The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  After a bland meal of beans and salted pork eaten in silence, we set out together on the one discernible trail we could find. We stumbled across deer tracks not a mile out, but there was more than one set and so Robert and Edward went one way and Walter and I another. Walter had long since bored of the hunt and I of him. I abandoned him on a fallen log as he whined about sore feet and frozen toes. Following the tracks alone to a thick stand of woods midway down a gentle slope, I had found the noble beast.

  Slowly, I pulled back on my string and brought the bow up, leaning out from the tree to eye my prize. But the stag was directly on the other side of a thick beech tree. I had a clear mark on his brownish-gray rump, but a shaft to the heart would bring him down quicker. I had no desire to chase after him through the forests of Selkirk, following a thinning trail of blood. My fingers stung with cold as I waited for him to move, but he was content where he was, tearing at the stems of winter dead grass. Finally, he twitched and shook his head, then moved forward a step. I held my breath, pulled long until the string cut into my cheek and –

  Hissss. Thud!

  I whipped my head sideways to see an arrow deep in the trunk of the tree next to me. The feathered end hummed. Before I could look back to the stag, he was already bounding away. The tuft of his tail flicked tauntingly from side to side with each ground-swallowing stride. Vainly, I loosed my arrow. The arc was not high enough and it dipped too soon and skidded over snow-dusted earth.

  Angered, I tossed my bow to the ground and looked behind me. Walter stumbled from the woods just up the ridgeline from me, his face long with shock. For a few moments, he stood there with his bow dangling from one hand.

  I dug my heels in and raced uphill toward him, slipping on the muddy ground. I threw a hand out and caught myself on a sapling, then lunged forward again. As I bore down on Walter, he began to scramble backward, then run. The bow dropped from his grasp. I snatched it up and flailed it against a tree with a loud crack. As he faltered, I snagged the hem of his short riding cloak and swung him to the ground.

  I stamped a foot on his chest, pinning him down. “You’re either a damn poor shot ... or a damn good one.”

  He quaked. “I swear, James ... I swear, I only misjudged. I didn’t know you were about to shoot. I didn’t want to lose him. God in Heaven, I swear! Now let me go.”

  I lifted my foot from his chest.

  Instantly swept with relief, he began to breathe more deeply. “I thank –”

  “You saw me there and you let go anyway?” I roared, slamming my boot against the side of his face. He flailed like a fish thrown up on shore.

  “What is this?” Robert called from somewhere further up.

  Close on his heels, Edward Bruce wove through the tangle of trees until the two brothers were sliding side by side toward us. I held Walter beneath my weight, pressing so hard against his jaw that he cried out.

  Edward slammed to a halt and scraped the bottoms of his boots on a stone. He clucked his tongue. “A tussle over lost quarry, lads? Did someone sneeze at the wrong moment?”

  “Let him go, James,” Robert implored. Breathing hard, he stepped closer.

  I looked at Robert, then down at Walter, squirming beneath my foot, clawing his nails in the muck. When I glanced at Edward, a devilish smirk tilting his mouth, I suspected that Walter’s mistimed shot was not an accident – that Edward had said something to Walter. But what could I say with Robert present? Or Walter, for that matter? To trust that Edward Bruce would keep a secret was like asking the wolf to stand guard over the sheep flock.

  I lifted my foot from Walter’s face and reached toward him. Walter stared suspiciously at my outstretched hand as he worked his jaw back forth and wiped black mud from his cheek.

  “No foul meant,” I said wryly. “No harm done, aye?”

  Up on his elbows now, Walter nodded and took my hand tentatively. I helped him to his feet.

  Robert gazed off into the trees, but there was no sign now of the big stag and certainly, pumped with fear, it would be miles away in a very short time. “Lost it then?”

  “Long gone,” I said.

  “What happened?”

  Walter glanced down uneasily. A damning act, however slight.

  “Nothing much.” I picked up Walter’s splintered bow and gave it to him. “The shot was mine. He took it and missed.”

  “Well,” Edward teased, “you shall have to set Walter here to the butts at once and improve his aim if he is to be so brazenly inconsiderate. At least we could have sat to table and been served up with fresh venison. Instead, we’ll go without. But then we so seldom get we want anyway. Is that not so, James?”

  Mischievous bastard.

  I turned my back on him and went to retrieve my bow.

  In solitude, I hunted the rest of the day, bringing down nothing but a sickly, old gray goose, from which I retrieved my shaft and left its carcass for the foxes. Nothing in my belly, I kept my eyes and ears keened for any who might follow and mark me again. But I reckoned it was not likely anyone would. Walter Stewart had merely delivered a warning to me. He would not try anything again. It was Edward Bruce who had stoked the fires of jealousy – I had not doubt of that. He reveled in a good row, whether his or another’s.

  I worried less for myself, however, than I did for Robert. Edward Bruce was a piece of dry tinder awaiting a spark. And Robert, wearing the crown and in Edward’s eyes wielding all the power, held the flint.

  ***

  We returned to Edinburgh in a warm rain that washed away the last scattered patches of snow. While Robert concerned himself with diplomacy, when I was not called upon to sit at council with the king’s various advisors I withdrew, fraught with troubles of my own – too secret, too overpowering.

  My desire for Marjorie had become everything – both joy and torment. I dreamt of her in the darkness of sleep – the delight of holding her, having her. At dawn, I awoke to the cruelty of daylight and cold sheets, even as I burned for her. I watched from afar as she and Walter sat beside one another in the great hall of Holyrood Palace, their union looming ever closer, day by day. When together, they were always surrounded by others, for to leave a young woman alone with her betrothed was to invite temptation and thus put a stain on the blessed marriage to be.

  Walter kept a watchful eye on both Marjorie and me. At first, it seemed to consume him, but as the days and weeks passed and no evidence of wrong came to bear, he relented. To Marjorie and me, this game of façades was tantalizing. We passed each other in the corridors with fleeting courtesies and altogether ignored each other in the great hall. And yet, it was my lips that met hers – not those of Walter, who she kept at arm’s length – as we joined together in unlit, forgotten places in the gray before daybreak and the long hours after nightfall.

  Although it pained me unspeakably, I came and went as bid by Robert with never a protest. But I delayed every going and hurried my every return.

  At court, Edward openly inquired of Robert if his wife was yet pregnant. The nettling evolved into a public quarrel, wherein Robert told Edward that once he left for Ireland, he was not to return. As the queen regained her health, she kept from her husband and even, Robert had confided to me, refused him coming to her bed. The king was inwardly distraught and since he could not feign happiness with her, he preoccupied himself with affairs of state.

  Forces were mustered and in May, thankfully, Edward Bruce sailed across the channel from Ayr to Larne in Ulster, where he began to hew his way over the length of Ireland. I felt as relieved as Robert did to see him go, but for reasons entirely different. Edward was belligerent and hungry for power. It was by Robert’s eager grace that he was given any soldiers at all, for many of Robert’s advisors counseled against the venture.

  As matters between us eased, Walter and I renewed our friendship. It was not until I had begun to earn his trust again that he felt secure enough to leave for Rothesay to attend to family business. I was never so glad to see him gone.

  W
ith each hour that Marjorie and I were together, we treaded dangerously closer to something irretrievable. So it often was that we parted breathless, our souls tortured, my flesh burning wherever she had touched me and my heart wrenched with a desire so strong that leaving her left me both weak and mad.

  One summer afternoon, I waited for her at a quiet farm tucked away in a low vale, miles east of the teeming masses and bustle of Edinburgh. I had not felt surrounded by such peace since our days spent hiding from the English in the forests and Highlands. Yellow-winged finches flitted from thistle to thistle, while a vole ventured from its tunnel beneath a tussock of grass, only to scurry back in fright when a stalking gray cat flicked its tail in anticipation of a feast. As I let my horse take water from the trough, she came.

  Sibylla, red-faced and fanning away the flies, rode at her side. But when they saw me, Sibylla rode on to the door of the farmer’s croft as Marjorie waited on the road for me. Sibylla had distant kin at the house there – folk who had never even been to Edinburgh and seen its castle and who knew little of the lords that came and went from there – so to the squinty-eyed, brown-skinned man who opened the door for Sibylla and let her in, the lord and lady riding away were but a passing curiosity, of little relation to his life.

  I tethered the horses inside an old sheep croft, veiled by thorny bushes and clumps of faded yellow broom. The pungent scent of hay drifted lazily on the warm breeze from a nearby field. I took her hand and led her through the tall grass. We walked a long ways, slowly, as if to make each moment extend into forever. Too soon, she would have to return to Edinburgh and our time together would come to an end. We never knew, from day to day, when we could be together again. I stopped before a tiny, winding rill. The water was barely a trickle, but its cut into the earth was deep and broad.

  Marjorie tugged at my hand. “James, follow me. Fast now. Come. They won’t find us.”

  Then she ran, bounding through the tall grass like a spring fawn. I let her go a ways before I started in pursuit. She leapt down the embankment and landed in the stream with a small splash, laughing. I slipped down after her, then scrambled up the opposite side with her but a hand’s reach from me.

  She took off again, faster. Her arms pumped in rhythm. Her hair spread out shimmering behind her like the sun’s morning rays. Somewhere a shoe flew from her foot. I stopped to pick it up, mindful of the explanation she would have to give if she returned without it.

  Just as I straightened to stand, Marjorie embraced me from behind and slipped her hands around my stomach. She kicked her remaining shoe free and then took the other one from my grasp and tossed it to the ground.

  “I leave for Selkirk in two days,” I said.

  “Hmm.” She pulled me tighter so that I felt her breasts crushed against the hard muscles in my back. “When will you come back?”

  “Does it matter if I do at all? You’ll be wed come autumn. Walter’s wife.” I unclasped her hands from around me and turned to face her. “You never said anything to your father, did you?”

  Heavy silence was her only answer.

  “Why should I come back when you are in the arms of another man, lying in his bed, bearing his children? You begged me to stay silent, that it was best to come from you, and yet you have said nothing to your father. It is cruel what we are doing to each other, in a way. A game so treacherous that we are wrapped and suffocating in our own lies. How long can we keep on, Marjorie? Do your fear your own father so? Or is it that I shame you somehow?”

  “James, how can I tell him? Do you not think I have struggled with that – tried to find a way? If I ask to sever the betrothal to Walter, he’ll say no and when he wants to know why and I tell him, then he’ll send you away and not for a short while, I’m afraid. He will hate me for having hurt Walter and he’ll hate you, his dearest friend, for having deceived him under his very nose. How can I think only of our own happiness when it will bring so much sorrow? It is not so easy.”

  I stared at her, hating the power she had over me and consumed by it all the same. “And so you think he has no compassion? That he would prefer to see you unhappy for the rest of life, just so he can fulfill some lightly tendered promise from years ago? Or that my friendship and loyalty are worth nothing to him? Do you really think so, Marjorie? Because if you do ...” I looked up at the sky, endlessly blue with not a cloud in it, “if you do, then let us end this now and accept what we have no way of changing.”

  Fear gripped my chest. The fear that she would agree to this feebly cloaked ultimatum I had tossed out.

  She balled her fists at her sides. “You’re a fool to take my love for you so lightly. You could no more live without me, James, than I without you.”

  “Then if you will not say it, let me go to Robert. I’ll tell him everything. And I’ll tell Walter –”

  “No!” She hammered my chest with her childlike fists. I took the beating stoically as she screamed ‘no’ over and over again until her fists were red and her cheeks were wet with tears. Then I caught her wrists to still her. In futility, she tried to free herself from my hold, but I would not let her go until this overpowering thing between us was either laid to rest or given freedom to lead us. Again and again she jerked her whole body backward, fighting me.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because Walter would harm you, James. He nearly did.” Her shoulders heaved as she began to sob.

  I pulled her hard against me and wrapped my arms around her, one hand stroking the back of her head.

  “No, no,” I said. “It was an accident. Walter is a gentle soul. He’s my kinsman. My friend.”

  “You don’t know ... what he has said to me. You don’t know, James. He suspects something already. I’m afraid he would do you harm. Even try to kill you.”

  “If Walter had wanted me dead, I would be. He’s jealous, angry. He sees what we cannot hide, even as hard as we try. Even Robert has witnessed our affection. I fear we tread too dangerously, my love, as though we are holding our hands over the fire for warmth while the flames leap higher and higher. For now, though, the greatest danger is past: Edward Bruce has gone to Ireland, seeking immortality in a crown. Walter is not the threat. He never was. You know him as well as I do – better perhaps.”

  I cupped her quivering chin between my thumb and fingers and tilted her head up. “But is it Walter’s idle threats that haunt you, or are you afraid of loving me completely? Ah Marjorie, there is another side to me, one you’ve never seen, but of which you have probably heard much. A darker side. That of the soldier who grants no mercy to his foes, who never yields to defeat, who takes what he wants and leaves ruin behind. Do you think I will do that to you, too?”

  She shook her head slowly, the savage anger in her eyes softening. “I have no fear of loving you or what you are.”

  “Are you certain?” I bent my head and kissed her above her left breast. Holding her loosely now, I waited for her to run from me, to pull away, to tell me to stop before it was too late. I felt nothing but the quivering rise and deep fall of each breath in her chest. And then the sinking of her knees. Her hands pulling me down to the bed of grass beneath us.

  She leaned back, crushing a pillow of red clover beneath her head so that its scent rose up and enveloped us. I knelt beside her, then laid the length of my body next to hers, caressing her everywhere, even as I told myself how perilous it was to do this – to touch the daughter of my liege this way. That at any moment, someone could come looking for us and whether or not we had committed any act, that we would be found out and all this scheming would be nothing compared to the hell we would pay for being discovered in our twisted maze of lies.

  I took her head between my hands and brushed my lips softly against hers. She answered hungrily, her tongue parting my lips. Her hands slipped beneath the bottom of my tunic and crept up along the top of my hose, over the ridge of my hip. A fire erupted in the pit of my belly and spread throughout me. I raised myself up, braced both hands on either side of her, an
d gazed down into her eyes.

  “I’ll do nothing you do not want as much as me,” I told her, not allowing myself to consider what I would do if she refused me just then ... or if I could have even left her without doing that which I had longed to do for so long.

  Her hands left the lower part of my abdomen and for a moment I felt as if the earth had been pulled out from under me. Then, as she pulled her kirtle upward, the cloth of her skirt began to bunch in folds up around her hips.

  I ran my hand from inside her calf, up her leg and as I touched her where the inside of her thigh was full and rounded and began to curve inward again, she shuddered slightly.

  The sun seared my back. A trickle of sweat traced its way down the hollow of my breastbone and pooled in my navel. The horses nickered from the nearby croft. A skylark fluted its song overhead, while a pair of sparrows argued over a beetle at the edge of the rill. I was acutely aware of everything. But most of all her, lying there, wanting to know me.

  I took down my hose and laid gently over her, exploring her, tugging at her clothes and she at mine until we both lay naked upon the grass, dying to release our passion and cautious to keep it alive as long as possible.

  When I at last entered her, she gasped, gripping my buttocks, holding me there, looking into my eyes with a love so great that I would have battled all of England alone to have her. I began to move, wanting to fill her more deeply, and she raised her hips up to meet me with each thrust.

  When our passion broke, it was not in one high, final wave, but a thousand long and gentle pulses that carried us to a place of eternity.

  Afterward, we stretched out upon the grass with the sun warming us, falling asleep in each others’ arms and waking to do it all gloriously again, heedless of the hours and all our cares. Damn the consequences. We had begun something we could not end.