‘Why?’ Kirsty scanned Eleyne’s face. The woman was incredible; in her late seventies, she was still as active as someone half her age. The hair beneath her veil was, Kirsty knew, still predominantly the rich auburn of her youth, streaked with bands of silver. Her eyes were as sharp as ever, her mind agile and acute. Only her body now betrayed a certain stiffness which Eleyne went to great pains to deny. She looked at Eleyne’s face. The high cheekbones, the fair skin, so finely networked with the thousand lines of old age, were still beautiful and still proud. And suddenly Kirsty didn’t want to know the answer to her question. It was too ridiculous, the sudden conviction that her mother-in-law, a woman of nearly eighty, had a lover.
His presence was everywhere – in the solar, in the bedchamber, in the stables and the stores, in the great hall and even in the chapel with its triple lancet window, where she would go sometimes to sit alone in the cool parti- coloured light. And Kirsty was not the only person to have sensed it; on more than one occasion she had seen people shiver and look over their shoulders as the brooding cloud which seemed to hang over Kildrummy deepened.
Eleyne was torn; half of her wanted to hide from him, to send him away, to exorcise him from her life so she could welcome Donald back with uncomplicated and unreserved love; the other half, the treacherous side of her, wanted to give in, to stop fighting him, to welcome to her bed a lover who saw her still as a young woman and who coaxed from her body the responses of a young woman.
‘Have you heard from Robert?’ It was Eleyne who changed the subject.
Kirsty shook her head sadly. ‘Not lately. He’s still devastated. He won’t even talk about Isabella. He spends all his time with his friends, plotting and scheming. I suppose that is something: that he commits himself more and more to Scotland’s cause.’ She smiled the indulgent smile of an elder sister. ‘He adores Marjorie, though, so he’ll always come back to us, to visit her. He spoils her terribly.’ Robert had left Marjorie at Kildrummy to be brought up by his sister.
There was a long silence. When she looked at Eleyne there was a defensive expression on her face. ‘You never ask why Gratney and I have no children yet.’
Eleyne sighed wearily. ‘I have learned to mistrust my visions of the future, but I am certain all will be well for you. There is no hurry. When God wills it, you will have a baby.’
God.
Did she no longer believe then in the gods of her native hills?
Kirsty was frowning. ‘I hope so, but at the same time I’m afraid. Poor Isabella. It was so terrible for her…’ Her voice trailed away.
Eleyne took her hand. ‘Isabella didn’t die in childbirth, Kirsty. Whatever unkind fate killed her, it could not have been that. There is nothing to be afraid of, child. Look at me. I have borne eleven children and survived to an irascible old age.’ Apart from her two babies – Alexander’s babies, taken from her by the jealous gods – all her children had lived to grow up. Was she greedy to wish for more? Her children had lived to grow up, but she had seen too many deaths, too soon. Her eldest son, Colban, and his son and grandson. And Isabella. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought again about her beautiful daughter and she turned her head away sharply so that Kirsty could not see.
IV
Morna regarded her daughter in horror. The girl had spoken very softly, her voice lost in the crash of the sea on the cliffs around the lonely castle on its wild shore, but what she had said was devastating.
Isobel of Fife, married now to her childhood betrothed, the Earl of Buchan, was rebellious, unhappy, untamable. The fact that there was no child of this disastrous, incompatible marriage was no accident, it seemed. ‘Years ago, mama, I promised Iseabail there would be no baby.’ The soft Gaelic name was a musical whisper on her lips. ‘I have taught her everything I know, everything you taught me -’ The girl smiled her shy, wide-eyed smile. ‘My lady has vowed never to bear Lord Buchan a child. Never.’ She looked behind her into the shadowy corners of the room. ‘And she will stay barren or die.’
Morna closed her eyes in horror. ‘Why have you never told me this before?’ It was her first visit to her daughter in all the years Mairi had been with Isobel.
‘Iseabail made me swear not to. She is terribly afraid.’ Mairi stepped closer to her mother. ‘There are other things, terrible things, things I cannot tell you.’
But Morna, when she had seen the beautiful face of the Countess of Buchan bruised from her husband’s fist, had already guessed that she had heard only part of the story. She could read it in Isobel’s eyes: the young Countess of Buchan had a lover. And if her husband found out, he would kill her.
V
The parched earth sucked up the rain greedily, filling the air with its rich warm scent, and in her bedchamber Eleyne sat at the window watching it grow dark.
‘Shall I light the candles, my lady?’ Bethoc was moving with her slow stooped gait around the room, tidying away Eleyne’s clothes. In her seventies herself now, Bethoc refused resolutely to retire, and Eleyne was glad of her companionship. So many of her old friends and servants had gone, it was good to have someone who remembered the past.
Morna was with her, seated at the table. There was no sewing, no spinning in her hands. For once she sat unmoving, her fingers idle. Morna too was growing older. In her late sixties now, her hair was snow-white beneath her veil.
‘I don’t want lights yet. They will bring in the moths. I’ll call one of the pages when we’re ready.’ She smiled indulgently as the old woman shuffled out of the room and closed the door behind her. With her creaking joints, her swollen legs and her endless quiet grumbling, Bethoc was the only person at Kildrummy who made Eleyne feel she was still comparatively young.
‘I’m sorry to bring you such news, but you had to know.’ Morna had waited until Bethoc had gone, then as Eleyne sat opposite her friend at the table she had begun to talk. She shook her head sadly as Eleyne sharply drew in her breath. ‘Lady Isobel has no one to turn to but Mairi and now you.’
Eleyne, sitting with her elbows on the table, put her face in her hands. ‘Blessed Lady! How could I not have known how unhappy she was? I must ride and see her.’
‘She will be with the earl at Stirling by now. They were leaving as I set off home. But I haven’t told you everything yet. There were things Mairi would not tell even me, so I’m guessing.’ Morna hesitated. ‘I think Lady Buchan has a lover.’
Eleyne looked up quickly. ‘And does her husband suspect this too?’
Morna shrugged. ‘Mairi is too loyal to her mistress to discuss such things, even with me. She is protective, like a mother hen.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘You made a good decision when you sent her to take care of your great- grand-daughter.’
Eleyne nodded. ‘I love the child. And for her father’s sake and her grandfather’s I wanted to watch over her. Her mother never cared. I can’t forgive that woman for leaving for England the way she did, abandoning one child while she took the other with her.’ It was the cause of some resentment in Scotland that the young earl was being brought up as an Englishman.
‘Lady Buchan is a brave lass; spirited, beautiful.’ Morna smiled. She had fallen completely under the spell of Isobel’s charm. ‘Mairi will take care of her as far as she can, but if Lord Buchan finds out…’ The two women were
