A King Ensnared, A Historical Novel of Scotland (The Stewart Chronicles Book 1)

by Tomlin, J. R.

  James leaned back against the thick edge of the open gate and stripped off his helm. The cool morning breeze caught his sweat-drenched hair and moved it around his neck. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes before he straightened.

  Whilst Duke Humphrey’s men were gathering up the prisoners, he went looking for their wounded and dead. He turned over bodies, but they did not wear the English devices. But one he found with a quarrel through his chest in a pool of blood. Another had been thrown from the parapet and lay with his head at a hideous angle. Their sergeant sat on the bottom step of the stairs to the parapet walk, wrapping a strip torn from his surcoat around his bleeding arm.

  When James climbed the stairs, he found Sir John face down at the top, one of the knight’s squires kneeling beside him. James squatted and turned him onto his back. He blinked away a burning behind his eyes. He’d become strangely fond of his guard dog.

  For charging a city’s walls, they had done well with so few deaths. He left the squire to look after the body, sent his own squire for his horse and went to join Duke Humphrey. The duke was standing beside his courser as his squire stripped off his gauntlets and their men stripped the prisoners, herded together and hands bound, of their armor and weapons.

  “A fine attack,” the duke said when he saw James. “You did well.”

  James nodded his thanks. “How many prisoners?”

  “Twenty, though we must search the city to be certain none have hidden.” His mouth had an angry twist. “Five are Scots. Two are English. Those will hang by the king’s orders.”

  “The Scots are not his subjects. You have no right to hang them.” James pulled off his gauntlets and threw them hard on the ground. “Do what you will with the English, but the Scots are mine to deal with. They only fought as their liege lord commanded. I’ll nae have them hang.”

  He looked at the duke, face set and ready to fight the matter to a finish, but Duke Humphrey sighed. “My royal brother would take that very ill.”

  “Then he must.”

  “You earned the right, I suppose. Though I won’t take the raking for you when he hears.” The duke turned his head and shouted to a tall, lanky sergeant, “Release the Scots to Lord James.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  September 1421

  Two men-at-arms rode beside James and fifty more behind as they passed though the charred desolation of the Loire valley. Lord Humphrey had turned aside with their main force at his brother’s command to proceed to Rougemont, but James followed the blue-green ribbon of the river Loire. Farmhouses were blackened shells, and the carcasses of dogs and cattle rotted under living blankets of feeding ravens. Occasionally, smoke still drifted from the fields. His escort seemed lost without their leader, but if anything, their confusion led them to keep him under closer watch. They were never more than a step from his side.

  They crossed the long stone bridge to Beaugency, the river splashing below, and it was midday when they rode into sight of the castle towering over the Loire like a steep gray mountain. Its granite walls might have existed forever, so massive did they seem, higher and thicker than even the Tower of London. This apple will not fall easily into Henry’s lap, James thought.

  The vast English camp lay just out of bowshot from its walls. Men swarmed over the skeleton of a tall trebuchet they were building beside three others already completed. As he watched, the arm on one was pulled back, and it released a stone that sailed over the wall. Even from the road, James heard the crash.

  Behind the trebuchets, thousands of tents and campfires and pavilions were spread out in neat array. On one side were picket lines of horses, and nearer, lines of empty wagons awaiting a move to another siege or battle; and all around the perimeter, sentries stood watch. His brother’s defeat had made Henry even more wary than usual. It had them all.

  On the ramparts between the merlons, James could make out movements as men watched. High above fluttered the blue and gold banner of the Dauphin Charles, though James was sure it was only defiance and the prince was not there.

  As they rode between the tents, James could feel eyes on his back, though perhaps it was his imagination that they were hostile. But James had sent a message ahead, as had Duke Humphrey, about the capture of Dreux. How angry Henry was that the Scots had been freed, James had no way to guess. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  “Your Grace,” Iain said, “where should we pitch your tent?”

  James grimaced. Without knowing how he would be greeted, he wasn’t sure if it should be. But Henry wouldn’t pack him off to the Tower of London before tomorrow, so he pointed to the edge of the camp. “There. And find us some food. I’m weary and may be more so after I call on King Henry.”

  He turned his horse’s head and swung from the saddle beneath the huge Plantagenet banner that flew about King Henry’s pavilion. He raised an eyebrow at the blank look of the guards at the flap and said, “Tell His Grace that Lord James awaits.”

  The man gave him a stony look under his helm, which spoke a great deal, but James crossed his arms, studying the scurrying clouds in the August sky as he waited. When the guard returned, he said that Henry would see him shortly and to wait. James turned his head to conceal a wry smile. He was to be humiliated as part of his punishment for sparing the Scots, but he had suffered worse in his day.

  He tried to think of a new line for the poem he was writing for Lady Joan, but the camp rang to the hammering on the new trebuchet and the periodic crash of a stone being thrown. It droned with men talking, cursing, and laughing as they waited for something to happen. He shifted his feet and wished for a chair. The morning’s ride, after so many others, had been long. His body ached from the weight of his armor. At last, he crouched and picked up a twig to scrawl in the dust.

  A squire threw back the flap and peered around before he noticed James where he was scratching a line of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale into the dirt:

  And therefore, at the king’s court, my brother,

  Each man for himself, there is none other.

  “Lord James, His Grace requires your presence.”

  James threw down the twig and strode into the pavilion behind the squire, who went to stand quietly in a corner.

  He bowed and smiled crookedly. “Your Grace.”

  “Lord James. You expressly disobeyed my command and violated your own edict with your actions at Dreux.” The English king had not raised his voice, but James could see anger seething in his eyes. “I do not tolerate disobedience in my commanders.”

  “You had no right to give me commands concerning the Scots,” James said quietly. “If I am their king, then only I may command. If I am not, my edict has no weight.”

  “You are my prisoner. My pensioner. And were my commander. Obedience is what I expect and what I shall have.”

  James bowed slightly. “And you shall have it, sire. Except where it affects my own realm.”

  King Henry rose abruptly. “You no longer have my trust, Lord James. No longer. So I now set you to a task and with such guardians that trust is not needed.” He glared at the squire. “Pour me a cup of wine.” The king took the wine cup and swirled it thoughtfully before he took a deep drink. “The queen will give me a son within a few months. As soon as they are strong enough to travel, I shall have them brought to Rouen. You will go there and set up a household and prepare a household for the queen. One of my clerks, a John Waterton, will provide you with funds and help oversee the task. And you shall—” Henry glared at him. “—have a new keeper and more bodyguards to be most straightly watched.”

  James almost smiled at the king’s certainty he would have a son. But then, with King Henry’s good luck, he probably would. Biting the inside of his cheek, he kept his face still and wooden. In truth, it was better than he had expected, but smiling would hardly be wise, so he said, “Might I ask who this new keeper is?”

  “Sir William Meryng.” Henry glowered at him, his lips tight and scar white against his dark face. “I have given
him four squires and ten archers for your guard, and he will attend you beginning today.”

  “As you command, sire.”

  James walked slowly to his tent and ducked within to where Lyon was pouring wine and Dougal was slicing a haunch of beef. Iain knelt to unfasten his cuirass. His chest was dripping with sweat, so James dipped a cloth in the basin and sponged himself clean. It felt good after the long, hot, weary ride.

  “We may enjoy Rouen, I suppose,” he said. And in truth, unlike the English king, James did not love war. Henry said war without burning was like sausage without mustard, but James was sure he could live without either.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  May 1422

  James had somehow missed the feast. He had seen that he was outside the city riding with Sir William and his constant escort, inspecting the tent city that housed the five hundred men the king had brought with him to meet his queen at Rouen. The king’s face had been grim when he learned she had not brought his son, but she pleaded the infant’s youth. The king surely did not want to expose him to the rigors of a sea voyage when he had only six months.

  The royal hall had been scented with roast venison and spices, but James was sure they could find a meal at one of the hundreds of cook fires. Iain had shaved his cheeks close and brushed the blue doublet he had worn to be dubbed, a gift from King Henry. And the letter he had left in Lady Joan’s room would, he could only pray, bring her to the little garden tucked behind an old lady’s solar, no longer used. He had seen for a moment her golden head as the hall had swarmed with the queen’s court all in all colors when the king strode in, his steel armor burnished, decorated with gold scrollwork. James knelt and kissed the queen’s hand before fleeing.

  Sir William was a tough old knight, big and bristly and stubborn in following his king’s command to keep James under close guard, but not unkindly. He laughed when they walked between the cook fires as the afternoon darkened toward a soft May night. “You did well, Lord James, escaping another feast, sitting until our arses were numb.”

  James slapped his back and grinned. “That I did.” They kicked up puffs of dust in the ground broken by a thousand feet. The sound of drunken laughter came from one of the larger tents. Apparently the king had loosened the stricture on drunkenness, at least for the night, or they dared punishment. A smell of shite blew from the picket lines just to the north. The arrival of the King of Scots was noticed. A circle of men casting a die stopped to watch him. A whore, whom he recognized from the town, taking a coin from the first of several men in a line, grinned at him and called out that her sisters were still in the town. With a smile, James replied that they would have to find new custom.

  “Lord James,” someone yelled after him. When he turned, a sergeant who had gone over the wall with him at Dreux offered him half a rabbit that sizzled over his fire. James split it in two, handed quarter to Sir William, and squatted by the fire. “Have you seen him?” the sergeant asked. “The new prince?”

  His mouth full of the dripping meat, James wiped his lips on his arm and swallowed. “Still in England. It would be a rough crossing for a bairn. Nae doubt his mother knew best to leave him home.”

  Sir William nodded. “Aye, but it would have been good for the king to see the boy.” He gave James a frowning look, and James nodded. No one spoke about the dark circles under the king’s eyes, his thin face, or that he had winced from a sudden pain when he dismounted. But Henry of Monmouth was too young to ail. It must have only been weariness from a long siege.

  Juices ran down the sergeant’s face as he stuffed a hunk of rabbit in his mouth, and he said around the meat, “I’m right glad to be in the king’s train. It’s taking a rest for me.” He took a cautious look around before he said, “The siege was bad enough. Men died like flies from the flux, and the be-damned French fought like very hell-spawn devils.” He gave a sheepish look. “It shames me, but I cannot take pleasure in drowning even my enemies when they yield.” He gave James a pointed look.

  James grunted. The man had cut the prisoners loose when James forgave them for fighting against him. James loosened the wineskin he had tied to his belt and offered it to the sergeant, who thanked him kindly and took a long pull. They passed it between the three of them to wash down the rabbit, until Sir William drained the last drop as the sun melted into the hills, sending streams of orange and red across the darkling sky.

  James wished the sergeant good luck and trailed by the squires and archers started back toward the gray stone keep of Rouen Castle, where, since the king’s command, James had kept his household. “A pity there was nae enough wine to share wi’ the squires,” James observed, loudly enough that his voice carried to the guard.

  “We are not lackeys to haul about a tun of wine for the squires,” Sir William said.

  At the stairs to the tower up to James’s chamber, he sketched a bow and left as one of the squires followed to keep watch outside the door.

  When they reached it, James gave the spotty, plump squire a kind look. “Alart, they call you? You didn’t have even a mouthful of the wine. Come in, and we’ll share a cup wi’ you.” When he gave James a worried, hopeful look, James said, “You’ll be standing guard, only within the room.”

  James felt a bit sorry that the wine wasn’t watered, as the lad no doubt was used to, and it was richer than anything a squire would be allowed. James stretched out his legs and refilled Alart’s wine cup, sipping at his own, and refilled it again whilst the lad blethered on about being knighted and the adventures he would have until his head dropped onto the table and his snores grated in the night air. Iain chuckled, and James said, “Look after him. He’s nae likely to awake, but if he does, give him some more wine or knock him on the head.” He winced. “Nae too hard, though.”

  James put a light summer cloak around his shoulders, held a taper to one of the torches, and made his way down the stairs. At the hall to the king’s quarters, a guard saluted as he passed. Down he went to the ground floor and to the old tower and to a narrow side door. He snuffed the taper and stepped out into a garden. The ground blanketed in primroses and crowned with a circle of tall beeches. He bent to break off a branch of the sweet-smelling wildflowers and waited in the deep shade of the trees.

  When the door opened, she stepped out and walked slowly into the midst of the flowers. Silhouetted against the moonlight, her hair was a golden halo. She lifted her face to the moon and seemed to be listening, perhaps for his footsteps or just for the rustle of the wind in the leaves.

  James moved toward her. She jerked her head at the sound of a twig snapping beneath his foot. “You came,” he said and felt foolish.

  “As did you, my lord.” She tilted her head, serious, inquiring like the nightingale the first day he saw her and waited until he came close, and then she lowered her eyes.

  With his fingertips he stroked the side of her neck and leaned his forehead against hers. “Joan.” His voice was thick. “Be my lady. My queen.” She looked up at that, showing James the mysterious smile he had come to love. “I love you,” he confessed.

  She put a hand on his chest, and he pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her hair.

  “I love the softness of your skin. I love your golden hair. I love your mouth and the way you smile at me.”

  “Much to love,” she whispered. “Or little. There is more to me than my soft skin.”

  He kissed her. “You have a strength that I think mayhap no one but I can see. A sweetness that everyone sees. And sometimes, when we talk, you laugh. Did I say that I love your laugh? My sweet… My goddess.”

  She chuckled then, low and throaty. “You are a poet, my lord. Everyone knows so. I am no goddess.”

  “Just my lady, then? My queen, if I gain my crown? Come with to Scotland. Be with me.” He kissed her mouth. She kissed him back and twined her arms around his neck. He turned her and pressed her back against the beech tree, leaning into her so that he felt her body beneath the silk that she wore. When he broke o
ff, she was breathing fast.

  “Your lady,” she whispered. “You Grace, I would be your lady.”

  He kissed her again deeply and whispered against her ear, “Promise yourself to me. I have nae ring for you, but I faithfully promise to marry you in times meet and fitting.”

  She made a sound, not quite laugh nor sob, and said in a choked voice. “I promise.”

  “Then lie with me? Now? My own Lady Joan.”

  “The earth will be hard…” Her voice wavered.

  “Aye. Earth is as hard as life, but the primroses will ease it.”

  She looked up at him thoughtfully. Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and he waited. “I will.”

  She loosed her cloak from her shoulders and unfastened her gown, not hurrying, until it was a pool of silk around her feet. James’s hands shook as he shed his clothes, dropping them in piles.

  Her skin glowed ivory in the moonlight. He drank in her proud, straight body. She stretched out a hand and touched the scar on his arm, stroked it lightly, but her glance was wily and coquettish. “When you looked at me across the dance floor that first night, were you thinking of this?”

  “Aye. You could tell?”

  “I could.”

  He took the hand that stroked his arm and kissed her palm and her wrist. “I was afeart so.”

  She laughed and slipped the other arm around his neck. “Truly?”

  There were no more words. He stroked her soft, round breasts and pulled her against him. They sank into the bed of primroses to learn of each other’s bodies, pleased and pleasing. She wrapped her arms around him and welcomed him. The world narrowed down to the two of them. Slow and delicious, the surge of fire built. She called out, “James!” in a kind of convulsion, and James went up in a burst, heat rushing through him. A swooping wave threw James forward. He shuddered—thoughts, strength, all faculties gone—everything boiled up and out and into his lady.