Barbara Erskine - Kingdom of Shadows

She lit the candle and stood looking down at it for a while, breathing slowly and rhythmically, then slowly she raised her arms. She closed her eyes and sank down to the floor. ‘Be there,’ she murmured out loud as she began to build again her laborious picture of the empty moors. ‘Please, be there for me …’

Isobel was on horseback, a bundle of clothes tied behind her on the wooden saddle, a cloak around her shoulders. A heavy fur-lined hood bounced behind her on her back and her hair was loose, streaming in the wind as she bumped up and down to her horse’s trot. She was alone.

She glanced behind her apprehensively, but the castle, silhouetted blackly against the blaze of the sunrise, was quiet. She had not been missed yet. Her heart gave a little lurch of excitement as she kicked the animal into a canter.

It was a year since Robert had left Duncairn and still she was unmarried. Martinmas had come and gone and Lord Buchan was too busy to arrange his marriage. He was constantly absent from the castle. One of the most influential men in the land, he was helping to direct the nation’s affairs, helping to balance the delicate political manoeuvres needed to keep Scotland an independent nation, free from English domination.

Having been asked to choose Scotland’s king from amongst the several claimants to the throne, after the direct royal line had failed with the death of Scotland’s little Queen Margaret far away in Norway, seven years before, Edward of England was not inclined to retire now from Scottish politics. His aim was to be overlord of Scotland if not king himself. The nation was in deadly danger. In March Berwick was captured and sacked and then the Scots had been defeated at Dunbar. Lord Buchan had not returned to his northern lands. Isobel, with everyone in the Countess of Buchan’s household, heard the news from the south and waited anxiously to see what would happen next, but her anxiety had a very personal twist to it. She did not want the Earl of Buchan to come back at all, unless, perhaps, he had had second thoughts and still thought his betrothed too young for marriage.

Nothing was said and Isobel prayed that the affair was forgotten. Then to her horror she found that it had merely been postponed while lawyers wrangled. Once again, she now knew, the date for the wedding had been set. So now she was having to carry out her plan.

Robert’s departure the year before had left Isobel very thoughtful. If he would not help her, no one would. She was alone. Alone in every sense but the true one, for not for a moment was she allowed out of sight of one of Lady Buchan’s attendants; on every side there were eyes watching her.

They could watch, but they couldn’t read her thoughts. Her vague childish optimism that the earl would forget about her was gone, so every waking second of her day was filled with plans of escape. She was cautious now, and outwardly docile, but inwardly she was defiant. She would not marry the Earl of Buchan.

She still hugged the thought of Robert to her secretly. His words had shaken her but, unknowingly, he had offered her a challenge. It was one she could not resist, and the reward for success was freedom. He was married now to another and he could never marry her, but he loved her. He had kissed her, and that kiss, she knew instinctively, had sealed a bond between them which had to be redeemed.

And to redeem it she had to leave Duncairn.

She did not doubt she would succeed; there was no possibility of failure. Carefully she laid her plans. Calmly practical she had rejected the romantic notion of climbing the castle walls. She had to go out through the gates, but invisibly, covering her tracks, so that no one would miss her and no one see her go. That meant at night.

The horses had been easy. She bribed Hugh, the handsome son of the farrier, to take one of Lady Buchan’s palfreys from the stables under the west wall and leave it overnight in the stall next to the forge. Reluctantly she decided against her own showy spirited grey pony, and selected instead a sturdy bay, a horse which would excite no attention on the road. Hugh knew what he had to do.

The bundle of clothes was easy too. She gathered them together over two days, stuffing each garment down behind a coffer in a corner of the dark sleeping chamber. It was the actual leaving of the curtained bed she shared with Mairi and Alice, one of Lady Buchan’s grand-daughters, which would be very hard.

She tried getting up before dawn to see what would happen. Grumpily Mairi turned her head on the pillows. ‘Where are you going, my lady?’ The woman’s eyes were still puffy with sleep.

‘Where do you think!’ Isobel slid out of the high bed.

In the privy she waited, counting slowly to see if Mairi would get up to see where she was or go back to sleep.

Mairi got up.

The second idea was more daring. She announced she had decided to go to keep a dawn vigil in the chapel to pray for the soul of her dead father. Grumbling furiously Mairi accompanied her there too and Isobel was forced to kneel on the cold stone for an hour, her eyes fixed on the statue of the Virgin before she would admit that she could stand it no longer and creep back to the warmth of the bed.

In the end the solution had presented itself. Mairi was so tired after her disturbed nights that she nodded off once or twice in the course of the day. Isobel noticed, and waited, and managed to whisper to Hugh.

That night she was deliberately restless, kicking her companions, tossing and turning, determined to keep them awake as long as possible so their exhaustion would make them sleep through her exit from the bed, though, she had to acknowledge, she could not have kept still if she had tried. Keyed up beyond endurance as she was with the thought that Hugh would be waiting at dawn, she was terrified that she would fall asleep herself and miss her assignation with him.

As the first lark soared upwards into the black sky Isobel lay completely still at last and held her breath. Beside her Mairi groaned and, punching the soft pillows, turned on her side. Within a few minutes her breathing had steadied and she was deeply asleep.

On the other side of her Alice muttered incoherently and let out a gentle snore. Isobel breathed a little prayer and wriggling towards the foot of the bed pushed her way out between the heavy curtains.

The spiral stair outside the door was pitch dark, the light in the sconce long since burned out. Holding her breath she listened; then she pulled her kirtle on over her head and wrapped herself up in her cloak. Barefoot she began to feel her way down the steep stairs, her hand pressed against the cold curving wall. In the silence of the pre-dawn she could hear everywhere the sigh and shift of the sea below the castle walls. It was almost high tide.

The great hall was full of sleeping figures, men lying on the rushes, wrapped in cloaks or plaids; the air was fetid. Wrinkling her nose she crept along the wall towards the door and using every ounce of strength to lift the latch and pull it open she slipped through. Beside it the door ward, an empty ale tankard beside him on the floor, sprawled against the wall. He never heard the latch lift, nor saw the slim dark figure slip out of sight amongst the shadows.

The cold morning air was sweet and intoxicating. Waiting only to pull on her shoes and take a firmer grip on her bundle, Isobel ran down into the outer bailey, praying Hugh had remembered.

He was waiting at the postern with the horse, the keys in his hand. When she had gone he would relock it, slip the keys back into the gatehouse, and crawl back to his pallet at his father’s side.

Isobel was exultant. She had not dreamed it would be so easy. Staring up into the brilliant blue of the sky she felt her heart soar up with the lark. She would show Lady Buchan and her son! And Robert! Other women might meekly marry and submit to their fate, but not she! She felt the wind lift her hair and, dropping the reins, she flung out her arms towards the sky. She was free!