The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce

by Jack Whyte

  “I know that.” Rob was frowning as he prepared to lower himself into his chair. “But I don’t see—” He stopped and grasped the arms of the chair, his eyes suddenly gone wide, and then he subsided gently into his seat.

  The old man smiled again, more widely this time, and dipped his chin. “You see it now, though, eh? They’ve slipped the leash. Vassals to no man, they’re free to do whatever they want. I’ve seen it happening in my own lifetime, getting more and more noticeable frae year to year. We havena had a war here for nigh on eighty year—the tulzie at Largs wi’ the Norwegians wasna a real battle, and there wasna really a war. Since then we’ve been at peace, throughout King Alec’s reign, and when peace lasts for years like that, commerce grows strong.

  “So now the burgesses are startin’ to speak up as a group, and powerfu’ folk are listenin’. They’re forming merchants’ guilds and trade associations everywhere—in the Low Countries, in Norway, Sweden, Germany—everywhere. The Dutchmen have formed a league, they call it the Hansa League because that’s the name for a guild there, an’ they’ve seen to it that they can trade freely wi’ one another throughout their entire region at favourable rates. Our own wool merchants do the same here. Merchants are everywhere today, Robert, and they’re growing stronger every year, growin’ rich an’ paying tribute or fealty to very few. They all owe fealty to the Crown, right enough, but that’s as far as it goes. They live in the burghs, mainly for their own safety and the safety o’ their warehouses, and they support themselves by what they do. They even lend money to noblemen like us, and that’s how they steer clear o’ trouble. They pay taxes, right enough, but to whom? I’ll tell you: to the burghs themselves, for their upkeep and governance. And until now no one has challenged them, because they canna be challenged under the system we have. None o’ the magnates can lay claim to the burghs. And every nobleman in the land relies on the burgesses to keep him supplied wi’ goods. Do you see what I’m telling you? Another idea—free burgesses—and one that’s already too well settled to be stopped.”

  He scratched his chin, and then went on as though speaking to himself alone. “It’s a different world from when I was a boy. And it’s changin’ more and more wi’ every month an’ year that goes by. Had anyone tried to set himself up like that when my great-grandsire was alive—a self-supportin’ merchant payin’ no tithes or taxes—he would hae been arrested and flogged. But now it’s commonplace. They’re everywhere, and they hae power.” He waved a hand. “I’m no’ sayin’ it’s a bad thing, mind you. From what I’ve seen o’ it, it could be good for everybody someday. I canna imagine it, but who’s to say wi’ certainty, one way or the other? But it’s another different thing, another new idea that’s already replacing the old way o’ life.”

  “Where did the burghs come from, Grandfather? In the first place, I mean. All of them sit within someone’s domain, so you’d think those lords would claim them as their own, would you not?”

  “Aye, you might think so, but ye’d be wrong. The burghs were here afore the barons. Hundreds o’ years afore, when the Norse Viking raids were at their worst an’ men lived their whole lives in terror o’ the dragon boats. Folk built the burghs for protection— fortified towns, gatherin’ places wi’ stout, stone walls where folk could shelter and defend themselves. That’s why they’re all by the sea, because that’s where the threat came from. And they’ve always been free ports, since they were built, because they canna be taken. They’re strongholds, no’ just against invasion frae the sea but against attack frae the land, too. And no man, be he baron or magnate or king, can change that now.

  “It’s all about new ideas, Rob, and about where they come from,” Lord Robert said. “New ideas and how a wise man might make use o’ them someday. You’ll need to stop being Rob now, for one thing, and that’s going to be a new idea for you, too—mayhap even a hard one for you to grasp at first. Plain Rob Bruce was a laddie, a growing boy, and he belongs in your past now that you’re a knight. Few men will think to call you Rob to your face from this day on, and if any does you’ll have to put him in his place. Insist on your title and your full name always, from the moment you leave here this night. Men must call you ‘my lord’ if they’re speaking to the earl, or ‘Sir Robert’ if they’re speaking to the knight. And your friends, your real friends—for you’ll have many now who’ll seek that rank but never gain it—will call you Robert man to man. None but your closest kin can call you Rob now, and then only in private. Take it from me, Sir Robert—a man is as he is perceived to be, and too much familiarity from lesser men can mar that perception.

  “So, new ideas and lessons. That’s the first of them, but all the rest are related, and the gist of what I tried to tell you earlier is this: Your whole life as a man, as a knight and as an earl, will be defined by your own ideas, by your beliefs and the way you express them. You’ll be judged by others, all the time and for the rest of your life, by the way those ideas reveal your true beliefs in what is fit and just and proper.” He flipped a hand. “Of course it’s true, too, that if you’ve no interest in any o’ those things, fitness and justice and the like—if ye’re a liar and a fool—folk will accept that, too, and you’ll never amount to anything worthwhile. But I hae no worries over that. I’ve been watching you closely these two years and I believe you have the stuff o’ a truly noble earl.”

  He sat up suddenly, looking at the brazier. “I’m thirsty. Is there enough water in that kettle to make us two more toddies?”

  There was, and as Rob added fuel to the brazier and thrust the kettle directly on top of the coals, his grandfather busied himself with mixing the other ingredients from a stoppered clay flask and a covered pot of honey, so that only a short time later they sat back by the fire again, nursing freshly steaming cups.

  “But it’s no’ just your own ideas you need to be concerned wi’,” Lord Robert continued, unaware that he had slipped back into the Scots dialect. “You hae to be aware of other people’s thinkin’, o’ the new ideas that folk are talking about, or believin’ in, or even laughin’ at. You hae to be open to such things, expectin’ them, watchin’, ready for them an’ lookin’ for the ways that they might change your life. You hae to keep your heid high an’ your eyes wide, because there’s nothin’ more dangerous than change, Robert.

  “Mind you, for some folk things like that dinna matter. Gin you’re a farmer or a charcoal burner or a forester like young Wallace, changes can come and go and they’ll no’ bother you much, for you’ll likely be none the wiser for their passin’. But gin you’re a king or a magnate, a baron or a bishop or an earl—somebody whose very life depends on stability an’ order among those wha follow him—those same changes that left others unaffected can sweep ye into ruin.”

  He sipped, inhaling the scented fumes, and his grandson sat gazing into his own cup, waiting for him to continue.

  “So,” the elder said eventually, setting his cup down carefully on the floor by his side and using his fingers to enumerate what he said next. “You have your name—the form o’ it and how men use it. You have your beliefs, governing your thinking and behaviour. And you have your vigilance to what’s goin’ on about you, your openness to new ideas and the risks they present for you. What else, then, does an earl need? There is somethin’, the most important thing of all, and I’ve left it to the end because it overarches everything else. Can you tell me what it is?”

  His grandson twisted slightly in his seat to face him, holding the steaming cup beneath his nose as he looked at the patriarch, narrow-eyed and deep in thought. Then he shook his head almost imperceptibly and whispered, “No, sir, I can’t. Tell me.”

  “Yourself, my lord earl, wi’ all the burdens o’ an earldom. Your family. Your ancestry, name, and heritage. Your loyalties and your understandin’ o’ your duties and responsibilities. The lands and properties you hold and the hundreds o’ folk who live on them and who rely on you for their livelihood and safety. And every bit o’ it affectin’ your honour and inte
grity. All o’ those things are easy to name, but there’s no’ a single one of them that’s easy for a man to thole for a whole lifetime o’ righteousness. And yet that’s what lies ahead o’ you, Sir Robert. And all o’ it connected in a hundred ways to every other bit o’ it.

  “So let us start wi’ loyalty, the two o’ us. To whom should you be loyal, Bruce of Carrick? Name the folk.”

  His grandson blinked. “The King’s grace. The King of England, too, as a dutiful vassal. You yourself, sir, as my grandsire … The Bishop of Glasgow?”

  His grandfather grunted and nodded. “Aye. Questions like that to a boy who hasna considered them before are like questions frae the same boy about what goes on between men and women. Everybody expects somebody else to explain it but nobody ever does. Listen to me closely, then, for I might never hae the chance to tell you this again. Forget about the Church when you speak o’ loyalty. You owe no loyalty to any churchman, includin’ the Pope himsel’. Obedience, aye and certainly, but loyalty? A bishop’s just a man in fancy robes whose concern should all be for your immortal soul. Your loyalty’s required elsewhere.

  “First an’ foremost and heid and shoulders above all else, your surest loyalty must aey be to the Bruce—me, your father, yourself, and your house and heirs.” His speech was faster and more guttural now, and he pronounced “house” as “hoose” and “shoulders” as “shoothers.” “Never lose sight o’ that, Sir Robert, for if you fail your house, you fail yourself, and then you can never serve anyone honestly. Your house comes first. Blood, family, and kinship—your honour and their welfare. Those are your prime loyalties. And along with that comes responsibility to, and for, all the folk who depend on Bruce. They, too, demand your loyalty, and on their loyalty in return will rest your success or failure in this life. Make no mistake on that, Sir Robert. Your folk depend on you for everything they have. But you depend equally upon them, and far more so, in fact, for without their loyalty to you, as man and leader, you’ll achieve nothing that’s worthwhile.

  “After those, a distant second, comes your loyalty to the rightful King o’ Scots, your liege lord. I said you willna be goin’ to Scone and that might sound like disloyalty but it’s no’. Once Balliol is crowned King, he’ll be the King. But until then, he’s just another man like you an’ me and neither one o’ us owes him a thing. After Scone it’ll be different, but before that we can bid him kiss our arses, gin we wish. Ye ken my fears for his kingship. He’ll go down before Edward o’ England sooner or later, I’m sure o’ that, and my biggest fear for you is that you’ll get caught up in it and suffer for it.”

  “You think it will come to war, then, Grandfather?”

  “It might, but God forbid. If it does it will be short and bloody, for we canna win.”

  Rob reacted as though he had been slapped. “What d’you mean? How can you say that?”

  “How can I say it? You mean how can I even think such a thing? I’ve thought it now for months and I can say it loudly and honestly. I could shout it frae the walls and roofs, forbye, but nobody in Scotland would believe it.” He stopped, frowning. “Think about it, Robert. And think wi’ your heid, no’ wi’ your heart. I said a while ago we havena fought a war in eighty year. But Edward has been at war since afore he took up the crown these twenty year ago. He still has men among his barons and knights who fought wi’ him on crusade. And he has fought in France and Gascony, forbye two wars in Wales in recent years. His armies are toughened, Robert. Battle hardened. They’re tight and disciplined, and after years o’ victory, they’re confident.

  “We’re confident, too, in this realm, but ours is the confidence o’ blowhards. We’re deluding ourselves. We’re just no’ fit, the way things are, to take the field against an English host. We’ve no heavy cavalry an’ we’ve no bowmen—none that could stand up against Edward’s Welshmen, anyway. We wouldna hae a chance.”

  If the younger man was dismayed by what he had heard, he gave no sign of it. “And that’s why you want me to withhold my allegiance to Balliol?”

  Lord Robert looked surprised. “Is that what you think? No, I don’t want that at all. What I want—what I need you to see—is that we owe more real allegiance to Edward Plantagenet than we do to John Balliol, and for the exact same reason that John Balliol himself owes loyalty to Edward. We owe him homage for our estates in England, which are worth more than all we have in Scotland—it’s our English lands that pay for our Scots ones. And mark me, that same concern is what’s going to bring Balliol down, for his English lands are three times as big as ours and he’ll no’ want to lose them. Our new King is about to find out that you canna be master in one realm when you’re duty bound to the master o’ another.”

  “But—” Rob’s brow creased. “But would you not have been in the same situation, had you won?”

  “No, I would not. I made up my mind long ago that, gin I won the Crown and became King o’ Scots, I’d surrender my lands in England—gie them back to the Crown. It would hae been a painful thing to do, but I’d have had no choice. It would hae been the only way to keep Edward at arm’s length—otherwise he’d hae been interferin’ wi’ everythin’ I tried to do here. Only by forfeiting our lands in England would I hae been free to be king in Scotland, and the sacrifice would hae made it plain to Edward that he could never be king here.”

  “Balliol might do the same.”

  “I doubt he will. As I said, he has far more to forfeit, and he spent his whole life in England till his mother died. He’s more English than he is Scots and he willna want to give that up. He’ll try to handle both. That’s the kind o’ man he is, and that spells grief for this realm. But it’s no’ just Balliol, Grandson. There’s scarce a nobleman in Scotland who’s no’ beholden to the English Crown for lands an’ privilege. That’s why Edward can lay claim to being lord paramount o’ Scotland. Through grants o’ lands and titles in England, he commands the loyalty o’ every baron in this land and most o’ the Highland mormaers, forbye.”

  “So he owns Scotland. Is that what you’re saying?”

  Lord Robert sat quiet for a moment, then shook his head. “No,” he growled. “He doesna. What he owns, what he possesses, is a club, a weapon both legal and lethal, and strong enough to cow the Scots nobility, John Balliol among them, into lettin’ him do what he wants. And that bodes ill for this realm in years ahead. Ye’ll hear folk talk o’ patriotism when it suits them, Grandson, when they feel the need to sound grand an’ independent. But wealth has a bigger, louder voice. Wealth and the fear o’ losin’ it.”

  Rob shifted in his seat. “So what must we do?”

  “We? You mean Bruce?” The old man grimaced. “We’ll do what’s right, for that’s a’ we can do, in honour. We’ll keep to ourselves for the welfare o’ our house, and we’ll mind our own affairs and let the rest get on wi’ what they must. I hae no need now to abandon what I hold in England, and I bent my head in renewed fealty to Edward, on behalf o’ all o’ us Bruces. And so I’ll go to England, as will you and yours, to watch and wait and see what happens.”

  “And if it comes to war?” The question was hushed.

  “Then so be it. It will be a disaster. I hope it willna come to that, but if it does, it will no’ be o’ my makin’, nor yours, nor your father’s.”

  “And if Scotland has need o’ us?”

  The old man smiled, his expression almost pitying, and responded quietly in words Rob Bruce would remember for the rest of his life.

  “What Scotland, Grandson? Have you no’ heard a word I’ve said? There’s no Scotland today, other than the land itself. No’ since Alexander died. There’s an England, a puissant kingdom united under a hard and able leader, but there’s no Scotland in the sense you mean. What we hae here now is a collection o’ mixed bloods and peoples, an’ most o’ them at one another’s throats—Gaels in the north and west and Isles, Norwegians in the far north and east, and others scattered everywhere north o’ the Forth—and our so-called leaders, the barons o’ the realm,
are the descendants o’ Norman Frenchmen who canna make up their minds where they belong. They’re the ones who’ll be the ruin o’ this realm if things go as I fear they must—the ones who’ll let Edward ride roughshod over them because they canna bear to think o’ losin’ their estates in England. They might ca’ themselves Scots and strut about like Scots nobles, but their affairs in England are their main concern, and until they see things differently, Scotland will just be a place, an idea … just an old, done notion.”

  A pocket of resin exploded in one of the logs, making them both jump, and Lord Robert yawned and stretched his arms above his head, blinking owlishly. “It must be late,” he said. “What hour o’ night is it, I wonder?”

  “Very late,” Rob responded, eyeing him solicitously. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No, no’ unless you want to.”

  His grandson grinned. “You sent me to bed at suppertime and I slept for hours, so I’m wide awake now. And you asked me to remind you about what my father needs to do for the family.”

  “Aye, I did … I was talking about marriages. Your sister Isabel is to marry Eric, the King o’ Norway. The talk has been goin’ back an’ forth for years between your father and the Norwegians. But it’s a fine match and a good thing.”

  It was the first Rob had heard of such a thing, but he found himself surprisingly unsurprised. King Eric of Norway had been married before, to another Scotswoman, Margaret Canmore, the sister of King Alexander, and their daughter had been the ill-fated Maid of Norway. And for the past few years, on his visits from England, Rob had heard mention from others about visiting Norwegians in his parents’ household. He had been curious at times, but never greatly enough to ask questions. Isabel would make a fine queen, he thought, and smiled at the thought of having a queen for a sister.

  “But what about the boys and the youngest girls, Mary and Margaret and wee Mattie?” he asked then. “Who’ll be left to see to them, once Isabel’s gone?”