Chapter 55
Elspet Balfour
SHE’S SWIMMING IN THE CLEAR, caal water of Skalpafloi, skin alive as she moves through the water, her arms propelling her forward.
When her limbs grow tired, she stops and allows her body to float, legs and arms stretched out long.
She watches the blue-grey lift above, the thick white clouds that float across slowly. She is home, and she is free.
Something touches her arm – what is it? What kind of creature is in the water with her?
She splashes, struggles to turn her body upwards and look towards whatever it is.
The cool Skalpafloi water turns into thick woollen blankets on Lady Alvah Gordon’s bed.
Her legs are tangled in the coverlet as she turns to look.
Martin Schoner, carrying a torch, is red-faced and flustered.
He’s come to the ladies’ chamber himself.
‘Lady Alvah, it’s time. We must go to the cells,’ he hisses so as not to wake the others.
She extricates herself from the blanket and dresses as quickly as she can. There’s no time for Lady Alvah’s usual complex array of garments. She finds the simplest gown she can, still made of fine brown silk with stiff skirts, and pulls it over her sleeping linens.
They rush down the dark corridor of Holyrood palace in the dead of night. ‘We must hurry,’ Schoner says, as he struggles to keep up with Elspet’s pace. ‘They said it won’t be long.’
The darkness hides her eye roll – typical of Schoner to tell her to hurry when he’s the one lagging behind.
As they reach the great hallway, ready to go out to the waiting horses, footsteps echo on the flags coming from the King’s dining hall in the west wing.
The boisterous, loud laughter of men deep in wine.
‘So, you succeeded in planting a healthy seed in that Danish Queen of yours, after all.’ The bombastic taunt echoes through the hallway. It seems the King hasn’t been to his bed yet; he’s celebrating the imminent birth of his son with the men of court.
‘We were starting to think there never would be an heir.’
‘Didn’t think you had it in you – Queen James,’ someone says with a loud, drunken guffaw.
At the last voice, Elspet stops dead in her tracks.
He is here. The man who, above all others, she fears.
As the group of men emerges from the dining hall and into the light of the last torch still burning in a sconce on the wall, her worst fears are confirmed. It is the Earl of Orkney, Patie himself.
He stumbles along next to the King, arm slung round his cousin’s shoulders in a picture of conviviality. As he enters the great palace hallway, he looks up and stares directly at her with his pale eyes, so strange but so familiar. She’s frozen to the spot.
For a moment, he doesn’t recognise her. She sees the unfocused sliding gaze he has after a long evening drinking wine.
In this silk gown, walking through the palace corridors with the King’s most trusted physician, she looks different enough from Elspet Balfour that he doesn’t see it straight away.
But his passing gaze turns first to shock, then a sneer.
‘You,’ he says. ‘I heard you were here.’ He looks her up and down, and bile rises in her throat. She uses every fibre of self-control to stop herself running out of the room.
The King looks up too. ‘You know Lady Alvah Gordon? The Queen’s most recent lady-in-waiting. Yes, I suppose with you both living in the north of the country, your paths will have crossed.’
‘Lady Alvah indeed . . .’ the Earl of Orkney spits.
‘Has she taken your fancy, Patie? You can’t tear your eyes from her,’ the King says, shaking his head with a smile. He seems to relish the opportunity to turn the tables and mock his cousin.
Elspet cannot move, struck dumb with terror. All this man need do is utter one word of who she really is and the whole pretence, everything she’s worked for over the last six months, will come crashing down.
She kens Bothwell has been communicating with him and Colville, sharing information about her presence here. What does it mean that he’s travelled all this way and come to court himself?
Schoner interrupts her thoughts, as he addresses the King. ‘Your Majesty, how well you look. I was just taking Lady Alvah with me to attend to a patient. She’s taken an interest in a poor woman whose case is proving most interesting to me.’
The King waves him away. ‘Yes, yes, Schoner, don’t let me keep you.’
‘Thank you, Your Majesty. Come along, Lady Alvah, we must be going.’
Schoner’s words jolt Elspet from her frozen state. Kitty – they must get to Kitty. The bairn is coming. But she can’t look away from the Earl of Orkney – their eyes are locked.
‘Margaret,’ she blurts out suddenly.
The King, Schoner and the Earl of Orkney all turn to her with expressions of varying degrees of puzzlement and derision.
‘Lady Margaret Livingston,’ she says, attempting to compose herself. ‘She will be delighted to see you here at court.’
‘Lady Margaret is here?’ Patie slurs.
‘Indeed,’ Elspet says with as much confidence as she can muster. ‘She’s spoken of her hope that you’d make the long journey south to Edinburgh so she might see you again.’
Patie frowns. He kens her usual voice, kens the Orkneyjar lilt she speaks with; he must hear that she’s feigning the clipped vowels of a Scottish aristocrat.
Will he lay her bare as Elspet Balfour, spae-wife of Orkneyjar, in front of none other than the King of Scotland?
Instead of going to attend to Kitty Muirhead, she would be joining her in prison.
The King laughs harder now. ‘Patie,’ he says. ‘Do you persist in your designs on Lady Margaret Livingston? I can’t imagine what attracts you to her . . . let me think . . .’
The men in their party share the King’s laughter.
Elspet’s only hope lies in conveying to Patie the benefits of keeping her secret by appealing to his vanity and convincing him that he should stay silent.
She smiles along with the drunken, guffawing men.
‘It is actually Lady Margaret who’s become quite taken with the Earl of Orkney. She talks of little else these days.’
The King raises his eyebrows. ‘Really? She’s such a cold one. Maybe there’s more to you than meets the eye after all, cousin.’
Patie likes this. His chest puffs out, his eyes swimming to try and focus.
Martin Schoner touches her arm. ‘We must be going, Lady Alvah.’
‘She will be thrilled to have the opportunity to discuss plans for the new palace you will build together – if everything goes as she hopes.’
She hates to embroil Margaret deeper in this horrible pretence but can think of no other way to get out to Kitty safely.
She hurries after the physician, hoping desperately she’s done enough to convince Patie to keep quiet.
Glancing back at the stumbling group of men, she catches the Earl of Orkney’s eyes – a combination of drunken lechery and calculation on his face.
As she follows Martin Schoner into the stinking cells of the Tolbooth, Elspet tries to banish thoughts of Patie.
Birthing a bairn requires her full concentration and focus, even in the best of circumstances, and attending to a woman sentenced to death locked in this filthy prison is about as far from the best of circumstances as it’s possible to be.
At least Kitty has been moved into a different cell for the birth. There’s something resembling a bed to raise her up off the floor. The guards have let them bring warm water and some basic supplies, but they haven’t been able to clean the room or the woman.
Kitty lies on her side, her body clamped into a ball around her enormous belly, covered only with a flimsy brown blanket worn through in several places.
She groans in pain. It sounds like her throes are already advanced.
Schoner steps back and retches as they enter, just like he did on their first visit, and Elspet can’t blame him.
The stench is vile, filth upon filth of the prisoners that came before covers the walls, the floor and even the bed itself.
Elspet takes a deep breath through her nose, the reality of this appalling situation hitting her hard.
How has she ended up in this dreadful place, with this task to perform?
All she’s ever wanted, really, is a quiet life in Orkneyjar with her children, swimming in the cool water at Skalpafloi, long solitary walks with the wind on her cheeks.
These responsibilities for healing and truth-seeing are things that have been forced upon her – she never asked for them.
A great resentment wells up in her, an anger that she has to be the one who’s here, doing these things.
But she pushes this away too. Compared to the state poor Kitty is in, her own predicament isn’t so bad.
Looking down at the dirty, pain-wracked figure on the bed, her heart aches.
She must do her best to ease this suffering.
She may not have asked for this responsibility, but it is hers to bear. She steps forward.
‘Kitty, it’s me. I’m here to help you with the bairn.’
Kitty rolls over, eyes full of hatred. ‘Finally, you’ll take the bairn from me, and then I can die.’
Elspet steps back, shocked by the venom in Kitty’s voice. But what did she expect, under these circumstances? She doesn’t blame her.