The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  But there were no answers to be found in Carrickfergus. No lightning of revelation. Nothing but a troubled sea and gloomy sky and long-reaching swells of dun-colored earth and a thousand starving soldiers to pass the winter with.

  Edward, as ever, was unbearable.

  Ch. 12

  Robert the Bruce – Carrickfergus, Ireland, 1317

  My brother Edward: High King of Ireland. A precarious and provocative title. As empty in meaning as it was within the hollow of its silver circle. But it pleased his head. Too well, I daresay.

  Like the high-hearted fool I was, I offered to fight with him to establish his foothold there. Naturally, he took this as a submission on my part that I would be fighting for him. I held my tongue, if only to finish the task. Meanwhile, King Edward of England was embroiled in his own battles at home and could ill afford to follow us over the Irish Sea. The time, although never good, was never better.

  Randolph and I arrived in Carrickfergus in Ulster late in the fall of that year. Edward was in good spirits, although he had sparing little to show for his endeavors thus far. He derived his sustenance from debauchery rather than food. While his men quarreled over a shoulder width’s space at the campfire to warm their rag-wrapped fingers and were rationed out food that came intermittently by ship, since nearby farms had been stripped clean already, Edward reveled in his self-created glory. He drowned himself in it while looking for his true self at the bottom of a barrel of ale.

  There was a time when he had lived as much as I did with the conviction that freedom was all – a time when he had bedded down on the bare ground with the very men who fought under his command and drank from streams cold with melted snow as he knelt beside battle-bruised soldiers and rallied them with words of encouragement. Now, I had arrived in this smoky, overcrowded hall which reeked of vomit, urine and unwashed bodies to witness him hurling insults at those who served him. Instead of brewing stratagem and weaving alliances, he rolled in drunkenness and bedded wenches young enough to have been his daughters.

  The brother I once knew had been impetuous, grating, crude, but loyal and driven, however flawed. The Edward Bruce who received me at Carrickfergus barely raised his head to acknowledge me above his heaped trencher. He had become slovenly, irrational, and was clearly suffering from some strain of melancholy. Drink and hoarded food had increased his girth. Through the fog of ale that must have clouded his head, I believe it took him a few moments to recognize me. He raised a ragged eyebrow, scratched at a bristly chin, curled his lip in disgust and mumbled at me to join him.

  Our relationship deteriorated further in the passing months as autumn gave over to winter. At my brother’s beseeching, I had come well in advance of to plan out the campaign; instead, I spent my days with Randolph exploring ways of bypassing Edward’s illogical stream of orders. If not for my nephew, I would have been driven to a fit of insanity and thrown myself from the sea cliffs.

  I negotiated with Irish chieftains, mostly to no good end, and practiced tolerance while Edward’s hotheaded barbs and reckless ways frayed at my wits. The only reprieve came when he slept from noon until midnight

  Day after day, night after night, it rained. In my bed, I lay awake, tossing and turning, while raindrops lashed at the windows and hammered upon the roof. A trail of water flowed around the frame of the glazed window of my bedchamber, trickled down the lower portion of the plastered wall, and gathered in a pool in the nearest corner, slowly seeping between the planks to dampen the room below.

  A chant arose in the great hall. Fists beat in unison on the tables. A primeval rhythm pulsed through the posts of my bed. The beating grew and grew until it collided in a great rumble. A roar. A crash. Wood splintering. Then, a big cheer and tumbles of laughter broken by guttural protests. Another evening of drunken oblivion. Another brawl.

  I relinquished any illusions of sleep and got up from my bed, pulled on my leggings and boots and plucked up a wrinkled shirt. I tugged the shirt over my head as I went out my door, forgetting to duck the low lintel and nearly knocking myself senseless. I rubbed at my head as the pain faded to a dull throb, feeling a lump there, and descended the dark and narrow stairs until a yellow glow and the stink of smoke told me the hall was not far.

  I trailed my hand along the corridor wall until I came to an all-too-familiar sight: Edward’s companions scooping the battered loser off the floor and hauling him away to a bed somewhere to regain consciousness. A pair of grizzled hounds snarled at each other over a half-eaten chicken leg as I stepped around them. The smaller of the two went for the prize, only to find herself taken to the floor in a gnashing of white fangs. She yelped, then scurried off with her tail tucked up under her gaunt belly. The bigger dog nestled down with his paws on either side of the bone, growling as he devoured it with powerful jaws.

  “And what was that one about?” I stumbled to the bench across from where Edward was draped over the table. Smoke stung at my eyes. “A woman? The last tankard of ale?”

  “Fool knocked a chicken leg on the floor. Not his.” Edward propped himself up on his elbows, spit over his shoulder. The drink had slurred his speech and reddened his eyes. “Was the damn Irishman that started it ... and lost. Someone blurted the name of his kinsman, Murrough, and –”

  “Brian O’Brien, then?”

  “Aye, the only. He’ll have a screaming headache, come morning. God, I love these Irish. Don’t you?” After a long belch, he took another drink. “You know, you missed my coronation? Rudeness and envy, brother. I was there at yours.” He sulked into his tankard. Then a smile flashed across his face, his eyes alight. “But what an occasion it was! We were all terribly drunk that night. Half a dozen fights – good ones. A broken jaw. Two cracked skulls. Found a tooth in the bottom of my goblet. Never did figure out whose. A roaring good time. A sea of drink. Women to drown yourself in. Music and dancing for three whole days. No bloody parliaments or documents to sign or –”

  “Hasty and furtive is what I hear of your crowning. Your celebration – ribald and licentious. Women were handed around for sampling like wine. Whatever blood feuds had been mended in the past year were promptly renewed over thoughtless words those few days.”

  “Phhh ...” He flapped a hand at me dismissively. “You never did learn to enjoy yourself properly. Try it once before you die. You might find life is not so miserable after all.”

  Perhaps I gambled that he was too drunk to engage in a fist fight, but I could not help saying what I thought. “Your beginning does not bode well for your future, Edward. If you insist on digging your own grave, then you can either lie down in it or climb out of it yourself. I’ll not offer a hand. I intend to leave within the week, strike fast and hard toward Dublin. Come with me. If we win that, you’ll have the upper hand.”

  He smacked his palm to his forehead. “Sweet Savior, but you’re brilliant, Robert! A veritable genius. A god bumping elbows with mankind. If it would humor you – punish me not too harshly for my mortal flaws, if but to have one more churl to worship the clover crushed by your feet.”

  He snagged a passing servant girl with curling locks of gold down to the curve of her back, and yanked her into his lap. Grasping her just above the hips, he rocked her buttocks hard against his groin and whispered suggestively into her ear in garbled Gaelic. Cradling an extended belly, she grinned rompishly. Judging by the size of her, she was only a month or two from giving birth to yet another of Edward’s bastards.

  Edward chuckled, licked his lips and buried a hungry, wet kiss just above one of her breasts. He nestled his whiskered cheek against her bosom and in a little boy’s voice pleaded, “Sorcha, my Sorcha. Tonight, again?”

  She stroked her belly, looking down at it with concern, and shook her head.

  “Pleeease?” His mouth sank in a boyish frown.

  She melted at his plea, blushed crimson, nodded.

  Then he gave her a swift smack on the rump and sent her for more ale. “I’d let you try her, Robert ... Bloody Christ, she can do
things to make your head top the clouds, but she’s sworn herself to me.” He flourished his hands in the air before him. “All along I’ve imagined rose petals strewn before me, casks of ale by the cartload and Irish princesses dancing half-naked around my bed. You’ve dampened my spirits. Is that why you came?”

  My nephew Colin Campbell, whom I’d allowed along to appease my faithful brother-in-law Neil, stumbled across the floor, caught himself on a table edge, then slumped to the floor as he slurred a bawdy tavern song. Despite the fall, he managed to save most of the drink in his cup and finished it off when he came to a part of the song he couldn’t remember. Colin was seventeen. Hardly able to hold his drink, let alone a sword.

  “Sir Roger Mortimer and my own former brother-in-law, the Earl of Ulster, will give you a thrashing at the very first opportunity. I caution you, Edward. Your first mistake against the Irish may likely be your last.”

  “Is that your wish, or can you truly see into the future? Tell then, will that wife of yours, delicate as a broom moth, ever squeeze a puny, royal brat out of her tight cunt – or does she yet chase you from her bed? How many bars are on her door? Might as well have left her to rot in soggy, damn England. No secret I can get a woman willingly plowed in an hour and sown within a fortnight. That threw you into fits a dozen or more times, did it not? How often did you harangue me for that? I used to think you the world’s biggest prude. Now I know it was mere jealousy that rankled you. Sorcha – you saw how proudly she waddles around here. Married twice before I came. I killed her second husband when he and a band of idiotic locals protested us taking our share of the harvest. Said she was glad I did it. He used to beat her when the goat had no milk or the hens didn’t lay eggs. But I please her, she says. I can please any woman. Please them into blessed oblivion, I can.”

  He laughed raucously and the false confidence bestowed by ale made his voice grow louder with each passing sentence. “Why, I should send out letters to all the kings of Christendom and barter for the best offer. The King of Ireland seeks a bride – send your virgins to me! Send the one with the fattest dowry and the biggest army. I don’t care if she looks like a cow and smells like a pig. I’ll do her in the dark often enough to have her drop a litter of boys for me. Better yet ... mayhap I should write to Aithne tomorrow and make an honest woman of her? Ah, God! Brilliant! Niall could be the first of many sons for me. He’s old enough to fight. Old enough to take my place should the most unfortunate of all things happen: my demise. Then whose son would it be sitting upon the throne of dear Scotland? Whose, Robert? Would that make you flip over in your grave? Or would you simply not care what I did here on Earth once you are seated at the right hand of Christ Jesus Almighty at the Feast of Heaven?”

  He was achieving nothing now but his own sick amusement. I doubted Aithne would have him in his current state. And I might have told him Niall’s true patronage if not for the fact that Edward probably would have called me a liar and drawn a knife on me.

  “Friday. We leave then, Edward.” Wearied of his jabs, I rose to take my leave. “One thing, brother.” I planted my fists and leaned across the table. “Should your men think for one moment that we are not in this together ... well, then, why should any of them, Scots or Irish, join with us? Learn to bite your tongue and I’ll keep mine. I came to help you. Let me. If we destroy the English hold on Ireland, it’s one less front from which they can come at us.”

  He wagged his head from side to side and dipped his fingers into his cup, then sucked them clean. “Lovely advice. I’ll take it to the core of my heart and live every day by it. Now off with you. To bed, lad. We’re equals now as I see it. Reckon that.”

  I reckon it will be a miracle, Edward, should the Irish let you live out the year. I could offer you advice from now until the Second Coming, but you would never take it because it came from me.

  I would hate you if I did not pity you so much. I’m here to save you from yourself. But that may be beyond me. Far beyond.

  ***

  Dublin, 1317

  Snow clogged the sky as we set out from Carrickfergus. The cold and mud shot us through with misery, from our filthy boots to our wet heads and down to the very marrow of our bones.

  On the march south our first day, Edward, riding in the vanguard, forged anxiously ahead. At the tail of our column were the womenfolk, some of them honest wives, others favored whores; all of them doubled as laundresses, cooks and menders of clothing. Nearly all of them went on foot, some with blackened feet covered in naught but rags. A few carried suckling infants at their hip. The stronger ones took turns dragging rickety carts with wobbling wheels through the mire and over rocky roads.

  I saw Edward’s Sorcha in the rabble, at first walking amidst the others, but as her feet swelled and her back pained her, they gave her a place on one of the few oxen-drawn carts piled up with pots and a few sacks of grain. She leaned back on the sacks, clutching her belly and gazing up at the baleful slate sky. Her time was drawing close. Eventually, a wife of one of my knights took pity on her and lent her a palfrey with a smoother ride.

  The morning we left, Sorcha had screamed and clawed at Edward, even as he shoved her away and venomously ordered her to stay behind. He had found a new bedfellow, it seemed. One with eyes as green as jewels, hair the color of ripened grain, and a belly flat as a board. His new woman was more worldly, well born, and more of a challenge to him. When she denied him, he simply pursued her that much harder. Sorcha, sensing the distance between her and Edward, only fought to remain closer to him.

  Whatever it was that made all ilk of women grow weak at the knees and swoon with devotion for my brother was a mystery to me. For certes, the world was full of desperate women.

  A gap yawned between our divisions and I grew uneasy about the safety of the womenfolk. In an area where the enemy lurked at every bend, stragglers invited danger. Stands of woods closed in on either side of the road around us, blocking our view of the road beyond. I sent word ahead for Edward to await us at the next line of hills. There, he was to gather wood and build fires for the night.

  Colin rode beside me, both excited and apprehensive in the questions he posed. There was a lull in our talk and my sights drifted away, watchful of the distance.

  A light veil of snow was falling. Edward’s division was long out of sight. It was but a few minutes later when I noticed the flicker of an archer’s bow at the edge of a grove to the west.

  I ordered my men into formation, but frenzy had already taken hold of a few impulsive fools. Colin, following them, broke loose and rode toward the enemy. I shouted at my men to hold their ground and took off after Colin.

  As he caught sight of the first arrow cutting overhead, he halted. A wild aim, the arrow plunged into the snow-dusted grass thirty feet to his left. The second hail came in the next breath and pierced the heart of the man directly in front of Colin. The soldier flew backward and slammed into the snow in a bloody splatter. Colin wheeled around. I pummeled him hard in the shoulder as he lunged past.

  Colin gave me a wide-eyed look of panic as he regained his seat.

  “Fool! Back!” I shouted.

  Randolph had ordered the men into tight circles. A horn-blast went up, alerting Edward to our predicament, but the distance that had lapsed between us was considerable, a mile or more. In minutes, Irish and English – eight to ten of them for every single Scot – were swarming over the white-cloaked hills and pouring from the edge of nearby woods on either side of us.

  A moment of hopelessness filled me, like the absolute darkness that falls when the moon moves across the sun.

  Curse Edward’s haste. If I live to tell of this ... If I live, aye. That bastard brother of mine will pay the price.

  Wrath – and desperation – vanquished my fears. Colin and I returned to the others in the barest breadth of time. I placed myself at the front of our formation, raised my blade up in line with the prickling fringe of spears and roared my challenge to the Earl of Ulster, whose banner I could now make
out.

  “Red Earl! You partner with the English against your own kin? If spilling your own blood matters not, then have us. God will judge in the end. Come then. We await!”

  The Earl of Ulster did not reply. Twenty years had gone since we laid his sister, my Isabella, in the ground. He had never liked me before that. Cared for me even less afterwards. Even though decades had passed and the distance between us now was so great I could not discern a face, I knew him. The short red mantle falling casually from his shoulders. The bright green cloth swathed across his chest. Most of all, by the English nobles at his side. Then by the thrust of his sword into the white sky.

  They charged. Hooves churning. Weapons poised. A wet sheet of snow slickened the ground, hindering them. Men stumbled in the mire and were crushed by those from behind. Their horses, though, were sure-footed ponies like our own and they came straight on. I saw their Irish mouths open in screams of battle, their hair flying wild behind them, but I heard them not as I shouted words of encouragement and instructions to my own men.

  Randolph’s clear, steady voice rang above the roar. Beside me, Colin trembled, gripped his shield and closed his eyes. Snowflakes settled on his long red lashes and glistened like shed tears.

  I nudged his leg with my boot. “When you see their eyes, you’ll know who’s marked you. With these odds, it will be more than one. Watch their eyes, lad. All you have to do is outlast them, aye, Colin? Then you can go home to your father and boast of it. When Edward gets here, we’ll have the advantage.”

  He nodded feebly, staring at the oncoming horde through his own fog of breath. A trickle of spit froze on his beardless chin. Snot ran freely over his upper lip.

  I had developed a gift for lying when it would give my men faith. Only, it wasn’t lying, but rather telling them what they needed and wanted to hear. In this instance, I wasn’t even sure Edward would get to us in time. Or when he did, if it would even prove to be enough.

  Their first wave crashed against our tight lines in staggered buffets. Impatient to end us, they had not held together in their charge. Our spears stayed firm and repulsed their riders with a furious tumult of unhorsed knights. The chaos bought us precious time. Whenever one of our men was injured, another, fresher man took his place.