Robert the Bruce--A Tale of the Guardians

by Jack Whyte

  A kindly smile lit up Nicol’s face, and he waggled a raised finger. “No, lad, I doubt that. Your mother was never a weeper. She will be watching, though. No doubt in my mind about that. She will be watching to see how you handle matters now, on your own.” He saw his nephew’s baffled look. “It’s the truth. What you are facing here, Nephew, is your first real test of manhood, in the sense of being responsible—the matter of whether or not you are capable of acting as both father and mother to your brothers and sisters.”

  “I’m not, obviously.”

  “Yes, you are. You simply haven’t come to grips with it yet.”

  Rob frowned at him. “Come to grips with it? How would I even begin to do that? I’m a knight, not a nursemaid, and I don’t even know how to begin to be different. That’s why they all hate me.”

  “Och, Robert, there speaks a man who is feeling sorry for himself.” Nicol heaved himself away from the stall door and tightened the belt at his waist, then shrugged mightily and bloused the front of his tunic until it hung comfortably again. “You saw how glad they all were to see you last week. How then could they have come to hate you so quickly? They’re angry at all the world right now, that’s all that ails them. It’s only natural that they’ll strike out at anyone they can rage at. But that will pass quicker than they or you might believe, I swear to you, for they are all young and life goes on, no matter what is lost. What you have to decide, and quickly, is what you can do to help them find their way again. What do they need that you can give them most easily?”

  Rob shook his head. “I don’t know, Nicol.”

  “Well, I know. And I know, too, how easily you’ll do it once you see what’s needed. You’ll give them love, and leadership, strength, and guidance. They all look up to you, as they should. You’re the eldest man in the family now, apart from your father, and you’re grown up, forbye, a knight, fully trained and lacking only the tap of a blade upon your shoulder to complete you. You share their pain and their grief, but you must bear both of those as a man, while they are only boys and little girls.

  “And so tomorrow you will preside at supper in the Lodge and you will do it properly, with the full dignity of your rank and status. You’ll do it naturally and with kindness and you’ll make no mention of today’s debacle. Forget that ever happened, and if any of them should bring it up, dismiss it as forgiven and forgotten, a thing of no significance. I will talk to each of them during the day and make sure that they attend. And I’ll warrant you they will all be feeling as miserable as you are about what happened tonight. I think, though, that it might be wise to have the youngest children sup with their nurse for a few days, until everything settles down again.” He paused, then asked, “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  “I do, I think.” Rob drew in a great breath, and then he sat thinking for a few moments. “You want me to encourage them to talk … And to listen to them rather than to talk to them. Is that right?”

  “Good man. That’s it, exactly. Listen, and encourage them to speak up. Once they start talking about their mother, the relief will act as a poultice. The poison that’s affecting them will drain away like pus from a festering cut.”

  “But how will I get them to start?”

  “By asking questions, lad, and by remembering they all look up to you. Ask them what’s been happening while you were gone. Ask them about your mother, about what she did for them as children, about what they remember most about her. It won’t be difficult, you’ll see. But most of all, don’t be afraid to let them see how much you care yourself—how much you miss her and how much you loved her. Tell them a few of your own favourite memories of her.”

  The beginnings of a smile flickered at Rob’s mouth. “Like the time she raised the big tents to house the Kings and surprised my father so much that he couldn’t show it?”

  “Aye, things like that. Once you make a start, the rest will come naturally, you wait and see. All you have to do is be yourself. Don’t preach at them and don’t talk down to them … So, you can do this, you agree?”

  “Yes. I can do that.”

  “Good, then, because soon Christina must go home to her goodman in Mar, and she should do that without feeling guilty for leaving grief and misery behind her. Once she sees that the others are in good hands with you, she’ll be much relieved.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, I suggest we go and find Isabel and see to her wants if need be. Then we might go and find something to eat by the kitchen fire. I have the feeling you did not sup much tonight.”

  That won him a reluctant grin as Rob rose to his feet. “I haven’t had a bite since this morning and I’m starving.”

  Nicol wet his fingers with saliva and crossed to where the lamp burned smokily. “Wait for me outside while I make sure this thing is out. It would be too bad to burn down the stable while solving a minor problem.”

  The result of it all was that the dam of sorrow and resentment and self-pity that had sprung into being in the previous week was completely broken, and the family suppers from that day forth became almost as carefree and enjoyable as they had been while Countess Marjorie had been there to adjudicate. They spoke of her constantly with love and longing.

  It was Nigel who brought up the absence of their father for the first time.

  “What will we all do now?”

  His question brought silence and curious looks, for no one knew what he was talking about.

  “About the house, I mean. We won’t be able to stay here now, for Da isn’t really Earl of Carrick. Not now. He only held the name because he was married to Mam. She was the true countess, and Carrick belongs to her family. It’s their holding, not Bruce’s. Now the earldom will go to the next heir in line, and that’ll be a Gael, one of Ma’s cousins. That’s the law. So where will we go when the new earl comes to live here?”

  Even Rob was stunned by what Nigel had said. But he saw the truth of it and saw, too, the worry on the faces of the two youngest boys, whose eyes were darting everywhere as though they expected the walls to collapse or the door to crash open as strangers burst in to dispossess them.

  “No, that’s not true,” Christina said, drawing every eye to her. She looked at each of them in turn, briefly but commandingly. “We will all stay here.” Her voice was more authoritative than they had ever heard it, the words of a countess coming from their big sister’s mouth. “This is our home and nothing will change in that.” She looked at Rob. “Uncle Nicol—who is really Ma’s uncle—is the heir Nigel’s talking about. Nicol stands next in line for the earldom. But he wants no part of it. He is content to leave things as they are. I’ve heard him talk about this with Mam, several times in the past few years, and I know what they agreed upon. Mam wrote it in a letter more than a year ago, before my wedding. She sent it to the Bishop of Glasgow as the senior bishop of the southern realm, and Uncle Nicol added his own wishes, as did both my goodman, Gartnait, and his father, Domhnall, Mormaer of Mar, when we were wed. Uncle James the High Steward added his approval, too, in writing, since our mother was his sister. All of them are staunch supporters of Grandfather Robert, and all of them felt that since Uncle Nicol was in agreement with his niece’s wishes, our mother’s wishes should be observed should such a need ever arise.”

  She broke off, her eyes filling with tears, but she swallowed hard and kept going. “Well, now that need has arisen, God help us all. But Gartnait believes that Da will be made Earl of Carrick in his own right, for the good of the Scots realm.” She raised a hand, a mere flick of the wrist, to her oldest brother. “And before you can ask me if I’m sure it’ll happen, I’m not. I only know what Gartnait told me his father said. But they both believe it’s possible.”

  “He might be named earl, but will he ever come out of his room again?” Edward’s voice sounded much older than his fourteen years, and it flashed through Rob’s mind that his brother was attempting to be wryly humourous. But none of the others at the table found it amusing.

  “He’ll come out,
never you fear.” Rob felt all their eyes turn to him at once. He looked at none of them but spoke towards the centre of the table. “Da’s mourning. We are all suffering from the loss of her, but Mam was Da’s whole life, and he’s dealing with her loss more quietly and privately than any of us is. So we must give him time, as much time as he needs.” He looked from one to the other of them, missing none. “The best thing we can do for him is leave him to conquer it in his own way. He will come back to us.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  ALARUMS

  Their father did come back to them, even sooner than Rob had anticipated, but he was a changed man from the Da they had known a mere month earlier, and even the youngest girls remarked upon it. He had lost weight in the weeks since his wife first fell sick, and was gaunt and haggard-looking. The lines in his face, which had been there before whenever he smiled or grimaced, were now deep-graven and had a look of permanence about them. He had never been a garrulous man, not merry or jocular—the Scots word jocose, meaning both of those things and more, was one that no one would ever have used to describe him—but he had always been gentle and considerate to his children. Now, though, once he had reappeared to his family, Earl Robert was deeply melancholy. He spoke quietly and listened courteously when anyone spoke to him, but there was an unmistakable air of distraction about him, as though there were some other place he would rather be at any time.

  Reassured by ten days of harmony among her siblings and confident that they would now be able to support one another in whatever lay ahead, Christina had made arrangements to return to her home in Mar by the time the earl reappeared. It was her final night in Turnberry, and she had made her farewells to her father before presiding over supper in the Lodge for the last time. They had finished eating and the remnants of their meal had been cleared away and, as usual, they remained seated around the table for what had quickly reverted to being the favourite ritual of the family’s day, just as it had been when their mother was alive. Christina knew, however, that this would be her last chance, perhaps for a long time, to deputize for their missing mother, and she was haranguing them gently, reminding them of the importance of sharing their love and kinship with one another after she was gone and of being the family their mother had loved so dearly, when the door opened at her back and Earl Robert stepped into the room. His arrival took everyone by surprise, so that no one even thought to stand up as they all turned to stare at him. Looking slightly bewildered, he scanned the gathering.

  “Forgive me,” he said, then blinked. “For what?” he added. “Why should you forgive me? I’m your father.” The merest suggestion of a smile tugged briefly at the corners of his eyes. “But you all looked so serious that I felt for a moment as though I were intruding…”

  Rob sprang to his feet, pushing his chair backward with his knees. “Forgive us, sir,” he said, feeling a flush on his cheeks. “We had no thought of your joining—” He checked himself, aware of the implied insult in his words, and his confusion deepened. But his father was already nodding.

  “Quite right, of course. I’ve been neglecting you all, and for that I must beg your pardon. But it pleases me to see you all gathered together here, just as—” He hesitated, very briefly. “As you did when your mother was alive.” He glanced around the table. “Is there a chair for me?”

  Rob moved briskly to bring forward a heavy chair from against the wall, and Christina dragged her own lighter one from the head of the table around to one side, making room for the earl, who then seated himself with a nod.

  For the next half-hour, he spoke to each of his offspring in turn, beginning with Christina and working his way down the table by age, and by the end of that time the atmosphere was again relaxed and comfortable. It was only at the end of things that he told them their eldest sister, Christina, would return home to her goodman, Gartnait of Mar, the following day. Her place at supper would be taken over, at least for the next few weeks, by their next eldest sister, Isabel. It would be her task, their father said, to supervise these family gatherings while he and Rob were away, for they, too, must leave the following day.

  That provoked a storm of questions that the earl quelled by simply raising his hands, palms outward, until they were all silent again. When they were, he held his pose for several moments longer, then asked if any of them could tell him how many messengers had visited the castle that day. None of them could.

  “Well then, I’ll tell you,” Earl Robert said. “There were two of them. One of them arrived this morning and one came late this afternoon, but it’s the one from this morning I want to tell you about. Can any of you tell me what is meant by ‘de jure uxoris’?”

  Rob raised his hand, as did Nigel and Christina, but it was Nigel to whom their father pointed for a response.

  “Aye, sir. It means ‘by right of his wife,’ does it not?”

  “It does. By right of his wife, or more commonly, by right of marriage. Your mother was the born Countess of Carrick and it was she who ruled the earldom. I was but her husband and as such, by tradition, I was given the name Earl of Carrick as a courtesy—since a countess may not be married to a common man.

  “Your mother, may God rest her soul, often fretted that I would lose the title in the event of her … of her death. And so she set out to see that it would never happen. It was your mother’s wish—shared with her successor, your great-uncle Nicol—that should she die before I did, I should be named Earl of Carrick in fact.”

  All eyes were on the earl.

  “The messenger who came this morning brought word from Bishop Wishart in Glasgow that he and other nobles had agreed to grant your mother’s wish in this matter, so that I am now recognized, with the blessing of the lords of this realm, both spiritual and temporal, as the legitimate Earl of Carrick from this day on.” He paused. “That means that we—that you—will not have to leave this place you call your home. Turnberry will remain yours and ours, and your uncle Nicol will be welcome here for the remainder of his life should he wish to stay with us. I thought you would all be glad to hear that.”

  He allowed the buzz around the table to subside. “The messenger who arrived this afternoon came from your grandfather. His message was that I must make my way directly to Lochmaben and bring your brother Robert with me.” He smiled fully, permitting them a glimpse of the man he had been before their mother’s death. “I have to obey that summons,” he said quietly. “For Lord Robert is far more than your grandfather. He is my father, and only an ingrate or a fool disobeys his father. Would you not agree?”

  * * *

  They set out early the next morning, accompanied by a small party of fifteen retainers, and they rode hard, wasting no time on the road throughout the day. Rob was glad to see his grandsire’s fortress come into view in the distance just before nightfall. He had been wondering about their summons ever since his father had mentioned it, and he was impatient to discover the reason for it.

  Lochmaben’s taciturn steward, Alan Bellow, met them at the main gates and ushered them directly to Lord Robert’s den, where the old man threw down his pen as soon as they arrived and abandoned the parchment on which he had been writing. He rose to his feet at once and waved them to the three plain, high-backed chairs grouped around the brazier in the corner. The steward poured each of them a mug of beer and collected a platter of food from an oaken sideboard, placing it on a small table beside the chairs. Earl Robert sat down in one of the heavy chairs, eyeing the savoury tidbits laid out on the broad wooden platter.

  “Eat, Robert, eat,” Lord Robert said, waving a hand over the food. “I remembered some of the bitties you favoured as a boy and had Alan order them for you from the kitchens. Ye’ll have been on the road long enough and without sustenance, so I thought I might as well tickle your tastes while I picked your mind. You, too, Rob.”

  Earl Robert, though, made no move to touch the food. Instead he looked at his father, and then spoke without inflection. “You called us here without warning, Father, aware we are in
mourning. That made me think your summons must be urgent, and so here we are, but I can live without food for a few more hours, so be it you will put my mind at rest over why you must have us here in Lochmaben so suddenly. What has happened?”

  The old man looked at his son, and Rob thought he could detect the beginnings of a frown, quickly suppressed as his grandsire glanced away towards the fire and then sucked in a great, deep breath.

  “Life has happened,” growled the Lord of Annandale, removing his elbow from the back of the chair on which he had been leaning and moving to stand in front of the glowing brazier, presenting his backside to the warming glow of the coals. “Life. Confusion and frustration.”

  Neither of his listeners moved, and he looked from son to father before speaking again. “I regret having called you away so urgently, but I had no other choice. How are the children?”

  Earl Robert pursed his mouth, but his voice, when he spoke, betrayed no resentment. “They are well. Well enough, that is, considering the newness of their loss. But they are yet … fragile. That is, I think, the word most fitting to describe them.”

  “And so it should be,” his father replied. “It’s apt enough. But you’ll find my reason for calling you here equally apt. When things are fragile, it behooves the prudent man to pay attention to the possibility of losing them, through accident or carelessness.” Now the patriarch looked at his grandson directly, though his words were still addressed to his own son. “Our world is changing rapidly, Robert, and the worst thing we could do would be to accept those changes without demur.”

  “What d’you mean?” Earl Robert was all attention now, leaning forward. “What changes?”

  “Several. Edward, and England.”

  “Has there been a decision, then, from Norham?”

  Lord Robert shook his head. “Not yet. But I have heard that one is coming soon.”

  “And that disturbs you, evidently. What have you heard, exactly?”