The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

“Will you ever tell me,” she asked, “who she was?”

  “You never knew her.”

  “Would I, perhaps, have known of her?”

  “Perhaps. I don’t know.” I plucked a bloom from a tall, spindly flower stalk and handed it to her. Even though I had intended to tell her Marjorie’s name, I couldn’t. That was all in the past and didn’t seem pertinent right now. “Ah, there’s Father Simon – looking rather dubious, isn’t he? Are you glad this is to be your wedding day?”

  “Happy as any blushing bride.” She stopped, kissed me on the cheek, and brushed the bits of weeds and grass from my shirt and hair. “All those years ago, in Lancashire, when you asked for my hand ... I’m so sorry. I should have either said ‘yes’ right there or left then. But I couldn’t do either. I was still hurting, even though I never said so. I needed time – to heal. Yet in that process, your patience has only made me love you more. If I have hesitated, held back ... it’s only because I know that to love ... is to risk losing that love.”

  “But Rosalind, we have loved each other longer than either of us ever admitted, aye? Why not, then, love completely? I love you, and you me. Simple? Must we complicate it further?”

  She shook her head and embraced me. We went to where Father Simon waited. I placed a garland of daisies upon her head, plucked fresh from the field.

  Before Father Simon and God, we stood side by side, holding hands, as nervous as if we were sixteen-year olds.

  “It’s a wee bit urgent, Father Simon. Can you make quick of it?”

  He glanced at Rosalind’s round stomach, one thin eyebrow arching in judgment. “Ah, I see. I didn’t realize ... No matter. We’ll save confessions for later, my children.”

  “I’ll double my tithe to your parish this harvest. Now please ...”

  “I have not seen you at Mass for ... years perhaps?”

  “Very well. I’ll attend this Sunday if it will make you hurry.”

  “It would seem to me that you had a great deal of time before today to arrange this ceremony, had you wanted. And if you wish a christening for the child, I had best see you at the kirk for more than one Mass. I believe this favor should keep you coming until Christmas. Now let’s begin then. Have you a ring, Sir James?”

  ***

  Rosalind gave birth to a boy just before midnight. He entered the world wailing lustily. The strength of his cries reminded me of my youngest brother and so we named him Archibald. It seemed fitting.

  I had a son and a wife. A new purpose. Something besides serving my liege. But while my joy was never greater, all was not well for my good King Robert.

  Ch. 27

  Robert the Bruce – Cardross, 1329

  “Edward of Caernarvon was not much loved.” Tenderly, Aithne dabbed at my face with a soft cloth, blotting away the cold beads of sweat. She sat me up in my bed and helped me change my shirt. “Unlike you.”

  “That would depend on who you ask,” I jested, but the words stole my breath and I sank back.

  She readjusted my pillows, piled five high, then picked up a silver comb. Strand by strand, she combed my hair. At first I had found her attentions humiliating, insisting on taking care of myself, but the efforts were always so draining, my pain so intense, that I could not accomplish them on my own. Humility is a heavy stone to swallow.

  When Elizabeth died, Aithne came to me. I would have thought she would leave soon afterward, given the feeble and often cantankerous state I was in, but she never went back to Carrick. She stayed. She knew I needed her. Once I had thought us nothing more than lovers. How wrong I had been – about more things than I cared to ever admit.

  In the spring, I had made what was for me an arduous pilgrimage to St. Ninian’s shrine in Galloway. Aithne accompanied me. Progress was dreadfully slow, but the journey through the land of my boyhood brought back dear memories of riding with my grandfather there. At St. Ninian’s I offered my peace with God and what a litany of crimes I confessed to. I had not gone to the trouble, until then, to reflect on them. My voice must have been heard above. England consented to the Treaty of Norham, agreeing to our terms of peace. Then ... word from the Holy See: my excommunication had at last been removed.

  For all that has ever been taken from me, much more has been given unto me.

  “And the new King Edward?” I asked her. “How goes it for him?”

  Her weight on the edge of the bed was light. She stroked the inside of my arm, her fingers never pausing at the little bumps there. “He’s a boy. In above his head. Been across the border already and chased back by our good Sir James.”

  “Ah, James ... is he here yet? I’ve been waiting.”

  “Not last I looked, but I’ll send him in as soon as he arrives from Lintalee. For now, rest, dear Robert. I’ve kept you awake far too long.”

  “You used to keep me awake all night and I never tired of you then.”

  “That was a long time ago.” She leaned over and gave me a kiss, then went.

  King Edward II: dead. A wasted life. They had moved him from Llantrissant to Kenilworth and finally to Berkley. Within the course of a year he was dead. ‘Natural causes’, they said. ‘Doubtful’, said I. He had many enemies – all very close to him. His queen had abandoned him for an underhanded lover, run him from London, forced his hand and put her son on the throne. A convenience that Edward of Caernarvon could no longer throw a shadow of suspicion on his short-grieved widow, but the man was dead.

  No man lives forever. Not even a king.

  Bishop Lamberton of St. Andrews, too, gave up the ghost in 1328. What an enormous debt I owed to men like him, now gone – those who embraced my dream as their own: the bishops Lamberton and Wishart, one wise, one comforting; my brother-in-law Christopher Seton who was taken at Methven; my squire Gerald, who fled from certain death with me from Longshanks’ court at Windsor and then later gave his life for me; Torquil who knew the waters about the Isles better than any man ... and those I loved and caused to suffer: most of all Elizabeth, my beloved wife; sweet, beautiful Marjorie who never held her own child; and my brothers Nigel, Thomas, Alexander, Edward ... all dead now. All dead.

  A man lives his whole life fearing death. But if he has lived a good life, a full life, and if he has done the work he was set upon the earth to do, then death is a part of that life. And it is welcome. It is peace. The life hereafter: God’s reward.

  I glanced about the room, grayed by the half-shadows of a long evening. Familiar objects around me dimmed, blurred and began to fade from my weakening sight.

  Beyond my chamber, my wardrobe contained leather shoes from Portugal and shirts of the finest cloth from Rheims. During the course of Scotland’s growing trade these last few years, I had amassed a wealth of worldly objects. Such things had pleased me once, pleased Elizabeth even more. But now all those things were merely trinkets: belongings that meant nothing to me now.

  I was almost eager to let go. To lay my head down one last time, close my eyes and greet Our Savior. I wanted to. I was tired ... and I could feel the pull. Strong, heavy. Like the weight of my own body, coaxing me downward as I swung from a thread by a single finger. And beneath, the fall would be soft, comforting, warm and cool, bright and dark all at once. Only ... I did not want to leave them. Aithne. James. Thomas. The children. Would that I could take them with me. But it was not their time. Not yet.

  It was mine. Time to join Marjorie. Little John. Alexander. Nigel. Thomas. My squire Gerald. My brother Edward, even. And ... my dear Elizabeth.

  I drifted off to sleep, my life flowing past me in memories both sharp and blurred. Memories of times good and bad, often hard and seldom easy. Times of much love and great loss. Of suffering and dreams realized. Memories of a life lived fully.

  ***

  When I awoke the next morning, it was to the vision of Aithne, older and yet still breathtakingly beautiful. She held out a cup of water. “James and Randolph are here.”

  As I drank from the cup, trying hard not to let it slip from my fe
eble grasp or the water dribble down my chin, Aithne left the room. Yielding to weariness, I let my eyelids close, the cup still resting on my chest.

  I was vaguely aware of the rumble of my own snoring. The low muffle of voices. The brush of footfalls. Someone’s hand on my shoulder – slight at first, then grasping more strongly as it shook me into arousal.

  “I got the message from Thomas.” James took the cup from me and placed it on the table beside my bed. “I came right away. How are you, Robert?”

  “I’ve had better days.” I held out my hand and he squeezed it gently before letting go, as if afraid he might break my fingers. Randolph stood just behind him, ever watchful, always with that proud, nearly arrogant bearing of his. “Enough of me. How are David and Joanna getting along?”

  Randolph moved to the foot of the bed. “Mostly they play with their own friends. The princess came with her own entourage of playmates. She very much misses her home. I think David in particular is a bit young to grasp the arrangement. He sometimes talks of his new ‘sister’ Joanna.”

  “So very young, they are. You’ll help David understand, Thomas, how important this marriage is? He must treat her with kindness, see that she is happy, aye?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “And you’ll succeed. By God, you always did.” How faint my voice was, even in my own ears. I rested several breaths, my heart glad to see them and yet sad that I might not again. “How far we’ve come. Do you remember, James, my good man ... Thomas” – I tried to grin, but the effort sapped me – “remember running free in the hills, plucking berries from the brambles, drinking from the rivers ... sleeping beneath the stars, game so fresh it squirmed on your knife?”

  “I remember being cold and wet and starving near to death,” Randolph said. “The toil of battle. The thrill of victory. The peace in between.”

  “I remember standing frozen to a tree trunk,” James reflected, inspecting his hands as if he held a weapon there and was pondering its power, “my heart banging in my ears, my breath held, while an English soldier scoured the thicket a few feet away in the darkness. The game of waiting, moving without making a sound, judging fear in a man’s eyes. I remember being able to guess the number of dead by the strength of the smell of blood. The pain of metal biting into my flesh. Hunting for good arrows in a pile of corpses. Reuniting with a friend after battle, only to learn of those who had not lived. I remember it all.”

  “How is it,” I asked, “that we all remember so differently? Were we not in the same places together at the same time?”

  James’ voice bore the strain of burgeoning grief. “This is not how it is supposed to be, Robert. Not like this.”

  “How should it be? Should we have died fighting at Methven, Dalry, Bannockburn, Byland Moor? That would have been too soon. We are older now. Our work is done. What better way to die than with my friends beside me?”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “We all die, eventually. Only our deeds live on.”

  “We’ll go to the Holy Land: Randolph, you and me. We are going to fight the Infidels.”

  “Aye, that was my dream once, too.” I closed my eyes and lay there so long and with breath so shallow I could sense them pressing closer to see if I was still breathing. “I ... I don’t want to die in battle anymore. Or in some other land. Here is where I will rest. My home. My land. Scotland. This is where they shall inter my bones. This is where I choose to die.”

  James’ eyes were pressed tightly shut, his head tilted back, his mouth open. Weeping, he sank to his knees as he held my hand. So stoic to the world, yet underneath was a soul as deep as the Forth itself.

  “You have many years ahead. A son to watch grow. More to come, maybe?” There I paused. “You’ll both look after my David and young Robbie, won’t you? Thomas – how to conduct one’s self in the company of popes and kings and how to compose a proper letter. You are good at those things. James, teach them to pull a bowstring well, wield a sword and ride a horse lightly. It is time you gave such pursuits up to those younger than you and settled down – stayed in one place awhile. Time for gentler things. Will you?”

  Still kneeling at my bedside, he bunched a handful of my blankets in his fists and nodded.

  “Thomas, will you leave us?”

  With true dignity and never a flicker of jealousy, Randolph bowed and departed. I could not turn my head to see, but I heard the curious onlookers dangling at the doorway as they moved aside to let Randolph pass. The door closed and it was just James and me. I put out my other hand for him to hold. Whether his grip was heavy or light, cool or warm, I could not tell.

  “At first, I regarded you like a father does his son, did you know? There you were, alone on the road, seemingly ignorant of highwaymen, oblivious that English soldiers might run you down. So eager to throw your lot in with a rebel. You needed guidance and I, in my arrogance, thought to give it to you. But then you became my teacher. A knight among knights.” I paused, not for thought, but to let pain pass. It stayed and so I swallowed, fought for breath. “Has any king ... any man ever known such loyalty? Such ... friendship?”

  His fingers tightened even more around mine, willing me to stay.

  “Yet, I denied you what mattered most, even when I knew ...”

  Again, the pain. Rolling like thunder. White as lightning.

  “ – that you loved each other. How could I have done that to you?”

  He lifted his head. “Done? What, Robert? I don’t –”

  “No more pretending. I knew, all along, and closed my eyes to it, just as you both tried to hide it. You loved Marjorie, dearly, deeply. And yet, I think, you would not ask to have her because, could it be, that you loved me more? Fool that I am, I forced you to choose. I also thought I knew my daughter. I doubted what she felt was the same as it was for you. Whether right or wrong, I should never have questioned either of you.”

  The tears were drying on his cheeks. This unspoken truth that had wrecked the past decade between us was out. What could not be said then had now tumbled from my clumsy tongue as easily as a lullaby. How I had wronged him. In no way could I put it right, except to say I regretted it.

  “But you have Lady Rosalind now and a son of your own. I do hope you have found your happiness, James. I am never quite sure I had it myself.”

  He drew breath, preparing to speak. But speeches were hard for James. Words were never his weapons or tools, only actions.

  “What, James? We’ve nothing anymore to keep from one another, have we?”

  His grip loosened. His chin sank to his chest, so that the words, when they came, were a muffled whisper. “It is I who has wronged you.”

  “Well, then,” I reassured, “if you have done me any wrong, don’t speak it. I will forgive you, if you do but one deed. Aye, James? When I die, carry my heart to Jerusalem. Will you? Pay me that honor. I had Thomas ask the men whom they would choose. You, they said. It is all I ask. The one thing that I pray will get me into Heaven, if there’s a place for me there. But I shall not worry on it. I’ve done as well as I could and if that’s not good enough ... well then, I’ve no time left to put it right. So I’m depending on you – for this. When you come back, look after the lads. Be here for Randolph. I have such boundless faith in the two of you. How would I ever have done so much without you both beside me?”

  He nodded. “I would do anything for you, Robert.”

  “I have never doubted that. Ever.” I tried to lift my arm, to point, but I could barely summon the strength for even that. I was cold in my core, numb in the extremities. “There, James. Do you see it against the wall? I had it made for you.”

  His steps dragging, he retrieved the shield from where it was propped in a corner. He studied it a moment before picking it up and testing its weight by slipping his forearm inside the straps. At the top were three stars on a band of blue and below them a field of white.

  “The stars – those are for you, me and Randolph. Just don’t ask me which is
which. I couldn’t decide what to put in the middle, though. Thought I’d leave that up to you.”

  “Thank you, I ...”

  But if he said anything more, I did not hear it. A tide of pain swept over me again – every joint wrenched with it. A hand, strong as iron, gripped my heart, challenging it to go on beating. I fought, for I was not yet ready to go.

  James put the shield down so abruptly it thudded against the wall. In three strides, he was back at my side.

  “Call them back,” I said.

  Through tears, James found his way to the door and opened it wide. They came in then: Gilbert de la Haye, who had been with me from the very start; Robert Keith, so brave at Bannockburn; Cuthbert, the stuttering spy; Neil Campbell, husband to my sister Mary; William Bunnock, who took Stirling by a simple ruse; Robert Boyd, whose blood ran with ale until a young wife sobered him up and fattened him; and more, their faces blending together as the pain behind my eyes pulsed wickedly. Behind them all, Aithne shepherded the children in. Our son Niall was there, grown strong as an ox and more handsome than myself, I admit. Robbie held his chin high, but David, Margaret and Mathilda all trembled with tears as they held hands.

  “James shall carry my heart to the Holy Land.” My voice was so weak that I wondered if any of them heard. “I thank you, my friends ... your courage ... loyalty. Thank you, all.”

  Friends they were, above all. Not servants. Not soldiers. Not subjects. But friends that I loved and to whom I owed everything. I had been blessed to know them. Honored that I was struck with a dream I could not part from. A simple dream.

  Freedom.

  All men are born free. We Scots have merely fought for what God intended us to have.

  I have done all that I can do. All I was meant to do. In that, I am at last content.

  Ch. 28

  James Douglas – Lintalee, 1330

  For two days more, Robert clung to life, half-sleeping peacefully, half-awake in terrible misery. I slept beside him in a hard-backed chair, rousing at every moan or rustle, determined to be there with him to the very last.