“Lindsay, I wish to speak with the Stewart. I have brought men... to join you.”
Lindsay’s eyebrows wove together and he folded his arms across his chest. “You’re not welcome here, Robert, and I don’t think the Stewart will care to see you. So be off... while you still have your skin.”
“Then let me see Bishop Wishart.” I knew that Robert Wishart, the Bishop of Glasgow, was involved in this and had no doubt he, if no one else, would speak with me. “Tell him that I come on church business.”
Hostile eyes glared at me from every angle. Scotsmen hungry for a fight pressed closer. A tribe of wild-eyed Scotsmen is enough to make any man hesitate to cross the line they have drawn. I saw fingers flex on dagger hilts and began to wonder if I might have to turn around and go all the way back to Carlisle... something I would avoid at all costs.
“I think it’s unlikely you do,” Lindsay said loud and clear. Then he sauntered close, glanced about him and, with a wink, added lowly, “But I will give him the message anyway.”
A few minutes later, Gerald and I were led to a tent, unmarked by any standard, but bigger than any of the others. I left Gerald outside and entered between the open flaps. Sir William Douglas was seated at a table, one fist braced against his cheek and the other tapping his knuckles on the table. To his right stood a tall, broad shouldered man, with his wild, sun-golden hair gathered loosely at the neck: William Wallace. He slammed his hand down on the table and argued his point. Opposite Wallace were a few other nobles, shaking their heads vehemently. At the table’s head, James Stewart in his fine attire sat straight and silent, regarding the others coolly. And at the far end was old Bishop Wishart, snug in his clerical robes.
Bishop Wishart squinted his right eye at me. Indeed, I do not think his other eye ever moved. His face drooped heavily on the left: the effect of too many years and too many burdens. He nudged back his stool, but even as he stood he was hardly any taller than those who were seated. The right side of his mouth curled up into a lopsided smile.
“Robert?” The bishop waddled around the table, arms wide. I felt the soft paunch of his belly as he embraced me. “Ah Robert, Robert. I was greatly aggrieved when I heard of your wife. Your daughter is well, I trust?”
A deep pang stabbed at my chest. “Very,” I replied softly. That single word resounded like a shout in the now gaping silence as the others there stared at me with obvious repulsion. I returned his embrace, and then stepped back. There was no point in hiding the reason for my coming. “I have brought men from Carrick.”
They looked at me blankly.
“For what purpose?” Stewart asked, as if unsure of whether I would fight beside or against them.
I circled the table. “Stewart, you have known me for a long time. You know I have no reason to lie. I have come to fight the English. To fight for Scotland.”
“No reason to lie?” Sir William Douglas scoffed, the disgust written on his swarthy face as plainly as shadows in the noonday sun. “You and your father... You have come to the wrong camp, Bruce. The English are at Ayr.”
“You misunderstand. I am not on the side of the English. I am with you, Sir William. And you, William Wallace. Though I have one boon to ask of you.”
Wallace sank down to his stool. “Tell us first – did you come here of your own will... or at Longshanks’ bidding?”
“A fair question,” I said, “and one I would have asked as well, were I you. But I come of my own accord and purpose and I ask you to abandon Balliol’s cause. Forsake all the oaths you uttered under duress at Carlisle, at Berwick and foremost at Norham.”
Stewart traced a finger along his jaw and leaned back. “Support the Bruce claim. Is that what you ask?”
“What reason to fight for a Balliol, when a Balliol will not fight for you, let alone himself?” I questioned, sure that single point would strike an undeniable truth. But I was regarded with only low grumbling, the shuffling of feet and eyes downcast. William Wallace alone met my gaze.
He swept away all contention with a mere glance and rose to tower above everyone, including me – and I was far taller than most men. He strode around the table, stopped an arm’s reach from me and squinted. “What would you have us do then, Lord Robert?”
Thus far he was the only one to address me with respect. I pulled him aside and lowered my voice. “I know you stand by Balliol’s claim to the throne. There are many here who do. But you have seen the results of his kingship. Are we any better off than we were before? Worse, I venture. If we are to shed our suffering, Scotland needs a strong king.”
Wallace cocked his head and grinned. “And who would that ‘strong’ king be, Lord Robert? Yourself? Your father? Stewart? Me? There are too many Scots, even here, who trade sides whenever the wind shifts.”
The implication struck deep within me. “I know there are many here who question why I have come.”
“Why have you come?” Wallace asked with a doubtful shrug. “Why now?”
“Why not? I might have joined you years ago, but a son does not so easily go against his father’s wishes. I have tired of Longshanks’ empty promises and manipulations. He confessed to my father and grandfather that it was a mistake to place the scepter in Balliol’s hands, that a Bruce –”
“Ah!” Wallace pushed back the stream of my words with his huge palm. He raised his voice so those around us could hear. “Say no more. We shall ride out to the English and say it is for the Lord of Annandale that we fight now, eh? That he should be our king? He who sits this moment in Carlisle, taking orders from Longshanks? That would please the English well, I reckon.”
“No, that’s not –”
“Then if you propose that we muster behind you, give us good reason.” He went to the half-open tent flap and pointed outside. “Otherwise, you are no different from all those other bloodless, begging nobles who wait to see on which side of the table the scraps might fall.” Then Wallace stooped and plucked a handful of grass from the ground. He held it out and let it fall, blade by blade. “The wind blows to the south today, earl. Toward Ayr.”
He returned to his stool and the bickering huddle commenced with their doubts and differences. I had been dismissed offhandedly. Given no regard, ignored. My blood was a river of fire in my veins. What profit to pledge myself when none would open their ears?
“I am no cur to English masters!” I cried. “And I do not beg for scraps.”
“Aye, you’ve no need to beg,” Douglas muttered. “I would say you are well fed.” He and Wallace laughed.
I had turned my back on generations of convention, tossed aside privilege and gain to stand by my countrymen and all for what – for this? Grandfather could have swayed them with words powerful enough to peel the skin from their bones, but I... I was too insulted just then, or perhaps too unsure of myself, to find such potent words within me.
With measured control, I approached the table and said, not so much to Wallace or any one man in particular, but more so to myself, “I was born unto Scotland... and by Scotland I shall stand and serve her with all my heart. You are my flesh and blood, my brothers. So have me or not, but I am home and here will stay, without hatred for any of you, however vain your judgment.”
Bishop Wishart alone met my eyes. The drooping folds of his fleshy face melted with benevolence toward me, but I received it like a gesture of pity, as Wallace had barely paused to allow my words space and then continued his arguments with Douglas. I had too much to prove and no way of doing so without the opportunity to speak and be heard.
I left them then. To have stayed any longer would have raised my ire to a point of indelible regret. I returned to my men and instructed them to make camp.
They would not be so easily rid of me.
In the growing gloom of evening, Gerald and I took supper together. My plate of beef and turnips was growing colder by the minute as I pushed them around with my knife. The tent we shared was east of the town, far from the main encampment. Not feeling welcome there, I had
decided to keep my distance.
Gerald cleared his throat. “Should I light a candle? No doubt your eyes are better than mine, but I’ve nearly cut off the tip of my own finger twice now.”
I nodded glumly and tried to turn my mind from the day’s disappointment, without success. Stewart and the others did not trust me. They thought me a traitor to my own people – and rightly so. Convincing them otherwise would be a difficult, if not impossible, task.
I barely noticed Gerald fumbling in the darkness and the sharp scent of flint being struck, followed by the meager glow of candlelight, when a strange voice interrupted my thoughts.
“My lord?”
I glanced up to see a messenger, brown with road dust, standing at the tent opening.
“What is it?” I asked.
The messenger wiped at the dirt on his forehead with a bare arm. He shuffled forward and thrust a tattered letter at me. “From Rothesay.”
Without rising from my stool, I took it from him.
I thanked him, held the letter to the light and began to read it. Without prompting from me, Gerald scrounged for a few pieces of silver and gave it to the man, who disappeared as quietly as he had come.
I must have read it ten times over before Gerald said, “Well? Who is it from?”
“Someone named Elizabeth. Elizabeth de Burgh. She is the niece of James Stewart’s wife, I believe. She says my daughter, Marjorie, is doing well.” I let slip a tiny smile. “My lass not only walks now, Gerald, she runs like a deer.”
The last time I had seen Marjorie she was barely able to sit upright. Although I had not wanted to part from her, to keep her safe I had sent her away, to Rothesay Castle on the remote Isle of Bute.
Hot tears scoured my eyes. My grief was yet fresh and raw. Two years past I had wed Isabella, the Earl of Mar’s daughter. A year later she had given me a child, only to give her own life in the doing.
I laid the letter aside and tended to the sadness that crept upon me. I feared wee Marjorie would grow up without me there to watch. That one day, in a strange place, I would happen upon a young lady of exceeding beauty with ringlets of gold that cascaded down her back and not know it was my own daughter.
Ch. 8
Robert the Bruce – Irvine, 1297
Pride runs deep in Scottish veins, along with obstinacy. Myself, I do not claim to be free of the flaw. The squabbling of the so-called Scottish leaders did not come to an end. It went on and on, even as the English advanced up the coastline from Ayr.
A clean tunic draped over his forearm, Gerald emerged from the tent. “Five days since we came here and you haven’t changed shirts once.”
“Six.” I took the tunic from him, put it on and pointed.
He squinted into the low morning sun to take in the sight unfolding at the edge of the main encampment. There, in the distance, Wallace climbed onto the back of his stout pony. The shaggy beast snapped its head up and tapped a hoof on the packed earth. With a shout, Wallace thrust his arm high and two hundred men, many of them mounted, started forward with a rumble.
“D’you suppose he’s leaving for good?” Gerald said.
“It would appear so.” Not even the unceasing sea wind blew today. Already, hot air lay stagnant and suffocating over the land like a pile of woolen blankets. Sweat trickled from my temples, over my cheekbones and down my neck. I wiped it away and then flicked a sopping palm at the ground. “Last night Bishop Wishart told me that Wallace had demanded command over the entire army. Stewart would not take sides, but the other nobles, including Douglas, refused to give over a right that should belong to one of them.”
It was one more disagreement among many, but a divisive one. Bishop Wishart had urged compromise, a plea which fell on deaf ears. The nobles, in response, grumbled that Wallace was vainglorious and would lead them all to ruin if placed at the head of a Scots army. In truth, they envied the adulation Wallace inspired in the soldiers.
“So that’s why he’s leaving?” Gerald asked.
“No.”
“Then why? I thought Wallace, more than anyone, wanted to fight.”
“Fight the English, you mean? He does... or did, rather.” My men were gathering on the slope below our outcasts’ camp to ogle at the unfortunate turn of events. They grumbled and shook their heads. A few cursed. “It’s the nobles who don’t think we can win. Reports are that the English outnumber us four to one.”
“Four Englishmen to every Scot?” Gerald dropped his chin, an impish grin tugging at his mouth. “Sounds like a fair fight to me.”
“If we had more men like Wallace and fewer inconstant nobles, perhaps.”
As he ducked back inside the tent, Gerald gave a faint grunt. He returned with my sword and belt, an unconvincing look of innocence on his face.
“Aye, I know,” I said, snatching my belt from him and slinging it around my hips to fasten it. “I was one of them not so long ago.”
Whenever we want something, we must weigh the cost of getting it. A farthing is a fair price for a loaf of bread. Two shillings for a yard of wool. But what price will a man pay to be his own master? I think Wallace had already decided that, but the others...
Gerald held out my sword and I took it, my arm dropping with the burden of its weight. Wallace and his gruff band filed over the bridge at the edge of town and headed north.
Word came to us before the sun set that same day. The English would arrive at Irvine on the morrow. We could go off in our different directions, as Wallace had done, or face them as one. We chose to stay.
The English horde poured over the horizon. Sunlight flashed harshly on polished blades. The barest of breezes lifted the tails of their banners into a faint flutter. Across the grassy plain they faced the Scots. It was a moment of grave reckoning.
Realizing they were vastly outnumbered, Stewart and Douglas rode out to meet the English commanders, Sir Henry Percy and Robert Clifford, to ask for the terms of surrender. When they returned, Stewart’s face was ashen. Sir William Douglas dropped from his horse and came straight to me. The moment itself took me unprepared, for I had much expected to learn the outcome of their consultation the same as every other soldier standing by, sword in hand, wondering whether today he would lay down his life or walk away unscathed.
“My lord?” Douglas glanced down at the trampled grass, spat and swallowed. “I must tell you what was spoken of. It concerns you.”
I nodded, even though I hesitated to hear what he had to say. Wallace had not returned and there was still disagreement among us.
“Percy and Clifford... they will let us walk from here, but they ask one thing of us in good faith: hostages. They want my son, James. They have also asked for your daughter.”
My heart went cold and still. I willed it to go on beating. “No,” I protested. “I would rather fight and die, knowing she would live freely.”
“You fight to live. You don’t fight to die. But if you do fight and you die, I guarantee she will not know freedom.”
“No, no, I –”
“Don’t be daft. Listen!” Douglas’s voice went suddenly low, his words pouring out rapidly. “The Stewart and I have no intentions of giving them what they want, but we’ll promise them as much... if only to buy ourselves time. I can speak from both sides of my mouth just as well as you, Lord Robert. And without remorse. I’ll tell them what they want to hear. Right now we’re in no condition to put up a fight. We need Wallace and Moray just as we need our right hands. Otherwise, like fat squealing pigs in the butcher’s pen, we may as well line up for the slaughter.”
“Lie outright?”
Douglas smirked at the question. “Does that bother your conscience? Did you think I would give them what they want as easy as that? With luck, they will not find your daughter. She is as safe at Rothesay as anywhere. For the time being.”
“Your wife? Your sons? What of them? You will but utter the word and –”
“Already on their way elsewhere... if the message I sent makes it to them.”<
br />
Like the first shaft of light above the mountaintops at dawn, I understood. My foot was firmly in the snare. “It was you... you who proposed this, not them. You planned for it. How? How can you barter the lives of children? You did this as much as a test of me as to worm your way out of a fight. You knew I would not give up my daughter, for if I refuse... if I refuse to take part in this sham I am false to all of you – a betrayer of Scotland.”
“You are as free to refuse as any among us.”
In the blink of an eye I had Douglas’s surcoat clenched in both my hands. He clamped his fingers around my wrists in reflex. As sorely as I wanted to shove him to the hard, dusty ground, I thought of all the soldiers, my own men from Carrick among them, watching to see if I would strike him or let him go. Then, it was Bishop Wishart’s words that prevailed upon my senses.
“Robert... Robert,” the bishop begged, his plump hand upon my back, “a moment to speak with you.”
Slowly, I let Douglas go, but not without a glare of warning. The bishop drew me aside and walked me over to a stand of pines a hundred feet away.
“My son.” Bishop Wishart granted me his quaint, slanted smile as he faced me. Douglas had now joined with Stewart and the other nobles in a circle before the army of Scotland, some shaking their heads, some nodding, others shrugging their slumping shoulders. It looked something akin to twelve cooks standing over a pot of stew. The bishop took my hand and pinched the back of it like one would a small child whose attention is needed but not quite had. “Your grandfather would have bristled with pride to see you this day. But he would also advise patience, something youth is disinclined to embrace, at least from what my fading memory serves.”
I rubbed at my forehead. “Aye, but my father would as soon disown me for those same actions. Your grace...” I glanced toward heaven, desperate for guidance, “everything I envisioned when I left Carlisle has far from come to pass.”
“And this surprises you how?” His eyebrow curled upward in amusement. “You need to awaken from your dreams, son. Robert, these men” – he wagged a finger at the thousands of Scottish faces staring out over the sea of parched, yellowing grass – “I regret to say they did not come here, but for a few, to serve you. That is a mighty assumption on your behalf. And do not wonder why then the nobles keep you at arm’s length, for you wear your ambition as plainly as you do your sword. You must win their loyalty through sweat and blood, not by words alone... and certainly not within a week’s scant time. Even Moses had to perform a miracle or two before he led the Hebrews out of Egypt.”
The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy) Page 7
