Insurrection

by Robyn Young

  ‘We know nothing of King Edward’s intentions. The summons was unclear. How can I seize something that hasn’t been made real? How can—?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Edward cut across him, ‘John Balliol will be formally deposed. Our father believes he is going to take his place as King of Scotland. It is what he came here for. But the right to lay claim to the throne was passed from our grandfather to you, the day you inherited Carrick. Why haven’t you confronted him?’

  ‘Why does this even trouble you?’ Robert demanded, the heat and his tiredness fraying his temper. ‘It is better for you if he does become king. If I died first, you would be his heir.’

  Edward shook his head and turned away. ‘I want to see our realm at peace again, brother. I don’t want to fight my countrymen any more. It has sickened me, this war. Our father . . .’ He paused, his brow furrowing. ‘He might have been born a Scot, but his veins run with English blood. Already, our mother’s tongue is disappearing from our lands and the ways and customs of our ancestors, held dear by our grandfather, are fading. Our father would quicken that passing. As king he would create a court in the shadow of Westminster, subservient to King Edward. Our kingdom would have less independence than it did under Balliol.’

  Robert stared at his brother. Rarely had he heard him speak so earnestly. ‘What makes you believe I would be any different?’

  ‘I still hope you might see through your mistakes.’

  Robert knew his brother meant his association with the Knights of the Dragon. ‘We don’t know what the king is planning, or whether he will even offer the throne.’ His voice hardened. ‘I will not tear our family apart fighting for a fantasy, God damn it!’

  This time, as he walked away, his brother made no move to follow. Robert kept going, past groups of soldiers lounging in the hot sun, drinking, sleeping. Others crowded around trestles erected under canopies, while servants brought them food. He saw a few banners he recognised, strung from the sides of tents and wondered who was here. The face of Aymer de Valence leered in his mind until he forced it away, striding purposefully over the sand dunes towards the sea, Uathach trotting at his side.

  The sea was golden in the afternoon sun, waves whispering over the sand. The breeze coming off the water dried the sweat on Robert’s face as he sat, letting Uathach off the leash. The bitch bounded down to the water, leaping like a deer into the waves. There were a few fishing boats pulled up on the sand. Some way past the boats servants were cleaning out pots and pans in a stream that ran down into the surf. Uathach raced excitedly in their direction, but Robert called her back to his side with a sharp whistle. As the bitch flopped obediently beside him, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He stared out to sea, its blue serenity at odds with the turmoil in his mind.

  Ever since their father had been awarded the governorship of Carlisle, he had been hinting at the prospect that if Edward won the war, he would make him king. Now, the English had won and tomorrow Balliol would be deposed. Robert was grateful their lands had been restored to them and satisfied by the fate of Balliol and the hated Comyns, but riding through the lands of his birth, seeing his countrymen subdued and humiliated, he had felt like an invader, as despised as King Edward and his soldiers. Did he want to be king of a people who loathed him? And what of the throne itself? He had seen for himself Edward’s attempts to control it over the past six years, first with the proposed marriage of Margaret and his heir, then through his interference in Balliol’s reign. Now that Edward had taken the kingdom by force any man he set up in Balliol’s place would be nothing more than an obedient vassal on the end of a very tight cord. Was it not, Robert reasoned, better to be a trusted warrior in the king’s elite, than his puppet on a shackled throne?

  As he sat there, his grandfather’s voice sounded, harsh in his thoughts, asking if centuries of history would end with him: if Alexander and David, and Malcolm Canmore had fought and bled for their kingdom, only to have him yield it without a struggle? In his mind, Robert saw a vast tree standing on a hillside. It was withered and dying, its proud branches blackened with rot that was seeping down through the great trunk, into its roots. You caused this, his grandfather’s voice told him. You were the death of our heritage.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Robert shouted suddenly, pushing himself to his feet.

  Uathach barked at the anger in his voice and the servants washing the pans looked over. Robert strode down to the water’s edge, pushing his hands hard through his hair. In four short years, his family’s place in the world had changed beyond recognition. They had lost the fight for the throne, their power in the realm and most of their former allies. He had lost his mother, his grandfather and his wife in rapid succession, then had suffered the trauma of fighting a war against his own people. With the victory, he could only taste the bitterness of their defeat. Somewhere up in the clouds of heaven, St Malachy was surely laughing.

  ‘Sir Robert?’

  He turned abruptly at the call to see a tall young man in a blue silk surcoat crossing the dunes towards him. Humphrey de Bohun’s sun-browned face split in a wide grin. At the sight of his friend, Robert felt a great wash of relief. His grandfather’s accusations and the image of the withered tree faded as he headed up the beach to meet him. They embraced, Humphrey laughing as Robert hugged him fiercely.

  ‘I saw your standard going up in the camp,’ he said, pulling back. ‘Your brother told me you were here.’ Humphrey glanced down as Uathach nosed him. ‘Is this your hound? She’s beautiful.’

  ‘How long have you been in Montrose?’ Robert had been hoping the knight would be here, for he had sorely missed the young man’s friendship. Just seeing him felt like being back in London that summer, training on the practice ground, feasting in the Tower. As if the past year hadn’t happened.

  ‘Only a few days. We came up from Perth.’

  ‘Were you at Berwick?’

  Humphrey’s grin faded. He looked out to sea, then turned back to Robert with a forced smile. ‘Let us not speak of battles now the war is over. Tell me of yourself. Everything! Where is your pretty wife? Is she here? I cannot wait to meet her.’

  ‘Isobel died four months ago at Carlisle,’ said Robert, after a pause, ‘giving birth to our daughter.’

  Humphrey’s face fell. He clasped Robert’s shoulder. ‘My friend, I—’

  Robert waved away the apology before it could be uttered. He felt undeserving of sympathy when he had grieved comparatively little. ‘She was a good woman. A good wife. But we were together only for a year and what with the troubles and then the war we did not see one another often. In truth, I didn’t know her very well. I . . .’ Robert faltered. He hadn’t spoken to anyone of this. ‘I do miss her,’ he admitted, ‘but more for the sake of our child than for myself.’

  Humphrey nodded.

  They stood in silence, watching the waves crash into the sand, their faces sun-dark and rough with stubble. After a time, Robert went to speak, but the knight beat him to it.

  ‘I am glad you’re here, Robert,’ Humphrey said, turning to him. ‘For I would welcome your help.’

  ‘Of course. With what?’

  ‘There is something King Edward needs the Knights of the Dragon to accomplish. A special task. I want you to join us.’

  ‘What is this task?’

  They turned, hearing a call, to see Edward Bruce crossing the dunes towards them.

  ‘We will speak later,’ said Humphrey, looking back at Robert. He smiled and grasped his shoulder. ‘It is good to see you, my friend.’

  ‘And you.’

  Robert lay in the tent, listening to his brother’s breaths beside him. He was exhausted from the long journey. The atmosphere in their camp that evening, his father blistering over the fact the king hadn’t welcomed him, had wearied him further. So had the momentous question still hanging unanswered, of what would happen tomorrow when King John was deposed. But despite his tiredness he couldn’t sleep.

  A sultry breeze lifted t
he tent flaps, revealing a fat, red-tinged moon, hanging low in the sky. Robert wondered if it was a bad omen. The thought took him wandering back through the soft haze of a Carrick summer to a house in the hills and a tree of webs. Was the old woman still there in that cramped dwelling, full of books and bones, weaving men’s destinies? Affraig would be ancient now, or dead. The thought of Carrick made him long for careless childhood when his mother and grandfather were alive and their halls were filled with friends and laughter. He had spent so little time in his earldom since he had inherited it, his vassal, Andrew Boyd, collecting the annual rents and dealing with any problems, that it hardly felt as though it belonged to him. He should return now the war was over.

  Hearing voices outside, Robert recognised the voice of one of his father’s knights, set on watch to guard the camp, then Humphrey’s quiet, insistent tones. Careful not to disturb his brother, Robert rose and ducked out of the tent. He went over, nodding to his father’s man to return to his post.

  As he greeted Humphrey, he realised the knight was wearing mail beneath a plain, dark riding cloak.

  Humphrey’s eyes glittered in the firelight. ‘I need you to dress, quickly.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To fulfil the prophecy.’

  Humphrey continued to speak for some moments more, telling him what to bring and where to meet him. When the knight finished, Robert went to press him on the mission, but he stopped himself. The sense of belonging he had felt on seeing Humphrey was a relief in the face of the stark isolation he had experienced since his return to Scotland. He didn’t want to diminish that by questioning the knight’s motives and, in truth, the thought of leaving Montrose was a blessing. He was tired of being caught between choices, tired of not knowing which direction to take.

  You’re going to keep on avoiding him, until it’s too late and the choice is taken from you.

  His brother was right. And he cared not.

  After Humphrey left, Robert woke Nes to saddle Hunter for him and returned to his tent to dress. As he was pulling his gambeson over his shirt, he heard the urgent cries of his daughter. They were followed by the sleepy whisper of a woman. Robert went out, carrying his sword, just as Katherine slipped out of the tent she shared with Judith and three of the women. The maid held Marjorie in her arms and was shushing her softly. She looked up, seeing Robert crossing the camp. Her brow creased as her eyes went to the sword in his hand. He didn’t say anything, but continued to the wagon, where he dragged out the large chest that contained his armour. Behind him, Marjorie’s cries continued. As Robert took out his hauberk, Katherine began to sing softly. She had a low, strong voice when she sang that sounded as though it belonged to someone else, someone older. It soothed the infant, her whimpering fading into shuddery breaths. Robert, realising he had paused to listen and the hauberk was growing heavy in his hands, struggled into the armour, then reached for his shield, which Humphrey had told him to bring. The dragon shield was wrapped in cloth to keep it from being damaged. Robert hadn’t looked at it since he left England a year ago. In the light from the fire, he realised how scarred the wood was. He was pulling on a plain riding cloak, as Humphrey had instructed, when he heard a voice behind him.

  ‘You’re leaving, sir?’

  He turned and looked down into Katherine’s upturned face. The bridge of her nose was peppered with freckles and her dark hair was sleep-tangled, falling loose and long over her shoulders. Marjorie was held close to her chest. Robert smiled as he looked upon his sleeping daughter. Bending, he kissed her gently, then rose, meeting Katherine’s eyes as he fastened his sword belt around his waist. ‘I’ll return soon.’

  Picking up his shield, he spoke briefly to the knight on watch by the fire, then, taking Hunter’s reins from Nes, Robert headed across the camp.

  The wooden platform he had seen when they entered Montrose loomed ahead as he followed Humphrey’s directions. In the red moonlight it looked less like a stage, more like a gallows. Some distance beyond the dais, he could see a group of mounted men lit by torchlight. With them was a wagon, drawn by carthorses and driven by two royal knights. As he approached, Robert saw Humphrey and a host of familiar faces.

  There was Henry Percy, stockier than he remembered and Guy de Beauchamp, with no smile for him. Thomas of Lancaster was among them, older and taller, poised on the brink of manhood, mounted alongside Robert Clifford, who nodded courteously and Ralph de Monthermer, who smiled in greeting. Then, lastly, Robert looked over at Aymer de Valence. That hateful face slammed him back to Anglesey – to a musty kitchen, Aymer’s black eyes filling with hatred as he rushed in for the kill.

  As Robert mounted, Humphrey nodded to the others. ‘Let’s move. We have a three-day ride ahead of us.’

  ‘Three days?’ questioned Thomas. ‘We’ll miss the ceremony tomorrow.’

  ‘You still haven’t told us where we are going, or to what end, brother,’ added Ralph.

  Robert was pleased he wasn’t the only one Humphrey was keeping in the dark. Again, a flicker of doubt passed across his mind, but he pushed it aside. Whatever their plan, it had to be preferable to staying here, faced with an impossible decision.

  ‘I’ll explain on the road,’ answered Humphrey, his tone firm.

  Kicking at his horse, the knight led the company from the camp, towards the road out of Montrose. The wagon trundled in their wake and the huge, blood-tinged moon lit the way before them.

  43

  The crowd of men looked on in silence as the solitary figure walked the aisle formed by their ranks, heading for the platform at the centre of the encampment. Tendrils of mist shrouded the waters of the lagoon, the early morning air humid with the promise of another sweltering day. The eastern sky was liquid gold, the burnished light glowing in the faces of the hundreds who thronged the area around the dais. In front of the platform a row of men had been lined up, under the eyes of the king’s knights. They stood together, subdued and pale, dwarfed by the wooden structure that loomed behind them. Only a few of their number watched the lone man moving inexorably towards them.

  Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, waited in the ranks of the English nobles, keeping his gaze on the figure of John Balliol, slowly approaching. The King of Scotland was gaunt, his eyes sunken. His face was grey, despite the heat, the gold surcoat that displayed the royal arms of Scotland the only thing of colour about him.

  After Dunbar, Balliol had fled with the Comyns, but with Edward’s unstoppable march north, castles and towns falling before him, there had been no safe haven for King John and the last of his men. The weeks spent on the road were visible in his wasted face and body. In June, he had written to Edward, renouncing the treaty made with Philippe of France and offering unconditional surrender. Now, hobbled by humiliation and crippled by despair, he bore all the wretchedness of a doomed man heading for the executioner’s block.

  As Balliol trudged past, Bruce craned his head, willing his enemy to look in his direction: to see him standing there, watching his final moments as king. But Balliol’s eyes didn’t stray from the dais ahead. Behind him, the crowds closed in.

  Balliol reached the prisoners corralled before the platform and they were forced to part, allowing him to mount the steps. One man moved forward, as if to say something to the king, but he was compelled back by the swords of Edward’s knights. Bruce, staring over the heads of those in front, realised it was John Comyn. The Lord of Badenoch moved back, but didn’t take his eyes from his brother-in-law, now ascending the steps. With Comyn was his son and heir, the disgraced husband of Joan de Valence, along with the Black Comyn and the earls of Atholl, Menteith and Ross. Bruce’s keen gaze moved over them all. Many of them had been comrades of his father. Like him, their days were over. The past belonged in the ground with the bones of the dead. It was time for a new era in Scotland.

  Hearing his son, Edward, murmuring to one of his vassals, Bruce turned with a glare to silence him. At dawn, when told Robert had left in the night on business for th
e king, Bruce had been incensed. He had questioned Edward at length, but either his son was a better liar than he knew, or he truly did not know why his older brother had disappeared without explanation. Since then, his fury cooling to a rigid anger, the lord had felt a slow-rising relief.

  Not once, since the start of the war and his alliance with the King of England, had he openly acknowledged the fact that his son held the right to lay claim to the throne, but the truth of it had burned in him. Haunted by the fear that Robert might assert that claim, he had distanced himself further from his already estranged son. Perhaps, he had speculated, Robert’s absence on the eve of such a crucial moment in their family’s campaign was a sign that he would yield without a struggle. Bruce hoped this was the case, for he himself would not. His father had passed him over to spite him. Now, he would right that wrong. How he hoped the bastard was twisting in his grave.

  As the Lord of Annandale looked to the platform, he saw that Balliol had reached the top and was walking towards the centre, where his father-in-law, John de Warenne, waited, with a roll of parchment. Behind the Earl of Surrey crowded English clerks, lawyers and royal officials, Bishop Anthony Bek among them. They stood to either side of a throne upon which sat King Edward. The king was a little blurred at this distance, Bruce’s eyesight not what it once was, but it seemed clear his focus was on Balliol. The Earl of Surrey’s gruff tones sounded as he unrolled the document to read the charges against Balliol, whose treacherous acts as a vassal of the King of England had led to the confiscation of his fief. As agreed by his surrender, he would now resign his kingdom and his royal dignity to his overlord.

  When he was finished reading, John de Warenne stepped back, his eyes fixed somewhere distant of his wretched son-in-law. For a moment, Balliol stood alone. He looked around uncertainly, then flinched as two royal knights moved towards him. Each held a dagger. Some of the Scottish magnates below began to protest, but bodily harm was not the intention of the king’s men. Instead, they began picking at the threads on the rampant red lion that adorned Balliol’s surcoat. Balliol’s dumb, defeated expression as they worked showed he had known this was coming. When the head of the lion embroidered on the material was loose, one of the king’s men gave his dagger to his comrade and took hold of the flap of cloth. With one mighty tug, he ripped downward, tearing the royal arms clean off the surcoat. There was a scatter of cheers and applause from the crowd that faded into silence. Balliol staggered forward, off-balanced, but the knight steadied him, holding him upright before the assembly, his gold surcoat trailing red threads.