My lawlessness had bought me a hearty serving of Lent fritters and salted herring smeared with mustard, which I greedily washed down with a jug of mulberry wine. Enough food to quell the rumbling of my empty stomach. Worth every lash.
As a boursier, or student on scholarship, I was allotted only two loaves of white bread daily and one meal in the refectory, usually pottage or thin stew – hardly enough to sustain an infant, let alone a ravenous, sprouting lad. In my seven years in Paris, I had learned as much of theology and philosophy as I did of begging and stealing. The begging, actually, I had long ago given up on. It suited little boys, but no one took much pity on a young man of eighteen. Besides, thievery was much more profitable.
At the time, I did not ponder too long on God’s disapproval. Survive or starve – those were my choices.
I probed for the hole on the underside of my straw mattress and tucked the purse deep within. I would still get several more meals out of my cache – whenever I could slip away from my lessons and chores long enough to indulge myself. That might be days yet.
A cough broke from the far side of the room. Someone else sniffed with tears. The boy next to me muttered in his dreams. Our beds were stacked like cords of wood with barely enough room to squeeze between them. I felt the tickle of a louse and scratched at my scalp. Unable to sleep, I turned to face the window. My back stung with the feeble effort.
There, through the window, the stars still glimmered. For hours, I gazed at them, until I drifted off to welcome sleep.
I dreamt of home. Of mountains, burns and lochs. Sea and sky. Kestrels, foxes, squirrels. Meadows, moors and forests…
The next morning, I sat in the school refectory – not on a bench at one of the tables like the other students, but alone on a stool by the hearth. It was my job to tend the fire, a task usually given to much younger boys. I wore the perpetual soot marks to show for my menial labors. I was the last to begin eating, but a few others still lingered in conversation over their bland meals. The flames were fading and so I set aside my bowl of dark bread and cabbage to feed the fire. Kneeling, I arranged the charred wood and reached for another log. At the table behind me, the German boys jeered, but I did not look. It was better, I had learned, to ignore their taunts.
A troop of feet padded over the floor. I poked at the logs, hopeful my tormentors would pass me by. Then, directly behind me, I heard the scrape of a stool across the floor and the loud crack as the seat struck my skull.
A flash of white across my vision. And daylight vanished.
The stink of filth and moldy rushes slowly filled my nose. Broken voices came to me through a gray fog. I struggled to understand them, then slipped away again.
My next recollection was of looking up at the ceiling. My back burned from scabs torn open. Scowling older boys swarmed above me. Ten, more maybe. Their shapes blended and swayed dizzily around me. One at a time in turn, they kicked at my head, groin and ribs. I squirmed. Pain thundered through my every limb. Blood oozed from my lip. Every part of my body ached with bone-deep bruises.
“Shove hot coals down his throat, Frederick,” the fat one said. “If he doesn’t vomit fire that will keep him quiet... for good.”
Frederick’s belly rippled with laughter. His uncle was a bishop: a fact which had collected a small army of worshippers to him. Without ever lifting a single, ivory finger, he always had a full purse of coin, supplied by his father, a count of some importance, while I had to scrub floors and muck out stalls to earn my fare. While I memorized the Latin verses of Thomas Aquinas by moonlight, for I often had no candle, Frederick played at dice. When it came time for exams, Frederick would lazily nudge his quill across his parchment and then fall asleep, while I wrote copious pages.
I hated Paris. I hated that school. I hated my teachers. And I hated Frederick most of all.
I grabbed a pot hanger from above the ash-cold hearth and slashed him in the thigh. Frederick shrieked, like a little girl whose hair had been pulled, and fell to the floor. He pulled his leg to his chest. Blood sprayed like a fountain from his gaping wound and seeped into the rushes.
I rose to my feet. The circle of boys, who moments before had thought me so weak of will and limb, now retreated from my furious reach. I strode from them with a limp, clenching my jaw against the pain in my ribs that screamed with every breath. As I reached the end of the long room, I turned around to face them. I opened my fingers and let the pot hanger fall to the floor with a thunderous clatter. Only Frederick’s whimper cut across the silence.
A hand pinched the curve between my neck and shoulders.
“Young Douglas,” Master Martin, one of my schoolmasters and a Dane who dissected the tedious subtleties of rhetoric more days than I cared to endure, spoke in his edgy, crackling voice, “come with me. It is time we decide what to do with you, given your intractable nature.”
Send me back to Scotland, I prayed.
His wiry fingers digging into my upper arm, Master Martin escorted me to office of the Headmaster, Julien Andreae. The door groaned on its hinges as he led me into the musty, book-cluttered confines. Motes of dust danced on shafts of sunlight through half-open shutters. Behind the desk, however, it was not Headmaster Andreae who greeted me to dole out my penalty, or more hopefully my expulsion. There, in gold-lined ecclesiastical vestments, sat a man who had been pointed out to me once during one of his previous visits to Paris: Bishop William Lamberton of St. Andrews. For a moment, I wondered if God had sent him to make me atone for my wrongdoings. I would much have preferred a public flogging. Less disgrace in that.
“Your grace.” Master Martin prodded me forward as he knelt before the bishop. Clumsily, he pulled at my shoulder, dragging me to my knees.
Bishop Lamberton offered his hand. Stiffly, Master Martin pressed his thin lips to the ring above Lamberton’s creased knuckles.
“You may leave.” The bishop withdrew his hand and brushed his fingers toward the door.
“Shall I bring his things?” Martin inquired. “It will not take long to gather them.”
“Yes, yes, do. I had thought to leave him here a day or two until after I am received by King Philip, but by the sight of him perhaps it is better to remove him now.”
“None too soon, your grace. Had I not intervened on his behalf he would not be in one piece now.”
I turned my head to sneer at the lying Dane and spied, hidden in the shadows, the outline of a form I could never forget. Master Martin nearly skipped from the room with obvious joy.
Behind him, William Wallace stretched an arm out and closed the door. I shuddered, though whether out of awe or fear I knew not. He had grown more ragged and fierce-looking in those few years since Irvine. Falkirk, I assumed, had stolen the passion from him. Those wild blue eyes that once reflected the broad sky of Scotland were now as dull as puddles of rainwater on a muddy road.
“James. James?”
I turned my eyes back to the bishop. His clean jaw propped upon his knuckles, he sighed and reached a finger toward my bleeding lip, but I turned my face away.
“Sir William, have someone bring a clean cloth and water.”
“Don’t need it,” I protested vainly. “Doesn’t hurt.”
Wallace shook his head. “Your father once said you were independent and willful. He forgot stubborn.”
“I said it doesn’t hurt,” I told him, even though moving my lips without grimacing was near to impossible. A warm line of blood traced its way from the corner of my mouth down my jaw and neck toward my collarbone. My lip, I could tell, had already swollen to obvious proportions.
Wallace grabbed me by the ear and tilted my head toward a stream of dusty light to get a better look. “You should clean that up... unless you prefer to have it fester. I can sit on your head and douse you if I have to. You’re still half my size.”
I wriggled from his grasp and scrambled on my hands and knees away from him. Brute strength was not everything. He, of all folk, should know that.
“Sir Wi
lliam,” Bishop Lamberton interrupted, “let be, for now. He will not die from that gash in his lip. At least not likely. Besides, we have... sensitive matters to discuss.” He straightened in the chair, folding his hands in his lap. “I am sorry about your father, James.”
I had not thought often of him, tried not to, or of Hugh or Archibald. Slumping back against a shelf burdened by the weight of its books, I looked down at the floor to hide my welling tears.
“Why was I not sent home before now? I have lands to look after.” Surely Lady Eleanor was overwhelmed. Hugh could be of no help and Archibald was far too young to be anything but a burden. “What of Hugh and Archibald?”
“Safe,” Lamberton assured me. “Your absence is something I will venture to remedy in due time. Because of your father’s involvement at Irvine, however, the family estates were duly confiscated and granted to Sir Robert Clifford of Westmorland. Surely you understood why you were subjected to such hardship here. Did they not tell you? Ah, no, I can see they did not. Nor, obviously did they treat you as the son of a proper noble.”
Confiscated? How could someone else take away what was rightly mine? Still, not even the loss of my family’s lands would keep me from going home. “You said you were going to take me from here. When do we leave for Scotland?”
“We?” The bishop sighed and rolled his eyes heavenward. “Not yet, James. It is too soon. You will be transferred to the Sorbonne, given a small pension... our Good Lord allowing I remain in the munificent graces of King Edward.”
I could scarce believe what I had just heard. I shot to my feet. Too soon? Too soon? “I want to go back. Now! Do you hear me? I won’t stay in Paris. It reeks!”
“And what would you go back to, James Douglas?” Wallace posed. “You have no lands. No home. Nothing.”
“I don’t have ‘nothing’. I can fight... against Longshanks. And I will take back what is mine.”
“What do you think the rest of us have been trying to do all along?” Wallace moved so his frame blocked the shaft of light between us and he was naught but a silhouette – a mountain blotting out the sun.
“James,” Lamberton intervened, “the realm is in confusion. Today you might have your lands back; tomorrow they could again be taken from you. I simply came to look in on you and arrange better schooling for you. Your father and Sir William here were good friends. I owe it to both of them to see that you make it to a proper age, when you can be of more value to your homeland.”
“I’m eighteen now!”
“I will send for you, when the timing is more propitious. Master Andreae says that, although not exceedingly gifted, you are a diligent pupil. Your determination is wasted on these teachers. But understand – any improprieties will propel you into the streets. I will not rescue a rebel. If you wish to return to Scotland in due time, then you will display a measure of self-control. King Edward is not likely to be impressed by a tally of misdeeds.”
I clenched my fists at my sides. “I don’t care what Longshanks thinks of me.”
“Do you want your lands back?”
“Aye.”
“Then you should care. For now – you will leave this... this place of squalor and attend the Sorbonne, as a young noble should.”
“Then if you put me there, tomorrow I shall be gone. I will work, beg or steal my way back to Scotland; but however, I will get there.”
Wallace gripped my shoulder. I expected him to spin me around or volley admonishments at me, tell me I was too young, too weak, too inexperienced to make a difference yet.
“Your grace,” he addressed the bishop, “take the lad home with you. Let him petition for the return of his lands. He’ll only cause trouble if you keep him here.”
Lamberton rose from the chair. He went to the open window and for a long while stared expressionless out over the crowded streets of Paris, tapping his ringed finger on the stone ledge. In the undersized courtyard of the school, spring’s first buds dotted the tree limbs and birds flitted from branch to branch in courtship. The sights may have been promising, but the warmer breeze also brought with it the pungent smell of rotting food and waste dumped in the streets. He inhaled and without expelling the air, looked my way and said, “Perhaps I never took the time to notice before, but it does reek.”
The following day, I was fitted with better attire and properly scrubbed. Then, I accompanied Bishop Lamberton and Sir William Wallace to King Philip’s palace. Although relegated to the kitchen for my meal, I was never so enthralled in my entire life. Elaborate dishes were labored over and sent out to the main hall: boar’s head served on silver platters, fishes in white wine jelly, pears peeled and cored and filled with honey, and steaming bowls of rabbit stew cooked with cloves and ginger in almond milk. In time, servants returned with the remains and I gorged myself gluttonously. The silver deniers, still hidden in my mattress back at the college, could not have bought me a meal half as fine as this.
I was not privy to what went on between Bishop Lamberton, Wallace and King Philip. I only knew that Wallace carried letters of delicate importance and that the King of France had his nose quite out of place for some time afterwards.
On the road beyond Paris, the bishop and I parted ways with William Wallace. He was on his way to Rome to meet with the pope and beg for Scotland’s cause. The treaty carved out between France and England had dealt a horrible blow to Scotland and Lamberton told me Longshanks had already begun on his way again to march through Scotland.
It was late May by the time we made port in Berwick and there my joy ebbed and gave way to a tide of grief. Nearly eight years had crept by since I had left my easy boyhood far behind and hardened to the world. I knelt and touched the earth and wept. Wind whipped at my hair. Clouds of dark blue-gray brought the sky down low and thunder shook the earth.
We set out for Stirling as showers of warm rain poured over us. There, we would meet with King Edward and petition for my inheritance.
Ch. 19
Robert the Bruce – Stirling, 1304
I went from Selkirk direct to Stirling, myself to play the king’s henchman, while in secret I prayed for some miracle that would spare Sir William Oliphant within those high, towering walls. There, I witnessed the antics of an aging king, keen to impress a blushing bride less than half his age. Longshanks raced to and fro on his majestic steed beneath the castle walls. His head bare, he dismounted to hurl threats, even as arrows grazed his ears. Once, a stone launched from the battlements startled his horse and he was tossed to the ground. One man lost his life trying to drag the injured king to safety.
While King Edward mended, I received a message. Oliphant offered surrender. Inwardly, I sighed with relief, hoping few, if any, of those within had succumbed to starvation or sickness, as was the usual course.
In a merchant’s house above a jeweler’s shop, the king kept quarters in relative comfort. From there, he had a clear view of the castle walls. Nearby, sentries were on constant vigil with barrels of water and buckets at hand, for more than once a flaming arrow had sizzled through the night sky to land on a nearby roof. The bedchamber was small and cramped, but crowded with the objects of opulence so familiar to a king’s existence. I knelt before him until the blood left my legs.
Longshanks raised his arms, elbows bent, as his physician wrapped his bruised ribs in a cocoon of linen bandages. The morning sun poured brazenly through the open window, outlining his form. Air hissed between his teeth as the physician poked and prodded at his chest. He possessed a remarkable physique for a man who had thus far survived six-and-a-half decades – much of it spent in the dust and brutality of the Holy Land and numerous battles on the continent. His skin had sallowed with the years, but he remained lean and lithe. The backs of his hands were spotted from the sun and his hair, once a shining dark gold by all accounts, was now a streaked blend of yellow and silver-white. When the physician was done, he bowed and left. The king’s page began to dress him. Longshanks eased his battered body down onto a stool while the page
pulled the king’s chausses over his long legs and tied them to the laces that dangled from a belt at his waist.
“Rise, earl,” he said. “Had Wallace... and lost him. How unfortunate for you.”
I rose, my feet numb, and kept my head down in humility. “My lord king, we were never so near, I’m afraid, to even come close to him. He slipped away after the first sighting.”
Longshanks stood and raised an arched eyebrow at me. “I see. Elusive as a pine marten, isn’t he? You know he’s there, somewhere, you can even at times smell him, find the hole to his den, but... you never see him. Now, what is it you want? I have very little time today for unimportant matters.”
“Indeed important, my lord. Oliphant extends an offer of surrender.”
The king absorbed himself in straightening the sleeves of his padded jacket. Then he strutted stiffly to the window and jabbed a finger at the object of his delight. “Come here, Lord Robert. See there, that brilliant example of machinery? A monstrosity. A marvel. The War Wolf, I call it. It took them awhile to refashion that windlass you mindlessly misplaced, but there it is at last. What utter geniuses my engineers are. Constantly outdoing themselves. Tomorrow, if not today, it will be in position and loaded and they will unleash its power on the castle walls. I regret that I will have to mend them later, but ‘twould be a terrible pity not to put the thing to use.”
The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy) Page 16
