her, the collar up, hugging herself against the wind, her eyes on the sunrise, her hair blowing wildly back from her face.

He stood for several moments watching her, trying to make sense of the emotions which swept over him. Hostility, resentment, anger, they were all expected, but also that strange sense of rightness; the feeling that she belonged, and something not unlike pleasure at seeing her again.

Slowly he walked up to her. The howl of the wind drowned the sound of his steps sighing through the ice-crisped grass. He stopped behind her.

‘Good morning, Mrs Royland.’

She jumped violently. ‘Mr Forbes!’ As she looked up at him he saw she had been crying; or perhaps it was the wind bringing the tears to her eyes.

She remembered his name at once, he noticed. She didn’t have to grope for it. But then perhaps she had been expecting to see him up here.

For a moment they were both silent, staring out across the cliffs towards the sea as the first small rim of the crimson sun appeared, an intense unwatchable centre to the flaming sky. Below them the sea was crashing on to the rocks, the white foam luminous on the black water.

Neil tore his eyes away from the sunrise and glanced back towards the road. Was that the green Jag parked in the shadows beyond the castle walls?

Clare hadn’t moved. She hunched her shoulders defensively, not looking round. ‘Are you here on behalf of Earthwatch, Mr Forbes?’

‘I’m here to watch the sunrise.’ He rather enjoyed putting her down.

She said nothing. Slowly she stood up. She gave him a quick dismissive glance, then she walked slowly away from him towards the arched doorway which had once been the entrance to the chapel. It was very still there out of the wind where the grass was neatly mown. Clare glanced round. The atmosphere was heavy, unnaturally cold. It seemed to be giving off waves of unhappiness.

Almost without realising he had done it, Neil had followed her. He looked round frowning, feeling the strangeness round them. It was as if she triggered something in the ancient stones each time she came here. He shivered.

‘I hope you haven’t come up here to make trouble, Mrs Royland. I warned you about local reaction to your plans,’ he said, trying to shrug off the feeling of foreboding which had descended on him.

‘You know nothing about my plans,’ she retorted. She turned to face him. ‘Are you aware that you are standing on private property, Mr Forbes? Duncairn still belongs to me, you know.’

‘I have permission to be here. From Jack. Your tenant.’ He put his hands in his jacket pockets.

‘Then I must tell him not to be so prodigal with his favours.’

Her face was beginning to take on some colour; sparks of anger were animating her eyes. She had forgotten what a good-looking man he was. Somehow it made her resent him more.

Neil smiled coldly. ‘Do that.’ In spite of his intense dislike of the woman there was something about her that intrigued him: the contrasts in her, the sophistication, the expensive coat, the stylish haircut, the upper-class English accent, all so much at odds with her windswept wildness and whatever demon had brought her here to sit on a cliff top at sunrise on the coldest morning of the year so far. In spite of her anger she was slightly abstracted still, as if listening to something far away in her head, her face strangely enigmatic in its beauty. He watched her curiously, realising with a sudden flash of anger that she no longer even realised he was there. She and her castle were bound in some strange communion which did not include him.