sleep.
Kirsty looked at Eleyne across Donald’s head and grimaced. ‘Our new queen seems none too pleased at the situation. I take it, coming from a family who is so completely in King Edward’s shadow, that she does not support her husband wholeheartedly.’ She shot a malevolent glance at her sister-in-law.
‘It would seem not.’ Eleyne sighed. ‘I wish she could find it in her at least to smile – ’
She broke off as a hush fell over the noisy scene and she turned to stare, as everyone else was doing, towards the far end of the hall, beyond the leaping torchlight. The lone figure of a woman had appeared in the doorway and begun to walk towards them. She was dressed in a wet, muddy cloak, the hood thrown back to reveal wildly tangled dark hair.
‘Isobel?’ Eleyne’s lips formed the word incredulously, but no sound came.
Total silence fell on the great hall as the Countess of Buchan drew near the dais, her eyes on Robert’s face. As she approached him, he stood up, his crown glinting in the light of the candles. She stopped so close to her great- grandmother that Eleyne could see the dark rings beneath the girl’s eyes, the peaty mud stains on her fair skin. She looked so exhausted she seemed about to collapse, but it was with enormous composure and even triumph that she sank on her knees in front of Robert.
‘Your grace, I bring you the allegiance of the House of Duff,’ she cried in ringing tones. ‘I bring my brother’s greeting and his blessing and I claim the right, in his stead, to set you on the throne of Scotland.’ She raised her hands towards his in a gesture of submission and fealty and Robert took them.
He smiled. ‘Your allegiance I accept and gladly, Lady Buchan, but I am already crowned.’
There was a buzz of excited conversation behind them in the hall. Kirsty glanced at Eleyne and raised an eyebrow.
Beyond Robert old Bishop Lamberton had scrambled to his feet, his eyes alight with excitement as he looked at Isobel. ‘The Countess of Buchan brings you the seal of tradition. The ancient right of the Earls of Fife to enthrone the king is not to be denied!’
Robert looked around at him. ‘Would you have me crowned twice, my lord bishop?’
John of Atholl jumped to his feet, and thumped Robert on the shoulder with a shout of delight. ‘Why not! By God, that would be a splendid start to your reign, Robert! Of course she must enthrone you!’
‘But where?’ Lord Menteith sat back in his chair. ‘The Earls of Fife have always enthroned our kings upon the Stone of Destiny, and that has gone with so much else to England.’
Eleyne saw Isobel tense. She was trembling with excitement now.
‘I have the power of the stone in my hands,’ she said, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. ‘I went to St Edward’s shrine at Westminster, and I laid my hands upon it, where it lies in the chair Edward of England has had carved to hold it prisoner, and I prayed for its power so that I could pass it on to you, my king. And the stone gave me its blessing. I felt its power!’
Eleyne’s eyes were on Isobel’s hands as they lay between Robert’s, and she saw with amusement that Robert let go of them suddenly, almost as though they had burned him.
Beyond the king Bishop Lamberton glanced at his colleague, Bishop Wishart. ‘This is part of the sacred inheritance of Scotland.’
Wishart nodded. ‘We should ask the countess to perform the ceremony without delay. Tomorrow. It will be Palm Sunday.’ The old man’s face was solemn. ‘Thus may our king, Robert, enter his kingdom twice, and in the footsteps of Our Lord.’
There was an awed silence. Eleyne felt her eyes fill with tears. The emotion amongst Robert’s followers was raw and explosive in the hall below them. Only a few, sitting near the king and queen at the high table, heard the queen’s quiet words as she addressed her husband. With a small snort of derision she gave Isobel a withering glance. ‘These are the games of children! Do you seriously expect this woman to crown you again? Surely one such farce is enough!’
There was a gasp of horror from Eleyne’s neighbours.
Isobel looked at the floor, her face white, her fists clenched in the folds of her muddy cloak. ‘I am here to serve my king if he desires it,’ she said softly. To Eleyne it seemed as though her love must be obvious to every person in the hall.
‘And he does desire it!’ Robert reached for her hand once more with a small bow. ‘Tomorrow, my lady, you shall enthrone me in the ancient manner upon the sacred hill outside the abbey before the people of Scotland.’ He smiled, then his face sobered. ‘Tell me, my lady, does the Earl of Buchan know what you are doing?’
Eleyne saw Isobel bite her lip suddenly. ‘I have no doubt that by now he knows, sire.’ She glanced up at Robert under her eyelashes. ‘I hope this time you won’t tell me to go back to him.’ It was as if the two of them were alone in the great hall, oblivious of anyone else; Eleyne strained her ears to hear his quiet reply: ‘Not this time, my lady. This time I shall keep you with me.’
The new queen scowled furiously. She pushed back her heavy chair and stood up. ‘My lord, it is time for us to retire,’ she said sharply.
‘It is too soon, madam. Please sit down,’ Robert replied. ‘All of you, sit down and make a place for Lady Buchan. It seems our celebrations are only half over after all.’
Eleyne slept badly. The tent was noisy; their neighbours had no intention of cutting short the celebrations just because the feast was over, and the whole field was full of music and laughter throughout the night, the sound carried on the wind, augmented by the wildly flapping tents and banners.
She had crept away from the feast early, too tired to remain longer, taking Donald with her and handing him over to his nurses. Isobel too was tired; she could see her exhaustion as she sat next to Robert, but she was buoyed up by her excitement. Not once had she taken her eyes off Robert; not once had she acknowledged by so much as a smile that her great-grandmother was there at the table with her. She had seen no one but her king. Eleyne buried her hurt sternly. This was Isobel’s moment of glory, her destiny. The scene she had foretold in her dream. Her own time was past: the moment for which she had lived so long had come, but she was not to be at the centre of the stage.
She tossed uncomfortably on the camp bed and willed herself unsuccessfully to sleep.
By the king’s orders in deference to her eighty-eight years, they provided her with a chair the next day, close to the sacred place of enthronement on the Moot Hill outside the abbey. It was a brilliant clear day, bitterly cold, and she huddled, shivering, in her furs as the ceremony got under way.
A new stone had been found for the occasion, hewn from the heart of the mountains to be blessed by the bishops and sprinkled with holy water and anointed with oil. In England the king himself was anointed at his coronation, but in Scotland’s more ancient ceremony the crowning and enthronement were the important acts.
Finishing their part, the bishops stood back and Isobel stepped forward. She was richly dressed in borrowed velvets and furs, and on her dark hair there was a diadem of Scottish silver, provided by the Bishop of Glasgow who had kept what survived of the Scottish regalia hidden from the invading armies, producing it proudly for Robert’s coronation. Nearby the king waited quietly, resplendent in his own hastily assembled robes and finery.
Isobel knelt down on the grass before the stone and put her hands upon it reverently. Around her the watching crowds fell silent. For several moments she did not move, her concentration entirely on the cold grey granite, then at last she stood up and turning towards Robert she took his hand as behind them the Abbot of Scone devoutly spread a cloth of gold upon the stone.
When Robert was seated, she took the crown from the waiting bishop and held it for a long moment high in the air. Then at last she lowered it and placed it on Robert’s head and the crowd, massed around the flat-topped man-made hill which was Scotland’s most sacred site, roared their approval and their assent.
Near Eleyne, the queen was standing with John of Atholl and Marjorie watching the ceremony, tight-lipped. ‘This is asinine,’ she whispered to Lord Atholl in a tone which was perfectly audible to Eleyne and probably to a great many people around her. ‘We shall be king and queen for the summer if we are lucky! Robert cannot defeat Edward of England. No one can!’
Lord Atholl hid his irritation with difficulty. ‘The king will reign for longer than a summer, madam. Be sure of that!’ he retorted sharply. Noticing Eleyne’s quizzical expression, he gave her a grim smile. ‘Much longer,’ he repeated fervently, ‘with God’s good grace.’
