by Robyn Young
‘Come and take it, you turd,’ said Robert, switching into English, his face flushed with anger.
‘Would be my pleasure,’ responded John, whistling sharply through brown teeth.
Robert and Humphrey looked round as two more men came into view at the other end of the canvas screen, blocking their escape. In front of them was the ditch filled with sewage and, beyond it, the river. Hands trembling with fury, Humphrey untied his purse and tossed it at the barrel-necked man, who caught it.
‘Now you,’ said John, fixing on Robert.
Robert had already removed the purse from his belt, but, as he lifted his left hand to throw it, Humphrey caught a glint of steel in his right.
John’s eager eyes were on the purse. He only saw the dirk when Robert hurled it at him. Ducking, he threw his arms up to shield his face. The blade missed, but even as it was in flight, Robert was charging forward. He barrelled into John, who was blinded by his own raised arms. The momentum sent the man straight into the ditch. Robert leapt over him as he fell, landing deftly on the other side. John went down heavily on his back in the narrow trench, black sludge swelling up around him. Before he could struggle up, Robert put a foot on his chest, pinning him down. John bellowed in rage as he sank, but shut his mouth promptly when the greasy water surged over his chin. His companions were looking on, dumbfounded by Robert’s sudden attack. One of them went at Humphrey, who pulled his food knife from its sheath and brandished it at him.
‘Tell your men to back away,’ Robert ordered John. ‘Or I’ll drown you.’ He put more weight on his foot, so the sewage oozed over John’s lips and into his nostrils. ‘Tell them!’
John struggled, straining to lift up his head as he spluttered and retched. ‘Back, you whoresons! Back!’
His men backed away slowly.
‘Give me my friend’s purse,’ said Robert, reaching down with his free hand. In the other, he still had hold of his own.
John raised his shit-splattered hand, from which dangled Humphrey’s purse. Robert took it, then jumped across the trench and snatched his dirk from the mud, eyes on the man’s comrades. Leaving John to haul himself up, he joined Humphrey. Together, they slipped quickly past the two men lingering uncertainly at the edge of the screen.
As they entered the crowds, Robert handed Humphrey his soiled purse. ‘We’d better join the others,’ he said, leading the way back to where their companions were watching the horse races. ‘Those brigands won’t dare take us all.’
Ralph de Monthermer turned as they approached. ‘Where were you? You missed the first race.’ The royal knight, who was a few years older than them, grimaced. ‘Did one of you step in shit? Something stinks.’
‘You should smell the other man,’ Robert said, causing Humphrey to burst out laughing.
As his mirth subsided, Humphrey watched Robert cheering on the boys who whipped their horses down the field towards Smithfield’s gibbet. The man was grinning as if nothing had happened. By God, but he had moved fast, without fear or compunction. After a pause, he put a hand on Ralph’s shoulder. ‘What do you think?’ he murmured. ‘Could Robert be a Knight of the Dragon?’
Ralph stared at him, taking in the question. ‘He’s been in the king’s company less than six months. It’s too soon. Besides, it isn’t your decision, Humphrey. It’s the king’s.’
‘I could speak to my father. King Edward will listen to a knight of the Round Table.’
‘Give it a few more months,’ Ralph advised. ‘We need to get his measure. The campaign in France will show his colours. When he has proven himself in war, we will see if we can trust him.’
Chapter 11
Ulster, Ireland, 1301 AD
Darkness came swiftly on the hems of clouds, sweeping low across the evening sky. A north-easterly wind buffeted the crop fields where weeds grew tall among the barley. In the freshening air, Robert smelled rain. He pressed on through the rustling sea of gold, intent on finding shelter. They had left the great forest behind them several days ago. Now, out in the open, they were at the mercy of the elements.
Over the rushing barley, he heard a jangle of bells. Ahead, a wooden cross rose from the crops. Approaching, Robert saw cowbells strung from the arms, presumably to scare off crows. There was something fixed to the top. Looking back as he walked beneath it, he realised it was the horned skull of a goat. It hung lopsided, its empty eye sockets staring down across the sloping field towards a road that snaked its way north through gold and brown fields towards a distant settlement.
The sight of the road caused relief and unease to rise in Robert at once. His instinct was to sprint down and follow it, racing for the sea he had glimpsed from the ridges of the iron hills they had come down from that morning. Beyond that sea lay Scotland. Trepidation held him back. He had avoided the road for weeks, ever since he had seen the patrols two days out from Ballymote, the scarlet bands of cloth on the arms of the riders marking them as Ulster’s men.
As he scanned its length for signs of life the rain began to fall, soaking his shirt. At a rustling behind him, Robert turned to see Elizabeth struggling through the barley. For the first few days she had tried to keep pace with him, seemingly as keen to put as much distance between them and her father as possible. Now, after weeks trudging through dense forest, skirting vast loughs and the endless folds of hills, living on bitter berries and tiny, bone-filled fish, she lagged behind, wretched and reluctant. The determination he had seen in her face when she demanded he take her with him had vanished many miles ago. Her black hair hung down her back, lank with rain.
It was falling harder, stinging Robert’s face as he glanced into the racing sky. ‘We need to take shelter,’ he told her, nodding to a line of trees at the other end of the field. The changing season had coloured the leaves, but the cover was thick enough to shield them from the worst of the wet.
Elizabeth stared at him, shivering as she clutched her bundle of clothing to her chest. The surcoat and gown she had been wearing when they left Ballymote were soiled and torn, but she refused to be parted from them, even though she now wore the tunic and belt he’d stolen from a farmstead, which had also provided them with two chickens and a sack of apples. The tunic was too big and he’d had to make a new notch in the belt.
‘Here,’ said Robert, crossing to her and swinging the sack from his shoulder.
She watched as he pulled out a blanket, also taken from the farm. It was filthy and smelled of horse. Her nose wrinkled, but she let him drape it around her shoulders.
As he took her clothes and stowed them in the sack, Robert realised how pale Elizabeth was. Her cheeks were the colour of bone, her eyes shadowed. She looked much younger than her sixteen years; a girl in an oversized tunic that swamped her thin frame. Her pace had been dragging over the course of the day and in his impatience to cover the last miles to the coast Robert had ignored her pleas for him to slow. Now, he feared she was sickening.
Concern crept level with his frustration as the rain lashed them and the wind blew ragged through the barley. If she had a fever this wet could be the death of her. Not for the first time, Robert wished to God he’d left her by the roadside that night, a mile from her home. She had slowed him down considerably, but despite the fact he’d wanted to be rid of her weeks ago, he knew she wouldn’t last a day in the wild. Cormac was in Ulster’s custody because of him and no doubt much less comfortable now. Robert wouldn’t let his foster-brother rot away in the earl’s dungeon and, since the best hope he held for his release lay in Elizabeth’s safe return to her father, she remained his burden. ‘Come,’ Robert said gruffly, taking her arm, ‘there’s a village down there. We’ll find somewhere to stay tonight until this has passed.’
As they headed beneath the cross with the goat’s skull and clanking bells, Elizabeth stared over her shoulder at it. The thing gave off a distinct feeling of menace. It was a feeling that seemed to stretch before them as they trudged through the rain to join the road. At first Robert couldn’t put his finger
on it, then he realised what it was. The barley in the fields wasn’t ripe: it was overripe, weeds tangled among the stalks. It should have been harvested by now. Ahead, beyond a stream, the village was blurred by rain and the growing dark, but even at this distance he could see no firelight in the windows and there wasn’t a trace of wood-smoke on the wind. ‘It looks abandoned,’ he murmured to Elizabeth, stumbling along the overgrown highway beside him.
There was a bridge over the stream leading into the settlement. It was broken in the centre, timbers trailing in the flowing waters. Further downstream, the wheel of a mill groaned round. Robert stood there frowning as he took in the strangely familiar surroundings. He knew this place. He remembered passing through it earlier in the year, heading south with his men. Realising he was only a few days, four at most, from Glenarm, he felt a surge of elation. On the back of this came the question of what had happened here. The answer confirmed the rumours he had heard of settlers deserting homes and livelihoods to return to England, as the Irish pressed in.
Grasping Elizabeth’s hand, Robert led the way downriver to where the banks were shallower. ‘Climb on to my back and I’ll wade across. It doesn’t look deep.’ When she drew away, Robert turned to her. He had noticed her fear of water before. ‘I won’t let go.’
Half coaxing, half pulling her on to his back, where she clung like a wet limpet, he strode into the swirling river, flinching at the cold rush of it around his legs. In the centre it shelved beneath his feet, taking him up to his waist. As he stumbled, she gasped and held on tighter, almost strangling him. Robert ploughed on, staggering up the muddy slope on the other side, where he gently prised her arms loose and deposited her on the bank.
Together, soaked to the skin, they entered the settlement where empty houses, workshops and barns rose around them. Many of the structures looked as though they had been looted, doors kicked in, the litter of people’s lives strewn across the floor inside. Scraps of clothing and other material trailed from trees. Robert had spied various abandoned structures on their way north: castles and a few churches. But nothing like this – a whole town. Who had decided to leave first? Had it been a trickle, or a flood?
He saw a fire pit under the eaves of one building. The blackened circle looked fairly fresh. People had been here since the exodus, that much was clear. The dark windows of buildings seemed to stare down. A door banged in the wind, making Robert wince. The looted settlement and proximity to his estates made him wary. Ulster must know he would try to make it to Antrim. Robert had no doubt there would be men posted somewhere along this road, waiting for him to appear. The arduous journey was at its most dangerous. Feeling exposed, he led Elizabeth into a two-storey house on the edge of the town.
After climbing over broken stools and around a table, he ushered her up a set of rickety stairs to the room above. Through air grey with cobwebs and dust they made out three pallet beds beneath the slanting beams of the roof. A piece of sacking sagged in the window, letting in a draught and the last of the evening light. Rainwater dripped steadily from a hole in the roof, the boards beneath green and slimy. It smelled of rot.
While Elizabeth stood there shaking, Robert picked through the blankets on the beds, grimacing at the fur of mould growing on them. ‘There’s nothing useful here.’ He opened the sack bag and drew out her old gown. ‘Here, put this on. You can’t stay in those clothes and I can’t risk a fire.’
She stared at him, until he turned away to give her privacy, listening to the click of the buckle as she undid the belt and cast it on the floor. There was a rustle followed by a wet slop as she dropped the tunic beside it. Robert kept his eyes fixed on a beam in front of him, where a spider was industriously binding a fly in its threads. In Scotland, he’d spent months in the Forest living rough with his men, but that had been in the cause of war and he’d had his squires and servants, cooks to make his meals and a tent to sleep in. Even William Wallace, whom he’d once denigrated as a brigand, would be more recognisable as a nobleman. It is the man that makes the king, his grandfather had told him years ago. If that was so, then how could a king be made of the man he had become? How had his pursuit of kingship led him to be standing soaked and filthy in this hovel with the daughter of an earl?
‘I’m finished.’
Robert looked round to see her in the jewel-green gown she had been wearing the night they escaped, the night she fled her betrothal feast. It was dirty and frayed around the hems and wrists, but mostly dry. She looked older in the dress; a bedraggled princess, her hair hanging in a tangled mass over one shoulder.
‘We ate the last of the apples this morning. I’ll find us something to eat. There might be a few fish in that stream.’
Her face fell. ‘No more fish,’ she implored. ‘Please.’
Robert’s frustration at the delay erupted. ‘You’ll eat what I find, my lady, and be thankful! I was only ever intending to feed one mouth on this journey. If not for you, I’d be in Scotland already.’ Now the anger was coming he didn’t want it to stop. ‘Your father thinks I abducted you. If he harms my foster-brother because of you, I’ll—’ He halted, realising his voice had risen to dangerous levels.
Elizabeth had pressed her lips together at his outburst. She now spoke quickly into his silence. ‘I’ve told you I’ll write to my father, explaining why I ran away. That I’ll tell him it wasn’t your fault. I’ll beg him to let your foster-brother go, I swear.’ She was clutching at her ivory cross, worrying it between her fingers.
‘You think he’ll listen? ?You said you begged him to let you enter a convent rather than marry. He didn’t listen then, did he?’
Elizabeth’s brow furrowed at his tone. ‘You’ll keep your promise, won’t you, Sir Robert? You’ll take me with you to Scotland?’
He took a moment to answer. ‘Yes. But we have to move quicker. I need to get back to my kingdom.’
When she gave a small nod, Robert headed down the creaking stairs, slightly mollified. Elizabeth seemed to accept the lie. Hopefully, she would push herself faster come morning. Then, when they reached Antrim, he would deposit her with his foster-father so that she could be exchanged for Cormac. Ulster could do what he wanted with her and that would be the end of that.
Leaving the house, Robert headed out into the rain, adjusting the sword that was strapped to his hip. Perhaps there were unsoiled stores of food in some of the buildings: salted meat or oats? As he moved purposefully down the street, where puddles reflected the darkening sky and rain hammered on the rooftops, those last words he’d said to Elizabeth repeated in his mind. I need to get back to my kingdom. The words had come forcefully with the strength of feeling behind them.
Until now, his intent to claim the throne of Scotland had been bound up almost completely in a sense of personal legitimacy. It had been his grandfather who, by blood and endorsement, was the rightful claimant after the death of King Alexander. Since John Balliol had been deposed, who else but Robert, to whom the old Bruce had passed his claim, should seize it? The flame of such convictions, kindled within him by the ambition of his grandfather and father, had been fanned by his supporters in the years since: powerful, influential men like James Stewart. But somewhere on his journey north, in the oppressive hush of this impoverished land, something had begun to wake in him, something that now manifested itself in this ghost of a town.
Ireland, bled dry by an absent lord to fund wars abroad, was a sobering vision. Might this forsaken town be the future of Turnberry or Ayr under Edward? The English king had no love of Scotland or its people, that much had always been plain. What was it he was said to have remarked as he crossed the border into England after the first invasion, leaving bureaucrats to run the kingdom? A man does good business when he rids himself of shit. If Edward succeeded in crushing the rebellion and took control, might Ireland’s fate one day be theirs? Might he bleed Scotland of revenues and grain to fund another war in Gascony if the peace talks with King Philippe failed, or in Wales if another rebellion erupted?
Moving quickly, Robert pressed himself into the shadows of an open doorway, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his sword, heart racing at the unexpected evidence of another human after so long in the wilderness. The horse snorted again and a few seconds later a figure emerged from the barn. It was a tall, muscular man dressed in a dark cloak. His hair hung to his shoulders and he had a full beard. It was the weapon in his hands, however, to which Robert’s gaze was drawn. The man carried a crossbow. As he scanned the dark street, his gaze sweeping the doorway, Robert’s chest tightened. After a moment, he moved back inside the barn and was gone from view.
Robert slipped out and hastened down the street towards the main thoroughfare. He tried to pass off the man as a traveller seeking shelter from the rain, or an Irish bandit, one of the looters perhaps? But neither fitted. A warhorse, a crossbow? He felt uneasy, but couldn’t place what threat the man posed, so long as he stayed out of his way.
He was almost at the edge of the town, where the road continued on across a river, much broader and deeper than the stream. Memory reminded him that there was a ford here, which he had crossed on his way south. He saw the ford at the same time as he saw the men. There were two of them standing under the eaves of a large building, which might have belonged to a burgher. Robert halted out of sight at the corner of a dilapidated house, fixing on the red strip of cloth around their arms.