Chapter 22
ELSPET JOURNEYS HIGHER IN THE air, above her prone body lying on the ground in the beech glade. The welcome calm of the seidhr moves through her, lifting her further upwards.
The wind is cooler today; the leaves are turning orange and brown, the branches of the beech trees more sparsely covered and the carpet on the ground thicker.
Tomorrow, their journey to the royal court in Edinburgh begins.
Elspet allows the reassurance of seeing herself from above to fill her mind – the certainty that she can succeed.
She revisits the calm of the day before; the companionable quiet in the library at Dunrobin with Beatrix and Margaret, her mind full of words.
The library is a tranquil room with dark wood-panelled bookshelves covering every wall.
Despite her nervousness about learning to read, it’s become a comfortable space where they’ve spent a pleasant hour or two each day and she’s beginning to decipher some of the marks on the pages, pick out some words.
She journeys back to yesterday’s reading lesson there.
‘The sun . . .’ Elspet reads falteringly then stops at the strange word.
‘Ariseth . . .’ Beatrix takes over with an encouraging smile. ‘You are doing marvellously well. The sun ariseth in his majesty.’
They’re reading from a well-thumbed copy of a book called Venus and Adonis. It tells the story of a goddess who falls in love with a man and attempts to seduce him. The descriptions of plants, flowers and animals are wonderful.
‘This man usually writes plays put on in London,’ Beatrix explains. ‘It’s because of the plagues there he’s been forced to turn to poetry.’
‘He’s from London?’ Elspet is surprised. ‘He knows the countryside well – I can tell from his descriptions.’
‘Perhaps – but the sun ariseth in his majesty everywhere,’ Beatrix says.
Those words move through Elspet’s mind – she thinks of swimming in the cold sea of Skalpafloi, walking along the beaches of her homeland with the wind in her face, the warmth of the sun among the trees in Dunrobin’s cherry orchard.
‘The sun is majestic,’ she says slowly. ‘He’s saying, isn’t he, that there’s nothing so great as the sun.
That real glory is found in nature – not on a throne.
From what you’ve told me, your King has known nothing but threats, danger and confinement.
Mister Shakespeare is saying true majesty is to be found in freedom – rising as high as the gentle lark. ’
‘Mister Shakespeare can mean no such thing,’ Margaret says from where she sits, bolt upright by the window, ‘because it would be close to treason.’
Elspet’s pulled from the memory – there are dark shapes around her in the woods – her calm is disturbed.
The shapes move through the trees as if to converge on the spot where she is lying on the ground.
They stalk in a circle, round and round like Katherine moving round her father’s stackyard.
She sees the brown and grey of their fur, their tall, twitching ears.
It is the wolves, the animals they’ve been hunting all week.
She wants to warn herself, the poor vulnerable figure below, but she’s been carried too far, too high above her body.
The wolves approach – six or seven of them moving steadily closer.
Why has she left herself, weak and defenceless, there on the floor of an unfamiliar forest in this land where she is so out of place?
One wolf is braver than the rest – it moves even closer.
Elspet struggles to free herself from the seidhr, moving back down towards the animal.
As she grows close enough to see the creature’s face, she breathes a sigh of relief – its teeth are not bared; there is no aggression in its expression.
It is merely curious, seeking her attention.
Pushing its nose into her leg, the wolf tries to wake her from the meditation.
Elspet is overwhelmed by the feeling that this wolf has something important to tell her. She must wake, she must listen.
‘Mistress Balfour . . . Mistress Balfour.’ Elspet feels the pressure on her leg as she re-enters her physical body. The wolf – it is here. She opens her eyes, expecting to see that intense yellow stare looking at back at her.
It’s Beatrix, crouching next to her. ‘Mistress Balfour . . . are you well? Were you asleep?’
Elspet scrambles to sit in a more upright position. ‘Yes, I’m well. Just having a peedie sleep – I must’ve dropped off.’
Margaret, holding the reins of two horses, is next to Beatrix, a frown on her face. They both carry bows. ‘We should return to Dunrobin. The hunt is over for the day. It’ll be dark soon.’
‘How did you find me?’ Elspet stands and returns to her horse.
Beatrix shrugs. ‘We saw you ride in this direction – I have no heart for the hunt today. I think my mind is already on the way back to Holyrood.’
She’s been journeying so long, the low light of the grimplins is upon them, the sun already creeping below the horizon. There’s no sign of the rest of the party.
Beatrix helps her up, and they mount their horses, nudging them slowly in the direction of Dunrobin. Despite the growing darkness, they don’t hurry. It strikes Elspet they’re all clinging to these last moments of freedom.
They ride with their horses flank to flank at a walk in silence.
Elspet contemplates the journey ahead of them – her entry to court as Lady Alvah Gordon.
Have they done enough preparation? Is she ready?
Her state is fraught with unthinkable danger but alongside the fear, there’s also an excitement – a sense of anticipation and curiosity.
She’ll be at the heart of the court of the King and Queen of Scotland themselves.
And riding in the fading golden light of the Sutherland sun, flanked by Margaret and Beatrix, she feels more ready than she’d believed possible when she left her homeland.
To their left is a thick stone wall and they ride alongside it for a while. There’s a kirk building beyond; the wall encloses a wide, undulating kirkyard of squat grey stones.
‘Oh,’ Beatrix says suddenly. ‘This is Culmaily kirkyard.’
‘Where the wolves have been disturbing the graves?’ Margaret asks.
‘Yes.’
The horses come to a standstill of their own accord. The shadows cast by the gravestones are long on the ground in the setting sun; the grimplins are turning from chilly to caal as the darkness deepens, and Elspet draws the thick fabric of her cloak closer around her shoulders.
The sound of a wolf’s howl pierces the evening – it is a distance away, but not far enough. She knows wolves are dangerous, but to Elspet it is the call of the Orkneyjar selkies across the cool water of Skalpafloi. It’s uncanny how similar these animals sound to those in her homeland.
‘Let’s go back,’ Margaret says sharply. ‘It’s not safe to be out here.’
‘It’s exciting, though, isn’t it?’ Beatrix’s eyes gleam in the dying light. ‘We could just take a look.’
The howl comes again, much closer this time. It is soon joined by another, and another – loud, sustained cries that send shivers up Elspet’s spine and set ranyie pangs churning in her belly.
‘No, Beatrix,’ Margaret says quickly. ‘We must return to Dunrobin immediately.’
This time there is no argument. They turn their horses homeward and are urging them forward when another sound – more terrible even than the howling wolves – pierces the night air. It is a woman’s scream, high and full of terror, coming from beyond the kirkyard wall.
‘What was that?’ Beatrix cries.
‘Who was that?’ Margaret shoots back.
‘Whoever it is, they’re in the kirkyard,’ Elspet says. The darkness thickens as she looks over at the shadow-filled graves. Her eyes pick up a figure, a woman, at the far side of the kirkyard. She must be the source of the screaming.
A long, low howl comes again, much closer than the screams – the horses recoil at its nearness.
On the other side of the wall, another figure appears, walking purposefully and wearing a dark cloak.
Elspet’s horse senses her fear and shrinks back further – Margaret and Beatrix follow her gaze and see it too.
The hood is pulled so far forward it obscures the face and she’s relieved it must also hide them from view.
Elspet is filled with the same dread she felt watching the fire-illuminated figures in Lairg.
The howl comes again – deep, controlled, sustained.
It’s coming from the hooded figure – a person is making that sound.
Then there’s another spine-chilling scream.
Elspet turns to look at the woman at the far side of the kirkyard and blinks in disbelief. This is impossible. Through the darkness, she makes out three huge wolves, tall ears twitching and great shoulders tense with latent energy. They’re converging on the woman.
The hooded figure howls again – an increase in volume and intensity. The wolves are responding to his call; he is instructing them, controlling their actions. This is no wild wolf attack on this woman but a carefully directed assault.
The poor soul is moving back against the far kirkyard wall as the beasts leap towards her – her screams become more desperate, full of pain. In a second, Beatrix has dismounted her horse, bow in hand. She reaches back into her quiver of arrows as she runs towards the woman.
‘Beatrix, no!’ Margaret shouts, drawing the attention of the hooded figure. Elspet has no weapon and she is frozen with fear.
The hooded figure howls again, more urgently this time, a change in pitch – the instructions amended. The wolves turn away from the screaming woman, who is slumped down, and run towards Beatrix, who’s now climbing over the wall and into the kirkyard.