“Ah, I am humbled and submit, my lord.” Gilbert threw a tight fist on his hip and thrust his jaw out. “But what of Loudon Hill? Was it as bad?”
“Worse,” I grumbled. “Pembroke’s knights tumbled headfirst into the Scots’ trenches before they ever saw them. One on top the other, like a landslide, they said. Those that had a chance to rein to a halt and turn back collided with the second wave. Pembroke turned tail and cowered at Bothwell. Three days later, as your stepfather went to relieve the earl, Pembroke’s forces were routed by that omnipresent devil and chased all the way to Ayr. A plague on both Pembroke and Ralph de Monthermer. Their flagrant incompetence has not only cursed our endeavors, it has leant impulse to the Bruce’s.”
“Lenience, I beg, my lord.” Gilbert pouted like a chastised boy. “Ralph does as well as he is able. But I confess, I think his glory days of soldiering are long since past. His joints are stiff, his armor burdensome. I doubt he can see clearly beyond a spear’s length.”
“Save your worries, de Clare. The soothsayers will portend no block for your kinsman. And you shall earn your reward and station if you’ve any patience left to your name. First, let me test your ability to guard a secret.”
He cocked one pale eyebrow at me.
“I shall recall Piers de Gaveston at the first opportunity.”
“But not until –”
“Indeed. Not until. And when it is done, he shall be betrothed to your sister, Margaret – unless you can pose some reasonable objection…” I waited a moment, but his expression did not change. “Now say no more about it.”
“But this will not happen too soon, I hope? Give matters time to settle. Appease those who –”
“Save it. If I want a sermon I shall open my ears at Mass.”
Gilbert looked away, pretending to watch the door. “I meant about Margaret. She’s not yet fourteen.”
“Which is more than old enough. If I can wed Piers to my niece, it will make it that much harder for them to cast him off again. The sooner the better. They’ll be less likely to quibble over such a seeming triviality when the kingship is in transition. If it ever will be – the Methuselah.”
My patience had been tried to its tedious end on this journey. Every day I awoke and every day they told me my sire yet lived. It would have been more mercy than sin to add a drop of poison to his tisane.
A flurry of activity erupted near the priory gates and soon the King of England was borne pitifully out on a litter slung between two puissant steeds. How remote from regal he appeared, all wan and sunken back into his red and green silk cushions. He looked at me… or through me, and flipped his bony hand to signal the march onward.
Even greatness must yield to the fetters of age. Nothing lasts forever. Leather wears. Wood breaks. And iron eventually rusts.
Ch. 13
Edward, Prince of Wales – Burgh-on-Sands, 1307
The levies had been languishing at Carlisle for nearly a week by the time we arrived. Pembroke and Monthermer greeted us anxiously. I said not a word to them about the drubbings they had taken. The shame was sufficient. The king was transported to the cathedral, where the bishop said a hundred blessings over his litter and a hundred more over the army itself. The next morning, the king declared himself fit enough to sit astride his horse and so we departed – the glitter of polished armor flashing in the summer sun, wagons fat with provisions, Welsh bowmen by the thousands and a king who could not lift his head from his pillow without utterly exhausting himself.
We crawled, crawled, crawled from Carlisle. Our banners had not topped the first ridge before the king swayed limply and one of his royal guards caught him before he flopped over onto the ground. Three days and we had gone all of six miles. Six whole miles. Six.
He asked for a bed and his confessor.
Providence at last. Thank... God.
They carried him to the little village of Burgh-on-Sands and laid him up in the finest house there. He called for me. I came. More joyful than saddened. Sanguine, perhaps, but outwardly subdued. I knew how to play this part. I had waited for it a very, very long time. Dreamt of it nearly every night.
Candles flickered around the room. I stood at the doorway, watching. Queen Marguerite sat by my sire’s sickbed, her rouged cheeks sucked in so that her lips puckered in a pout of concern. Another cough racked his chest and she unfolded a linen kerchief to wipe the spittle from the corner of his mouth. Then she took a goblet and brought it to his lips.
“Wine, my lord?” she said, the palm of one hand supporting the base of the goblet, the fingers of the other pinched around its stem.
He turned his head slowly toward me. Eyes as cold and hard as steel pierced my soul. “Help me to sit up,” he uttered hoarsely, “so that I may drink.”
Cringing, I shuffled forward and reached across the bed to grasp him beneath the arms and pull. My fingers curled into thin flesh, bones sharp beneath. He pushed with weakened legs, the muscles wasted from disuse, but I hesitated to grip harder.
He heaved a sigh of exasperation and flailed a blue-veined hand at me, knocking my arm away with surprising force. “Do you think you will break me? Use your head if you have not the strength. More pillows!”
I hastily collected the pillows that had slid to either side of him and propped him forward. His cracked lips parted and the queen, my stepmother, brought the cup to his mouth. He took one sip, gulped and gagged as though he had just swallowed glass.
Christendom’s mightiest champion. Reduced to this. Brittle bones and sagging skin. His hair so thin I could see the blue of the veins on his scalp as they pulsed faintly. Sixty-nine years is enough for any man and thirty-two of those as king. He had yoked Wales to the plow, cowed Scotland, haggled with popes and eclipsed kings of France.
“Leave us,” he croaked to Marguerite. She slipped away like the serpent she was.
I touched my forehead to his hand, lifted his cold, scaly, flaccid fingers and kissed the ring that bore his seal. Mine soon, although... I wanted him gone more than I wanted what was his. I would have been rapt at King’s Langley hunting in the morning damp of autumn with Brother Perrot and Gilbert. I loathed sessions of parliament, detested these inconvenient campaigns, hated pointy-bearded ambassadors waving their documents about, prelates who nagged for funds and –
“Son?” His gray eyes glinted like winter sun off lake ice.
“Dear beloved father.” I curved my lips in the semblance of a smile. How intriguing to observe him now. He had no eyelashes left. His hairs were as scant as those of a newborn babe. I had rather imagined him dying in a furious blaze of glory as he rammed Scotland clear into the Orkneys. Instead, he was like some tiny insect fading on the windowsill at the first frost – barely able to buzz, let alone fly. “You are chilled. Shall I have them bring more blankets?”
“You care...” He coughed feebly, swallowed back his phlegm and flicked a weak tongue over dry lips. “You care less about my comfort and more about how swiftly my end will come.”
“I care that it shall come painlessly for you, my lord. Heaven hurries you, not I.”
His pale lips parted to that cavernous orifice that had so relentlessly condemned me my whole life. I knew why he hated me: because he saw my love for Piers as a weakness – nay, a mortal sin. Piers was a part of me which I could not do without. But my sire would never, ever understand that. Even I could no more explain it than I could wish it away. The king drew air, rolled his eyes upward. I leaned close, watching.
“Last wishes?” I prompted. “Which saint do you wish to honor? A cathedral in your name perhaps?”
He clawed at my shirt collar with his twisted, yellow fingers and pulled my face to his. Death had a distinct odor. Not putrid so much as stale.
“I have honored saints enough,” he said, raspy. “One last Crusade. One final victory.” His fingers began to lose their hold, but he gathered his will and held on, even as that one single act drained him completely.
“Whatever you desire.”
/> “My heart to Jerusalem. But bear my bones before my army. Inter them not until Scotland has bowed to my name.”
I loosened his fingers from my shirt and let his hand fall slack across his shallow, rattling chest.
Your name? Your name? Are you, my lord, in ranks with Charlemagne and Alexander the Great? Will you discourse with Saint George while peeling grapes and wash the feet of Christ himself as you take your ease in eternal blessedness?
I went to the window and surveyed the land. “As you so wish, sire.”
Without looking back, I took my leave. As I closed the door behind me, my younger half-brother Thomas stepped from the shadows, blocking my retreat down the narrow steps to the lower floor of the cramped house. Hardly seven years of age, my doting father had insisted on bringing the seed of his fading years along for reasons only he knew why. Thomas’ hair was a mess and his garnache had slipped to one side so that it looked as though he would lose the entire garment with a shrug of his shoulders. In the undersized hall below, there must have waited two dozen lords, barons, and holy men – none wanting to forego this momentous event. Already they had begun to bow more lowly to me, whereas weeks before they had afforded me only disapproving glances.
Beggars, I shall remember each and every one of you.
“Inform me when he is indeed expired,” I said to my brother as I tugged at my collar and swept away the curse of my sire’s touch. “He may linger for years simply to plague me.”
Thomas looked at me in perplexity. He had his mother’s vacant French eyes.
“Best to have the priest at hand, though,” I added. “In case.”
The king died within minutes. Little brother Thomas retrieved me from the garden. I stared at the king a long while as the priest chanted over him. I still expected him to gasp for breath, bolt up and curse at me with fire in his lungs. When they asked me what to do with him, I ordered his body to be laid at Waltham Abbey.
A pox on your brittle bones and shriveled heart. Let them lie within the hull of your rotting flesh while maggots feast.
You are dust. Your word, your will – nothing now.
I am king.
Ch. 14
Edward II – London, 1307
A canker on wagging tongues. I recalled Piers from Gascony. He bore more love and loyalty for me than anyone and for that I would always keep him by me. With my sire’s damning voice forever silenced, it was I who would now judge my censors, not they me.
Diamonds of moonlight glinted off the Thames. As I paced along the quay, waiting for Piers’ barge, I smoothed the creases from my tunic of scarlet velvet, its scalloped edge reaching only halfway down my thighs, fit snug with white hose. God’s eyes, I should have chosen better. Red always made me look so sallow.
The rich smell of ale drifted from a nearby brewhouse and I inhaled deeply. I had come here, to the wharf at Queenhithe upstream of London Bridge, accompanied by only my manservant, Jankin. My secrecy was not so much about whom I could trust, but an overwhelming desire for privacy. Already as king I had so little of it. Once Piers Gaveston was known to be back in England, he would be watched, his every move scrutinized, my every interaction with him questioned.
A cool breeze carried the stench of a passing herring boat. The reflection of a half moon rippled in its wake across the Thames. I pressed a hand flat against my rumbling stomach. My nerves were so frayed that I had eaten no more than a white roll that day.
For a fortnight now, I had undulated somewhere between welling joy and an undercurrent of queasiness. At moments, I dreaded it might not happen at all. That for fear of his freedom he would choose not to return – or worse, that he would set out on the journey in good faith, as eager to embrace me as I was him, only to be intercepted and give up his life to envious scoundrels.
I cannot bear to think it. He will return. He must!
But hours wore on. The moon dipped lower – and with it my heart. The city slumbered. Only the occasional yap of a cur or the carnal squeal of a whore from a nearby alley rent the awful silence. Yellow eyes glowed like embers from the stairway. A small, black cat slinked down the steps to prowl along the dock. Her white-tipped tail flicking, she rubbed against Jankin’s leg. Terrified, he froze, moving nothing but his eyes as he searched for an escape from the creature’s unsolicited affections.
The rhythmic dip of oars reached my ears and I looked downriver. The pink crescent of a promised sunrise shone in the east. I squinted, peering toward the sound. But it was only a pair of small rowing boats, laden with fleeces, passing beneath the sprawling bridge that joined London to Southwark.
I walked to Jankin and picked up the cat to cradle her against my breast. “Come, my little grimalkin. You may rub yourself against me while I take rest.” My fingers scratching at her ears and neck, she rolled in my arms and purred with contentment. “Stay, Jankin. If he comes after all, you know where I’ll be.”
Alone, I trudged up the stairs of the wharf and passed through the narrow lane squeezed between two leaning rows of buildings. Between a granary and the brewhouse, stood a gateway and from it ran a narrow alley leading to an inn. I slipped through the gate, along the alley and inside the inn’s courtyard, where I went through a small, plain door. I fumbled my way up the unlit stairway to the backroom on the third floor. Once there, I went inside and set the cat down. In two bounds, she was up on the bed, piled high with the plushest of pillows and a down covering. A smoking oil lamp cast its amber light around the room. Mindlessly, I removed the red and gold striped surcote I had so carefully selected and kicked off the fashionable shoes that pinched my feet so horribly.
For awhile, I stood unmoving in the middle of the room where a square of moonlight lay. Nothing but my shirt and hose on. Here, alone, I was unburdened by the trappings of kingship. If only it could always be thus. If only I could live my life as I wished, simply, fully. A few merry friends. Drink. Music. And Piers...
I drifted toward the window overlooking the river and watched. Surely something not out of the ordinary had delayed him? An unfavorable wind, perhaps? A slight illness, come and gone within a day?
Staring at the river’s mouth would not bring him any faster – if he was still on his way. My eyelids heavy, I settled down in the cushioned chair I had ordered delivered here earlier in the week. Next to it was a table stacked with gifts for my beloved Brother Perrot: a gilt-bronze clasp of a knight standing atop a lion and an adder; a jeweled chalice and matching bowl; and a small, oaken chest lined in velvet, within which lay a pearl-handled knife. I ran my hands over the relief of an ivory-backed mirror, depicting a mounted lord and lady, hawks perched on their wrists. I leaned back, my legs sprawled wide, and let my eyes drift shut.
A pounding at the door and Jankin’s low voice startled me awake. Rubbing at bleary eyes, I stumbled to the door and slid the bar back.
“Bloody Christ, man,” I complained, my forehead thudding against the doorframe as I blinked to clear my vision, “must you hammer at the thing?”
“He started softly,” said a voice behind him, “but you were dead to the world, apparently.”
Over Jankin’s bony shoulder, I saw Piers’ faintly discernible outline. Cracks of morning light edged the door below and the sounds of a stirring city – the rumble of cart wheels and the rap of a carpenter’s hammer – drifted on the air. I shoved Jankin toward the wall of the landing and grabbed Piers’ sleeve to pull him inside. The bar was barely secured when I noticed the bulge of his crotch against my buttocks. Slipping his hands beneath my shirt, his fingers roamed over my chest, fluttering about my waist, tracing each rib.
“Edward, sweet Edward,” he breathed into my ear, “how I have yearned for you. Every night as I lay alone in my bed. Hungered for you until I thought I would go mad.” His tongue flicked over my neck, its wet softness making my hairs prickle.
Heat singed my loins. Perspiration dampening my shirt, I stripped it off and, eager to mold his flesh to mine, turned and began to peel away his clothing. His cloak l
anded on the bed and the cat leapt up in surprise and scampered beneath.
“Then let madness have you.” I undid the cord of his hose, sliding my hands over the prominence of his hipbones, moving them slowly downward as I sank to my knees before him. “And madness will give you all that you desire.”
Ch. 15
Robert the Bruce – Galloway, 1307
The new king, Edward of Caernarvon, had made it no further than Cumnock when his provisions trickled away and ran stone dry. He turned about on his heel and slunk home. We were that much in agreement – that he wished not to be in Scotland and that I wished him and his bevy of flaunting courtesans gone. Longshanks had been decisive to the point of defect. His issue was nothing of the sort. The new Edward was even so shortsighted as to remove Pembroke from his position in Scotland and replace him with the ineffectual John of Brittany, his cousin who was the Earl of Richmond.
With Longshanks gone, some sort of peace should have settled over Scotland. Ah, but not so. Not so. My countrymen are stubborn. Worse yet, they are flagrantly proud of that stubbornness.
For now, it served us well to fight only when we could do so on our own terms – when they were not expecting us. There were times when being fewer and more lightly armed was to our advantage. If only we could convince more Scotsmen to join us, we would have but one enemy, instead of scores of them.
We had blazed our way through untended Galloway, targeting the MacDowells, who had been responsible for the lost lives of my brothers, Thomas and Alexander – taking what cattle we could and burning what we could not carry with us.
The tall grass, tipped with yellow from the cool hand of encroaching autumn, waved and fluttered over the Gallovidian hills. I walked up a small hillock overlooking the road that followed the valley of the Nith, which stretched from north to south. The soldiers, weary lot that they were, crammed down the last of their bannocks and rolled up their blankets. The wind beat hard and steady at my face, making the climb, short though it was, ten times as arduous. I pulled cool air into my lungs. An odd weariness deadened my legs. The urge to sink down and rest tugged at me, but I knew it would be hard to get up again and so I resisted the dull, flaming ache in my body and concentrated on watching my motley army.
Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy) Page 11
