A Kingdom's Cost, a Historical Novel of Scotland

by J. R. Tomlin

  To the south, all of Annandale stretched away, hills covered with green--pastures and pines like waves of the sea. Patches of gray and purple. Rocks? Heather? From this height, he couldn't tell one from the other.

  How long did they have before an English army marched across it? Weeks? No, probably longer. But they would come.

  The wind ruffled his hair. It brought a green scent of growing springtide and underneath somewhere rain from clouds over the distant mountains. From that direction, Robert de Bruce, Earl of Carrick, Lord of Annandale, soon to be King of the Scots would ride.

  James unhooked his water flask from his saddle and filled a palm for the horse to drink and then bent to pour half of it over his head and smoothed his hair back. After such a long ride, he'd like to look at least presentable to greet the earl. He rubbed his chin, rough with stubble. Time to grow himself a beard. He grinned.

  Squinting, he looked down to where the road curved around a hill in the distance. The sun rose in the sky, and morning wore on, a spring warmth soaking in. An eagle circled high overhead, screaming as it rode the wind. James shifted. Patience, he told himself. They would come.

  At last, in the distance, horsemen turned into view, banners fluttering over their heads. James waited. A gust caught one of the banners, and it showed clearly even in the distance--the great gold and red lion banner of Scotland.

  Well out from the road and before the main party, outriders in mail armor paced the throng. One in the lead turned his horse to gallop back, and a shouted warning drifted to James's ear.

  James gathered his horse's reins and walked towards the entourage. A tinkle of music came to him, minstrels playing as they went. Robert de Bruce, tall and ruddy golden, upright in the saddle, rode in the lead. He wore a cloth-of-gold tabard that outshone the sun. Embroidered on its breast in crimson was a lion, roaring its defiance. Beside him rode a lady clothed in purple. Behind, putting the peacock to shame, trailed a hundred men and women under dozens of banners and pennons.

  After a glance, James's eyes returned to the man all in cloth-of-gold. This was what a warrior king should look like, he thought as the man rode towards him.

  James stopped in the road. Waited. His face went hot and then cold. What if this king didn't want him? He brought nothing but his good hands with a blade. Lord of Douglas as he should be, yet no men behind him. And not even himself yet a knight. The lord of Douglas who should lead a thousand spears into the field. He tilted up his chin, searching this soon-to-be king's face as he neared.

  Bruce raised his hand and a trumpeter sounded the halt. He rode a little further until he was past the minstrels, looking down on James and finally beckoned him forward. A smile touched the broad planes of Bruce's face, teeth gleaming against his tanned skin. "Do I know you, friend? You seem familiar."

  Douglas bowed deeply. "You know my former lord, Bishop Lamberton, and I guarded the doors for the two of you one night in Stirling town. He sends you greetings and a message that he will see you at Scone."

  Bruce leaned back slightly, raising his eyebrows. "That's good news indeed. But your former lord? Now I remember. You're James Douglas. Sir William le Hardi's lad."

  James met Bruce's blue eyes. He knew this was the right choice. "Now I would serve you, Sire, as your loyal man. As my father would have. To the death if that be God's will." He found a lump strangely lodged in his own chest. "I've waited for a king these years. I know I bring you nothing--no people, my lands stolen. I have only my own sword. Yet, I would serve you, and I pray you will have me. I'd fight for your kingdom and my own people." James stopped and swallowed, his face scalding. Bruce must think him witless. "Forgive me, Sire."

  "I would to God I had more such to forgive." Bruce stood in his stirrups and swung from his saddle, tossing aside his reins. He held out his hands. "Come, lad. Give me your oath."

  James took a step and dropped to both knees, his heart racing, reaching up to place his hands between those of his king. "I, James of Douglas, become your man in life and in death, faithful and loyal to you against all men that live, move or die. I declare you to be my liege lord and none other--so may God help me and all the Saints."

  "By the favor of God, I take you as my man." For a moment, Bruce's big, sword-calloused hands tightened on his. "Now, rise."

  Chapter Four

  Scone, Scotland: March 1306

  Below the hill, every sort and color of flag and banner and pennant flew over a city of tents. From it streamed smiling and laughing men and women, gaily dressed, up the hill and into the Abbey. James found a place at the back where the warm March sun poured through. He wouldn't put himself forward. That was a right he would win, he knew it. But there might be days--not often, but a few--when being young and dispossessed was an advantage. He'd see them all as they passed. He rested his back against the wall near the door to watch.

  Bruce's brothers, dressed in flamboyant velvets, came in, laughing loudly and talking. Nigel Bruce was the oldest of the four, big and broad-shouldered, looking every bit the jouster that James had heard he was. Alexander, the slender one, was said to be a scholar. Edward Bruce was tall and golden with flashing blue eyes, and the other, Thomas, was a leaner, dark-haired version of the king.

  James recognized Sir Niall Campbell from when the muscular, red-haired highlander had called upon the bishop, and with him was the blond Englishman, Sir Christopher Seton. Today, the Campbell was fine in a gray silk tunic and on one arm a lady who James supposed was his wife, Mary Bruce, the king's sister. She was bonny, all dressed in blue and laughing up at her husband. Behind them strolled the gray-haired Earl of Atholl.

  "Enjoying the minstrel show?" a voice said, close at hand. James turned and faced a man of middling height, sharp-faced with long brown hair going gray and a scar angled across his cheek. "If there weren't a show, someone would say he wasn't the king."

  "But a king must be crowned." James blinked, confused at why the man would call the coronation such.

  "You don't remember me, do you? Robbie Boyd." He held out a hand.

  James' eyes widened as he clasped the man’s forearm. He hadn't recognized Boyd at all from those days when this man and his father had been close companions of Wallace's. "You were a friend of my father's. I remember you well." He grinned. "I was but a lad, and I thought you were eight feet tall."

  Boyd laughed. "Then you must have thought Wallace was a true Goliath." He poked James with an elbow and nodded to a scowling man with Sir Philip de Mowbray at the front of the Abbey. "Look. The Earl of Strathearn with a face like someone threatened to cut off his head."

  The man's face was furrowed in a scowl.

  "Why would he look like that?" James asked.

  "Because I told him I would if he didn't pay homage to the king. Lennox said killing him was a bad idea, but I'm not so sure. Puling weakling. We had to kidnap him to get him here, but we needed to make a good show. Not that it isn’t war. But they won’t say earls weren’t at our king's crowning." Boyd's eyes narrowed. "Even if it's only four."

  The thought of the Earl of Lennox and Sir Robert Boyd kidnapping the Earl of Strathearn had him speechless. He stared at Boyd. "You kidnapped him?"

  Boyd's teeth flashed in a grin, stretching the narrow scar on his cheek.

  James scratched his new beard that was itching like a wolfhound pup full of fleas. True, most of those who should be here weren’t, but the idea of kidnapping an earl was more than he could fathom. Then it hit him that the MacDuff wasn't here. Of course, he was still a lad and in English hands. But who would place the crown on the king's head? It had always been the right and duty of the MacDuffs.

  He started to mention it to Boyd just as trumpets, two lines of them, blared a fanfare that made James's ears ring. They resounded again.

  Robert de Bruce strode between them into the Abbey and past the spectators up to the high altar. There he took his place on a massive throne. A low murmur went through the crowd. James glanced at Boyd, and the man met his eye, shrugging.


  "No piece of rock makes a king," Boyd muttered.

  No Scottish king had ever been crowned before without being seated upon the Stone of Destiny that King Edward Longshanks had stolen. It didn't matter, surely, but it left a queer feeling in James's belly anyway.

  The new queen, Lady Elizabeth de Burgh, entered through a side door to take her seat on a smaller throne to the side. Then Bishop Lamberton came out followed by the stooped, gray-haired Bishop Wishart and brawny Bishop of Moray, all in richly embroidered, scarlet ecclesiastical robes. The chant of a choir floated through the abbey as the bishops clothed the king in the gorgeous purple and gold royal vestments. The Abbot of Scone swung a censor. The sweet scent of incense filled the air.

  Lamberton's sonorous Latin Mass rolled over them, full of swelling anthems and dramatic pauses. Halfway through, James smothered a laugh at Boyd's sigh. As dramatic as the coronation was--it was long. But James caught his breath when the choir broke into a swelling Gloria in Excelsis.

  The bishop brought the sacred oil and anointed the king.

  James jumped when the trumpets sounded. And again.

  Bishop Wishart strode to the altar and took the crown. It was a simple substitute for the one stolen by the English king, nothing more than a golden circlet. Again the trumpets sounded. The bishop placed the crown on the head of Robert de Bruce.

  All around him, people jumped and cheered.

  "God save the King," James roared with everyone in the Abbey. Boyd was grinning again as he joined in the shouts. "God save the King!"

  Someone pushed past James and a line began to form. Soon it stretched out the door. James craned to see what was happening. The Earl of Strathearn stood first in place and Philip de Mowbray behind him.

  Boyd was worrying his lip with his teeth, and James raised his eyebrows at him.

  Boyd shrugged. "Mowbray is kin to the Comyns. Can't say I trust him, but he's here."

  Bruce took Strathearn's hands in his, but the mumble that followed was indecipherable from where James stood. From the look of it, the rest of the day would be homage taking. James elbowed his way to the door with a wave to Boyd. James's homage and his loyalty, the king already had of him.

  Below the buildings of the Abbey of Scone where it thrust into the sapphire sky, James wandered through the tent city that sprawled on the flats of the river. Near the slope of the hill, colorful silken pavilions of the lords and ladies sat under flapping banners, Bruce, Mar, Atholl, Lennox, Stewart, Hay, Lindsay, Strathearn and Campbell and the bishops and abbots. He passed tent booths where merchants cried, hawking their wares. Meat sizzling over braziers, sending up a scent that made his mouth water. Boys wander through the growing crowd crying pies for sale. James stopped under a merchant's sharp-eyed gaze to look at a brooch with a fine blue stone, but he had no lady to give it to or money to buy it. He strolled on.

  Anyway, what was important lay ahead beyond more flying banners. The tourney grounds stretched out to beyond his sight.

  The silver that the bishop had given him along with a gift from the king had bought a charger after he had returned the bishop's palfrey to the horse-master. James chuckled at the memory of the man's glare. Earlier in the day, he'd paid for a new shield and had it painted with the blue chief and three white stars of Douglas. Tomorrow would be the tourneys, and he would have his first chance to show what he could do.

  * * *

  James ran a hand down the mail that covered his chest. The new armor was a gift the king had sent along with a sword finer than James had ever held. He'd spent hours in the night polishing them so that they gleamed.

  The tourney had been delayed because of a second crowning.

  The night before at the end of the homage taking, Isabella MacDuff had ridden in on a warhorse she had stolen from her husband, John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, with a troop of her own MacDuff men-at-arms. She'd claimed her family's right to place the crown on the king's brow.

  She was dark-eyed and had laughed with pleasure when the king said they'd have a second crowning. James was hard pressed to picture her married to the doddering old Comyn of Buchan. She would be with the queen today, for the queen had taken her as a lady-in-waiting. Isabella had smiled at James when she'd passed him. He hoped she'd be pleased if he won the squire's tourney. But most likely she'd be more interested in Sir Edward Bruce. All the women seemed to watch him from the corners of their eyes.

  Even now the horns blew. A scream went up from the stands and hooves thundered.

  The knights rode first. James would have liked to watch, but his nerves jangled too much to be still. Anyway, hours standing around in mail would have him sweating like a horse, hard-ridden. He intended to show himself well to his new liege. It was worth missing the older men pounding at each other. The king's brother Nigel, the Campbell, and many of the lords were riding now. Everyone said that Sir Nigel would win, that he was second only to the king in the tourney. Of course, the new king would not ride. It wouldn't have been fair since none would dare strike him. To strike the king was lese-majesty and treason.

  James hadn't broken his fast when the others had, his stomach all knotted with nerves. He passed one of the braziers where a man turned sausages over a flame. Fragrant smoke of pork and sage rose from the dripping fat. His stomach rumbled. It was no good having a belly so empty that his hand was unsteady, so he bought a sausage and swallowed it down. He licked the grease off his fingers.

  The merchant gave him a friendly smile. "Luck, young sir."

  "I'm no sir yet. But if I please the king--" James waved as he went on.

  He came within sight of the lists and the temporary galleries packed with people. At the end in their own stand, sat the king and queen surrounded by their familiars. The king's three younger brothers, Edward, Alexander and Thomas, stood about talking. Near the queen sat Isabella MacDuff, slender, full-breasted in her tightly-laced gown, graceful as she leaned to whisper to the queen, a honey-colored braid falling over a shoulder to her waist. He'd heard whispers that she'd never return to her husband, who'd sworn to kill the king for the death of his cousin at Greyfriars Church. James caught his breath, but grunted softly. This was no time to be thinking of a woman. Winning to show the king what he could do should be what he thought of this day.

  He walked along the edge of the field, leading his charger, smaller than the destriers some rode. He liked one light enough to take a turn when needed. The monstrous destriers, once started, were lumbering oxen that took yards to change direction.

  The lists were torn from the pounding hooves of the huge beasts. A servant ran out and raked at the ground to smooth it, but it wouldn't last. James walked down the line of lances, now only a quarter filled, running his finger up one here and there. At last, he took one and hefted it.

  The purse for the squire who won wouldn't match that of the knights, but winning it would still be a fine thing. The king had forbidden forfeiting armor or horses. They rode for gold and glory.

  At the other end of the field, Thomas Randolph paced. He was a year older and heavier through the shoulders, the king's nephew. His armor gleamed silver in the sunlight. Mayhap later, they'd tilt against each other.

  At the end of the field, all a-dazzle in gold, Sir Nigel Bruce raised a hand to the cheers and screams of delight from the gallery. He kicked his horse to a thunderous gallop, lance couched. Sir Niall Campbell leaned sideways adjusting his aim. Nigel shifted and kicked his horse to an even faster gallop. They crashed together. Nigel's lance exploded from the impact. Sir Niall Campbell seemed to fly from the saddle and land flat with a jarring thud. The gallery erupted in cheers. Sir Niall's squire ran out to him to unfasten his helm and lift his head. Nigel rode a victory circuit of the field bowing as he went, stopping to bend down and kiss one of the women. Finally, he stopped in front of his brother. As the queen gave him the champion's purse, Sir Niall limped off the field.

  Now the squires had their turn, and James's heart was thumping in his chest. Only a score had entered the
lists. Many didn't have the armor or mount for it, but this was James's first chance to show the king his mettle. He wouldn't waste it.

  James jumped into the saddle, shoving his feet into the irons and glancing towards his opponent, Sir Nigel's own squire. Riding a caparisoned destrier, much heavier than James's charger, the squire couched his lance and nudged his horse to walk to the end of the field.

  James settled into the high-backed saddle. On that beast, his opponent could hit like thunder but once started it couldn't swerve. If his opponent landed a good blow... James laughed. He'd see that didn't happen. A trumpet blew. James kicked his lighter steed to a gallop. Steady, letting him get a good aim, James rode straight ahead. At the last second, James jerked the reins and his horse danced aside. With every bit of his strength, he turned his lance to land a blow. It slammed into his opponent's shield and lifted him out of the saddle. The squire landed on the ground with a crash.

  The gallery yelled and screamed their approval as James slowed his horse to a trot. He bowed to the king and queen. Isabella met his eyes and smiled. He thought his heart had stopped.

  Thomas Randolph rode next and easily unhorsed his opponent. James stood letting his mount cool and sending glances towards Isabel. Once she cut her eyes his way and smiled at him. He bowed to cover his flush. Hopefully, she hadn't seen it. But she was watching him.

  A score more courses were run, squires unhorsing each other one after another. James rode to tilt again against young Walter, heir of the Stewart. The lad seemed too young for it. James unhorsed him on their first pass. He was a cousin, and James breathed a sigh of relief when he hopped to his feet and caught his horse's reins.