The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  Shouts arose. Faces rife with concern ogled from second-story windows. A smithy rushed from a nearby stall to steady the wide-eyed, startled horse. Robert wrinkled his brow, but it was I who rushed forward first, my belly taut with fear. I shoved bodies out of the way and when I got to where the little girl stood with her whining puppy in her arms, its leg broken, I saw there, lying limp on the cobbles ... Marjorie.

  Robert knelt beside her, touched her blanched face, spoke to her although she gave no response. Then he lifted her in his arms and called for a physician. Beside me, Walter dropped his pies in a heap and moaned inconsolably.

  Marjorie was taken to the nearest house and laid in a small bed in a back room. The cut on the back of her head from where her skull had struck the cobbles leaked a river of blood onto the pillow until it was dark and wet and soaked through. Walter, shaking and crying, pressed rags to the cut, but the life kept on pouring from her.

  The whole room smelled of warm blood. Sweet and final, as after any battle.

  I stood with my back to the wall, wanting to stroke her hand as Walter did, but unable to do or say anything. Robert paced and kept watch on the front door. When the physician arrived with a leather bag full of potions and devices, he escorted him swiftly to his daughter and ordered the man to revive her. The demand brought a swift glare and a terse comment, thick with a Flemish accent about not having ‘the powers of Heaven in my hands’.

  The physician pressed an ear to Marjorie’s small chest. A long moment later, he lifted her eyelids to look at her pupils. Then he rose and took the king aside in conference.

  Robert’s face drained of color. “I ... I will tell him,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

  Walter, shaking his head forlornly, looked up at Robert.

  The physician and I were sent to the front room. Robert closed the door behind us. I heard Walter cry out. At that moment, my heart plunged to a lightless place – an abyss of grief so deep and endless I felt it impossible that I might ever love again.

  They took her back to Holyrood Palace in a litter piled with cushions. But by the time they placed her in her own bed, her heart had almost ceased beating. The loss of blood was immeasurable. By evening, a team of physicians had been called to her bedside and all agreed on what had to be done to save the life of the child within her. It was sometime deep in the night that Marjorie died.

  You could no more live without me, James, than I without you.

  Dear God, how true ... I could barely draw breath to go on living.

  They cut open her belly, just as they had my own mother’s when Hugh was born, and took the babe from her. The bairn, a boy, was cleaned up and handed at once to a wet nurse, who suckled and rocked him. His lusty wails could be heard throughout the palace.

  Marjorie would not open her eyes again to see the world around her. Or walk through the meadows in springtime to name the flowers at her feet. Or listen to the shorebirds as they crowded along the strand in their thousands strong. She would never hear the cooing of her own bairn or live to see his first wobbling steps. None of those things.

  I heard the physicians speaking afterwards. They said he survived only because he was close to his natural time for being born; otherwise he would have been too small and weak to draw air on his own. In my head I counted the weeks over and over.

  My son.

  Red-eyed, Walter crouched into a tight ball, staring at the door where on the other side the babe cried. He took no notice of the people coming and going, not even Robert when he came into the corridor with the wee, squirming bairn swaddled in his arms. To others, it might have seemed a strange sight to see the fierce and noble King of Scots cradling such a fragile thing so tightly, but in the way he clutched the babe to his chest, in the solemn downward curve of his mouth and the shadows behind his pupils, I could see the sorrow there.

  “Walter,” Robert said above the babe’s long wails, his tone thick with mourning. “You have a son. Whole and hale. A son who needs a father.”

  “And mother,” Walter mumbled into his arm.

  “Aye, we’re all grieving for Marjorie. I no less than you. But she left us a child to remember her by. We must take some comfort in ... ” – his voice caught so abruptly that I thought for a moment his spirit might shatter into a thousand shards, but he drew his shoulders up and went on – “this small miracle.”

  Robert held the infant out, its tiny purple hands beating at the air. “Stand, Walter. Hold your son.”

  Slowly, Walter pushed himself up, supporting his weight on the wall behind him. For a long minute he stared at the child and then, as if afraid of it, he took him and held him loosely. But as the child writhed and kicked, threatening to shake himself loose from Walter’s reluctant grasp, Walter drew the child in to his chest.

  Minutes went by as we all let grief yield to wonderment. Walter’s eyelids fluttered. He looked directly at me and said, “If she ever loved you, does it matter now?”

  I hung my head and said the proper words, not the ones I wished to say: “You are blessed, Walter. The boy, too. I wish you both a long and happy life.”

  I placed a kiss upon my fingertips, brushed the bairn’s cheek with them and left. Walter had had his say; I would never have mine. It was how it should be. Done. Forgotten. Given up for peace. Truth was sometimes best left buried and undisturbed.

  They called the boy Robert. He was hale as any infant naturally born, but as time went on and he was encouraged to sit on his own, crawl and stand holding onto his nurse’s skirts, the lad had a noticeable bend in his spine. Always he leaned to the left – the result, the physicians said, of his mother’s spill – and although walking came a little late for him, it came and he was a bright and merry boy whom Walter loved incredibly.

  Scotland now had the heir that all had hoped and prayed so long for.

  And I alone knew the truth.

  Ch. 9

  Edward II – Lincoln, 1316

  I spit the words from my tongue like a lump of lye: “Edward Bruce, King of Ireland.”

  Hugh snapped his reins at a bothersome dung-fly loitering about his horse’s ears. “Crowned at Dundalk barely a month past.”

  “A crown of brambles,” I professed. “May his arrogant ambition be the death of him. What a tragedy Mortimer didn’t do away with him while the louse was within his reach.”

  We rode on in silence, gold-winged butterflies flitting before us in a meadow forested with tall, lace-capped hemlock that swayed in the oppressively hot July breeze. At the top of a short but steep rise, I halted my horse and drank from my flask, the water warm and sickening on my stomach. A lazy but unrelenting sun lingered on the horizon. I swiped the back of my hand across a damp brow. Perspiration pooled in every crevice of my body.

  To the south, the twin towers of Lincoln’s cathedral pierced a cloudless sky. If I squinted hard enough, I could almost make out the iridescent rosette that was the stained glass of the Dean’s Eye. There, in the traceried panes, the Last Judgment was depicted. Whenever Lancaster finally arrived at parliament, I doubted it would hold any meaning for him.

  “Much further?” I asked. We had ridden out alone not half an hour ago, but the absence of guards, which Hugh had insisted on, made me nervous – not that I distrusted Hugh, but I did not trust others. Lancaster for one. My gaze swept across flowered fields, pausing where groves of trees stood in darkness, and continued around, back toward Lincoln’s jumbled rooftops. Aside from a few peasants pulling weeds in their vegetable patches just outside the sprawling walls and the occasional traveler stirring up clouds of dust along the main road, there was nothing out of the ordinary. I heaved a sigh. “My patience for this mystery is wearing unbearably thin.”

  “A mile, slightly more.” Shading his brow with a hand, he raised himself in his stirrups, the strong curve of his calves bulging beneath his hose. He pointed toward the edge of a wood on the far side of a shallow valley where a narrow, meandering stream coursed. “Over there, but you cannot see it from here.” />
  “What will we find there, Hugh?” I plied in irritation. “You haven’t told me a thing yet.” I swept a beetle from the sleeve of my plain, gray tunic.

  Over an hour past, when Hugh and I had left Somerton Castle in Navenby, he had given me the shirt and told me to put it on, imparting that we were on our way to a secret meeting, the importance of which would soon be revealed. Isabella and I often stayed at Somerton, eight miles south of Lincoln, the distance a welcome reprieve from the chaos and conflict of parliament. This time, however, she had not come north with me, for she was already at Eltham, awaiting the birth of our second child. Over the stiff shirt, which itched maddeningly, I wore a checkered leather jerkin so worn with age that it would have been useless against even a dull blade, and most definitely against the force of an arrow. Hugh, on the other hand, was dressed as fine as always.

  A mischievous grin tugged at his lips. Evening’s sunlight washed over his smoothly shaven face in a watery mosaic of amber and crimson. He stroked the black mane of his bay with a gentle hand. “Trust in me, Edward, will you? This day will put the Earl of Lancaster in his place. It will turn everything to your favor.”

  With that, he nudged his mount in the flanks. It lurched with a snort. He did not look back until he had gone fifty paces.

  “Not one step more until you let on!” I shouted.

  He jerked the reins, turning sharply, and halted in the dappled shade of an old elm tree. “Very well.” Leaning back against the cantle of his saddle, he patted a hand against his shirt to blot the sweat away. “But I warn you – have patience.”

  I rode toward him, circled him, stopping close enough so that my knee brushed his. “Lancaster ignored my summons to do battle at Stirling two years ago. If you have mistaken my inaction for cowardice, rather than the patience it is, then I proclaim you know me not at all.”

  He cocked an indignant eyebrow at me. “Oh, I think I know things about you that even you do not.”

  “You are not the only one of that opinion, dear Hugh. Now out with it. I daresay you’re not leading me alone into the forest to hunt mushrooms. Perhaps I should have asked ‘who’ we will find there?”

  A red-breasted nuthatch peeped from a forked bough of the tree, its delicate claws gripping the bark fiercely as it hung upside down and perused us with irritated curiosity. I stared back, for a moment envious of the tiny creature’s simplistic life.

  “Her name,” Hugh began, “is Lady Rosalind de Fiennes.”

  “Should that mean something to me?”

  His eyes glinted with the hint of a furtive plan. “She is the widow of William de Fiennes, who once held Roxburgh Castle – until the Black Douglas took it.”

  “Ah. I’m paying attention now. Go on.”

  “She has relatives in Lancaster’s household and has been taken in there.”

  “A connection that could prove exceedingly useful.”

  He patted a cloth sack slung from his saddle. “You have my guarantee it will.” With a cluck of his tongue, he slapped his horse’s flank. As he began to ride away, back toward the dark, ragged edge of the woods, he said over his shoulder, “One thing – she is not to know who you are. And say nothing, lest you betray yourself.”

  ***

  Just inside the edge of the woods, a dilapidated cottage stood in a small clearing. The moldy, thatched roof had holes big enough for a small child to fit through. A pair of horses was tethered to a broken down, wheel-less cart in front. The weathered door was shut tight, trampled weeds marking the path that led to it. A rambling vine smothered the walls and pried at the cracks around the closed shutters.

  Broadly crowned trees cast deep shade, making it appear like nightfall. I scanned the surroundings, but it was clear the place had long been abandoned. A rusty axe embedded in the stump of a rotting tree trunk confirmed my suspicion. Still, as Hugh climbed down from his saddle and untied the sack, I hesitated.

  The hooting of a tawny owl started me. A short cry escaped my throat and Hugh immediately jabbed a finger at me, warning me to silence.

  My pulse raced. I loosed a foot from my stirrup and swung my leg over the saddle. A sharp stick hidden in a clump of bracken pierced the thin sole of my shoe. I bit back a yowl of pain, spat a curse and hobbled after Hugh. He tugged free the red rag that hung from the door’s latch and tossed it aside. Boldly, he pushed the door open.

  A chasm of blackness yawned within. He ducked beneath the low lintel and beckoned for me to enter. I waited, listened. Hugh disappeared into the shadows. There was an exchange of muffled voices, the shuffling of booted feet, the soft creak of leather. Dark shapes shifted, moved toward the door. A glimmer of metal blinked in a rare shaft of waning daylight and I scampered backward, nearly stumbling.

  I groped for the hilt of my sword. Before I could close my fingers around it, two soldiers emerged, took one look at me and, without a second glance, went and untied the horses. Rather than mount, they led them further away, dropped the reins and both sank down on an old log to share a flask of ale.

  Gulping back my heart, I entered. The faint, lingering scent of animal urine and manure stung inside my nose. A pair of doves burst upward from the rafters and flapped noisily away through the hole in the roof. Below, surrounded by a silvery haze of dust motes and seated on a stool – the only piece of furniture within the cramped one-room cottage – was the woman: Rosalind de Fiennes. I had hoped to be more impressed.

  Straight, dark hair hung in tangles about her angular face. A thick, cracked layer of road dust dulled her youthful complexion, giving her the vague appearance of a haggard old field peasant whose skin had been leathered by harsh sun. Her kirtle was dark brown, although perhaps it had once been some paler shade of yellow or even white, with tears at the seams and strips hanging from the hem. Even my kitchen help was more cleanly attired than her. If there was beauty beneath the veil of dirt, it shone only in her haunting eyes: long-lashed, the color of loamy earth, deep set above high cheekbones. Her gaze was so severe, so unsettling, that I would have marked her for a witch if given the slightest cause.

  Hugh, standing in the furthest corner, kicked an overturned bucket away and dropped the cloth sack at his feet. “Close the door, Ailred ... unless you’d prefer to stay outside.”

  I almost looked behind me, then pushed the door shut, pinching a finger in the latch as it snapped into place. Moments passed before my eyes adjusted to the gloom. A single tin lantern sat on a window ledge next to Hugh. Bits of musty straw, feathers and mouse droppings littered the floor. A broken-handled broom was propped against the crumbling wall next to empty pegs.

  Lady Rosalind clasped bare fingers together in her lap. She was more young than old, but her ragamuffin appearance contradicted her station. As Hugh paced behind her, her eyes shifted from side to side, following the sound of his movements. When he finally stopped an arm’s reach behind her, she stiffened visibly.

  “It is good you came willingly, Lady Rosalind.”

  Unflinching, she raised a grimy oval chin. “Had I any choice?”

  Hugh went to the sack. From it, he pulled out a white square of cloth, cut from some larger piece, a child’s gown perhaps, then let the sack fall. A twining leaf pattern embroidered in green thread edged one side of the cloth. Circling her, he dropped it into her lap. Her eyes widened.

  “You are free to go this very moment,” Hugh proposed menacingly, “if you so wish.”

  Her fingers crept over the cloth, tracing a ridge of thread. “This is my daughter’s.”

  “No need for concern, m’lady. She is safely kept, happy, well fed ... alive.”

  Although she could not see his face, she clearly sensed the underlying threat. A shudder gripped her shoulders, then faded as she wadded the cloth in her fingers.

  Leaning over her from behind, he drew her back and locked an arm across her ribs so hard she struggled to draw breath. With the other hand, he pricked a fingernail into the flesh of her neck just above the vein.

  “It would in
deed be a pity,” he whispered at her cheek as he trailed a red mark from the base of one ear to the other, “for you to lose a daughter yet so young. What is her name?”

  She bit back a cry.

  “What ...” he spat between clenched teeth, “is her name?”

  “Alice,” she blurted, tears welling. Then more softly, “Alice.”

  “Yes, Alice, of course.” He loosened his hold and she heaved a breath. “The sack, Ailred.”

  Far too intrigued by his guile to take offense from his tone, I bobbed my head in a nod and retrieved it from the corner. The sack, although seemingly full, was not heavy. I handed it to him.

  He dropped it carelessly into her lap. “These you will take to the one they call Black Douglas. Letters from his stepmother. Dead now. A fever, they tell me, but she was nearly mad anyway. I believe you lived, for a time, in the same nunnery with her at Emmanuel?”

  Her forehead furrowed above raven brows. “Why have you chosen me for this?”

  “Why not you? You are of well-bred English stock. Loyal to your king, yes?” His eyes flicked toward me. A grin of complicity teased at his mouth.

  “I came to Lincoln to beg the king to return the monies and lands that my father and brothers wrongly confiscated after my husband’s death.”

  “Serve your king – and he may be inclined to do so.”

  She scoffed. “Many in the Lowlands will know who I am.”

  “Which is to our favor. Because they also know you’ve no riches to make you worth a ransom. Besides, Douglas had you and let you go once before, did he not? There is always a risk, but once you earn his trust, it will get easier with successive journeys.”

  She jerked around to glare at him. “Spy for you, you mean? Why would he ever trust me?”

  “You are a clever woman, Lady Rosalind. It will come to you.”

  “You’ll give me back my daughter, then?”