Barbara Erskine - Child of the Phoenix

The journey was fast. They were all soaked to the skin by the time they reached the shore at Inverkeithing and Alexander’s mood was if anything more exhilarated than before.

Leaping ashore he turned to the ferryman, ‘A bag of silver for the crossing and another for your men, my friend. You did your king great service tonight. Summon the bailie and have him find us horses, then you can go.’

The bailie tried to persuade the king to go no further, but Alexander would not listen and reluctantly the man found horses for his king and his three companions, plus two local men to guide them.

By the light of the torches which spluttered under the rain the king surveyed the horses. Three of them were greys, the finest a rig with an arched neck and proudly carried tail, its harness gilded and studded with gleaming metal. For a moment Alexander hesitated, then he swung himself into the high saddle. It was not far to Kinghorn and in his present mood he wanted no delay. With a shout, he turned the horse’s head towards the track and set it at a gallop into the darkness, his companions in hot pursuit.

He could smell the sharp resin of the pines as the track turned inland, following the contours of the land. Amongst the trees the strange twilight of the darkness grew absolute, and he was forced to slow the horse, realising for the first time that it had a mouth of iron and a will to match. It had caught his mood of wild excitement and was thundering up the track parallel with the edge of the low cliff. Far out to sea the first flicker of lightning cut across the sky and above the roar of the wind in the pine boughs he heard a grumble of thunder. He reined the horse in to a rearing halt and looked back the way he had come. There was no sign of the others. Cursing, he narrowed his eyes in the wind-borne sleet, aware of the shifting moaning mass of the firth to his right, hidden between the pine trees with their whipping branches.

When the lightning came, it cut through the darkness like a steel blade, slamming into one of the old Scots pines and igniting it like a burning torch. The horse let out a piercing scream of fear and plunged off the track into the narrow belt of trees which fringed the top of the cliff. Desperately Alexander dragged at the reins trying to turn its head but its hooves were slipping, scrabbling in the soft slippery mud at the edge of the cliff. He tried to throw himself from the saddle but they were already falling, man and horse together, into the blackness of the night.

19 March 1286

‘NO!’

Eleyne sat up in the bed, the scream ringing in her ears.

‘Mama, what is it?’ Terrified, Isabella sat up, but her mother had already scrambled from the bed, swinging her heavy cloak around her. Eleyne ran towards the door and pulled it open. Barefoot, she flew down the stairs and through the silent building, trying to drag open the heavy outer door with her hands.

‘My lady?’ The sleepy doorward stepped forward and unbolted it for her, swinging it open to let in the rush of the storm.

She ran outside, staring up at the sky, feeling the icy sleet on her face and throat, knowing the wind had seized her cloak and torn it open.

‘No! No!’ She was sobbing violently as Isabella caught up with her in the courtyard.

‘Mama, what is it? Was it a dream?’ Isabella tried to put her arms around her, pulling the cloak across her mother’s nakedness.

‘A dream! A nightmare!’ Eleyne screamed. ‘Oh sweet Blessed Virgin, why? I warned him! I told him! Thomas told him and Michael of Balwearie! He knew!’ Suddenly she froze. ‘I told the queen to send for him. I told her to tell him to come to Kinghorn. It was me! It was my fault!’ Tears streamed down her face.

‘What was you, mama? What has happened?’

Behind Isabella figures had appeared in the doorway. The door-ward had raised a lighted torch high and the flames streamed past his head.

‘What has happened?’ Eleyne turned to her daughter in despair. ‘You don’t know! No one knows! The king is dead! That is what has happened! If my destiny was to save him and to save Scotland I have failed!’ She tore at her hair in despair. ‘I saw, I saw what was to come and I failed to stop it. I told the queen to send for him. And I killed him!’

The room was lit by a single lamp, its faint light steady on the table. Eleyne lay gazing up at the ceiling above her head. She was shivering violently, and her teeth were chattering.

Isabella had brought her back to bed, put the sleeping draught to her lips and held her hands until she dozed. The household was in turmoil. The queen had collapsed in hysterics and been escorted to her own bed, sobbing wildly, whilst every able-bodied man in the place had ridden out into the storm to search.

To search for what? A wild-eyed half-naked old woman had run out into the courtyard in the middle of the night, screaming that the king was dead, that the king had fallen from his horse! And that she was to blame. More than one person that night looked at Eleyne of Mar and crossed their fingers against the evil eye.

Her head felt heavy and her eyes were red and sore with weeping, but she was unable to sleep again. If she moved her head slightly, she could see Isabella sitting by the fire. Wrapped in a blue velvet cloak, the child was dozing in her chair.

She heard a log move and fall from the firedogs on to the hearth. The fire flared briefly, sending reflected lights dancing over the walls of the room. Here near the bed the walls were stencilled with green and silver patterns, a repetitive, gentle decoration designed to soothe and calm the weary as they climbed into the high bed.

Her eyes closed. She was still shaking, still so very, very cold. Turning on her side, she humped herself into the foetal position, clutching her cloak around her ice-cold body beneath the bedcovers.

Eleyne… Eleyne…

Her eyes flew open. The room was full of voices.

The child… the girl… Isabella…

‘Einion!’ Her lips were stiff. After so many years the name was unfamiliar.

Eleyn… Eleyne…

‘Alexander!’ She was crying now, the tears scalding her frozen skin. Her head was spinning and she was still trembling violently. Was that a figure in the corner of the room, or was she asleep, her mind a black hell of nightmares?

She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t move. ‘Isabella!’ She tried to call, but no sound came. Was it a tall figure by the wall, the white hair and beard incandescent round his head, or had the fire, blown back by the wind, belched smoke into the room?

‘Einion Gweledydd,’ she whispered again. She was terribly afraid. ‘I tried to warn him, I tried…’

But he had gone.

‘Alexander, please, I tried to warn him…’

The lamp was guttering. The gentle light played for a moment over Isabella’s face, then it went out, leaving only the firelight to flicker in the shadows of the room.

They found King Alexander’s body at first light, on the beach below the cliffs. His neck was broken. The dead horse lay several yards away from him. They brought him first to Kinghorn. Then he was taken to Dunfermline where he was to lie near the shrine of St Margaret.

Eleyne was too ill to view the body. By morning, when they brought the king to his wife’s bed, she was delirious with fever. If she knew that her nephew lay beneath the same roof, she gave no sign. The country, stunned by the news, hummed to the rumours that the Countess of Mar had foretold the king’s death. Isabella sent for Mairi to come from Falkland and between them they nursed her from the brink of insanity.

It was several weeks before she was well enough to return to Kildrummy, leaving Mairi once more with her charge, and sending Isabella to be with the queen. There in the lonely northern hills she rode and paced and ran in the wind and rain, railing against the uncaring gods who had allowed the death of the king. All her life she had seen what was to happen, but it could not be prevented. Alexander’s death, like every other death, had been written in the stars. Nothing had been allowed to change the course of destiny.

May 1286

‘So. That is that!’ Donald flung himself into the elegantly carved X-chair before the hearth in the solar of the Snow Tower. ‘The parliament at Scone has elected a group of guardians to rule Scotland until she has a king again, and I am not amongst them. No doubt the fact that my wife made a public spectacle of her foolishness helped them make their decision.’

‘Donald.’ Eleyne could not hide the pain in her voice. ‘Please. Don’t you think there’s enough on my conscience without adding this to it?’ She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself against the storm of emotions which welled up within her. ‘Where is the queen now?’

‘She is at Stirling Castle. And Isabella is with her. God help Scotland! What a choice of rulers we have! The king’s grandchild, a slip of a girl in Norway under the thumb of a foreign king, or an unborn babe. Who would have thought such a disaster could strike this kingdom?’ He paced the floor. ‘Duncan of Fife is to be one of the guardians, you’ll be pleased to hear, in spite of his youth.’ He scowled. ‘And Alexander of Buchan and James Stewart, with a brace of bishops to keep us all holy.’

‘And Robert of Carrick or his father?’ Eleyne asked, trying to concentrate on the implications of what Donald was saying. She had grown very thin and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes.

Donald shook his head. ‘Bruce and Balliol are eyeing each other like gamecocks ready for the fight. They both remember their royal descent, remote though it is. Your nephew, old Robert Bruce of Annandale, is strutting round reminding everyone that he was once named heir to the throne in the old king’s day.’ He studied Eleyne’s face, but it remained shuttered with strain and exhaustion as the memory of the late King Alexander and their own private terror hovered in the air between them.