Insurrection: Renegade [02]

by Robyn Young

  How little she knew, thought Robert, looking down at her. The ambitious Richard de Burgh had agreed to the marriage, not because Robert would make a good husband, but because one day he might make her queen. He felt some of his anger towards her drain, replaced by weariness. He didn’t want to make her unhappy, but until he gained the throne, his wife and daughter had to come second. As long as they remained safe and ignorant, that was all that mattered. He went to speak, meaning to tell her he would find a governess for Marjorie, but there was another knock at the door. He turned sharply. ‘Come!’

  When it opened, Robert, expecting to see his porters, was surprised to see a young page. His tunic bore the blue and gold chequered arms of Robert Clifford.

  ‘I bring a message from my master, sir,’ the page ventured, glancing from Robert to Elizabeth, who had her head in her hand. ‘He says you are hereby ordered to undertake a royal mission with him and Sir Ralph de Monthermer.’

  ‘What mission?’

  ‘My lord said to tell you that you weren’t to leave for Turnberry as planned. He will speak to you himself in due course.’

  Unease unfurled in Robert as he wondered why he had been chosen for another assignment when the king had already granted him leave. ‘Very well.’ He held his temper until the page had closed the door, then thumped his fist into his palm. ‘Damn it!’

  Elizabeth started at his shout. Lifting her head from her hand, she watched as he paced.

  After a moment, Robert stopped. If Ralph was going on this mission, he probably knew more about it. He was certain the knight would tell him if pressed. ‘I must attend to this.’

  Elizabeth nodded in silence.

  Robert turned down the passage that led to the room Ralph had been billeted in. Reaching it he knocked, determined to get what he could out of the knight. There was no response. He knocked again. Still no answer. Frustrated, he went to move off. As he did so, he heard a muffled laugh. His suspicion piqued, Robert tried the door, which opened at his touch.

  In the room beyond, a pallet bed covered with crumpled blankets stood against one wall. Chests were piled on top of one another and a candle flickered on a stand beside two goblets and a jug. In the centre of the room were two figures. One had his back to him, but Robert knew Ralph by his dark curly hair. The other, a woman, took him a moment more to recognise. It was Joan of Acre, the king’s eldest daughter. She and Ralph were locked in an embrace. At Robert’s appearance they pulled apart as if wrenched by invisible hands.

  ‘Christ – Robert!’ hissed Ralph, moving in front of Joan.

  The princess was wearing only a gauzy chemise, through which Robert could see the swell of her breasts. In her mid-thirties, like Ralph, she was a tall, statuesque woman with the same long limbs as her sister, Bess. Her black hair was loose around her shoulders, undressed and unbound.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Ralph’s face was red.

  Behind him, Joan moved to the bed and snatched up an ermine-trimmed mantle which she wrapped around her shoulders, pulling it close against her chest.

  Robert lifted his hands. ‘My apologies, Ralph. Lady Joan,’ he added, glancing at the princess, who levelled him with her stare. ‘I knocked, but no one answered.’

  Joan said nothing, but slipped past Ralph and headed for the door. When Robert moved aside she hastened away down the passage, clasping the mantle over the chemise.

  ‘Close the door, for God’s sake,’ growled the knight, turning and going to the stand, where he took one of the goblets and drained its contents. His undershirt was open at the neck and the skin of his chest glistened with sweat, though the bare room was chilly.

  Closing the door, Robert watched as Ralph poured another measure. He was stunned. He had known the royal knight for years and would never have guessed he was involved in such a dangerous affair. A knight of the royal household, swiving the king’s daughter? Edward would flay him alive for the dishonour.

  ‘Swear to me you won’t tell a soul,’ said Ralph, when he’d finished the wine.

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  The knight shook his head. ‘A few years now,’ he said finally. ‘Since the death of Gilbert de Clare.’ He tossed the empty goblet on the rumpled bed and pushed a hand through his hair. ‘I love her, Robert.’

  ‘You’re out of wedlock.’

  Ralph scowled. ‘That doesn’t stop half the men in this court. Most of the earls of England have illegitimate children tucked away on a manor somewhere.’

  ‘I doubt any of the mothers are the king’s daughters. Joan isn’t just some wench, Ralph. She’s one of Edward’s prized possessions.’

  Ralph exhaled and looked him in the eye. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll keep my mouth shut is what I’ll do.’ As Ralph’s face filled with hope, Robert held up his hand. ‘If you’ll tell me what this mission the king is ordering me on is. I’m being sent somewhere with you and Clifford. I take it you know of it?’

  ‘Of course.’ Ralph looked surprised, his shoulders slumping in evident relief at such a trifling condition. ‘One of the prisoners taken in Cumberland gave up the location of Wallace’s base in Selkirk. The king wants us to lead a mounted raid into the Forest. We are to hunt down and capture the rebel leaders, Wallace and John Comyn, then destroy the camp.’

  Robert fought to keep his emotions hidden. ‘Then an end to this war may not be long in coming?’

  ‘God willing.’ Ralph paused. ‘There’s one thing you should know. I’ll give it to you in return for your pledge of silence. It was Aymer’s idea that you be in this company. From what I heard, he petitioned the king to be allowed to lead it himself with the intention of testing your loyalty. The king denied his request; he, as the rest of us, is becoming irritated by Aymer’s obsession with you. But King Edward will expect you to hunt down your countrymen with as much ferocity as the rest of us do.’

  Robert nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You swear it?’ called Ralph, as Robert turned to go.

  ‘I swear it.’ As he opened the door, Robert realised he had one of the king’s men in his debt. And he was no longer the only deceiver in this court of wolves.

  Aymer de Valence strode along the passageway, rigid with anger. The king’s decision to send Clifford and Ralph into Selkirk had infuriated him, especially since it had clearly been done just to spite him. How the king could not understand his intentions were in the best interests of them all, he could not fathom. Robert Bruce was a snake in the grass, a wolf in a lambskin. A Judas. Why could no one see this but him?

  Bruce might have gone up against Comyn’s forces in Cumberland without compunction, but it had not been a true test of his loyalty, since Wallace had fled the field before Bruce had time to engage. In Selkirk he would be pitted against the rebel leader – a man whose company he had joined when he first deserted, a man he had subsequently knighted with his own sword. In short, a friend. Faced with capturing Wallace and destroying the rebels’ base, Aymer had no doubt Bruce would reveal his true colours. He had wanted to be there to watch for the slip of the mask he felt certain the bastard was wearing, but since Edward had refused him, he would have to try the next best thing.

  Ralph had been a comrade of Bruce’s when they were Knights of the Dragon and was clearly beginning to trust him again. Aymer knew he would have to tread carefully in order to convince him to watch the earl, would have to keep a rein on his hatred so Ralph would see him as well-meaning. It was going to be difficult. But he had to do something. He wouldn’t sit idly by and allow Bruce to betray them again. Aymer flicked his tongue over the wire that held his front teeth together. He would see the bastard hang before that happened.

  Reaching a fork in the gloomy passage, he turned around it. A figure was outside the door to Ralph’s lodging. The devil himself. Robert Bruce. Cursing beneath his breath, Aymer stepped back around the corner. After a pause, hearing the creak of a door, he peered round to see Bruce entering the room. He thought he heard an exclamatio
n from within. Wondering whether he should interrupt the meeting, he was surprised when a second figure hastened out moments later. It was Lady Joan.

  Edward’s daughter was wearing a mantle that she clasped at her breast. As she hastened towards him, she pulled up the hood, but Aymer had time to see her hair falling loose around her shoulders. Time, too, to catch the swish of a gauzy chemise beneath the cloak. He slipped around the corner as she approached, pressing himself against the wall, but he needn’t have worried. Joan had her head down as she passed by. He caught a brief glimpse of her flushed cheeks and then she was gone. When Aymer looked back, Ralph’s door was closed.

  Chapter 33

  The East Coast, Scotland, 1304 AD

  The moon hung low over the coast of Scotland. For James Douglas it was a lantern, guiding him home. With his gaze, he traced the cliffs and the white swell of the snow-clad hills beyond, eyes shining at the sight of his homeland, which he hadn’t seen for seven years.

  Back then he’d been a whip-thin boy of twelve summers, barely able to wield a blade. Now, at nineteen, his body had lengthened and thickened into that of a young man, his arms and chest were corded with muscle from the strict martial training his uncle had given him and his chin was shadowed with a beard, the same crow-black as his hair.

  ‘Is it how you remember?’

  James forced his eyes from the cliffs to see William Lamberton looking at him. The Bishop of St Andrews was wrapped in a black cloak, the hood pulled over his tonsure. His eyes gleamed in the dawn, one icy blue, the other pearl white.

  ‘No, your grace,’ replied James, his French clear and strong over the splash of oars. ‘It is even more beautiful.’

  ‘Do not get your hopes up, Master James.’ The caution came from Ingram de Umfraville, who sat stiffly on one of the benches between the oarsmen, his breath fogging the air as he spoke.

  James’s gaze flicked to him. Umfraville, along with Lamberton and John Comyn, was one of the three guardians of Scotland. James had been introduced to him back in Paris, when they boarded the boat on the banks of the Seine. He hadn’t liked him then and the fortnight’s crossing – navigating around the English blockade in the Channel – had done nothing to alter his first impression.

  ‘It is not the Scotland you knew,’ continued Umfraville morosely. ‘The years of warfare have changed it beyond recognition.’

  ‘It looks much the same to my eyes,’ observed Lamberton, his gaze on the coastline.

  James moved to sit beside the bishop. He had known Lamberton less than three months and felt he had his measure as much as he had Umfraville’s. He was a man of few words, but all of them were keenly weighed. He was young for a bishop, James guessed not much more than thirty, quick as silver and twice as bright, with a voice that forced men to listen when he spoke. James had liked him immediately. Not least because Lamberton was the one man who had vowed to do what no other had. He had pledged to help him get his lands back.

  James’s father, Sir William Douglas, former governor of Berwick, had been the first nobleman to join the insurrection. A tower of strength and fiercely patriotic, he had been there when Wallace had risen to surge across Scotland, bringing fire and sword to the English. He had fought at Wallace’s side, hounding King Edward’s justiciar out of Scone and battling the enemy during the sack of Berwick. But, for all his might, he had been unable to resist when the English had taken him in chains to the Tower of London.

  James had been in Paris when he learned of his father’s passing. The year before Robert Bruce had arrived at the family’s castle in Douglas to abduct James and his mother on behalf of King Edward, who had wanted to use them to persuade the lord to forsake his alliance with the rebels. As it turned out, Bruce had disobeyed the king’s command and let them go free, but James’s mother had sent him to Paris to live with an uncle, until the danger passed. On hearing of his father’s death in the Tower, James learned that the lands of Douglas, to which he was heir, had been granted to a man named Robert Clifford, one of the king’s favourites.

  James had raged against Edward, cursing him and all who served him, but finally his fury subsided to a cold hatred and one morning, sitting on the banks of the Seine, he made a solemn promise to his father’s memory that he would return to his homeland and reclaim what was rightfully his. That opportunity had presented itself in the late autumn when his uncle introduced him to Lamberton, who had been part of a delegation at the French court, hoping to restore John Balliol to the throne, a hope now crushed by the treaty agreed between England and France. Unbeknown to James, his uncle had been in contact with the bishop, speaking about the possibility of Lamberton taking him on as his ward, a proposition to which the bishop had agreed.

  James had packed little in the bag he took from his uncle’s house. Just some coins his uncle gave him, some spare clothes and his sword, now strapped to his hip beneath his cloak, the pommel digging into his side. He was a lord in name, but felt like a vagabond. Still, there was a freedom in his rootlessness that was appealing. He was the adventurer, in search of riches, glory and redemption.

  ‘Do you think I’ll get the chance to fight, your grace?’ James kept his voice low, so Umfraville and the knights escorting the two guardians wouldn’t hear.

  Lamberton’s face was clearer with the advancing dawn, a rosy hue now tinting the horizon. He looked thoughtful. ‘The messages we received in Paris were ominous. The king and his son conquered much of Scotland during the summer. Instead of returning to England when the campaign was ended, he chose to winter at Dunfermline. I believe he means to end us this coming year, when the snows thaw.’ The bishop’s gaze drifted to the cliffs, whose scarred faces were rust red in the breaking dawn. ‘There is a belief among my comrades that surrender is the only viable option left to us.’

  James studied the bishop’s expression. ‘But you still have hope?’ He half smiled. ‘You wouldn’t have promised to help me win my lands if you didn’t.’

  Lamberton met his gaze, those strange eyes burning in the fire of the rising sun. ‘There is always hope, Master James.’

  Dunfermline, Scotland, 1304 AD

  Ralph de Monthermer lay awake, one arm propped behind his head. As he breathed in, he could smell traces of olive oil and herbs on the cover; Joan’s scent caught in the weave. Ralph closed his eyes, the darkness behind them filled with visions of her lustrous hair tumbling over her shoulder as she leaned forward to kiss him, her skin honeyed by candlelight.

  The door opened, banging back against the wall. Ralph sat up, startled from his reverie, as four of the king’s men burst into the room. ‘What in God’s name are you—?’

  ‘Sir Ralph, on the king’s order you are hereby charged with the crime of rape. We are to take you into custody.’

  Ralph swung his legs over the bed and stood. He was naked except for his braies. ‘Rape? Is this some jest, Martin?’

  ‘No jest,’ replied Martin grimly. He took a pair of hose and an undershirt that were draped over a chest and tossed them at Ralph, who caught them. ‘I suggest you put these on. The stables are cold.’

  ‘Stables?’ murmured Ralph. He stared at the knight. ‘Where the outlaws are?’

  ‘I’m sorry, my friend. I petitioned the king for you to be housed somewhere appropriate until this matter can be judged, but he was adamant.’ Martin’s brow creased. ‘Why did you do it, Ralph? The king’s daughter?’

  Ralph’s thoughts tumbled off a cliff in his mind. Shock at the exposure of his secret was followed by fear.

  ‘I didn’t believe it when the king told me,’ Martin continued, ‘but he said Lady Joan’s tears confirmed it.’

  Ralph knew, without any doubt, that Joan would not have accused him of any such thing. Rape was the king’s charge because he’d discovered the affair, of this he was certain. It was a harsh charge at that, punishable by castration if he was found guilty. On the heels of his shock came rage at the realisation that Robert Bruce must have betrayed him. ‘The son of a bitch gave me his wo
rd!’ With a shout, Ralph battered aside the stand with the goblets and jug on it. Red wine sprayed as the table toppled, the vessels clanging on the floor. ‘I’ll kill him!’

  At Martin’s nod, the knights came towards him. Ralph lashed out, punching one of them in the face, but even as the man staggered away, clutching his bloodied nose, his comrades came in. Between them, they wrestled Ralph’s arms behind his back and marched him from the chamber.

  Chapter 34

  Selkirk Forest, Scotland, 1304 AD

  The horses ploughed through the snow, the tremor of their passing bringing more flakes scattering down through the trees. Bare branches of ash and pine webbed the sky, where bands of copper fire glowed in the west. Outside in the world the sun was setting, but in the depths of Selkirk Forest it had been twilight for days.

  Yesterday morning, following the course of a river whose breadth had been matched by a wide channel of sky, they’d had a brief respite from the gloom, but before long the train of three hundred knights and squires had veered south-west away from the river, deeper into the Forest. Thorny bushes and briars snaked across the uneven ground, where steep banks rose only to fall sharply into bracken-filled dells, riven by networks of frozen burns. It was an endless, monochrome expanse of white snow and black trunks, punctuated by the odd shock of red from holly berries.

  ‘Recognise any of this, Bruce?’

  Robert, riding a piebald palfrey that was several hands shorter than Hunter and thus better to navigate through the dense woodland, didn’t have to look round to know it was Valence who had spoken.

  As the knight tried to manoeuvre his horse up alongside him, one of the Carrick knights accompanying Robert kicked his mount in between them.

  Valence laughed. ‘No need to be concerned. We are all friends here.’ He leaned forward in his saddle to peer around the man at Robert. ‘Aren’t we, Bruce?’ His mirth faded. ‘And it was a simple question.’