Child of the Phoenix

I

The night Morna hanged herself Eleyne dreamed again of the fire. She could hear the roar of the flames, smell the smoke; her eyes streamed and she awoke choking and gasping.

Bethoc, still half-asleep, dragged herself out of her bed and went to her. ‘My lady, what is it? What’s the matter?’

‘The fire!’ Eleyne pointed at the hearth, still dazed with sleep.

Bethoc turned. The room was lit only by a rush lamp. A small fire smouldered in the hearth. As they watched, the wind blew back down the chimney and a puff of bitter smoke strayed into the room.

‘It’s getting stormy, my lady. The wind must have woken you.’

The west wind roared in the chimneys and they heard the trees in the Den thrashing their new leaves. ‘I’ll call for turves to damp the fire down.’ She pulled the bedcovers over Eleyne and tucked them in firmly, but Eleyne pushed them back with shaking hands. ‘Something’s wrong, I know it.’ The dream had been so real, so vivid. She had dreamed it a dozen times in the two years since Mairi died, but each time she had remembered nothing but the fire.

Wrapping her nightgown around her, she lowered her feet to the floor with a groan at the stiffness in her joints and, reaching for her stick, walked slowly to the hearth. ‘Build it,’ she commanded suddenly. ‘Build it into a good blaze.’

Bethoc summoned the sleepy page who went to call the log boy and within ten minutes a blaze had been achieved.

Eleyne sat looking at it, her thin body wrapped in the scarlet silk and velvet gown, her feet pushed into velvet slippers, her hair in a heavy plait, hanging over one shoulder. In the flickering firelight her face looked young again. Watching her surreptitiously, Bethoc sucked in her cheeks and shook her head. The expression on her lady’s face was strange. She had raised her head as though listening to something far away and then she had smiled. Bethoc shivered violently and crossed herself before she turned away.

The picture in the flames was clear. She saw the man walking through the crowds and she heard the roar of their acclaim; she saw the scarlet lion of Scotland thundering triumphantly in the wind beside the silver saltire of St Andrew on its azure ground, and then she saw the woman, tall and slim, a flame herself in a scarlet gown, and in her hands a crown…

‘Mama!’

She started violently as Gratney put his hand on her shoulder. ‘My dear! I didn’t hear you come in.’ For a moment she was disorientated, far away, not wanting to lose the vision. But it had gone. With a sigh she looked up at her son, scrutinising his face in the firelight, wondering why he had come to her chamber in the middle of the night. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

‘I’m sorry. There’s no easy way to tell you this. It’s Morna.’

Her eyes held his steadily. ‘She’s dead.’ So, she had chosen the moment to walk through the door and end her loneliness.

He nodded.

‘How?’

‘She hanged herself.’ He looked away, unable to bear the agony in her eyes.

‘It’s my fault.’

‘No, mama, how could it have been your fault?’

‘I sent Mairi to Isobel.’

‘You weren’t to know what would happen.’

‘Wasn’t I?’ She stood up. Her stick slipped to the floor, but she ignored it. ‘Blessed Virgin! Am I to have no rest from blame? How many deaths must haunt me?’

‘Mama – ’

‘Please leave me, Gratney.’ Her narrow shoulders were tense with pain.

He hesitated. Then he nodded slowly.

For a long time after he had gone she sat unmoving, her face in her hands, then at last she looked up.

‘Where are you? Why don’t you take me?’ she cried out loud. ‘Alexander?’

The great solar remained silent. She rubbed her face, trying to deny the tears which channelled down her cheeks, but they would not stop.

‘Goddamn you, Alexander, why don’t you show yourself, now I need you? Why don’t you speak to me? Why don’t you come any more?’ She stared around the room. ‘You showed yourself to her. Why not to me?’ She clenched her fists. ‘Isn’t it my turn to die? You wanted me enough before. Am I too old now, even for you?’ She pushed herself to her feet, leaning on the chairback for support. ‘Or don’t you exist at all? Were you just the imaginings of a lonely, frustrated woman? That’s it, isn’t it? You were nothing but a dream! You don’t exist! You’re dead! Like Morna. Like Mairi! Like Donald -’ Her voice wavered and she began to sob out loud. ‘You never existed. You died on Kerrera. You died!’

Outside the door a page was waiting, his ear pressed to the door. He leaped to his feet guiltily as Kirsty appeared at the top of the stairs behind him.

‘Lady Mar! I’m sorry, I thought perhaps the Lady Eleyne was ill. She was shouting – ’

Kirsty waved him aside. Pulling open the heavy door, she went in and to his intense disappointment closed it behind her.

‘Mama?’

Her mother-in-law was staring down at the fire, tears coursing down her cheeks. She didn’t seem to hear.

‘Mama, are you all right?’ The room seemed very cold. Kirsty went to put her hand, almost timidly, on Eleyne’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry about Morna.’

Eleyne sighed. She groped for her handkerchief and shook her head. ‘I’m being foolish, Kirsty. For a moment I felt I couldn’t take any more.’ She blew her nose firmly and managed a watery smile. ‘But of course, one does. I’m sorry, my dear, it’s old age. It gets harder to hide the pain. I must pull myself together and arrange – ’ Her voice broke for a moment and she had to fight to continue. ‘I have to arrange for something to be done with her body.’

‘There is no need. It was Ewan the miller who found her. He cut her down and the villagers have taken care of her. They loved her too, mama. She did so much for them.’

‘She wanted to be buried on the brae below the sacred spring – we discussed it once.’

It had been the October before when Edward of England had appeared once more at Kildrummy, checking on the building works, letting it be known once more that he was Scotland’s overlord. Eleyne, forewarned, and vowing that never again would she bow the knee to Edward, had slipped down the glen to Morna and stayed there alone in the bothy by the gently flowing river until her cousin had gone. The two women had talked then, long into the summer nights.

‘She wanted no Christian burial. They won’t know what to do – ’

‘They know what she wanted, mama. They’re burying her exactly where she wished, and I have already ordered flowers for her grave.’ The two women were silent, each lost in her own thoughts. Then at last Kirsty looked up. ‘I only hope I can be as brave as you when it’s needed,’ she said. ‘May I tell you a secret to cheer you up? Even Gratney doesn’t know yet.’ She took Eleyne’s hand and led her carefully to her chair. When she was seated, Kirsty knelt at her feet. ‘Mama, I’m going to have a baby. I thought I wouldn’t be able to bear it when Robert took Marjorie away to live with him and his new wife, I was so lonely, but after all these years of hoping and praying, after all the offerings I have made at my chapel, it has happened.’

Eleyne gazed at her incredulously, then she smiled. ‘So. An heir for the earldom at last. Oh, Kirsty, I’m so pleased, my dear.’

‘If it’s a boy, I shall call him Donald and if it’s a girl I shall call her Eleyne.’ Kirsty smiled, pleased to see the unhappiness leave her mother-in-law’s face.

‘And your husband gets no say in the matter?’ Eleyne asked, half scolding.

‘None at all!’ Kirsty laughed. ‘Mama, things will get better, I know they will. You mustn’t despair. Poor Morna never recovered after Mairi died. You must allow her her choice to be with her daughter. That’s what you believe, don’t you? You don’t believe either of them has gone to hell.’

‘Not if there is any justice in the firmament. If the hell the church speaks of exists, it must be reserved for the truly evil.’ Eleyne stared down at the fire again, lost in thought. ‘Morna said it was like going through a door,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s what she’s done. She has stepped through a door.’

‘I have more good news, mama,’ Kirsty went on. ‘Robert and Nigel are coming to Kildrummy.’ She fell silent, thinking about her two eldest brothers. ‘While father was still alive, Robert felt he couldn’t act. He was hamstrung because papa did not want the throne. But when papa died in April Robert made one or two decisions about the future.’

‘Did he indeed,’ Eleyne said ironically, ‘and about time.’

‘I know he seems to be at King Edward’s beck and call again.’ Kirsty’s voice took on a defensive tone. ‘But he couldn’t afford to show his hand too soon, and there are still obstacles. John Balliol and Sir William Wallace, for instance…’

‘And his new wife, the daughter of one of Edward’s supporters.’ Eleyne could not keep the tartness out of her voice. ‘I shall have a few things to say to your brother when he arrives, not least about the high-handed way he took Marjorie away from you when he married that woman!’

If Kirsty’s intentions had been to distract Eleyne from her sadness with the news of Robert’s imminent arrival, it worked and when he reached Kildrummy with his brother Nigel, she was waiting for him.

‘So. Just what game are you playing now, Robert?’ she asked tartly. They were alone in her solar on her instructions.

He grinned. ‘A waiting game.’

‘And just how long do you intend to wait?’

‘As long as it takes.’

‘And meanwhile you fight for Edward?’ She was tight with indignation.

‘In the meantime, I stir the pot.’ He smiled. ‘Now, are you too angry with me to do me a favour?’

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘So, your visit is not a social one?’

‘Of course it’s social.’ He grinned again. ‘I came to see my sister – the beautiful and enceinte Countess of Mar. I came to see my most favourite mother-in-law,’ he paused, ‘and I should like to see her great-grand-daughter.’

‘You know that’s impossible!’ Eleyne’s hand whitened on the handle of her walking stick. ‘Lord Buchan took Isobel to France with him when her so-called penance was done after Mairi died. You know very well he is one of the Scots envoys at the French king’s court.’

‘And I know it was your idea that he take Isobel; and I know it was you who persuaded him to release her. I know how much you love her.’ Robert took Eleyne’s hand. ‘And now he too has made a temporary and expedient peace with King Edward and they are back at Slains.’ He walked towards the window and then swung back towards her restlessly. ‘I need to know what the King of France’s views are on our situation in Scotland.’

‘And you want Isobel to tell you?’ Eleyne raised an eyebrow sharply. She held Robert’s gaze challengingly. ‘Do you remember once you told me that Isobel was trouble, Robert,’ she said softly. ‘Is that still true?’

He looked down uncomfortably. ‘So, you know. I’m glad.’ He paused. ‘I wrote to her while she was in France. She has information I need and I can hardly ask Buchan himself. May I send one of my most trusted men to fetch her? No one would question an invitation to Kildrummy to visit you. She would be in no danger.’

‘And I would be condoning anything that happened between you,’ Eleyne said thoughtfully.

‘Nothing will happen, I promise.’ He smiled. ‘Or nothing that you need know about!’

II

Robert’s henchman, Gilbert of Annandale, brought Isobel of Buchan to Kildrummy three days later.

Isobel stood in the doorway of her great-grandmother’s solar and the two looked at each other for several seconds. Isobel was very thin, but she looked far better than when Eleyne had previously seen her and her face, lightly tanned from the sea voyage from France and the ride through the mountains to Mar, glowed with happiness. She was undeniably very beautiful. Eleyne sighed. How could she blame Robert – or indeed any man – for loving such a woman? She held out her arms. Together they sat in the window embrasure, where they could be sure of privacy.

‘It’s been so long, child! Come, tell me about France,’ Eleyne said, ‘and then, if you wish, tell me about the rest.’

Isobel talked for a long time. At first she spoke in short stilted sentences about her time in France at the court of King Philippe. Then she spoke of the endless weeks at Dundarg Castle in the far north of Buchan, where her husband had sent her to repent of her long list of sins. Finally she spoke of Mairi and at last the tears came. ‘It was because of me she died. He wanted to punish me.’

‘To punish you for losing your baby?’ Eleyne prompted. She put her hands on Isobel’s veil as the girl sat at her feet, her head in Eleyne’s lap.

Isobel shook her head wordlessly, choked with sobs, then at last she looked up, her eyes bright with tears. ‘That was the excuse they used, that she helped me get rid of the baby.’ Her voice was harsh. ‘Even though it was his fault it happened. He hit me and I fell… No, he did it because I was seen.’ Two tears hung on her eyelashes, then dropped and ran down her face. ‘I was seen with Robert.’ Her whisper was so faint Eleyne had to bend her head to hear at all.

‘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

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

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

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 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.’

The new queen scowled furiously. She pushed back her heavy chair and stood up. ‘My lord, it is time for us to retire,’ she said sharply.

‘It is too soon, madam. Please sit down,’ Robert replied. ‘All of you, sit down and make a place for Lady Buchan. It seems our celebrations are only half over after all.’

Eleyne slept badly. The tent was noisy; their neighbours had no intention of cutting short the celebrations just because the feast was over, and the whole field was full of music and laughter throughout the night, the sound carried on the wind, augmented by the wildly flapping tents and banners.

She had crept away from the feast early, too tired to remain longer, taking Donald with her and handing him over to his nurses. Isobel too was tired; she could see her exhaustion as she sat next to Robert, but she was buoyed up by her excitement. Not once had she taken her eyes off Robert; not once had she acknowledged by so much as a smile that her great-grandmother was there at the table with her. She had seen no one but her king. Eleyne buried her hurt sternly. This was Isobel’s moment of glory, her destiny. The scene she had foretold in her dream. Her own time was past: the moment for which she had lived so long had come, but she was not to be at the centre of the stage.

She tossed uncomfortably on the camp bed and willed herself unsuccessfully to sleep.

By the king’s orders in deference to her eighty-eight years, they provided her with a chair the next day, close to the sacred place of enthronement on the Moot Hill outside the abbey. It was a brilliant clear day, bitterly cold, and she huddled, shivering, in her furs as the ceremony got under way.

A new stone had been found for the occasion, hewn from the heart of the mountains to be blessed by the bishops and sprinkled with holy water and anointed with oil. In England the king himself was anointed at his coronation, but in Scotland’s more ancient ceremony the crowning and enthronement were the important acts.

Finishing their part, the bishops stood back and Isobel stepped forward. She was richly dressed in borrowed velvets and furs, and on her dark hair there was a diadem of Scottish silver, provided by the Bishop of Glasgow who had kept what survived of the Scottish regalia hidden from the invading armies, producing it proudly for Robert’s coronation. Nearby the king waited quietly, resplendent in his own hastily assembled robes and finery.

Isobel knelt down on the grass before the stone and put her hands upon it reverently. Around her the watching crowds fell silent. For several moments she did not move, her concentration entirely on the cold grey granite, then at last she stood up and turning towards Robert she took his hand as behind them the Abbot of Scone devoutly spread a cloth of gold upon the stone.

When Robert was seated, she took the crown from the waiting bishop and held it for a long moment high in the air. Then at last she lowered it and placed it on Robert’s head and the crowd, massed around the flat-topped man-made hill which was Scotland’s most sacred site, roared their approval and their assent.

Near Eleyne, the queen was standing with John of Atholl and Marjorie watching the ceremony, tight-lipped. ‘This is asinine,’ she whispered to Lord Atholl in a tone which was perfectly audible to Eleyne and probably to a great many people around her. ‘We shall be king and queen for the summer if we are lucky! Robert cannot defeat Edward of England. No one can!’

Lord Atholl hid his irritation with difficulty. ‘The king will reign for longer than a summer, madam. Be sure of that!’ he retorted sharply. Noticing Eleyne’s quizzical expression, he gave her a grim smile. ‘Much longer,’ he repeated fervently, ‘with God’s good grace.’

VII

There was no time for a parliament after the coronation. Robert planned to march back to the south-west immediately and with him went all his supporters. All save Eleyne. She saw him alone the night before he left and knelt to kiss his hand.

‘I’m too old to follow the drum, Robert,’ she said with a grimace. ‘Would that I could, but I’ll be with you in spirit, my dear. God speed. Isobel is going with you, I suppose?’ She looked him in the eye.

He nodded. ‘She can never go back to her husband now. She stole his horses and half his men, God bless her, and left him to run bleating to Edward. I think there’s little doubt that he would kill her if he got his hands on her again.’

‘Then take care of her, Robert. She has more courage in her little finger than many men have in their whole bodies. Don’t hurt her. Don’t fling her love back in her face.’

He shook his head. ‘I would never do that.’ He smacked his hands together in frustration. ‘If only I could have married her! Think what a queen she would have made! But we never had the chance. I’ll take care of her. I’ll take care of all of you, with God’s help.’

She sighed. Would she once have made a queen of whom a king could be proud? Like Isobel, she had somehow missed her place in history. Her thoughts went back to her beloved daughter, Isabella, who had dreamed of marrying a prince, who had been so sure that one day she would be the wife of a king. For her, too, time had been out of joint and it was Eleyne’s grand-daughter, Marjorie, Isabella’s child, who was the princess – little red-haired Marjorie, with her temper and her passion. Perhaps it was she who would inherit the prophecy and one day be a queen. She sighed again. Was Alexander here, somewhere in the shadows? Had he come to watch the crowning of his distant cousin? If he had, he had given her no sign.

She turned back to Robert. ‘I shall relieve you of one small charge. I’m taking Donald back to Kildrummy with me. Kirsty wants to stay with you and Christopher, but I think the Earl of Mar is too young for war.’ She paused. ‘If ever an old woman can help you, Robert, remember me. And remember Kildrummy, which will always be a refuge for you and yours should you need it. I flatter myself it could withstand any siege, strengthened as it has been at Edward’s expense,’ she smiled grimly, ‘and I shall see that it is stocked and ready.’ She took his hand and raised it to her lips. ‘God speed, Robert. God save you, my king.’

VIII

There was a visitor waiting for Eleyne when she arrived home. The sky was a dazzling blue, streaming with soft white cloud as her litter took her at last across the drawbridge over the ditch, and through the massive new gatehouse into the familiar courtyard. Behind her, a second litter carried Donald’s nurse and the child himself, fast asleep in her arms after all the excitement of the last few days.

Stiff and weary Eleyne climbed out and smiled at the wildly leaping young wolfhound who greeted her. Grizel’s only pup, Eleyne had named him Donnet after his ancestor, knowing in her heart that this would be the last dog she would ever own. She greeted the remaining senior members of her household who had stayed behind and turned at last towards the entrance to the Snow Tower. Overhead a buzzard circled, its yelping cry echoing over the countryside beyond the walls. She shivered, and pulling her heavy cloak around her she began stiffly to climb the staircase, followed by her ladies.

At the door to her solar she was met by one of the women who had remained behind, Gillot, who, finger to her lips, motioned her to one side.

‘You have a visitor, my lady,’ she whispered. She gestured over her shoulder. ‘She’s been here a week, but she won’t tell us her name.’

Eleyne reached up to the brooch which fastened her cloak and fumbled at it with stiff fingers. ‘I’ll speak to her, then I think I must lie down. I am so tired I can hardly move.’ She handed her cloak to Gillot and turned towards the fireplace where several ladies sat talking and sewing by the light of a dozen candles.

She had already identified the stranger, a tall woman in her late fifties or early sixties seated straightbacked in Eleyne’s own chair by the fire. She wore a plain gown of rich dark blue velvet and a mantle held by a silver brooch shaped like a boar.

As Eleyne walked into the room, Donnet at her heels, the woman rose. She was staring at the dog. ‘Lyulf,’ she murmured.

Eleyne stopped dead, her knuckles white on the handle of her stick, aware of the inquisitive eyes of her ladies on her.

The woman took a hesitant step forward. ‘Mother?’ she said.

Eleyne could not speak. For several seconds she did nothing, then, her heart thudding with excitement and fear, she held out her free hand. ‘Joanna?’ It was a whisper.

The woman nodded. She did not take Eleyne’s hand. Instead she glanced, half embarrassed, around the room.

‘I’ve chosen a stupid time to travel. It appears Scotland is once again in revolt – ’

‘Scotland has just crowned her rightful king,’ Eleyne corrected gently. She turned to Gillot. ‘Please, fetch me some mulled wine, then I would ask you all to leave us.’

They did not speak until they were alone. Then Joanna took a seat opposite her mother. ‘Of course, it can’t be Lyulf.’

Eleyne shook her head. ‘One of his descendants. The last one I shall have; I’m too old for dogs.’ She sipped her wine, glad of the warmth of the goblet between her fingers.

For a moment neither of them said anything. Eleyne gazed into the opaque depths of the wine between her hands. ‘Where is Hawisa?’ she asked at last.

‘She died many years ago of a scarlet fever.’

Eleyne closed her eyes. ‘I didn’t want to leave you,’ she said at last in a broken whisper.

‘I know that now.’

‘Why did you come after all this time?’ Eleyne could still feel her heart thudding unsteadily between her ribs.

Joanna was embarrassed. ‘I hadn’t realised you were still alive. I think for me you had been dead for many years -’ She realised how cruel that sounded as she said it, but there was no taking it back. Her eyes on her mother’s face, she went on: ‘Then, one day, I heard you mentioned at court. It was when your son died. The Earl of Mar. They were talking about the dowager, and the king mentioned your Welsh blood – ’

‘Should I be flattered that the king persists in remembering it?’

For the first time Joanna smiled. ‘I doubt it. He did not intend it as a compliment. I reminded him that I was your daughter and he looked down his long nose at me -’ she paused to imitate her sovereign’s haughty expression, making Eleyne smile, ‘and he said: “you had better hope that I forget that fact, Lady de Bohun, lest I suspect you of being a rebel too!”’ She hesitated. ‘I am not often at court, in case you are wondering why the matter did not come up sooner.’

‘You had better hope that he does forget it, and immediately,’ Eleyne said crisply. ‘He does not care for the family of King Robert either and I am now part of that family. The king’s daughter and heir is my grandchild and your niece.’

Joanna grinned ruefully. ‘So I understand. I have had plenty of time while I was waiting for you to work out to whom I am related in Scotland, and I have decided to retire from public life as soon as I return to England.’

‘How soon must you go back?’ Eleyne looked at her wistfully. ‘I don’t suppose you would consider staying?’

Joanna shook her head. ‘Coming here was something I had to do, for both our sakes. But having done it I must go home. My life is there, and my loyalty.’ She returned Eleyne’s look and her face was sad. ‘We are of different worlds; different nations. We have nothing to join us together save a tenuous thread of blood.’ She stood up and putting her goblet down she came to stand by Eleyne’s chair. ‘My marriage lasted so short a time. Humphrey died of his wounds after the battle of Evesham. Did you know,’ she asked, ‘that Humphrey’s first wife was a sister of Isabella de Braose? He said she used to talk about you.’ She was rueful. ‘After Humphrey’s death, the king decided that I was no more use to him in the marriage market. I had little dower, and my child was dead.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Most of my life I have given to the Lincolns who looked after me when -’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Cousin Margaret was good to me. Hawisa and I were happy there. And we had Rhonwen for a while to provide the link with our old lives. What happened to Rhonwen?’

‘She died.’ Eleyne did not elaborate further and after a moment Joanna shrugged. She went back to her chair and held out her hand to Donnet who went and sat beside her, leaning against her knees. ‘I missed these dogs so much,’ she said after a minute. ‘But I never kept a wolfhound of my own. It reminded me too much…’ Her voice tailed away and she fell silent again.

‘I am sorry.’ Eleyne shook her head, feeling the weight of her sorrow as almost intolerable. ‘So very, very sorry.’

Joanna looked up again. ‘Do we… I mean, do I have any sisters?’

Eleyne nodded. ‘Marjorie. She is married to Lord Atholl. My eldest daughter, Isabella, died.’

‘I’m your eldest daughter, mother,’ Joanna said softly.

‘Oh, my dear.’ For a moment Eleyne was aghast, then she held out her hands. ‘Oh, Joanna.’

Joanna came to her, then almost shyly she took her hands and, bending, kissed the knotted old fingers. ‘I’m glad I came,’ she whispered. ‘For a long time I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see you again, ever. Once, when I was going to come to you at Aber I changed my mind. I couldn’t face it. I hated you for leaving us, and I hated you because Hawisa died without knowing you. She couldn’t even remember you. Cousin Margaret was the only mother she ever knew. And Annie. And Rhonwen. She loved Rhonwen.’ She noticed again the way her mother’s face hardened at the mention of Rhonwen’s name and she sighed. There was so much she would never know, now, about this enigmatic old woman.

As if sensing that somewhere, somehow a line had been drawn, Eleyne slowly withdrew her hands and reached for her stick. Unsteadily she pushed herself to her feet and walked towards the table in the centre of the room. ‘My dear, I’m so pleased you came,’ she said, ‘but you are right. It would be better if you did not stay here.’ She stood where she was, looking at the soft dark shine on the old oak table, her narrow shoulders squared defensively as if she expected Joanna to protest. ‘Scotland is at war. Kildrummy supports her present constable, who is now Scotland’s king. If you are a subject of King Edward, you cannot remain here without being compromised.’ She looked Joanna squarely in the eye. ‘The countryside is already overrun by soldiers. It may already be unsafe for you to travel, but if you stay here – ’

‘I don’t want to stay, mother.’ Joanna’s voice was firm and unemotional. ‘There’s no place for me here. Whatever your allegiance, whatever country you belong to now, my father was an Englishman.’

‘Indeed he was,’ Eleyne replied at last, drily.

‘And as you say, there are soldiers everywhere further south. I shall go as soon as I can – tomorrow.’

‘So. We shall have only one night together.’ Eleyne bit her lip. ‘I wish I could have known you; I wish I had seen you both grow up.’ She smiled sadly. ‘We won’t see each other again,’ Joanna was looking down at her hands, trying to resist the sudden stupid bitter tears which had flooded into her eyes, ‘but I shall treasure this meeting in my heart. Perhaps in another lifetime we’ll be permitted to know each other better.’

‘Another lifetime?’ Joanna looked shocked. She laughed uncomfortably. ‘In heaven, you mean?’

Eleyne shook her head. ‘Who knows what I mean? I just feel there will be a time, a place where we’ll see the people we’ve loved. There has to be. It can’t all just end.’

‘Mother – ’

‘No, my dear, don’t say any more. Please call one of the pages to take Donnet into the courtyard while I change. My gown is soiled from travelling and we must go down to the great hall for dinner. I want to show you off -’ She managed a smile.

It was Joanna who took Donnet down to the courtyard, anxious to have a few moments to herself to compose her thoughts. She stood looking up at the luminous night sky with its myriads of stars, breathing the cool freshness after the smoky heat of the solar.

From the battlements she heard the measured tread of one of the few remaining men-at-arms as he patrolled the curtain wall. She could smell the mountains; the rich, acid tang of peat and heather and thyme carried by the wind; the acrid scent of smoke from the dozens of smokeholes and chimneys in the huge castle and, beneath it, the ever present sick odour of effluence from the ditches and open drains which carried away the castle’s waste.

Donnet whined and looked up at her face. She patted his head. ‘If you knew how I loved Ancret and Lyulf,’ she whispered, ‘I missed them so much when Rhonwen took them away…’

IX

‘I want you to take him.’ Eleyne had put the leash into Joanna’s hands. ‘He will protect you on your ride home. He’s a young dog, barely more than a puppy, for all he’s so huge, and I’m too old for him. I always have to ask others to give him exercise and he seems to have become very attached to you already.’

‘Mother!’ Joanna protested, ‘you can’t mean it. You wouldn’t part with one of your dogs!’

Eleyne nodded. ‘I’ll have no more dogs, Joanna,’ she said sadly. ‘Once I would sooner have parted with an arm or a leg than one of my beauties.’ She put her hands on either side of Donnet’s head and kissed his nose. ‘But no more. I shall be dead before he is even fullgrown – oh yes,’ she hurried on as Joanna tried to protest, ‘I’m quite realistic about it. It would put my mind at rest to know he has gone with someone who will love him as much as I do. It is the most precious gift I have to give you, my darling. Please take him, with my blessings and my love.’

She walked to the drawbridge after Joanna had gone and gazed for a long time after the riders as they wound their way down the strath and into the distance, the rangy grey form of the dog, as large as a small pony already, loping beside Joanna’s dun mare in front of her small escort – a maid and two squires.

When she turned back into the outer bailey her face was wet with tears.

X

The garrison left at Kildrummy was small and many of the men were elderly. Most of the men of Mar were with their king. Only those unfit for active service or too young or too old remained to hold the castles and work the farms and crofts of the mountains. Eleyne called her steward, Alan Gordon, and her remaining knights together that very afternoon, trying in her own determined fashion to forget the lonely figure of her daughter disappearing into the distance at the beginning of her long dangerous ride south.

It was the start of several frenzied days of activity. The castle was to be made ready for a possible siege.

Gordon frowned. ‘My lady, the fighting is all to the south. The English king will never besiege Kildrummy. Our King Robert will never let him get this far, God bless him.’

‘The English king was here in person not three years ago,’ Eleyne retorted. ‘And five years before that, when I had to give him the keys on my knees. Never, never will I do that again. If all does not go well with King Robert, this will be one of the castles where he can find support and refuge – and look at us!’ She waved her hand energetically towards the high walls. ‘The underbrush comes so close to the ditch, ten armies could hide there and we wouldn’t know it.’

She was tireless in her supervision of her household over the next days, not admitting even to herself how much she missed the presence of her dog beside her as she watched the undergrowth hacked and scythed back, checking herself the lists of provisions in the storerooms, sending out for more from markets as far away as Huntly and Aberdeen. Stocks were low. It had been a cold winter and it was a late spring. The small fields around the village were hazed green with new-planted oats and barley, but it would be a long time until the harvest.

Bethoc watched her lady’s feverish activity with alarm and delight. Only five months earlier Lady Eleyne had seemed within weeks of death; now she was everywhere, her stiffness and weakness all but forgotten. The tapping of her walking stick became a familiar sound in the courtyards and corridors of the castle. Once again she was often in the stables, watching her mares as they fed, or leaning thoughtfully against the wall in the smithy as Hal Osborne paused from forging weapons to fit new shoes, missing nothing as he laid the red-hot irons on his anvil, hammering them to shape before plunging them into the tank of water and clamping them to the horses’ hooves in clouds of steam.

She was standing outside the postern, scanning the men who were cutting back the undergrowth in the Den when one of the men perched on the rocks above the burn gave a shout. She saw him jump down out of sight into the rocks, then he reappeared and began to scramble up towards her.

Even before she saw it in his hand she knew what he had found. She tensed, her fingers tightening on the handle of her walking stick.

‘My lady.’ It was John of Mossat, a small man with bright brown eyes and a head of unruly dark hair, the reason for his absence from the war immediately apparent as she saw his twisted withered right arm. He polished something against the grubby hodden of his belted tunic and held it out to her.

The phoenix.

‘Someone must have dropped it, my lady,’ he said, puzzled that she did not put out her hand to take it. ‘It’s gey pretty.’

Even the encrustation of mud and moss could not dull the gemstone flames. She stared at it for a long time before she remembered the man standing before her. She looked up and he was astonished to see tears in her eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He shrugged and turned away, disappointed at her reaction. He had already forgotten it when two days later Alan Gordon appeared himself at the door of his bothy and pressed a small bagful of silver coins, a fortune beyond his wildest dreams, into his hand as a reward.

XI

‘So you have come back to me.’ In the silence of her bedchamber, Eleyne poured some water from a ewer into an earthenware bowl. By the light of a single branch of candles, she dropped the jewel into the water and agitated it gently, watching the dirt float to the surface.

When it was clean, she dried it carefully on a scrap of silk, then she held it up to the light.

‘Where are you?’ she whispered. Her hands, holding the phoenix, had begun to tremble.

The room was very quiet. On the floor above, Bethoc and the ladies were sitting quietly around their own fire, gossiping as they sewed or spun. Like the men of the castle they viewed their countess’s frenetic preparations for a siege with long-suffering scepticism, putting her caution down to old age, but half afraid deep down that maybe she had had a premonition…

Alexander? Eleyne’s fingers tightened on the phoenix. ‘Where are you?’

The room was completely silent; the fire burned low. Please don’t forsake me now. I need you. She stared down at the jewelled bird in her hands. Scotland needs you. But there was no reply. The room was cold and empty and there was no gentle touch on her shoulder to reassure her that she was not alone.

With a small sigh she rummaged in her jewel casket for a chain, her stiff swollen fingers picking over treasures which brought back so many memories. She found one at last, and threading the pendant on to it, put it around her neck, slipping it beneath the soft fabric of gown and shift. The enamelled jewels were cold beneath her breasts, and she caught her breath as she shut the casket lid and turned towards the fire. She would never take the phoenix off again.

She was asleep when he came at last, a shadow in the darkness, cast upon the wall by the dying candles. For a long time he stood, looking down at the sleeping face, then at last he smiled. His touch upon her hair was no more than the gentle shiver of a passing draught.

XII

The lack of news was the worst part of the next few weeks. The castle waited through the long spring without word from the south. From time to time rumours reached them of the activities of King Edward’s armies, under the direction of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. He had arrived in Scotland under the dragon banner – the fearful symbol of total destruction which would give no quarter. Neither women nor children would be spared if they supported the rebel king. Eleyne heard the news white-faced and went to look down into the castle courtyard. She had done all she could to prepare. Little Donald and her name-sake, Ellie, were safe at Kildrummy. Now they could do nothing but wait.

XIII

The last thing she expected was to find King Robert on her doorstep. He slipped into the castle in the strange half-light of the early June night, accompanied by a few dozen men and several women. ‘I want you to keep my daughter here, mother-in-law.’

He raised Eleyne to her feet as, wrapped in a bed gown, her hair loose down her back, she knelt before him in the great hall. ‘I’m terrified what would happen to her if she were captured. And my queen. And Kirsty and Mary, and Isobel. I’m going to leave Nigel and Robert Boyd here to help you hold the castle.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the Countess of Buchan who stood near him and Eleyne saw them exchange smiles. ‘Things are not going well for us.’ He scowled with weariness. ‘We’ll stay a day or two, to rest my men, then we’ll be on our way. We have to confront Pembroke and drive him out of Scotland. Unless we can do that, we’re lost. I’ll feel safer if I know the ladies are here out of harm’s way.’

He was as good as his word. For three days the men ate and slept and repaired their weapons, then in the dawn of the fourth, they slipped away as quietly as they had come.

Sir Nigel Bruce came to the Snow Tower to tell Eleyne that they had gone. A tall young man, with his brother’s good looks and hazel eyes, he smiled when he saw her dismay at his news. ‘He thought it better to leave quietly. He didn’t want any scenes. Elizabeth has not made it easy for him, and she is not making it easy for Isobel either. I suppose you can’t blame her. She knows of course that they are lovers.’ He looked at the old woman to gauge her reaction, and noted with approval her lack of shock or surprise. ‘They’ve tried to hide it, they’ve been very careful, but it’s hard. Travelling, camping… We have tried to allow them time together when they can find it, and Elizabeth of course has resented it bitterly.’ He shrugged. ‘But she is no support to Robert. He needs someone who is behind him totally, and Isobel gives him that. She’s as passionate in her support of the cause as she is in her love for him.’

Eleyne pulled her bed gown around her thin shoulders. ‘Then I’m glad they’ve had some time together. Tell Isobel to come to me here later. I should like to talk to her. And make sure our queen,’ she grimaced at the words, ‘has all the comforts that Kildrummy can offer her. It will perhaps mollify her a little. I shall pray for Robert. And for Scotland.’

Sir Nigel scowled. ‘So shall we all, Lady Eleyne, so shall we all.’

Eleyne was dressed and poring over one of the account ledgers when Isobel found her way to her great-grandmother’s solar. She hesitated, as though unsure of her welcome, then as Eleyne looked up and dropping her pen rubbed her cramped fingers, she ran to Eleyne and hugged her. ‘Are you very angry with me?’

‘Angry?’ Eleyne asked her in astonishment.

‘For crowning him. For making an exhibition of myself. For loving him?’ Isobel sank to the floor in front of the old lady and clasped her hands tightly.

Eleyne smiled. ‘How could I be angry? I’m very, very proud of you, my darling. It took enormous courage to put the crown on Robert’s head before the whole world.’

‘Robert told me you were there.’

‘Yes. I was there.’

‘And I never saw you. I’m sorry.’

‘You had other things on your mind.’ Eleyne took the young woman’s hands in her own, and held them, palm up, on her knee. ‘You had the magic of the stone in your fingers that day. With the blessing of the ancient gods of Scotland, and that of our Blessed Lord, Robert will succeed.’

There was a sudden tension in the room.

‘You really believe in the ancient gods?’

‘Oh yes, they still have power. I have always believed in them. I was brought up to see them in the Welsh mountains. My first husband tried to make me believe they were wicked and sinful; he taught me the beauty of the church’s teachings. But they’re still there, the old gods. And when we call upon them, they answer.’

‘And they support Robert?’

Eleyne nodded slowly. ‘I believe so.’

‘I’m going to go after him.’ Isobel’s voice dropped suddenly to a whisper. ‘They don’t want me here. Elizabeth hates me. Nigel says Robert has mustered a further band of men from the mountains here and as soon as they are ready to follow him, I am going with them.’

Eleyne shook her head. ‘Isobel, he doesn’t want you with him, my dear. You add to his worries…’

‘He needs me, great-grandmama.’ Isobel stuck out her chin stubbornly. ‘Please, don’t try to stop me. I shan’t tell the others, I shall just slip away when the time is right. I shan’t get in his way. I’m not stupid. I know he doesn’t need any distractions, but I shall be there if he needs me. He is going to find Lord Pembroke and defeat him. This will be the most important battle of his life, grandmama.’

Eleyne nodded again. ‘I shan’t prevent you going, Isobel. I’d have done the same in your place. Perhaps…’ She paused. ‘Perhaps if I had gone with Alexander to the Western Isles he would not have died. Who knows?’ She gazed across the table, lost in a dream.

Isobel glanced up at her, still holding her grandmother’s cold hands, then she followed the old woman’s gaze and stared. A man was standing by the wall watching them: a tall, handsome man in his early fifties, his rich blue mantle caught on his shoulder by a gold brooch. His hair, red-gold and streaked with grey, was encircled by a golden coronet. She gasped. It was the same gold crown with which she had crowned Robert King of Scots. Her face white, Isobel scrambled to her feet. She was shaking.

Eleyne blinked several times, then she turned back to the young woman. One look at Isobel’s face told her what she wanted to know. Alexander had been in the room. ‘You saw him?’ she whispered.

Isobel was staring at the place the man had been standing. For a moment he had remained, his eyes on hers, then he had faded from sight.

‘Who was it?’ Isobel gasped. She crossed herself quickly with a shaking hand.

So this child too could see him clearly. What else had she inherited, this great-grand-daughter of hers? Could she see the future too? Eleyne shivered. ‘He is someone who blesses our cause, my dear. The man who once recognised Robert’s grandfather as his heir.’

‘King Alexander?’ Isobel whispered. ‘Oh, grandmama! He was wearing the crown – the crown I put on Robert’s head.’

Eleyne sighed. Sweet Jesus, why could she not see him? Why would he not show himself to her? Was her belief not strong enough? All she had seen was a shadow; a patch of darkness against the wall.

‘He wore that often. The Bishop of Glasgow kept it hidden when the wars started, to preserve it from Edward.’ She pulled herself to her feet with a groan and groped for her stick. ‘Isobel, my dear, I know I don’t have to tell you to keep silent about what you have seen. There are people who have seen him – Kirsty is one of them – but he’s my secret.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘I don’t want panic to break out in the castle.’

‘Even though he’s here to give us hope?’

‘Even though he supports us and will help us.’ Leaning heavily on her stick, Eleyne went to Isobel and hugged her. ‘Leave me now. Let me rest. We’ll talk again later.’ She moved painfully towards her chair. Then she stopped. ‘Promise me one thing, my darling. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.’

‘I promise.’

Eleyne held back her tears until the door had closed, then she fell back in her chair, letting them roll freely down her cheeks. ‘Why won’t you show yourself to me?’ she murmured. ‘Oh Alexander, why?’

XIV

It was ten days before the last group of men were mustered from the mountains and braes of Mar, and assembled in the courtyard at Kildrummy. The night before they were due to march south, towards Perth, Isobel came to say goodbye to Eleyne. ‘We’re leaving as soon as the first light touches the strath. Before the castle is awake. May I take your blessing to Robert?’

‘Of course.’ Eleyne touched the young woman’s face.

‘And… his… King Alexander’s?’

‘If you think it right. Robert should know that the shades of his ancestors are watching over him.’

‘And you will pray for us. To your old gods.’

‘To the one god and all the gods.’ Eleyne smiled. ‘Bless you, Isobel. Bring Robert some happiness. I shall take care of his family here, and we’ll be waiting for him when his battles are won.’

XV

Robert did not let her remain with him, but it was many days before Isobel returned to Kildrummy. And when she did it was with news of a disaster. At the sight of the anxious faces awaiting her in the great hall, she dissolved into tears and they heard the story of Robert’s defeat.

‘He sent me away the night before the battle. Two of James Stewart’s men were to escort me back here, but I made them turn back to him. I couldn’t leave him, I couldn’t.’ She began to cry again.

‘What happened?’ Eleyne asked at last in the silence of the great hall. She raised a thin beringed hand to her own shoulder, caressing it slightly, almost as though it covered someone else’s hand.

As Isobel seemed unable to speak, one of the two men who had ridden back with her took up the story. ‘They were defeated, my lady. Near Methven. Terribly defeated. The king’s army was massacred. The survivors are scattered.’

‘And my husband?’ Elizabeth whispered.

‘And Christopher?’ Kirsty added, her face white.

The man shrugged. ‘As far as we know the king wasn’t injured. We met men from the battlefield, who said it was his own men who dragged him away in the end to save his life. I don’t know about Sir Christopher, my lady. Most of the men we saw were from Lord Pembroke’s army. They are everywhere, burning villages and farms, slaughtering the people they find.’ He passed a weary hand across his face.

For a long time there was no more news. Nigel sent out scouts daily as the castle remained on full alert, the small garrison constantly at the ready for the sign of Lord Pembroke’s army. But no one came and there was no news.

The days grew hotter as a blue, cloudless sky settled over Scotland, and Kildrummy was shrouded by a heat haze. The first sign that they had not been forgotten by the world came in the shape of a messenger wearing the Pembroke colours. One man alone, the scouts confirmed; there was no army behind him. He brought a letter for Elizabeth from her father, the Earl of Ulster. It informed her that as her husband’s cause was lost she should return to England at once. If she did so, he would intercede with Edward for her. Reading the letter through twice, Elizabeth passed it to Nigel. ‘My father says I should go to him, but my place is with Robert,’ she said. ‘Robert is my husband.’ She eyed Isobel coldly. ‘In spite of what you all think of me, I shall stand by him.’

Nigel looked up at her and she saw the admiration in his eyes. She gave a tight smile. ‘I may not believe in what he has done. But I could not turn my back on him now,’ she added.

The women spent most of their days in the solar in the Snow Tower. The tension was enormous. There was no more news as the sky turned from blue to copper in the heat. Isobel and Elizabeth avoided one another as best they could whilst Kirsty spent her time with her children and Marjorie in the nurseries. Finally another messenger found his way to Mar. Exhausted and badly injured, he had been sent by Neil Campbell, Mary Bruce’s betrothed. He was well, as was Robert, but Sir Christopher Seton, Kirsty’s husband, had been captured on the battlefield. No one knew what had happened to him.

Alone with the nurses and her children, Kirsty wept. Before the other women she tried to keep a brave face, but in the nurseries her mask slipped. She had little hope that she would see Christopher again. How could fate deprive her so soon of two husbands, two men whom she had loved? She had barely got to know Christopher in the short time they had been married; she had borne him no children. But she loved him dearly.

Eleyne understood. She comforted the young woman, knowing her need to keep her grief secret, and knowing in her heart that Kirsty was right. She would never see her husband again.

XVI

One of her ladies shook Eleyne awake. The rainswept night was unusually dark. Eleyne sat up, confused. ‘A messenger has arrived from King Robert, my lady,’ the woman said. ‘He is waiting in the hall. The other ladies and Sir Nigel are being called.’

Eleyne pushed her legs wearily from under the sheets, groping for her velvet slippers. Her heart was thumping with fear. Pulling on her bed gown, she allowed the woman to comb her hair quickly and knot it back with a piece of ribbon, then she grabbed her stick and began to make her painful way downstairs. The others were already in the great hall. The messenger was Gilbert of Annandale and with him were two companions. One had a blood-soaked bandage around his arm.

‘The king and his men are hiding in the hills of Drumalban.’ Gilbert looked round the hushed gathering, pitying the women with their tired anxious faces. He knew how frustrating it was to wait without news. Then for the news to be bad… ‘He has decided that it would be best if you all joined him there.’ He looked first to Nigel and then at Eleyne. ‘The Earl of Pembroke is set on capturing the royal family and no quarter is to be given. I don’t have to tell you the danger. The king feels he can give you more protection in the mountains to the west, where he has men and much support. We should set out at once.’

Eleyne saw Nigel’s face light up with excitement. ‘At last! I have been a nursemaid too long!’ he burst out. Then he glanced embarrassed at Elizabeth and then at Eleyne. ‘Forgive me, I didn’t mean… it’s just that I want to be with Robert! I want to see some fighting!’

Gilbert gave a grim smile. ‘You’ll see fighting soon enough, Sir Nigel, have no fear,’ he said. ‘More than you want, no doubt.’

XVII

It did not take long for the women to pack their belongings. They were all as eager as the king’s brother to end their self-imposed imprisonment and ride as fast as possible to be with Robert. Only Eleyne did not prepare.

She cornered Kirsty in the nurseries. ‘Leave the children here with me, my dear. Donald’s place is at Kildrummy and they will be safe here. Poor little Marjorie must go to her father, but small children and old ladies would only add to Robert’s worries.’ She smiled wryly. ‘It’s a terrible thing to say, but once you’ve all gone Kildrummy will no longer be in danger.’

Kirsty started to protest, then she looked down at the sleeping children and nodded. ‘You’re right. They’ll be safe with you.’ She hugged Eleyne and then she turned away, not trusting herself even to kiss them goodbye.

Nigel demurred when he heard Eleyne had resolved to stay. ‘I’m not sure you’re right, Lady Eleyne. I am sure the children will be safe but for some reason King Edward harbours grudges towards you. I think Robert would want you with us.’

Eleyne patted him on the arm. ‘Bless you, my boy. It’s nice to think that I’m important. But I’m too old to ride with you. I’ll be all right. No one is interested in an old woman. You go, and God go with you.’

When they had ridden out of sight, she gave the order for the gates to be closed. Then she walked into the chapel. Only the small lamp burning in the sanctuary, and the faintest light from the sky at the east window, lit the blackness. She went to the altar and stood gazing up at the crucifix which hung there, its soft silver carving gleaming.

It was a long time before she realised that she was no longer alone.

You can watch over them, she pleaded silently. You can go with them. Please help them.

He was standing near her. She could feel his presence and his pain. Did he understand her agony and her frustration, the despair of being locked inside the frail body of an old woman when her spirit wanted to ride the wind, to fight, to be beside the king when at last he came into his own?

She opened her eyes. There was no one there. Just the empty chapel, lighter now as the dawn began to colour the east window, its tall narrow lancets inset with stained glass. She was leaning with both hands on the handle of her stick. There were no prayers in her heart. Nothing. She could not marshal her thoughts. She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder, feel his arms around her, comforting and supporting her. She wanted someone to look after her and take away the misery and the fear which overwhelmed her. But already he had gone and she was again alone.

I

The dream had returned. The ground was slimy with blood; horses were screaming; men were dying beneath their hooves. In the mist she could see little save the gleam of swords and axes as they cut through bone and fell to the wet mud. Somewhere in the thick of the battle she saw the scarlet lion flag fall to the ground, where it was trampled until it disappeared from sight. Then came the flames: the roar of fire, the howl of the storm which would wake her. Each time Bethoc or one of the others soothed her, making her chamomile tea and sitting with her until she slept again. Each time left her weaker.

Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to walk the castle walls, staring down the strath into the heat haze, seeing the summer lightning flash around the hills. Several times she ordered a fire lit in spite of the heat and she sat gazing into the embers trying to see. But no pictures came to order. Nothing came save an increasing feeling of impending doom.

The scouts saw the straggling group of riders as soon as they appeared on the track from the west. Long before they could identify them Eleyne had ordered the great gates open. She was waiting for them in the courtyard when they arrived.

The party was larger this time. Nigel Bruce was accompanied by John Atholl and several men as well as the queen, the king’s sisters, little Marjorie and Isobel. All were exhausted and bedraggled, their clothes torn and filthy. Half their horses were lame.

Eleyne watched as the riders dismounted, then she moved to Isobel’s side and kissed the girl tenderly. ‘Thank God you are safe. I had such terrible dreams. Where is Robert?’

Isobel shrugged, tears streaming down her face. It was Nigel who told Eleyne of the second terrible defeat of Robert’s hastily reconstituted army in the mountains beyond Strathfillan and of the king’s decision that he could not after all keep his loved ones safe. ‘He is hoping to lead the enemy away into the far west. He wants you to give us your hospitality again and to keep the ladies here after all.’ He grimaced wearily. ‘Either he will join us, or he will go to Ireland. He thinks it might be best if we go on from here and try and reach Norway, but I’m damned if I’ll leave Scotland now.’

‘Poor Nigel – a nursemaid for the second time.’ Eleyne pressed his arm sympathetically. ‘Stay here, you’ll be safe at Kildrummy.’

The travellers recovered slowly and they settled once more into the steady routine of castle life. Each in their own way was under enormous strain, but they all tried to hide it. Only Isobel, growing daily thinner, the dark circles under her eyes becoming more and more marked, found it impossible to hide her grief, but even she spoke seldom of Robert, trying to follow the queen’s example and put on a brave face as time passed and there was still no news.

The long dreary days were filled with chores, with spinning and embroidery, playing with the children and then at last with the harvest.

The harvest was good. The granaries were filled to overflowing and rather than use the outlying granges Eleyne ordered the superfluous grain to be stored within the castle itself, in the towers, against the walls and even in the great hall. There was now only the smallest garrison at Kildrummy, but the old men and the boys all helped the women of the township bring in the corn and side by side with them worked the king’s family. Even Eleyne herself went into the fields, sitting in the shade of the hedgerows, a man’s broad-brimmed hat over her veil to protect her from the sun, watching the younger people work amongst the splashed scarlet of late poppies.

There was no more news from Drumalban. The king had vanished into the haze.

II

It was afternoon and Eleyne was playing chess with the queen when John Atholl burst into the solar. ‘I’m afraid our idyll is at an end,’ he said grimly. His face was white and strained. ‘The English army has been sighted heading into Mar.’

Elizabeth and Eleyne looked at him in horror. For a moment none of them spoke. Then the silence was broken by a sharp crack as the ivory piece in Elizabeth’s hand snapped between her tightly clasped fingers. It was her queen. The eyes of every person in the room were on the splintered pieces as she dropped them on the table.

A meeting was called at once in the great hall.

‘How far away are they?’ Nigel asked.

‘Perhaps a day’s ride. Their outriders are moving fast. Too fast.’ John Atholl’s face was bleak. ‘And they march here under the banner of the Prince of Wales.’ He glanced up as he heard Eleyne catch her breath. ‘We cannot stay here. We must go on. We have to save the women at all cost. We must take them north and try to reach Norway. We’ll be safe there with Nigel’s sister, the Queen of Norway.’

They were all in a state of shock. Kildrummy’s size and power had lulled them into a feeling of security. Its position in the north had made it seem unlikely that the English armies would attack them. They had felt safe there.

John Atholl looked at the queen. ‘We can’t abandon Kildrummy; we have to hold it for Robert. But we must get you ladies away to safety in case the worst happens.’ He looked back at Nigel who had seated himself gloomily on one of the piled sacks of barley. ‘How can we do it?’

Nigel stood up. ‘What do you say, shall we toss for it, John? One of us will go with the ladies, and one of us will stay and hold the castle for Robert.’

Nigel lost the toss. It was he who must stay. He gave Eleyne a gallant bow, trying hard to hide his disappointment. ‘It’s my job to hold the castle for its earl and I shall stay. But this time you should go.’

Eleyne shook her head. ‘My mind has not changed, Nigel. I intend to stay here. I am too old to excite Edward any more. It’s the king’s immediate family he wants. I shall stay here and take care of the children. Kildrummy will hold out for months if necessary. Edward of Caernarfon -’ she pronounced it the Welsh way, her tongue accentuating the word which had once been so familiar – ‘will grow bored with besieging us long before we run out of food. And our well runs deep and pure. We will hold out until doomsday.’

They were ready to leave as soon as darkness fell. Eleyne made her way out into the courtyard, lit by a dozen spluttering torches. It was crowded with people as the townsfolk and crofters made their way in to the safety of the castle’s great walls, driving their animals with them, knowing full well that when they eventually came out again, their homes and fields would have been burned.

Lord Atholl’s small band – two of his best men, their wounds healed, and the women – was ready, wrapped in black cloaks which would give them some cover in the dark, and leading Eleyne’s last horses, those which remained after the men had gone to join Robert’s standard. Nearby the blacksmith, Hal Osborne, stood scowling. He had demanded to go with them, but Nigel had refused. ‘With your damaged leg you’ll slow them down, man. You’re more use to us here,’ he commanded brusquely. ‘We need weapons and we need some strong men to man the walls.’

When the last man was inside the great gates, they heard the grating of the portcullis as it came down and the squeak of wood on metal as the drawbridge was raised and the gates were closed for the last time. The only way into or out of the castle now was by the postern gate which led directly into the back den.

There was a hush in the courtyard, broken only by the stamping of the horses and the hiss of the resin-burning torches. Eleyne looked round, trying to hide the sudden fear which had made her heart thump unsteadily beneath her ribs, the desperate urge to change her mind, to go with them, to escape from this great castle which had been her home for so long, but was now a trap. Her hand went to the pendant at her breast. Forcing herself to smile, she stepped forward. One by one she kissed the women who were leaving, giving Kirsty and Isobel special long hugs which left all of them near tears. Then she took John Atholl’s hand. ‘Take care of them, John, they are all very precious people.’ She dropped her voice so that Kirsty could not hear. ‘I thank God daily that your Marjorie is safe and far away with the children. At least that’s one thing you needn’t worry about.’

Bending, he kissed her. ‘You’ll be safe too. My bet is that they will besiege you for a few weeks then grow bored when they realise the castle is impregnable. The Prince of Wales is not one to sit around doing nothing all day. He’ll crave glory, especially if his father starts to chase him for results. Be patient, mama-in-law, and keep your courage up.’

‘I shall, John. Don’t give us a thought. You concentrate on saving yourselves. Now go; before the clouds clear and the moon gives you away.’

She followed them to the postern and stood back as one by one the party led their horses through it and down the zigzag path into the deep ravine. As soon as the last man was through, the door was pushed shut and the bars dropped into place; behind it the small postern portcullis was lowered for the last time. Kildrummy was sealed.

III

Eleyne had retired to her solar after they had gone. She looked at the empty hearth, tempted to order a page to call for logs. Then she remembered: firewood and peats too must be conserved. If the siege lasted more than a few weeks – if it ran on for months – they would be glad of heat when the nights grew really cold. Huddled in a fur to keep her old bones warm against the chill of the September dark, she stood at the window which looked down across the broad strath. The candlelight turned the thick glass opaque with shadows; she could see nothing beyond the window and after a while she turned away.

The lookouts on the walls could see little either. The attack when it came took the whole castle by surprise. The shouts, the rain of arrows, the thundering upon the gates and the first hurled missiles from hastily erected siege engines bouncing harmlessly from the great walls, began almost exactly at midnight and went on for several hours. No one within the castle was hurt. From the walls the archers shot back at the enemy and hurled the first of their stockpiled rocks. Some fired flaming arrows to start a few harmless scrub fires in the dry grass and several found their mark, judging from the screams below. By dawn the enemy had pulled back to a safe distance.

All the next day they watched the besieging army moving into place around the castle, erecting tents and pavilions, dragging more and more siege engines into place and digging defensive ramparts behind which their archers could stand. Eleyne went up on to the battlements after mass and stood beside Nigel looking down through the arrow loops at the activity below. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she murmured. ‘Not here. Not Kildrummy. This place has always been so safe.’

‘And it will remain safe.’ Nigel put his arm around her shoulder.

‘Do you think the others got away?’ Eleyne peered towards the distant peak of Tap o’Noth and the hills to the north.

‘Of course they did. John Atholl would never let anything happen to them. You know that as well as I do. Besides,’ Nigel shrugged, ‘being totally realistic, we both know that, if they had been cap tured, young Edward there would not be able to resist letting us know. John’s head would be on a pole outside his tent by now.’ He shuddered. They both stared down at the largest pavilion which marked the prince’s base. Above it, on the huge banner, the three Plantagenet leopards ramped merrily across their scarlet field in the wind. It was twice the size of that of the Earl of Pembroke with its bars and birds, which flew beside it.

Once the siege was under way and the inhabitants of the castle had become used to the sinister presence beyond their walls, the days settled down to a routine once more. Food was carefully rationed, and the storerooms locked, though so much food filled the castle that much of it was openly available to those who wanted it. But there was good discipline amongst the people. Conscientiously they regulated themselves and obeyed the rules which Eleyne and Nigel had drawn up.

After the first onslaught, it was several days before the siege weapons were in use and a sense of almost peaceful anticipation filled the men and women in the castle. It did not last long. As the huge ballistas and trebuchets swung into action, hurling massive missiles at and across the walls, they had their first casualties. Two men from the Garioch died as they crossed the open courtyard. Roofs within the curtain walls collapsed; chunks of masonry flew from the massive walls and the walls of the chapel and the great hall both sustained hits which cracked the stone. After that people became more cautious.

A week later Prince Edward sent the first of many messengers to the castle gate under a white flag of truce to negotiate with Nigel and, they soon discovered, to try to establish if the Queen and Princess of Scotland were still at Kildrummy.

The castle flew two banners. The royal lion of Scotland and the cross-crosslets of Mar. On his first visit the messenger, Sir John Appleby, found out nothing save that they were well stocked with grain, and that Sir Nigel Bruce and the dowager Countess of Mar at least were there behind the granite walls and that they were confident and defiant.

On his second visit, three weeks later, he had another mission besides his message for Sir Nigel. As he walked across the courtyard beneath his white flag, his eyes were everywhere, scanning the faces of the men and women who stared at him from the shelter of the outbuildings. They were looking to see if the rumour that Englishmen had tails was true. He was looking for signs of a different kind: rebellion, frustration, avarice – the bag of jingling coins openly bouncing at his belt might possibly speak to one of the people who were watching him now.

Carefully trained by King Edward’s negotiators, the messenger looked to left and right, scrutinising the faces around him, and as he left the castle, ostensibly disappointed by his defiant reception, he smiled. He reckoned he had spotted his man.

IV

The dream came again. Not the battle, but the fire. Eleyne woke sobbing, to find Bethoc shaking her. ‘My lady, please, what is it?’ The woman was frightened.

Eleyne felt her pillows damp with her tears. The dream had gone. Elusive as a shadow, it had been there at the edge of her consciousness, then it had vanished into blackness. She stared across the room, lit only by the one tallow candle, and frowned. ‘The fire is out.’

‘It hasn’t been lit for weeks, my lady,’ Bethoc said gently. ‘Only the cooking fires are lit and those only during the day.’

‘Of course, I had forgotten.’ Eleyne closed her eyes. ‘Is it nearly dawn?’

‘Near enough, my lady.’ Bethoc glanced towards the window. The glow outside came from the great fires which burned all night in the camp around their walls, openly defying the cold darkness of the castle in the first rawness of autumn.

Bethoc tucked the covers around Eleyne once more and crawled back into her own bed, shivering. In minutes she was asleep.

Eleyne lay looking up at the grey shadows on the ceiling as imperceptibly it grew lighter. Without realising it, her hand had gone to the phoenix lying over her thin, bony chest. The enamel was warm, vibrant between her fingers; his hands, when they touched her shoulder, were gentle and persuasive, soothing her pounding heart, stroking away her fear, making her forget her aged, treacherous body. Beneath the warm covers of her bed, she began to smile.

V

Edward of Caernarfon was sitting in his pavilion when Sir John Appleby returned to the camp. At twenty-two, Edward was tall, cool, uninvolved, like his father in many ways, and yet different – a paler, weaker version. Always there was that soft centre, that lack of resolution, which meant he would never be the king his father was. It showed even now amongst his men. He sat back on his stool and looked at Sir John’s face. One glance told him what he wanted to know, and he threw down his quill. ‘You found someone?’ He stretched his legs in front of him with a groan. He was bored with the siege; he wanted quick results. And glory.

Sir John nodded. He bowed formally, then took the stool Prince Edward indicated and drew it forward. Above their heads, the sun threw dappled shadows on to the canvas of the pavilion. He could smell the crushed grass beneath the floor coverings. Outside, the brazier burned merrily; a page was feeding twigs into the flames. ‘Yes, sire, I think I’ve found my man. Strong, but disabled. Frustrated; angry and resentful. I saw his eye follow me, and I saw it linger a long time on the gates as they opened for me. My bet is that he noticed my purse and he’d sell his own grandmother for it.’

Edward smiled. ‘Good.’ He picked up his pen again and tapped it on the folding table where he was sitting. ‘This siege begins to bore me. The sooner it’s over, the sooner I’ll be pleased. Did you see the Bruce’s family?’

‘I spoke to Sir Nigel. They’re there all right.’

‘But did you see them?’ Edward’s eyes narrowed.

‘No one but Sir Nigel and the Countess of Mar. The old girl looked daggers at me.’ He shivered. ‘I wouldn’t like to be the one to put chains on her. Quite a nest of vipers we have holed up here, my lord. Once you have them the Bruce will be hamstrung. Wife, mistress, child! What a gift for the king, your father!’

‘What a gift indeed.’ Edward stood up and strode to the tent’s doorway. He stood gazing at the curtain wall of the castle, so high and thick his siege engines could make no impression on them. Kildrummy would never fall to them. He smiled cynically. Those walls and that gatehouse had been reconstructed under his father’s orders at the direction of Master James of St George. They were impregnable! He gave an ironic little laugh. Then his face sobered. Only treachery would bring Kildrummy to its knees.

VI

Sir Nigel spent a great deal of time now in the solar in the Snow Tower. He had grown fond of Eleyne and they talked and played chess and backgammon to while away the long hours when he was not patrolling the walls and supervising weapons practice amongst his few men. It was hard to keep morale high; harder to keep them from the boredom which would miss the scaling ladder in the dark. Women as well as men were being trained to use any weapons which came to hand and to take their turn on the walls.

‘What will happen, Nigel?’ Eleyne had put down her sewing. Her eyes tired easily now. She rubbed them and blinked. Even on the sunniest days, and with the window glass removed to give light – and so that the lead could be melted down to make shot for their catapults – she found it harder to place the intricate stitches.

He shrugged. ‘Prince Edward looks set for a long siege.’

‘Through the winter?’

‘I suspect so. He can only guess how much food we have here, but he knows we can last a long, long time. No doubt we’ll have more proposals for terms of surrender soon.’

Eleyne shuddered. ‘Sir John made it clear there would be little quarter given.’ He had promised the women their lives, no more. And he had promised to return for their reply. ‘I suspect that quarter would be withdrawn when he found there was no one here he wanted but you and me.’ She smiled grimly. ‘I would be a grave disappointment to my dear cousin, who’s hoping for far more exotic pickings.’

Nigel was silent for a while, then he sat down opposite her. He leaned forward and picked up her embroidery. She had stitched a bird into the linen. An eagle? An osprey? It looked as though it were sitting in a nest of fire. ‘You, of all of us, have the most royal blood, you know,’ he said with a laugh.

‘And Edward cannot wait to shed it.’ Eleyne took the sewing from him and tucked it neatly into her sewing basket. She sighed. ‘How strange. I was once so sure that my royal blood would bring me to a throne and now it looks as though it will bring me to my death.’

That night she dreamed again. This time the dream was triumphant. She saw Robert crowned; she saw Elizabeth and Isobel at his side and Marjorie tall and radiant, and at her side another child – a son; a prince for Scotland. She lay awake a long time thinking about it the next morning as, slowly, the chamber grew light. Had she dreamed truly or was the dream just the form of her longings? She could still see in her mind the faces of the men and women who had walked through the bright halls, and the boy – Elizabeth’s son – the son who would take away her grand-daughter’s right to the crown, and the chance of her own blood succeeding, ever, to the throne of Scotland.

It was several minutes before she felt a hand on her shoulder gently caressing her beneath the silk coverlet. She smiled and relaxed back on to the pillows, looking up at the hangings above her head as a stray beam of sunlight reflected into the narrow east window. ‘Can you see what will happen, my dear?’ she whispered out loud. ‘Will Robert win? Will he come to our rescue?’ Slowly she sat up. That was it! That was what the dream meant. Robert was on his way. He was coming to rescue them. He had regrouped his men.

For the first time in weeks she felt a small ray of hope and it acted as a tonic to her stiff bones. Climbing from her bed, she picked up the bell and rang it for Bethoc, then she walked to the window, without the aid of her stick, and looked down the strath. A fresh wind was blowing and she could see the royal banner above Edward’s tent rippling merrily on its tall staff. There was little activity in the camp of their enemy. She could see the cooking fires, newly built, with smoking cauldrons of something hot suspended over them. Her stomach growled with hunger. She shook her head. They had enough to eat, and she of all the men and women in the castle needed least to sustain her old bones.

Bethoc entered the room and stood looking at her mistress’s back, silhouetted in the window. In the bright red-gold rays of the rising sun, her hair, hanging down over her shoulders in a wild tangle, looked deep auburn again; her figure straight and girlish, the slim active figure of a young woman, up early to run down the long winding staircase and jump on her horse to ride in the bright cold dawn.

The face Eleyne turned to her faithful waiting woman was radiant. ‘I dreamed we were going to win, Bethoc. I dreamed King Robert is on his way to save us.’

‘Oh, my lady!’ Bethoc had complete faith in Eleyne’s predictions. ‘Oh my lady, thank the Blessed Virgin! And the queen and her ladies got away? I knew they had! But it’s not easy, not knowing for sure.’

‘They got away. They are safe. All of them. And the queen will have a son.’

Neither of them doubted for a moment that her dream was true.

By the time those in the castle who were not needed to defend the walls were assembled in the great hall for their breakfast of oat cakes and ale, the entire garrison knew of the countess’s dream. The effect on morale was astounding. Faces which had been weary and depressed were full of smiles. There was a spring in the step of the men on the walls and their taunts, hurled at the besiegers below, had a new defiance which was not lost on the men in Edward’s camp.

At midday the prince sent for Sir John. ‘I want you back in that castle. Find out what has made them so confident suddenly. And bring me the name of the man who will get us in there.’

Sir John was ready within the hour with his standard bearer and the white flag of truce. And he was ready with his message. As the small passdoor in the great gates opened, he ushered his standard bearer in ahead of him and followed, stooping stiffly in his mail. In the courtyard he paused. The countess’s aged steward was there once more to greet him. There were a dozen or so men and women busy about their activities and on the walls the usual quota of armed men, looking outward, uninterested in the enemy’s envoy. Sir John missed nothing: the corn was piled high still – enough for several months if properly rationed; there were no signs of distress. He could see the heaps of stones and lead balls for the catapults. The castle was ordered and calm.

Sir Nigel met him once more in the great hall. This time he was alone. There was no sign of the Countess of Mar.

Sir John bowed stiffly. ‘Have you given thought to my offer? If the castle surrenders, we will spare the lives of the ladies and children.’ He had seen a small child playing near the smithy in the courtyard.

‘And the men of the garrison?’ Nigel looked him in the eye.

Sir John looked uncomfortable. ‘That is for the king to decide.’

‘Not a reassuring thought.’ Nigel grinned at him amiably. ‘And one which thankfully I do not have to contemplate. The end of the siege is indeed at hand. Our information is that a large army is on its way with our relief in view.’

Sir John gaped at him. ‘A large army? Whose army, sir?’ He laughed, an unexpected bark of humour which rang around the hall.

‘My brother’s army,’ Nigel said quietly. ‘And with my brother are the ladies who give him so much support, his queen, his daughter, the Countess of Buchan.’

‘But they are here…’

‘No.’ The quiet certainty with which Nigel spoke brought Sir John’s blustered denial to an abrupt halt. There was a moment’s silence.

Sir John narrowed his eyes. ‘If that is true, sir, God help you and Lady Mar when the king finds out. Your lives won’t be worth that!’ He snapped his fingers under Nigel’s nose. ‘For pity’s sake, give in, man. Your life may be forfeit, but won’t you think about that old woman? Are you prepared to see her dragged to London in chains? Do you think King Edward would spare her anything?’

Following the sudden change of direction of Nigel’s eyes, he swung round and found himself facing Eleyne who had entered the hall as he spoke. She bowed to him coldly. ‘I am grateful for your concern for my welfare, Sir John, but I am confident it’s not necessary. I have no intention of allowing Edward the satisfaction of having me as his prisoner. Kildrummy will soon be free. And if the man who dares to call himself Prince of Wales wants to save his skin, I suggest he raises this siege and returns to England as soon as he possibly can.’

Sir John scowled. ‘And just what makes you think this great army is on its way to help you?’ His voice was full of sarcasm. ‘You’ve had a message from them, I suppose?’

‘Yes.’ Eleyne smiled serenely. ‘We’ve had a message.’

‘That’s not possible. No one could get in or out of this place. It’s sealed as tight as a drum of butter.’ Sir John fingered the empty scabbard which hung at his sword belt. His weapon, according to the conventions of the flag of truce, had been left behind in his tent.

Neither Nigel nor Eleyne spoke, but both looked too sure, too pleased with themselves. For the first time he had a real qualm of doubt. ‘Very well, I can see you’re not going to listen to reason. On your own heads be it.’ He bowed curtly, first to Eleyne then to Nigel, and turned on his heel.

He walked slowly through the hall, his eyes darting here and there in the crowd of staring men and women: villagers, crofters, servants, a few of the castle garrison, resting between spells of duty. Perhaps he had miscalculated. His man was not there. But then he saw him, lounging near the door, his leather apron stained. He was chewing a stem of straw.

Sir John stopped and deliberately caught the man’s eye. Then he turned, addressing the whole hall. ‘The man who burns this place to the ground and delivers Kildrummy Castle to the King of England will win the safety of his wife and children and a bag of gold so large he cannot carry it away!’ His ringing tones carried the length of the great hall.

From the dais Nigel roared back: ‘There isn’t a man in this castle who would take up your offer, Sir John. Don’t waste your breath, my friend. Go back to your camp and keep your gold!’ A subdued murmur of support came from the hall around them.

Sir John bowed silent acknowledgement of Nigel’s words and turned on his heel.

‘Did he really think any of our people would betray us?’ Eleyne was tight-lipped with anger as she gripped the handle of her walking stick. ‘Foolish man.’

‘He’s desperate. Edward of Caernarfon won’t like the news that his mission has failed, or the titbit about the imminent arrival of Robert’s army.’ Nigel stopped. ‘I suppose… No, no, of course there’s no doubt. He is on his way.’

She smiled at him serenely. ‘There is no doubt, Nigel. Trust me.’

VII

Hal Osborne was standing at the entrance to his smithy. The fire was out, the bellows silent. His small sons were playing in the dust on the floor. The eldest, Ned, was old enough to work those bellows for short periods, heating his father’s roaring furnace to white heat. If the castle fell, the men would die. Ned might die. He was old enough for a man’s work; he was old enough to use a catapult; perhaps he was old enough for a man’s death.

He looked sourly across the courtyard, where Sir Nigel Bruce was talking to one of the men-at-arms near the bakehouse. But for Bruce he would have gone with the queen, and if it wasn’t for the countess’s ill-tempered horse, his leg would be whole. Christ and all his devils curse them both to hell! He could have gone. It was her fault he was here, her fault that if the castle fell, he would die. What loyalty did he owe her? He folded his arms, his eyes going back to the two boys as they scuffled in the dust. None. What chance was there of the siege being lifted? None.

And think of the gold.

VIII

Eleyne was already undressed, wrapped in her bed gown, when Nigel was ushered into her bedchamber by Bethoc, who poured them each a goblet of spiced wine and then left them alone. He sat down opposite her and cradled the hot goblet between his hands. ‘Can you summon your visions at will?’ he began without preamble.

Eleyne stared down at the empty hearth. ‘Sometimes.’ She gave an involuntary shiver.

‘Could you do it now?’

She didn’t answer for a long time. ‘Perhaps. I need fire.’

‘Fire?’ He looked at the single candle burning on the table near them.

‘Fire. I see the pictures in the flames; in the embers. There are things I can sprinkle on the flames which help; dried herbs. What do you want to know?’

‘I need to know how long.’ He stood up in a sudden lithe movement, nervy as a cat, and began to pace the floor. ‘I have a bad feeling here.’ He thumped his chest. ‘Something is wrong.’

‘With the castle?’

‘I don’t know, I’m just worried. Supposing they don’t come! Supposing your dream was just that – a dream?’ He rubbed his cheek with the flat of his hand. ‘Supposing Kirsty and the others didn’t make it. Supposing Robert decided to leave Scotland and go to Ireland for a while. Supposing we are alone!’

‘You can suppose any number of things, my dear,’ Eleyne said gently. ‘We all have our nightmares as well as our dreams.’ She took a sip from her drink. ‘Did you check the night guard?’

He nodded. ‘They’ll change when the chapel bell rings.’ He resumed his pacing. ‘If I were to have a small fire made up here – we can say it’s because of your age and aching bones -’ He gave her a mischievous look, gone as soon as it had come to be replaced by a look of infinite weariness. ‘Would you consider looking into it for me?’

‘Of course I will. But I can promise nothing. I’ll go down to the stillroom and find the right herbs.’ She was groping for her stick when she sat back in her chair, her head cocked to one side, listening.

‘What is it?’ He was watching her tensely.

‘I thought I heard something. A horn…’

He was at the window in two strides, leaning out, staring down the glen. The silence in the room was intense. Then he turned back to her, disappointment clear on his face. ‘I can see nothing.’

‘He will come,’ Eleyne said firmly.

IX

In the silence of the stillroom she peered around, her candle held high. The room was so full of memories; so many deaths: Donald, Gratney, William, Elizabeth, Muriel; so many illnesses cured: childhood snuffles and croups, broken bones, earaches and headaches and wounds. So many visions, conjured from the flames with the aid of mugwort and apple and ash and rosemary and lavender and thyme. The air was heavy with the fragrance of dried herbs, the beams hanging with this year’s crop. Taking a small linen bag from the hook beneath the high workbench, she went deftly from jar to jar collecting what she needed. Then she blew out the candle.

As she did every evening, she stopped in the nursery to say goodnight to her grandchildren. They were asleep together, bathed and in clean nightgowns, two small dark heads on the pillow. She stood looking down at them, smiling, then stiffly she bent to kiss each one in turn. ‘Sweet Bride keep you safe.’ Her knuckles were white on the handle of her stick, and suddenly her eyes were full of tears.

The castle was silent. On the walls the watch patrolled up and down, their eyes ever straining for a sign of siege ladders or engines being pushed closer under cover of darkness. In the smithy Hal Osborne leaned against the wall, chewing a stalk of barley between his teeth. His leg ached unbearably. Beyond him, in the back of the small heather-thatched building which was his home and place of work, his wife and two children slept on their straw pallets. She was a local girl, from a farm beyond the village. One day it would be his and then it would be his sons’. His chest tightened with love as he listened to the small snoring sounds his younger son made as he slept, his throat clogged by mucus. If the castle was taken that child would die, both his children would die, and his wife too, after she had been raped a dozen times.

Unless.

Silently he stood up. The English envoy had made the position clear. There was money and safety waiting for the man who gave Kildrummy Castle to the English.

On silent feet he walked across the courtyard, feeling the cold cut of the wind from the hills. The place was deserted. He made his way across to the bakehouse, where the ovens were already heating to bake the morning’s bread. Only one woman was there, sleepily feeding firewood to the blaze. Behind her the long trays of barley loaves lay on a table, proving beneath their linen cloths. Her face lightened when she saw Hal. ‘It’s early, my friend. If you’ve come for breakfast you’re too soon.’ Her arms were still floury; but there were smears of soot across her apron.

He eyed her for a moment, wondering what would happen to her. She was a cheerful motherly soul; at least four children played round her skirts when she was away from her duties in the kitchen. He remembered her. She wasn’t part of the castle household. She was the baker’s wife from Mossat. He could see the signs of the siege on her face – the drawn lines around her mouth, the black circles beneath her eyes, the thinness of her arms. Her husband had taken his bow and his sword and gone at the very beginning with the first muster of men.

For a moment he hesitated.

‘Out of my way.’ She bustled around him busily. ‘I’ve no one to help this morning. If you’ve nothing to do but stand around like a gowk, you can help me put the bread in the ovens. The castle will be awake at first light.’

He shook his head slowly. ‘I’ve duties to perform, mistress. I need a light for my lantern.’ He produced the horn lantern which used to hang above the door of the smithy in the hours of darkness.

She tossed her head. ‘Take it then, and get out of my way.’ Already she had turned away to her loaves.

He took a spill and thrust it into the fire. The tallow candle in the lantern lit easily, burning with a feeble flickering flame which stank immediately of rancid meat as, carefully, he shut the transparent horn door. He grinned at her uncomfortably. He wanted to say something, something to prepare her, but there was nothing he could say. He turned away and vanished into the pre-dawn dark. Within seconds she had forgotten that he had been there.

The great hall, the mekill hall, the people of Kildrummy called it, was virtually empty when he pushed the door ajar and slipped into the smoky darkness. A few figures slept on straw pallets around the hearth, but there was no fire there. The smoke in the air was an echo from long-dead fires trapped in the cold air below the high vaulted roof.

The lantern light was too faint to light much more than a foot or two around him. Silently he crept towards the largest pile of sacks. There was barley, oats, a little wheat for the countess’s table and stacked straw sheaves, bound into bales and piled into heaps which reached higher than a man. He glanced round. No one was awake. No one had seen him.

Slipping behind one of the piles he opened the door of the lantern. Pulling a handful of straw from one of the sheaves, he thrust it inside and held it above the candle. In seconds it had caught. It burned with a fierce crackle in the silence, but still no one had awakened. With fear catching at his throat, he swiftly drew the burning straw across the base of the nearest pile of sheaves, seeing the sparks catching in a bright trail. Hurrying now, he turned to another pile then another and another, hearing the crackle behind him growing louder. A murmur came from the far side of the hall and he heard a sudden shout. Hurling his lantern high into the pile of stacked sacks, he turned and dived for the door. Coughing, his eyes streaming from the acrid smoke, he ran silently down the side of the hall and dived through the darkness to his smithy. Running inside he stooped and shook his wife awake. ‘Bring the children! Hurry! We’re getting out of here.’

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Sleepily she sat up, then in the open doorway she saw the first glow of fire. ‘What is it, Hal? What’s happened?’

‘The castle is being attacked,’ he said grimly, ‘but you and I will be safe. Come quickly. Follow me.’ He snatched up the sleepy boy and ran for the doorway.

The first tocsin began to ring as he stepped out into the courtyard and he could hear angry, frightened shouts from the watch. Someone ran across in front of him, a bucket in each hand from the deep well in the base of the Snow Tower – he could see the water slopping uselessly on to the dry cobbles.

He ran swiftly towards the gatehouse, his son clutched in his arms. Behind him he could smell the smoke now, and hear the crackle of the fire as the vast stockpile of grain and fodder in the hall caught. The noise was growing louder – turning into a dull roar.

Beside him a man appeared: the watch from the gatehouse tower. He was running towards the hall, shouting. He passed so close, Hal could have reached out and touched him, then he was gone, plunging into the smoke which billowed from the double doors of the great hall, leaving his post unmanned.

Hal smiled grimly. Putting the child down, he felt his way along the wall to the narrow stairway which led up into the winding chamber. There the windlass stood which raised the portcullis. Normally it took several men to work it, but his desperation gave him the strength of several men. Spitting on his calloused palms, he braced himself against the bar and began to push, his muscles straining and bulging. For a long moment nothing happened, then there was a groan from the pulley which led to the heavy counterweights in the ceiling. Sweat poured off him. He shut his eyes and pushed harder, hearing from below the lost wail of the little boy, waiting in the dark, and the terrified voice of his wife comforting him as they hid in the shadows. The sound gave him strength. Another superhuman shove and the windlass began to turn. Outside, beneath the gatehouse, slowly the portcullis began to rise. When it was only halfway up he knocked in the oak wedge and, his muscles screaming with agony, threw himself back down the stairs. Ducking under the ominously hanging spikes of the portcullis he reached the iron-studded gates and felt along them until he touched the passdoor with its triple bars. It was pitch-black in the shadow of the gatehouse. Gritting his teeth he heaved at the first bar. It was jammed. He pulled harder and at last it slid from its slots and fell to the ground. The second was easier, and the third. Grasping the heavy ring handle, he turned it and pulled the door open. Beyond it, the black barrier of the raised drawbridge barred the way.

He could hear Ned crying, the boy’s thin wail a lonely frightened sound beneath the echoing arch of the gateway. Ignoring the cry grimly, Hal threw himself at the wheel which controlled the drawbridge. It was wedged by a pin; he needed something to strike it free. Desperately he groped around. But there was nothing there.

Behind him there was a deafening crash. Part of the roof of the great hall had fallen in. The flames which shot up into the sky roared like demons in the night. For a fraction of a second he stopped and turned to stare, awed by what he had done. Then his eye was caught by the glint of steel in the light of the flames, and he saw the rack of axes on the wall near the watchman’s door. Seizing one, he swung it in his powerful arms and struck out the pin in one swift stroke. With a rumble and creak, the drawbridge began to fall on its counterweights as the first ladders were thrown up against the undefended walls by the enemy outside.

X

Standing in front of his tent, Prince Edward watched with folded arms, his eyes squinting in the darkness as the flames poured upwards, clearly visible above the curtain walls. It was only minutes since the fire had been noticed, but already the highly trained teams of men had run forward to take advantage of the distraction and run the siege towers forward. Beside them ladders were thrown up and already they swarmed with men. There was no opposition. He could already see Englishmen on the battlements when the drawbridge began to fall.

He turned to Sir John who stood beside him, barely suppressing his excitement. ‘So. Your bait was taken.’ Both men watched as a figure appeared at the far end of the bridge – a man, with a child in his arms.

Edward smiled. ‘Your man, I suspect, Sir John, come to claim his reward!’

XI

Eleyne had spent an hour staring into the fire which burned in her hearth. The acrid scent of the herbs still hung in the air. The visions had come. She had seen Robert wearing his crown; she had seen him with his son. She had seen little Marjorie as a grown woman with a child of her own in her arms and she had wept for joy. Then the pictures had changed. She had seen blood; she had heard the clash of steel. She had seen iron bars in the embers, and behind them a succession of faces, hands reaching out in supplication, and she had felt herself grow cold as death. She wept again.

Bethoc had tiptoed into the room. Silently the woman had wrapped a shawl around her mistress’s shoulders as she sat staring into the glowing peats. Eleyne did not notice. There were faces now from the past: her father; her mother; Einion, his hair flying in the raw winds of Gwynedd, his eyes wild as he raised his arms towards her; John of Chester was there, and Robert de Quincy and Malcolm. And her children. The children who had died. Hawisa, a young woman now, her two royal babes, Colban and his son with him, and Macduff, and the twins, and Isabella. Tears pouring down her face, Eleyne held out her hands towards the embers. Donald was there. Donald smiling at her, young again, handsome. And he was pointing. Pointing away towards another time, another place.

She sat forward, the shawl falling unnoticed from her shoulders. ‘Donald,’ she whispered, ‘wait for me. You were right. We will meet again. We will …’

Around her the shadows swirled. The fumes of the herbs filled the room and Bethoc, waiting patiently in the corner, felt herself grow dizzy. Choking, she began to cough.

The pounding feet on the stairs outside brought Bethoc to her feet before the bell began to peal in the darkness of the courtyard. As the door burst open, Eleyne looked up dazed. Lost in her world of dreams, she did not recognise Nigel as he caught her arm.

‘Quickly! For Christ’s sake. Our only hope is to get to the Warden’s Tower. We are betrayed! Help her, Bethoc!’ He was dragging Eleyne to her feet.

‘Betrayed?’ Eleyne’s eyes were still full of visions. The room swam around her and she staggered against the young man’s arm.

‘Betrayed,’ he repeated grimly. ‘Our only chance is to hold the tower. Hurry!’

‘But Robert is coming. He will win. He will be king…’

‘I’m sure he will, but we have to wait for him in the Warden’s Tower.’ Almost lifting her, Nigel hurried her down the long winding staircase of the Snow Tower and out of the open door at its base.

In the swirling smoke they stopped, staring at the mass of flame which had once been the great hall of Kildrummy Castle.

‘Sweet Virgin!’ Eleyne was horror-stricken. Sparks from the hall had carried to the chapel roof, which was already ablaze, as were several of the outbuildings which nestled against the inside of the curtain wall. The heat seared across the ward, smoke hanging above the shimmering, static air.

A figure appeared before them, sword in hand. His surcoat carried the leopards of England. With a shout of anger, Nigel drew his sword, thrusting Eleyne behind him. She staggered and nearly fell as the two men met head on. Behind them was another man-at-arms and then another. She was trying to see through the smoke as she backed away from the whirling sword blades when a tall figure materialised beside her and she recognised Sir John Appleby.

Lowering his sword, he bowed to her. ‘There is no hope. I have a thousand men inside the castle, and I am here to accept your surrender, Lady Mar.’

She drew herself up, her head miraculously clear suddenly. ‘There will be no surrender, Sir John. I hold Kildrummy for my king and for my grandson, the earl.’ Her voice carried proudly across the sound of fighting.

‘I am sorry, my lady, but you hold nothing.’ He looked round and, following his gaze, she saw Nigel backing grimly away from her. His sword had gone, and there were at least three men around him, their sword points at his throat. Beyond him more and more men, wearing the Prince of Wales’s colours, filled the courtyard. The small garrison was overwhelmed as she watched. Behind her there was another crash. The roof of the smithy fell in and showers of sparks shot up into the smoky air. ‘Surrender, my lady. Tell your men to stop fighting,’ Sir John called out.

‘Never!’

She backed towards the chapel. They were dragging Nigel away, and she saw they had bound his hands behind his back. Behind him, she saw old Sir Alan throw down his sword. A figure ran through the smoke and she saw a child in his arms. She heard the high-pitched scream and her heart turned over.

‘Little Donald -’ she cried. ‘Oh Sweet Blessed Lady, Donald! Where is my grandson?’ She whirled to face Sir John.

‘The Earl of Mar is my prisoner, madam.’ The cool voice of her cousin Edward was suddenly at her elbow. ‘As you are. My father will be so pleased to have you in chains at last.’ He laughed out loud, then he held out his arm, in mock gallantry. ‘Please, come this way. The chapel is alight now. There’s nothing left here for you.’

The heat from the burning straw was intense.

Eleyne shook her head. She stared around. She was alone. Bethoc had disappeared – dragged screaming from the castle by two men-at-arms; little Ellie and her nurse had gone, following Donald across the drawbridge to the prince’s camp where the prisoners were being corralled, surrounded by a strong guard. There was no one left to defend her.

Eleyne turned to him. ‘Who betrayed us?’ she cried, through dried, blistered lips. ‘Who?’

‘Your blacksmith, cousin. He was seduced by the thought of English gold!’ Edward smiled. ‘And he has been given his reward. I dislike traitors.’ he added almost as an afterthought. ‘He betrayed you – he would have betrayed me as easily.’

‘So. You’ve killed him?’ Eleyne found herself looking into his face with almost dispassionate curiosity.

‘Oh yes, we’ve killed him, and his spawn with him.’ Edward smiled. ‘We planned something rather special for him. The gold he wanted so much. I had it smelted in my forge while he watched. Apt for a blacksmith, don’t you think? Then it was poured down his throat.’

Eleyne shuddered. ‘And what fate do you reserve for me, cousin? Something equally dramatic?’

He laughed. ‘Still looking for the centre place on the stage, Lady Mar? That’s just as well, because that’s where you will be. I understand my father has planned to immure you in a cage at his Tower in London. So the populace can stare at you to their hearts’ content. A daughter of Llywelyn; a husband-killer; a rebel witch; the mother-in-law of the so-called King of Scots!’ He folded his arms. ‘Your chains await you, Cousin Eleyne.’

His face was illuminated by the flaring flames as they ran across the gaping chapel door. The roof creaked ominously and a shower of sparks flew into the air. Edward flinched. He brushed a piece of burning ash from his surcoat.

Eleyne drew herself up. Her fear and disgust had gone, to be replaced by white-hot anger. She looked him in the eye. ‘You’d cage me like an animal? As you’ve done, so they tell me, to my nephew, Owain? Never! Tell my cousin your father that I decline his invitation, that I am not going to England. I am not going anywhere with you.’

The chapel door was hanging open, only a few paces away up the steps. Inside, the centre of the chapel was dark. Again, the roof creaked and a beam fell before the altar in a blaze of flame. It illuminated the whole interior of the building, and before the altar on the chancel step, silhouetted against the triple window, she saw the figure of a man. He smiled and beckoned, and her heart leaped.

Alexander! Her hand went to the pendant around her neck.

Edward, following her gaze, saw the man: tall, red-haired, a gold coronet on his head, the royal lion of Scotland emblazoned on his surcoat. He opened his arms and called Eleyne’s name.

Edward shrank back, his skin crawling with superstitious terror as the man stepped forward, the flames licking around him. Eleyne could not move – her joy was too intense. She could see him! She could see him clearly, waiting for her. She glanced at Edward, and seeing his expression she laughed out loud and at last she saw her chance. Turning, she ran up the steps towards the chapel door. Before Edward had the time to react, she had vanished through the flaming doorway.

For a brief second, through the smoke, he saw her reach her king and he saw them in each other’s arms. Then, in a blaze as intense as any furnace, the chapel roof fell in and she was gone.