to her stomach where her mantle hid the slight swell of the five-month child which all her efforts had failed to dislodge.
‘Then your desire for air must be quelled,’ he said sternly. ‘There is enough air to be had in walking the walls. The ground outside is too dangerous for riding now.’ He glanced at the heavy wooden screens over the windows. Behind them thick snow fell slowly and relentlessly, muffling the sluggish movement of the waves beneath the cliffs, smothering the ground, drifting into the rough angles of the castle walls. ‘No one should ride while this weather lasts.’ He sat down heavily on the edge of a carved oak kist. ‘As well we reached Duncairn before the tracks here became impassable. I did not expect such thick snow on the coast; inland the passes are already closed. There will be no more fighting until the spring.’ He paused. ‘I have brought visitors for you from Ellon. Our niece Alice is here, with her father. You must come down to greet her.’
In spite of herself Isobel smiled. ‘I will, gladly.’ Even Alice’s company would be better than none while she pondered ways to rid herself of her child.
Lord Buchan saw the smile, and for a moment he glimpsed his wife’s loneliness. He seldom thought of her as a person. The vast Buchan lands were still ably administered by his energetic mother, so to him, Isobel was merely a dynastic necessity, a woman to whom he was married for political reasons; a woman who was there solely to provide him with an heir. What she did when he was away was of no concern to him, save where it touched his honour or his child. ‘I told her you needed company. You should not be alone over the next few months.’ He frowned. ‘She will help organise your household and see to it that you do not grow bored. It will be pleasant for you to have a woman to talk to while you spin and weave and make clothes for the child.’
Isobel clenched her fists. ‘I do not enjoy spinning and weaving, my lord. I shall go mad if I am forced to sit and listen to women’s gossip at the loom. I cannot bear being cooped up like some poor broody hen!’ She began to pace the floor. ‘I would rather hear the conversation of men!’
Lord Buchan gave a grim smile. ‘Then you will be pleased to hear, no doubt, that your great uncle, Macduff of Fife, is here also.’
The great hall was crowded. Lord Buchan’s followers, and those of Macduff overflowed the hall out into the snowy courtyard. Alice Comyn, the daughter of Lord Buchan’s brother, Alexander, was standing, still swathed in heavy furs, her hands outstretched to the blazing fire.
She offered a cold cheek to Isobel. ‘We thought we’d be cut off on the road through the mountains. My father’s horse went into a snowdrift up to its belly. It took two others to pull it out!’ She took Isobel’s hands in hers. ‘How are you, aunt?’ Her eyes sparkled irrepressibly. Isobel was two years her junior. ‘Uncle John tells me you need company. You must be so excited, carrying his baby!’
Isobel smiled wanly, liking the young woman in spite of the ineptness of her last remark. She remembered Alice as a pert, sneaky girl, constantly creeping into corners to whisper with the pages, but now she seemed changed. Isobel sensed sympathy and warmth in the girl to which she instantly responded. She drew her niece nearer to the fire. ‘Your own marriage is arranged, I hear,’ she said softly.
Alice nodded eagerly. ‘I am to marry Sir Henry Beaumont.’ She shook her head wistfully. ‘I long to have babies of my own.’
‘It is not something to look forward to!’ The words slipped out before Isobel could stop them. ‘To know that something is growing inside you, taking you over, possessing you! Something which is going to tear you apart and perhaps kill you so that it can take life of its own!’ She shuddered.
Alice stared at her, horrified. ‘You don’t really believe that?’
Behind them the hall was noisy and hot from the flaring torches and the huge fire, which was heaped high with driftwood from the bay, and fanned by the constant draught from the doors behind the screens.
Isobel stood motionless, looking at her. Alice was her husband’s niece; his spy. ‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘Of course I don’t really believe it. If women believed that, there would be no more children.’ She put her hand on her stomach where she could feel a faint uneasy fluttering. Lord Buchan’s child had quickened.
Alexander Comyn, two years younger than his brother, Lord Buchan, was watching his daughter and Isobel with curiosity. He was a tall, vigorous man, of uncertain temper, but for the moment he was content. The warmth of the fire was finding its way into his bones and a servant was approaching him with a jug of wine. He looked at Isobel closely. She seemed pinched and thin, unhappy, but there was no doubt that the girl was with child. Thoughtfully he stroked his cheek. His only comfort at his own failure to sire a son – two daughters were all his wife had given him – was the fact that his elder brother had no heir. Now this late marriage with Isobel of Fife seemed likely to give John the son he desired. He scowled.
‘So, will Edward of England winter in Flanders?’ His brother was at his elbow.
Sir Alexander Comyn nodded grudgingly. ‘I doubt if he’ll move before the spring. We’ll have time to plan our campaign with Wallace.’
‘You support him wholeheartedly now, then?’ Macduff of Fife stepped forward from his stance near the fire. He strode over to his great niece and embraced her. He was a slight, wizened man, his hair grizzled, stiff and glittering still with clotted sleet which had not yet melted in the heat of the fire. ‘Isobel, child, how are you?’ He kissed her on the top of her head. ‘Are you well?’ His narrowed eyes surveyed her face intently. She was no longer the carefree child with the delightful giggle whom he remembered as being so like her spirited mother. He frowned, then he turned back to the Comyns. ‘You recognise now how much Scotland needs the Wallace.’
‘It appears he is the leader which we lack while our king is a prisoner elsewhere,’ Alexander acknowledged. ‘He more than proved himself at Stirling Bridge.’ At last the boy with the wine had reached him. He seized the proffered goblet and, draining it, held it out for a refill. ‘It seems that all the factions within our kingdom will follow him. Even the Bruces seem prepared to support him.’
Lord Buchan’s gaze went thoughtfully to his wife’s face. ‘Robert Bruce still broods over his grandfather’s claim to the throne – a claim which his father seems singularly ill suited to pursue. I trust neither of them.’
‘Nor I, entirely, but for Scotland’s good, Comyn and Bruce must run in harness and as long as Lord Annandale lives, his son’s pretensions are curbed. Even he sees that his father could never rule this country. He will not support a Balliol king, but while Balliol is out of the country, then he will fight for Scotland.’ He threw himself down into a chair beside the long table. ‘So, brother.’ He changed the subject abruptly. ‘You are to have an heir in the spring, I see.’ He chuckled. ‘I didn’t think you’d tame that little wild cat of yours. She looks too thin. You must see that she eats well this winter.’
Lord Buchan sighed. He sat down stiffly next to his brother, stretching his long legs out in front of him. ‘I trust that your daughter will calm her down. I am weary of fighting each time I speak to her.’
His brother threw back his head and laughed. ‘So, you are hen-pecked, brother, and those scars come from your wife’s claws, not an English pike as we all thought! I’m surprised you managed to bed her at all!’ Pleased with his joke he stood up and walking over to where Isobel stood near the fire he threw his arm around her shoulders.
She shrank away distastefully, but he did not release her. ‘So, sweetheart. How are you? Is my little sister-in-law well?’
‘Thank you, Sir Alexander,
