by J. R. Tomlin
Wallace's feet lifted from the ground, swinging. Heart pounding, James clinched his fists. Please, by all the saints, let him die fast.
Screams and shouts of "Give it to 'em" deafened him. The executioner looped the rope to a stanchion and walked around Wallace slowly, nodding. When he got back, he loosened the rope. Wallace thumped onto to the boards of the scaffold. A man-at-arms picked up a bucket of water and dashed it into Wallace's face. He rolled over, groaning, loud in the momentary silence; the crowd cheered wildly. Whistles and catcalls went up.
The executioner pointed to the rope, and the man-at-arms began to pull it. Wallace's feet scrabbled for purchase against the wet boards as he was hauled upright. The executioner picked up a knife from a table.
Once more, the men-at-arms grabbed Wallace's arms, bracing themselves. The executioner reached for Wallace's crotch and grabbed him.
James' chest heaved with a gasp. Máter Déi... Máter Déi... Máter Déi... His eyes throat burned and scalding bile filled his mouth. He swallowed, his stomach lurching, and he whirled. Desperate, he shoved between a man and a woman behind him.
The man laughed. "Too weak-kneed to watch?"
James' elbow slammed hard into the man's belly. He shoved his way further into the crowd. Another cheer went up around him. Shouts of glee echoed across the city.
Merciful St. Bride, get me out of here before I kill someone. He couldn't bring that down on the bishop. Even more desperately, he pushed and shoved, not caring whom he elbowed to get through. Finally, he stumbled out of the crowd.
A scream echoed off the walls, soon drowned in shouts and howls of joy.
James' stomach heaved again. Bracing his hand on a wall, he hunched as he spewed vomit onto the cobbles.
His face burned, but he knew it was the fever of despair.
He drew his arm across his mouth and then leaned his back against the wall. The devil take them. The devil take them all.
He took a deep breath and straightened. He had to get to the manse where Bishop Lamberton and their party were lodged. The bishop would be furious at his having gone missing. Being yelled at by the man who'd been a second father to him seemed like a drink of cool water. He lifted his chin and started back up the slope. Thanks be to St. Bride, King Edward had refused his own homage when the bishop had presented him. He had no tie to this horrible place, except for the people they'd killed.
He wanted to go home. All he wanted was to go home. Or to kill the men who had stolen it. He'd get back what they'd stolen somehow. He shuddered. There was no getting back the lives they had stolen.
James wound his way through the busy streets. Apparently, some hadn't bothered with the execution. Traffic bunched around carts in the narrow intersections; green mold climbed up the brick walls. Garbage squashed underfoot, the stink rising as the day warmed with the climbing sun. Beggars lurked in the alleys crying for alms. James dropped his hand on his dirk, sorry he'd left his sword in his room. But if he’d had it, he might have used it back there.
He turned into a side street where the houses were finer, tall and freshly whitewashed. Upper windows were open, and the sound of people enjoying the day drifted down. Women wearing bright dresses passed him, each one accompanied by a maid and man-at-arms as they bargained with peddlers, gossiped or ordered their servants about. James went through a gate set in a dressed-stone wall.
Inside, he closed the polished front door behind him. Leaning back, he took a deep breath and shut his eyes for a moment. He would bear it. Let them say that William, Lord of Douglas begat a son who could bear what he must.
"Squire James," a voice piped. The only page the bishop had brought to London with them bounced down the stairs, full of energy as always. He came to a stop, staring.
"What, Giles?"
"His Excellency has been asking for you."
James gnawed his lip. He could make an excuse and clean himself up, but he wasn't going to lie to the bishop. He never had and wouldn't start. He nodded. "Where is he?"
"In his chamber." The lad frowned. "He looks in a stew."
"How else would he be this day?"
Giles looked as though he might cry, so James patted his shoulder in passing. Giles wasn't so much younger than he'd been in Paris, but seemed so much more of a child than he'd ever been. At the end of the long hall, he knocked and awaited permission to enter the bishop's precisely arranged chamber.
The bishop, thin, dark hair lightly streaked at the sides with gray, sat at a table, a calfskin folder open in front of him. He closed it with a snap. "So."
James bowed. "You sought me, my lord?"
Lamberton rose to his considerable height, though James was taller since he'd gotten his full growth. He racked James with a look. Chewing a lip with a guilty pang, James held Lamberton's glance. The bishop, even at so great an age as forty, was handsome in a hawk-faced way and dressed in his usual blackish purple and fine lace, suiting a bishop.
The bishop inclined his head and said in a smooth tone, "Did I not order that you stay within the manse? Do my commands carry no weight now?"
James winced but forced himself to meet the bishop's deep-set gray eyes. "You did, my lord."
"You disobeyed me. I expect obedience in my own house."
James couldn't help ducking his head. The bishop had the right to be obeyed, especially by someone he'd rescued and taken in. The saints only knew what would have happened to him if the bishop hadn't taken him as a squire out of regard for his father. "I know." He wanted to say he was sorry, but choked on it. As direful as the day had been, he would do it again if it came to that.
Lamberton sighed. "It did no good for you to see that. Nothing could stop it."
"He knew I was there," James said. "He knew."
"It's done, and mayhap it gave him some comfort. God knows..." Lamberton shook his head. "You're bloodied. What happened?"
"A small accident. No one recognized me. I did nothing that would bring harm to you. I swear it."
"It's not me whom I'm worried about, Jamie. As a bishop, they can do little to me. But I couldn't protect you, I fear, if you crossed King Edward's people. Not after he refused your fealty. There's no forgiveness in him for your father's offenses."
Heat flooded James's face. "Offenses?" His father's offense had been that he was a loyal Scot and had sent James to France so the English could not hold him as a hostage.
Lamberton shrugged. "So he sees it. And the power of how to see it is his. Never forget that, James. Do not forget it for even a moment." Lamberton turned and walked to the window to look out over the garden where roses climbed the outer wall.
"I never forget. But," James frowned at Lamberton's back. "I have never understood. You wanted me to swear fealty to King Edward. I would have been Wallace's enemy."
"Would you have been, Jamie? At Douglasdale, you would have had your men, all the spears of Douglasdale, a thousand strong. You would have held Douglas Castle. Would you have held it against Wallace or the King of the Scots?"
James opened his mouth to answer but then closed it. His throat tightened. "There is no King of the Scots."
Lamberton lowered his voice. "No. There isn't." Lamberton drummed his fingers on the edge of the window for a moment. "We leave for St. Andrew's tomorrow at first light." He turned. "I grieve for an old ally and friend. But I worry, too, for others. Wallace carried letters when he was captured. Almost certainly from the good Bishop Wishart. From whom else? Today, Edward has revoked certain gifts to Robert de Bruce."
A chill went down James's back. Wallace's death was even more hideous than his own father's by starvation. Who else might be at risk now? Now that the King of England had decided his enemies in Scotland should be killed rather than brought into his peace. James had guarded the door the night his lord the bishop signed a secret pact with Robert de Bruce, Earl of Carrick. He still wasn't sure what was in the pact or others from secret whispered meetings with John, the Red Comyn, and the withered old Bishop Wishart, meetings too secre
t to be known by a squire. Whatever the secrets were, they must be protected. James flushed hot and then cold. What would they do to the Bishop if those were revealed?
Lamberton held his gaze and nodded. "I see you understand."
They had a small tail of guards in London this late summer visit, only a score of men-at-arms, with the bishop's chaplain, his secretary, James himself and the page Giles. Such a party could leave quickly and quietly and before the English king thought to order them otherwise if God be merciful. James would do his best to see to it. It was his duty.
He sighed and shifted where he stood. "I'm sorry, my lord. Truly. I--It doesn't excuse me, but to think of everyone cheering whilst he was tortured so..." His voice broke, but he went on. "He knew me as a lad."
The bishop nodded. "I know that and I forgive you, Jamie. No worse harm has come than you grieving yourself seeing the horror of it. Now I'm packing my papers. It's best out of the leopard's sight when he's angry, lest one become prey. The men-at-arms aren't to be told we're leaving the city until the moment." He seated himself and nodded his dismissal. "Clean yourself up and see to it."
CHAPTER THREE
St Andrews, Scotland: March 1306
James ran his eyes over the high table and leaned against the wall. His duties seen to and all of the guests around the bishop enjoying their meal, he could relax. He picked up a cup from the side table of squires and filled it from a passing flagon. He took a deep drink of the fruity red wine.
The Great Hall of St. Andrews Castle was hazy with smoke. The scent of roast pheasant and spices filled the air. The brown stone walls were covered with banners, the Cross of St. Andrew and the bishop's own banner, pennants with heraldry of green, and gold, and white, but no sign of the blue Saltire of Scotland. A singer plucked a lute and sang a tender song of a maiden left by her love. At this side of the hall, James could barely make out a few words over the roar of the fire, the clatter of cups and the murmur of half-a-hundred conversations.
A party of English knights had arrived during the afternoon. Now they were in the second hour of a feast. My lord bishop sat in his black velvet robe, chin resting on his hand as he listened to the thickset man attired in green seated at his right, one Sir Edmund of Hylton.
James snagged half a roasted grouse dripping with brown gravy from another boy’s trencher and crunched into it.
The freckle-faced squire looked up at him and grinned. "Mind eating your own food, Jamie?"
James shrugged. "No point in trying to sit down until these English have their fill." Perhaps then, he could slip through the side gate and down to the town. He smiled as he wiped the gravy from his lips, thinking of a red-haired maid at the Traveler's Inn who had given him a long gaze from the corner of her eye two days before. She'd brushed against his arm when she'd filled his cup with ale.
Giles stood behind the bishop with a flagon of wine ready. A servant walked by with a bowl of frumenty sending up wisps of almond-scented steam, but if the trenchers weren't refilled properly, it would be James's fault as the most senior of the squires.
He washed the grouse down with a long pull of his wine.
A bustle and raised voices at the far end of the room made James stand up straight. The gates were closed for the night, and any seeking shelter should have gone to an inn in the city. It had to be someone seeking the bishop.
James edged his way past the side benches where two score of English men-at-arms sat at the lower tables. One finished a bawdy story, and a loud laugh went up. James narrowed his eyes. One of the younger pages was passing a flagon of wine. The bishop was straight-laced about such. James would hurry the pages to bed as soon as he saw to these newcomers. The squires would have to do what was left of the serving.
He pushed past the boy. In the door speaking to one of the guards was a young man, well dressed, a squire probably from his age, wearing the red saltire of Robert de Bruce, Earl of Carrick, and a step behind him a bearded man-at-arms.
James lengthened his stride and stepped beside the guard. "What goes here?"
"I bring a message for Bishop Lamberton," the squire said.
"From Lochmaben Castle?"
At the young man's nod, James held out his hand. "I'll take it to him. You'll want food and rest."
"I must myself put the message in the bishop’s hand." The squire grasped the purse at his belt. "His Grace's command."
The phrase was like a slap, and James caught his breath. He went hot and then cold. His grace?
Shaking himself, he looked over his shoulder at the bishop, still deep in conversation with the English knight. "I cannot allow it. But you may watch me tell him. If your lord wants that message noised to the English, I mistake your words."
The squire looked as though he'd protest, but after glancing from the guard to James, he nodded shortly. He drew a folded paper, slightly crushed, out of his purse and put it into James's hand. The seal on it was intact, and it was the crest of the Bruce Clan without doubt. Turning it over, James nodded. The inscription read to William de Lamberton, Bishop of St. Andrews in a tolerable hand but not that of a scribe. No nobleman wrote his own letters, except at great need.
James waved towards a place at the lower tables as he slipped the letter into his tunic. "I'm sorry. It's late, and the table is crowded, but there's always room. Take meat. Drink."
He frowned as he circled the long tables and made his way across the raised platform where the bishop sat with his more honored guests. James slipped the flagon out of Giles's hand. He bent to fill the bishop's goblet with the pale golden wine. "A message from the Bruce, my lord," he whispered.
The bishop leaned back, tapping his fingers on the table, and gave James a long look.
"Aught amiss?" The knight took a deep drink of his wine, but his eyes were shrewd as they darted between James and Lamberton.
"Why no, Sir Edmund." Lamberton smiled slightly. "Were you expecting such?"
"Expecting something amiss?" The knight laughed. "And in the house of a bishop of the church?" His eyes slid towards where the squire and man-at-arms sat, plain in Bruce colors.
"My lord, I'll send the pages off to their quarters," James said. "And wait on you myself. The other squires will see to the lower tables."
Lamberton nodded.
James pulled Giles aside and told him to gather the pages for bed. He signaled the squires that they were to attend the tables. Standing behind the bishop's high-backed seat of honor, James surveyed the room. The men-at-arms were deep in their cups and full with a heavy meal. Soon they'd wrap themselves in their cloaks and push the benches aside to sleep in the warmth of the Great Hall. Getting Sir Edmund to retire would be harder. Nothing to do but to wait him out. James bowed to him slightly as he refilled the knight's half-empty goblet.
"Attentive squire you have, Sir Bishop. Mine are more like to go off and swill wine themselves."
"James is a good lad." The bishop picked up a sweetmeat and rolled it between his long fingers before nibbling on it.
By the time the man finally gave up and made his way to his bed, swaying slightly, James was ready to dump him head first into the castle well or into one of the deep dungeons so as not to spoil the water. James gave a sigh of relief and followed the bishop up the narrow stairs to his chamber.
From far below, the crash of waves sounded like muted thunder. The worn stairs were empty, a single man-at-arms at the turn of the landing. James closed the door.
Lamberton took the letter and examined the seal, walking to stand in the light of the candles. Then he ripped it open and unfolded the parchment. After he read it, he crushed it in his hand. "You did well, James. Well, indeed. The question is--what does Sir Edmund know? An oddly timed visit. Yet, he can’t be sure of my knowledge, any more than I am of his. He must guess that I have the news. But as long as he only guesses--"
The bishop strode across the chamber as though it couldn't contain his emotions. His face was taut and his stride full of the energy of excitement.
"Scone." A shiver of excitement went through James. "To crown Robert de Bruce then."
"Comyn betrayed us. He revealed our plans to King Edward. Sent him proof--an agreement they'd signed. Robert killed him."
"What?" James shook his head in disbelief. "He killed the Red Comyn?"
"In Greyfriars Church." Lamberton stared at the wall for a moment, face grim. "In a church. Those two always hated each other. I hoped that this once, for Scotland--" He shrugged off the thought. "It will mean the Comyns and all of their kin joining the English, of a certainty."
"But they're the most powerful clan in Scotland. How can he fight the English and the Comyns, too?"
"I fear it won't just be the Comyns. The MacDougalls will side with them, as well. Possibly others. It will be a civil war." Lamberton's mouth thinned to a line. "Betrayed. I never suspected such treachery from John Comyn. Now there's nothing for it but to crown Robert. It must be done before Edward or the Pope can act. He begs me come to him there. It's over-early for our plan. Yet, we may still have a chance. And if we can win, he'll make a king for us. I believe that." He turned to James, his eyes wide, blazing with emotion. "So help me God, I believe it."
"Is there really a chance?" James wanted to laugh. He wasn't sure that he cared if they had a chance. Not as long as he could fight for what was his.
