The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  Lancaster inclined his head, a smirk tilting his jowls toward one side of his thickset neck. “Cousin,” he addressed me in the familiar, rather than as his lord, “I thought for certain we would come all this way either to find you not here or to discover ourselves entrapped.”

  “I’m here. As for your other suspicions – this day’s not done. For the moment, all you have is my word. Now, let us dispense with this unpleasant business. Let me begin – for I’ve a fair bit to say.”

  At last I dismounted to stand beside Pembroke. “You’ve displaced my officers Langton and Sandale, constricted the funds required to run my household, and had yourself appointed head of the council overseeing all my affairs. At every turn you criticize, reconfigure, delay and bully anyone who disagrees. And where, dear Thomas, has it gotten us? Oh,” I went on, so fueled by my long swallowed pride that it would have taken a calamity of nature to halt me, “what is the latest I hear? Ah, yes. Your little child-bride, who brought to you the earldoms of Salisbury and Lincoln, has run away and hidden herself. The tale was that she, who had not yet lost her maidenhead, discovered you tupping one of her handmaidens, a childhood friend not two years her senior. Tsk, tsk. How sordid, Thomas.”

  Barely rankled, he tossed his head back and rolled his eyes. “Done?”

  “Hardly. As if your own indiscretions were not poor behavior enough, you accused the Earl of Warenne in aiding her and then burned his home without evidence. Even if he did have anything to do with it, which he did not, you could have resolved the matter more civilly. If not for him, do you know, you and I would not have this opportunity? I told him that in return for meeting you here and making peace, you would offer him compensation. Although your private little war has naught to do with me, I’ll take it as an opportunity for a new beginning.”

  “And how do we do that, Edward?”

  “We leave the past, the past. We start today, exactly as things are. Negotiate from here. Make decisions for the common good. Sound decisions. I’ll work with your henchmen so long as they prove themselves capable of their duties.”

  He considered it, stuck his chest out like a cock about to crow and nodded.

  “But I cannot live properly on the pittance you have ministered. I am forced to apologize on every occasion for which I have guests to entertain. My residences are in dire need of upkeep and my staff has been diminished out of necessity. Begin by alleviating these matters and we ... shall we simply agree it is our first step?”

  Lancaster folded his arms and chewed on his lip, trying to appear thoughtful. “Yes, then. Some allowances to your income could be made.”

  “Good. Now,” I parted my arms to invite an embrace, “we exchange a gesture of peace – you and I.”

  His mouth twitched. He craned his bulky arms apart and stiffly embraced me. Our lips brushed tepidly over one another’s cheeks.

  As his arms dropped to his sides, eager to free himself, I held on. With my hands still firm upon his shoulders, I looked him squarely in the eye. “So we are beholden to each other in this simple oath, yes? I pray that was not the kiss of Judas.”

  His arms flew wide in an incredulous gesture, knocking my hands away. “Forfend! If you are not Christ resurrected, how could I possibly be Judas?”

  Amused that I had so pricked him, I took my leave, mounted and left. As Pembroke and I rode away with the bishop, chancellor and my guards falling in behind, I said to the earl, “Was my performance convincing enough for you?”

  “More so if you had not opened with an attack on his character. You’re fortunate he did not return the berating.”

  “It would have hardly mattered. He does so publicly as often as he can. I must admit, I find this dance intriguing. Who leads, who follows? When does the music end?”

  I made it to Woodstock shortly after the birth of my daughter, whom I named Eleanor, in remembrance of my dear mother.

  A year of peace. Too brief. Too meaningless to have a lasting effect. I had shaken off one leech, only to have another attach itself. The ungrateful bitch, Rosalind de Fiennes, had betrayed me. Berwick fell to that scoundrel Bruce and the very barons who would not permit the funds to raise a proper army were then clamoring to take the city back by force of arms.

  If I ever found Lady Rosalind again, she would die a most inglorious death.

  Ch. 16

  Edward II – Berwick, 1319

  “Sire?” Jankin said as he parted the tent flap. A gale wind tore past him and toppled the goblet from the stool that served as a table next to my pallet. “What shall I fetch for you this morning?”

  Barely dawn, I burrowed beneath my furs. My luxuries in this piss-pot hovel were crude and few. I might have thought them bearable, though, had it not been for the wretched clouds hovering over us for two weeks now, spitting moisture enough to dampen bowstrings and rot a quarter of our food supplies.

  “A tuft of lamb’s wool – to stuff in my ears.” With chilled fingers, I peeled the coverings from my head. Jankin immediately looked down, as if afraid that I might be less than decent for his innocent eyes to behold.

  “To eat, I meant.” He collected the goblet and brushed the puddle of elderberry wine onto the ground. After blotting his fingers on his own garment, he tasked himself with setting out my clothes for the day: shirt, clean leggings, padded tunic, mail and plates of armor. “The cook received several bushels of pears yester morn, sire. Tinge green, but not bruised.”

  A knife of pain sliced across my cheekbones and into my temples. “Strained barley water with horehound. I have but to place one wretched foot north of York and I am stricken with a cold on every occasion. God’s soul, but I did not sleep one wink last night betwixt my nose and that hammering wind. A miracle we haven’t been blown into the sea.”

  The wind had roared for days on end – battering our tents until they were uprooted at the stakes, draining the life’s energy from me, howling in my bloody ears until I nearly went mad. Rain came more than it went. Otherwise, I would have had my archers put a shower of flaming arrows into the very heart of Berwick and let it burn to the ground in an inferno of screams.

  I rolled to the far side of my humble bed and blew my nose. Still, it felt as though wads of cloth had been packed inside my nostrils, making it impossible to breathe. My upper lip was chafed so raw it stung.

  “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”

  “A new head?” I flipped back over to peer at Jankin. Many were the days I resented my duties and would gladly have shriven myself of them. Kinghood was a burdensome yoke that dictated my presence in such frozen hellholes. I would have traded places with any common man – a woman, even – to be able to loll in bed, a real bed, one hour more.

  “Do you know, Jankin, that as I ail here, Isabella is crafting her needlework at York? Was it only a year ago that she birthed our daughter Eleanor? My namesake, Edward, is a sober seven-year old now. How unfortunate for his little brother John that his favorite sport is playing at swords. John takes his thrashings admirably. And he never fails to return them with all the fanfare of that legendary Plantagenet temper. Young Edward has none of my gentler ways, cares nothing for music or fineries. He has, instead, my sire’s fascination for games of war. One day, when he is old enough, I shall send him to this odious wasteland in my stead. Tomorrow would not be soon enough, though.”

  Jankin listened with polite intensity. I liked his quiet ways, his ready ear. He was rather like a greyhound past its hunting days – always at my feet, treading softly behind wherever I went.

  “If you truly wish to relieve me, Jankin, make me into a woman. Then I would not be here. I would not be ill. And I would not have to endure the incorrigible company of my murdering cousin. Have Barnabas add a few drops of licorice to my tisane, will you? That would comfort me.” I blew my nose again and then for lack of a kerchief wiped my hand on the outside of my coverings. Jankin nodded and backed out through the opening, this time being quick enough to permit less wind into my little cavern of spars
e comfort.

  I had left Hugh behind in London, wishing to avoid the animosity that had lately crept over the rest of the nobility toward him. Besides, better to have Hugh Despenser keeping watch over my exchequer than one of their ilk. Gentle Hugh was never the champion of tournaments that Piers had been, but he had a sharp mind for money and politics – devious, even.

  This sham of a courting that Cousin Lancaster and I played at would wear thin soon enough. My lips had singed when I gave him the kiss of peace at Loughborough last year. I may have publicly forgiven the transgressors of my beloved Piers’ death, but my soul had far from forgotten.

  This business of war was going too slowly for my liking and I chafed with boredom. At the mouth of the Tweed, instead of the usual parade of ships pregnant with wares from abroad, there lay at anchor a fine fleet of English war vessels, their masts pointing skyward like spears on the water. My entire army encircled the city – far more armed men than the city had inhabitants.

  Whenever there had been breaks in the weather, sappers worked by lamplight to tunnel through the earth whilst archers flicked Scotsmen from the walls like fading flies from a window ledge. Engineers winched back the siege engines, loaded them until the ropes and cogs strained and then lopped flaming faggots over the battlements.

  I had no liking for warfare, but this was rather like cornering mice. I found it amusing.

  When the wind had abated and the dismal clouds that had hastened in the first chill of autumn parted to show slices of blue sky, we had launched our attack fully on Berwick. Arrows hissed incessantly. Ladders were thrown against the wall, but were quickly toppled by hooked poles, falling to earth in a shattering of wood and bones. Those that made it too far up the rungs were burned with boiling tar.

  One of our cogs slipped upriver, a small catapult gracing its deck. But before it could get close enough to pummel the castle walls, an ebbing tide sucked at its bulky hull, grounding it on a sandbar. A single arrow trailed a tail of smoke through the heavens and pierced the billowing square sail of the cog, adorned with its Plantagenet lions. Great shreds of flaming cloth fell to the deck. Soldiers leapt into the river to either drown or die in a hail of arrows.

  The sow, a sturdy roofed machine constructed to shield our sappers as they picked at the foundations, was wheeled forward with an enormous groan. Thrice the Scots hurled sizzling faggots from the castle, finally bursting the main beam of the sow and decimating it in an eruption of flaming pitch. Men ran screaming from underneath as burning clothing seared their flesh. Some stumbled into the moat where they drowned.

  Hour upon hour wore on as Stewart’s men filled their gaps and staved us off. As dusk settled, we pulled back, nursed our cuts and bruises, and sought rest before going at it again one week later. Twice we had taken the offensive and twice we were repelled.

  Any moment one of the commanders would swagger in, seeking a place to lay blame for our failure thus far.

  I sat up, coughing, and buried my face in my hands. I was accustomed to being the accused. If not for Pembroke on my side ...

  Jankin shuffled in with a small basket of pears, a pewter cup and a jug of barley water. Timidly, he peeled away my blankets and began to dress me. I sipped at the pasty tisane, listening to the tat-tat of flags snapping in the wind. Then, the rumble of hooves disrupted their rhythm, followed by shouts from the guards outside. Words of urgency were exchanged. Other shouts followed, one a voice that revived my headache in full.

  I groaned. “See what it is about, Jankin, and if not a matter of life or death – tell them to scatter and come back when I am well enough to tolerate their shrieking.”

  He had not even turned to go when Lancaster stormed into my quarters.

  “The queen has been flushed from York, sire,” Lancaster announced. “The archbishop hurried her away to Nottingham before Douglas and Randolph could get to her. He went and met them near Milton where –”

  “Met them?” I questioned through a fog, eyes watering and head pounding. “Diplomacy serves no rebel’s purpose. What did the archbishop think to gain by that banal gesture?”

  Lancaster grumbled at my interruption. “Not diplomacy, Cousin Edward. He marched on the Scottish hobelars with a rabble of townspeople and clergy. Pompous ass, robes or no. The Scots fired up stacks of hay and sent them into confusion. By day’s end there were three hundred priests lying dead in that hayfield.”

  “Well, God will levy his judgment on the Scots for that. But the archbishop, as you so eloquently stated, is a fool. You say my queen is safely away then?”

  “She is. But Randolph and Douglas did not stop at Milton. They are annihilating every town, manor and cattle byre in the countryside about York. I tell you, my lord, we need to put a halt to this destruction now, else they plunge as far south as London and scorch Westminster for sport.”

  “They’ll do none such, Thomas. Calm yourself. You’re working up a fearsome lather.” I took a last gulp of the tisane and set my cup down, then stood and held my arms out to my sides so that Jankin could begin affixing my arm plates.

  “We need to defend our lands. I am not the only one who –”

  “A clever ploy by Bruce, don’t you think? Just as Berwick begins to wane, he lures us away. Their ash trail would be cold by the time we found it. No, Thomas, the siege will go on. The Stewart can’t hold out for much longer.”

  “And you,” he fumed, blowing his red cheeks out, “can’t take Berwick alone. On the morrow I shall leave – not to spite you, but to spare my holdings. The northern barons won’t idle at your royal slippers as their homes go up in smoke.”

  I dropped my arms to my sides. “Come now, dear Thomas. That would be treasonous, wouldn’t it, if part of my army left at your bidding?”

  “Your army? How easily you forget your lessons, Cousin.”

  “How suddenly your loyalty vanishes when it inconveniences your ambition.”

  Lancaster gnashed his teeth together. “You covet one city while others perish. What if your councilors advise against staying?”

  “Advice is merely that: advice.”

  It would have been more in vein with his character to rave on. Instead, he suppressed a smug grin as he sought his exit.

  “So right,” he said. “It is.”

  ***

  Early that evening, the council convened in the main pavilion. I arrived to scowls and grumbles. Warenne was on his guard like a baited mastiff, but his resolve crumbled shortly after Lancaster and his party rallied against continuing with the siege. The northern barons wanted to go back to their lands and chase the Scots away. Hereford sided with them for no sound reason other than that he had allied himself with Lancaster from the start. This harassment of the north of England was nothing new I reminded them.

  But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t convince them.

  The next day Lancaster and the other northern barons decamped and headed home. The number Lancaster robbed me of was substantial.

  The rains persisted. Spirits dampened. Supply lines became unreliable. We had not enough men to launch a potent attack and assure the outcome. In the end, we were forced to abandon the siege on Berwick. No sooner was my army disbanded than Douglas returned to the north, ravaging Cumberland and Westmorland.

  How queer it was that Lancashire was never set upon.

  Ch. 17

  James Douglas – Cumberland, 1319

  November wind scoured my cheeks. I wriggled my fingers free of my gloves and wiped the snot from my upper lip.

  “What village is this?” I asked.

  Boyd dangled his reins across his mount’s sagging withers and braced one gloved fist on his hip. “Don’t know.” He sniffed, shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “Have we been here before?”

  “Not that I recollect,” Boyd said.

  Carlisle was five leagues or less from where we were. In two weeks’ time, we had laid waste to a good part of Cumberland. The two years prior to this, poor weather had stunted their crops.
Famine was rife. This year, gentle spring rains and a mild summer had promised and delivered on a bountiful harvest. The surrounding fields had already been cleared of their sheaves and the grain threshed and doubtless some had been milled by now. The cattle were fed and fat. The sheep, however, were suffering from a scab that would prove their wool worthless.

  We were about to head home when this temptation sprang up before us: a modest town tucked in a low valley somewhere between the Lyne and the Irthing rivers and with a tithe barn packed to the rafters.

  Feeling a cramp in my neck as I raised my arm, I gave the signal to advance on the town, just as I had done before more times than I could remember. All in the name of Scotland and my king. For once, because of a lingering cold I had been nursing, I was more exhausted than exhilarated by the onset of this raid. So I sat back in my saddle and watched as Boyd and the other men rode down into the dale, across an open field and into the town.

  We had been spotted ahead of time. A rabble of a dozen townsfolk, crudely armed, rushed out toward the edge of the town, brandishing their weapons with all the courage of ancient Rome’s greatest gladiators. If only they understood that they had a choice: they could have paid us a tribute instead and gone on to know a long, peaceful life with their families. Not one of them was left standing after five minutes. But such was war. We took what we needed. We did only what had been done to us.

  My men pounded on doors and tossed the inhabitants out into the snowy streets. Womenfolk dragged their children along by the wrists, crying, calling out to one another. Then, the first orange flames licked at thatch; soon, they were leaping from one rooftop to another.

  I rode my pony down into the town to see that my men did not carry away more than they could manage and turned down a crooked street, where the buildings were not yet consumed by the inferno. In my path lay a child’s rag doll and trampled clothing. A shoemaker’s stall had been toppled and crushed, the dyed goatskin and wooden lasts scattered in disarray around it. Ahead, Cuthbert was holding onto the reins of three panicked horses before a stable. Sim Leadhouse came out and indicated it was empty, then took a torch from a passing soldier and set fire to the hay inside before emerging again. Cuthbert grinned at me.