Barbara Erskine - Child of the Phoenix

Morna was rocking silently back and forth on her knees, her arms clasped across her chest, her mouth working in a frenzy of grief.

Eleyne looked at Elizabeth once, despising her for her inhumanity, then she stooped and tried to raise Morna to her feet. ‘Come, there’s nothing we can do here.’

Morna rose and walked obediently to the door, then she snatched her arm from Eleyne’s grasp and turned back.

‘Where are her ashes?’ she cried. ‘What have you done with my daughter’s ashes?’

‘They were thrown into the river. By now I should imagine they are in the sea.’

Morna gasped. She took a step towards Elizabeth. ‘May God curse you and your sons forever!’ She pulled off her veil and threw it on to the floor, then she pulled the pins from her hair and let the yellow-grey locks fall around her shoulders. She spat on the heather floor covering. ‘May your house be barren; may all its children die before they draw breath! I curse you, Elizabeth of Buchan, and I curse the sons you bore in your poisoned womb!’

The night Morna hanged herself Eleyne dreamed again of the fire. She could hear the roar of the flames, smell the smoke; her eyes streamed and she awoke choking and gasping.

Bethoc, still half-asleep, dragged herself out of her bed and went to her. ‘My lady, what is it? What’s the matter?’

‘The fire!’ Eleyne pointed at the hearth, still dazed with sleep.

Bethoc turned. The room was lit only by a rush lamp. A small fire smouldered in the hearth. As they watched, the wind blew back down the chimney and a puff of bitter smoke strayed into the room.

‘It’s getting stormy, my lady. The wind must have woken you.’

The west wind roared in the chimneys and they heard the trees in the Den thrashing their new leaves. ‘I’ll call for turves to damp the fire down.’ She pulled the bedcovers over Eleyne and tucked them in firmly, but Eleyne pushed them back with shaking hands. ‘Something’s wrong, I know it.’ The dream had been so real, so vivid. She had dreamed it a dozen times in the two years since Mairi died, but each time she had remembered nothing but the fire.

Wrapping her nightgown around her, she lowered her feet to the floor with a groan at the stiffness in her joints and, reaching for her stick, walked slowly to the hearth. ‘Build it,’ she commanded suddenly. ‘Build it into a good blaze.’

Bethoc summoned the sleepy page who went to call the log boy and within ten minutes a blaze had been achieved.

Eleyne sat looking at it, her thin body wrapped in the scarlet silk and velvet gown, her feet pushed into velvet slippers, her hair in a heavy plait, hanging over one shoulder. In the flickering firelight her face looked young again. Watching her surreptitiously, Bethoc sucked in her cheeks and shook her head. The expression on her lady’s face was strange. She had raised her head as though listening to something far away and then she had smiled. Bethoc shivered violently and crossed herself before she turned away.

The picture in the flames was clear. She saw the man walking through the crowds and she heard the roar of their acclaim; she saw the scarlet lion of Scotland thundering triumphantly in the wind beside the silver saltire of St Andrew on its azure ground, and then she saw the woman, tall and slim, a flame herself in a scarlet gown, and in her hands a crown…

‘Mama!’

She started violently as Gratney put his hand on her shoulder. ‘My dear! I didn’t hear you come in.’ For a moment she was disorientated, far away, not wanting to lose the vision. But it had gone. With a sigh she looked up at her son, scrutinising his face in the firelight, wondering why he had come to her chamber in the middle of the night. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

‘I’m sorry. There’s no easy way to tell you this. It’s Morna.’

Her eyes held his steadily. ‘She’s dead.’ So, she had chosen the moment to walk through the door and end her loneliness.

He nodded.

‘How?’

‘She hanged herself.’ He looked away, unable to bear the agony in her eyes.

‘It’s my fault.’

‘No, mama, how could it have been your fault?’

‘I sent Mairi to Isobel.’

‘You weren’t to know what would happen.’

‘Wasn’t I?’ She stood up. Her stick slipped to the floor, but she ignored it. ‘Blessed Virgin! Am I to have no rest from blame? How many deaths must haunt me?’

‘Mama – ’

‘Please leave me, Gratney.’ Her narrow shoulders were tense with pain.

He hesitated. Then he nodded slowly.

For a long time after he had gone she sat unmoving, her face in her hands, then at last she looked up.

‘Where are you? Why don’t you take me?’ she cried out loud. ‘Alexander?’

The great solar remained silent. She rubbed her face, trying to deny the tears which channelled down her cheeks, but they would not stop.

‘Goddamn you, Alexander, why don’t you show yourself, now I need you? Why don’t you speak to me? Why don’t you come any more?’ She stared around the room. ‘You showed yourself to her. Why not to me?’ She clenched her fists. ‘Isn’t it my turn to die? You wanted me enough before. Am I too old now, even for you?’ She pushed herself to her feet, leaning on the chairback for support. ‘Or don’t you exist at all? Were you just the imaginings of a lonely, frustrated woman? That’s it, isn’t it? You were nothing but a dream! You don’t exist! You’re dead! Like Morna. Like Mairi! Like Donald -’ Her voice wavered and she began to sob out loud. ‘You never existed. You died on Kerrera. You died!’

Outside the door a page was waiting, his ear pressed to the door. He leaped to his feet guiltily as Kirsty appeared at the top of the stairs behind him.

‘Lady Mar! I’m sorry, I thought perhaps the Lady Eleyne was ill. She was shouting – ’

Kirsty waved him aside. Pulling open the heavy door, she went in and to his intense disappointment closed it behind her.

‘Mama?’

Her mother-in-law was staring down at the fire, tears coursing down her cheeks. She didn’t seem to hear.

‘Mama, are you all right?’ The room seemed very cold. Kirsty went to put her hand, almost timidly, on Eleyne’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry about Morna.’

Eleyne sighed. She groped for her handkerchief and shook her head. ‘I’m being foolish, Kirsty. For a moment I felt I couldn’t take any more.’ She blew her nose firmly and managed a watery smile. ‘But of course, one does. I’m sorry, my dear, it’s old age. It gets harder to hide the pain. I must pull myself together and arrange – ’ Her voice broke for a moment and she had to fight to continue. ‘I have to arrange for something to be done with her body.’