Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “When will you permit a fire, m’lord?” Rosalind addressed, placing her sleeping daughter in a rocking cradle and approaching me quite boldly. One of the two older women, the one with silver-black hair and a shape of brow like Rosalind’s, went to the bairn and began to rock the cradle gently. Rosalind had shed her resolution of impending death in favor of confident demands. “The few candles we have been given will not warm a drafty chamber like this in the middle of winter.”

  “I am not your host, my lady.” Dragging my leg noticeably, I moved away from Lady Rosalind and further into the chamber to inspect it and make certain that they had been kept in comfort.

  “Yes, I know,” she said cynically behind me. “We are your prisoners. We have looked from the window and seen our dead tossed in piles on carts like carcasses of beef.”

  I picked up a book and opened it long enough to see it was written in French. Then I returned it to the small folding table on which it had rested on top of a stack of other books. “How long have you been in residence at Roxburgh, my lady?”

  “A year.”

  “Then that is long enough to have seen your husband’s soldiers leave from here for days and return. What do you think they were doing in that time?” I turned to her.

  She gave no answer and so I continued. “I can tell you. They went out into the villages and to the farms and demanded taxes in the name of King Edward. Sometimes they took the money and left. Sometimes they stayed and took what they wanted from the people. My people. Scots. Sometimes they burned their homes to the ground when the people had no money or goods to pay them with. They raped. They killed. And it was not only soldiers they killed, but also common folk: old men, women and sometimes the bairns who stood in their way. So aye, you are my prisoner, but to prove to you I am not as much a savage as your own kind, I am giving you this chance to go from here – with all your women and your child – and go back to England with your husband and live out what’s left of your lives.”

  Puzzled, the faint lines on her forehead doubled up. “Then... we are no longer your prisoners?”

  “Not unless you want to be.” I stood away from the door and raised a hand to it. “Go.”

  She hesitated in disbelief, then turned to the nursemaid, who was already lifting the infant from the cradle as it stirred from sleep. She took the baby girl from the lady’s outstretched arms and held her to her bosom. As the rest of her women scurried past, as though still suspicious that some threat awaited them, Rosalind paused before me.

  Her arched lips partly slightly, but when the nursemaid placed a hand upon the small of her back, she turned and went on her way down the tower stairs and out into the courtyard to wait on her husband.

  Hobbling, I followed at a distance and as she stood there in the courtyard hovering at the door of the keep I sensed her eyes upon me. For a very long time I did not look at her, remembering the vile hatred she had served me with when we first discovered her. As the inner bar of the keep’s main door groaned, I glanced her way – only a glance. Curiosity. But all her focus was now on the door and what was behind it. The babe was quiet in her nursemaid’s arms as John of Wigton appeared first from the keep. Over his shoulder was slung the arm of an old man: William de Fiennes, well into his fifties and his head heavily bandaged from his right jaw, across the bridge of his nose and toward his left temple. A huge, red blood stain marked the linen over his right eye and several likewise stains, old and brown, spotted the bandage at various points, indicating that they had used it for some time and turned the bandaging as it soaked through in one spot. I wondered if he had lost the eye, but judging by his dazed and feeble reactions, that was not the worst of his wounds.

  At once Rosalind, herself only half his age, flew to her husband, pressed herself against his trembling chest and whispered soothing words against his cheek. Weakened, he slumped against her.

  Under poised arrows, the remainder of the keep’s garrison trickled out, throwing down their weapons in a haphazard pile. Like sheep sent out to pasture in spring, they were herded out the gate and escorted a good ways down the road by Scots soldiers who prodded them with spears and taunted them all the way.

  I motioned to Sim to have the horses brought forward for the governor and the women. “I would have had a cart ready, but I am afraid even had I done so you would have found the roads impassable this time of year.”

  As a few of my men helped De Fiennes onto his horse and steadied him, Lady Rosalind took to her own mount, accepted the bundled bairn from her nursemaid and looked once more at me.

  “You never said your name,” she said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  I bowed to her. “James Douglas, my lady – your liberator.”

  She half-smiled at the irony. “On behalf of my husband, I thank you, Master Douglas.”

  Afterward, I sent a letter to Walter Stewart, the son of James Stewart, at Rothesay asking the whereabouts of my brothers. Hugh was still there, he wrote, hurling spears at haystacks and caring for the horses, as his lacking wit made him good for little else. Archibald had gone only recently to the abbey in Inchafray to study scripture. I then wrote to Archibald, told him to collect Hugh from Rothesay and join King Robert and me at Bannockburn before the middle of June.

  Gil de la Haye arrived at Roxburgh shortly after we had taken it. He had been with Edward Bruce during his harrowing of Cumberland – a ploy to distract the English levies as they trickled northward along the eastern coast. Upon inspecting my injured leg, he pronounced that it was deeply bruised, perhaps, he surmised, it might even have had a fine crack in the bone. I feared that he might bind me up in an awkward splint, but he said it would do little good and insisted that I refrain from walking as much as possible and instead ride my horse everywhere. He did apply leeches to suck away the blood spreading beneath my skin from the bruise and in between bleedings packed my leg with a poultice of moss and the powder of ground willow bark. Naturally, in my stubbornness and intoxication to fight and travel swiftly, I ignored his advice to rest. Scars and lingering injuries were but evidence of a soldier’s courage. They told that I had cheated death. The more scars I bore, the more invincible I deemed myself.

  When we heard that the English were beginning to assemble in Berwick in greater and greater numbers, we abandoned Roxburgh, its walls demolished to useless rubble. As Gil and I journeyed by Selkirk, we met a merchant, Flemish by birth, but raised in Scotland and traveling to Ayr in order to join his daughter’s family and leave Berwick before the English overran it. He told us that the De Fiennes’ company had made it safely back across the border; however, William de Fiennes made it little further than that. His wound was severe. The arrow had punctured his eye and buried itself in his brain. He died in a fit of convulsions in his young wife’s arms.

  Ch. 31

  Edward II – Berwick, 1314

  The Earl of Hereford’s lips moved on in an endless drone, the sounds coming from his mouth no more to me than an insect’s annoying buzz.

  My fingers rubbed at the pearls set within the clutching paws of the lion pendant as it lay upon my chest.

  For nigh on two years, my tolerance had been tested. And in all that time I had neither forgotten anything, nor forgiven any of them. After Piers’ murder, there had been threats of war, riots, envoys dispatched to Paris and Avignon. Lancaster, Hereford and Warwick had even dared to come to London when called. God’s breath, I did not actually believe they would. Of course, they denied any offense. Eventually, it was Gilbert’s influence that calmed me. Pardons were granted to them in return for promises of support against the Scots. My perpetual curse, it seemed, was that I could not bring the Bruce down without them. When that was done, I intended to seek my revenge, but only when the moment presented itself. For now, Stirling awaited. A victory on Scottish soil would serve me well in more ways than one.

  And after all that bartering on Lancaster’s part, the beggar was late to the campaign. I would deal
with him later.

  Beneath the tip of my finger, I balanced a skipping stone on its edge. I let go and, for the hundredth time, it fell flat upon its water-smoothed side. This had been my obsession for the past two hours as my counselors bickered over minutia in Berwick’s great hall: which order to arrange the marching columns in, what to do with the problem of roads pocked with holes so hardened by the sun that they broke the wagon wheels, how to get water to parched horses and men, where to encamp... and the ridiculous guessing game of how Bruce would face us, or if he would dare at all once he saw the perennial menace of his people bearing down on him and his ragged band of thieves and murderers. I sighed out of tedium. How many war councils had I attended in the past year? The count exceeded memory. How many more would I have to endure before I could embrace peace and prosperity? If such things existed, would I know them when I had them?

  Footsteps shattered my trance and I glanced up to see Pembroke in full battle gear enter the far end of the council chamber of Berwick Castle. Pembroke’s mouth was scored in a firm sneer, as if someone had etched a straight pair of lips upon a rock and painted eyes and a nose above it.

  “Is it warm outside, Lord Pembroke? There was a chill this morning, although yesterday was like breathing in a pot of hot stew. Surely we are past sext now, although I swear I did not hear the bells.” I pinched my middle finger against my thumb, then flicked the stone down the length of the table. It glided across a scattering of maps and narrowly missed the jutting elbow of Humphrey de Bohun, the Earl of Hereford. Still droning on, he did not so much as blink. I spoke over him. “I do love May. Trees in blossom. Bees abuzz. My favorite month, I think, of all. Gilbert, don’t you agree with me?”

  At the furthest end of the table, Gilbert balanced his chin on top of folded hands, yawned in reply and rubbed at his bloodshot eyeballs. “Sext, did you say? Already? I’m hungry.”

  Pembroke strode up to him and popped him in the side of the head with a roll of parchment. Gilbert lurched sideways and toppled clumsily from his chair with his legs in the air. Hereford, at last, ceased his rambling to gawk.

  “You were due to inspect the new archers from Chester with me just past dawn,” Pembroke admonished. “Where were you? Sharing your bed with a flea-infested tavern girl?”

  Gilbert sprawled upon the floor, then got to his knees and cupped his hands on either side of his head. Snarling, Gilbert bit back. “I am as faithful to my lovely wife as you, my good lord. And with better reason, as mine does not resemble a horse.”

  “Ah, a sharp wit you have. Too drunk to make it to bed, then? By the looks of you, you slept draped across a table.” Pembroke continued on down the length of the table and slapped the parchment in front of me. “My lord, you will find this of remarkable interest.”

  “Just tell us what it says,” I told him. I leaned back in my chair, wishing the cushions were thicker. My pelvis and back ached sharply already from the morning’s stagnation. “Judging by your entrance, you already know its contents, do you not?”

  His dark-lined eyes swept around the table – at Hereford, old Ralph de Monthermer who had been sleeping upright until his stepson Gilbert fell from his chair beside him, Sir Robert Clifford, Sir Henry Beaumont, Hugh Despenser the Younger and Sir Ingram d’Umfraville. Working his jaw back and forth, Pembroke took the empty seat next to Hereford. “They admit guilt, beg forgiveness, claim loyalty and then... foul, damnable liars. Lancaster and Warwick refuse to reply to your summons, sire.”

  “Ah, I see. Refuses, does he? At my consort’s urging, I threw a banquet of peace for cousin Lancaster. ‘What good,’ I asked her. ‘So they will aid you when it comes time to march on Scotland,’ she said. Stinking pile of shit that was. Should I be surprised that this is his repayment? The arrogant pig.” I exchanged a glance with young Hugh, who besides Gilbert had been the only one to remain true to me at every convolution. “A dog is a dog, even if you pin an ass’s tail to it.”

  Clifford shook his head in disgust. “Lord Pembroke, did they send any footmen? Cavalry?”

  “They did,” Pembroke replied. “As if such a hollow gesture could buy their innocence. They should all be dealt with after this, sire, completely and properly.”

  “Humph.” Hereford rattled his fat fist on the table. “Power-mongers and troublemakers. Better off without them, we are. What base reason did they give for their truancy?”

  “That the consent of parliament was not given first,” Pembroke said.

  “By God’s soul!” I shoved back my chair and threw my arms to the ceiling. “They would have worked every hole they could find to turn parliament upside down on this matter. We have been challenged openly by the Scots. Are we to dawdle while fusty old men squabble over taxes and question every farthing that was ever put into or taken from the treasury?” I took my knife from my belt and gripped its hilt with all the strength in my fingers. Then I turned its blade downward and slammed it into the point on the map in front of me where Stirling was marked.

  “Never was a war more just than this one,” I stated. Bracing one hand flat against the map I yanked the knife violently across it. “Let the false bastards rot. More riches for us then. We shall carve Scotland into a hundred jagged pieces. An earldom for each of you. Hugh, to you I will begin by granting the lands of that two-faced Janus, Thomas Randolph. And to the rest of you, like will you be allotted the estates of the fallen – of Ross, Keith, Douglas, every one of them. Let the rivers flow with the blood of Bruce and his screaming, naked heathens. We will flatten those Scottish shit-flies and afterwards attend to the festering pox within our own land. We march at once on Stirling!”

  The thundering of my own voice echoed off the rafters and returned emptily to me.

  “Sire?” Young Hugh’s velvety voice slipped through the heavy air to redirect matters. Even in times of heated argument, he remained outwardly dispassionate – sitting back observantly, waiting for the pot to boil over so he could quench the flame beneath it. “We yet await various knights, of Brittany, Germany and elsewhere, who have pledged their service. D’Argentan is en route from Byzantium.”

  “And many supplies have yet to reach us,” Pembroke added. “Without them we will have neither the means to feed our host nor the arms to equip them entirely.”

  Temporarily defeated, I dropped back into my chair. “How much longer then? A day? A week?”

  Pembroke shrugged. “Two weeks. Maybe three. There are ships due at Leith which will fill much of the void.”

  “We cannot tarry here,” Clifford grumbled as he cracked his knuckles, “while time erodes. The date has been set in stone. Fail to meet it and Mowbray tosses his meat scrap to the Scottish wolves.”

  “This is an enormous undertaking, my lord,” Pembroke said. “We have over two-hundred horse and oxen carts to move. Fifteen thousand foot soldiers.”

  Clifford interrupted, “Which do nothing but stumble and crawl and pule like slobbering infants who have shit themselves. I told all of you that it was more infantry than we needed. I have gone up against the Scots more than any of you and you’re fools, all, if you don’t think they’re any match for us man for man. They were bloody born to fight. Beat them with what they don’t have. Archers and cavalry will get the job done and right.”

  “And if during all these skirmishes,” Pembroke said, “you had figured the Scots out so well, you’d have beaten them back to the Shetlands by now. Of heavy cavalry there are nearly –”

  I rolled my head. “I thank you, earl, for reminding us of those counts yet one more time. I doubt you are one to advise any of us, since he thrashed you soundly at both Glen Trool and Loudon Hill.” Weary of doing battle with nagging and unwavering barons, I slumped back in my chair, dangled my arms over its sides and swung my feet up onto the table. I laid my hand across my eyes to shut out the light. “We shall march when supplies are in order. As for the knights seeking easy glory, for them we will not wait. Impatience overrules me. Ah, damn it! Someone call on Jankin to bring me a drink
of poppy and peony root. This ceaseless prattle will cause my head to explode. If anyone breathes the names of Thomas of Lancaster or Robert the Bruce again this day I will have his tongue hacked out and tossed in the pig slop. Damn it. Jankin!”

  Leith, 1314

  An easterly wind rattled the riggings of the fleet of supply ships at Leith’s port on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Goods were being ferried to shore from some of the larger ships by brown, bare-chested men stroking the oars of their sluggish little boats through the rippling water of the firth. Gulls floated and jeered above in a terrible clamor, trained to follow sea vessels in hopes of freshly caught fish, and occasionally landed on the decks to harass the sailors. The smell of brine scoured my throat and scraped at the pit of my stomach. North, the Firth of Forth divided the land, gaping broader and broader as it ran eastward until it mingled indistinguishably with the sea. Four days ago we had left Berwick – an entire week later than planned. Today was the 21st of June. Our pace would have to be doubled to reach Stirling in time. It could be done. Calculations had proven it. But with each hour, my barons became more irascible, the troops more troublesome and I more impatient.

  Mounted on my bay and followed by a legion of nobles on horses with gay trappings, I passed through a swarm of grumbling footsoldiers. They parted with downcast heads as they saw me. In their midst, a captain lashed at the bleeding back of a soldier whose hands were roped to the back side of a supply wagon. The soldier wailed in agony as the whip seared across his flesh. The captain, taking perverse delight in his work, cast back his arm again.

  “Hold there.” I leaned forward upon my saddle. “What offense has this man committed?”

  Lowering the whip, the captain dragged a scarred arm across his half-toothless mouth. His chest heaved with exertion. He let himself down on one knee, bowed his head of sweat-matted hair and said in a voice choked with dust, “Said his feet were too sore to go on, m’lord.”