Insurrection: Renegade [02]

by Robyn Young

  Bishop Bek caught Robert’s eye as he passed, seeming to communicate some warning or threat. The prince looked relieved to be excused, slipping quickly out of the tent ahead of the queen, who was escorted by her ladies.

  After allowing his page to help him pull on a fresh shirt, Edward took up a goblet of wine. ‘Speak, Sir Robert. I am in no mood for guessing games.’

  ‘I have been thinking, my lord, about Scotland’s future and your plans for establishing a new government. This attack has exposed what has been foremost in my mind – the necessity of building a stronger union between our people in order to maintain the peace and curb the more rebellious elements who may seek to disrupt it, especially with William Wallace still at large.’ Robert enjoyed the flush that mottled the king’s pallid face at the mention of the outlaw.

  ‘Go on,’ ordered Edward gruffly, sipping his wine.

  ‘More than ordinances, more than officials, you will need the consistency and cohesiveness a strong leader can provide when you leave for England. I have proven I can keep the peace in the west as Sheriff of Lanark and Ayr. I believe I could do much more as your lieutenant in Scotland. I know these men, my lord,’ Robert went on, before the king could respond. ‘I know their fears and their hopes. I would see the first sign of rebellion long before its fire was ever sparked again.’

  The king finished his wine. ‘I have already chosen my lieutenant. My nephew, John of Brittany, shall fill that role.’

  The blow knocked Robert’s impetus, but he fought to regain it. ‘He will need an adviser. Someone who knows Scotland and its people. I would be—’

  ‘I have also chosen my chancellor and my chamberlain, and am in the process of selecting justices and sheriffs, some of whom will indeed be Scotsmen.’ Edward’s tone was imperious. ‘This is not the first country I have brought under my dominion, Sir Robert. I am not naïve to the delicate politics of conquest. I understand the benefits of placing natives in positions of power.’ He turned to the bed where his surcoat had been laid out and picked up the garment, frowning at the bloody hole the arrow had made. ‘Only, not so much that they can grow beyond their station.’ He crossed to a clothes perch and took down his scarlet mantle. ‘Scotland will be much as it was after I deposed John Balliol. It will enjoy its liberties, but subject to me. There will be no guardians, no regent.’ He turned back to Robert. ‘No king.’ Edward held his gaze for a long moment, then went to shrug the mantle around his shoulders. Pain creased his face. ‘Help me with this,’ he commanded testily.

  Robert forced himself forward and took the mantle from the king, his fingers crushing the soft material. He moved behind Edward, smelling an odour of herbs from the physician’s treatment. The king was several inches taller than him, but Robert noticed he was starting to lose some of his formidable height to the stoop of old age. As he raised the garment, the three lions shifted with the movement, their open maws seeming to leer at him. He thought of the red lion of Scotland, torn from Balliol’s tabard, as he laid the mantle over Edward’s broad shoulders.

  Time seemed to slow. Robert noticed a mole on the king’s neck beneath the wisps of his thinning white hair. He saw the patches of skin on his scalp, raw from the summer sun. God, but this was just a man, bound to the same frail flesh as any other. How could this sixty-five-year-old body, weakened by human fragility, have been the cause of so much death and destruction? Robert’s hands – the strong, sun-browned hands of a thirty-year-old – hovered over the king’s shoulders, to either side of his neck.

  Edward turned abruptly, fastening the brooch pin one-handed. ‘I appreciate your offer of assistance, Sir Robert. Indeed, I welcome it. The war is ended and I want it to stay that way. I intend for a Scottish council to liaise with my lieutenant and his staff. I want John Comyn and Bishop Lamberton to be on this council, among others. But above all, I want you. You will be my eyes and ears in this new Scotland.’

  ‘It would be an honour, my lord,’ murmured Robert.

  ‘Come,’ said the king, a hard smile creasing his face. ‘I want to be there when Warwolf is brought up.’

  As Edward strode out of the pavilion, Robert followed. Stepping into the blinding sunlight, he barely heard the cheers of the men as they saw their king appear. Lamberton’s voice echoed in his mind, drowning out all else.

  Do not make the same mistake as your father. He lived on the king’s promises. In the end what did those scraps bring him but a lonely death in exile?

  Before Balliol was deposed, Edward had promised Robert’s father the throne of Scotland in return for his loyalty. Robert remembered his father’s eagerness as they made their way to Montrose that fateful summer’s day. He hadn’t been there when his father had gone to enquire of his reward, but he had been told later what had happened. Do you think, the king had demanded, that I have nothing better to do than win kingdoms for you? His father had never fully recovered from the loss, or the humiliation.

  As the English nobles surrounded their king, offering prayers for his miraculous escape, Robert stood on the periphery, his thoughts in turmoil.

  Warwolf rolled through the encampment, drawn by forty oxen. The animals groaned in wretched chorus as men cracked whips across their blood-streaked hides, forcing them on. In their wake the siege engine trundled, cables and ropes swinging, wheels carving up the ground, its colossal frame towering against the summer sky. Warwolf was a trebuchet; on a scale unlike anything any man had seen before. It had taken two months and more than fifty engineers to build it, frame by frame on a meadow below the town, using timber stripped from houses and the nearby woods. The men of the English army had to crane their necks to view it as it lurched slowly past, the great basket lying dormant on the wheeled platform, the other end of the beam slanting heavenward.

  All was quiet on the battlements, no sign now of any defenders. Smoke floated in grey veils over the ramparts, pluming behind the walls where a large fire continued to burn out of sight. As Warwolf was brought to a halt, men unharnessed the oxen from the front of the platform, while engineers hauled and tugged the ropes and cables into position, slathering grease on to the wheel of the winch to ensure a smooth release. The crew set to work winding it, panting with the effort as the cable clanked round. Gradually, the basket of lead swung up into the air and the beam was lowered. Other crew worked close by, rolling a huge stone, far larger than those shot by the other engines, into a leather sling. Once the stone was cradled inside, the sling was attached to a hook on the beam.

  The men around the base stepped back. The chief engineer looked to the king, who gave a nod. At his order, the crew released the winch. The basket hung suspended for a second as the cable hammered round, winding itself free, then it dropped like an anchor. At the same time, Warwolf’s arm, with the sling attached, sprang upwards in a sweeping arc. As it reached its zenith, sling and stone were sent catapulting towards Stirling’s walls. It struck one of the gatehouse towers dead on, pulverising stone. The top half of the tower crumbled into the ditch with a roar of rubble. The men of the English army let out a cheer that resounded around the hillside at the sight of the jagged wound Warwolf had bitten in the castle’s side.

  ‘Again!’ Edward ordered with a fierce shout. ‘All the engines.’

  Once more, Warwolf’s crew heaved round the winch and the basket was hoisted. As another stone was loaded and sent flying into Stirling’s walls, the trebuchets and mangonels joined in, the thunder of their onslaught seeming to shake the mountain. Flashes of Greek Fire thickened the smoke into a pall, blackening the sky.

  After less than an hour of ferocious bombardment the men near the walls began to shout and motion to the gatehouse. Slowly, the drawbridge was lowered. The attack was halted as fifty or so figures emerged from the castle and began to pick their way through the rubble that littered the path. They were met by the king’s knights, who checked them roughly for weapons, before leading them to where Edward waited.

  They were a wretched band, some injured, most gaunt with lack of fo
od and sleep. All were grey-faced and clad in the same shapeless garments. As they approached, led by the knights, Robert, standing with the king, realised that Stirling’s garrison were wearing sacks over their surcoats and mail. The reason for the strange pallor of their faces became clear. Their cheeks had been smeared with ashes. Sackcloth and ashes: a show of penance and remorse. No doubt aware that some of Caerlaverock’s garrison had been hanged after they surrendered, William Oliphant and his men sought the king’s mercy.

  Oliphant went down on bended knee. ‘O great king,’ he said hoarsely, holding out his fist, in which was gripped a large key on a ring. ‘Stirling is yours. I humbly ask that you accept my unconditional surrender. Only, I beg you, spare the lives of my men.’

  Robert glanced at the king, who remained silent, looking down on the bowed man.

  ‘No,’ said Edward, after a weighty pause. ‘I do not accept.’

  A few of the king’s men looked at him. Humphrey was frowning in question. William Oliphant’s head jerked up, his eyes filling with fear.

  ‘It took two months to build Warwolf. I want it tested properly. I will consider your surrender when I am satisfied with the performance of my new siege engine. You will come out when I tell you to. Not a moment before.’ The king gestured to his knights. ‘Lead them back inside. Barricade the doors.’

  William Oliphant rose, his eyes scanning the faces of the men around the king. No one came to his aid. After a moment, he turned and began to walk back up the path towards Stirling’s broken gatehouse, his men following him as Warwolf’s beam inched slowly skyward.

  Robert stared at the king, resignation settling coldly inside him. Turning from Edward, his gaze roved across the crowd. It didn’t take him long to pick out the tonsured head of William Lamberton.

  Chapter 41

  Burstwick, England, 1304 AD

  They gathered at dawn in the courtyard of the royal manor, warming their hands around goblets of mulled wine, while grooms bridled their horses and the varlets led the dogs from the kennels. Along with the twelve running-hounds were two alaunts in leather armour and spiked collars, their powerful jaws capable of bringing down any quarry. When the huntsmen arrived with the news that the lymers had caught the scent, the company rode out, blowing their horns to entice the hounds to the chase. The sun was rising as they entered the woods, the young men’s excitement spiced with apprehension, for what they hunted today wasn’t stag or hare, but boar.

  Spread out through the trees, the men rode through thickets of bracken and briars, spurring their coursers to leap narrow brooks and fallen branches, always with the hounds ahead, sometimes visible, other times traced only by the clamour of their barking. In their midst cantered Prince Edward, his emerald-green cloak billowing behind him. Beneath the saddle-cloth, the flanks of his horse foamed with sweat. His heart was hammering, the blood running hot in his veins. All his senses felt heightened; his eyes picking out gold flecks of sunlight in the falling leaves, ears noting the subtle shift in the cadence of the horns that now guided him eastwards on the trail of the hounds, his mouth and nose filling with the damp odours of moss and rotting acorns. The death of summer was all around him, glorious in the leaves’ fading fire.

  Away to the right, Thomas of Lancaster kicked his white courser up and over a tree stump. His cousin was grinning fiercely, his face flushed. Edward Bruce was just behind, raking the sides of his palfrey, determined to keep up with the earl. A spear was gripped in the Scot’s right hand. His cloak was caked with mud and there was a bloody gash on his forehead, sustained in a fall, but he looked as elated as the rest of the company, alive with the joy of the hunt.

  For three hours they had followed the trail, through overgrown glades and shallow rivers, the sky lightening to a glacial blue. Their quarry was cunning, evading them by doubling back on itself, but the huntsmen were skilled in their craft – reading tracks in the earth and the mud-stains the creature left as it brushed past the trunks of trees, examining piles of dung for freshness – and they were closing in. The prince had been pleased to see the acorns in the boar’s droppings, which would render its meat all the sweeter. It would make a fine gift for his father, recuperating back at the manor, weakened by a complaint of the bowels during his withdrawal from Scotland. His sister Bess would no doubt enjoy it too, heavily pregnant and weary with it.

  Skirting the low-hanging boughs of an oak, Edward glimpsed the sweep of a black velvet cloak disappearing between the trees up ahead. He smiled and kicked his courser on, heedless of the trailing branches he whipped past. As he gained on the rider, the velvet mantle with its embroidered knots and whorls of flowers became clearer. The rider turned in his saddle, hearing the hooves pounding up behind him. Piers grinned as he saw the prince and goaded his horse faster until the two of them were galloping madly through the woods, leaving the rest of the company far behind.

  Ahead, the trees thinned out and the ground sloped down into a wide, natural ride. The two of them careened on to it, mud and leaves flying. Edward managed to manoeuvre his horse up alongside Piers, the two of them racing abreast. The trees were a blur of gold and brown, sunlight flashing in and out. A hunting horn cradled in its baldric bounced wildly against the prince’s back. He fought for breath, leaning forward in the saddle. In the corner of his vision he saw Piers doing the same. The Gascon’s lips were pulled back, his teeth gritted. Some distance ahead, the track narrowed, the trees closing in. Edward jabbed at his courser’s sides for all he was worth, trying to get in front of Piers. But the Gascon refused to slow. The thick trunk of a beech loomed up.

  At the last second, Edward lost his nerve. Pulling his horse sharply to the left to avoid the trunk, he went hurtling down a shallow bank and was almost pitched from the saddle as his horse vaulted a fallen tree and crashed through a tangle of undergrowth. Twigs scratched his face. He fought to control the animal, pulling on the reins and leaning back against the cantle until the courser came to a halt. The prince sat there, closing his eyes as his breaths slowed and the shaking in his limbs subsided.

  ‘My lord!’ called Piers, riding down to him. His horse’s mouth was frothy, its nostrils flared. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No thanks to you if I’m not,’ snapped Edward, his blood heated by the rush of fear. ‘Why didn’t you slow?’

  ‘I thought you would.’ Piers smiled as he studied the prince, his dark eyes full of sly question. ‘Did you not enjoy the race?’

  Seeing that grin, Edward felt his own lips respond unwittingly, but fought against it. ‘Just pass me the wine, damn you.’

  Kicking his feet out of the stirrups, Piers jumped down and set about unfastening the skin from his saddle. He passed it to Edward, who drank deep, the wine flooding his parched throat. The faint call of horns came to them. The prince shifted round in the saddle, trying to determine the location of the rest of the hunting party.

  ‘Look.’

  Edward turned back to see that Piers had crossed to a tree, the lower bark of which was carved with scratches. The prince recognised the markings at once. They had been made by a boar sharpening its tusks. He lowered the wine skin, suddenly wary. ‘Piers, you should mount up.’

  The Gascon made no move to obey. ‘There are more over here,’ he called, heading deeper into the undergrowth.

  Cursing, the prince dismounted and drew his sword. His legs felt weakened by the ride as he moved up behind Piers, blinking as he passed through a dappled patch of sunlight. He could smell wet earth and the mulch of rotting leaves. His ears were strained for any sound in the undergrowth around them. Tackling a boar on horseback was dangerous, but on foot it was foolhardy. Its tusks could split a man wide open.

  Piers paused by an oak and crouched down, running a gloved finger along the gashes on the trunk. ‘These seem fresh to me.’

  ‘We should call the others,’ said Edward, taking up his hunting horn.

  Before he could sound it, Piers rose and grasped his wrist. ‘They’ll find us soon enough.’

&n
bsp; ‘In pieces if that boar’s skulking round here somewhere.’ Edward tried to sound forceful, but the pressure of Piers’s fingers around his wrist made his voice come out as a murmur. The Gascon was so close he could see the beads of sweat on his upper lip, his skin shadowed by half a day’s stubble. He averted his gaze. ‘Piers . . .’

  ‘I was hoping we would have the chance to talk alone,’ said the Gascon, not relinquishing his grip. ‘What has the king been saying about me, Edward?’

  ‘Saying about you? I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t play games. We’ve known each other too long for that.’

  Edward shook his head. ‘I swear, Piers, he has said nothing.’

  The Gascon released his hold on Edward’s wrist abruptly. ‘I see the effort he makes to keep us apart. Things have changed between us these past two months. Do you not see it?’

  Edward thought. After the capture of Stirling Castle, which his father had continued to bombard before eventually accepting the garrison’s surrender, the king had led the army south into England. The going had been slow, his father plagued by the illness that had come upon him suddenly. It was true, he had been ordering him to take on more responsibilities in this time, but the prince had assumed this was due to his weakened state.

  ‘No,’ said Piers sharply, when Edward explained this. ‘It is more than your father’s health. He has been keeping me out of meetings, manoeuvring others into greater positions of power within your household. Edward Bruce – a damned Scot – has been given more influence than me. And your father speaks so frequently of your marriage I swear it is as if you are wed already.’

  Edward scowled and sheathed his sword with a forceful stab. There was an unspoken rule between him and Piers that they never discussed his forthcoming marriage to Isabella of France. ‘You’re not the one facing that prospect.’

  ‘No, my future is worse,’ Piers bit back. ‘Once that day comes, I will lose you for good.’ He pushed past the prince and went to their horses.