by J. R. Tomlin
The queen held out her hand. "And I do thank him. But I'm sure that's the least of your skills, Sir James. His Grace jests."
James strode to them and bent over her hand, his face burning. "I'm honored to serve my lord however I can. Even if it's only finding dinner."
The king laughed but it was harsh. "I never said it was his only skill. He shielded me whilst I lay on the field. I would have died that day but for my good Jamie. And but for my dear good-brother, Christopher." The king cleared his throat, his face twisting. "We won't grieve tonight. I swear it. It's a night for joy that you're with us."
"I said that day on the road that you'd serve us well, did I not?" She squeezed James's fingers. "I was right. We owe you a great debt."
"No debt--only my duty."
He pretended Isabella wasn't watching as he backed away.
Every day, word had filtered to them of another execution. They'd had much of grief and nothing of joy. James paced, muttering under his breath. The food really wasn't enough. It had never been enough since they'd been routed at Methven. He stood by the fire where the venison was spitted and a man turned it. Grease sputtered as it dripped and sent up a savory smell.
He spotted Boyd directing his men with the newly arrived horses. "Robbie," James called. "That man of yours--there's one who sings. He knows some fine ballads. He was singing just a night or two ago."
"Yes, Cailean has a mellow voice. He'll entertain the ladies. I'll be hard put to wait on that venison though. I swear my belly thinks I've given up food for lent."
James laughed. "It's not lent."
"Don't tell my belly that."
James joined in kicking out some fires so they'd have room for tables. Shadows grew long from the pine trees around the camp, and the wind cooled from the heat of the day. Their men pulled rough-hewed boards together and set up tables, a high table for the king and long side ones for the men.
The salmon lay ready for the ladies on a wooden trencher. A keg of wine sat at the end of the table. On the purple-carpeted hill, Bruce sat, daughter in his lap, his four brothers, his two sisters, his wife and her lady-in-waiting, Isabella, seated on the ground around him. The ladies had changed from their traveling clothes into gay colors. Isabella wore the blue that matched her eyes. James pretended he didn't watch her and kept pacing, checking that all was ready for the feast.
There was no seat of honor for the king, and they'd all share crude benches. James propped his foot on one and pressed, testing its steadiness. Only a small wobble on the uneven ground. It would have to do.
In the distance, a nightingale began its trilling, chirping evening song. The king led them down from the hill, and they passed no more than a foot from where James stood next to the tables. First, the king with the queen on his arm. A golden coronet gleamed amidst the piles of the queen's long hair. The king kept her close as he led her to the head of the table, and she never took her eyes from his face.
Next came Sir Edward, even after weeks in the field his blond head gleaming, younger and gayer than the king, with Isabella on his arm. James narrowed his eyes, gauging him. He held Isabella much too close to his side. This is what a man looked like when he seduced a woman, James brooded. She didn't even glance his way but kept her eyes on Sir Edward's face, laughing up at him.
After them came the others, the other brothers with their sisters between them, putting on happy faces at the king's command. And some of the laughter even rang true. Alexander, the slenderest and least warlike of the brothers, had his arm around his sister's shoulder, talking as they went. She was a wisp of a woman, her hair a tumble of auburn curls. Sir Niall was talking to his wife.
One of their men played a pipe whilst Cailean sang in a sweet voice:
A knight's young, when he thinks money's for burning;
When ruined, he smiles without a trace of ruth.
He's young when he throws stakes all on a bluff,
And feels that no fine armor is good enough.
He's young, if he's skilled in all lovers' passion,
And he's young, if he knows war is what life is for.
James looked once more towards Isabella laughing up at Sir Edward. He found he had a thirst, so he pulled a flagon of wine over. He poured himself a cup. Swallowing it down and refilling it, he stared into the bonfire that crackled, flames leaping into the air, lighting the table as the late summer light failed. Then he poured another and drank it.
There wasn't any reason she should be with him, not when she could sit with Edward Bruce. What was he but a lowly knight, ruined by their invaders?
"You making a dinner of that wine?" a voice said at his shoulder.
Boyd stood over him and gave James a light cuff. One of the knights paused in the midst of the bawdy story he'd been telling to scoot down and make room. Boyd straddled the bench. He reached for the wine flagon and poured himself a cup. "I told you she'd lead you a dance."
James knifed a hunk of venison from the middle of the table and let it slide onto the trencher in front of him. "No woman leads me a dance." He cut a slice of meat and stuffed it in his mouth, indignantly.
Boyd laughed. He was sharp featured with a scarred cheek from a fall in at Falkirk Battle, but there was always a hint of a jest in his blue eyes. "All women lead us a dance. It's what the good God made them for. Nothing to be ashamed of, lad."
One of the men got to his feet and began to sing a ballad about star-crossed lovers. James washed the meat down with his wine and sighed. "I suppose," James said in a flat voice. "But they don't lead Sir Edward in a dance."
"No, I suppose they don't. They like that he laughs. And that he's bold. In everything he does, few are bolder."
"Other men are bold."
"James, no one would question your courage. But you don't plunge in without thinking, and that's no bad thing. There are days when a knight needs more than boldness." Boyd put a hand on his shoulder.
James' hands shook. "Do you say I'm faint-hearted? I've never been accused of such a thing. Never." He spat the word out.
James realized that all talk at the table had ceased. They were staring at him. Holy St. Bride, he was picking a fight with Robbie Boyd. He pushed himself to his feet.
"I must be excused," James said with the last of his pride. He turned to leave before he could mortify himself further. He must have drunk more wine than he'd realized and on an empty stomach at that. His feet tangled with the bench and he lurched sideways, sending his cup, still half-full of wine, splashing across his chest. Someone laughed. James felt his face flood with heat. Boyd grabbed his shoulder to steady him, but James jerked away. He whirled and strode towards the trees.
In the shadow of the pines out of sight of the camp was dark and lonely. James spotted a sole sentry staring towards the mountains as he guarded against their enemies, his cloak blowing around him. From the clearing, the words of a song spilled through the trees. Singing was the last thing James wanted to hear. The stars did a fuzzy dance in the sky. He crossed his arms and leaned against the rough trunk of a tree, furious with himself for being a fool. She'd looked at another man. But why did it have to be Edward Bruce? He sank down onto the ground and held his head in his hands.
James awoke with a foul taste like goat piss in his mouth. It was early and the sun was still behind the mountain lending a golden cast to the eastern sky. He unfolded his long legs and stood up where he'd fallen asleep on the bank of the river, keeping a careful hand on a tree trunk. From the way his head pounded, it would be all too easy to tumble himself into the water. He leaned his head on his hand until he was steady.
Each pounding pulse of his head reminded him of his performance last eve. A man might be in his cups. But acting a fool had no excuse. His father would have cuffed him until his ears rang.
Kneeling by the fast flowing water, he splashed his face and tried to wash the taste out of his mouth. Every muscle ached, as it always did from sleeping in mail. Often they had to, but nothing would make it comfortable. He groane
d. The camp would need food. He had to go out and see what he could shoot. Soon they'd have to move. It was too dangerous to stay in one place long, and they were quickly depleting the game.
He swiped the water off his face and out of his short black beard with a hand. Time to get back to the camp. He could hardly skulk in the woods all day.
When he walked into the clearing, one of the tables was still set up with flat round loaves of oat bannock on it. Breaking off half of one, he took a tentative bite, not any too sure that his stomach would keep food. Instead of making him feel sicker, it settle the grumbling, so he poured himself a cup of wine and washed the bread down.
"Jamie, I didn't expect you'd be about so early." Boyd was looking him over, arms crossed and grinning.
"I'm not usually such a fool in my cups," James said sheepishly. "But my head feeling like it was kicked by a horse or not, I have to get us some food. You others mostly just chase the game away."
"I don't know what you mean. I caught a nice scrawny squirrel yesterday."
They'd set up a small pavilion for the ladies and a second for the king and queen. No one expected them to sleep in the open as the men did, but it had James chewing his lip when he looked at it. This matter of having the women with them could be a disaster, not that the king had been left much choice. Isabella stepped into the opening and smiled in their direction. James felt his heart turn over and shook his head. Fool.
She walked towards them and motioned to the food on the table. "I'm going to take something for the queen and the others to break their fast. They're tending to Christina." Isabella turned her face away. "She's taking it hard and who can blame her."
"No one, my lady," Boyd said. "The English king is crazed to do such things. To refuse ransom and execute such a man."
"You'll want some wine." James drew a flagon from the tapped cask that sat at the end of the table. She seemed so vulnerable today. Not at all how she had been last night.
She gave him a grateful smile as he carried it to the pavilion for her. Taking it from his hands, she said, "They don't need me for a while. Could we walk by the river?" Her cheeks colored. "I know I can't walk alone, and sitting inside, I think and I think."
"For a certainty, I will." Hunting could wait. When she stepped inside to give the other women their food, Boyd slapped James on the back of the head. He strolled off with a knowing smile that had James's face flaming.
At least, James had left the fish trap in the river yesterday. He couldn't forget there wouldn't be enough food if he didn't hunt. The way nobles usually hunted, with hunting dogs and beaters, hadn't prepared them for shooting and trapping food, as they had to do now.
Isabella stepped back into the opening of the pavilion. He found himself staring at the sweet, slender curve of her neck. Even seeing her made his body throb. James's heart hammered as he reached for her hand. Within his weapon-calloused fingers, hers felt as slender and fragile as the wing of a thrush.
"Come." He led her towards the trees that edged the river. For a while, they walked hand in hand along the rocky bank, the course gurgling beside them. Bees buzzed in the golden gorse.
Finally, she tugged his hand and stopped in the shade of a hoary old pine. "You were angry last night," she said and a smile curved her lips.
James snorted. "I was a fool, my lady. Yes, I was angry."
She reached up to run a finger along his cheek above the edge of his beard. "I meant you to be, you know. Oh, James, if we were home, how I would torment you." She still smiled but tears glistened in her eyes. "It's what a lady is supposed to do to a young knight who loves her."
"Perhaps I deserve it. I lost your favor--in the battle. I was never sure how. Will you forgive me?"
She laughed and shook her head. "There's nothing to forgive. I wish we had time--that things were not as they are. How you'd work to earn my heart even though you already have it."
He planted a hand against the pine and leaned over her so that she was pressed against the trunk of the tree. "Do I? Do I have your heart?"
She shuddered as she slid her fingers into his hair. He drew her against him before he pressed his mouth down hard on hers. He felt her lips soften, part for him. Then his tongue was probing, pushing, and, in some odd way, drinking up whatever it was that was inside her that drove him insane. He braced his hand on the pine behind her to keep from crushing her with his weight and pressed his body close. She was small, soft, and warm against him. He heard a faint, helpless moan and knew it came from her.
The taste of her mouth was honey but not nearly as sweet as its softness or the dart of her tongue against his or the painful surge of heat that spread through him. A few moments ago, he had been calm. Now he burned.
Suddenly, she recoiled and pushed both hands against his chest.
James was shuddering like a lathered horse as he pulled away. He still felt the ghost of her mouth on his and clenched his fist to keep from grabbing her back again.
"We can't do this," she whispered. Before he could stop her, she darted away, lifting her skirts to run towards the camp. He let her go, following her at a distance to see she got back safely.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Glendochart, Scotland: July 1306
The men-at-arms were lazing about the camp in the dusk, gathered in clumps around small fires. No feast would be held although the king and his ladies were eating their evening meal at what had been last night's high table. No one expected them to eat oat bannocks or a half-burnt bit of venison whilst sitting on the ground.
Lady Elizabeth motioned to James to join them as the king severed the leg off a grouse and handed it to her. "You'll have a place between Lady Isabella and me, Sir James." She raised an eyebrow at her husband. "I saw that he brought these this afternoon. And you, my lord, returned empty handed."
Bruce smiled genially. "So I did. James has an amazing knack for it." He waved James towards a place at the bench.
James knew his face was hot, but he took the place anyway. The Lords of Douglas weren't so great that he expected a place next to the queen, but a camp of fleeing fugitives was nowhere for ceremony. When he turned to Isabella to offer her a slice of the grouse from his knife, a smile flittered across her lips. He paused.
Across the table, Edward Bruce, seated next to the elderly Earl of Atholl, was frowning at him. Thomas de Bruce smirked in James's direction, an amused tilt to his eyebrows.
"My lady?" He offered her the slice of meat.
She inclined her head, indicating her bannock trencher. As he gave it to her, he kept wondering what that smile was about. Had she had something to do with this strange invitation to sit between her and the queen?
Lady Marjorie, seated next to the king, began kicking the table, and he rested his hand on her shoulder. He leaned over to whisper a word in her ear. The child wrinkled her nose at him but sat still.
Isabella squared her shoulders after a moment and turned to James with a smiling mien. "Someone told me that you grew up in Bishop Lamberton's household, Sir James."
He thought about it for a moment, wondering if he truly wanted to talk about where he grew up and then shrugged. Why not? "I wouldn't say I grew up there although I was his squire for several years."
He stripped the meat off the leg of a grouse with his teeth and waited whilst both ladies turned to him in surprise. "I would have sworn that his Grace told me so," the queen said.
"I was the bishop's squire. He has the right of it there." James tilted his wine cup one way and then another, looking into the dark liquid. "I'd been my father's page. When he deemed it too dangerous for me to remain with him and Wallace, he sent me to my uncle, the Stewart. Then the English wanted me for a hostage. Sending me to France to keep me out of their hands was--" He paused. The story of his father's death was a grim one. He wasn't eager to remind them of it. Still his time in Paris hadn't been so bad. "--was why he was sent to the London Tower, but I had a bit of a wild life in Paris. I learned a skill or two that most pages aren't taught.
Things like how to trap your dinner."
Isabella took a small bite of the grouse and chewed it thoughtfully. "So how did you end up in Bishop Lamberton's household?"
"When I returned from France, he took me in. He had lost track of where I was hidden. I think my father feared anyone knowing."
"I'd never heard that, Jamie." The king leaned forward on his elbows to give James a considering look.
"There was much that happened those years, Your Grace. The adventures of one lost page were hardly of moment."
Christina, the king's grieving sister who hadn't spoken all evening, tilted her head and smiled at him. "Lord of Douglas. Nephew and godson of the Stewart. Hardly just a lost page, Sir James."
He took a gulp of his wine to give himself time to think of an answer, besides that as long as the English held Douglasdale, he was no true lord. It seemed for the moment she wasn't thinking of the horror of her husband's death. He had no desire to remind her. "Most had more important things to think of," he said with a smile. "It was beyond kind for my lord bishop to go to so much trouble for me."
The large fire in the middle of the camp had burned down to a pile of glowing embers, and the camp was dark and quiet. Sir Niall Campbell rose from his place to send out men to relieve the sentries. The king stretched and stood to help his wife from her place. Everyone was quickly on their feet so as not to be sitting whilst the king stood.
"Your Grace," Isabella said, "I'm too restless to retire yet. My mind seems to be a muddle of thoughts that will not be still, and I’m sure I won’t sleep. If you permit, I'll walk for a while, or else I'll be poor company, I fear."
"Not alone," the king said.
"For a certainty not," the queen replied, and James was sure he heard a smile in her voice. "I believe Sir James was good enough to escort her earlier. Mayhap he would do so again."
"It would be my honor." He looked from Isabella to the queen. What in the name of St. Bride had she told the queen? One never knew with a woman, such foreign creatures.