A King Uncaged

by J. R. Tomlin

He raised his sword over his head and brought it down with a slash as he shouted, "Attack!" He slashed his horse with his spurs. It plunged to a gallop.

  He rode knee to knee with Douglas and Mar down the slight incline, their heavy horses picking up speed as they went. James’ banner streamed golden and red from Scrymgeour's staff, the rampant lion seeming to slash with its claws as it rippled. Ahead, the battle was a seething chaos as the Highlanders and pikemen hacked at each other.

  James turned his head, trying to see through the narrow slit in his helm to find the rebel leaders. Those of certainty would be ahorse. James’ stallion jumped over a body, hooves churning the dry earth and clods flying. James lifted his sword, shouting, "Scotland! Scotland!" as he hacked from behind through the neck of one of the attackers, and the force of his charging horse took the man's head from his body.

  Douglas drove his lance through the bare chest of a Highlander, lifting him from his feet before the lance snapped. Ahead through the seething mass of the battle was a small knot of mounted men with the Stewart banner fluttering over their heads. At last, was James’ first thought. Indeed, Johne is as fat as they say. He was as big around as two barrels and sat astride a horse as huge as any James had ever seen. But first James had to stay alive to reach them, for the enemy was upon him, and he was surrounded. He hacked right and left with huge scything sweeps of his sword.

  A Highlander lashed out at James’ horse with his axe, and James knocked it aside. The man darted back for another try. James jerked on his reins, his horse reared, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. He rode the man down. Douglas was surrounded by three foes, but he took one down with a slash and raked the second across the neck with a backslash. John Scrymgeour dropped the point of his staff and drove it and James’ banner through a Highlander's chest.

  James urged his horse back into motion, jumping it over a scatter of corpses, some rebels and some his own men. The schiltron surged forward in an attempt to throw back the attackers. "To me!" James shouted to the other horsemen. "To me!" And he pressed toward the leaders of the rebels. Mar and the others were beside him again, and they were off. "Douglas! Douglas!" the earl cried as they rode. Let him as long as he is on my side, James thought whilst he had time.

  His arm ached already from the continual slashing. Only a few followed him, the rest dead or tangled in the madness of the fighting. He wrestled his horse to keep it heading toward the banner that waved over the battle. The horse dodged another slashing axe and kicked someone's head. "Stewart!" he shouted. "Scotland!"

  Another axeman ran at him. James lopped off the head of the axe and then his arm. The man sank shrieking to his knees as another tried to hook his axe under the destrier's belly. Mar's courser kicked in the man's chest, and he went sprawling. Douglas raised his mace to point beyond a small knot of heaving men. "Your Grace, look." It was Johne the Fat, surrounding by a score of mounted knights. Beside Johne was a thin man in armor with an ornate gold cross hanging from his neck, the bishop, James thought.

  A thrown axe came tumbling at James from the left and thunked off his shield. He ignored it and rode hard toward Johne and his company. His cousin met him with a scream of rage, and their destriers slammed together. James wondered that any horse could carry the man but had no time for more when his cousin slammed a blow into James’ shield, shouting. "Die! Die, usurper!"

  James hacked at his cousin's head and shoulders. Steel clanged and grated upon steel. James realized the man was slow but strong as an ox. Where were the others? He couldn't see them in the narrow slit of his helm and daren't turn his head to look. "Die, damn you," Johne snarled, chopping savagely at James’ shield. James pulled back on his reins and signaled his destrier to rear; its hooves slashed in Johne's face.

  The man jerked back just in time, but James saw the flash of an axe in the edge of his vision. His horse screamed and twisted, trying to escape the pain. James jerked his feet free of the stirrups to leap free, but it was too late. He was falling. He kicked his foot over the saddle so it wouldn't be crushed. His shoulder hit the ground with a sickening thud. Groaning, he couldn't see past the flashes of blinding white light. He dragged himself a few feet on the hard, torn earth. A horse was above him. He looked, stomach churning with pain, at its brown belly. It was immense. His head spun, but he pawed at his empty scabbard. Then he heard the man on the horse shouting, "Douglas! To me! A Douglas!" James rolled onto his side and tried to get to his knees, but pain jolted through his shoulder. His stomach roiled and his mouth filled with bile. He held his breath so he wouldn't throw up inside his helm.

  Somewhere a trumpet blew. There were more shouts and screams and the thunder of horses' hooves, but he couldn't quite take it all in.

  Dazed, James looked up to see Douglas shielding him on one side and Mar on the other. Beneath the feet of Mar's horse lay James the Fat's Stewart banner. He blinked at it, confused. When he tried to stand, pain hammered through his shoulder, but he managed to lurch to his feet. He looked around and the battle had ceased. "We've won?" he croaked and lifted his visor. The movement nearly put him on his knees from the pain.

  "A victory of sorts," Mar said with a scowl. "They're running. When you went down, they got Johne away."

  "Why aren't you chasing them then?"

  "Keeping you alive was more important," Mar pointed out.

  James meant to thank him, but instead when he opened his mouth, he spewed on the ground. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I thank you, my lord, for my life, but pursue them, by all the saints. Take your own men, and Douglas may bide here with me."

  Mar saluted him with a bloody sword and shouted to his herald. The trumpets sounded again as he rode to gather his men.

  There were groans from the injured and dying Highlanders left behind by the retreat. A knight was ridding down a fleeing man who tossed away his axe as he ran to splash into the river. A pikeman kicked over a body he was looting. Bodies were being dragged by the feet into a pile. A loud moaning was suddenly cut off with the hack of a pike. One of his men knelt over a body, cursing.

  "I need another horse." James had liked that destrier and another would be expensive to come by, but it was best not to become over-fond of warhorses. By the time they found a courser and brought it to him, Mar's force had swept from the field following the trail of the rebels.

  With his shoulder throbbing inside his armor, James climbed carefully into the saddle. He and Douglas rode over the battlefield looking over their losses. Many were dead; pikemen had died by the hundred, for Lochaber axes were terrible in their efficiency. Bodies lay in pools of congealing blood, their thighs and bellies ripped open. The clerics had already set up a small tent and were helping to bandage the wounded. John Scrymgeour was nursing a dagger slash across his face. The earl of Angus limped to them, his leg nearly crushed when his horse, like James’, was cut out from under him. James sighed. Of the thousand men who had ridden into battle with him, he thought perhaps half had survived.

  "You'd best have that shoulder put right," Douglas said, "if it is to heal."

  James nodded. He was sure it was dislocated rather than broken, but putting it back into place was going to hurt worse than having it set. He would have it tended, but first he turned to the earl. "I'll be no warrior king. It is best you should know that. I fight when I must, but…" He took a deep breath. "I hate this business."

  Douglas shrugged. "Mayhap you shan't have many battles to fight, but I'd lay no wagers on it."

  Listing to one side, his shoulder and arm thrumming with pain, James turned his horse’s head and rode toward the tent where clerics bent over the wounded, winding bandages around bloody limbs.

  Chapter Fifteen

  May 15, 1425

  The Great Hall of Stirling Castle was muggy with heat from the warm May day, but much of the warmth was from the close press of bodies; the scent of lavender, musk, and orris root combined with the smell of sweat into a cloying fug. Every nobleman, churchman, and burgher qualified for parlia
ment was packed into the vast chamber. The whitewashed stone walls were covered with hunting tapestries, but behind the throne hung a banner as huge as a ship's sail of the royal standard being held by two rampant white unicorns.

  When James entered, the guards slammed shut the doors and crossed their pikes. He glanced briefly at the gallery screen, where Joan and her ladies watched. The crown was heavy on his head, and he felt a trickle of sweat run from beneath it, but the honors of Scotland must show the severity of the acts to be taken this day, so he gripped the scepter in his hand and strode solemnly up the narrow aisle to the dais. The hall was remarkably quiet. Someone coughed and there was a soft shuffling of feet. He passed the row of the assize of twenty-one nobles who would pass judgment on Lord Walter Stewart. All but two of the earls of the kingdom and fourteen knights would decide the traitors' fates.

  The great officers of state were already in position around the throne. John Scrymgeour leaned a bit on the staff of the banner he held, his face pasty from a wound fever and the slash on his face red and puckered. William Hay stood to the side holding before him the Sword of State. Robert de Keith stood next to the throne with his hand on the hilt of his sword, the only man in the hall to be allowed one other than the guards. James nodded to Bishop Wardlaw, who stood before a throne nearly as ornate as that of the king's, and sat in the heavy throne.

  The prisoners stood in a line at the side of the room, but the guards surrounding them and the chains on their hands did not detract from their finery. All four were as well clad as anyone in the room in silk doublets and hose. A place was left empty for Johne the Fat, who had managed to flee pursuit for Ireland. Walter Stewart sat apart from the others because his was to be the first trial. He glared at James, his dark eyes seething with not a sign of fear, and his head was tilted at an arrogant angle.

  The chancellor banged his gavel on the table where the Great Seal lay displayed. He cleared his throat, and James wished he could have spared the man this. His face was so gray and his hands had such a tremor that James wasn't sure he could keep to his feet for the long day ahead of them. But after pausing to look over the parliament, he said in a clear voice, "I bring before you the indictment of Lord Walter Stewart. He stands accused of high treason in that he stated the intent to rule the realm; in that he refused to swear fealty to his rightful king and lord; in that he conspired with others to take up arms against his king and lord; in that he planned and intended regicide. Of all this we do have witnesses to attest."

  When the chancellor called Alan of Otterburn, Murdoch made a choked sound and looked around with a certain wide-eyed desperation. Even Walter's lips thinned, but otherwise his expression didn't change as the rangy man with ginger hair down to his shoulders was brought in. His Adam's apple bobbed, but he answered Lauder's questions calmly enough. Aye, he had written letters addressed to Walter Stewart planning the king's death and his father taking the throne to name Walter as regent. When Lauder held out letters taken from Walter in his dungeon in Bass Rock Castle, Otterburn nodded sharply and agreed those were ones he had written. Aye, the letters had been given to Sir John Montgomery to carry. Aye, letters had been exchanged with the earl of Lennox, Sir Johne Stewart, and the Bishop of Argyll to plan the uprising.

  James sat unmoving, cold as ice as he listened to the testimony of their plans for his murder. It had been no more calculatingly planned than that of his brother so many years before, and at the same hands, though the old man was dead. James would have raged, but instead he felt frozen. None of this was new, yet hearing the planning of it that had taken a year made him so cold that he thought he might never warm. And he looked at the faces in the parliament and had to wonder… Were these truly all who had conspired? Were there others who plotted foul treason and murder?

  Brought in, the hulking John Montgomery of Ardrossan confessed that he had subverted one of the guards at Bass Rock Castle to carry letters. "I dinnae read, my lords," he insisted looking around at the serious faces. "How could I ken what was in the letters they gave me?"

  Many in the hall had heard Walter claim the throne for his father before James had him imprisoned at Bass Rock, but Thomas Myrton stood to testify to it.

  At the end, given the chance to defend himself, Walter surged to his feet with a hoarse laugh. "You accuse me when it is you who have no right to the throne. It was my father who should have been king, never yours."

  There were gasps and a few whispers. The Albanys had always claimed that James’ grandfather's marriage was not valid, but the Church had not agreed. James slowly shook his head. How many had died and how long had he suffered for this heedless, foolish claim?

  "Enough," the chancellor said, banging his gavel. "If you have a defense, we will hear it, but this treason is no defense, and we shall not suffer it."

  Murdoch was nothing if not arrogant. James gave him that much because he threw back his head and proclaimed, "I do not admit this man's right to try me. Now I have naught more to say." His back stiff with pride, he sat back down.

  James clutched the arms of the throne but otherwise moved not a muscle as Lauder polled the assize.

  "My lords, it is now your duty before King James and the Estates of Scotland to give your verdict on the charges against Lord Walter Stewart. Guilty or innocent? My lord Earl of Atholl."

  "Guilty," Atholl rapped out in a gruff voice.

  "My lord Earl of Douglas."

  "Guilty," said the impassive Douglas.

  Mar had just ridden in the night before from where his men were laying siege to Inchmurrin Castle, where Lennox's sons were proclaiming defiance, and he looked tired and worn, but he rapped out a quick, "Guilty."

  The grim tally went on, each man called on. Although the entire parliament was gathered, only the twenty-one members of the assize were called upon for a verdict. Every one of them gave a guilty verdict. James let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, but his eyes were fixed on the man who had so desperately wanted him dead. Walter Stewart's face had never changed, though he'd drawn his hands into tight fists. He was no coward, traitor though he was.

  William Lauder's voice wavered a bit, and James saw that he looked at the far wall rather than at the prisoner as he said, "There is only one thing that I—as Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland—can do. It is not a matter of choice. Only one duty now devolves upon me:

  “It is ordered by the parliament of Scotland that you, Walter Stewart, suffer the punishment of death by having your head struck from your body at the place known as Heading Hill this day. This is the sentence of the law of Scotland."

  Murdoch gave a strangled cry, and there was a low murmur that went through the whole chamber like a wave in a lake. A single voice somewhere in the crowd called out a low, "Our Lady forfend." When Lauder turned toward him, James feared the frail man might collapse. He almost reached a hand toward him but stopped himself when Lauder steadied himself and said, "I command that the officers of state carry out this sentence forthwith unless his King's Grace commands that his will is otherwise."

  James tore his gaze from Lauder and fixed it upon the far wall. His grip on the arms of the throne turned his knuckles white. He fixed his mouth into a hard line and said nothing.

  After a moment, Lauder said, "Then justice shall be done. This parliament is adjourned until tomorrow for the trial of the other accused. God save the king!"

  James managed to pry his fingers loose and stood with a jerk. He turned and strode out the rear door without ever having said a word. His jaw was clenched so tight he wasn't sure he could have.

  Chapter Sixteen

  James wasn't sure if he should be glad or sorry that Walter Stewart died as arrogantly as he had lived. The duke brushed past the priest who accompanied him and swaggered to the stone at the top of Heading Hill. His glance at James was almost taunting.

  The crowd was utterly silent. The priest clutched at Walter's cloak and said something, but the prisoner shook him off. The lords, knights, burghers,
and servants moved aside as the headsman trod past, tall and with arms like tree trunks, his face hidden by a hood. James heard a woman scream somewhere in the crowd. The priest fell to his knees, running his rosary beads through his fingers.

  The afternoon was hot, and sweat pooled under James’ arms like a swamp. Clutching his hands into fists, he forced his face to blankness. He must not show what he felt, although God in Heaven, he wasn't sure what he felt. Despair, perhaps, but emotions roiled through him like water at the boil so confused he could not tell one from another. This was his duty. But how could he relish it so? When had he become so much like Henry of Monmouth? He thought his neck might snap, so tightly were his muscles clenched.

  At the heading stone, the headsman gestured and Walter Stewart knelt. He brushed his hair out of the way. As the headsman raised the axe with both hands high above his head, its curved blade glistened in the bright sunlight.

  The headsman did his job well and took the head off with a single blow. Crimson sprayed across the grass. The head bounced and then rolled, and James could not take his eyes off it. The heat had gone out of the day, and once again he felt cold all through. He swallowed hard. He would have to send the headsman a reward, he thought, as he returned to the castle trailed by his officers of state. No one spoke to him. Perhaps his expression was grim enough to deter them.

  He would have spared Joan his mood if he could, but there was nothing to do but return to the royal apartments. She waved out her two ladies, both Douglases, and poured him a goblet of wine. He sipped it as he paced around the chamber touching the hangings and the papers on the table, trying to ground himself where he was and put the sight of that head bounding across the grass out of his mind. He had killed men before often enough. But never had he been forced to execute someone, even a mortal enemy. He should have felt…something that he did not. Sorrow? Rage? Instead he felt empty, as though he had lost his very self. The morrow would be even worse.