by Robyn Young
Katherine paled, then her face hardened. ‘Who will look after your daughter?’ She looked at Judith, standing in the doorway clutching Marjorie. ‘You cannot think she can do it? The girl would fall down if I wasn’t here to hold her up!’
‘My daughter is no longer your concern.’
‘Where will I go? How will I survive?’
‘I am certain you can ply your trade in most towns.’
Katherine stared at him. Swallowing thickly, she turned away and pulled down her cloak from the clothes perch. Breathing hard, she pushed her feet into a pair of shoes, then picked up a few other belongings and stuffed them into a leather bag. Robert didn’t stop her. The youth was still standing against the wall by the bed. He had pulled on his tunic and seemed to be scanning the chamber for another way out.
Katherine pushed past Alexander and headed for the door. ‘Bastard,’ she breathed through her clenched lips, before stepping out into the rain.
A few moments later the young man, boots in hand, slipped past. Robert glanced at him. For a second he was going to let him go, then fury exploded inside him and he grabbed the youth around the neck. Alexander shouted, but Robert didn’t hear as he dragged the struggling man past Judith and his screaming daughter into the yard. Alexander and Christopher hastened out behind him. The young man was yelling, begging for forgiveness. Robert threw him down in the red clay and launched a kick at his stomach. The youth doubled over, his face screwing up in pain. A few of Atholl’s knights splashed through the wet, seeing the attack. Unheeding their confused calls, Robert grabbed the youth’s tunic and pulled him up to slam his fist into the young man’s face. As Alexander seized his shoulder, Robert let go of the young man and turned on his comrade. Alexander ducked, but rather than strike him, Robert went for his sword. Before Alexander could stop him, he grasped the hilt and drew it. But when he went for the youth sprawled in the mud, bloody and terror-stricken, Alexander gripped his arm, holding him back.
‘The lad took what was freely offered, Robert. He shouldn’t have. But he doesn’t deserve death.’
The youth scrabbled to his feet, his tunic clinging to his legs. Leaving his boots where he had dropped them, he sprinted across the yard. As two of the watching knights moved to apprehend him, Alexander shouted at them to let him go.
Enraged, Robert confronted him. ‘Who do you think you are?’
‘I’m one of the men who have given up everything to support you,’ replied Alexander forcefully. ‘I believe you can be king, Robert. But you need to start believing it.’
The sound of raised voices filled the yard. Robert looked round to see his brother and John of Atholl approaching, followed by Walter and several knights from Carrick. Observing their taut faces, he thought they must have been alerted to the altercation, but the assumption was shattered as John spoke.
‘Word has come. Wallace’s army was defeated at Falkirk. Thousands are dead.’
‘And Wallace?’ questioned Alexander, letting go of Robert.
Christopher had moved up behind them.
‘We don’t know,’ Edward cut in. He looked at his brother. ‘The cavalry, led by the Comyns, fled the battle without even drawing their blades. The bastards saved their own skins and left everyone else to be butchered.’
‘What of King Edward?’ Robert demanded of John. ‘Are you saying the English have control of the kingdom? That Scotland is lost?’
‘Nothing is certain. But we know the English are heading this way.’
Robert took this in, the rain soaking him. ‘He is coming for me.’
His brother-in-law nodded. ‘You are now the only real danger to him.’
Christopher spoke, his voice thick. ‘But the new palisade isn’t even raised. We cannot defend Ayr.’
‘What do you suggest we do?’ Edward turned to the squire. ‘Run like cowards? Leave this town and everyone in it to the mercy of your whoreson of a king?’
Alexander stepped in, his gaze on Edward. ‘My cousin is as much a part of this company as you are. No matter his birthplace.’
Robert stood in silence as they began to speak over one another. Rain trickled down the length of the blade in his hand. Behind him, from the hall, came the urgent cries of his daughter. Beyond the rooftops of the barracks, smoke trailed into the sky from the houses. He thought of the optimism growing here these past months. Then he thought of the cartloads of timber waiting in the rain on the riverbanks. ‘We burn it down.’
The men stopped arguing as he spoke, his voice low.
Robert looked at them. His voice roughened. ‘We burn the town and go into the hills where the English cannot follow. We will seek out the steward, if he made it from the battle.’
‘Flee?’ said Edward, shaking his head.
Robert met his brother’s eyes. ‘We cannot beat the English on the field. Not yet. The only thing we can do is leave nothing for them to feed upon and no base to shelter them. The longer their supply lines become, the harder it will be for them to sustain themselves.’
John of Atholl nodded. ‘I’ll tell my men. We will begin evacuating the town at once.’
Without a word, Robert handed the sword back to Alexander and moved off with Atholl.
As the others headed away through the downpour, Alexander hung back with Christopher. Watching them go, he sheathed his sword then drew a purse from the pouch that hung from his belt and handed it to his cousin. ‘Make sure the lad gets this. He won’t have gone far.’
Christopher shook his head angrily. ‘You’re still thinking about that, after what you’ve just heard?’ He went to leave, but Alexander caught his arm. Christopher glared at him. ‘I never wanted any part in this. You know that. We shouldn’t have done it.’ His voice lowered as Alexander tightened his grip in warning. ‘Robert saved my life. We betrayed him!’
‘We didn’t betray him. Katherine did. We merely opened his eyes to what she was. How easy was it to get her to lie with the next young stallion that caught her eye? It didn’t take the lad long to bed her, did it? Robert wasn’t going to listen to reason. Katherine was one more string that needed to be cut if he is to become king. When that happens, you will thank me for this. Do not forget, cousin, we stand to lose as much as Robert if he doesn’t succeed in attaining the throne. We must do everything to ensure that comes to pass.’ Alexander pressed the purse of coins into Christopher’s hand. ‘Now, I told the lad we would compensate him for the deed. I keep my promises.’
64
They could smell the smoke long before they reached the town, the hot wind carrying its bitterness to them, the horizon a dirty grey. The massive column of riders moved towards it, the hearts of the men growing as heavy as their limbs as they realised the journey’s end would provide little sustenance or comfort. The supplies brought by ship to Leith were running low and they were deep in the enemy’s land. Barbed thistles and spiny gorse studded the bare fields, the dry wind blowing grit into their eyes.
Humphrey de Bohun rode in the vanguard with his father’s men. He was silent, staring into the smoke-tinged distance, where the sea was a silver blade, pressed against the edge of the land. For weeks now he had suffered from a nagging ache inside, as if he had forgotten or misplaced something. He knew it was his father, whose corpse, claimed from the mud of the battleground, was being drawn south into England by a company of his knights. The knowledge hadn’t stopped the feeling. If anything it had grown stronger, as though his father’s body were a string tugging something from inside him the further it was pulled.
The English victory at Falkirk had been a great success, the battleground the grave of more than ten thousand Scots. In comparison, the king’s army lost only a small percentage of men, the only significant casualties Humphrey’s father and the Master of the English Templars, who met a similar fate in the treacherous bogs around the burn. Despite this success it had been a much grimmer fight in contrast to the first campaign. Furthermore, according to witnesses, William Wallace had fled the field at the battle’s end
, bearing north towards Stirling in the wake of the Scottish cavalry. King Edward’s anger at the escape of Wallace and the nobles was only dulled by the fact that the majority of the Scots’ fighting force was lying flyblown in the fields of Falkirk. The danger the English army now faced came in the form of their dwindling supplies, the hope they’d had heading west towards Ayr, the reported base of Robert Bruce, dying in their blistered mouths.
The fields on the outskirts of the town, which should have been tall with wheat, plump in the late August sun, were scattered with blackened piles, the crops harvested only to be burned. Smoke still drifted from some of the heaps, the vapours lingering over the scorched ground. The men stared around them as they passed, the sight of the wanton destruction a torment to their aching bellies.
‘I pray to God the bastards starve through the coming winter,’ growled Henry Percy.
Humphrey looked over at the young man, whose flushed face jutted wrathfully over his ventail. Percy, who had been given Ayrshire by the king at the start of the occupation, had been the most vocal about hunting down Robert Bruce, perhaps because he and Clifford felt responsible for his escape from Irvine. Humphrey had kept quiet, not joining in the belligerent conversations around the evening campfire, the death of his father weighing heavy on him. But as they entered the ruins of the port of Ayr, his thoughts turned to his former friend.
For a time, after hearing rumours of Robert’s desertion, Humphrey had still hoped to discover a lie, but with the events in Irvine he’d no longer been able to deny the truth: that the man he had befriended and trusted was a traitor. He blamed himself for not telling Robert sooner that the Stone of Destiny was one of the four relics named in the prophecy. Perhaps he could have persuaded him of the necessity of seizing it, for with hindsight it seemed clear that the theft was the point when Robert had turned from their cause. Part of Humphrey understood this, even sympathised. The stone was, after all, a symbol of the man’s right to the throne of Scotland, a right that had effectively been revoked by its taking. On the march north, he had determined to capture Robert not simply for justice, but so he could look into the man’s eyes and know that it was for the love of his kingdom rather than the hatred of theirs that he had betrayed them. Then, at least, he could know that he had not been so wrong or blind to have drawn Robert into their circle, perhaps only naïve. Now, however, as they passed along deserted streets lined by the charred wrecks of houses, Humphrey knew all hope of that was dead. The man who had burned this town meant for them to suffer at the sight of the butchered cattle in the market square, a pyre of blackened bones; intended for them to be maddened by the barrels of beer hacked apart outside a brewery, the sticky contents staining the dusty ground beneath swarms of flies. The man who had done this, who had left nothing for them to feed upon, meant for them to die in the field.
The king, his voice rigid, ordered his knights to search some of the more intact buildings, but it seemed starkly apparent that no one was left to tell them where Bruce and his men had gone. The English would find neither justice nor nourishment here. As the knights dismounted and moved through the wreckage, Humphrey slid wearily from his horse and took a wine skin from his pack. His face felt hot and tight and the wine stung his cracked lips. As he licked them he tasted blood.
‘My lord king.’
Humphrey saw Sir Robert Clifford hailing the king.
The knight had headed out of a long timber hall, which appeared mostly undamaged. ‘There is something you should see, my lord.’ Clifford, usually so composed, looked riled.
Humphrey followed as the king left Bayard with his page and strode towards the hall. Behind him came Aymer and Henry. Ducking under the door lintel, they entered a bare reception room, mail boots clinking on the earth floor. One by one, they passed into the main chamber, where wan light seeped in through a single window. Furniture lay scattered and broken on the floor, which was littered with meadowsweet. There was a bed against the far wall, partly obscured by a curtain.
As Humphrey’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw what Robert Clifford had seen. They all did. On the far wall an image had been daubed in red paint. It was crude, but clear – a red rampant lion rearing over a dragon, one great paw on the serpent’s twisted head.
Humphrey felt fury assail him at the sight. He looked at the king, whose face was clenched in the gloom. ‘My lord, forgive me. I chose the wrong man. I let a snake into our midst.’
Edward turned to look at him. ‘We both did.’
The faces of Aymer and Henry mirrored his ire.
Putting his back to the crude image, the king removed his mailed gloves. ‘Kneel, Sir Humphrey,’ he said, his harsh tone resolute, ‘it is time for you to take your father’s mantle.’
Humphrey understood the king’s reason for the solemn act here in these ruins before that crude image, the insult stinging. With one stroke the king raised him and bound him to hunt down the offenders. Kneeling stiffly, Humphrey removed his own gauntlets. Placing his hands in the king’s he did homage for the earldoms of Essex and Hereford, and for the hereditary office of Constable of England, passed to him through his father. When homage was done, he rose to swear the oath of fealty, promising to remain true to his lord and king.
‘We will mark this occasion properly in time,’ Edward assured him. ‘For now, I will return to England. We can go no further, not without supplies. The Scots were gravely weakened by their defeat at Falkirk and I will return for the traitors that escaped in due course. Until then, Sir Humphrey, I want you to ride south with your men to Annandale. Destroy the castle at Lochmaben and burn every settlement you pass through. I don’t want enough left of that shit hole to fill a thimble.’
Humphrey bowed. ‘As you command, Lord King.’
The king and his knights headed out into the smoke-wreathed air, leaving the red lion of Scotland rearing behind them.
The three ships glided north through the inky waters of the Channel, beneath a moonless sky. Black sails flew from their masts and only the creak of timbers and rhythmic splash of oars gave any indication of their presence. Two were war galleys, long and slender, each rowed by eighty oarsmen. The third was a bulky merchant cog, a broader, rounded vessel steered by two oars at the stern. From the rigging, high above the cog’s deck, came three piercing whistles.
At the sound, her captain crossed to the port side. He stared into the distance, the sea a rolling sheet of darkness. Faint in the void, he glimpsed the subdued glow of firelight, dotted along the horizon.
‘Master Pietro.’
The captain turned to see Luca, one of his senior crewmen. The man’s features were blurred in the gloom.
‘The ships extend as far as we can see, sir. I do not think we can pass the English blockade unnoticed.’
Pietro nodded. ‘Go and tell him.’
Two hours later, the sky changing from black to blue, the three vessels neared the blockade. The ships were widely spaced, each rocking at anchor, but it was clear that nothing much more than a fishing vessel would be able to pass through undetected. Nonetheless, they made it quite close before they were seen.
The ship looming before them was a ponderous English cog with a thick mast and a squat wooden castle at the fore. Protruding from the castle’s top was the angular hulk of a trebuchet and from the bowsprit an iron-tipped ram thrust like a fist. As the three galleys were spied, harsh voices echoed across the water and men appeared along the gunwales, illuminated by lantern-light, crossbows primed in their hands. Pietro ordered his crew to slow, the command relayed to the war galleys. The oarsmen strained on the sweeps until the three vessels drew close together and anchors were swung over the sides to plunge into the depths. The crew of the English cog threw ropes across to the first galley and, with a grating of timbers, came alongside.
Pietro stood at the gunwales, Luca beside him, watching as the English soldiers boarded the war galley. Some were armed with swords, some crossbows and a few bore lanterns. One of their number was dressed bet
ter than the others in a tunic trimmed with gold brocade. Pietro took him for the captain. The captain spoke briefly with the commander of the warship, while his men inspected the vessel and crew. It wasn’t long before the English, with the use of gangplanks thrown across, began to board the merchant cog.
Pietro met the captain, who jumped down on to the deck, flanked by two men holding crossbows. Pietro raised his hands in a gesture of peace.
‘You have entered English waters and are subject to an inspection of your vessel, under the authority of King Edward.’ The captain nodded to the warship. ‘Your escort tells me you have sailed from Genoa.’ Other soldiers were clambering across, spreading out among the benches where Pietro’s oarsmen shifted uneasily. ‘A long way, yes?’
Pietro had been sailing the arduous route from Genoa to Bruges and Dover for a decade and understood enough English to get the gist of the man’s words. He replied after a pause, his accent making the captain frown in concentration. ‘Long, yes. But safer than land, for precious cargo.’
The English captain scanned the ship, his eyes lingering on the opening that led down into the lower deck. ‘What cargo?’
‘Paper,’ replied Pietro. ‘From a mill in the mountains, outside our city. We deliver to your port of Dover.’
The captain nodded slowly, only seeming to be half listening, his gaze roving over the crowded decks of the cog. ‘Why are you sailing under the lupo?’ he asked, gesturing to the black sails. ‘One might think you have something to hide?’
‘Yes,’ answered Pietro, ‘precious cargo. That is what we hide. This sea between England and France is dangerous since your kingdoms have been at war. We must beware. Your enemies might attack. Prevent our cargo from reaching your shores.’
‘I doubt paper will win us the war,’ replied the captain dryly. ‘Show me the hold.’
Pietro and Luca led the captain below deck, the stairs creaking. Eight English soldiers followed, swords drawn.
