The Steps to the Empty Throne bt-1

The Steps to the Empty Throne bt-1 Page 31

by Nigel Tranter

  At the banquet which followed, Bruce was given the place of honour-which did little to calm the turmoil of his mind. He sat between Edward and his son—which at least meant that he was spared close inquisition by the Queen, who sat on the monarch’s left. Edward of Carnarvon, Prince of Wales, had grown from boy into young man since last Bruce had seen him and proved to be a secret-faced, diffident youth of eighteen, who all the time kept a wary eye on his father—as well he might. Bruce found little to say to him. He had had no opportunity for a private word with Elizabeth—and now she was seated at some distance, with so many great lords and prelates requiring precedence. Her father was on the Prince’s left hand, and Lancaster, holder of five earldoms, on the Queen’s right.

  Edward remained amiable, almost alarmingly so, pressing food and drink on his guest. So far there had been no hint of reproach, much less condemnation. Nor was there any hint of what was behind this change of front, what the Plantagenet required from him. That it did not all proceed from the essential kindness of his heart, Bruce had little doubt.

  At length, when the meal had progressed to the stage of picking, toying and drinking, with entertainment from tumblers, jesters and musicians, the younger man was driven to direct questioning.

  “Sire,” he said “you have brought me here for good purpose, I have no doubt. What do you require of me?”

  The other looked at him as though astonished.

  “Why, Robert—your good company and presence. Your love and leal esteem.

  What else? Is that so stranger” “You have been fighting me, hunting me, burning my lands, taking my castles. I see little of love and esteem in that. Why have you changed?”

  “Because circumstances have changed, boy. Then we were at war, and you

  chose to go against me, to my sorrow. Now there is truce. I hold this

  land, South Scotland, in my hand. And shall soon hold the North. All

  is changed. You have lost much. No longer is your insurrection any

  threat to my peace. I may allow my natural affection for you to prevail. Did not Sir John tell you all this ? Is it not proven by my tokens of goodwill offered ?”

  “I conceived there to be something more, Sire. Your Majesty is namely for hard bargaining!”

  “You say so? But, that is when I am fighting. When I have won, it is otherwise. Think you I cannot be magnanimous?”

  “You believe that you have won, then?”

  “Should I not? I sit here in Linlithgow’s hall, secure. My armies straddle the land.”

  “There is a deal of Scotland north of Forth.”

  “No doubt. But I have conquered it before. And can do again, if need be. It is my hope that I shall not have to.”

  “The North will not yield tamely. If that is what you hope.”

  “You think not? But… you have yielded, have you not?”

  “No, Sire. I have not yielded.”

  “No?” Edward turned in his great chair, to eye the younger man wonderingly.

  “Do my eyes, my wits, fail me?”

  “I came under the safe conduct of an honourable man, Sire.

  Sir John de St. John. Who vowed, in your royal name, that I could turn and go again, freely, should so I decide. I came, in time of signed truce, to discover your mind. Further to what St. John told me. Is that yielding?”

  The King toyed with his goblet, narrow-eyed.

  “But you came, my young friend—you came!” he said softly.

  “I came, yes. But I did not bring my brothers, Sire! If by mischance I am prevented from returning to them, there are four of them still to head the Bruce power!”

  “What Bruce power?”

  The other took a quick breath, but was silent, biting his lip.

  “Let us not misjudge, my young friend,” Edward said, then.

  “Between power and love. Esteem. You nave no power. None left. But my esteem and love can raise you again. High. High as you must needs be if you are to counter John Comyn.” He paused.

  “Let us look reality in the face, Robert. It has ever been my custom.”

  “I

  have, perhaps, more power left than you believe.”

  “I think not. I have made shift to discover. Your earldom of Carrick lies shattered and occupied by my forces. Your father’s lordship of Annandale is a blackened waste. As are the Bruce lands in Galloway. You have less than three hundred men, hiding like outlaws in Ettrick Forest. That is your strength and power, Robert. A notable heritage squandered.”

  “Squandered …! You are well informed, Sire. But have you forgot? I have friends, allies, kinsmen. As well as brothers.”

  “Most in little better state than you are! How many would give what they have left to aid one so weak as the Earl of Carrick ? Weak, that is, today. Tomorrow you could be strong again.

  for you have a better friend than any of these, lad. You nave Edward of England for friend.”

  Bruce said nothing.

  “This matter of the earldom of Mar. The late lord was your brother-in-law twice over, was he not? Your sister’s husband, and your wife’s brother? Control of the heir and his inheritance, until he is of age, could greatly aid you.”

  “And will. I am my nephew’s closest kinsman.”

  “If I grant you that control. The wardship of all earls who are minors is in the gift of the Crown.”

  That was true only if Edward was King of Scots. But this was no time to debate that assumption.

  The Plantagenet did not give opportunity, anyway.

  “There are three great royal properties, hunting-forests, bordering on the Mar earldom. Each with strong castles. Kintire, Darnaway and Long morn. At present keeper less The man who held those, with Mar and the Garioch, would be a force in the North, indeed. Comyn’s country.”

  Bruce still made no comment.

  “I make a progress up to those parts in a few months, sword sheathed or sword drawn. When the weather opens. Think on it, Robert. Think on it.” Abruptly the monarch pushed back his great chair, and rose. All men hastily rose after him.

  “My dear,” he said to the Queen, “we retire. You will be tired. Come.” He held out his arm. Edward of England had had enough of being pleasant for one evening.

  Bruce looked ruefully after the hastening ladies. Elizabeth de Burgh was the only one who was not tripping and scurrying. But even she had had time for only a single significant glance at him, in passing.

  It was fully two hours later, with Bruce preparing for bed in the small

  tower room which he had been allocated—eloquent of his present

  prestige, as sole occupant, in the overcrowded palace where great men

  were sharing rooms—when a tapping at the door announced a slender, pale and pimply youth, a walking clothes-horse of magnificence, who introduced himself as Harry Percy, a page of Her Majesty, and son of Northumberland. He came from the Lady Elizabeth de Burgh, he declared in a dramatic whisper. Would the lord Earl accompany him? But discreetly, very discreetly. And to wear a cloak.

  While declining actually to tip-toe after this chinless apparition who was the Lord Henry Percy’s son and heir, Bruce did follow him, intrigued. He was led down a winding back stairway, across a cluttered yard where wine-barrels were stacked, through a range of stabling to the outer-bailey, and then by a postern gate, where an armed guard looked the other way, stamping his feet with the cold. Thereafter, down a grassy hillside path of a pleasance garden, they came to the shore of Linlithgow Loch. Here a skiff lay, dipping to the babble of the black water. Harry Percy pointed.

  “The island, my lord,” he breathed.

  “You can just see it.” And with elaborate caution, like a stealthy crane, he paced back whence he had come.

  Bruce seated himself in the boat, and took up the light oars.

  The island was nearer and smaller than it had seemed in the darkness, a mere couple of hundred yards from the shore. It was probably no more than an acre in extent, grown with ornamental trees and bushes. There was a little jetty, with rustic steps and rail. Here a dark cloaked figure stood.r />
  “Come, my lord. And haste you. For it is plaguey cold!” Elizabeth greeted him. She held out a hand to aid him ashore.

  He said nothing, was in no state for eloquence. But he hung on to that hand.

  “This way,” she directed, leading him along a narrow path through dripping bushes.

  “You were sufficiently discreet, I hope?”

  “Discreet…!” he croaked.

  “You speak of discretion!”

  Her tinkle of laughter sounded amused, at least.

  A more solid blackness loomed before them, a building of some sort.

  She drew him inside, and closed the door.

  “It is a bower. A summer bower, fashioned like a grotto,” she explained.

  “More comfortable in summer than now, I fear. But at least here we may speak alone. We are safe.” She disengaged her hand.

  It was Bruce’s turn to jerk a short laugh.

  “I can think of few women who would bring a man to such a place, in the night, and then declare that they were safe!”

  “Why, sir—am I mistaken in you?” She did not sound really alarmed.

  “That I do not know. But… I am a man, you’ll mind, Elizabeth!”

  “But a cautious man. Did not the Queen say so?”

  He sensed the smile behind the words, though he could not see it. He could see only the vague cloaked shape of her—but he was very conscious of her woman’s presence, her nearness, in that confined space.

  “I would not say that caution has been my guide in life, till this,” he told her, a little breathlessly.

  “Any more than yours, I think.”

  “I have been sufficiently cautious where you have been concerned, at least. Have I not? Until now, perhaps.”

  “Elizabeth-you have been kind, most kind. Your letters—I do not know how I would have done lacking them. They saved my reason, I think. Apart from the word of Edward’s plans, which so greatly aided me. For that, I thank you. But the letters their words, their warm, kind words. I have read them and read them. I carry them always. Indeed I have them here, in my doublet now …”

  “Then that is very foolish of you, sir! I believed you to have burned them. For my name is on them. If they fell into wrong hands, were shown to the King … I Besides, I would not have thought it of you. Of Bruce, Lord of Carrick, who was Guardian of Scotland. A warrior, a man above such soft toyings. No callow youth—indeed, a married man, with a daughter …”

  “A man who needs a woman the more, then.”

  “Ha! A woman? But Bruce can have any woman. Almost!

  Can he not? Can have many women. Lord of great possessions.

  Of men—and of women! He needs not to cherish poor paper and ink to his bosom.”

  “No,” he said. His hands reached out to grasp her arms, through the cloak.

  “No. Not now.”

  She did not draw away from him; but nor did she come closer.

  “You have not forgot that I named you witless dolt. And masterful ape!”

  no,” he agreed.

  “Nor ever shall.” He pulled her to him, his lips seeking her face in

  the hooded cloak. The young woman turned her face away a little, so

  that his lips met only the damp fur-trimmed broadcloth.

  “My Lord Robert,” she objected, “if a woman you so greatly need, perhaps I might even find one for you. There are many at this Court who would serve you willingly, even hotly, I swear! For myself, I am … otherwise.”

  “What do you mean? Otherwise?”

  “I am no… serving-woman, sir. I am Elizabeth de Burgh.”

  “You think I do not know it, woman? Think you I would be thus with any other? It is Elizabeth de Burgh I want, have ached and pined for, have dreamed of, sought and awaited. Aye, and prayed for. All these years. You—your beauty and proud spirit.

  Your adorable person and Comeliness.” He had pushed aside her hood now, and was gasping this into her hair and against her ear, her soft turned cheek.

  “So it is my body you want, my Lord Robert? Not just any woman’s.

  Here is advance…!”

  “Aye, your body, girl. But your love, also. Your love, your heart…”

  “Ah, but love is a different matter.” She turned to face him again, but held her head well back, almost pushing from him, as though she would search his face there in the darkness.

  “Love is not just hot desire. Such as I can feel in you. As I have felt in other men. The heart is more than the body…”

  “Do I not know it! My heart has beat for you, and only you, for long grievous years. My body longed for yours, yes. But the body that holds your heart, my love. I want, desire, need both.

  My love for you has been eating me up. These many, many months. When I despaired ever to see you again. Yet still loved and hoped. And now—to have you, hold you, here I It is more than flesh and blood can stand … “Ah, Robert—so it is love! Then, my dear, I yield. Sweet God, I yield me!” Suddenly, fiercely, she was pressing forward, against him.

  “And, save us—I conceive your flesh and blood to be standing very well, my heart…!” she got out, before his mouth closed on hers, and their lips and tongues found greater eloquence than in forming foolish words.

  The man’s hands were almost as busy as his mouth—nor were the girl’s totally inactive, either. He shrugged his own cloak to the floor, and hers quickly followed it. Then he was tugging at her gown, while still he all but devoured her with his kissing.

  Her defter touch came to aid him, and the taffeta fell away from her shoulders. The pale glimmer of her white body was all that he could see, but his urgent fingers groped and stroked and kneaded the smooth, warm, rounded flesh of her, serving him almost better than his eyes, her nobly full, firm breasts filling the ecstatic cups of his hands to overflowing, as they overflowed the cup of his delight.

  Suddenly he was down, kneeling, his lips leaving hers to seek those proud, thrusting breasts, the exultant nipples reacting with their own life and vigour. She bent over him, crooning into his hair, her strong arms clasping him to her, rocking.

  But their need was a living, growing thing, a progression, and quickly even this bliss was insufficient. He drew her down to him, pulling at the gown’s folds which a golden girdle held around her waist; and willingly she came, loosening it. The spread cloaks on the floor received them, and with swift, sure cooperation she disposed herself, guiding his clamant manhood and receiving him into her vital generosity.

  The man fought with himself to control the hot tide of his passion, to give her time. Blessedly she required but little, and together their rapturous ardour mounted and soared to the high, unbearable apex of fulfilment. With blinding, blazing release, and a woman’s cry of sheer triumph, they yielded themselves in simultaneous surrender into the basic, elemental oneness, a profundity of satisfaction hitherto unknown to either.

  So they lay there in the darkness, in blessed quiet and joyful exhaustion.

  Presently Elizabeth spoke, murmurously, stroking the man’s sweat-damp hair.

  “To think … that I… was cold!”

  “Cold? You!” His speech was a little slurred.

  “My adored and adorable. My heart and soul. My joy. My, my woman!”

  “Your woman, yes. And my man. Mine, Robert Bruce!”

  “Aye. Yours. It had to be. From the first. Elizabeth.” He turned her name over from slack lips, savouring it.

  “Elizabeth, my Elizabeth. You gave yourself as you do all else, my Elizabeth.

  With all your heart. And person. No laggard, sluggard lover!”

  “You think me bold? Shameless? Unwomanly?”

  “Bold, yes. Shameless, yes. For where is cause for shame? And were

  you not bold, brave, strong, a woman of your own mind, you would not be

  Elizabeth de Burgh of Ulster. But unwomanly . I’ faith, my dear,

  could there be anything more womanly than this, in all creation? I

  swear not.” And he ran strong, possessive, enquiring hands over all

  her rich voluptuousness, lingerin
g, pressing, probing.

  “Woman!” he sighed, burying his face between her breasts.

  “This body, yes. Oh, yes—that is woman. But I at times wonder whether I am sufficiently woman in my spirit. My father declares me more man than my brother! Perhaps I think too like a man.”

  “Have a man’s passions…”

  He chuckled.

  “As you have just shown me?”

  “Even so, it may be. In that I joyed in it, so! Is that not the man’s part? Is not the woman said to be the giver? The man the taker? I… I take, I fear. As much as I give!”

  “Aye, you took me into yourself with a right goodwill, lass, I’ll not dispute!” He grinned, kissing and fondling, “As woman.

  All woman. Taking me, and giving yourself, in most female fashion, by all the powers!”

  “There is a difference. Between taking and giving. In this. I cannot take without giving. But—I cannot give without taking.

  Some women can, must. I cannot. I am taking you, my heart, my man.

  Mine I I warn you—mine! Elizabeth de Burgh shares with none.”

  “Jealous, is it? A jealous woman?”

  “Aye. Jealous. In some things, I fear. In this. In you.”

  “So! I must not look at another woman? I am bound hereafter by these fair chains?” He twisted a coil of her yellow hair round his fingers.

  “Since you are a man, you will look, yes. Well I know it. You may look. Touch. Play with. Who knows, even lie with. This I could bear. Even laugh at, I think. But-should you ever give your heart to another. Take it from me. Then I would not forgive. Or accept. I would leave you. I might … I might kill you! So beware, Robert de Bruce! Think well.”

  “How can I dunk well, woman? With your nakedness filling my arms! Think any way? You bludgeon my poor wits. These-how may a man think with such as these stirring, pushing, be labouring him?”

  “Shall I cover them, then? It grows cold, perhaps. It must be cold, though I feel it not…”

  “No. Of a mercy-no covering I Not yet. Not yet a long while.

  The night is young. And we have waited long. So long. At least, I have. You—can it be that you have loved me also? Wished for me? These years?”

 

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