by Robyn Young
The victories won in the capture of the castles of Wigtown, Dumfries and Buittle had been all but swept aside by the queen’s pregnancy, tidings of which had spread swiftly through the kingdom. Robert hadn’t been invited to attend any of the councils that had followed the men’s return, but from snatches of conversation gleaned he knew his grandfather had decided to withdraw from Galloway, leaving a small garrison in each castle until the queen gave birth and the ambition of Comyn and Balliol was ended. His father had clearly been angered by the decision to leave and when the old Bruce departed a fortnight ago, returning with his knights to Annandale, the two had been silent and tense. Despite the unrest within his family, Robert had been preoccupied with his own thoughts, but today had been the first day since the harvest had begun that he’d been able to slip away unnoticed.
As the trees thinned, he could see the house under the hill. Great puddles lay around the base of the oak, the leaves of which were russet and gold. The last glory of a dying summer. The pigs were huddled in the corner of their pen, close under the eaves. Three fine red heifers had joined them. Wondering how the old woman had the money to buy the animals, Robert made his way down the muddy hillside, using the staff for balance.
As he approached the door, a ferocious baying sounded. From around the side of the house came the black dogs, barking and snarling. Resisting the urge to run, Robert stood his ground. The hounds slowed, slinking low to the ground, shoulders hunched. Robert opened his free hand, palm up, towards the beasts, as he used to do with his grandfather’s hunting dogs. Rain dripped steadily from his nose. The larger of the two came closer, growling. Raising its head, it thrust its nose towards his outstretched hand. Robert laughed in relief as its tongue uncurled pink and wet into his palm. The door banged open, revealing the old woman framed in the doorway. The dogs slunk away through the puddles towards her.
‘I told you not to come here.’ Her voice, raised above the torrent, was hard.
Robert went towards her, holding out the staff. ‘I wanted to return this.’ As soon as he said it, he realised how feeble it sounded, how like a lie. He could see it reflected in the old woman’s face in a sneer of contempt. When she moved to close the door, he called out, ‘And to see Brigid.’
The woman paused, her expression caught between humour and irritation. Both were derisive. ‘She’s gone, boy.’
‘Gone?’
‘To Ayrshire. A farrier took a fancy to her.’ Affraig nodded to the stick. ‘Leave it outside,’ she said, shutting the door.
Robert stared at the pitted wood, barring his way. He felt a surge of anger, fuelled by humiliation and disappointment. Until that moment he hadn’t realised that the last part of his excuse had been true: he had wanted to see the strange girl again. Making a fist, he banged on the door. It opened. ‘Why did you let her go?’
Cruel humour broke full across the woman’s face. ‘If I’d known the heir of an earl would have been interested I would have waited. Perhaps the girl would have fetched more than three cows!’
Robert felt repugnance as her lips cracked open to reveal yellow teeth in a laughing mouth. Tossing the stick down in the mud, he made to leave. Then, finding sudden power, he turned back. ‘When I am earl I’ll make sure your banishment continues. You’ll never enter Turnberry again.’
Her scornful laughter faded. ‘How like your father you are,’ she murmured. ‘I wouldn’t have believed two runts could be born of the great Lord of Annandale, but here you are, proof of the failure of that mighty line.’ Her voice lowered further. ‘Shame it is. Shame.’
Robert’s cheeks flamed. ‘How dare you! You don’t even know my grandfather!’
The old woman pointed a bony finger at the higher branches of the oak. Turning, Robert saw one of the webs swinging in the wind. He hadn’t noticed this one when he was here before and the tree was full and green. This web looked older than the others. The cage of sticks was weathered and brittle-looking. Inside was a thin rope, dark with rain. It was knotted like a noose.
‘What is it?’ he wanted to know, looking back. But the old woman had disappeared inside the house. The door, however, was open. Robert hesitated, but his curiosity was greater than his anger and so he stepped forward, over the threshold. ‘What does it have to do with my grandfather?’
Affraig was stoking the fire. Sparks flared around her. She didn’t answer.
‘What is the tree?’ he pressed.
‘An oak,’ she replied curtly.
‘I meant what are the—’
‘I know what you were meaning.’ Affraig straightened and faced him. She studied him in the half-light, the rain drumming on the roof. ‘Close the door. You’ll let the warm out.’
Robert did so. Pushing back his sodden hood, he realised his cloak and boots had made puddles on the floor. The old woman didn’t seem to have noticed. She had set herself on a stool and was hunched in front of the fire, her eyes fixed on some bright point within. Her hair had fallen over her shoulder and hung down like a knotted curtain. The hounds were flopped at her feet, their heads resting on their huge paws, bodies rising and falling in the ruddy glow.
‘Destinies.’
Robert shook his head after she said the word, not understanding her meaning. He waited for her to continue.
‘When men and women have something they desire they come to me. I weave those desires into their destinies. Use the power of the oak to make them come to pass.’
‘They should go to church and pray. Ask God for His blessings,’ responded Robert, intrigued by her candour, yet also uneasy. He knew a word for what she was implying, a word even stronger than sorcery. Heresy. Only God could make the future come to pass, decide a man’s fate.
Her eyes flicked to him. ‘There are some prayers that will not be answered. Not by this God.’
Robert felt a thrill of fear, but he took a step closer to the fire, his wet clothes forgotten. ‘There isn’t any other.’
‘What do you know of the land beneath your feet?’ Her voice was abrasive again, commanding. ‘Of the wild past?’
Robert was reminded of a tutor who had made him write the names of Scotland’s kings over and over, from Kenneth mac Alpin, through Malcolm Canmore, down to Alexander, until he got them right. ‘My mother inherited the earldom from her father, Niall of Carrick and from her mother our lands in Antrim. When my father returned from the Holy Land he—’
‘You think history starts with your family?’ she cut across him. ‘No, boy. What do you know of these islands?’ She spread her hands wide. ‘Scotland, England, Ireland, the old kingdoms of Wales?’
Faint, disparate images filled Robert’s mind and he heard again his tutor’s voice, describing the coming of the Romans; great men of the ancient world who had marched across Britain with their vast armies, dealing death to the pagans who stood against them. The Saxons, fur-clad and fair-haired, pushing the Britons back into the wild hills of Wales and Cornwall, carving out the land that would become known as England. Then the Normans under the banner of the Conqueror. His tutor’s tone had always changed at this point, becoming softer, more gracious. It was only after hearing different stories in Ireland that it dawned on Robert that the man had perhaps tempered the tale of the coming of the Conqueror to suit his pupil: a descendant of a Norman lord, Adam de Brus. His tutor’s voice faded, replaced by his grandfather’s gruff tones speaking of the battle against the Norsemen in their dragon-prowed ships at Largs, not much more than twenty years ago. Then there were the saints of course, Columba and Ninian, Andrew and Margaret. The images and names were too many for Robert to know where to start. In the end he lifted his shoulders in answer.
Affraig made a sharp sound through her teeth that caused one of the dogs to raise its head and bark. She kicked out and it hushed with a whimper.
‘The Romans then,’ Robert said with a rough sigh, ‘the Saxons, the Normans. I know of them.’
Affraig looked at him. ‘Was it the Christian God the Romans worshipped in their temples w
ith their sacrifices?’
‘They were pagans,’ admitted Robert, ‘until Constantine.’
‘And the men from the east? What of their deities? What of Woden and Frigg?’
‘The Saxons became Christians too,’ retorted Robert.
‘And your Irish ancestors on your mother’s side, what of their gods? What of the gods of Britain? What of Lugh of the bright spear and the Dagda? Rhiannon and Bel?’ She continued before Robert could answer. ‘There are your other gods, boy.’
‘But they are false gods of the old world. No one worships them now.’
‘No? Who is it women call upon to ease the pains of labour? You must have heard your mother’s prayers before.’
‘St Bride,’ said Robert at once. ‘A Christian saint.’
‘Once she was Brigantia, goddess of childbirth and spring.’ Affraig bent forward and picked up another log, which she thrust into the fire. ‘The priests pretend to forget that.’
As the flames brightened her face, Robert realised she wasn’t as ancient as he had first thought, maybe only a few years older than his mother. Beneath the sweat and grime he glimpsed something striking in her face, some echo of the girl, Brigid, but all stone and bone and iron hardness. He wondered how she knew so much, then remembered the books that had surprised him before. Robert glanced at the pile of them, just visible beyond the firelight, then asked the question that was still unanswered. ‘Why did you point at that – that web in the tree when I asked about my grandfather?’
‘You must know of St Malachy.’ Affraig laughed again when Robert crossed himself, but this time respectfully. ‘Yes, it was a powerful curse the Irish saint laid upon your family. Powerful enough to cause the river to rise at Annan and wash away the castle there. Powerful enough to remain as a shadow upon the Bruce family, over one hundred years after Malachy uttered it.’
Robert nodded, silent. He had known of the curse for as long as he could remember, long before his tutor had taught him of Scotland’s history. In the last century, Malachy, an Archbishop of Armagh, had been travelling through Annandale on a journey to Rome. While staying at the Castle of Annan, which belonged to one of Robert’s ancestors, the archbishop discovered that a man accused by the Bruce family of robbery was due to be hanged. Malachy begged that the robber be spared, a request the lord had granted. But the next day, the archbishop saw the accused man hanging from a gallows. Malachy’s vengeful curse upon the Bruce family had been blamed for the subsequent destruction of their stronghold and all their woes thereafter. Robert had seen the ruins of his ancestor’s castle at Annan and knew well the terrible story of the river’s rising. He understood now why the rope inside the woven web was knotted like a hangman’s noose.
Affraig was speaking again.
‘On his journey home from the Holy Land your grandfather burned candles at the saint’s shrine. But some years ago he came to me. Believing his prayers had not been answered, he asked me to lift the curse. He wanted his line finally to be free of it.’
Robert saw an odd look come over her face, fondness perhaps, but it was gone from his thoughts in an instant, forced away by the startling revelation that his grandfather had asked a witch to work a spell for him. Yet, still, he remained intrigued. ‘When will it be lifted?’
Affraig shook her head. ‘That I cannot say. The oak must do its work. When it is done, the web will fall.’
Robert wondered whether it could be cut down, if falling was all it took, but he guessed she would say this would not work. There was still one thing he didn’t understand. The day Alexander was bitten by the dog his father had told his brother never to go near the old woman’s house again. Robert had assumed this was due to the threat from the dogs, rather than the woman herself, for the earl had always been scornful of any superstition. But since his mother had intimated that Affraig’s exile was the earl’s doing, he’d found himself wondering if there was more to his father’s order. ‘Why were you banished from Turnberry?’
All at once her face closed in on itself and she drew back. ‘You should go,’ she said, standing and moving to the shelf where she had made the compress for his knee.
Robert had come too close to the answers he wanted to be so easily brushed aside. ‘Tell me. I want to know.’
‘I said leave.’ She grabbed a clump of roots and took up a knife, her back to him.
‘I can ask my father.’
She jerked round, the blade glinting in her fist. Robert took several steps back at the fury in her eyes. He thought for a second that she was going to attack him. But then her face changed, the harsh lines softening into creases of age. Slowly she lowered the knife, her hand trembling. ‘I wove your father his destiny once.’
Robert stared at her. The revelation about his grandfather had been a shock, but he simply couldn’t imagine his father asking the fierce crone to make a spell for his future. The idea was so preposterous it was laughable. Robert recalled his father sneering at his grandfather’s fervent vigil at the shrine of St Malachy in an effort to break the curse, his ridicule of the local farmers for their talk of demons in the forests. He would even scowl and demand quiet whenever Robert spoke of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the other Irish heroes he had learned about in fosterage.
‘I hung it in an oak for him,’ murmured Affraig, ‘but something happened. One of his men . . .’ Her brow knotted and she looked at the knife in her hand. ‘I asked for his aid in the matter, for justice. He refused me.’ Her head rose defiantly and she met Robert’s gaze. ‘And so I tore down his destiny and left it in pieces outside the castle walls.’
Despite his incredulity, a shudder went through Robert at that statement.
Affraig moved away and set the knife back on the shelf. ‘After that he banished me from the village. I know he wanted to banish me from Carrick, but your mother stopped him because I had saved the life of her first-born son. You,’ she finished, without turning.
A log slipped and burst in the fire, but Robert didn’t take his eyes off the old woman. ‘What was my father’s destiny?’
After a pause, Affraig answered. ‘To be King of Scotland.’
The six men crowded the stuffy chamber, breathing one another’s sweat. The servants had banked the fire in the hearth high so that the whole palace would be kept warm, even though the bedchamber, with its precious occupant, was some distance down the passage. It wasn’t far enough away, however, that the men couldn’t hear the screams. Between the tortured sounds, female voices came to them, raised and urgent. Now and then, the cries would fade to whimpers and the women’s voices would drop away to become indistinguishable. The men, hardly speaking as it was, would hush at these moments, straining to hear the next scream. It had been like this for hours, the tension swelling with the heat.
James Stewart leaned against the wall close to the door, the cold of the stone a relief against his back. Thick drapes covered the windows, beyond which came the faint patter of rain. He wondered what the hour was, but resisted the urge to cross the chamber and part the curtains. It had to be almost dawn. James shifted, trying to relieve the aching in his feet. There were only two stools in the room and these had been commandeered by the Black Comyn, Earl of Buchan, and the obese Earl of Fife, whose hereditary right it was to crown a new king. The steward glanced at the Bishop of St Andrews praying by the fire. He wondered how the frail old man had the stamina to remain on his knees all this time. The thickset form of Robert Wishart broke his view. As the Bishop of Glasgow paced by, James locked eyes with John Comyn, standing by the window.
The Lord of Badenoch stared back, his dark eyes filled with challenge. James met his stare, sensing the deep hostility coming off the other man. The two of them had never trusted one another, their dealings at court only occurring with necessity, but since the Bruces’ assault on Galloway the Red Comyn’s antagonism towards him had swelled. James had the distinct impression that the Lord of Badenoch knew of his involvement in the invasion. Well, it did not matter now. Within the next few hours,
the Comyn’s attempts to set his brother-in-law upon the empty throne would be at an end.
Another ragged scream tore through the quiet, this one longer and louder than the others, more a howl of anguish than a cry of pain. It was followed by a lengthy silence. As the sound of hurried footsteps echoed in the passage, James’s gaze shifted from Comyn. The Bishop of Glasgow stopped his pacing and the Bishop of St Andrews looked up from his clasped hands. The Earl of Buchan rose from the stool. Only the Earl of Fife, who had fallen asleep with his chins on his chest, didn’t stir as the door opened.
The woman who appeared paused for a moment, surveying the expectant men. Her white apron was covered with blood. James could smell the sour tang of it. Her gaze came to rest on him.
‘A boy, Lord Steward,’ she declared.
‘Praise be,’ said Wishart.
James, however, didn’t take his eyes off the woman’s grave face. After a moment, she answered his forming question.
‘He was dead in the womb, sir. I could do nothing for him.’
Wishart cursed loudly.
James turned away, thrusting a hand through his hair. As he did so, he caught sight of John Comyn’s keen expression.
10
Bordeaux was awakening, the bell-tower of the cathedral pouring a cascade of clanging chimes across the labyrinth of streets. Birds flew up from the rooftops, their wings a flurry of white in the crisp blue sky. Shutters opened and banged against shop-fronts, buckets of night soil were emptied into gutters, and cobblers and mercers, smiths and farriers called to one another as they began their day’s work, harsh stutters of words that echoed in the narrow streets.
Adam rode his palfrey through the waking city, the din of the cathedral bells filling his ears. It felt strange to be back in the place of his birth after so long in a foreign land. The city seemed oddly new and filled with promise, rather than somewhere that was as familiar as his own skin. Yet he knew each twist and turn of these alleyways and recognised the smells that greeted him at every corner, from the bloody stink of the slaughterhouses by the city gates, to the pungency of the cattle market and salty sourness of the Garonne River. The air was mild, the winter wind less cruel, and the weight of secrecy had fallen from his shoulders, allowing him to experience every sound that greeted him, every smell that assaulted him, every conversation overheard or altercation witnessed, without assessing either its danger or its merit.