The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “You’ve a face as long as your leg.” James Douglas hopped over a broken gravestone and faced the stabbing rain to survey the abbey.

  He had been with me since before my crowning at Scone eight years ago and I swear he had not aged a day. Why were the years not so kind to me? Slight of build and soft-spoken, he was unimpressive at first glance; yet time and again I had seen him cut down foes far bigger than him in a single blow. His father, Sir William Douglas, had once held Berwick against the first Edward, Longshanks. The siege, however, turned into a massacre and the elder Douglas gave up the town to spare its remaining citizens. Ultimately, however, he forfeited his own life.

  I pulled my cloak tight across my breast, even though I had been soaked since leaving Edinburgh in a cold, black October rain days ago.

  James patted my shoulder with a gloved hand. “Faith. They’ll come.”

  “How do you know?” I asked softly. Behind him, above the roof of the abbey, the three bald peaks of the Eildon Hills swam in the darkness of roiling storm clouds. “How do you know? I’ve heard men say you have an extra sense that tells you when the enemy is near. Do you truly? Can you tell the same for loved ones?”

  He gave that faint, familiar grin of his to impart his steady confidence. “Because you sent Gil and Randolph to take care of it. That’s how I know. On their lives, they would never fail you.”

  Nor would you, good James. I should know better than to doubt any of you, but it is the uncertainty of fate that troubles me now – things we mere men have no guidance over.

  Months of haggling with England’s king, Edward of Caernarvon, had left me a pessimist. The wretch was still in denial, refusing to relinquish his alleged rights to Scotland, despite the pummeling he had taken. For now though, more than I wanted his blessing, I wanted Elizabeth – my wife, my queen – to come home to me.

  The Earl of Hereford, captured at Bannockburn, was my pawn. To hand him back, I had demanded a hefty ransom that would rob his heirs for eternity. Then, to quell King Edward’s protests over the amount, I promised to give back the Great Seal and Royal Shield at no further recompense, but for the return of my womenfolk and Bishop Wishart.

  So it was here at Melrose that we waited on the appointed day to receive them, whilst my nephew, Thomas Randolph, and my commander and old companion, Gil de la Haye, went to meet an English envoy at Jedburgh where the exchange was to occur. At border’s edge, Jedburgh was deemed too dangerous for me to go there. But staying behind, waiting ... ah now, that was more torturous than the threat of a fight.

  My men – their weapons rattling as they shivered against the cold – huddled beneath the naked branches of a massive yew at the far end of the graveyard. Days of rain leaching into the earth had stirred up the faintly sweet, sickening smell of decomposing flesh. As the wind drove the rain in staggering walls, Neil Campbell leaned wearily against his horse, uttering prayers for the soul of Mary – his wife, my sister – who would not be among those to come home. When she and the others were dragged from sanctuary at St. Duthac’s shrine by the Earl of Ross in 1306 and handed over to Longshanks, who was king before his namesake Edward II, she was dangled from the walls of Roxburgh Castle in a wooden cage – left there to suffer through winter cold and heavy rain. Four long years later, they removed her and tucked her away in a Carmelite nunnery. But she never recovered from a sickness that settled in her lungs. When the negotiations with King Edward began, only then did we learn she had died over a year earlier. Neil, who for a short time had been radiant with hope, was now drowning in grief.

  For hours we waited there, growing colder and hungrier, but no one would go inside the ruined buildings because I would not leave. So very cold I became in my drenched, padded leather and chain mail that my muscles cramped and the feeling drained from my fingers and toes.

  They should have arrived by noon. It was now nearly sunset – or would be, if the sun could be seen at all. “Why are they not here yet?”

  James paced over the soggy ground. “The Teviot is running deep. They may have had to travel further upstream to find a place to ford it.”

  Likely they had, but that did little to quiet my mind. As I stood in the pouring rain, with the engorged River Tweed sloshing and gurgling at my back and the desecrated abbey before me, I knew I should have been full of blissful anticipation at the occasion, no matter the misery of the weather, but instead I felt only the oppressive gloom of the clouds.

  “You’ll watch after my Marjorie? Make certain no harm comes to her? No dishonor? Swear it.”

  “On my life, Robert. You know that.” James blew a cloud of steaming breath into the chilly air. “We should go inside and build a fire; dry off while we wait.”

  “Eight years is long enough to wait,” I mumbled.

  “So it is,” he said, “but it would be a great shame to have them come home to find you drowned in your boots. Come inside, Robert. The abbot is still in a terror over this shambles, but I warrant he’ll make the best of it to lodge his king.”

  Without so much as a word from me, James put a hand on my back and guided me across the squelching earth, sidestepping the toppled stones, and up the broad steps of sandstone into Melrose Abbey.

  A belligerent wind hammered its way through gaps and cracks, pushing gusts of rain across the floor. Although damp throughout, it was drier toward the chancel. As I drifted warily toward the altar, white-robed Cistercian monks scattered from the shadows of either transept and disappeared behind lofty columns. Rusted hinges groaned hauntingly.

  “Fine welcome,” I murmured. With cramped hands, I wrung the tail of my cloak, then unfastened the golden clasp inlaid with an emerald at my shoulder – courtesy of King Edward – and snapped the water from it.

  James glanced around. “They’re men of peace. They don’t like soldiers: English or Scottish. It’s not so much us they hate, but that we might invite battle to their doorstep just by being here.”

  “I worry about that myself wherever I go. Bring Walter to me and go fetch the abbot. Invited or not, we’re staying here.”

  Reluctantly, James ventured back out into the deluge. Alone, I stood in the middle of the nave, nothing but shadows surrounding me and the distant hushed footsteps of monks in other parts of the church, tending to their devotions and duties. I took four steps more toward the altar. Hushed echoes seemed to question my worthiness of being there.

  Fitful drafts of wind blew out a torch on a column nearest to me. I pressed forward, step by step, in defiance of my tepid greeting, until I reached the altar. There, I dropped my cloak, went to my knees on the cold, wet stones and folded my hands in prayer. A pater noster tumbled from my lips in thoughtless fashion, but before saying my ‘Amen’, I gazed over my knuckles to the crucifix dangling askance above the altar.

  “I ask not for great riches or further glory, My Lord. Only to see those whom I love come home.” I closed my eyes.

  A simple request, and yet ... How could I dare to ask for what God might not deem fit to give me? Here, I was no king, but a man of many sins.

  The rain on the roof pounded louder and louder until it sounded like an army marching above my head. I must have stayed like that for some time: my hands clenched together, the blood gone from my lower legs. A gentle hand touched my back, startling me; I reached for the knife at my belt in a soldier’s reflexes.

  “You’re blanched, my lord. Shivering terribly.”

  Old Ralph de Monthermer, the Englishman, stood at my shoulder. His hand trembled with palsy. How is it that he had survived Bannockburn so infirm? His skin showed the mottled spots of age, his reflexes were slow, he slept overmuch, and yet he never spoke of being old. In his heart, he was the same vigorous warrior who had fought beside my grandfather. A retainer of King Edward II’s now, we had taken him captive at Bannockburn. Recalling how he had saved my life many years ago at Windsor when Red Comyn betrayed me, I had deigned to spare him the usual dreadful prisoner’s existence.

  I rose slowly to my feet, every j
oint and limb protesting. Remembering my cloak on the floor, I leaned over to pick it up. The backs of my legs tautened so fiercely I thought something might snap. A groan escaped my throat.

  Forty now, my muscles had become stiffer. My sword arm wearied more quickly. The chill of winter and the heat of summer both gave me discomfort, when once I would have run shirtless through the winter snow or been mindless of the sweat pouring down my chest as I practiced at swords with my brother Edward.

  But where vigor fades like fallen leaves, wisdom takes root and grows, courage is replaced by caution, and hope yields to doubt.

  The day was nearly gone – and still they were not with me. Whatever made me believe that today would be any different than yesterday, or the many years before that?

  “You could have gone on with Randolph, Ralph,” I said, my voice raspy with fatigue. “Been on your way home by now.”

  He scratched beneath the neck of his mail coif so that it shifted and sat lopsided on his head. “But my lord, I have rather enjoyed being in your company. Do you treat all your prisoners so well?”

  “Only my friends. I have never forgotten what you did for me. Longshanks would have staked my head on London Bridge had you not warned me in time.” My chin sank to my chest. Being in this place, it was as if the weight of all my wrongs were about to smother me. “I am so ... so sorry about ...”

  Shifting on his feet, Ralph nodded. “Gilbert was a fine soldier. As good a son as any stepson ever was. I wish you could have known him better. You would have liked him well. You were on different sides, that is all. Men die in battle. He was one of them. I hold no grudge on you, Robert. You’re a good man. A good king.”

  “You’re the first Englishman to call me that.”

  “‘King’ ... or ‘good’?”

  “Either. Stay as long as you like, Ralph. Forever, if you care to. I’ll see to it that you’re comfortable and cared for. I do imagine it has already been a thorn under King Edward’s saddle that you’ve been in Scotland so long, since I put no ransom on your head. You’re a free man. Stay or go, as you please.”

  A gust of wind blew in as the front doors swung fully open and men began to come in.

  Ralph readjusted the bothersome edge of his mail coif again. “I’d like to dry out by a fire for now, m’lord. I do want to stay, share stories in your hall some more, but with Gilbert gone there will be business to attend to in Gloucester. He has children and a wife that need looking after.” He sniffed. His lips were blue and every vein on his face stood out starkly. Ralph was two decades my senior and still he had gone to battle at the bidding of his king. If I felt old myself, one look at him and I ceased my complaining.

  “A fire first, though,” I said. “And a decent night’s rest. I’ll give you an escort to Berwick on the morrow.” I looked toward the door, where the clop of hooves caught my ears. “Ah, Walter, here!”

  Walter Stewart led my gray pony toward me, casting glances left and right as he did so.

  James strode beside them and shook his head in disbelief. “If it’s a blessing you want for the beast, my lord, I’m guessing the abbot would prefer to meet you outside for this occasion.”

  “Hear?” I put an ear to the great beast’s ribs. “There’s a rattle in his chest. He needs to be dried off. Then I want the warmest place for Coll you can find.”

  “Coll?” James gave me a quizzical look. The pony, whose head had been hanging low until then, perked his ears at the name and lifted his muzzle. “Wasn’t that the name of your dog?”

  “A name befitting the bravest of creatures, mind you.” Seven years ago, while we had been lying in wait above the road to Cumnock for an approaching column of English led by the Earl of Pembroke, the Lord of Lorne’s forces threatened to entrap us. I divided my men and soon found myself being trailed by my own dog, Coll. To silence the hound, I had been forced to put an arrow through his heart. In doing so, I had demanded the ultimate sacrifice of my loyal companion: his life. There had been no alternative. The pony turned his head to gaze at me through a black fringe of eyelashes. I reached out and stroked his nose. “This one carried me through Bannockburn. I’ll not lose him to neglect.”

  “The stables are down closer to the river,” Walter said, “by the pastures there.”

  “Too far. He’ll stay here until the rain passes.”

  James and Walter exchanged glances. Walter shrugged.

  “Find some blankets.” James nodded toward the door that led to the cloister. “Madness comes with greatness, so they say.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him.

  “I would think,” James said, “you’d care to see to your men first.”

  “It would be a slow journey back to Edinburgh on foot, wouldn’t it?”

  Before he could return the gibe, a little man burst from a doorway and ran limping toward us, frantically waving his arms. The chains dangling from his neck clanked with each hobble. To avoid tripping, he eventually dropped his hands and plucked up the hem of his robes. When he landed in front of us, it was with an angry stomp of both feet in unison.

  “You have no right to bring that unclean creature in here!” He recoiled as Coll blew steaming breath at him. “Take him to the stables. As for you and your hobelars, my lord, the byres are spacious enough.”

  “Byres?” I laughed at the suggestion. “Would you put your king to bed with a heifer, Father?”

  At once, the little man’s jaw unhinged. His gray eyes widened as he took in the ornaments of my clothing: the emerald brooch pinned upon the cloak slung over my arm, my surcoat and its lion emblem, the small coronet upon my helmet. He bobbed in an apologetic bow. “Sire, I did not know it was you. No word of your arrival was sent in advance.”

  “For good reason, Father –”

  “William Peebles, my lord. I am the abbot here.”

  “William Peebles, you say? Bishop Lamberton speaks highly of you.” Lamberton had mentioned the abbot many times and had encouraged me to trust and call on him, should I ever need to. That is why I had chosen this place. “He pushed to have you in this position, you know? Didn’t like that Henry of Dunkeld that York was pressing for. Entirely too English, no matter what he called himself. Court politics have nothing over that of the Church, I tell you. But if Lamberton admires you, so do I. Anyway, as I said, it was for good reason we didn’t announce our coming. I trust you have not been visited by any English of late?”

  “No, no, sire. Not since they passed through after the battle. The damage they inflicted was small, thanks be to Our Lord. It cost us heavily, though, to set them on their way again. As you can see, our relics, our silver – all gone. We had to empty the reliquary to appease them. The cross on the altar came to us from a passing Scottish knight on his way back to Galloway. Said he took it from an English priest attending King Edward’s soldiers in exchange for safe passage through these lands.”

  Abbot William blinked repeatedly and then suddenly flew back toward the door through which he had come. He beckoned to the monks hanging there in trepidation and in a fluster began to direct them to attend to my company. When that was done to his satisfaction, he rushed back to us. “My house is at your disposal, my lord. Not luxurious quarters, but –”

  “Better than the byres, I trust?”

  “It is my opinion they are, although our byres and flock are the best this side of the Tweed. You did not say what brings you here. Will you be in residence long?”

  “We won’t put you out, Abbot William, for longer than is convenient. And you’ll be duly compensated for your losses, I swear to you. As for our purpose, I pray it will become evident soon enough. Until then, I’ll say naught. Fate is a fickle mistress and I prefer not to command her, lest she take offense.”

  The abbot chuckled as he winked at me, and then scurried off to arrange our quarters.

  Neither the remainder of that day nor that night brought us the evidence of the cause for our visit. My horse improved rapidly and was moved to the best stable the abbey had to
offer, much to the abbot’s relief.

  After a bland but filling meal in the refectory in the scrutinizing company of mistrustful monks, we were all allotted sleeping arrangements. Most of my men were given space in the nave itself and as there were not enough blankets to be had, so many fires were struck up on the church floor to warm the men and dry out their clothing that the place soon reeked of smoke, rotting leather and damp wool.

  In a room of the abbot’s house reserved for passing visitors, I shed my armor, trusting that no English would have ridden through these storms after us, and laid my garments over a chair to dry by the brazier. Although the room was more than comfortable – austere though it was, with its mattress of stuffed straw and meager peat brazier in place of a real hearth – sleep eluded me, even though I was dry and fed and beyond exhausted. Worry had a way of gnawing at my soul.

  As I lay in bed, my eyes flicked from the dusty ceiling, to the knotty door, to the small altar that doubled as a table. The candles in the room had burnt themselves to pools of runny wax. I did not notice that their flames had gone out until I glanced at the single, small window along the crumbling east wall and saw a faint, pale crescent of sunlight on the horizon.

  With a cold hand, I smoothed the creases from my pillow, imaging that tomorrow would find Elizabeth’s head there next to mine.

  ***

  James roused me just as the bells rang terce.

  My fingers pinching the edge of my blanket, I glared at him. “It had best be good news, James Douglas. Tell me it is.”

  He grinned faintly. “They’re coming. Over the hills, along the southern road.”

  I drew a hand over my eyes and inhaled the smell of my palm: rusted metal, earth, moldy straw and damp stones. The lingering traces of a soldier’s life. Soon, I would trade all that for a more settled existence – with Elizabeth beside me. I shoved my blanket aside and leapt to my feet, only to be reminded by aching bones that the years spent living out in the open, always battle-ready, had taken their toll and I could not move quite so quickly anymore.