“Take them and return to our cattle herd, Cuthbert.” I gulped down smoke. “We’re going home after this.”
The corners of his mouth sank a little at that, but he nodded and began up the street toward where we had come from, yanking and coaxing his frightened prizes with sporadic success. Sim plowed past me, remounted and went to help him.
Without pausing, they bypassed the fallen bodies of the town’s brave defenders. Others were still ransacking the houses and shops for valuables and upending whatever was left standing. On the slopes of the hills beyond, the last of the townsfolk were streaming toward some far off haven, running, straggling, falling, picking themselves up to go on, but not until they had looked back once more at what they had left behind. A veil of gray smoke drifted before me, drying out my throat and eyes.
Then, I heard the crying of a child. Soft, whimpering. But from where?
I removed my helmet, turned my head from side to side. There it was again. I held my breath to better hear. In the distance, Boyd’s rocky voice called out orders to begin clearing from the town. I slipped down from my saddle, my gut tugging me toward the door of the smoking stables. From the doorway, I peered into the flickering darkness. I heard nothing and began to wonder if my imagination had begun playing tricks on me.
The posts and beams were beginning to burn. I took another step inside, peering up at a flowing river of flame in the rafters above me. As I did so, a frightened horse charged at me, toward the daylight behind me. I had the barest moment to jump aside and let it pass. The creature was an old, barely useful nag, and so Sim had left it behind. Satisfied that it had been the source of my curiosity, I turned to go. The structure around me groaned and cracked, weakening. But I had not yet set foot beyond it when the cry came again, calling me back.
I drew my cloak up across my mouth, turned back and went further inside. The heat pressed in on me. Embers dropped from the beams. Ahead, a small loft held a stack of hay, tinder for a growing fire. The flames ate away at the thick, rain-dampened thatch above. Smoke rolled downward and engulfed the barn.
Below the loft, in the corner of an area reserved for manure and between two stalls, a tiny form huddled. Above dirtied strips of rags, a pair of dark, glittering eyes studied me. The eyes of a child sizing up the enemy as he had retreated to a hiding place that was fast becoming his very own deathtrap. Then from between those rags a kitten mewled and wiggled its way loose. It clawed at his arm and struggled free, at first skidding to a halt at my feet and then scampering around me and outside as its striped little tail whipped back and forth.
Realizing I still had my weapons with me, although sheathed, I held my arms wide, then knelt and called out.
“Come, lad. I mean you no harm.”
Behind the mound of manure, he sank down deeper into his tattered clothes, even as smoke rolled thick and stinking between us. A cinder drifted down from the hayloft. The spark struggled and glowed, feeding off the bits of dry hay around it.
I took a few steps closer, reached out my hand. “Please, I only mean to take you from here ... away from the fire. Let me help you.” I went closer until I was just on the other side of the manure from him.
He scrambled sideways. I stepped across the mound and sank deep in its slippery filth. I threw my hand out to catch myself on a post of the stable. As I did so, the post gave a little, the beams and planks above moaned. The weight of the blazing hay shifted. There was no time to waste in negotiations with a scared little boy who would not chance trust to save his own life. I lunged at him, but before I could grab him by the arms, he whipped a knife out and snagged my sleeve.
“No!” I yelled, my throat closing against the suffocating smoke, my eyes stinging. “We’ll both die unless you come with me.”
I snatched at his wrist, wrenched it hard even as he fought and kicked at me. Then I tore the knife from his grasp and tossed it into the encroaching fire. I yanked him to me and lifted him up and over my shoulder. He kicked furiously, flailed his small fists at my chest, but never said a word of protest or let loose a scream.
I turned around, looking for the doorway. Flames danced wildly all around. The hairs on my head were singeing, my face getting unbearably hot, the undershirt beneath my mail melting to my flesh. Darkness and brightness shifted and interchanged. The lad began to cough.
“Stop moving! Stop it!” I yelled at him. If I didn’t get him out soon, he would succumb to the smoke before the fire ever reached us. I stumbled forward. A clump of burning thatch fell hissing in front of me. I stepped around it, struggling to hold onto the boy, moved a few more steps, looked for the door, for a sign of daylight that would lead me to safety.
But everywhere I looked there was only fire. Fire. Fire. Hotter. Closer. Brighter. Another blazing clump fell, this one across the back of my hand. I flicked it away, but it had burned me. The pain was intense.
I fought for air, but there was none. The smoke drew the breath from my lungs, crushed my chest. The lad, light as he was, was becoming a burden. Still, he squirmed and coughed and I, too, felt a cough rising in my chest.
Then, he bit me on the hand. I cried out in surprise. Holding him tight, I lowered him to the floor. My hand throbbed. I wanted to strike him senseless. I stared him hard in the eyes.
“I don’t want you to die. I don’t want to die.” I squeezed both his arms, desperate for him to understand. In all my years of fighting, I had never come so close to death as this.
He held my gaze. “But you’re a Scot.”
“I’m a man. And you’re a child. I’m trying to help you.”
Something behind his small, coal-black eyes softened. Perhaps at last he figured that had I wanted him dead, he would have been so by now. Then he twisted to his left, inclining his head that way. I loosened my grip, let him pull me through the blinding wall of heat and choking cloud of smoke.
My lungs burned. Chest heavy. Hard to breathe. Coughing, gagging.
I blinked, wiped at my eyes, discovered I was no longer attached to the boy’s sleeve. Found myself on my knees, on the dirt, daylight spilling over me.
A pair of burly hands hooked themselves in my armpits and hoisted me up. I coughed more. So hard I retched. Couldn’t stop. Somehow pulled a few gulps of clean air into my lungs.
“What the bloody hell were you doing in there?” Boyd admonished. He yanked me further away, then propped me against a cart and brought my horse to me.
I shook my head, unable to answer him, tears welling in my stung eyes. Then I looked about for the wee lad who, in my attempt to save him, had saved me instead. The streets were empty of life. Flames and smoke consumed the town.
The lad was nowhere. Gone.
***
Lintalee, 1319
The fire had scrubbed my lungs raw. It felt as though a set of irons was clamped around my chest, making it still hard to breathe. Gil, now serving as Constable of Scotland, had not been with us on that excursion. I longed to have him near, for surely he would have known of some magical drink or some herb that would ease the pain in my chest and return me to normal. But my healing was slow and I could not let my men know the extent of the damage done to me. If anything, I was only more silent than usual, foregoing the jokes that Boyd and I usually shared, and the picking of Cuthbert’s brain for details with which to fill my reports to the king.
We headed home, northeastward. I released some of my men along the way so they could go on to their own homes, but many of the others would stop at Lintalee with me for a rest before going on. It was a week to Christmas and the snow had begun to fall. When we came to the dale of the Teviot, it was my men, not me, who quickened the pace. My cough had by then lessened, although my chest still ached and my throat was still constricted so that it was hard to swallow without a lump of pain.
My hobelars, by now adept at herding cattle, prodded their bewildered beasts along and kept them from wandering. The task became more difficult as we entered the forests around Jedburgh and so there we waylaid at a l
ocal manor and settled the herd, to be later divided and delivered. Then we set on the road again. By then we were only a few miles from my home. The men in the fore pressed their ponies to a canter. I hung back in the rear, gazing over the tops of naked trees at a pink sunset.
My horse pulled up suddenly as Boyd rode across my path and halted.
“Dragging a wee bit, are we?” Boyd said.
I had not noticed the snow falling until I saw it glistening in melted droplets on Boyd’s bushy red beard. I guided my pony around him and continued on. “Haven’t you a young wife to rush home to?”
“Wife, och. Fair to look at, but docile as a lamb. No fire in her belly – or below. Bored of her already. Must have been drunk the day I wed her.”
“More likely she was drunk when she wed you. Otherwise, who’d have you?”
He grumbled a profanity under his breath, then burst out in a tide of laughter. “Last I saw of her she was getting fat with a bairn. Mine, I hope. Our third.”
“Then you should go home. What does that make for you altogether now – eleven, twelve?”
“Thirteen.”
“Aren’t you a bit old to be raising bairns?”
“Why do you think I’m gone so much? No, I’ll stay a while. Bring some life to that deadly quiet hall of yours. Besides, I trust you’ve a good store of ale for us? Just rewards for all we’ve brought back, I say.”
“You’ll help yourself whether I ask you to stay or tell you to go. I know, by now, how it is with you.”
Jaded from yet another campaign and indolent from a long ride slowed by meandering cattle, I fell into a mundane state, not quite noticing how close I was to Lintalee. The road curved, narrowed, rose and fell as the trees crowded closer around us. My men had streamed on ahead of me, even Boyd, so that by the time I dismounted before my lodge there was not even a horsegroom at hand to take my pony. Too eager for food and drink, my men had abandoned their mounts without care, enticing them to remain by scattering grain and hay in the open yard before the lodge steps.
I stood there before my home, the pale glow of winter dusk etching every snowy tree limb in silver. Tired though I was, I finally led my own pony to the stables, removed his saddle and hung up his bridle, broke the ice in his bucket, and fed him well in reward. After putting down fresh straw and seeing that he was content, I went back toward the house.
A thick curl of smoke drifted from the chimney, indicating that the hearth was well-fired already. Waves of song spilled from within as I tugged at the door and opened it a crack. Had there been a way inside and up to my private chambers without wading through a sea of half-drunken Scottish soldiers, I would have taken it. Alas, I would have to suffer their jubilation for as long as it took me to cross the room. I plunged inside, heading straight for the stairway on the far side.
I kept my head down, nudged my way through, nodded to anyone who called out my name, but kept on, never speaking, never pausing. I had my foot on the first step when a slight body wedged past me and barred my path.
Rosalind had one hand braced on the wall and the other on the railing. “Could you have not sent word ahead that there would be so many?”
I glanced back over my shoulder, seeking some kind of retreat, some small corner of solitude, but the place was packed elbow to elbow. Defeated, I looked up at her, begging forgiveness. “Your pardon, Lady Rosalind. Come morning, send them on their way.”
She held her ground, studying me as I leaned against the wall. Her eyelashes fluttered. Her voice softened. “It was only ... unexpected. This is your home, my lord. How long these ... these men stay your decision as well, not mine. You are not wanting for food or drink though, if that is your concern. In your absence, I took the liberty of arranging better provisions with your steward. Enough to last the winter. Perhaps I should not have imposed, but it was an old habit of mine to stock the pantry whenever it was running low and so I –”
I held up my hand to stop her babbling. “Please, you needn’t apologize for... for looking after me. Forgive my rudeness, but I need to rest.”
Her chin dropped. She stepped aside to let me pass. When I was a few steps beyond, she asked, “May I bring you something to eat?”
“Aye, that would be good.” In truth, although my body required sustenance, I was too weary to even think of eating. I went on up the stairs. In my room I found the candles already lit, a peat brazier glowing warmly, and a jug of spiced cider on the table. The floor was swept clean and the scent of mint, crushed and sprinkled over my bed sheets, echoed of a woman’s touch. Too tired to maintain the premise of tidiness, I dropped my cloak upon the floor.
A sigh made me turn. Rosalind stood in the doorway, holding a wooden tray with an assortment of cheese and bread. She placed the tray on the table, poured a cup of cider and handed it to me. Then, she picked up my cloak and hung it on a peg by the door.
I had not noticed how cold I was until I felt the cider warming my palms. Greedily, I emptied the cup, then put it back on the table and sat down on the edge of the bed. I longed to sink back into the downy mattress, but I still had my shirt of mail on. As if reading my thoughts, Rosalind floated to me, lifted my hands above my head and freed me of the mail, then draped it over the back of a chair. She poured me another cup. As I put my left hand out to take it from her, she caught my hand, turned it over and inspected the back of it.
Her brows drew together. “You’ve been burned.”
“’Tis nothing.”
She fetched a bowl of rosewater from the table and a cloth. Kneeling before me, she began to cleanse my hands.
“You’ve been preparing for my return,” I noted.
“At Roxburgh, it was my duty to see that everything was always ready for my husband’s return. He gave me more responsibilities and freedoms than most men would permit their wives. I had my own seal, oversaw the reeve’s records, worked diligently beside the steward, learned every duty and every servant’s name ...” Her voice trailed away in a whisper. She blinked away old memories and shook her head. “Five weeks to the day you’ve been gone.”
“Has it? I never count the days. Only the battles. And the years now.”
As she worked her way up from my wrists, she pushed up my sleeves and shuddered when she saw the long scar on my right forearm.
“This one?”
“Courtesy of Sir Robert Neville, your father,” I said.
She glanced away a moment, then dabbed at my face with the damp cloth. With one gentle finger, she traced a short scar that lay hidden in the crease between the corner of my mouth and my nose. “This?”
“Dalry, I think. Robert saved my life that day.”
“And the burn on your hand?”
“A child led me from a burning building. He thought, at first, that I had come to kill him.” I closed my eyes. “A child. Why would I harm a child?”
She put the bowl aside and laid her hands over mine. “You aren’t the man tales portray you as. I know.”
“When I looked into the eyes of that little boy, I saw fear. I saw death. A hundred times over now, I should have died, Rosalind. I have eluded it. Cheated it. Run from it and fought it. And yet, it won’t have me.”
She tilted her head, accentuating an eyebrow raised in thought. “Perhaps that is for a reason?”
I scoffed at her. “Reason? I live only to fight.”
“Why do you fight then? Why go?”
I would have preferred to yield to the mountain of down behind me and escape to sleep, than to explain my purpose to this probing woman. It was too hard a question to give an answer that would satisfy her, but I tried.
“Because I’m called upon. It’s what I do. I do it well.” Aye, well. Raid. Pillage. Strike terror. Carry home the spoils, then return again while the tales are yet fresh. But it was what made my heart beat more wildly than anything in life. When it came to the lure of battle, I was like the wolf that had scented blood and would stalk his prey until that hunger was satisfied. Like some primeval desire deepl
y seeded in me, some part of me I could not separate the rest from. A lust I could not live without.
“I doubt, James Douglas, that anyone would dare challenge that – Scots or English. But is it, perhaps, more than that? Revenge, maybe? For something that happened long ago?”
Berwick. Twenty-three years past. How is it that she knows me so well?
She slipped her hands from mine and sat back on the floor, drawing her knees toward her chest. “When I was but fourteen, my own father got me with child. My mother, when I told her of it, struck me across the face and called me a liar and a strumpet. She had me sent away to bear the child and then saw to it that the child did not live to see his first month out. Suffocated in his cradle by a hired criminal. It seems my parents had some difficulty in finding me a husband and when they finally did, it was a man forty years my senior. But a blessing that was: William was good to me. At first he was more of a father to me than a husband, but he knew, somehow, that I needed that of him. I knew I could feel safe, so long as he was with me. One night I found William singing to our daughter, rocking her in his arms. But he looked so old, as fragile in his many years as she was in her few. I knew then that our time together would not last forever. One day, I would have to be strong without him.”
By then, her chin was on her knees. “I’m sorry. I’ve talked too much of things that must not interest you at all. I only came here to give you comfort after your journey.” She rose to her feet. “Do you need anything? If you want me to go, I –”
“Your daughter – what was her name?”
Her mouth was still hanging open, suspended in the middle of her last sentence. She blinked away a tear. Then the slightest smile passed over her lips. “Alice. My beautiful Alice, I called her. She truly was beautiful. I know all mothers say that, but it’s true.”
The Honor Due a King (The Bruce Trilogy) Page 20