Kingdom (21 page)

He scanned the courtyard, his gaze moving over the men dashing towards the hall, briefly catching on the constable, who had emerged from the Warden’s Tower and was directing others to bring more buckets. Niall fixed on a lone figure, moving towards the gatehouse, keeping close to the line of the wall. When the figure paused and looked towards the hall, Niall recognised him as the castle’s blacksmith, a bad-tempered bull of a man called Osbourne. The blacksmith continued, quickly now. Niall felt cold doubt turn to sickening certainty. As he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled the man’s name, Osbourne whipped round, his face tilting towards the battlements. He was too far for Niall to see his expression, but his intent was clear as he turned and ran for the gatehouse.

Niall began to sprint, yelling at the guards in the courtyard as he went, gesturing wildly towards the running man, but his cries were lost in the commotion of the fire and the mad clanging of the bells. The hall’s doors had been flung open and smoke billowed thickly around the men, all tossing in sand and water in an attempt to quell the blaze. Leaping the pile of rubble by the broken section of wall, Niall fixed on the sentries by the Snow Tower.

‘Roland!’ he roared. ‘
Archers!
’

The guard was at the battlements, his attention caught by something else. Through an arrow slit, Niall glimpsed a host of men massing at the English siege lines, all cast in the copper light of the campfires. There were horsemen at the head, funnelling across the makeshift bridge of the sow. Racing on, he reached the sentries and grabbed one of them, an archer, by the scruff of his cloak.

‘Shoot that man!’ Niall forced the archer round to face the gatehouse, where Osbourne was charging into the mouth of the passage between the twin towers. ‘Shoot him now, or we all die!’

The archer swung his bow from his shoulder and snatched an arrow from the basket on his belt. Fixing it in place with one rapid movement, he drew back the string, aimed, and shot. The arrow flew straight and true into the darkness where Osbourne had disappeared. Niall held his breath, listening for a scream. Instead, he heard the drum of hooves and the unmistakable rattle and clank of Kildrummy’s portcullis.

St Duthac’s Shrine, Scotland, 1306 AD

Elizabeth sat in the window, staring out over the firth, beyond which mountains rose black against the blanched dawn. The wide water was dew-pond calm, filled with vertiginous reflections of the surrounding crags. To the others, coming down out of the hills, the sight of the channel leading into the open sea beyond Tain had been a blessed relief. To her it whispered only death. She closed her eyes, fingering the ivory cross around her neck, her mind caught in the rushing dark of a different body of water, long since left, but not forgotten.

Mother Mary, give me strength.

Hearing a rustle of blankets and the slap of bare feet on stone, she looked round to see Christian disappearing behind the wicker screen that shielded a latrine from the chamber. A moment later came sounds of vomiting. Elizabeth’s gaze drifted over the sleeping forms of the other women, curled up under blankets. They covered the floor of the draughty lodgings the priest had offered them, huddled together for warmth. Fionn was lying beside Marjorie, his shaggy head resting between his paws, eyes half open, glinting and watchful. The other dogs and all the horses were in the stables or out in the pastures, but the hound had refused to leave the girl’s side since they had left St Fillan’s. Close by, Donald shifted beside his wet nurse, whimpered, then silenced. His mother emerged from behind the screen, wiping her mouth with a trembling hand. Christian started, seeing Elizabeth sitting there in the gloom. She came to the window seat, stepping carefully over the bodies of Marjorie and Lady Isabel Comyn.

‘The priest told me one of his chaplains is a skilled healer,’ Elizabeth said quietly, shifting her legs to allow Christian to sit beside her on the stone seat. The frayed hem of her dress caught on a cobweb, snapping the strands. ‘I think you should allow him to examine you if you keep getting sick.’

‘I’m not sick, my lady.’ Christian’s eyes filled with pale dawn light as she looked out across the firth beyond the grounds of St Duthac’s Chapel. ‘I’m with child.’

Elizabeth felt her breath catch in her throat. Instinctively, before her customary reserve could stop her, she reached out and took Christian’s hand. Her sister-in-law looked at her, surprised by the contact, then smiled sadly and squeezed her hand in return.

‘You are certain?’

‘I haven’t bled since St Fillan’s and it feels the same as it did with Donald.’ Christian pressed her arm against her breasts, nodding to confirm it. She let her hand fall into her lap. ‘Christopher would be so happy.’

‘He
will
be,’ Elizabeth assured her. ‘And when we return he will be able to tell you so himself.’

Christian stared out of the window, her brow furrowing. ‘John has been gone three days now.’

Elizabeth followed her gaze to where a stone cross loomed above a spit of sand on the shore of the estuary. It was one of four that marked the boundaries of the Girth of Tain, which cradled St Duthac’s Chapel. The shrine was a holy sanctuary that could not be breached, but nonetheless their tension had risen since John of Atholl left with most of the men to seek out a worthy vessel and captain. The earl planned to rejoin Robert’s company, but the women were to be sent to Norway. The others, though distraught at leaving their husbands, had mostly resigned themselves to their fate with its promise of safety for them and their children. But to Elizabeth it still seemed an intolerably drastic measure, even beyond her own implacable fear of the journey through endless miles of deep water.

She found it unreal that less than six months ago she had been crowned queen and now she was fleeing her kingdom with a rag-tag band of noblewomen, bound for a country she knew nothing of, besides stories of dragon-prowed ships and men who had once preyed on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. She fought another urge to touch the cross at her throat as she thought of her father and the hope that refused to be crushed that he would surely shelter them. Earl John, however, had been adamant: Norway was the only safe place for them, until Robert secured his kingdom.

‘Sir John said we could make Orkney in just a few days with a good wind. From there it is not much further to Norway and my sister’s court.’

At Christian’s soft tone Elizabeth knew her sister-in-law was trying to comfort her about the sea voyage, but another feeling had started to push its way up through her fear. ‘I cannot help . . .’ She paused, wanting to speak her mind, but cautious of offending Christian. Her relationships with these Scots women were still forming. Some, especially Mary Bruce, had quick tempers that caught her off guard. Elizabeth had siblings of her own, but they had been much older and she’d never been close to any of them. Her first friendship had been with Humphrey’s wife, Bess, but the English princess was two years buried. Now, she was alone, responsible for these new sisters and a daughter who wasn’t her blood. Seeing Christian looking at her expectantly, she let her anger well to the surface. ‘I cannot help but blame Robert for all this’ – she motioned to the women spread out on the floor – ‘all our misfortune. If he hadn’t spilled John Comyn’s blood and revolted against the king, we wouldn’t be here, fleeing for our lives.’

‘No, my lady. We would be living under King Edward’s rule in a land that was no longer our own, watching our people break their backs to fill his coffers with silver. I’ve heard tell of what life is like for the Irish and the Welsh. We would be little more than slaves.’

Elizabeth could not respond to this. Born in an English settlement in Connacht to the Earl of Ulster she only knew the Irish as barbarians, with coarse customs and savage natures. In that, she was still her father’s child. ‘The end cannot be justified if the means of getting there is by murder. Our husbands were both involved in committing a deadly sin. That sin now haunts us all.’

‘Men kill one another all the time.’ Christian’s voice had hardened.

‘You know it is different in war,’ said Elizabeth quietly. ‘The Church does not call it murder.’

Christian pressed her lips together, seeming to consider her next words. ‘My brother has his faults, certainly, and he has done wrong. I do not deny it.’ She fixed Elizabeth with her blue eyes. ‘Robert has been led most of his life by his ambition – our
family’s
ambition – for him to be king. All of us have paid a price, for some the highest price, for him to fulfil that desire, but we have done so because we see in him something that lifts him above most other men; something that makes us hope. He has the iron will of our grandfather and, yes, the hot blood of our father, though he’ll not hear the latter said, but he also has the heart of our mother. It is a true heart. A
good
heart. You must keep faith, my lady.’ She took Elizabeth’s hand. The ruby on the queen’s gold ring was almost black in the half-light, gleaming alongside the bright silver of Christian’s own wedding band. ‘He is your husband and king. He needs you by his side.’

As her voice broke on these last words, Elizabeth drew Christian into her arms, pity overwhelming her. Was this what family felt like? Anger and love and grief all bound up together?

There was a low growl.

The two women pulled back from one another to see Fionn had risen and was standing stock-still, staring at the door. The hound’s hackles were up, his ears pressed flat against his head.

‘Sir John?’ murmured Christian.

Elizabeth felt a chill prickle its way along her arms. She shook her head, eyes on the hound. ‘Fionn knows him.’

There were sounds of shouting outside. Fionn launched into a torrent of snarling barks, causing Elizabeth and Christian to jump up. All the other women woke, scrabbling to their feet in startled confusion.

Marjorie threw off her blanket and grabbed the hound’s spiked collar. ‘Fionn!’ The animal took no notice of the girl, still barking ferociously at the door.

‘My lady?’ Isabel Comyn crossed to Elizabeth, her long dark hair curling loose around her shoulders. ‘What is it? Who is out there?’

Elizabeth realised Christian was still grasping her hand. She could feel the sweat slick on both their palms. She came to her senses. ‘Mary! Bolt the door!’

Mary, the closest, hastened to do as bid. Before she reached it, the door flew open with a bang. Lora, Elizabeth’s maid, screamed shrilly. Marjorie just managed to stop Fionn lunging at the chaplain, who rushed in and slammed the door shut behind him. Donald began to wail, shushed vainly by his wet nurse. Judith, Lora and the other maids and governesses were clustered together, some holding their charges tight to their breasts, others grasping one another.

The chaplain looked over his shoulder at the terrified women as he snapped the bolt in place. ‘Men have breached the girth!’ he gasped. ‘They wear Earl William’s colours. They have Sir John.’

The Countess of Atholl put her hands to her mouth. Her daughter, Isabel, went to her side, clutching her mother’s arm.

‘They come for you, my lady.’

Elizabeth flinched as the chaplain’s gaze fell on her. He twisted round. There was a bright red stain on the front of his white robe, blooming like a rose unfurling.

Marjorie cried out. She ran to Elizabeth, who put an arm around her shoulders, shielding the child from the sight of the chaplain sliding down the door.

‘Earl William of Ross was a loyal follower of John Balliol,’ said Christian to Elizabeth, her face white.

Mary Bruce turned to them. ‘They cannot take us,’ she said fiercely. ‘This is a sanctuary!’

‘I am not sure they care, sister,’ murmured Margaret Randolph, stepping backwards to the window along with the other women now clustering around Elizabeth.

They all started as several loud crashes echoed outside. More shouts rose, this time closer. They were followed by guttural screams. The other chaplains? Or the few men Sir John had left them with? The sound galvanised Elizabeth. ‘The window,’ she urged, turning Marjorie towards it. ‘Go!’

The girl clambered up on to the window seat and ducked into the narrowing aperture, which opened on to the field outside. ‘It’s too small!’ she said, her voice quavering.

‘Try!’ Elizabeth ordered.

Marjorie put her hands to either side of the thin, arched opening. She was pushing herself forward when she suddenly screamed and staggered back. Her scream was echoed by others as a man’s face appeared in the window. His eyes lit with triumph, seeing Marjorie being pulled back by Elizabeth.

‘In here!’ he yelled, turning his head to someone they couldn’t see, before leering at the women, huddled together in the centre of the room. His expression changed as Fionn lunged at the window.

Marjorie cried a command, but the hound was gone, leaping through the opening. There were now sounds of shrieking and snarling outside.

A fierce bang shook the door. Some of the women began to cry as it rattled violently in its frame. Donald was howling. Elizabeth drew Marjorie close, feeling the girl quivering against her. Her eyes darted around the room, searching for escape or some means of defence. There was nothing. Screams burst from the group as the bolt snapped and the door crashed open.

Men appeared, their red surcoats and tunics decorated with three white lions. All had swords drawn. Some were wet with blood. One, a thickset man with a crooked nose, pushed his way to the front. He scanned the group of women and children. Elizabeth found his cold stare far more unsettling than the unpleasant grins of the men with him.