Kingdom of Shadows (98 page)

Clare made no response. She had heard nothing.

The woman who had earlier brought Isobel the ointment brought her the news. ‘Your king has won a great victory!’ she whispered, glancing over her shoulder towards the guards. Behind her the royal flag, flapping in the wind, proclaimed Berwick Castle still a stronghold of the English. ‘Scotland will soon be free!’

Isobel stared at her, almost too weak to hope. Her face, still bruised, was so thin and transparent now that her eyes were great black circles in her face. She stared at the woman without comprehension.

The woman smiled as she pushed the bowl of food through the bars. ‘Have courage, my lady. Have courage,’ she whispered.

Her tormentors were missing that day. A fine, wetting rain misted down across the river, soaking the stone of the castle walls, soaking her old faded robe and the cloak she wore around her day and night. Her bones ached, her joints were swollen and arthritic and her throat was raw, but the open ground below was empty and that was a blessing to be counted. She sat staring southwards across the Tweed, but the mist hid everything from her behind a damp grey wall and the world was silent.

Two days later the guard came at dawn. He unlocked the cage.

‘Out.’

She stared at him dully, not understanding.

‘Out. We’re changing your lodging, my lady.’ His voice was deliberately insulting in its tone as he held open the barred door. Behind him two other men were standing waiting, one armed, one dressed in a long sober tunic.

Scarcely able to move for pain and weakness she crawled towards the door of the cage and through it on to the battlements of the castle where the air was free. She still did not understand; she still did not allow herself to hope. Perhaps this at last was to be the death she had prayed for again and again of late as the pain ate into her limbs and despair closed over her in a black, heavy pall. She looked like an old woman; she was barely twenty-eight.

The second man stepped forward and took her arm as she straightened and stood painfully upright, swaying slightly. ‘It is the King’s command, Lady Buchan, that you be taken from the castle and lodged at one of the convents within the city walls. King Edward has seen fit to show you mercy.’ He smiled for the first time, his austere face dissolving into a maze of wrinkles. ‘He feels you have had sufficient punishment for your treason. Your imprisonment will be henceforth in the hands of the Carmelite sisters.’

Still she could not take it in. She thought it some new torment, a trick, a jape on the part of the governor, but they guided her slowly towards the door in the turret, and then she was carried by one of the men-at-arms down the long winding stair. At the bottom she was set on her feet again and for a moment she stood upright, looking around in confusion, unable to believe that it was all over. Then everything went black and she collapsed in a dead faint upon the herb-strewn flags.

They put her in a covered wagon in the end, and drove her in that, screened from the people of Berwick who had given her such torment for so long, to the convent which was to be her new prison.

There she was put in the infirmary and slowly at last she began to believe and to hope. The nuns bathed her wasted body and gave her nourishing food: pap at first as her teeth were loose and her gums sore. They gave her a feather mattress, soft sheets and new gowns, sombre, undecorated, save for the beads and crucifix she wore at her waist as they did, but clean and new. They combed the lice out of her hair, still thick and without a trace of grey, and washed it, drying it in the lavender-scented sunshine of the herb garden before binding her head in a snowy wimple and veil. At first she could not walk more than a few steps, then slowly her body responded to its freedom. By the time the first snows came she was able to walk around the convent unaided and she had learned much of what had happened to Robert in the past four years.

She heard about his flight from Scotland, his winter in Rathlin and his return. She learned of the death of two more of his brothers, Thomas and Alexander, both executed as Nigel had been. She learned of King Hob’s victories. She learned some of the legend which was growing round him all the time as his exploits were discussed and related across the length and breadth of Scotland and northern England.

The nuns talked of his prowess in battle, of his chivalry – even his enemies acknowledged that – his love of Scotland, his brilliance as a king. She learned too that the other women who had been captured with her, the women about whom she had wondered so often, were all still prisoners of the English as she was, and that Mary had been removed from Roxburgh and taken south into England as Robert’s victories had threatened to come nearer even that border stronghold. Somehow they had all survived, though her own ordeal had been very much the worst. And she learned from the garrulous old infirmarian with her long nose and her deep close-set eyes of King Hob’s love affair with his kinswoman Christian of Carrick and of his two children by her, and of his much-talked-of dalliance with other ladies up and down the land. She was aware of the sharp eyes watching her, of the woman’s curiosity and half-ashamed satisfaction at her pain, and she tried to muster some of her old pride; but nothing could hide her hurt that Robert had forgotten her and allowed her to hang so long in her cage at the mercy of his enemies.

There was no official explanation why King Edward had so suddenly ordered her release but the gossip in the cloisters and by the fire in the warming house was that Edward was afraid; afraid of what King Hob would do if he took Berwick and found his beautiful mistress a living skeleton in a cage. The sisters were afraid too, lest King Hob find Isobel and be displeased with their part in her captivity; they must take care of her and nurse her back to health, and so they gave her better food, another feather mattress and they prayed for her with renewed ardour.

In her loneliness, however, Isobel could think only of Christian of Carrick, who had been Robert’s mistress, and of their two children, and quietly, in her small room in the infirmary, she would at last allow herself to weep; then she would sleep, and in her sleep she would find herself once more in the cage and see the eyes around her and feel her wings battering against the confines of the bars, and in her dream too she would be crying …

Neil was sitting at his desk, gazing down at a pile of unopened letters. In the corner Jim was supervising the elderly duplicator as it churned out copies of notices of a forthcoming meeting of Earthwatch. When the kettle boiled on its shelf by the window both men ignored it.

‘Your turn, I’m busy.’ Jim glanced up from his pile of paper.

Neil sighed and pushed his chair back.

‘Ring the hotel again, man.’ Jim straightened and shuffled a pile of posters on to the table near him.

‘The line is still out of order.’

‘And her home in England?’

‘There’s no reply there either.’ Neil unscrewed the jar of coffee and shook some into the two mugs. There was no spoon.

‘Then she’s still at Duncairn.’ Jim sighed. ‘There is no way I’d believe Kath’s story, if I were you. She’s lying through her teeth, Neil. She’s a spunky lady, and she’s fighting back the only way she knows how.’ He watched as Neil poured water into the two mugs and stirred it with the end of his pen.

Neil passed him one and then sat down on the edge of his desk. ‘I’ll call Telecom again this afternoon. The weather has eased up so they should have found the fault by now –’

They both looked up as the door of the office opened and a man and a woman walked in. Neil frowned, automatically categorising them: woman, late fifties; man, mid-sixties; well off, middle class, ill at ease – not the kind who usually found their way into the office. He put down his mug and stood up.

The man glanced from him to Jim and then back at him, obviously making a similar train of deductions in his mind.

‘Mr Forbes?’ He spoke with an barely perceptible Scots’ burr, the accent almost refined out of existence.

Neil looked from the man to the woman and back and inclined his head. They both seemed uncomfortable in the office, but there was more to it than that. They were agitated about something.

‘I’m Archie Macleod and this is my wife, Antonia.’ The man paused. ‘Clare’s parents.’

After Archie and Antonia had put Sarah on the train to London that morning to spend Christmas with her sister in Richmond, it had taken them two hours to make up their minds to try and find Neil instead of driving straight back to Airdlie. The idea of seeing him was distasteful to both of them but their worry about Clare had in the end prevailed, as had, secretly, their curiosity.

‘We’ve been trying to reach them on the phone at Duncairn for a couple of days,’ Antonia blurted out.

‘The line is down.’ Behind them Jim had switched off the duplicating machine. ‘Can I get you some coffee, Mr and Mrs Macleod?’ He moved across to the kettle.

‘Thank you.’ Antonia smiled faintly. ‘Thank you, that would be nice. We’re so worried, Mr Forbes –’ She turned back to Neil. ‘We wondered if you knew anyone else near the hotel we could ring –’ Her voice trailed away as she looked pleadingly up at his face.

Neil shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. The whole area is cut off. They say it should be back on by tomorrow –’

‘Paul rang us, you see, just before the lines went dead. They set out to meet us in Edinburgh, then they had to turn back because of the snow,’ Antonia rushed on. ‘Thank you, dear.’ She accepted a mug of black coffee from Jim.

‘A bit of a blow for you, her going back to Paul, I dare say.’ Archie had noticed Neil’s expression harden. ‘I’m sorry, old chap, but her place is with her husband, you know. Especially now.’

‘Is that how he persuaded her to go back with him? By blackmailing her with harrowing accounts of appearing in court wifeless?’ Neil’s voice was harsh. ‘I’m sure she hasn’t gone back to him willingly.’

His last hope that Kathleen had been making it all up had plummeted at Archie’s words and he found himself suddenly very angry; angry with everyone, but especially with Clare.

He noticed that Antonia was smiling, and it seemed to him that behind her worry she was quietly triumphant at his discomfort. ‘There was no question of blackmail, Mr Forbes. Clare loves her husband.’ Her voice was soothing. ‘And of course she wants to be with him while all this silly misunderstanding is cleared up, but there is more to it than that. She is going to have a baby, so of course they want to be together.’

For a moment Neil was stunned into silence. Three pairs of eyes were fixed on his face. White to the lips he took a deep breath. ‘I thought Clare couldn’t have children.’

‘So the doctors told them, but apparently it was all a terrible mistake. The baby is due in August,’ Antonia added with just a trace of smugness. With a grimace she put down the mug of coffee, untouched. ‘So you see why we are especially concerned. We were going to meet them in Edinburgh to celebrate, but when we couldn’t contact them we couldn’t help but be worried.’

Neil managed to keep his face impassive. ‘I can understand,’ he said with feeling. ‘But if I were you I should go home, then they will know where to contact you as soon as Duncairn is back on the phone.’

‘Poor Clare,’ Jim commented as the door closed behind them. ‘If I had parents like that, I’d join the Foreign Legion. Are you OK?’

‘She can’t be pregnant!’ Neil spoke through clenched teeth.

‘Doctors make mistakes,’ Jim said softly.

‘But she hadn’t slept with him for months.’ Neil’s voice was torn with anguish.

‘Women have been known to lie, Neil.’

‘Not Clare. Not about that.’ He began to walk in agitation up and down the space between the desk and the window. ‘There is something very wrong. She wouldn’t have lied to me. She wouldn’t –’ He turned suddenly. ‘I’m going up there, Jim.’

Jim shrugged. ‘Are you sure that’s wise? Quite apart from anything else, they’re telling people to keep off the roads –’

‘I’ve got to know! One way or another, I’ve got to know what’s going on.’ Neil frowned angrily. If Clare was a liar, if she had gone back to Paul willingly, then it would confirm everything he had first thought about her and worse; but if she wasn’t … If Paul was forcing her in some way to go back to him as he had forced her before, then she needed help. Not only that: if she had been telling the truth and she had not slept with her husband for months, then the baby, if there was a baby, was his.

At Airdlie Paul put down the phone. He had tried a dozen times to reach Rex but there was no answer from his flat. He wanted to give the man the chance to change his mind – just in case Sigma backed off. Supposing they had become suspicious about the signatures after all? There had been too long a silence from their legal people and he was getting twitchy. He had not been able to get in touch with Doug Warner for two days and the Sigma offices were still empty.

Upstairs in her bedroom, warmed now in anticipation of Geoff and Chloe’s arrival by an electric fire and covered by a thick blanket, Clare lay completely still. She had not eaten for twenty-four hours. Twice Paul had lifted her head and put a glass to her lips. Both times she had sipped a little, but she did not speak or acknowledge him. She seemed to have slipped away into a world of her own.

He had taken the piece of paper she had signed and put it, still folded, into an envelope, sealed it and locked it in his briefcase. Now that he had finally got it he was almost ashamed.

A day without using it, a day to contemplate his actions, the Sabbath day, the day of rest. Everything would be all right if he didn’t rush it. That would make it seem better; make the whole transaction appear completely legitimate. He slammed down the phone and looked at his watch. Geoffrey should arrive within an hour if the roads were still open. It was already growing dark.

The trouble was that if the roads were open would Antonia and Archie return as well? His mind raced on. Not that it mattered now. He had what he wanted and Clare’s state would merely reinforce everything he had been saying all along. He shivered. In fact, he would be quite glad if they did come back. He no longer wanted to be in the house with her alone.