As the town burned, a ring of torchlights gathered just beyond the castle wall. The sounds and smells and images of bloody Berwick rushed through my head. I retreated from the window and sank down in a corner of the room, my right elbow propped upon my knees to ease the pounding in my hand. On silent paws, Fingal joined me. There, in dark, cavernous solitude, I waited for whatever might come.
And I prayed for father to come home.
Ch. 6
Robert the Bruce – Douglas Castle, 1297
The road to Douglas stretched lazily before us. Dust billowed from beneath the hooves of our laggard horses. Late afternoon June sun seared into their dark hides.
I looked at my squire, his round face puckered in thought. “Aye, Gerald?”
“M’lord?” His bushy, dark red eyebrows danced above his round eyes in feigned innocence.
“You think I was wrong, don’t you? Confess.”
Blushing crimson, Gerald’s head sank with a shrug. He glanced over his shoulder at the men trailing behind us. “Ahhh... not wrong, no.”
The rest of my company, markedly diminished since we left Carlisle, swayed from boredom in their saddles. A scouring with hot water and soap would make their company more bearable. I had smelled sweeter swine than the lot of them.
“Premature?” I prodded. “Foolish, then?”
He grunted, as was his habit when he preferred not to speak. It was all the answer I needed.
For several years now, my father had been withdrawn from the public eye. The curse of rotting flesh had begun to reveal itself – a result of his time spent in the Holy Land – and he wanted no one to know of it. So when Longshanks ordered him to take the castle of Sir William Douglas, who was known to be conspiring with rebels, he sent me in his stead. Too often, my father and I had quarreled and always I had bent to his will. This time, however, I deigned to be my own man, for all it might cost me. Perhaps it was brash youth that made me feel so invincible. Twenty-three short years was scarcely enough time to be dealt a proper dose of humility.
When we passed through Annandale, I had offered my small army a choice: follow me, join Douglas and stand for Scotland – or leave, go back to Carlisle, and do the King of England’s bidding. The offer had left me with not a single knight. They had protested their loyalty to my father, Lord of Annandale, and wanted nothing of rebellion. Only a few dozen footsoldiers from Carrick, those who had fought beside me and knew me best, those who had the least to lose and the most to gain, had chosen to follow me.
“Whichever way it goes,” I said, shielding my eyes with a cupped hand while I peered ahead, “I will have men of true hearts behind me. Men who can be bought will yield to the highest bidder. Even our nobles bear evidence to that.”
I opened up my flask and took a drink to wash the dust down, then offered it to Gerald.
Gerald waved it off and cast another glance behind him. “You’ll need more than this motley herd.”
“The mightiest castle is begun with a single stone.”
“And is built by an army of skilled masons, not by a handful of farmers wearied of turning soil.” He shifted in his saddle. One shaggy red eyebrow arched upward. “What of Longshanks? And your father? They’ll hear of this.”
“As if I ever doubted you would come ‘round to that. Aye, they will brand me a traitor. But I have already been a traitor to my own, Gerald, and I do not like the fit of it. Wallace, Douglas, Moray... they at least have their honor and that is something nearly lost to all Scotsmen. King Edward has dangled his glittering promises far too long. Let him make good of them and put a Bruce on the throne.”
As I said that, however, I was not thinking of my father. He was as withered of limb as he was of virtue. I had long since wearied of his drivel. I secretly prayed his leprosy would rot his tongue.
As the road crested over a ridge, the stark lines of the tower of Douglas Castle were silhouetted against a purple sky before us. I raised a hand to halt my company and told them, “Ride through the town. Make yourselves known. But split not a hair on any man’s head or else you’ll answer to my blade, understood?”
They nodded their agreement. Then we spurred our horses and rode toward slumbering Douglas.
A blanket sung around my shoulders, I shivered against the night chill. A faint plume of smoke from a hearthfire in the castle streaked across a starry sky. On either side of the road leading over the ditch to the gatehouse, our small camp was spread across a stubbled field of oat. The garrison of Douglas Castle observed our every move, no doubt counting our numbers and straining their eyes in the endless dark to uncover more of us hidden in the hills beyond. Every now and then we glimpsed the glint of a blade between the merlons. Murmurs of instruction were followed by the faint clack of boots on the stones of the wall walk as the guard changed.
In the town huddled below the castle, I had ordered a few houses put to the torch as a clarion to our coming, with ample warning given to the inhabitants so none might come to harm. The smoking thatch had been quickly doused. But aside from upsetting a few carts and toppling some barrels, my men had done little damage – only enough mischief to leave their mark. Enough that reports would flow back to Carlisle and trickle on down to London. We met with little resistance – doors slammed before us, mostly. Menfolk were blatantly lacking in the town, which told me we had come to the right place.
When day broke, we could see there were too few to defend Douglas Castle for any length. Quietly and patiently, I waited. The sun was still stretching its pale, golden fingers across the fields when one of Douglas’s men rode out with word that I would be granted an audience with Lady Douglas.
I left the bulk of my soldiers outside the gatehouse and took only Gerald and a handful of others. Gerald chastised me for my lack of prudence, fearing an ambush, but if I was to bargain for information then I knew I must come on the premise of absolute trust. As we rode beneath the portcullis, it became evident that although we were few, they were even fewer. The whole place echoed with vacancy. The garrison had been recently depleted, with little thought employed as to how it would hold out if attacked. Just inside the gate, an aging soldier with a stooped spine leaned against his spear for support. A scant three archers stood at their posts along the wall, each with an arrow caressing a bowstring. Two men posing as guards, most likely the cook and steward, judging by their attire, flanked the door to the hall. Both held a sword in hand, although in more peaceful and less desperate times those same hands would have been grasping a pot handle and a quill.
Lady Eleanor received us in the great hall. The lady had been not long a widow when Sir William Douglas, an ungracious and reckless sort, absconded with her from beneath her English parents’ noses one long winter night a few years ago. Her parents protested that she was forcibly taken and her honor ruined. Thus, she was shamed into becoming Douglas’s wife. I doubted the verity of that tale. Her only shame had been in becoming enraptured with a Scotsman of rough repute.
At her skirt was a boy, somewhere between two and three in years, pale of complexion and eyes rimmed in red from recent tears. As Gerald and I strode toward the head table, before which Lady Eleanor stood, she yanked the boy behind her. Over to the side of the hall where tapestries colored an otherwise drab wall, an older lad studied our every move through cool blue eyes. His hair was as black as a raven’s feathers and his limbs long and thin in that awkward age. Two guards, their fingers curled about the hilts of implements probably unfamiliar to them, flanked the lady, but I could see they faltered in their courage. The lady and her guards were placing great trust that we had come on peaceable terms, just as I had that I would be received the same.
Lady Douglas bent her knee hastily and cast her eyes downward. I took a few steps closer, but as I did so, she stiffened. Her young son peeked with curiosity from behind her skirts. I reached out and tousled his hair.
“Your husband,” I began softly, lifting the boy’s plump chin in my fingers as he inched forward and grinned at me, “where i
s he?”
“He will...” She pulled her son back to her side. “He will be back soon.”
“Ah, then he has not gone far.” I let go of the boy’s chin and turned my gaze on the older one. There was intensity in his stare and defiance in the hard line of his chiseled jaw. No doubt he was Sir William’s oldest son. “We will not inconvenience you greatly, then, while we await his return.”
I strode over to one of the side tables, pulled out the bench and took a seat. I patted the bench beside me. “Gerald, please, rest your legs. My lady, might my men have some drink? And bread, perhaps?”
Although she tried to hide it, she had the look of a doe staring down the shaft of a hunter’s arrow. She raised her small chin as if defiant of my request. “I have nothing to give you.”
An awkward lie. Had I been ill-intentioned, the refusal might have served as an invitation to a ransacking. There was, however, a noble strength about her, a depth to her. Undeniably, it was brave of her to receive us without the protection of her husband close at hand. She gambled on my honor.
“Forgive me, Lady Eleanor. I would not take anything from you that was not freely given.”
Gerald chortled. His ruddy face took on a deeper hue. I jabbed him with an elbow for his obvious lack of manners. Ever since Isabella, the fleeting and tender love of my youth, had died in childbirth, Gerald had exhorted me to get on with living, as a man ought. Indeed, I loved women, loved the way a quick smile or lingering glance from me could make them weak at the knees, but I did not care to love any one woman again – not with all my heart as once I did. I had suffered enough sorrow for a man three times my years. Little Marjorie, my daughter, whose beauty rivaled the angels, was an ever-painful reminder of what I had lost. Time was the only salve to my wounds, not bedmates.
I laced my fingers together and gazed at her. “Please, I want nothing from you. Only to know where Sir William is.”
The dark haired lad stirred with discomfort.
“Why should we tell you?” He strode boldly forward to stand between his stepmother and me.
“What is your name, lad?”
He pulled his shoulders back and stood straight as a post. “James. You?”
“Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick.”
Squinting, James tightened his fists. He wore his thoughts as plainly as his father was prone to speak his.
“You do not trust me, aye,” I said. “What blame can I lay on you for that? But, you see, I am no longer King Edward’s man. I have heard of William Wallace and your father. I wish to join them.”
“Why?”
“James,” Lady Eleanor interrupted. “Enough!”
“No, no,” I said, rising. “I welcome the inquiry. I have no wish to keep anything from you.”
Parched, I reached for a pitcher on the table, then remembered my promise and drew my hand back. “John Balliol is in the Tower. In due time, he will be escorted back to his lands in Picardy where a life of comfort awaits him. He has worn his crown around his neck like a collar. Whenever Edward is not leading him about, it is our own council of nobles telling him what words to say and on which documents to put his seal. Meanwhile, Scotsmen have flocked to William Wallace like the Messiah, because he says what they thirst to hear. He gives voice to the thoughts and beliefs no one else dares to. Something to be admired.” Some might have believed that to be nonsense, coming from me. I crouched in front of the boy, so as not to tower over him. “James? Do you want to be like your father?”
His eyes narrowed even further. He shot a brief glance at Lady Eleanor. “Aye, I do.”
“And why is that?”
James chewed on his lip, then shrugged. “Because he is strong... and brave. Brave enough to fight the English.”
“Aye, brave he is.” I touched him on the arm and nodded. “And that is why I wish to join him.”
Gently, I pulled him closer and to my surprise he did not resist. I lowered my voice to a whisper, so only he could hear. “Can you tell me where he is? I cannot join him if I do not know. I trust you to not lead me astray. And you must trust me, James. You must.”
He leaned in closer yet. “Do you hate the English, too?”
There was something about the lad that foretold promise – something in the manner of his stance, the flicker of mischief and determination behind his pupils, and the measured care of his words that told me not to dismiss him for wont of years so readily. I winked at James. “Not all of them, but... I hate anyone who comes and takes what is not theirs.”
“If you fight them I will tell you,” he whispered back.
I lowered my eyes for a moment. I no more wanted it to come to that than I desired my own demise. But I had chosen a path and would never know to where it might lead unless I followed it to the end. Finally, I nodded and looked back up.
“Irvine,” he said.
“Irvine.” I patted his shoulder firmly. “Thank you, James. Someday I shall heap a rich reward upon you.”
The cloud lifted from his sky-blue eyes and they twinkled with the starry hope of adventure. “Will you take me with you?”
I could feel Lady Eleanor’s burning gaze – felt it as sure as if I had waved my own hand over a candle flame. She believed me to be one of them. Feared for her sons’ safety and her own.
“No, I... I cannot,” I answered regretfully.
Then I rose and approached the lady. I plucked up her hand and placed a soft kiss upon her knuckles. Her arm stiffened from fingertips to shoulder. Something in her past had cultivated a distrust of strangers – she was not to be easily won. Clumsily, I attempted to charm her with a smile. “Sir William’s boys will bring honor to the name of Douglas one day.”
She jerked her hand back and buried it in her skirts.
“If your men will leave their weapons at the door” – Lady Eleanor gazed sternly at my men – “and if they do not mind the wait overmuch, the cook can manage enough to satisfy them. But the wine will be generously watered. Drunkenness is not looked upon pleasantly here.”
“As you wish, fair lady.” I motioned to Gerald and moved to withdraw.
“My lord earl?” she said.
“Aye?”
“Make promises sparingly. As I tell my boys,” – she wound her fingers in the curls of the youngest – “words are soon lost to the wind.”
My lips parted, but words resisted. All the promises I could conjure just then, to aid her husband, to protect her son, to stand by Scotland, I realized were worthless if my actions did not bear them out. I bowed, as much out of decency as thankfulness, for it was all I could do.
That night we were permitted the comfort of her roof. A timely blessing, for the rain came and with it a strong wind. Late the next morning, our bellies satisfied, we departed for Irvine.
We rode along the rugged road toward Irvine. The horses’ hooves slapped mud up high. In the puddles pocking the road, chattering sparrows gathered to bathe. Gerald leaned from his horse and tapped me on the arm, then pointed ahead.
On a bare hill overlooking the long stretch of road northward, James sat on a dark, shaggy pony. In one hand he clutched a short spear. Over his back was slung a boy’s short bow.
“It is as well he is too young to come with us,” Gerald remarked. “There is bound to be bloodshed.”
“You forget, Gerald. He was at Berwick.” I shook my head at the tales I had heard and the horror of them. “He has seen more dead than you and I in ten lifetimes put together.”
Ch. 7
Robert the Bruce – Irvine, 1297
From Douglas we rode north, swinging wide of Loch Doon, and crossed the River Ayr far to the east, closer to Cumnock than Ayr itself, where the English were reported to be. At last, the broad hills dipped seaward. There, they flattened out and opened up to a rolling expanse of wind-battered tussocks of grass. A rising westerly wind drove grains of sand from the scattered dunes and tossed them into our eyes. The horses tucked their heads down and snorted. I gazed to the west, over the sea. On a fair da
y you could see the mountaintops of Arran, but today low gray clouds obscured the horizon.
In the distance, half a mile inland from the shore, a modest collection of one-story buildings hugged a small river. A bustling encampment sprawled just south of it. Our destination. With the recent gathering of Scottish discontents, Irvine had erupted into a town ten times its former size.
By the time we arrived, I had collected a respectable number of recruits from Carrick, although I was soon to discover that those who had gathered there had all come for pure quarrel, not for cause. Word had spread of James Stewart’s summons for his knights to gather at Irvine to stand against the English. Stewart, the brother of William Douglas’s first wife Elizabeth, held lands from Bute to Teviotdale and it was clear his wishes meant something to Scotsmen – even men like Wallace and Douglas, who were not beyond disagreeing with their own or disavowing authority. Unlike me, Stewart did not hold any lands in England, so no one could question on which side of the border his loyalties might lie.
At a comfortable distance from the main encampment, I ordered my men, but for Gerald, to wait. Breath held, back straight, I rode my horse to the very brink of the Scottish camp and dismounted. Someone murmured my name. Men sprang to their feet and came toward me – I thought to offer greetings, but on their faces were scowls rather than smiles. My way was barred with spears held firm. I dodged to the right, only to find the glimmering point of a long sword aimed at my belly. Ah, devil.
“Let me pass,” I commanded, donning an air of authority. “I wish to speak with the Stewart.”
Sir Alexander Lindsay, with his thick head of silver hair bobbing above all others like a seagull riding the waves, made his way through the rumbling crowd. He had known my grandfather well and although Lindsay was but a vague memory of my childhood, I sighed inwardly with relief to see a familiar face.
The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy) Page 6
