‘But I had thought you prayed for a child,’ Alice stammered. ‘It is four years since you miscarried; I thought you were desperate to conceive.’
Isobel gave a hollow laugh. ‘Oh Alice, dear. If you only knew! No, I am not desperate to conceive. I thank the gods daily that I am barren.’
‘And the potions? The potions Mairi makes for you – they ensure your barrenness?’ Alice’s eyes rounded in horror. ‘I thought they were to help you bear a child! Isobel, what if Uncle John should find out!’
‘He’ll never find out.’ Isobel shivered. He had her watched now, day and night. She knew that. He was losing patience with her. Perhaps he even suspected what she did. Only his preoccupation with the war had saved her. From what she wasn’t sure.
Here at Scone they were together more than she liked, sharing this dark bedchamber in the sprawling, ruined palace, burned by King Edward three years before and now only partly rebuilt.
The conference of loyal Scottish lords had dragged on. They still met in the name of King John Balliol, and now he was free of his imprisonment, but he was an exile in France. Still Scotland had no real leader. And still the Bruces and the Comyns feuded.
The previous autumn Robert Bruce had led the defence of south-western Scotland against the English, but by the time a truce was finally declared at the end of January, when the winter weather set in at last and made further fighting impossible, he had made up his mind. Patriotism could not be served by re-establishing John Balliol on the throne. For the time being he would, as far as the world was concerned, stop fighting in the name of King John and come into Edward of England’s peace.
Lord Buchan had seemed almost unsurprised when Robert broke the news at Scone. ‘I have always mistrusted him. He’s a time-server and a traitor at heart.’ He stormed into the chamber with scarcely a glance at Alice who quietly slipped out of the door behind him and left him alone with Isobel.
Isobel went back to her seat. The name of Robert Bruce still had the power to make her mouth go dry with longing and her heart beat faster at the thought that he was nearby, possibly under the same roof at that very moment, though as yet she had had no chance to see him.
‘He thinks only of his English lands and protecting them!’ Lord Buchan walked restlessly to the window and leaned against the ornate stone sill. Behind him the sunlight threw a pattern of colours on to his mantle through the stained glass. ‘We need his support for Scotland, God dammit! Loath though I am to admit it, he is a good general. The men follow him. This feud with the Comyns is crazy! It will destroy Scotland.’
‘You speak as though the feud were of his making. Can you not understand that he will not accept John Balliol as his king?’ Wearily Isobel looked up at him. She sighed. ‘He believes that his father should be king.’
‘Ah, yes. Could I have forgotten that I speak to the Bruces’ greatest champion!’ Buchan’s face twisted into an ugly smile. ‘Lord Carrick’s father. A weak fool! And no one knows it better than Lord Carrick himself. In all seriousness he cannot expect Scotland to support any claims for that one!’
‘But Scotland would follow Lord Carrick himself.’
‘Would she indeed?’ Lord Buchan looked down at her grimly. ‘Well, she will not get the chance, particularly if he declares himself Edward’s man. If ever you do see him alone, madam, and I think it unlikely that you will,’ – he gave a cruel smile – ‘I suggest you use whatever influence you have over him to persuade him to follow John Balliol, or he will find himself branded a traitor when the war resumes. Scotland will not forgive another lapse of loyalty.’ He pushed himself upright. ‘I go now to speak with Badenoch, my brother and de Soules in the council chamber. I suggest you stay here and pray that Lord Carrick sees the error of his decision before it is too late!’
She sat for several minutes in the small shadowy chamber after he had left, using the silence to compose herself. It was so rare to find herself alone and unwatched. Slowly she stood and walked across to the window. The room was in one of the few corners of the palace to have escaped King Edward’s wrath. It still had its glass windows, its carved oak ceiling, its embroidered hangings. The room was full of warm colour, beautiful in its way. Normally she would have enjoyed it, run her fingers over the hangings, tracing the pictures, revelling in the stories they told, but today they made her feel hot and trapped in a long-dead world. How could Robert betray Scotland again? Suddenly making up her mind she turned and ran to the door.
With both hands on the heavy ring handle she dragged it open. One of Lord Buchan’s men lounged outside. He stood to attention.
Fixing him with a haughty stare she commanded him to follow her and he did so unquestioningly, escorting her through the passages and courtyards of the old building, parts of it rubble now, part being rebuilt by order of the guardians of the realm in the name of their exiled king.
She walked on purposefully, looking, or so she told herself, for Alice.
Lord Carrick, business over for the day, was practising in the makeshift lists at the side of the north park, riding at the quintain with his brother Nigel and his friend James Douglas, watched by quite a crowd. Alice was amongst them.
Isobel joined her silently. ‘Is your uncle here?’ she whispered.
Alice looked surprised. ‘No. He’s closeted with John de Soules and some of the others in the palace. I came to watch the practice for the tournament.’ She smiled at Isobel. ‘Have you decided who you are going to give your favours to tomorrow?’
Isobel glanced in spite of herself at the group of horsemen gathered at the far end of the ground. Robert, mounted on a grey stallion, had removed his helm. He held it beneath his arm as he joked with his companions, sitting easily in the high saddle as the horse shifted restlessly beneath him. Near him an esquire held his lance. Isobel looked away, her heart thumping. It was the first time she had seen him for many months.
‘I doubt if I shall be asked,’ she said with a wistful smile. ‘It is for you unmarried ladies to bestow such gifts on the clamouring knights.’
Alice giggled. ‘But even a married lady may have a champion and I think I know who yours will be. His eyes have been on you since you arrived.’
Isobel started guiltily. ‘I can’t think who you could possibly mean –’
‘No?’ Alice looked back at the men on the field. Pages had brought refreshments and some of the knights had now dismounted. Robert, however, still sat his horse. As both women watched he bent to take the goblet which was being passed to him and then raised it in a gallant toast in their direction before throwing back his head and quaffing the wine.
‘Can you still not guess?’ Alice whispered at her elbow. ‘There can be few on this field who can’t.’
Isobel could feel her face colouring violently. ‘You do talk nonsense, Alice.’ She turned abruptly back towards the palace. ‘I came to look for my husband. As he is not here, I shall return to our room. You may remain with the Lady Alice.’ She flung the instruction over her shoulder at the man at her heels. Without waiting for him to protest she began to walk quickly away.
Behind her Robert saw her leave. He caught up with her in a shaded garth, surrounded by partly dismantled cloisters behind the ruined abbey. They were alone.
‘Isobel –’ He caught her hands. ‘I could not believe that at last Buchan had brought you with him. I see you so seldom now.’ In spite of himself he found he thought of her often, and yearned for her too. He missed fighting with her. He missed her wit and her courage, her beauty and the passion he sensed simmering below the surface whenever they were together. The thought of her with Buchan was something to which he had sternly to close his mind. ‘There is so little time,’ he went on. ‘I leave tomorrow after the tournament for my lands in England.’
Isobel disengaged her hands reluctantly. ‘I heard. You are going to betray us, Robert –’
‘No!’ She heard the agony in his voice. ‘No, my dear. What I am going to do, I do for Scotland. It is not right to allow the men
of Scotland to die year after year to keep a puppet on the throne, and I cannot stand by and see it continue. I have fought at their side; I have seen my own men die for that cause. Scotland can only be free under her rightful king.’ His eyes were burning with zeal.
‘Your father?’ Isobel said bitterly. ‘No one will support your father. The country mocks him. Who will ever forget how your mother threw him across her saddle and abducted him –’
‘That was a lie!’ Robert was white with fury. ‘Have you lived so long with the Comyns that you would believe malicious gossip like that?’ He turned away from her. ‘But you are right,’ he went on suddenly. ‘The country will not fight for my father and he would not want them to. He doesn’t have fire in his belly as grandfather had.’ He paused. ‘But they will fight for me, Isobel. One day they will fight for me, and I will win!’ He swung back to her and caught her shoulders. ‘You must believe that, sweetheart. You must. I leave for England tomorrow, but my heart will remain here. I have plans, friends –’ he looked around hastily, his eyes scanning the shadowy corners where the new-budding herbs were slowly forcing their way through the tumbled rubble towards the spring sun. ‘God’s blood! I shouldn’t tell you, Buchan’s wife, but you have always been a daughter of Fife first and his wife only second, and I know that you above all others can keep secrets. Trust me, Isobel. Remember, whatever happens, whatever I appear to do, I keep faith with Scotland.’
‘I do trust you,’ she whispered. She was trembling slightly. ‘When shall I see you again?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe not for some time.’ He hesitated, staring down into her face. ‘Dear God, Isobel, if only you were my wife. What battles I could win with you beside me.’ He could have bitten off his tongue; he had never meant to let her hear those words.
‘I am beside you, Robert!’ Suddenly she could bear it no longer. She threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him. He had removed his mail, but he still wore the padded gambeson over his tunic. Burying her face in it she bit back her sobs. ‘Each time I see you it is worse. I want you so much –’
‘Isobel –’ Gently he took her wrists, trying to push her away, but she clung harder. ‘I could be at your side, Robert. I would ride with you. I could come to England with you; anywhere. Please –’ Her veil was pulled from her head as his arms slid around her slim waist and he saw the dark shimmer of her hair. The heavy braids were coming unfastened. ‘Let me come with you, please –’ Her lips were close to his, her wild, dark eyes beseeching. He could feel the longing sweeping over him, the urgent desire flooding through his veins. Half of him wanted to hurl her away from him, stride back through the archway into the sunlit world of men. The other half wanted to push her down on to the soft new grass amongst the stones and make her his own at last.
Feeling his uncertainty, Isobel gave a little sob. Raising her face to his, she pressed her lips against his, closing her eyes. They stood together for a long time unmoving, then slowly Robert’s hand moved to the neckline of her gown beneath the saffron mantle. As his fingers found her breast Isobel felt a wild surge of excitement. With a little moan of pleasure she pressed herself against him, kissing him passionately, feeling her lips tracing the outline of his nose and eyes and his cheeks. As he stooped, his mouth against her throat she gave a small animal cry, her legs weak beneath her, oblivious of the danger, oblivious of every thing save her need for this man. He would have taken her there, on the grass, in the open, as forgetful of the danger as she was, had not the abbey bell behind them suddenly begun to ring a slow mournful summons through the afternoon sunshine. It was the hour of nones.
With a groan he drew away from her. ‘Holy Virgin! I was forgetting. Forgive me, Isobel. My love for you blotted out everything else! Forgive me.’
For a moment she didn’t move, stunned by the suddenness of his move, then, dazed, she closed the neck of her gown and pulled her mantle tightly around her once more. ‘What did you forget, Lord Carrick?’ She meant to sound carefree, amused, but her voice was still husky with passion. The words caressed him, and she saw him shiver. She hugged herself exultantly. Behind them the bell rang on, summoning the remaining brothers into the ruined abbey.
‘I forgot you cannot be mine!’ His voice was harsh. ‘It is as well I leave tomorrow, or I might have to tell Buchan to lock you away from me.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘He’d do it happily, too, I think.’ He raised his hand to her hair for a moment, then let it fall again.
Behind them a figure was standing in the shadowy archway. Robert stepped away from her abruptly and the figure vanished, but not before Isobel had seen it too. She clenched her fists with a tremor of panic, fighting the longing which swept over her as he moved away from her, and with as much dignity as she could muster she drew back. There was a physical pain somewhere beneath her ribs which made it hard for her to breathe and she found that she was fighting back her tears. ‘Must you go?’
‘You saw. Someone was there.’
‘It was no one. Please, Robert –’
‘No, my love. I have to go. This was madness, you know it as well as I.’
‘Madness?’ She stared at him for a moment, blindly, then without another word she turned away from him and fled back through the arch into the bright courtyard. Behind her the abbey bell stopped ringing.
The palace was full of people. Her head low, her veil down across her face, she hastened back towards the Buchan quarters, not noticing the slight figure who watched her, slipping out of sight into a doorway as she passed.
Mairi was in the bedchamber waiting for her with three of her other women. There was no sign of Alice.
‘Lord Buchan is looking for you, my lady,’ Mairi said in a whisper as Isobel slipped into the room.
‘So?’ Isobel stared round, half blind in the darkness of the room after the bright sunlight outdoors. She pulled off her veil, conscious that her hair was in disarray beneath it and seeing Mairi’s raised eyebrows she blushed. ‘Find a comb if you please, instead of standing there staring. I was at the lists, and it is windy.’ Her voice was unaccustomedly harsh.
‘Of course, my lady.’ Mairi rummaged in the coffer at the end of the bed. She jumped as the door swung open and stood back with a curtsey, the comb in her hand, as Lord Buchan appeared on the threshold.
‘Leave us.’ He gestured the four waiting women towards the door with his thumb, then he turned to his wife. ‘Did you give Lord Carrick my message?’
Isobel could feel her face burning. ‘No, my lord. I haven’t spoken to him –’
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been with him, madam. You were seen.’ He pulled off his gauntlets and unpinned his mantle, flinging it down over a joint stool near him. ‘You fawn and cling to him like a common whore! Were the circumstances different I would kill Carrick for what he did today, but he can wait. As matters stand perhaps I shall kill you.’
Isobel went white. ‘My lord––! I only said goodbye to him. He is my cousin – there was no dishonour.’
‘No dishonour? When you allow your cousin to fondle your breasts and you kiss him like a drab! You have a strange idea of honour.’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘Were you trying to dissuade him from his new marriage? You thought perhaps to be a widow soon with your games of poisons, and available for him yourself?’
‘His new marriage?’ Isobel echoed faintly, not even noticing the implied accusation as the shock of his words sank in. ‘Lord Carrick is to marry again?’
‘Did you expect him to stay single? He needs sons, just as I do.’ He emphasised the words deliberately. ‘Oh yes, to seal his new-found friendship with the King of England, he is to marry Lord Ulster’s daughter. Richard de Burgh is one of Edward’s closest followers, and his daughter, as I’m sure you have heard, is reputed to be one of the most beautiful women in Ireland.’ He waited a moment, allowing the information to sink in. ‘Surely he told you his plan? He is riding tomorrow to meet his bride.’
Somehow she managed to control her face. He must not see how hurt and an
gry she was. He must not have the satisfaction of knowing how much she was in pain. Walking slowly to the coffer she picked up the comb Mairi had thrown down, and slowly she began to draw it through her tangled hair. Her face was white and her hand shaking as she dragged it through the half unravelled braids. ‘What Lord Carrick does is of no concern to me,’ she said at last. ‘He had no reason to tell me. We merely exchanged farewells.’
‘Farewells indeed.’ He gave a cruel smile. ‘I intend to see to it that you do not see him ever again. Tomorrow at dawn you will return to Buchan, and you will remain there.’
‘But, my lord, the tournament –’
‘You are not going to the tournament. Do you expect me to watch my wife give her favours on the field to Carrick in front of all the people of Scotland? Do you expect me to watch her fix her eyes on him, cheering when he wins and going so prettily pale when he loses? Do you expect me to hear myself called cuckold before the whole world?’ He was speaking very quietly. ‘No tournament, Isobel. You go back north under guard and you remain there.’ He turned and picked up his mantle again. ‘And don’t try to leave this room until it is time to set out. I am going to place a man-at-arms at the door.’
She stood quite still for a few seconds after he left, stunned, then, picking up a hooded cloak, she flew to the door and pulled it open. He had not locked it, and to her relief there was no one there yet. In his hurry and his anger he had come to their room without an escort, and now he had to go to look for one of his men to stand guard over his wife.
Without thought of the consequences she ran out into the courtyard and towards the lodgings where she knew she would find Lord Carrick’s quarters.
He was standing in his room, dressed only in his tunic and hose, dictating a letter to a clerk while his servants busied themselves with his belongings.
There was a gasp of astonishment as she flung back her hood. ‘Go! I have to speak to Lord Carrick alone!’ she commanded.