‘Perhaps I shall return like Alexander.’ He gave a faint chuckle. ‘I’ll have something to say to him if we meet at the gates of purgatory.’ He winced as a new wave of pain tore him momentarily beyond lucidity.
Eleyne could not hold back her tears, and they coursed down her cheeks. Gently she released herself from his grasp and reaching for the flask she poured some syrup into the empty wine goblet which stood on the chest beside the bed.
‘Drink, my darling,’ she whispered. ‘It will take away the pain.’
‘Help me.’ He had no strength to sit up. Carefully she raised his head and put the cold silver to his lips.
The metal clouded slightly under his breath and she could see the movement of his muscles as he swallowed, almost see the liquid as it slid down his throat. The effort was nearly too much for him. She put the goblet down and dabbed his lips with a napkin. His fists clenched over hers as a new spasm of pain took him. ‘Will it take long?’ He was fighting for breath.
She shook her head. ‘Not long, my darling.’ She stroked his face. ‘Close your eyes.’
‘I want to see you,’ he smiled faintly, ‘and the candle is dying.’ His words were becoming slurred. ‘It’s getting dark. Come closer – ’
She touched his forehead with her lips. ‘Sleep well, my darling,’ she whispered. ‘No more pain.’
The flame by the bed had died and grown cold before she moved. His hands in hers were icy and stiff, the harshness of his breathing stilled at last.
There were no tears left. She sat on, still holding his hands as the chamber slowly grew light. She did not hear as Gratney pushed open the door and tiptoed across the shadowy floor. He stood for a long time without saying anything, his face heavy with grief. Then at last he put his hands on his mother’s shoulders.
‘Come and rest, mama. You can do no more for him now.’
She looked up at him, so cold and stiff she could barely move. ‘I couldn’t bear to see him in such pain – ’
‘I know.’
‘It was what he wanted…’
‘I know, mama.’ Carefully he raised her to her feet. Bethoc had tiptoed into the room. She stood looking down at the earl’s body and crossed herself slowly, then she came to Eleyne’s side.
‘Come and sleep, my lady. We’ll do all that has to be done now,’ she said.
Behind her Duncan had appeared in the shadowy room. Eleyne looked from one to the other of her sons with tear-filled eyes. But she could not speak.
IX
She dreamed that Donald was young again. She touched the springy curls of his hair, the softness of his skin. She touched his hand and he pushed a role of parchment into her fingers. He smiled. ‘A poem,’ he whispered. ‘Just for you.’
She had begun to unfold it when a hand reached over her shoulder and snatched the parchment from her. She tried to cry out in protest but no sound came. There were hands on her arms, turning her away from Donald, and she could not fight them; she did not want to fight them.
Alexander looked at her and smiled. He reached up to touch her cheek with the back of his forefinger. ‘Mine,’ he whispered. ‘You are mine now.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, but she could not resist him. Unprotesting, she walked with him away from Donald. Donald stood staring after her, his hands outstretched, but he was fading. A mist seemed to be forming around him. She turned once to look at him one last time. He raised a hand in farewell, then he was gone.
X
It was midday when she awoke. Morna was sitting on the window seat looking out across the valley.
For a moment Eleyne stared at her, disorientated, then slowly she pulled herself up against the pillows.
‘He has gone,’ Morna said. She came to the bed and studied Eleyne’s face, troubled. ‘I saw him,’ she went on gently. ‘Lord Mar stood beside your bed to bid you farewell. You will meet again in another life, but not as lovers.’ She sat down and put her hands over Eleyne’s. ‘The other was here too, and it’s to his destiny that yours is linked and always has been through the ages.’
‘So, I am to die soon too.’ Eleyne no longer found the idea frightening. ‘And then I shall be with him.’
Morna closed her eyes. She was shaking her head. ‘I don’t know what is to happen. Death is only passing through a door. People should not fear it the way they do.’ She smiled. ‘But you know that as well as I do.’
XI
The countryside was locked in silence. Snow blanketed the mountains; ice slowed the rivers. Only the tiny specks of birds, desperately hunting for food, and deer, forced through hunger into the towns and villages, moved in the grey freezing landscape. The howl of the wolves echoed with the howl of the wind.
Eleyne shunned the great hall. Her chamber in the Snow Tower was warm and bright with candles and she and her ladies spent much of their time there. Morna had moved into the castle – her own bothy was buried feet deep in snowdrifts. Kirsty was there too with little Marjorie. And big Marjorie was there with her John and their three children – David, John and Isabel – and Duncan’s wife, Christiana Macruarie with their son, Ruairi. The close-knit family had drawn around Eleyne for comfort.
The victory of William Wallace and Andrew Moray over an army of English knights at Stirling Bridge barely three weeks after Donald had died had been a triumph for Scotland, marred by Moray’s death from his wounds. The patriots were at last in control. Those who had vacillated over their allegiance over the months and years, swinging first this way, then the other – like Robert and Gratney and John, Earl of Buchan – had opted wholeheartedly for the Scots, under the leadership now of Wallace alone. Only the onset of winter had brought a halt to the hostilities and to Wallace’s exuberant raids on northern England, and English and Scots alike retreated to recoup their losses and plan their strategy for the following spring.
One person was missing from the family gathering. Sandy was still in the Tower. Eleyne’s desperate letters informing Edward of Donald’s death and begging for her son’s release had produced one curt refusal. Then silence.
The first messenger to fight his way up the strath on snowshoes was not from the south. He brought a letter from Macduff. ‘I returned to Slains with the Comyns as the weather turned. There has been unusually deep snow here on the coast. Isobel has lost the baby she was expecting. Come as soon as you can travel, mama. She needs you.’ The letter was dated three weeks earlier.
XII
Isobel was with her husband’s niece, Alice Comyn, and Elizabeth de Quincy when Eleyne arrived exhausted after the long cold journey from Mar. Most of the men, including Isobel’s husband, had gone, impatiently riding away from Slains as soon as the snows began to melt.
Eleyne was appalled at the sight of her great-grand-daughter. Isobel’s beauty was ravaged by pain and grief,
