by Jack Whyte
“I didn’t like what I was hearing, Nicol, and I could hardly believe my ears at times, but it was plain that no one was lying. How bad is it, in truth?”
“It’s bad,” his uncle replied, “but no worse here than elsewhere, from what I’m told. It’s the same everywhere. The English victory stunned the whole of Scotland, and the destruction of the supposedly unbeatable feudal host left the folk everywhere doubting themselves and all they had been told since they were born. Those they had looked to as leaders were all imprisoned and there was no one to replace them, so the folk left here were easy prey for the English soldiery.”
“Prey?”
Nicol looked at him askance. “Is it difficult to understand? The folk didn’t have a chance against the English attitude. They had been conquered, Rob, invaded and defeated by people who plainly think they are superior to any Scot, and who behave accordingly.”
“But Edward’s word is clear on that. No mistreatment of the Scots folk—no raping, no pillage, no abuse.”
Nicol sniffed. “That may be so officially, but the English soldiery take their standards of behaviour from their knights and officers, not from the King in Westminster. And believe me when I say that these same knights and officers are more than merely slightly contemptuous of all things Scots.”
Bruce instantly remembered what his grandfather had so often said about the power of men’s perceptions: men believed what they thought they saw to be true. If the English leadership, the earls and barons, cared nothing for the welfare of the Scots people, too intent on their own selfish ambitions, then their folk would behave accordingly, and all the written orders of the English administrators were no more than a waste of ink and parchment. The English soldiery would behave as lawlessly and brutally as their leaders permitted them to behave. That was the way of soldiers everywhere—to take ruthless advantage of everything they could, for their own benefit and without being caught doing it. And if their leaders didn’t care what they did, why should they?
He decided there and then that the King of England needed to be told about this directly, although he was not at all sure how Edward would react to hearing it. Perhaps he might do something about it—take drastic steps to enforce his stated will—but he found himself forced to admit that the odds were equally good that he might not.
He spent the next eight days with Nicol, visiting every bit of the earldom and taking careful note of changes and repairs to be made. He spent much of that time speaking with his tenants, long-familiar cottagers and fisherfolk for the main part, who were genuinely pleased to welcome him back home even though the men were gone and many of the women did not know whether their sons and husbands were alive or dead.
He left the earldom in Nicol’s care and returned to Lochmaben, where, as he had promised, he summoned his father’s knights to meet with him. He spent an entire day with them, listening carefully to all they had to say and making sure the elderly cleric who had served his grandfather took careful notes on matters that Bruce judged his father would deem important. Other than that, there was not much to be done in Lochmaben, since the knights were masters of their own lands and required no outside help with their activities.
The following day, he sought an audience with Sir Miles Humphreys, the temporary custodian of the fortress, and relieved him of his responsibilities. The knight sat blinking in astonishment.
“I don’t think I can do that, my lord of Carrick. My orders are to hold this place until further notice, and I doubt if my superiors would recognize your authority to relieve me of my duties here. We are still legally in a condition of war, you know.”
Bruce smiled and shook his head. “No, Sir Miles, the war has been over for months. The royal Scottish castles are held by English garrisons, and that is according to the King’s wishes at the close of the hostilities. But Lochmaben is not a royal castle. It is an ancient fortress owned by my father, whose loyalty to King Edward is beyond doubt. Look you here.” He reached into his doublet and pulled out the letter he had dictated the previous night.
“This is a formal letter of instruction, signed by me as an earl of Scotland and my father’s deputy, relieving you of any further responsibility as custodian and freeing you and your men for duty elsewhere, where you can be put to good use. I have given permission for Sir James Jardine to occupy the castle in my father’s stead for the time being, and if you know Sir James at all, you know the place could not be in better custody. I will be leaving to return to Berwick the day after tomorrow, and I suggest you and your men ride with me. There I shall speak personally with King Edward and absolve you of all responsibility in this matter”—he smiled—“because I am an earl and I left you no choice but to obey. I am here, after all, because His Majesty sent me directly, to reclaim my father’s property. Should the King disagree with what I have done in good faith, though, I’ll bear the brunt of it and no discredit will reflect upon you. And if he strongly disagrees, why then you may return and resume your post with nothing lost except a few days of travelling time. Does that convince you?”
The Englishman eyed the letter in a way that suggested to Bruce he might be illiterate, but then he sucked in a great breath and nodded. “So be it, my lord of Carrick. I’ll take you at your word. We will be ready to accompany you when you leave for Berwick.”
Edward was still in Berwick when they arrived, and he professed himself well pleased with Bruce’s report on the status of Carrick and Annandale, assigning Humphreys and his score of men to other duties in Berwick. On the matter of Bruce’s concerns over the behaviour of his troops in Scotland, however, the monarch was disconcertingly noncommittal. He listened to what Bruce had to say, frowning with what Bruce assumed to be displeasure at what he was hearing, and then mumbled something about looking into it. But where Bruce had looked for outrage he saw nothing but annoyance, and he could not tell whether it was directed at him or at the miscreants he had denounced. Edward then gave him permission to return to his home and his wife.
Two days later, Bruce was back in England, pushing his little following hard in his eagerness to win home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DEATH AND RESURRECTION
The time went quickly after that, the weeks flitting by until the day when Izzy jerked upright at the dinner table and clutched at the great mound of her belly, her huge green eyes going wider than he had ever seen them.
“Robert—?” she said, the word wrenched out of her, and Bruce’s world disintegrated into a blur of being ignored and waiting, waiting, waiting, pacing the floor and praying, muttering to himself. It was fifteen harrowing hours before Allie approached him, beaming with smiles.
“You hae a dochter, my lord,” she said, “and her ladyship is fine. Exhausted, poor lamb, but that’s to be expected. The bairn’s a bonnie wee thing, an’ gin ye’d like to see the two o’ them I’ll tak ye up. Come on wi’ me now.”
Even newborn, the child was beautiful, a tiny, lovely thing with long, dark hair that Allie said would soon fall out. Bruce hoped it would not, but said nothing, content, after having kissed and cosseted his wife until she fell asleep, to gaze in fascination at the tiny being in his arms, wrapped in her new swaddling clothes. Izzy had long since agreed that, should their firstborn be a girl, her name would be Marjorie, after Bruce’s mother, and now, looking down at the perfect, pink-faced mite, he felt that the name suited her well. Marjorie Bruce, future Countess of Carrick, would have a life of ease and beauty combined with duty and would be a credit to the grandmother for whom she was named.
She was a fractious child, though, screaming all night long every night so that neither of her parents could sleep properly. Allie grew more and more concerned as each day passed and finally, at the end of the first week, she drew Bruce aside.
“I think the wee mite’s hungry, sir.”
“How can she be hungry? She’s forever at the tit.”
“Aye, I know, but I’m startin’ to doubt she’s drawin’ any strength frae it. That happens so
metimes. Gin you agree, sir, I’d like to bring in a local lass who’s nursin’ one o’ her ain. She has plenty o’ milk to spare, and if that’s what’s wrong we’ll notice it gey quick.”
“Do it,” he said. “But say nothing to Izzy until we know if you’re right.”
The baby stopped crying within minutes of feeding from the wet nurse, and within a week of that Isabella’s own milk dried up. There was no reason for it that anyone could see; she simply stopped producing suck. Allie brought in the wet nurse permanently. Izzy was inconsolable.
A week after that, Bruce sprang up from the table as his wife entered the room. It was mid-morning, and the light pouring in from the open window revealed the shocking chalk-white pastiness of her face. He cursed aloud and leapt to her side, putting one arm around her shoulders and cupping her chin in his other hand, tilting her face towards the window and peering anxiously into her eyes. “Izzy, what’s wrong? You look sick … Pale as wax and big, dark rings under your eyes. Are you tired? Are you in pain?”
She shook her head wanly, leaning into him. “I don’t know, my love,” she said in a fragile, whispery voice. “I don’t feel sick … just odd.”
“Christ Jesus. Allie!”
They put her to bed and sent for the physician, but nine nights later, in the early-morning hours of the fourth of December, while her exhausted husband slept upright in a chair by her bedside with her hand in his, Isabella Bruce, Countess of Carrick, died in her sleep.
* * *
There was no pain, or none that he could recall later. When he awoke and found her small hand cold and stiff in his own, Robert Bruce simply receded, like his father before him, into a limbo where nothing could reach him or touch him. He knew, because he was told when he asked long afterwards, that he attended the burial and threw earth onto the oaken coffin they had made for her, but he had no memory of being there or of doing anything else thereafter. For a full six weeks, encompassing Christmas and the unobserved New Year festivities, it was as though he had simply ceased to exist. The Earl of Carrick was there in body, but his mind and all his consciousness were elsewhere. He ate and drank and functioned physically, he knew, because by the end of that six weeks, when he began to return to the world, he was still alive though he had lost a frightening amount of weight. But all else was blank. He had no recollection of anything other than that moment of awakening to find himself clutching that small, cold hand.
Then, one morning in mid-January, he awoke to find his brother Nigel shaking his arm and calling him by name. He was irritated at first, then mystified when Nigel leapt into the air, grinning and shouting, and ran from the room, leaving him to go back to sleep.
That was the beginning of what Alec, his youngest brother, called the Emergence. All four of his brothers were there in Writtle, and had been there throughout almost the entire course of his withdrawal, and he supposed that in a way he must have known that. From that day on, he began to mend, emerging more and more each day from the protective shell within which he had been hiding. It was not a speedy process, and some days were better than others, but by the middle of February he was well enough to converse normally on almost any topic, the sole exception being the matter of Isabella, and to question what had been going on in the world during his “absence.” His father had been here, he learned, and had brought the four boys with him, having obtained a leave of absence for Nigel from his squiring duties. Lord Robert had stayed in Writtle for an entire week before his duties called him north again, and throughout that time he had tried unsuccessfully to engage Bruce’s attention.
King Edward had issued a general amnesty late in the year, having obtained the pledges of the Scots earls to participate in his French campaign, and the remaining captives had been allowed to return to their homes without grave penalty, though there had been no question of the Comyns keeping their control of Bruce lands. Yet Edward had sent no word of sympathy over Bruce’s loss. Nigel pointed out that in all likelihood the King had failed to hear of Bruce’s bereavement; he was busy even for a monarch, travelling all over England, amassing the army for his French campaign and deeply involved in the logistical details of transporting, maintaining, and supplying an invading army over vast distances involving sea travel.
Bruce listened without interest. He knew beyond question now that he had put all his faith and hopes for the future in God’s hands the previous year, and those hands had proved to be either powerless or uncaring. That trust had evidently been misplaced, and in consequence, his belief in God’s very existence had died … And if a man were sufficient of a fool to believe in a just and merciful God, how much greater a fool must he be to put faith in the constancy of kings? And so he simply closed his mind to Edward Plantagenet’s indifference, refusing even to think about the man’s supposedly high regard and affection for the blameless young woman.
Those who dared mention her death at all around him spoke in hushed tones of “childbed fever” and its associated maladies, but Bruce knew that was nonsense. She had been weeks clear of the childbed when she began to fail, and for the first two of those weeks at least she had been as beautiful and delightful as ever, her burgeoning health a cause of rejoicing. He refused to think at all about her malnourished daughter and the failure of her milk, or to consider any possibility that those might have been connected to, or had influence upon, her eventual death, and he refused, resolutely, to consider the possibility that she might have died of the same causes that had taken his mother from him years before.
He did not often have time, however, to ruminate upon such things, for his brothers conspired to shake him out of his brooding. He had just emerged from a steaming bath one day and was towelling himself when the door opened and Nigel and Edward stepped inside, stopping one on either side of the open door to lean back against the wall and look at him.
“Shut that damn door. It’s cold enough in here without adding a February gale.”
They glanced at each other instead. “What do you think?”
Edward cocked his head, squinting at Bruce. “Not good,” he drawled. “Good morning, brother Rob. Did you hear what King Edward said to John Warrenne as they were leaving Scotland last year, with the war neatly finished and the Scottish question settled?”
Bruce merely stared back at him, straight-faced, and Edward continued undaunted. “This is true, I swear it. Warrenne himself repeated it to others. They had just crossed the border at Berwick when the King drew rein and looked back into Scotland. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That’s done. A man does good business when he rids himself of a turd.’” He stepped a pace closer and grasped Bruce’s upper arm, squeezing it between his fingers before raising the unresisting limb for Nigel’s inspection. “This arm has the consistency of shit. Nigel, do you agree?”
“It seems to have that feel to it. I agree.”
“And therefore?”
“A man would do good business to rid himself of it.”
“Exactly what I think…” He dropped his hand to Bruce’s forearm and gripped it, turning it until he could look down at the open palm. “The muscle’s almost gone,” he said. “Your hands have lost their calluses. The whites of your eyes are yellow. You, my dear brother, are a mess.” He nodded towards the still-steaming tub. “Not as great a mess as you were earlier, but you need toughening up. Nigel and I have decided to undertake your retraining and get you back into fighting condition, and you are going to be bruised with many colours until you start to hold your own with us again. So put on clothes and cladding and come outside to the yard. We’ll be waiting for you. Am I right, Nigel?”
“You are right, Edward.”
“Good. That pleases me. I enjoy being right.” He winked at Bruce. “You have the quarter-hour. After that, we come and carry you out.”
* * *
The Earl of Carrick was dancing despite being swathed in heavy practice armour, hopping lightly and lithely from foot to foot, his shield solidly firm beneath his chin and the long, lethal beauty of his blade movin
g constantly as he faced his two younger brothers, neither of whom looked as blithe or as comfortably confident as he. Nigel’s padding was mud stained, from landing on his arse when he had failed to anticipate his elder’s next move, and Edward, the slightest of the three young men, was breathing heavily through his open mouth, having barely survived taking a fatal stab in an extended exchange with the earl while Nigel was sprawled in the mud.
“Somebody’s coming,” Nigel said, lowering his sword, and Bruce turned to look. One of the gate guards was running towards them.
“Strangers, my lord, coming from London. They just emerged from the woods, a mile and a half away. A mounted troop and three knights’ colours.” Bruce nodded, and the guard turned and ran back to his post.
“Three knights? I wonder who they are, riding with a mounted troop…” He shrugged. “They probably will not be coming here. Headed for Colchester would be my guess. But we’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, brethren, thank you for the diversion. I am really glad you decided to retrain me, and I am more than pleased with your success. I have not had a bruise in weeks. Have you two?”
He turned away, smiling. Even his smile had changed since Izzy’s death; it was quieter somehow, less brilliant and far less frequent. But his eyebrows rose in surprise as he saw the guard running back towards them, shouting, “My lord, there’s more of them, bearing the King’s standard!”
“Christ God! Get back and sound the alarm, man! Turn out the guard! And send someone to the kitchens to find Allie and have her light cooking fires. Damnation, man, away with you! Run!” He turned to his brothers, both of whom stood open-mouthed. “You two, away with you and change your clothes, quick as you can. And tell Tom and Alec to be ready.” He glanced down at himself, then started stripping off his bulky coverings. “Ah well,” he muttered, “even a King must expect surprises if he calls on people unannounced, but can we feed half a royal army?”