by Jack Whyte
“Can you sit up to drink this?” Somehow the “my lord” formality had been lost again, and Bruce felt no need to remind her of it.
“I think I can, if you’ll help me.” He raised an arm towards her. “Set the cup down and hook your arm under this one, then pull me up and let me lean on you until I’m stable.” She did as he had said, and up close she was even smaller than he had anticipated. He felt her forearm hook into his armpit and sensed her bracing it with her other hand, and then she leaned back, throwing her weight against his.
“Gently,” he said, grunting. “Don’t try to lift me. All you need to do is take my weight and brace me a little to stop me from falling back. Now, on three. One, two, and—there! That should do it. Now let’s have that devil’s brew.”
She sniffed at the mug before holding it out for him. “It does not smell like a devil’s brew,” she said.
He grinned at her as she brought the mug closer to his mouth. “You’re an expert on the Devil, are you, Mary Henderson?”
She frowned slightly but said nothing until he had emptied the mug, and then she stepped back, holding the vessel in both hands and frowning at him in what was almost a squint.
“Will that make you sleep? It’s different from the other stuff. That made you sleep like a dead man.”
“And so will this. At least, it did this afternoon … So what now? Brother Reynald will be here soon. Will I see you tomorrow, Mary Henderson?”
“No, sir. Tomorrow you will have Elaine in the forenoon and Margaret in the evening.”
“Who are they, this Margaret and Elaine?”
“Elaine MacGregor of Tarbolton and Margaret MacWilliam of Mar, Lady Isabella’s niece.”
“Ah! Yet another of the House of Mar. They are a prolific family.” He saw her frown at the unfamiliar word and added, “They breed a lot.”
“And why not?” She sounded disapproving again. “That’s what families are for.”
He grinned at her, enjoying her pertness, but at that moment the door swung open behind her and Brother Reynald stepped inside, carrying a shielded candle. He stopped short when he saw the young woman standing over the bed.
“Brother Reynald,” Bruce said in French. “We have been expecting you. The young lady has just fed me your latest brew and is about to seek her bed.” He looked back at the young woman and switched back to Gaelic. “Away with you now, Mary Henderson, and sleep well. I will look forward to seeing you again one of these days.”
The girl flushed red and bobbed a hasty curtsy before scuttling out.
Brother Reynald was watching him as a boy might watch a frog, waiting for it to leap. “You slept most of the day today,” the old man said.
Bruce nodded. “I know. And having drunk another draught but moments since, I suppose I’ll sleep throughout the night as well.”
“That is the intent. Are you feeling well? No aches or pains?”
“No, Brother, but as you yourself reminded me, they are there, waiting to be provoked.”
“Then do not provoke them. We are making progress. Can you see clearly?”
“Not with this blindfold wrapped round my head.”
“We will take it off tomorrow. But you are not seeing double? Nothing appears blurred?”
“No, sir. My sight is well enough—what there is of it. Tomorrow when you remove the bandages it should be perfect.”
“So we can but hope.” He crossed behind the bed and blew out the candle there, then stooped to do the same with the smaller one on Bruce’s table. “Sleep well.” He moved away, blowing out his own candle as he went towards the cot in the corner, and left Bruce in darkness illuminated only by the flickering of the fire. Plainly it was time for rest, needed or not.
* * *
True to his word, Brother Reynald removed his bandages the next morning and pronounced his healing to be more than satisfactory, with no scarring and scarcely a scab. Bruce’s eyesight was clear, and, after some careful experimentation, he found that he was able to sit up in a chair and take more solid food.
For the next half-hour the Earl of Carrick sat and watched as fragments of the life of the household beyond his chamber door spilled inside to where he sat alone. A group of servants arrived first, none of them quite daring to meet his eye, and he admired the speed and efficiency with which they cleaned the entire room, straightening his bedding and sweeping out the ashes from the fireplace before building and kindling a new fire. They worked in a kind of breathless hush, communicating with one another only in grunts, and they were finished and away again in a miraculously short time, it seemed to him. One of them, though, in backing away from the hearth as he examined it for flaws, caught his shoulder on Bruce’s great sword, where it hung in its belted sheath from a peg on one of the room’s supporting pillars.
“Wait,” Bruce said as the man steadied the swaying weapon. “Bring me that, if you will.”
When Thomas Beg and Nicol arrived a short time later, bringing more servants with an array of food set out on trays, they found their quarry seated by his bed, holding the big sword that had been William the Marshal’s and was now his. He had unsheathed it, and the discarded scabbard and belt lay on the floor at his feet while the long, gleaming blade tilted upward, pointing at the mantel.
While the servants began to lay out the food they had brought, Thomas Beg stood in front of the fireplace with his back to the flames and his hands crossed behind him. “Are ye thinkin’ o’ using that?” he asked Bruce.
Bruce smiled faintly, lowering the point to rest on the floor between them. “No, not at all,” he said. “In fact I was thinking of how little use I’ve made of it since I’ve owned it. I’ve never swung this thing in anger.”
“And pray God you never have to, lad.” Nicol MacDuncan had seated himself on the edge of the freshly made bed. “It’s a vastly unrewarding pursuit, and killing men, no matter how deserving they might seem of being killed, is no way to find lasting satisfaction. What brought you to thinking about that?”
“Oh, I was thinking about my friends, the ones I chanced across just before you came—Harry and John and Humphrey de Bohun. They are all hardened warriors now—veterans, they call themselves—and you can see it in their faces and the very way they walk. They’ve all been in battle, in Wales, putting down Madog’s rebellion.”
“Words, Robert, words.”
Bruce looked up in surprise, unaccustomed to hearing Nicol MacDuncan sound so emphatic. “What d’you mean, words, Nicol? Did I say something that offended you?”
“Aye, you did, but the words were not yours. You were spouting words your English friends had used, without thinking about what they meant. Their words, and meanings that mask meanings.”
Bruce was gaping now, and making no attempt to disguise it. “Nicol,” he said, “I have no idea what you are saying.”
“But I know full well what you said. You were talking about Madog Llewelyn’s rebellion, and that makes me angry. Madog led no rebellion. He led an uprising.”
He stopped, glaring into Bruce’s astonished eyes, and then he shook his head. “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you, Nephew? Then listen and learn. The Welsh are not English. They never were. They were here before the English came to Britain and they were here before the Romans came. Wales is their ancient homeland. That’s why the English call them Welshmen.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you understand that, Robert?”
Bruce nodded. “Of course I do. I tried to explain it to Percy and the others, when they were bleating about the Welsh not liking them. What I am failing to understand is why you’re saying it.”
“Well then, maybe you will be able to answer a question for me.” He glanced over at the servants preparing their meal, but he had been speaking in Gaelic, and unable to understand a word, none of them was paying any attention to him. The head man straightened up, scanned the tabletop one last time to ensure that everything was in place, then ushered out his crew with a wave, leaving the three Scots to themselves.
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“Tell me, if you can,” Nicol continued, “how Welshmen, defending their own land against aggression and outright invasion by foreign armies, can be said to be rebelling against the invader? To make that sound reasonable you’d have to be English, with an Englishman’s particular view of things. Me, I’m a Scot, so I have no time for such blatant haverings. No more should you, for all that you live here in England. If a thing has an honest name, then use that name in truth and don’t try to twist it into something else. An uprising is one thing and may sometimes be justifiable. Rebellion is another thing altogether—the treasonous disputation of legally established order and the rules by which it governs. Your friends may have won their spurs in Wales, just as you say, but I would argue against the validity of the cause in which they earned them. What say you, Thomas Beg?”
Thomas Beg had crossed to the table and was raising the cloth covers from the steaming bowls and platters to inspect their contents, narrow-eyed. “Hot porridge wi’ fresh cream,” he mused. “New-baked, crusty bread frae the oven, butter, salt, some kind o’ eggs, mixed up, an’ juicy fried slices o’ thick pork. Ye’ll be better served eatin’ this than e’er ye will talkin’ about shite like that.” He glanced at the other two, wry-faced. “The English hae their own way o’ seein’ things, and what they want, they take. Wales is the proof o’ that, an’ nothin’ the likes o’ us can say or do is apt to change a bit o’ it. So let’s eat.” He stepped back and stood beside Bruce’s chair while Nicol returned Bruce’s sword to its sheath and hung it back on its peg. “A hand here, if ye will, Master Nicol. This poor soul isna fit to walk yet, so we’ll lift him, chair and a’. I’ll get the arse o’ it and you hold the back. Are ye ready? Right.”
They stooped and took hold, then straightened, grunting in unison, and swung Bruce, chair and all, to a place at the table, where they set about demolishing the meal spread out there. Bruce ate heartily, enjoying real food for the first time since the fire, and he was grateful for the similar single-mindedness with which his two companions addressed themselves to their food, for he had much to think about.
Eventually his uncle pushed his empty platter away and poured himself a fresh glass of milk, while Thomas Beg was folding a slice of buttered bread in half over the last piece of fried pork.
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t spoil your appetites,” Bruce said. “Nicol, if I didn’t know you better, I’d have thought you’d grown political since last I saw you.”
Nicol dipped his head to one side. “Aye, and you’d be right,” he said mildly. “I’ve never bothered with politics in the past, but the thoughts I’ve been having recently are troublesome.”
Bruce frowned. “What thoughts?”
His uncle sucked at something lodged in his teeth. “This whole affair in Wales … The rebellion you mentioned. It’s done now, and Edward’s got what he wanted, for the time being.”
“For the time being? You think he wants more from Wales?”
“I know he wants more from Wales. He wants Welsh gold and Welsh taxes for his treasury and Welsh bowmen for his wars in France. That’s why he’s building so many castles there, fortifying his position. But that’s not what concerns me.”
“You amaze me, Uncle,” Bruce said slowly. “Since when have you paid heed of what goes on in Wales? Or of where Edward builds castles?”
“Since that same Edward garrisoned the royal castles in Scotland! Can you not see it, boy?”
“See what?” It had been years since Nicol MacDuncan had called him boy, and again Bruce was surprised at his vehemence.
Nicol slouched back in his chair, and Bruce raised an eyebrow towards Tam, who merely made a face, then stood up.
“You two hae things to talk about that I don’t want to hear, so I’ll leave you to it.”
Bruce had not expected that. “No, stay and talk with us.”
“Nah,” Tam said, shaking his big head. “Ye’ll be talking politics and I hae no need to hear it. In fact, I hae no desire to hear it. I’ll no’ be far away, gin ye hae need o’ me for anythin’. But I’ll take my leave now, gin ye’ll permit me.”
Bruce sat staring at the door after Thomas Beg had left. “Well,” he muttered. “That was plain enough. Thomas Beg likes politics no more than you do. But why would he not stay and listen? He might have learnt something.”
“I think he might have learned long since when to mind his own affairs and leave others to theirs,” his uncle said.
Nicol sat for several moments longer, nibbling at the inside of his cheek, then drew a deep breath and began to speak. “There are men in Scotland, powerful men with much to lose, who fear that Edward’s rebellion in Wales was merely an earnest of what he plans for us.”
“For us? For us Bruces, you mean? No, you’re not a Bruce. For Scotland, then? That is ridiculous. Edward would—”
“Be quiet, Robert, and listen to me. And recall what your own grandsire said four years ago, at the start of the Norham proceedings.”
Bruce opened his mouth to reply just as strongly, but something in his uncle’s eyes stopped him before he could summon enough outrage. He sat back, gripping the arms of his chair. “Remind me,” he said, keeping his tone neutral.
“Edward made himself lord paramount of Scotland. You recall that?” Nicol’s voice was now calm and controlled. “He made himself lord paramount, uncaring of the will of the Scots people, and no man dared deny him. And all the Guardians resigned on the day that took effect, and were reappointed immediately by Edward, acting as lord paramount. Your grandfather thought the whole thing was iniquitous, that Edward was doing things for hidden reasons of his own and that it was sheer folly to present him with the royal castles as bases for English garrisons within our country. But it was all passed off and smoothed over as being for the good and welfare of the Scots realm, since the castles would be returned as soon as a new king was chosen. You’ll remember that, too, no doubt.”
“Aye, I do. But they were not returned, were they?”
“Not yet, and that’s a sore point with King John, though there appears to be nothing he can do about it short of declaring outright war on England, which is unthinkable. But Lord Robert, God rest his soul, also said with absolute belief on one occasion that Edward of England was a different man altogether from the young prince with whom he had gone to war so long ago.”
Bruce sat up straight. “Have you been talking to Wishart? I was there when Gransser said that once, as was my father, and the only other person there at the time was the Bishop of Glasgow.”
“That’s not important. What is—”
“I disagree. It is important, Nicol. It’s very important. Because it tells me Wishart of Glasgow is one of those powerful men you spoke of earlier—‘powerful men with much to lose.’ And if you are communing with the likes of Wishart then you must also be speaking with the High Steward and his friends among the magnates, all of whom are Bruce adherents.” He stopped, his brow furrowing, and then said, almost to himself, “Unless it was my father himself who told you. Is my father involved in this?”
“No.” Nicol’s denial was emphatic.
“Why not? He should be. It concerns him.”
“It does not concern him. The Lord of Annandale renounced his Scots concerns twice: when he elected to come here to England and when he swore fealty to Edward, offending and abjuring King John.”
“I did the same thing, Nicol, at the same time and for the same reasons. So why are you telling me about this and not my father?”
Nicol looked uncomfortable for a moment, then flexed his entire upper body with a great sigh. “Because it has been … decided that your father holds no answers for Scotland in this case.”
“Decided.” Bruce’s voice was now ominously quiet. “By whom? These same powerful men with so much to lose? Scotland is a quagmire, from what I hear, and King John does naught but pour water into the mud, confounding everyone and adding to the mess. You’ll recall, I have no doubt, that my grandfather Lord Robert prophesied t
hat such would be the case. He knew Balliol was not the man Scotland needed as its king. And now the magnates see the truth of that for themselves. But he also prophesied that Balliol would not endure, and that is why he passed his rights and claims to Scotland’s Crown on to his son, properly and legally. Who dares dispute that?”
Nicol answered, equally quietly, “No one disputes it, Robert. The question being raised is one of temperament … of suitability. Some people feel—believe—that Lord Annandale would fare little better than our present King were he, too, forced to deal with Edward of England’s demands and arrogance. He is too close to Edward, they believe, too beholden to him.”
“Some people! Who are these nameless, faceless someones? Those who think they might do better than a Bruce, given a chance to make their own ambitions a reality? That is outrageous perfidy. My father is a fine, upstanding man, trained to his duty, and he has never been found wanting in the execution of it.”
“True, and I can attest to that myself. Your father and I have always liked each other. He did well by my niece and he mourned her deeply, and for that I will always admire him. He is a fine man, Robert, as you say, and a decent one. But his father, your grandsire the Competitor, was a great man, and that’s a very different thing.” He sighed again. “And it is greatness, men are saying, that our realm has need of at this time.”
“And so these people—you among them, Nicol—have decided that my father is unfit to rule? Tell me,” he said, making no attempt to hide his hurt, “how did you come to be in Durham with my father at this time, as he was preparing to leave?”
“I was not. I came south with the Earl of Mar. When he heard that Domhnall was coming south to England, Wishart sent me to join him, bearing a message.”
“A message to my father, bidding him stand down?” The grin that accompanied the words was bitter, more rictus than smile. “I find it difficult to imagine what words would be required to couch such an order and make it appear like a request. What did it say, and how did my father react?”
“The message was not for your father. It was for Domhnall of Mar, to be relayed to you at the proper time.”