by Jack Whyte
“But—” The Earl of Carrick sucked in a deep breath, looked about the room almost wildly, then sighed. “When will I meet this wonder?” he asked.
“No’ for a while yet,” Lord Robert said. “She’s but fourteen, so she’ll no’ be ready for another wheen o’ years. By the time you turn one and twenty, you’ll thank me.”
Rob’s mind flashed back to London and the unknown young women who had ambushed him and held him down so delightfully, and he felt a swelling ache in his chest at the thought of never again experiencing such a thrill. He had had other sexual adventures since that day, but they had all been fumbling, hasty, and largely guilt-filled episodes of opportunities seized on the spur of the moment. None of them had been truly memorable or fulfilling or even really pleasant, and none of them had ever come close to matching the visceral excitement and pleasurable wickedness of that first, unexpected escapade. And now, faced with the prospect of an unknown wife, even three years in the future, it seemed to him that the chance of repeating that encounter was lost forever. Marriage would put an end to such things, he feared, feeling sorry for himself, but then he became aware of his grandfather again, sitting across from him and gazing at him in curiosity.
“Three years, then,” he said. “And what will I do in the meantime?”
“Probably more than I’ll want to hear about. But you’ll be at Edward’s court in London until then. Does that trouble you, three years in England?”
“No, sir, it does not. Not if you’re there, and the rest of my family.” Rob smiled. “My friends will be there too, much of the time—Norfolk and Surrey, Hereford and the others. I’ll be well content there, I believe.”
“Aye, I hope so. But mainly you’ll be out o’ Scotland and away from all the nonsense that’s to come. Mind you keep on the right side o’ Edward, though. He’s an ill man to cross. As long as you’re in favour, he’ll keep you entertained and well provided for, but get you on his bad side and you’ll rue it. An’ now get you to bed, though I jalouse you’ll hae enough in your head now to keep you awake for the rest o’ the night.”
His grandson nodded, and stood up to take his leave.
The old man stood, too, and pulled him close into his embrace. He held him tightly for a moment, and then released him and stepped back, watching in silence as the new Earl of Carrick, his noble house’s future, walked out into the stillness of the sleeping household.
Ten days later, on November nineteenth, the court of auditors at Norham found in favour of John Balliol, Lord of Galloway, and declared him Scotland’s rightful King.
Less than two weeks after that, on the thirtieth day of November in the year of our Lord 1292, Scotland’s new King was crowned upon the ancient Stone of Destiny at the royal palace of Scone, near Perth, proclaiming himself John, King of Scotland.
Book Four
The English Lordling
1295–1297
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE POLITICS OF LOVE
Jennets, they were called, and for no reason he could discern, Robert Bruce found himself smiling as he looked at the four twinned beasts he was approaching, each pair supporting a litter delicately slung between them, front to rear. Designed expressly for the transportation of women, the litters were barely wider than the sturdy animals that bore them, and both were draped in shrouding curtains of the light and delicate Arabian fabric known as muslin. The term jennet came from a gentle, placid breed of horse native to northern Spain and widely famed for their gentle, rolling gait. But northern Spain was half a world away and these jennets were Scots, female donkeys bred and trained to be tranquil, dependable beasts of burden like their Spanish namesakes, and brought to England from Scotland several years earlier by his grandfather Lord Robert, for the convenience of his lady wife.
The ostler in charge of the closer of the two litters had paused with raised eyebrows as the brightly clothed young knight approached, and now Bruce swung his leg over the cantle of his saddle and slid effortlessly to the ground. Dropping his reins as he landed and leaving his horse ground-tethered, he strode forward, sending the ostler away with a wave before he raised the flap of the curtains between him and the litter’s occupants.
As he did so, a heady waft of exotic perfume swept over him and he heard one of the two young women inside the narrow litter giggle. He ignored her, his eyes going automatically to the other occupant, a beautiful, imperious, and self-sufficient young woman who gazed coolly at him with lambent, green-flecked eyes.
“Sir Robert,” she said, in a quiet, husky voice. “Is something amiss? Why have we stopped?”
Bruce stuck his head in through the hanging curtains and sniffed the perfumed air pleasurably and obviously. “No, my lady,” he said easily. “Nothing is wrong. I but found myself desirous of the scent of you. And so I stopped our progress to refresh myself. I hope I have not inconvenienced you.”
The young woman raised a languid eyebrow and shrugged delicately. “How could you?” she drawled, then glanced at her companion. “Estelle, your ears.”
The other woman covered her ears with both hands and closed her eyes, twisting her head ostentatiously towards the far corner of the tiny space they occupied. Her mistress looked back at their visitor and, without raising her voice beyond a murmur, continued, “And have you scent enough to satisfy you now, sir?”
“No, my lady.” His response was barely more than an expressed breath, even quieter than hers as he bent to speak directly into her ear. “Not all the Muses and their gifts combined could sate the need I have for the scent of you … that subtle, exquisite scent so long remembered.”
Gwendolyn de Ferrers merely smiled and dipped her head very slightly, even as she felt her cheeks flush and her heartbeat increase. It was only recently that she had again encountered the young squire with whom she had once so shamelessly toyed. Since that far-off encounter, though, she had been joined in wedlock to Sir James de Ferrers, a wealthy knight more than twice her age, and the nameless but comely young squire had become a knight and a belted earl. Now a close and highly privileged favourite of King Edward, the dashing twenty-one-year-old dandy had a well-deserved reputation for gambling profligately, winning and losing with equal unconcern in the knowledge, according to the whisperers who disparaged him, that his losses would be covered by the King’s privy purse and his winnings would be used for his own pleasure. And the pleasures he pursued fed the rumour makers constantly, ranging as they did from his love of outlandish and outrageously expensive clothing in all the newest fashions, colours, and fabrics that the royal tailors could provide, to his propensity for seducing every woman with whom he came into contact. No woman, it was said, was safe from his blandishments, and very few of those he chose resisted him for long.
Meeting him again unexpectedly after so long, she had been excited to realize that he remembered her. Of this he had left her in no doubt, having looked her directly in the eye and told her that he would know her anywhere, even were he blindfolded and pinioned on his back. She had felt the blood rush to her face, and yet the feeling that had swept over her had nothing to do with shame or confusion. It was far more like triumphant exultation, and she felt her heart take a great leap of pleasure.
Now, gazing at his face so close to hers, aware of the breadth of his shoulders and the richness of the long, open-fronted wine-red tunic that he wore over a rose-coloured shirt of fine cambric and matching hose, she became aware of the smell of him, a clean odour of light perspiration mixed with a mild scent that she could not identify. She forced herself to remain outwardly impassive and kept her voice as low as his. “Are you then incapable of being sated, sir?”
“With you, milady? Aye, I fear I could be.” His head tilted towards her in the close confines of the litter and his lips brushed against her cheek. She hesitated only half a heartbeat and then moved towards him, returning his kiss, oblivious to her servant Estelle as she felt his hand settle firmly on her upper thigh and knead the soft flesh gently.
Bruce�
�s eyes were closed and he could hear his own heartbeat drumming in his ears as he explored the soft wonders of her mouth and the soft flesh beneath his fingers, but she stiffened suddenly and pushed him away with an urgency that snapped his eyes open and brought him back to where he was. The seductive veil of lust fell away quickly as he realized that the pounding heartbeats in his head had been replaced by the thudding of approaching hoofbeats, and he muttered a quiet curse as he straightened quickly and took a half step back from the litter, turning to see who was coming so fast. For a guilty moment he half expected to see the lady’s outraged husband galloping towards him, though he knew even as it came to him that the thought was ludicrous. It was his own man, Thomas Beg—Wee Thomas—from Turnberry, and Bruce saw at a glance that he was bringing ill tidings.
“Forgive me, my lady,” he said, turning quickly back and speaking through the closed curtains. “I must speak with this man.”
He stepped out to where Thomas Beg could see him in the bright, mid-morning light and raised an arm, and the big man swung his mount towards him and brought it to a sliding halt within arm’s reach of where Bruce stood. He dropped his reins on his horse’s neck and swung quickly down.
“Lord Robert,” he growled, his face dark. “I need to talk wi’ ye.” He glanced at the litter and the watching ostler. “For your ears alone.”
“Aye. Come.”
Bruce headed for a dense tangle of head-high bramble bushes nearby, and Thomas Beg followed him closely. When they reached the clump of brush Bruce stood with his back to it. He swept his eyes over the two litters and their few attendants, just to be sure no one was paying too much attention.
“What is it?”
“Sodgers,” the giant answered, his frown still in place. “And they’re no’ yours, though they’re on Bruce land. They’re gettin’ ready to hang some folk. Our folk, I think. I heard the noises they were makin’ an’ went to see what wis happenin’, but when I saw they wis strangers I came back here.”
“Where are they? How far away?”
“Doon that way.” Thomas Beg pointed southwestward. “About a mile frae here, just on the ither side o’ the burn.”
Bruce’s chin came up. “On the other side o’ the river?”
“Aye. I had to cross it to reach them.”
“Then that’s not Bruce land. That’s Sir John Mowbray’s territory, part of the Earl of Surrey’s estates, so they must be his men. But you said they were getting ready to hang some people?”
“Aye. They had about ten folk there, under guard, and mair bein’ brought in as I watched.”
Bruce’s mind was racing. “How many soldiers, Tom?”
The big man spread his hands. “I’m no’ sure, but I had seen mair than a score o’ them afore I lost count. They wis movin’ about too much to count, but there must be half a hunnert there by now.”
“Fifty men-at-arms? Who’s in charge of them, did you see?”
“Three knights at least. Big horses, fancy armour.”
“Damnation! How far are we from our campsite?”
“Less than a mile, but the other way, atop the ridge there. So there’s likely a mile ’tween it an’ the sodgers.”
“And all is ready there for our arrival?”
“Aye, Sir Robert. Everything’s ready.”
“Good. Mount you up then and wait for me. I’ll send the ladies on ahead to the campsite with the others and you and I will ride down there and find out what’s going on.”
Thomas Beg looked at his master askance, taking in the velvet doublet and hose and the sheathed ornamental dagger at Bruce’s waist. He nodded towards it. “Is that the only blade ye’ve got?”
“It’s all I’ll need. I am on my own land. Why should I need any blade? Mount up and wait for me.”
* * *
Less than twenty minutes later the two men were at the top of a small knoll on the far side of the river that bounded the southeastern edge of the Bruce lands of Writtle, looking down at the scene in the wooded dell a hundred yards below where a large number of well-equipped men-at-arms were assembling in order, their task evidently completed. Bruce counted forty-four of them, including three mounted knights.
“By God, they didna waste ony time. Look ower yonder.” Thomas Beg pointed to where a staggered row of four mature oaks stood out against the lighter growth behind them, and Bruce felt himself stiffening as he saw the corpses dangling from their lower limbs. Fourteen of them, he counted, all of them dressed in rags and revolving slowly despite the lack of any breeze. They had been dead for only minutes, he realized, the slow spin of their bodies caused by the residual force of their struggles as they choked to death. He turned back, open-mouthed, towards the executioners, who had now formed themselves into two disciplined blocks, four ranks wide by five deep, then felt his throat constrict as a fourth knight, accompanied by a quartet of mounted sergeants, rode in to join the others, bearing a blazoned shield that Bruce recognized instantly.
He stood erect in his stirrups and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Below there!” he bellowed. “Bigod!”
The majority of the men swung around in concert to gaze up towards the knoll, but though they were plainly visible to him from above, the bushes surrounding him made him invisible to them. Moments later, the two outer ranks of each block of infantry peeled away to the left and right, trotting towards the flanks of the hill on which Bruce stood, while the four remaining files of men, all of whom carried crossbows, combined into a solid unit, arming their weapons and facing squarely up the hill.
“They’re coming up,” he said to Thomas Beg. “Squads of ten on either side, each led by a knight. Come with me.”
He nudged his horse with his spurs and advanced until he could be seen clearly from below, then sat patiently, arms folded across his chest, as they came into view and surrounded him and Thomas Beg. Then he turned to the knight on his right, who had arrived slightly ahead of his counterpart on Bruce’s left. The fellow was frowning fiercely, his flushed face visible beneath his raised visor, but he hesitated as he took in Bruce’s appearance.
Bruce spoke first. “Robert Bruce of Turnberry, Earl of Carrick. My lands of Writtle lie the other side of the river. I saw my friend Sir John Bigod with you and sought to make myself known. Will you take me to him?”
The knight glowered and raised his hand to his men, tacitly warning them to wait but remain vigilant. He answered civilly enough, though, nodding as he named himself. “William de Hazelrig of Louth. You should have come down to us, my lord. It ill behooves an earl to shout like a huckster.”
Bruce bit back the urge to put the newcomer firmly in his place. He merely shrugged, forcing himself to smile in spite of an instinctive dislike of the man. “Sometimes a shout is safer than an unannounced approach. You have crossbowmen down there.” He turned to the second knight and found another stranger gazing at him, though this one with a smile. “And you, sir, are…?”
“Gilbert de Coulle, Sir Robert. I’ve heard Sir John speak of you often. He will be most pleased to see you thus unexpectedly.”
“That is my hope,” Bruce answered, thinking about the hanged men and the legality or otherwise of their deaths. Of the small coterie of friends he had made in London as a squire, Bigod had been the closest, and he had never impressed Bruce as being bloodthirsty or brutal. But Bruce had counted fourteen dangling corpses with his own eyes. “Shall we go down, then?”
As they rode clear of the obscuring brush on the hillside, Bruce could see John de Bigod, backed by four mounted sergeants-at-arms, sitting his horse at the side of the twenty crossbowmen looking up at them, and he saw the sidewise, straight-armed gesture that ordered the men to lower their weapons and stand easy as soon as it became obvious that the returning parties showed no sign of conflict. Look as he would, though, he could see no sign now of the fourth knight he had seen earlier. The two groups were too far apart for either side to distinguish individual faces, but Bruce knew that Bigod would already have seen that ne
ither he nor Thomas Beg wore armour and that their horses—and his own wine-coloured doublet—marked them as people of some consequence.
No voices were raised as the descending group approached, and Bruce saw the sudden quickening of interest as John de Bigod sat straighter in his saddle, tightening his reins and flipping up his visor as something in Bruce’s appearance struck him as being familiar. The knight lifted one arm and called out an order, and the mounted sergeants at his back began moving, shouting to the men in their charge, who immediately broke ranks, disarmed their weapons, and formed up again in a twenty-man block, largely ignoring the newcomers now that their commander had accepted them as being harmless. Bigod spurred his horse to a trot until he was close enough to recognize Bruce, and then he hauled back on the reins and stood upright in the stirrups.
“Bruce! Damn me, where did you spring from?” There was no doubting the welcome in the knight’s wide smile, and Bruce kicked his mount forward to meet him, arms spread wide, as Bigod bellowed, “Harry! Here! Look at this.”
A thick bank of bushes on Bruce’s right, less than forty paces distant and masking the row of oaks with their dangling corpses, stirred and split as the missing knight rode slowly into view, followed by a score of Welsh archers whose presence Bruce had neither seen nor suspected. The man’s shield and surcoat bore an escutcheon that Bruce did not recognize, although elements of it were disconcertingly familiar to him—the blue lion rampant on a field of gold was almost identical to the ancient arms of the House of Bruce. Otherwise the knight was armoured in plain steel, from helmed head to booted feet. But the shouted name had prompted Bruce already to guess at his identity, and as the obscuring visor rose up from a swipe of a gauntleted hand, he saw the familiar face of Henry de Percy, another of his companions from his days of squiredom. Percy was frowning, plainly wondering what was going on, but then he recognized Bruce and his face, too, broke into a grin.