The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  The next night her woman Sibylla passed me the key to Marjorie’s chambers and long after supper, when others had retired, I went to her and stayed with her until nearly dawn.

  To say that we lived dangerously was obvious. Walter would return soon from Rothesay, any day perhaps, and we lived every moment as if it might very well be our last.

  I would never have said it aloud to her, but I began to understand that she and I would never belong wholly to one another. Our opportunity had been taken from us without ever being offered. She would become Walter’s wife and one day perhaps bear a son who would sit upon the throne of Scotland. Those things were walls I could not move.

  But Marjorie had given to me something that would never belong to Walter or any other man.

  I loved her ... and I always would, despite the pain.

  ***

  I went to Selkirk and rode on into England to raid and came back again. I was barely off my horse in the courtyard at Holyrood Palace when Sibylla hurried toward me with an anguished face.

  “The stables, m’lord.” Wringing her hands, she tossed a glance over her shoulder. “She will meet you there.”

  I led my mount to the stables. By the time I reached the stall where I usually kept him and tethered him to the corner post, Marjorie appeared in the aisle. Her hands folded before her, she walked demurely past a busy groom mucking out a stall, turned and suggested he fetch some grain for my horse. As soon as the lad was gone she came to me with a face as gray as a pile of ashes.

  “I am with child,” she whispered.

  A stone of dread plummeted through my gut. I undid the cinch and removed the saddle, then placed it in the aisle for cleaning later. “How ... I mean, there’s no possibility that you’ve miscounted the days?”

  She looked down and flicked an errant hay stem from her kirtle. “None.”

  I could not hold her, dared not. Not here. I braved a fleeting touch upon her lower arm. “How far along?”

  “Nearly two months.” Tears pooled in her eyes. She grabbed my hand, desperate, troubled. “The wedding is in two weeks.”

  “Oh, Marjorie, Marjorie ... ” I slipped my hand from her hold and turned away, grabbing a post as I fought panic. “Could anything worse have befallen us?”

  Stepping around to the other side of the post, she swiped the tears from her cheeks. “What do you mean?”

  “When the child is born, Walter will know you were unfaithful. Your father will know I betrayed him. Everyone will know.” There was no way out of it. No hiding it. Suspicions would be proven. Our lies laid bare. Even if Robert forgave me, I could not forgive myself. We had been selfish, careless. And now we would both pay the price. I staggered away and sank to my haunches at the base of a hay mound, clutching my head in my hands. “Dear Lord ... it pains me to say this, but I have no choice: I must leave Scotland.”

  “You don’t need to, James.” She knelt beside me. Her words were unusually calm, given the disgrace that we had brought upon ourselves and those around us. With delicate fingers, she brushed a lock of hair from my forehead. “No one will ever know.”

  “Believe me, I would never choose to allow you to suffer this alone. Marjorie, I will die inside without you, but we both knew all along that one day we would be parted. I must go. To France. Ireland, perhaps. Or –”

  “No, James. You can’t. You don’t need to.” Her smile bittersweet, she touched my cheek. “As soon as I knew it to be true, that I was with child, I went to Walter. He ... he took me to his bed.”

  “You told him? And he took advantage of you?” I shot to my feet, shame suddenly replaced by a rage so complete that everything around me was bathed in the color of blood. My ears buzzed. My arms and legs shook. I whipped my sword free of its scabbard. “I swear, I’ll kill him for –”

  “No, James.” Rising, she laid a finger on the blade to push it downward. “It wasn’t that way. He didn’t force himself on me.”

  I sucked in several hot breaths. Afraid of what I might do, I sheathed my weapon. “You gave yourself to Walter?”

  “Just once, James. He is my betrothed. We’ll be married soon. How is it any different?”

  “Do you love him then?” I backed away from her, reeling with fury.

  “I love you. I did it out of love for you. To protect your honor. To spare both of us from shame. Can’t you understand that?”

  I couldn’t. Not now. Not yet. The pain was too deep.

  A pair of my men passed by the stable door, talking loudly to one another. I waited until they were gone.

  “I will leave Edinburgh soon.” I tried hard to control the quaver in my voice. “It’s best for a while that we’re not near each other.”

  She turned and ran from the stables.

  Against every urge, I did not go after her. I left Edinburgh that same night after a brief meeting with Robert, trying my damnedest to act as if there were nothing wrong.

  From a distance, I heard of Walter and Marjorie’s wedding. And of Edward Bruce’s conquests in Ireland and the famine there that thwarted his progress. And no word of the queen being pregnant.

  Then came the proud news, barely more than a month later: the king’s daughter was with child.

  Ch. 7

  Edward II – Lincoln, 1316

  Sir Roger Mortimer stood before me, bereft of his pride. Behind him, rayless January light diffused through small windows thick with frost. He collapsed to one knee on the mat of decaying rushes and a cloud of dust enveloped him. Black hanks of hair tumbled over his brow as he bowed his head between slumped shoulders, obscuring eyes that were surely dark with shame.

  Upon news of his unexpected arrival, we had hastily convened in the meeting room of the Dean of Lincoln’s house. I sat in a high-backed chair at the center of a stout table. Ink from hundreds of documents scratched in diplomacy stained its surface. At intervals, jagged pits from knives slammed in discord gouged the wood. To my left and right were seated some of the highest in the land: Lord Badlesmere, the earls of Hereford, Arundel and Pembroke, the bishops of Norwich and Winchester, and Hugh Despenser the Elder. My cousin Thomas, the Earl of Lancaster, had yet to present himself – he claimed due to troubles with the Scots.

  A dozen other lords and barons lining either wall cast questioning glances at one another. A terrible silence choked the room. No one dared speak. Certainly not Mortimer.

  The last time he had appeared bedraggled before me had been at Berwick, when he delivered the mutilated corpse of my dear nephew Gilbert de Clare. I feared the cause was, again, due in some part to that murderous demon Robert the Bruce.

  Snow drifted through a crack at the edge of a window pane and piled upon the sill, where it wafted over the edge, cascading to the floor in a thin, diaphanous veil. Cold nipped at my neck and wrists. Tugging the fur collar of my mantle up higher, I stiffened against a shiver, but soon had to clench my teeth to keep them from chattering.

  That very morning I had awoken to find my consort, Isabella, standing at the foot of my bed, clutching her abdomen. Before I could rub the sleep from my eyes, she blurted out that she was with child again and quickly covered her mouth with her hand as she retched dryly. Even then I knew the day would not end well. Good fortune was ever an inconstant in my life.

  I cleared my throat and tapped a fingernail against the table’s edge to fracture the suffocating stillness. “What news of Ireland, Sir Roger? I pray you’ve flayed and gutted that odious shit maggot, Edward Bruce, before burning him alive. Tell us it is so – and we’ll crown you with laurels.”

  Scoffing, he shook his head. “It might have been so, had the de Laceys not abandoned me at the third hour of battle.”

  A waspish buzz erupted into rumbles of malice.

  “Traitors!”

  “Bloody whoresons!”

  I slammed my palm down on the arm of my chair so hard the shock of it rattled my elbow. My intestines knotted into tight cords. As I fought for breath, I waited until the shouts died away to murmurs. “Tell
us more. What battle do you speak of?”

  “Kells, my lord,” he mumbled, mouth downturned.

  “You were defeated?”

  With that, his head sank lower, his breathing so shallow that had he not still been upright I might have thought him dead.

  “The fortunate among us escaped with our lives.” He raised his eyes, disgrace evident in their gloomy depths. “Edward Bruce’s numbers were recently augmented by some five hundred, brought over from Scotland by the Earl of Moray, Thomas Randolph. Together, they marched south from Carrickfergus, wreaking their destruction as they went – burning, looting, raping. Instead of waiting for them to lay waste to Meath, I rushed north to stop them. I victualled Kells to serve as our base and went to meet them. When my vassals Hugh and Walter de Lacey saw how many the Scots were, they argued against engaging them. That alone should have alerted me.”

  Bracing both hands upon his forward knee, Mortimer drew his shoulders back, his broad chest swelling. Dents from sword blows marked his plate armor. Blood flecked his surcoat. A long diagonal smear of soot ran from shoulder to hip, where he had dragged a soiled hand across his body. “The Scots fought fiercely, my lord, as savages do. Somehow, they gained entrance to the town – by treachery, I suspect – and set it ablaze. It was then that the de Laceys fled. The Scots closed in around us, trapping us between their forces and the burning town, no way out for us but through the flames.”

  “How many lost?”

  “Hundreds, my lord,” he growled, jaw muscles twitching.

  My chair groaned as I pressed my weight against its back. I wrestled with a smirk of contempt. “The de Laceys will be brought to accounts for their betrayal. As for Edward Bruce, he is a fiend in human form ... and even more arrogant than his unrighteous brother, who was lost to shame long ago.”

  Slowly, Mortimer stood. He leveled an entreating gaze on the council, before turning back to me. “I need supplies, arms, more men. Enough to batter those barbarous, grubbing Scots all the way back to Ulster and drown them in the frigid, northern sea.”

  Pembroke half-rose from his chair and leaned forward to peer down the length of the table at me. “How are we to tame Ireland, my lord, when Douglas is plundering the north?”

  “What of the rebellion in Wales?” Hereford bellowed from the other end of the table. “Llewellyn Bren has taken Caerphilly and burned the town.”

  “We have greater concerns than Ireland and Wales,” the Bishop of Norwich said. “People are going hungry in the very heart of England. On my way here, I myself saw a field with sheep lying dead from the scab. Others speak of cattle so gaunt their ribs can be counted. Last year’s crops were not even enough to half fill the tithe barns. We cannot generate revenue from taxes to raise an army because everyone is hoarding what little they have. And we are to send soldiers to Ireland when our own people are dying for want of a loaf of bread?”

  I worried at my lower lip with a forefinger. Since convening two weeks past, parliament had been sluggish and irresolute, owing to Lancaster’s belligerent absence. Now this news, crashing down on our heads like a roof suddenly deprived of its pillars. If I yielded to Mortimer’s request, the bloodthirsty beasts of Wales and Scotland would bear down on us and devour us whole. Discontent in England would burgeon – and I needed no more of that.

  “Your request is denied, Sir Roger. Ireland is indeed troublesome, but I doubt its common herd will allow Edward Bruce a pleasant stroll all the merry way to Dublin. No, we must keep the fringes from fraying, keep the cloth that is England one and whole. Attend to our own first. There is too much of starvation and pestilence at home to warrant such an outlay. Let those quarrelsome Irish chieftains undo the Scots. You, Sir Roger, will go with the Earl of Hereford to defend the Welsh Marches and tame matters there. The townspeople of Bristol are proving difficult, as well. For now, you are needed more at home than elsewhere.”

  “But, sire,” he hammered a fist against his chest, “why not let Hereford –”

  “Denied!” I shoved my chair back and stood, pointing a finger at him. “I warn you – do not argue with me on this. Do as I have commanded and there may yet be reward for you. Since you are the only one who seems eager to trample that patch of nettles, I daresay it is yours for the asking.” I leaned forward, my hands spread flat on the table for support. “But first, you need prove yourself worthy by ridding us of the rats nibbling at our fingers.”

  Hereford thrust his chest out, triumphant in the moment.

  Tight-lipped, Mortimer bowed and swept a hand across his torso. “As you bid, my lord.”

  In the months following, Mortimer indeed proved himself more than loyal and beyond capable of quelling the Welsh. He not only subdued them, but delivered Llewellyn Bren straight into my hands in London. Then, he laid siege to riotous Bristol and broke the wills of the townsfolk. While Mortimer was putting down insurrection in the west, Lancaster quarreled openly with me at the following parliament. He abandoned the session and flew back north because, he said, the Scots were menacing his lands. My one true hope was that Lancaster would meet his cruel, mortal end on the blunt edge of a Scottish blade.

  One man, Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, had salvaged half my kingdom. One man. I made him Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in reward – if it could be called a ‘reward’. Any other man would have declared it a burden and a curse.

  But Roger Mortimer was unlike other men. He was the king’s man. Mine.

  I would have traded every small victory he brought me, however, to hear of the death of Robert the Bruce. But if Fortune was to mock me, I would take my triumph wherever I could.

  Ch. 8

  James Douglas – Lintalee, 1316

  Into the north counties of England, I rode and laid torch to thatch while women with suckling babes clutched to their breasts ran from their homes barefoot and shrieking. I passed with but a glance as wailing bairns stood in the road with their hands outstretched, begging for food. I gave them none.

  Edward, King of England, still too twisted in his own troubles with the Earl of Lancaster, had left the northerners to fend for themselves and thus at my fickle mercy. From Lancaster to Hartlepool, I collected great sums of money from the lords and burghers, so that we might grant a reprieve to their people and their towns. This I did at the behest of my king and I reveled in it for both requital and diversion.

  Even though I allowed myself little rest, I thought of Marjorie daily. I welcomed the pain, for it was better than being hollow. Not far from Jedburgh, I sought out a place in the deep of the forest at a place called Lintalee – hard to find, remote and utterly beautiful – and decided that there I would build myself a timber lodge to be my home. I wanted no castle walls stacked with stone, nor a court overfull with servants buzzing about like bees. The number of private chambers would be sparingly few and the kitchen and storerooms small, to discourage any visitors who desired comforts beyond a pallet in the hall and a bland meal.

  My brothers, Hugh and Archibald, had been indispensable in clearing trees at a good rate. Both had accompanied me on numerous raids, the benefits of which meant nothing to a simpleton like Hugh, who desired naught beyond a full belly. He did what I told him to and little more. Archibald, on the other hand, needed guidance. He had shrived himself of his prior sins by sending money to the kirk back in Bute. His bastard son there died before he ever knew of him, but neither that mistake nor my constant scrutiny could prevent it from happening again. We were not long in Lintalee before a dark-haired lass not a day past sixteen, who gave her name as Jenny, appeared before me one chill evening, poorly clad and with a soot-smeared face, asking for Archibald as she stroked her swollen belly. He even spoke of marriage to her. A notion which I quickly vanquished by dispatching her to a nunnery in Caithness for the birthing, far from Archibald’s pining heart, with a charitable pension to live on afterwards.

  As I drew back my axe and readied to split another log, it was Archibald, still surly and sulking days after I had sent his bursting lover along, who c
ame to me and laid his hand on my arm, pointing along the low trail to an approaching party.

  The company consisted of a dozen men on horseback, most sufficiently armed to lend the arrival some air of importance. At their head was the Bishop of St. Andrews, William Lamberton, who had shed his vestments for more practical riding gear. With a bearing as saint-like as any pontiff of Rome, he rode into the clearing and came down from his horse. I laid down my axe, knelt in the slop within the circle of jagged stumps and kissed his ring.

  Lamberton nodded in approval. “When I fetched you from that dusty school in Paris, it must have been God directing me.” He turned his hand over and helped me to my feet, embracing me with the lightest touch, then thrusting me to arm’s length. “You’ve served your king with devotion. You said you would. You also said you wanted your lands back from the English. Yet I find you here ...” He surveyed the site thoughtfully, a narrow flat strip tucked deep in the hills, with its swaying pines and teeming wildlife. “Far from courtiers and clergy.”

  “Surely you’ve heard of my quick hand in battle, your grace?”

  “Ah, yes, to think I tried to make you into a man of the Church. How wrong I was. But you are what you are, James Douglas, every bit your father’s son.”

  I motioned to Archibald, who was hanging back shyly. “Your grace, this is my youngest brother Archibald and that one over there ...” – I pointed Hugh out, as he slung his axe and cleaved a log in one brutish sweep – “that is the middle Douglas, Hugh. They both fought at Bannockburn with me, alongside King Robert.” I made mention of it to boost Archibald’s pride and at once he grew taller. “I’m curious, though, as to what brings you here?”

  He cast a glance at the stout framing that was going up. “You couldn’t have hidden it any better, especially with the mist that was about this morning.” Lamberton smiled wanly. His squire came forth and offered him a drink from a flask. He wetted his lips, then handed it back. “Envoys from the pope are expected soon in Edinburgh. The king will want you there to hear them.”