“Aye, I know, but I’m startin’ to doubt she’s drawin’ any strength frae it. That happens sometimes. Gin you agree, sir, I’d like to bring in a local lass who’s nursin’ one o’ her ain. She has plenty o’ milk to spare, and if that’s what’s wrong we’ll notice it gey quick.”
“Do it,” he said. “But say nothing to Izzy until we know if you’re right.”
The baby stopped crying within minutes of feeding from the wet nurse, and within a week of that Isabella’s own milk dried up. There was no reason for it that anyone could see; she simply stopped producing suck. Allie brought in the wet nurse permanently. Izzy was inconsolable.
A week after that, Bruce sprang up from the table as his wife entered the room. It was mid-morning, and the light pouring in from the open window revealed the shocking chalk-white pastiness of her face. He cursed aloud and leapt to her side, putting one arm around her shoulders and cupping her chin in his other hand, tilting her face towards the window and peering anxiously into her eyes. “Izzy, what’s wrong? You look sick … Pale as wax and big, dark rings under your eyes. Are you tired? Are you in pain?”
She shook her head wanly, leaning into him. “I don’t know, my love,” she said in a fragile, whispery voice. “I don’t feel sick … just odd.”
“Christ Jesus. Allie!”
They put her to bed and sent for the physician, but nine nights later, in the early-morning hours of the fourth of December, while her exhausted husband slept upright in a chair by her bedside with her hand in his, Isabella Bruce, Countess of Carrick, died in her sleep.
There was no pain, or none that he could recall later. When he awoke and found her small hand cold and stiff in his own, Robert Bruce simply receded, like his father before him, into a limbo where nothing could reach him or touch him. He knew, because he was told when he asked long afterwards, that he attended the burial and threw earth onto the oaken coffin they had made for her, but he had no memory of being there or of doing anything else thereafter. For a full six weeks, encompassing Christmas and the unobserved New Year festivities, it was as though he had simply ceased to exist. The Earl of Carrick was there in body, but his mind and all his consciousness were elsewhere. He ate and drank and functioned physically, he knew, because by the end of that six weeks, when he began to return to the world, he was still alive though he had lost a frightening amount of weight. But all else was blank. He had no recollection of anything other than that moment of awakening to find himself clutching that small, cold hand.
Then, one morning in mid-January, he awoke to find his brother Nigel shaking his arm and calling him by name. He was irritated at first, then mystified when Nigel leapt into the air, grinning and shouting, and ran from the room, leaving him to go back to sleep.
That was the beginning of what Alec, his youngest brother, called the Emergence. All four of his brothers were there in Writtle, and had been there throughout almost the entire course of his withdrawal, and he supposed that in a way he must have known that. From that day on, he began to mend, emerging more and more each day from the protective shell within which he had been hiding. It was not a speedy process, and some days were better than others, but by the middle of February he was well enough to converse normally on almost any topic, the sole exception being the matter of Isabella, and to question what had been going on in the world during his “absence.” His father had been here, he learned, and had brought the four boys with him, having obtained a leave of absence for Nigel from his squiring duties. Lord Robert had stayed in Writtle for an entire week before his duties called him north again, and throughout that time he had tried unsuccessfully to engage Bruce’s attention.
King Edward had issued a general amnesty late in the year, having obtained the pledges of the Scots earls to participate in his French campaign, and the remaining captives had been allowed to return to their homes without grave penalty, though there had been no question of the Comyns keeping their control of Bruce lands. Yet Edward had sent no word of sympathy over Bruce’s loss. Nigel pointed out that in all likelihood the King had failed to hear of Bruce’s bereavement; he was busy even for a monarch, travelling all over England, amassing the army for his French campaign and deeply involved in the logistical details of transporting, maintaining, and supplying an invading army over vast distances involving sea travel.
Bruce listened without interest. He knew beyond question now that he had put all his faith and hopes for the future in God’s hands the previous year, and those hands had proved to be either powerless or uncaring. That trust had evidently been misplaced, and in consequence, his belief in God’s very existence had died … And if a man were sufficient of a fool to believe in a just and merciful God, how much greater a fool must he be to put faith in the constancy of kings? And so he simply closed his mind to Edward Plantagenet’s indifference, refusing even to think about the man’s supposedly high regard and affection for the blameless young woman.