would find a place at one of the lower tables. Later, much later, when the wine was flowing and the great hall was thick with the aroma of food and sweat and smoke from the fire, she could easily make her way to the high table, goblet in hand. On pretext of whispering a lover’s message, she would give him the poisoned wine.
No one noticed the woman in the dark green woollen cloak who sat at one of the lower tables. She ate little and spoke not at all as the hall filled around her. Her eyes were fixed on the high table. She watched the young king and queen take their places with Marie de Couci and her husband and Lord Menteith, and next to him Alan Durward and his wife. She frowned. Margaret Durward was an openly acknowledged bastard daughter of King Alexander II, conceived long before he had met and loved Eleyne, but nevertheless of his blood. Her eye moved on down the table. There was no sign of the Earl and Countess of Mar and no sign of their son.
It was some time before she found someone who knew.
‘The Mars have gone. Lord Mar would no longer sit at the same table as Alan Durward. Durward is claiming that the earldom of Mar is rightfully his and has sent a petition to the pope asking him to depose William and give him the earldom instead.’
‘And Donald of Mar? The queen’s squire? Where is he?’ Rhonwen’s question cut through the excited babble of gossip and scandal.
‘He went with them. Lord Mar wanted his son at Kildrummy. They left yesterday…’
The story went on, but Rhonwen had turned away.
For the time being Donald of Mar was safe.
XX
‘The earl and his son have ridden back to Kildrummy.’
Marie de Couci had summoned Eleyne back to Stirling. She was in her solar, but their interview was far from private. Several other ladies were present as were Sir Alan Durward and Robert Bruce.
‘You cannot, I am sure, be unaware of the disgrace. To be unworthy of knighthood, for a squire seeking such an honour, is to be unworthy of life.’
Eleyne’s mouth was dry. She saw Robert looking at her with sympathy and felt a quick stab of gratitude. He was her only ally in the room, probably in the whole castle.
‘I expect you want to know why he was judged unworthy,’ the queen mother went on relentlessly.
‘No, your grace, I don’t wish to know,’ she replied, holding the woman’s gaze.
Marie smiled. ‘Oh, I think you should.’
Robert coughed. ‘Your grace, I don’t think any of us wishes to know. It would be unchivalrous to speculate on such a matter. Our sympathies go out to Lord Donald, let us leave it at that.’
Eleyne breathed a sigh of gratitude.
The queen mother’s mouth had tightened angrily, but in the face of Robert’s firm tone even she could not take the subject further. She inclined her head in acknowledgement of his quiet victory. Turning away from Eleyne she seated herself in the cushioned chair by the fire and put her feet on the footstool one of her ladies pushed into place.
XXI
The long spring and summer away from court brought Eleyne to her senses at last. Her life at Falkland was full and pleasant. The children were growing fast, she rode and hunted and went hawking and the demands Malcolm made upon her as his wife, though frequent, grew less and less arduous. And Alexander had returned.
It had taken a long time, but at last she had put aside all thoughts of Donald of Mar. Her sorrow and guilt over the fact that his liaison with her – however brief and tentative – had blighted his life were profound, but there was nothing she could do. It was better that they forget each other.
It was then that her thoughts had turned wistfully back to Alexander. For a long time she thought that he had gone for good. Distressed, she had risen night after night and tiptoed to the west-facing window to gaze at the slowly moving stars. Night after night she called him in her mind, the phoenix in her hand, her arms aching with emptiness, knowing her lover was jealous and angry still. Night after night she waited in vain.
She summoned Adam at last. ‘You have ways of calling back the spirits of the dead?’ She could not ask Rhonwen and she mistrusted the fire. She did not want to find Einion at her side instead of her lover.
‘There are ways, my lady, but as you know there are better methods to seek the future. Easier, safer methods.’
‘I do not wish to know the future.’
‘May I ask what other reason there could be for consulting the spirits?’
‘That is my business.’ She met his gaze steadily. ‘All I need to know from you is the method you recommend.’
‘I can teach you that, lady.’ He folded his arms. ‘And also the spells you will need if you seek vengeance and retribution on those who have harmed you.’
‘I do not intend to make spells, Master Adam.’
‘No?’ his smile was cynical.
‘No.’
For a moment he watched her, then he turned away. ‘Very well, I will tell you what you must do.’
The hardest part was getting out of the castle. Men had died before for letting the countess leave. But in the end she managed it, wearing the cloak of one of the nursemaids while Malcolm was with the king at Kinross. She guided her horse along the path which led up into the wooded lower slopes of the Lomond and within minutes was out of sight of the watchmen’s fires. It was a hot airless night but as she dismounted and tethered her horse she found she was shivering. Old Lyulf was at her heels as she climbed from the track, following the natural contour of the hill in the starlight. No one would follow her here. It was well known that the hills were haunted, magic places. She glanced down at the dog and feeling her eyes on him he nuzzled her hand and whined.
She needed the fire after all, it seemed. She set it with the ease of long practice, piling dried twigs and leaves within the circle of stones, striking the flint and steel to the birchbark kindling and throwing on the herbs and berries from the pouch Adam had given her. Then she took the phoenix into her hands.
Lyulf growled uneasily deep in his throat, and Eleyne stopped, listening to the silence of the hills. A slight breeze touched her skin, and the night was full of the scent of wild thyme. Somewhere in the distance her horse whickered softly.
‘Alexander? My lord?’ The words were barely a whisper. The pendant was clutched between her fingers. ‘Why are you still angry with me? He’s gone, gone back to Mar.’
The wind moaned in the trees in the small glen behind her and she knew she was no longer alone.
‘Alexander,’ she whispered again. ‘Where are you?’
She woke beside the cold ashes of the fire as dawn broke across the plain behind her. Her hair was unbound, otherwise there was no trace of her ghostly lover. It might all have been a dream.
XXII
‘Donald of Mar is here.’
Rhonwen confronted Eleyne in the small bedchamber the Fifes had been allocated in the great tower of the
