"Make way for Queen Arabella! Make way!"
Margaret sat bolt upright as the commotion on the edge of the camp reached her ears.
Another trumpet blared. She swung herself off her pallet and scrambled to the tent flap, reaching for a fur-lined wrap as she did so. What was Arabella doing back here? She'd ridden out of their camp to parley with Lady Lancaster three days earlier, only to then throw herself on the older woman's mercy without so much as a word of warning. Alexander had raged at that; called her 'the most untrue creature living' in his fury.
It had taken several hours for him to wear himself out, but once he had, he had turned and snarled orders for the army to retreat northwards, declaring that, if they were to admit defeat, they would do it on their terms, on their own blessed Scottish soil. Neither he nor Margaret had been expecting Arabella to return, especially not riding high on confidence, which, by the sound of the trumpets, she most certainly was.
Confounded by the latest turn of events, Margaret lifted the tent flap just in time to see Arabella canter into the centre of the camp, her golden tresses gleaming in the dawn as the sun rose behind her. There was what appeared to be a heap of blankets on the front of her saddle, but before Margaret could think what it might be, Arabella was reining back and calling to her.
"Goodness, Aunt Margaret! You are a hard group to track down, aren't you? I've been riding day and night, trying to trace you! Whatever possessed you all to ride north?"
"Alexander told us to. He said that if we were going to surrender, we were going to do it on our own blessed Scottish soil."
"Surrender?" Arabella laughed, "Who said anything about surrendering?!"
Now Margaret truly was wrong-footed. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes, "Well… I mean, you'd thrown yourself on Lady Lancaster's mercy. It seemed such an unexpected change of heart, we couldn't think what else to do."
Arabella scoffed lightly, "Alex should have had more faith in me. I'd never abandon you all like that. I threw myself on Lady Lancaster's mercy, yes, but only so as to be able to trick her into handing over the best bargaining chip we could ever have dreamed of."
By now, their conversation had drawn quite a crowd. Arabella glanced around to make sure she was the centre of attention, and then gently jostled the heap of blankets.
It stirred, instinctively seeking out her body heat.
A gasp ran through the crowd as realisation dawned.
Arabella held the infant high, her eyes shining.
"My Ladies, My Lords, I present to you, Her Highness the Duchess of Carnarvon!"
Margaret's blood ran cold. What had Arabella been thinking, snatching Princess Elizabeth out from under Lady Lancaster's nose like that? Oh, to talk of it, even to plan to stop Her Highness reaching London was one thing, but to actually carry such an audacious plan out was quite another. This was an act of war like nothing else they'd already done.
And there was no way Lady Lancaster would just stand by and let this go. She would have ridden for London long ago. It wouldn't be long before she reached it. And once Rachel found out what Arabella had done, her wrath would know no bounds. There would be an English army on their tails faster than they could blink.
Arabella had to have known that. She wasn't blind, nor stupid. She had to have known that what she was doing was so reckless as to be a single gamble with no hope of return. Either this paid off or they were all dead.
Margaret met Alexander's gaze across the clearing. A current passed between them, hot and desperate.
"What was she thinking?!" he mouthed.
Margaret couldn't blame him for the thought, but she knew Arabella certainly would. Their young Queen was flushed with the success of her bold endeavour, she wouldn't take kindly to anyone trying to speak caution now.
Moving quickly to distract Arabella from Alexander, for fear she should discover his misgivings, Margaret stepped forward, her face smoothed into deliberate blankness.
"Give me the child, My Lady Queen," she said softly, putting out her arms, "You've done your part, bringing Her Highness to us. Now let us do ours and care for her while you speak to the troops and rally the men."
Arabella beamed down at her, "Thank you, Aunt Margaret. I knew I could rely on you."
She reached down, passing the little girl down before her.
The little one moaned slightly as her position changed, but made no further protest. Alarm bells began to ring in Margaret's head. She was no expert with babies, having had none of her own, but surely most one-year-olds were more aware of her surroundings than the young Duchess currently seemed to be?
The warnings sounded louder still when she realised she could feel the heat radiating off little Elizabeth's skin before the infant was even in her arms.
Margaret's heart stopped. That could not be good.
In that instant, she forgot all else but the infant. Later, she would argue her case with Arabella, claiming she had only acted as she had because Princess Elizabeth was worth more to them as a live hostage than she could ever be dead, but in that moment, she hadn't been thinking of the ransom. She'd acted purely out of instinctual fear for the baby's life. Clutching Elizabeth to her chest, she ran for shelter, shouting for a brazier to be brought to her tent. A brazier and a physician.
Royal physicians, working with the best tools and medicines, in the warmth and luxury of a royal household, might have been able to save the young Duchess, though even they would have had a fight on their hands, weakened as she'd been by her aunt's dash through the wilds of the northern borders. The surgeons following Arabella's host, by necessity more specialised in rough and ready battle healing than in treating the uncertain vagaries of infantile fevers, had lost the battle almost before they'd begun.
Her Highness Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Carnarvon and her mother's fervent hope for the future of a united Albion, slipped away one evening early in the following week, far away from everything she'd ever known.
Margaret was in the tent with her when she died, and, in the moment Dr MacLean turned from the tiny body on the pallet, solemnity in his eyes and death in his voice, she couldn't have told anyone precisely how she felt.
Triumph, fear and regret warred within her for supremacy. Triumph because, as loath as Rachel would be to admit it, there was no denying that, with little Elizabeth dead, Arabella was indisputably her sister's heiress, at least until such a time as Rachel should birth another child. Once the news got out, that fact would be bound to bolster Arabella's flagging cause a little.
On the other hand, now that the little girl was dead, she was no longer any use to them as a bargaining chip. More, once word of her demise got out, fear of harm coming to her at Arabella's orders would no longer stay Rachel and David's hand. Indeed, grief would most likely make their fire of retribution burn all the hotter. Margaret couldn't help but tremble at what that might mean for Arabella and, by extension, all those in her inner circle.
As for regret, well, the tiny corpse on the pallet, swaddled in blankets as it was -as the little Princess had been in a desperate attempt to sweat her fever out – looked so pathetic that it would have melted the hardest of hearts.
It would be, Margaret decided, positively unchristian of her not to feel the slightest bit of remorse on behalf of the young innocent who had been caught in the crossfire between her mother and her aunt.
But Arabella wouldn't see it like that. Margaret knew she wouldn't. She might mourn the loss of her bargaining chip, but Arabella just didn't have the head to see the bigger picture. This whole campaign, particularly her latest move, proved that this had never been about restoring Scottish independence for her, the way Margaret had at least told herself it had been for her. It hadn't even been about defying her parents' memory. Not for Arabella. This had always been more personal for her. It had been about proving herself Rachel's better in way she had never been allowed to as a child. This had been about wounding Rachel as deeply as she knew how, as she had been wounded time and time again as a child. As such she would be bound to be cock-a-hoop when she heard of little Elizabeth's death.
A shudder went through Margaret at the thought, but she knew there was no way to hide the news, not in such an open environment as an army encampment.
Sighing, she crossed herself, laid her hand on the baby's head in a gesture that was somehow both blessing and apology and went in search of Arabella.
Alexander met her halfway across the camp.
"You look grim, Aunt Margaret," he commented.
"The little Duchess is dead," Margaret said baldly. There was no point beating around the bush, after all. She might as well just say it straight out.
Alexander closed his eyes, "I feared this might happen."
Margaret nodded. It was common knowledge that little Duchess Elizabeth had never been the strongest. It was hardly surprising that Arabella's dash through the night had fatally weakened the little girl's constitution. Indeed, the fact that she'd fought the fever as long as she had had been the real surprise.
"We need to ride for Stirling," Alexander's decided words seemed to come out of nowhere, but as Margaret considered them, she realised they made more sense than it might at first appear.
England would go up in arms the moment Princess Elizabeth's death became common knowledge. Arabella, her mother's rival for the throne and the infant's kidnapper, would be the first person the common people blamed for their heiress's death. As such, staying in England would only be dangerous for Arabella. Stirling, on the other hand, was one of the most defensible castles in Scotland, and its people had always been loyal to the Princess they had watched grow up. It only made sense to retreat there while the fury over little Elizabeth's treatment and fate waxed and waned.
They both knew, however, that Arabella would be reluctant to leave England, would want to try and capitalise on Rachel's new-found lack of a direct heiress.
"Good luck convincing Arabella," Margaret sighed, and Alexander nodded.
"I'll need your support."
"You have it," Margaret promised, before exhaling, "I'd better not delay any longer."
"No," Alexander agreed, stepping aside, "I wish you Godspeed as well, Aunt Margaret."
Margaret dipped her head and swept past him, once more intent upon her errand.
"We need to ride for Stirling at once!" Alexander pressed his sister, breaking every role of protocol in his desperation to get her to see reason.
Anyone else would have seen the fervour in his eyes, in his voice, but not Arabella. She pulled away from his touch, tossing back her bright curls.
"We are not going back to Scotland! Not now, not when Rachel has just lost her daughter and will have no choice to acknowledge me as heiress to England. Until she's honoured me as Queen of Scotland and heiress to England, we are not going anywhere!"
"Sister, Rachel will doubtless blame you for the young Duchess's death. In the circumstances, her nominating you as her heiress is no more than an impossible fancy! And even if it was not, we cannot hope to hold out here in enemy territory. If David catches up with us, we're finished!"
Alexander pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. He knew Arabella had a brain between her ears. She'd displayed it often enough. Why was it so damn difficult to get her to use it when it mattered?
"Oh, don't be such a coward, Alex!" Arabella laughed scornfully, "It's barely been a week since I snatched the Duchess of Carnarvon from under Lady Lancaster's very nose. Surely that, at least, will make Rachel sit up and realise she has to take me seriously?"
"Just possibly, if you had managed to keep the child alive!" Alexander spat, temper finally fraying beyond his control, "But you couldn't even manage to do that! All you've done is turn yourself into a murderess as well as a rebel, and handed your sister's cause a martyr on a silver platter!"
"I'm not a murderess! The Duchess of Carnarvon died of a fever! She was always sickly, everyone knows that! It's not my fault my sister can't birth a healthy brat!"
"Do you think the English will care two hoots about the babe's state of health once the news gets out that the little Duchess died in your custody? Little Elizabeth was an innocent, Arabella. Her death is only going to fan the flames of Rachel's support. We need to get out of England and shore ourselves up at Stirling while we still can, if we still want to salvage anything of this. Give the order to ride."
As ever when Arabella was being challenged, even by her favourites, her pride flared. She glared at Alexander, poison in her eyes.
"You dare speak to me like that?! I am your Queen!"
"A Queen who cannot control her own troops!" Alexander fired back, "The men are bleeding away by the hour. They will not march with a kinslayer, even an inadvertent one. As your brother and your general, I am telling you, give the order to march for Stirling while you still can!"
"How can the men be losing heart? Don't be ridiculous. With Elizabeth dead, I am Rachel's only choice for heiress. I know it, you know it, they must know it too!"
Arabella's words were bold enough, but Alexander knew her well enough to hear the hollow note within them. He caught her gaze and stared her down.
"Give the order, Arabella. Or else I ride away with the morning light."
Arabella gasped. "You wouldn't! You've given me too much, committed too much to my cause to throw it away now."
Alexander's dark blue eyes were flinty.
"Try me," he said bitterly.
Silence reigned for several moments as Arabella struggled with herself. Alexander watched her, praying she wouldn't call his bluff. She was right. He had given her too much support to able to disentangle himself now. No one would believe a change of heart on his part even if he were to declare one.
Just as he was beginning to truly worry, Arabella's shoulders slumped.
"As you say," she sighed softly, "We ride for Stirling."
They made Stirling by the skin of their teeth. Even as they slammed the gates and began to take stock of their situation, scouts filtered in with the news that David was only a day's march behind them. He must have pushed his troops punishingly hard to have made up so much ground in such little time.
There was something poetic about having everything come to a head at Stirling, Alexander thought, as he prayed the morning after their arrival. In many ways, it had all begun at Stirling, on that fateful day when his father had strode into the nursery, carrying Rachel on his shoulders. It had all begun here, so it seemed only right to have the whole disastrous mess end here, one way or the other.
That thought in mind, he crossed himself, rose from the pre-dieu he had been kneeling in front of and went out to give the order to bar the gates.
6