The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  Cautiously, Walter pulled his torso through the gap of the crenel and stole a glance left and right over the ramparts. Then he swung his legs over. On his cue, Scots poured over the unguarded walls of Berwick.

  A cry rang out from a nearby tower of the castle. Shouts relayed our unwelcome arrival. My men dispersed in a dozen directions, descending from the walls by rope to the ground or onto nearby roofs. The town’s watch stirred groggily. Shapes raced through the darkness. Metal gleamed in scattered flashes in the blackness of nearby alleyways. Walter moved away from the wall to stand in the street, taking in the chaos erupting around us.

  “Walter, don’t –”

  Whoosh.

  He reeled backward. His head slammed against the wall. An arrow clattered to the ground beside him. He crumpled, his sword dropping from his grasp. His empty sword hand slid across his body to cover a gash in his mail, just above his other elbow.

  “Walter?” I stooped beside him. “Are you hurt?”

  He grimaced and kicked his legs in agony. Air hissed between his teeth. “Hurt? Near to dead, I’d say.”

  Blood oozed between his fingers. I hooked a hand beneath his armpit and helped him up. He would live – I hoped.

  “Merciful ... What is that ringing?” Walter rubbed at his temple with bloodied fingers. “Jesus, make it stop.”

  “Church bells. Town’s awake now.”

  Our men were by now fully engaged. But the surprise had loaded them with a distinct advantage. The townsfolk had no time to rally. They were coming at us one by one and falling against a wall of Scotsmen. The fighting closest to the walls was thick and wicked. A flicker caught my eye and instinctively I yanked Walter down. Another arrow smacked against the wall behind us, ricocheted and dinged against Walter’s helmet.

  “They’re aiming for us.” I plucked up his sword and dropped it in his slick, wet hand.

  Before I could lead him to a safer vantage point, he wrung my arm.

  “James, I ... I would have thought ... Why did you risk your life for me?”

  “We’re on the same side, are we not?”

  “Aye, but –”

  “Shhh, hurry on. We’ve work to do.” No gain in opening old wounds. Not now.

  Shoulder to shoulder, we shoved forward into the fray. The moment he entered the clang and thrust of hand-to-hand combat, Walter forgot the seeping gash in his arm. He bounded up onto the roof of a low shed and rained terrific blows upon vulnerable English heads.

  By the time a blood-red sun rose above the midnight blue of the sea, the town was entirely ours; however, the garrison was by then well within the castle walls. Randolph and I barely held off a brave sally by the English, but when the red lion standard of Robert the Bruce broke over the horizon past Halidon Hill on the coastal road, they retreated fast before he rode into the town.

  The siege on Berwick began. In a very short time, the castle surrendered and contrary to his past practices, Robert deigned to spare Berwick a razing.

  ***

  I stood proudly upon the ramparts of Berwick Castle beside Robert as he talked of plans to fortify the fortress better than any castle in Scotland. Edward of Caernarvon would return, he said. Time was the only variable.

  “We’ll quarter as many archers and spearmen here as the town can support, James. I want every resource concentrated here. Berwick must hold. It must.”

  “It shall, Robert. It’s in good hands now.”

  “How does Walter fare?”

  “Mending well. You’ll not regret installing him here.”

  “Not my business, perhaps, but for awhile, you made it a point to keep from him, didn’t you? Whatever was that about?”

  “Long done, if you don’t mind.”

  Perhaps the rift between Walter and I had indeed healed. His thoughtless attempt to drive an arrow into my back had been a jealous impulse, breath blown into the embers by the vindictive Edward Bruce himself. No, that was all past. But the pain ... my heart still burned for Marjorie. It always would.

  I leaned over the edge of a crenel of the wall. Everything seemed to have diminished in size with my aging. The heath that spread out landward was but a quick ride and put behind to reach the next town, when in my childhood it seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth. The sea, however, was as dark and deep and far as ever.

  To the north, a blustering April storm gathered strength. As the wind lifted my hair from my face and knotted it, I thought of a day over twenty years ago, when I had stood on that very same wall with my father, gazing down in awe and terror at the great, fire-belching beast that was Longshanks’ army.

  Robert laid a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You’ve a far off look, my good James.”

  “Do you ever tire of it? Of the fighting?”

  His arm went about me in a half-embrace. “Aye, but if Edward of Caernarvon were not so obstinate, or I for that matter, it might not be the only means to the end we’ve set ourselves toward. I often thought we’d never finish what we set out to do before old age defeated us. But here we stubbornly stand, aye? Berwick to Skye. Galloway to Buchan. Every pebble and branch and blade of grass under Scottish rule. I’ve sent word on to Ireland, to let my brother Edward know. I wish I could say it was going as well for him there, but I know otherwise.”

  He took me by the shoulders and gazed at me with disquieting sincerity. “This life we’ve chosen, aye? Is it all truly peril and sacrifice, though? No, we’ve something to show for it. Something they all doubted possible when you were but a wet-eared squire startled by the sound of your own voice and I a free and easy blade with a flaming temper. We’re hard in the head and mayhap it’s that they said we couldn’t, that we had to prove we could.”

  For the first time I could ever remember, I was not so entirely certain that I shared his perseverance. I had wearied of wielding my blade, wearied of seeing my friends shot through with arrows or leaking from a sword thrust. The thirst for vengeance that had propelled me through my youth had been quenched by my successes. I took up arms now because he – Robert, my king, my friend – called on me and I would have crawled to the end of the earth and plunged to the depths of hell to serve him. Aye, I had even given up my life’s greatest pleasure, Marjorie, to avoid displeasing him. Robert the Bruce had a way of making you believe that every discomfort, every pain, every abstinence would beckon forth a veritable paradise in times to come. That every man had his part to play in that dream – not his alone, but Scotland’s.

  He held his hand toward the tower door. “Come along then. I’ll walk you around and show you what I’ve been planning to stave off the English. I mean to keep Berwick not only all in one piece, but to add a few stones here and there.”

  We entered the tower stairs, me a pace behind my king, and had not gone far when the rushed pounding of footsteps from below reached our ears.

  “Sire!” Randolph called from the tower stairway. He burst around the turn below us and halted. Breathless, he thrust a roll of parchment at Robert. “A dispatch from your nephew Colin Campbell in Ireland.”

  Robert hesitated. That tidings had been sent by his nephew, rather than his own brother, boded ill. With a face set in stone, he received the letter and read it silently in full, although his countenance never betrayed the words thereon.

  Finally, he rolled the parchment up and raised his chin. “Edward set out to attack Dundalk. His forward columns were annihilated. Despite advisement to wait for reinforcements that were but a day’s march away, Edward stubbornly went forward. He fell that same day. His head ...” – and there Robert faltered, jaw taut, eyes misting, for if he had no admiration for his brother’s faults, he loved him still – “was preserved in ... a box of salt and sent ... sent as a trophy to the king in London.”

  Robert tapped the roll against his palm, swallowed hard and nodded. “So it is, at last.”

  ***

  Lintalee, 1318

  I stopped in my tracks, thumbing my bowstring as I gazed down at the Lady Rosalind, who was crouchi
ng in the broad shade of a newly leafed oak tree and dipping her hands in a bucket of clear stream water.

  Just the day before, I had returned to Lintalee from Berwick, then slept deep and hard in my own familiar bed. After breaking fast, I had wended my way out to this clearing where I used to practice at the butts with a sheaf full of arrows for entire days. It had been a long time since I had done that and I was in no mood for an audience to witness my first pathetic attempts.

  I wondered how long she had been waiting, watching for my approach. “What brings you, my lady?”

  She looked up. Her hair was tousled and her bare wrists and feet browned by road dust. A smile, faintly sweet, crept over her mouth. “A brusque greeting, my lord, for one who made Scotland whole again. I trust you found all as promised?”

  I held my hand out to help her up and felt the cool drops of water in her palm as she laid her hand in mine. “The town fell easily. The castle garrison, however, put up more of a fight. Our king arrived in heavy force soon after. The governor there had no stomach for a long siege. He handed the castle over with hardly a drop of blood being shed. But that was over a month past. Where have you been? And where’s your horse?”

  “Then you did expect me? Good. I’ve need of a wash basin” – she held her arms straight out from her sides, showing the tatters and soiled spots of her clothing – “and better clothes. I must look a beggar to you. I had to cross over the border to seek shelter, being, well, English as I am. But even that was unwise of me. I’ve given myself so many new names, I’m no longer sure of who I am. Then on my way here, I was rudely robbed of my belongings, including my fine horse – Scots, judging by their speech. Stones, I have discovered, make great weapons when they’re accurately thrown. All I have is what you see before you. So, I’ve come, shamelessly, to collect.”

  “Collect?”

  “A place to stay, food, something to wear. I’ve walked for a week on foot and am weary to the bone. Surely you would not turn out a lady in need?” She cocked her head. “Now where is this secreted place you’re going to put me away in? Or were you in doubt of me when you said that and there’s no such place after all? If I’m discovered, I’m not long of this world, my lord. You can’t recant on your word.”

  “I won’t. Now, I’d advise you to move, my lady, because –”

  “Rosalind.”

  “Because you’re standing next to my mark there.”

  “Am I? Then aim well, James Douglas, and hit your mark. You’ve a brutal reputation, but striking down harmless women is not among your darker marks of distinction. No, I’m going nowhere this moment. It is your turn to repay a debt. I’ve been enormously patient, don’t you think, while you set yourself up in Berwick to –”

  “Set myself up?”

  “As governor, surely.”

  “Do you always assume so much? No, that honor went to Walter Stewart.”

  “Ah, you see now, I have been quite out of touch. But how could your king insult you thusly? Your father was governor there and held it against Longshanks himself.”

  “As Lieutenant of Scotland, the scope of my duties lies far beyond Berwick’s coveted walls. King Robert granted the governorship to Walter at my suggestion. I’d prefer to be on the outside and ready to fight, not holed up in that rock when the English return – and they will, mark me.”

  “Perhaps not as soon as you fear.” She stepped around the tree, grinning slyly, and touched her fingers to the deeply pierced holes in the trunk. “Every day Lancaster grows more and more powerful in England and Edward less and less so. There is talk ...”

  “Of?”

  “Civil war.” Behind her smile lay a hint of something more. Casually, she leaned with her back against the tree and raised one teasing eyebrow at me. “I have a kinswoman, an old companion of my childhood, who is a handmaiden in the earl’s court.”

  “There is a room,” I conceded, “small but comfortable, that Archibald usually uses. He’s gone to meet Beatrice Lindsay. I doubt he’ll return soon. You may stay there a while.”

  “Here, you say? With you?”

  “For the time, aye.”

  “Dangerous, don’t you think, to keep an assassin so close?”

  I gathered up my bag of arrows and unstrung bow. “And yet you’ve thrown away another opportunity to end my life. I haven’t yet, however, dismissed the possibility of you being a spy.”

  “Hmm, a spy ... but for whom?”

  As I showed her the way across the meadow, yellow-eyed with buttercups, and along the meandering footpath that led through the woods and to my home, tucked deep and safe within Jedburgh Forest, I said in passing, “’Tis not forever, Lady Rosalind. My home is my own and not meant for the comfort of womenfolk, mind you.”

  She laughed. “Do you think, James Douglas, that I’ve been living the good life of late?”

  One glance at her soiled feet and tattered skirt hem said ‘no’. For a gentlewoman she lived a life most perilous.

  Aye, I dared to trust an Englishwoman. This one, at least. I might even dare more – if the opportunity arose.

  Ch. 15

  Edward II – Loughborough, 1318

  The bridge that spanned the River Soar on the road between Leicester and Nottingham was as ramshackle as the premise which had brought me there.

  The village of Loughborough embraced the bank further upstream. Its inhabitants, upon noting the royal standard, poured from the mess of crowded, leaning huts that lined the far end of Market Lane. Pikemen were dispatched to keep them away, for this was no royal parade where I would toss coins to beggars as little children tried to steal a strand of my horse’s tail. Rather, it was a ploy for survival – an acquiescence for the sake of harmony.

  Aside from the faithful few with me at Loughborough that day – Bishop Walter Stapledon of Exeter, my chancellor Robert de Baldock, and Aymer de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke – those who had not abandoned me in favor of my cousin’s persuasions had stood mute, waiting to see in which direction the axed tree would fall. Lancaster’s party was now cautiously approaching from the north. They halted a short distance from the bridge in a cloud of dust. The Earl of Lancaster moved forward alone, raising his hand in salutation.

  My queen, Isabella, had prodded me to agree to this encounter. Had I not wanted to gloat over various matters, and she not been bloated with my child and ready to burst, I would have sent her here in my stead.

  I dabbed away the sweat pooling on my temples and said to Pembroke, seated on his dun-colored Spanish mare to my right, “Explain again, Aymer, if you will, the wisdom in this. Is that not a pig dressed up in cock’s feathers on the other side of this bridge?”

  Pembroke imparted a brief, quizzical look, then returned his gaze across the way. The sun reflecting off the water was so bright he squinted. The air was stagnant and sweltering. “Keep your enemies close, sire. They will betray themselves in time.”

  “And how much easier for them to slip the assassin’s knife between your ribs, as well.”

  “Do you truly think he’s clever enough to plot your murder without telling half the world ahead of time?”

  “True enough, Aymer. Lancaster enjoys the sound of his own voice. But he also revels in a following and keeps in his circle a bevy of toadeaters. If he told them all his plans, I daresay, they would be sharpening the knife and handing it to him.”

  “Sire, you give him too much credit. For certes, he can stir the masses into upheaval, but his devices end with that. He does not seek to supplant so much as hold sway. Let him think as much.”

  Indignation fired in my veins. “The Lords Ordainers were his doing. My sire never had to bow to his inferiors. Why should I?”

  “Your father not only kept the savage Scots firmly under his heel, but he also erected fortresses in Wales that kept those worm-eating devil-spawn in shackles. Without ever breaking his treasury. He was shrewd and meticulous to the point of obsession. Times change. Circumstances alter. And you are a different man from your father
altogether. If any rise up against you, it is because they see those differences and take them as weaknesses.”

  Pembroke allowed a thoughtful pause, then continued. “Take what I have to tell you, not as insult or criticism, but as concern. Your treasury has been strained for some length of time due to the ongoing wars in Scotland. That is a situation you inherited and which, I regret, has been exacerbated by your own generosity and the carelessness of those around you. Practice frugality and discretion ... and you will have your peace.”

  “I would rather have Cousin Lancaster’s coffin paraded down Cheap Street. But in lieu of that – and since I’ve no want for this eternal squabbling – I’ll dance the part, my lord.”

  Stapledon’s too small chin jutted forward as he spoke. “The time has come, my lord.”

  Aside to Pembroke, I said, “Our holy mouse has the gift of sniffing out the obvious. Let us not disappoint him then. Shall we?”

  I pricked my spurs and made way to the bridge, Pembroke alone with me. The weight of our horses sent the bridge planks into a terrible groan, so that I feared it might collapse at any moment. From the other side, Lancaster began across, his horse skittering sideways until he calmed it. I could not discern the face of the man with him until we met halfway.

  “Sir Andrew Harclay,” I said, as Lancaster and his companion dismounted. Pembroke joined them, but I stayed aloft on my horse. Harclay bowed, but Lancaster did not. In that moment, I was certain he felt omnipotent. I ignored his glare and spoke again to Harclay. “How goes it in Carlisle?”

  “Harsh in the countryside, my lord. When the crops don’t fail, the Scots burn them. And now there are reports of scab in the sheep. But Carlisle stands unscathed. Too great a challenge, I wager.”

  I was secretly pleased with Lancaster’s choice of companions. There were a dozen he could have picked to have at his side that would have made me very uneasy. Harclay and I were not close compatriots by any means, but there was nothing duplicitous about the man.