The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  Beautiful. Like her mother.

  I stood, ignored the aches in my muscles and fatigue in my bones, took her hand, felt the warm flush of her skin, leaned closer. “You still think of her often, don’t you?”

  She answered with a sullen look. “I used to think of her every day. But I ... I had to let go. To live. It is hard ... when you have no one to share your grief with.”

  Her words cleaved my heart deeply. In one, shattering moment, I glimpsed my own soul in the reflection in her eyes. A raven-black lock of hair tumbled across her cheek as she tilted her head at me, a question forming on her tongue.

  “If you had wanted Douglas Castle back all those years,” she said, “why then did you ruin it and leave it so many times?”

  “Because it was our ... Robert’s way – to raze our strongholds so that the English could not use them against us.”

  “And each time you took it back,” she said, peering at me with those dark, exploring eyes, “did that ‘revenge’ make the past disappear? Did it cure your grief? Right wrongs done to you?”

  Once, the entire purpose of my life had been about exacting revenge on Longshanks, of repossessing my family’s lands and home. That obsession had translated into my fealty to Robert: answering his call without question, riding out and raiding with cruel ruthlessness, feeding off the danger, my soul thriving on it. Once.

  “No,” I said.

  “So why do you bestow Douglas Castle upon Archibald? Why not make yourself a home there? Begin anew?”

  “Because,” I began, the first crack opening up in the wall of my heart that had shut out so much and so many all these years, “because this is my home now.”

  And because you’re here, I yearned to say.

  Something inside me more than stirred. It was like a light exploding. I wanted to run both toward it and from it at the same time. I longed to hold her, give her my heart and yet ...

  She gave me her other hand as lightly as if nothing out of the ordinary had just passed between us. “You should rest, then. Before I forget though, your fletcher, Ranulf is it, delivered several sheaves of arrows day before yester. Some white feathered, special.”

  “Swan.”

  Abruptly, her hands slipped coldly away and drifted down to her sides. “I thought archers preferred goose feathers?”

  “Prefer? They’re more readily come by, is all.”

  Without another word, she went, leaving me wondering why the fletching of arrows was of any interest at all to her. I pulled off my boots and burrowed beneath my blankets. Hours passed by before I slept, though. The candles burned themselves to stubs, the brazier went cold and the sounds of song and story died a slow, miserable death in the hall below.

  Ch. 18

  Robert the Bruce – Edinburgh, 1320

  The moment James stepped down from his saddle at Holyrood, I crushed him in my embrace almost before he could steady himself.

  I had just emerged from my newly constructed kennels, bits of straw still clinging to my shirtsleeves. As I thrust him back for a look, clouds of breath steamed from his smiling mouth and hung in the cold February air. Behind him, Archibald dismounted. Randolph joined in our reunion, clasping both men in turn.

  “Hah!” I cried. “Randolph has been here for a fortnight – and where were you? Winter it is, but the weather has not been all so bad.” I could barely hear myself for the elated yapping of the dogs, but as the kennel keepers tossed out their bread, the noise subsided. “The tributes you collected have already been received and distributed. The scales of wealth are tipping more and more in Scotland’s favor every day. The more we scrape from England’s treasury, the less men they can put in the field against us. What of the scab in the north?”

  “Devastating,” James said. “I’d not lay a hand on a sheep from Alnwick to Carlisle or beyond.”

  “A blessing Walter was able to hold Berwick. You were right he’d not relent. And more right that Lancaster would turn tail when you lured him away by going after the queen in York.”

  “That courtesy came from Lady Rosalind. It would seem she knows more than a bit of what Lancaster’s leanings are, as well.”

  I yanked him in close. He’d been keeping this English lady at his side for a while now. “You’ve been spending far too much of your time in Lintalee lately. I trust, James, you’ll plight your troth to her?”

  His answer came emphatically. “Whatever you’ve heard, I assure you, I’ve neither mistress nor betrothed.”

  Behind him, Archibald bent down, scooped up a handful of powdery snow and watched it melt in his palm with childlike wonderment.

  Randolph said, “He’s a man of his word, Robert. The woman’s a competent informant.”

  “‘Spy’ is the word, Randolph. Ah, James, I had hope. You’ll die an old hermit gnawing on bones. But an ugly thought that is, so we’ll leave it. Come along, all. Follow me to the stables. I’ve something to show you. Archibald,” I said, turning to James’ brother, “marriage agrees with you, I can tell. How fares Beatrice? Well?”

  Archibald beamed as he handed the reins of his horse to a groom. The lad who had once gamboled about in the hay beneath milkmaids’ skirts had in fact embraced domestic duty. Beatrice had more than satisfied Archibald; she had tamed him. He readjusted his belt and puffed up his chest. “Well indeed. James has given me leave to rebuild Douglas Castle. We’ll raise our family there, God willing. She’ll be along to join me here soon. Four days hence, five at the most. She cannot travel as fast, given her condition.”

  “‘Condition’, you say? You’ve wasted no time in the marriage bed.” I winked at him. Then I gestured for them all to follow me toward the stables. At the far end of the stall row, wee Robbie sat astride a stable door, feeding radishes to one of the horses as he talked to it in a most convincing and mature tone.

  “Robbie, down from there now,” I called to my grandson. “You’re to be in the study with your tutor, not out here making playmates of the animals. Along with you.”

  Robbie peered at me from beneath unruly waves of dark hair. His lower lip turned sharply downward in chagrin. “I don’t want to. I want to go riding.”

  “In time, lad. But first you’re to learn your letters and your Gaelic.” I plucked him from the door’s edge and held him in my arms.

  “But I don’t like garlic, Grandfather. I don’t like turnips or cabbages, either – just like you.” He pushed his fingertip at my nose and then began to pluck at the scattered gray hairs in my beard.

  “Gae-lic,” I enunciated. “It’s how some Scottish folk talk. You want people to be able to understand you when you talk to them, Robbie, don’t you?”

  Robbie pulled at his lip and shrugged. “I’ll be king one day. I can make them talk like me, can’t I?”

  I scowled as fiercely as I could manage. Then I set my grandson down and sent him on his way with a firm smack on the rump. “Straightaway to the study with you. And if I find you sleeping in the kennels again, there’ll be no puddings for you. Instead you’ll be eating bread scraps with the dogs for the next three days. Archibald, see him along. And be certain he does not wander.”

  Mortified, Robbie’s eyes widened. Then he turned about slowly and, dragging his heels in the dust, treaded down the length of the aisle. Archibald had to prod the boy at the backbone twice before getting as far as the outer door – once when a kitten scampered across their path and the second time when Robbie paused to look back over his shoulder to give James a hard and curious stare before going on. James quickly averted his gaze.

  “Och,” I growled. “Spends too much of his time with the beasts when he ought to be playing with other boys.” I then said quietly to James and Randolph, “There is something I wish to tell you both, before anyone else. It’s been torture, keeping it to myself, but ... well, Elizabeth is with child. Near four months along. She’s had trouble in the past, so she would not let me say it any sooner, but the time has come. For so many years, I wanted nothing more than to have this joy to
share with the world and yet now ...”

  James touched my shoulder. “It will go well. As you’ve always said yourself, Robert – ‘faith’, aye? Does the lad know?”

  “No, I’ve not told Robbie yet about Elizabeth’s baby. He’s old enough to be aware that for now he is my heir. I don’t know if that’s seeded something of ambition in him or if that was inherent of his nature, but always he reaches further than his grasp. Ah, the lad has nothing of his father in him. Walter is dutiful, pliable. Robbie’s intractable, prone to quarrel. As much as he nearly comes to blows with the boy, Walter loves him dearly and would want him at his side every day. But I can’t risk the lad’s life by letting him go to Berwick to be with his father. Walter is sorely needed there.”

  “You needn’t fret over Robbie, Uncle,” Randolph reassured. “There can only be one king, should you have a son. He’ll weather it well enough and prove himself loyal. Besides, someone has to take our place someday. Turn the wheels, as it were. Defend the border and all.”

  “Indeed. Where ever would I be without the two of you? But I confess – there is something more to calling you both here. Edward of England sent a dispatch to Walter following his failed siege on Berwick. He asks a truce of two years to keep us from across the border. Given the scab, I’m of a mind to agree to it.”

  “But what of the tributes?” James protested.

  “I know, I know. Believe me, I’ve considered that. You’ll lose the monies you’ve grown accustomed to collecting from Cumbria and thereabouts, but we could use this peace to make repairs within Scotland.”

  Randolph stroked his chin. “A fair trade, perhaps. Short term loss for long term gain. But what else, Uncle? I reckon you have other plans.”

  “Oh, I do. Interestingly, even as King Edward seeks to give his northern barons a reprieve, his envoys are still at the Holy See reminding the pope of our iniquitous occupation of Berwick. Scratching the cat’s ears while pulling its tail. I may rest my sword a bit, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to lie down on it. Come March, you’ll both be with me in Arbroath and there we’ll put to parchment a declaration that will leave no question as to our intents or beliefs. It doesn’t matter how many popes there are in my lifetime. I’ll persevere with my message until reason visits upon one of them.”

  I clasped my hands behind my back and ambled closer to the other side of the aisle, admiring the horses there. “Have a look at these fine creatures. Our hobins would outlast them in the hills, but there are none better on the flat. Gifts from the O’Neills of Ulster – a gesture of thanks for Edward’s doings. My brother may not have achieved much in the way of kingship in Ireland, but he did drive a wedge deep enough between the clans to shake loose England’s hold there. Not the desired end, but it served us some good. Take your choosing of the beasts. I’ve a mission for the two of you.”

  Immediately, James was drawn to the black. The horse had not even a spot of white on him, but in the animal’s quick, shining eyes was some untamable spirit that James must have felt kindred with. He reached over the stable door and held out his palm. At first the horse arched his neck, as if to say his loyalty had not yet been earned, but then he flicked his tail, stomped twice and stepped nearer. He did not look James in the eye yet as he allowed him to stroke his neck.

  “Whatever you ask, Robert,” Randolph said, admiring the collection of fine new horses, ten in all, “you know we’re up for it. Idleness does not much agree with us.”

  “Good then. For some time before King Edward proposed this convenient truce of his, I have been receiving correspondences from Lancaster – through Lady Rosalind, as you may have suspected, James.”

  His head snapped around. “No, I didn’t actually, but go on.”

  “Ah, well, he and Hereford are prepared to work peaceable terms. It’s but a gossamer thread of a truce that Edward has tossed out to buy himself time to keep from civil war and it’s in our definite interests to side with Lancaster. The earl is the one who shepherds the barons of England, not King Edward. Alas, I don’t wholly trust a man who plays his natural enemy against his own king, but he has power. He requests that you and Randolph meet with him in person – in Lancashire.”

  James’ jaw dropped. “Lancashire? Dare I ask how we are to get so far across the English border and back again – yet breathing and with our skins whole?”

  “Lady Rosalind shall serve as your guide. Correspondences have been ongoing. Arrangements have already been made with Lancaster. The date is set.”

  I noticed something of shock in his countenance. “What, James? Something unsettles you.”

  “I beg of you not to place her in such peril.”

  “James, may we remind you,” Randolph began, propping an elbow against one of the stalls, “she helped deliver Berwick into our hands? In the two years since then, how many times is it that she has gone back and forth across the border? This is not some fair, wilting maiden who needs a man to protect her. I say it is we who need her on this occasion.”

  ***

  I did not stray beyond Edinburgh that summer. Elizabeth grew round with child. Scotland was abuzz with joy and as each day passed without misfortune, gradually I gave in more and more to joyful anticipation. That I would father a child again, after so long a time, and most happily of all, that Elizabeth was neither barren nor cursed – for those things, some small joy entered my life. Not as quickly as I had planned or hoped, but in its own pleasant time.

  The sheep scab and prospects of a truce with Lancaster had kept our hobelars at home. Edward of England had too much to worry about to venture north. Finally, I could bear no more indolence and rode out one fine day to the hills of the royal park with three of my favorite hounds. They delighted in the exercise and soon took off after a hare. I watched them run across the grasslands, July sun hot on my head and sweat trickling down my breastbone. When I looked back toward the road leading out from the royal residence to the park and saw a servant riding fast toward me, I knew it was time.

  While I waited, I paced a rut in the floorboards of my chambers. Afternoon rose to evening. Evening faded to night. I inquired if Elizabeth were having any trouble. The midwife shooed me away. Night passed.

  By daybreak, I had fallen asleep in my chair. I was roused and summoned to my wife’s bedside. At her breast lay a swaddled babe – pink and wailing. I approached the bed. The midwife unwrapped the babe to show me the sex and then pulled the blankets back around it and placed it on Elizabeth’s still swollen stomach.

  Her auburn hair lay in matted, stringy clumps around her head, sunk deep in a mountain of pillows. She gazed at me through weary eyes. “A girl, Robert. I prayed so hard, every day, for a boy for you.”

  I wiped away her tears and kissed her forehead. “Ah then, God must have listened to me, instead, for five times a day I prayed only for a healthy child and an easy birth for you.”

  “Margaret?” She bit her lip and then broke forth in a sleepy smile as the bairn wailed louder.

  “Aye, the lass agrees. Margaret it is.”

  Ch. 19

  James Douglas - Lancashire, 1320

  The declaration drawn up at the Abbey of Arbroath and sent by King Robert to Pope John in Avignon relayed the sufferings of our people as a result of the English invasions and stated that we would lay down our lives for our freedom. If His Holiness, it implored, could but persuade England to permit us our peace, Scotland would be free to answer to its duty in the Holy Land. Thus far justice had fallen on deaf ears, but persuasion had as much to do with persistence as it did truth.

  Deep in awe at the wild beauty surrounding us, Randolph, Rosalind and I traversed the hills of Cheviot and drove across the moors of Cumbria. The gold and green of the mountaintop moors, or fells as they called them there, mingled with the blues of sky and the silver of wind-rippled tarns where swans swam, their little cygnets trailing behind them. The summer sun was high and strong, but always there was a breeze.

  One evening, we stopped at sunset by one of the
tarns. Randolph took our horses down to the water to drink. In the long, bronze light of a July sunset, Rosalind led me along the bank to where a small stone church sat nestled in a ring of trees, the shadows reaching tall across its stone-walled yard. She bid me to stand back a moment, knocked twice on the door, then gently nudged it open. After calling out and assuring herself that no one was within, she plucked up my hand and pulled me inside.

  The place smelled of dampness and mold. Cobwebs cluttered the rafters. There were two windows, one on each side, both with their shutters half fallen off. The crooked gaps allowed just enough light into the tiny building to see by. The altar was neglected. The roof full of holes. The floor of dirt and crawling with insects.

  “We can sleep here for the night,” Rosalind announced.

  I, who had slept a thousand nights beneath the stars on open ground, shuddered as I smashed a spider beneath my boot. In the peace that had lapsed since the previous autumn, I had grown too accustomed to the domestic comforts a woman provided. “How far to our meeting with Lancaster?”

  “Not far,” she said. “Half a day. We can rest here tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll follow the trail along the lake, then turn east and go across the moor. Beyond that is a deep valley, wherein lies a farmhouse concealed in the trees. The Earl of Lancaster will be there.” She went and peered out at Randolph, still tending to the horses, then tugged the door shut. “Once I’ve escorted you there I will be going on my way.”

  “Way? Where?”

  “To Lancaster. There is a place in his household for me there.”

  I laughed lightly. “Ludicrous.”

  Her voice rose only slightly. “Why?”

  “Rosalind, come now. You can’t stay in England. It’s dangerous for you to even cross the border. You’ve been an agent for the enemy. If Edward learns of it ... if he even suspects ...” I crossed from the furthest corner of the tiny church to the opposite where she now stood – a full four strides. “At best, he’d imprison you – and not in a nunnery, but a dungeon, dark and cramped and writhing with rats. At worst ... need I tell you?”