Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “Pull!”

  The twang and hiss. Bodies reeling backward. Buchan’s lines faltered, then staggered on. Another command. Another cloud from our side, like diving swifts, cutting through the sky. More fell. Buchan’s men began to weave and wade their way through the bog. My own men stood waiting with slack shoulders and pale, sepulchral faces.

  I pushed away the furs covering me, turning over so that I could pull myself along the frozen ground, and searched for my sword and shield, for I had only my axe in my belt, nothing more. I trembled from the effort so much that I had to lay my head down to rest. Even though the surface of my flesh was drenched in fire, I felt the cold deep inside every muscle and my body yielding to it.

  My dearest wish was to sleep until winter passed, then perhaps, in spring, awaken and move my resting place to some grassy knoll swept by a warm breeze. Come summer I might wander to the banks of a swift stream, there to dangle my hand in the cool water and watch the salmon flash like the last rays of sunset beneath the foaming swirls. But this existence... this marching on through winter’s grip, swimming against the undercurrent of insurrection among my own countrymen, trailing them down, dangling retribution over them and at the last moment casting exoneration on them...

  Heaven pity me, but that last was more draining than all my other efforts through the whole of my life. I only prayed that my generosity would not later prove me to be a naïve fool. Ah, but for certain it would. Let me rather pray that it would buy me more and stronger allies than enemies. I would need them. I had so few in the beginning and now – James, Boyd, Gil, Angus – blood brothers, all. But to die here today, while so much faith and loyalty yet lived...

  Then... before me – the movement of hooves. My horse.

  As Neil and Gil scurried to position me on my mount, Edward looked on, his sword lying ready across his lap as he sat astride his own horse. Neil and Gil held me fast while Boyd drew up on his bay next to me. Boyd brought our horses as close together as possible so that his knee touched mine. Carefully, he placed my sword in my limp hand.

  “Hold onto this with all you have,” he said. “I will hold the other end with my right hand to support you and hold you up with my left. We’ll ride down the hill. When they see you, I’ll let go. Raise it up. Let them know it is you.”

  I curled my fingers about the hilt. “I can’t feel the damn thing. Not at all.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re taking wagers on the might of your reputation.”

  With Boyd beside me and Edward riding abreast, we went slowly down the hill. Edward had told our men to hold their position, a directive they accepted willingly, for none were in a state for an intense or drawn out fight. We picked a path through the fallen bodies. Arrows fell wildly about us and twice Edward blocked one with a swift move of his shield. Where the slope leveled out, we halted. Buchan’s soldiers were now a hundred feet away.

  Boyd let go of my blade. Even though it felt to me heavier than any boulder I had ever rested on, I raised my sword toward heaven.

  Let God’s will be done. Take me now or let me finish what I have begun.

  Their lines began to falter.

  “The Bruce!” someone shrieked.

  The few still rushing forward drew up, then turned back. Buchan’s lines broke. They ran.

  I slumped against Boyd’s burly arm and closed my eyes.

  Ch. 16

  Edward II – Boulogne, 1308

  Isabella. Isabella. Queen Isabella…

  Daughter of a king, soon to be the wife of one and someday, should God decree, the mother of yet another. Born in a royal bed and taken to one. She need do nothing but receive me when I will have her, bear me a son, steward my servants and otherwise keep from me. A pampered life. One I would have relished, had I been so inclined to compliancy. Both misfortune and ease in being born woman.

  I saw her for the first time in the cathedral at Boulogne. Between Bruce and his fractious rogues in Scotland and my English barons who nagged me to conclude my arranged union, this for now was the lesser of two evils. The documents had all been detailed, perused, re-penned, signed and sealed. Her dowry was already aboard ship. I was satisfied with her lineage as worthy of my own, pleased with the trinkets and property that came with her, but in the girl herself I was disappointed. Thirteen and by that age she should have had some budding to her bosom and broadening to her hips. She was a reed. Legs of a crane underneath that billowy skirt, doubtless. Layers of radiant silk and velvet did not distract enough from the thinness of her cheeks. And how was such a weanling to get herself bred? I might have suspected that in Louis’ court they ate nothing but bean bread and turnips, judging by the sight of her, except that I have seen that the king himself is as corpulent as an overstuffed boar. We shall have to flush her after the tupping. She will have a fat baby, a healthy one, and after that I will be done with her.

  Her eyes, though, they were... pretty. But shy. Big and round, like a doe’s. Her pupils swam in a pool of tears. Tears of joy at the promise of womanly fulfillment... or tears of fear and repulsion? Probably some worldly, spiteful handmaiden had informed her of the horrid details of wedding nights and sent her into a dithering state of fright.

  As she floated ghost-like up the steps to the altar, I experienced some relief at her displeasure. She gave a broken sigh, almost a whimper, her knees wobbling as she forced the last step toward me and placed her clammy hand in mine. I turned to the bishop and did not look upon her again until all was done.

  Suffering the tedium of the ceremony, I yielded to distraction and glanced around at the spindly columns holding the ceiling aloft and up at the vaulted arches as they intersected in endless webs. A confusion of angels radiated from the narrow windows behind the altar and it was there, for a long while, that I fixed my eyes as the bishop canted on and on in mystic verse.

  Only the peeling of bells roused me from my open-eyed slumber.

  Although we walked side by side down the length of the nave and out into the shocking light of a winter noonday, we were yet separate entities, just as we had been hours before. Horses caparisoned in silks and bells awaited us. With a noisy string of mummers trailing behind the wedding party, we made way to the castle where a feast followed. Everything was, as is the usual French manner, in excess. I might have been reviled by it, but on this occasion it was a welcome array of distractions. My new wife waned. She slumped. She looked as though she might dissolve into a lake of tears from pure exhaustion at any moment.

  “You should retire, my lady,” I said.

  She recoiled at my words. It was the first I had spoken to her, nay, even looked at her directly since leaving the cathedral. I leaned closer, intrigued by my effect on her. Her ivory hands lay tightly clasped in her lap.

  “Wait for me,” I teased wickedly.

  Her eyes enlarged to the size of full moons. “Your forgiveness, but... I am exhausted,” she said meekly.

  “Ah.” I gestured for more wine. When the servant finished filling my cup, I numbed myself with its contents. “I shall inform our guests that I, too, have wearied and need to retire.”

  She shuddered visibly and cast her eyes down. To her right, broad-bellied King Philip, resembling a lobster in his rose-colored clothes, was picking clean an entire stuffed capon. To my left, my stepmother Marguerite batted her eyelashes at the kings of Navarre and Sicily and thrust out her pouting, rouged lips. Was it the nobility of Europe I sat amongst, or the harlotry of a brothel?

  I tugged at the ends of my sleeves, admiring the cut and hang of my peliçon. With a raging hearth at my back, the fur was stifling, but the fashion worth the price. “You wear your dread too plainly. Worry not, then. You are... how should I say this – not yet ready. I can see. There will be time, later, for the marriage bed.”

  To my immeasurable relief, she slid back her chair and rose, dipping at the knee to me for the benefit of our onlookers, but avoiding my gaze entirely.

  “Isabella, my little butterfly?” King Philip slurred as he w
iped the spittle from the corner of his drooping mouth. “Will you not dance with your new husband first? What shall I have them play for you?”

  He jerked his other hand up in the air, sending droplets of grease from his roasted chicken leg splattering onto my new garments. I snatched his forearm and yanked it back down before the musicians were alerted to his wishes.

  “She is weary, my lord,” I begged, as I watched her turn and scurry off. “We will have years ahead of us to dance. Years ahead in which to get to know each other.” But what was there to know of her? She was meek, uninteresting. A dainty violet whose petals would wilt with the first frost. What match was she for me? Certainly, Piers outshone her in every way. And it was Piers who had my love, not her.

  Head down, Isabella tried to rush through the doorway at the far end of the great hall, but a young man with hair the same flaxen shade as hers caught her in his arms and held her protectively to his breast, smoothing a hand over her back in comfort. I recognized him as her brother, Charles, older than her by only a year.

  King Philip fingered the golden lion pendant draped over his breast. Red light played across the rubies set within the lion’s eyes like a fire within. Clutched in its paws, four pearls shimmered.

  “Do you admire this, my son?” he asked.

  Although I bristled at the endearment, I did covet the trinket. It would look even more dazzling on Piers. He loved such adornments. “I do. Where is it from? I might commission the same goldsmith, if you would deign to give his name.”

  “Why go to the trouble,” – he lifted it over his head and dangled it before me – “when you can have this very one?”

  No sooner had I reached for it, than he snatched it away. “Ahhh, but you will promise, yes, to treat my daughter kindly and fairly?”

  “With undying devotion, my lord.” I afforded him a smile of reassurance, but all the while I was thinking of Piers.

  The King of France dropped the pendant into my open palm, the serpentine links of its chain twisting over my fingers to fall upon the linen tablecloth. I closed my hand firmly around it. Air hissed between my teeth as the jewels’ settings pricked my thumb. Opening my hand again, I brought it closer, inspecting the many facets of the gem and the impressive details of the lion’s mane. I slipped it around my neck, feeling its weight settle over my heart.

  As I gazed toward the door through which Isabella had vanished, Charles glowered at me, his feet braced wide in a taunting stance across the threshold. As if such a foppish stripling could pose any threat to me...

  I raised my wine goblet to King Philip.

  “May your offspring,” he said, tapping his goblet against mine, “be the pride and glory of both France and England.”

  “Of course, my lord.” I downed my drink in one long, greedy swallow.

  Ch. 17

  Edward II – Dover, 1308

  On the seventh day of February, the towering white cliffs of Dover came into view. As our ship glided into the harbor, I espied my faithful Brother Perrot standing on the dock awaiting me. Cousin Lancaster had worked himself into a froth upon hearing that I had left Piers as regent during my absence. But I trusted the volatile Lancaster no further than I could pluck him up and toss him. An impossible feat, given his girth.

  “Ah brother! Dear, dear brother!” I shouted to Piers as they cast the rope to the dock to haul us closer. He waved at me, a weary smile on his face. I raced over the plank to him and crushed him in my aching arms. Clasping his shoulders, I perused him head to toe.

  “They’ve left you in one piece, have they?” I gibed.

  “Unharmed.”

  “It went well, I trust?” Upon Piers’ return from Gascony, I had made him Earl of Cornwall and to further entrench him I gave him the hand of my niece, Margaret of Gloucester, my sister Joan’s daughter. Margaret was stout and long in waist, good for bearing children, and while she was agreeable company, she had the wits of an ox. He enjoyed her because she laughed at his quips, nothing more. A sound match. A peaceful existence for my faithful friend, my love of loves. I could only hope my own union would prove as pleasant.

  “Beyond well,” he said. “Governance is a mindless task. Promise everything. Delay, delay, delay. Give nothing in the end.”

  “Very politic of you. Any trouble from those cursed Scots while I was away? Still quarreling with their own?”

  “Often enough.”

  “And Bruce?”

  He sneered. “They say he had one leg in his grave not a few months past. Sadly, they also say he is improved now.”

  “Unfortunate.”

  Servants filed past us. Chest after chest was unloaded from the ship and piled onto carts for our procession to London. Furs, silks, jewels and all manner of riches – courtesy of my French father-in-law. I intercepted two servants lugging a large, ornately carved chest and had them open it. From its depths, I lifted several chains of gold, some strung with impressive, rare jewels, and draped them over my outstretched arm for Piers to admire.

  He flicked a forefinger at the lion pendant. Pale winter light glinted off the facets of the ruby eyes.

  “Do you desire it, Brother Perrot?”

  He gazed into my eyes so long that I forgot what day and place it was until he spoke. “I admire perfection.”

  “Consider it yours. The rest I leave to your safekeeping. Wear whatever you choose, for as long and as often as you wish. There is far too much for me alone.” I was rewarded with a broad smile, like that of a child presented with sweets. “No price is too great for the honor of your friendship.” Lowering my voice, I added, “And your love.”

  “It need not be bought, dear Edward.”

  “A dung heap of an oath. You are more a popinjay than when I left.” But for the one I had promised him, I dropped the other chains of gold and silver back into the chest. The two servants looming behind closed it up and I instructed them to place it with Piers’ belongings when our caravan would later be assembled for the journey.

  “I shall guard it with my life,” Piers said.

  I placed the lion pendant’s chain over Piers’ head, my hands brushing against his tawny hair. “Shine then, like the sun, brother. Shine with the riches of Midas. I shall wear you at my arm like a jewel unto myself. Had the rest of my barons half your devotion and less jealousy… what paradise my kingdom would be.”

  I was about to pull him into my embrace again, when skirts rustled behind me. Isabella stood at the dock’s edge. She tugged the hood of her fur-lined mantle over her head. At her shoulder, her brother Charles narrowed his eyes at me in judgment.

  Her voice was barely loud enough to be heard above the wind. “Those were for you.”

  “What did you say?” I asked, not certain that I had heard her correctly.

  “The jewels – my father gave them to you, as gifts.”

  Unwilling to displace my merriment with argument, I resisted raising my voice and smiled tepidly. “He did. Which means I can do with them as I please. Piers deserves to be rewarded for his service. Certainly your father would not begrudge me to loan him a token or two?”

  With that, I led Piers away. Arms linked, we strolled along the dock. “I trust you arranged her quarters far from mine?”

  Piers laughed. “Of course.” Abruptly, his smile slipped into a frown. “Unless you’d like her close, so that –”

  “No, no. Not yet. Not for awhile – years from now, preferably.” I draped my arm around his shoulder, pulled him close and said lowly, “I’ve missed you too much to keep from you for even one more night.”

  London, 1308

  The streets of London flowed with wine. The coronation would be such a glorious, heavenly affair that the Londoners would tell of it to their grandchildren. Flags of green, blue, yellow and red fluttered above the streets. Carpenters had erected miniature castles along the route and during the procession the members of every guild and organization beamed and waved at the onlookers as they paraded gaily by. Leashed bears and dogs danced to th
e delight of all and beasts of far away places paced in their cages upon slow-moving carts.

  Where days before my queen had regarded me with disdain, she now glowed with proper regality. My subjects adored their new French doll and she in turn was pleased with their reception of her.

  But good soon turned to worse. My contentious cousin, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, saw Piers readying for the procession with the crown of St. Edward on a pillow.

  “A royal coronation is no place for his kind!” Lancaster fumed. “For certain, he should not be leading the procession.”

  “Save your battles for bigger crimes, cousin.” I plucked a piece of lint from Lancaster’s shoulder. “Piers is like a brother to me and his place is at my side – as much on this day as on any other.”

  For another hour he ranted and raged like some beet-faced toad. I think it was Pembroke who finally convinced him to yield on the matter, lest the ceremony not go on at all.

  If that was not enough, too many guests were packed into Westminster Abbey. Some lowly knight, whose name I cannot recall and did not know when I heard it, was suffocated beneath the crush of guests who shoved to get out the door. It was Piers who had been in charge of the guest list and Piers who took the blame for it, but such misfortunes happen every day.

  Others complained of the ceremony’s length. Tedious it may have been, but every passage, every ritual was imbued with profound, celestial meaning. Masses were said with routine monotony, but only once in their lifetimes were a king and his queen crowned.

  But then, ah worse eroded to dismal. The dinner was not ready on time. The guests, tired from having to stand so long at the coronation, whined about the delay like unweaned pups deprived of their dam. Piers had simply ordered too much food to be prepared and, not being a cook himself, had no idea of the coordination that went into such an effort. How many of those malcontents would have volunteered to accept such a monumental task themselves?