Kingdom

by Young, Robyn

  John bore the inspection without comment. He and his father might rule Argyll – their dominion radiating out from Dunstaffnage across the water to Mull, northern Jura, Coll and Tiree, and far inland through the wilds of Lorn – but the Black Comyn controlled a vast swathe of the north-east of the kingdom and was the former Constable of Scotland. Although he had lost some of his standing in the coup staged by Robert Bruce, he was still one of the most formidable men in the realm and commanded the utmost respect.

  ‘How is Sir Alexander?’ asked the earl, his deep voice gruff.

  ‘My father is recovering well from the last bout of fever. His strength returns day by day.’ John pressed in, impatience getting the better of him. ‘I know he would have wanted to greet you himself, had he known you were coming.’

  The Black Comyn grunted. ‘I’m afraid haste took precedence over etiquette.’

  ‘Haste? Are the English set for war?’ John felt a surge of anticipation. When the Black Comyn left his company a month ago, he hadn’t expected to see him again until he received word to head east and join forces with him and King Edward. ‘Are we to move on Bruce?’

  ‘The plan has changed.’

  John listened as the earl told him of Bruce’s defeat at the hands of Aymer de Valence, aided by Dungal MacDouall and the men of Galloway. He scowled at this, his initial eagerness dampened by his lack of involvement in the victory.

  The Black Comyn read his mind. ‘Do not fear, John, you will have your chance to make good on your blood oath. Indeed, sooner than we thought. By the time I returned to my wife’s estate at Leuchars, Valence had marched on Aberdeen, but I learned there that Bruce had already left the port and was making for Islay.’

  ‘The whoreson seeks the aid of Angus MacDonald,’ John murmured. His eyes narrowed as he plotted the various routes in his mind. Aberdeen to Islay would take Bruce directly through his lands. ‘Do we know when he left?’

  ‘A fortnight, give or take.’

  John shook his head. ‘Then he should have passed through already.’

  ‘There are women and children in his company. I suspect they came down through Drumalban, using the mountains as shelter. He may make for the pass.’

  ‘A dangerous road. If he takes Brander he’ll have to come by Dunstaffnage.’

  ‘He has five hundred men or more. He may hope to fight his way through.’

  ‘With women and children? He would have to be desperate to risk being trapped in the pass. No. There are other routes he could take.’ John’s frown deepened as he thought of Bruce’s allies. ‘Campbell,’ he muttered, thinking of the young man whose father he had slaughtered ten years ago. ‘He knows these lands.’

  ‘If we can block his path to Islay, will you and your men be ready to face him?’

  John smiled grimly. ‘Come.’ He led the earl to a set of stone steps that climbed the wall to the parapet. ‘You cannot see it from the road in.’

  They emerged on to the walkway above, the Black Comyn breathing hard, weighed down by mail. The guards nodded respectfully, making room for the two men to pass along the wall.

  Up here, the wind buffeted them, carrying on its currents the sour tang of the sea and the pungent stink from the outflow of the latrine chutes that opened on to the rocks sixty feet below. Banners, decorated with the black galleys of the MacDougall arms, snapped and billowed. The view was spectacular: dominated by rugged hills and immense stretches of water, all washed in twilight. Built on a wide slab of rock, Dunstaffnage glowered from its promontory over the Firth of Lorn towards the dark ramparts of Mull’s mountains. In the foreground was the lower lying hump of Lismore, over which the MacDougalls had fought bitterly with the MacDonalds for years. The two families, along with the MacRuaries, were all descended from the same man, Somerled, the King of the Isles, but that hadn’t stopped each branch warring for supremacy over the western sea kingdom.

  In one corner of the castle grounds stood an ornate chapel, bordered by a graveyard which together with gardens and an orchard made a patchwork of green. Ignoring the scattered collection of outbuildings, stables and boathouses, John pointed to the northern end of the promontory. ‘There.’

  The Black Comyn’s gaze focused on the scores of tents just visible through a shroud of trees. Many shadowy figures were highlighted by the glow of campfires. The camp stretched down to the water’s edge where, in a shallow bay that opened into the wide mouth of Loch Etive, a score of galleys undulated. At this distance, with their sails furled, the vessels looked like leaves floating on the current.

  ‘Almost a thousand at last count,’ John said, looking at the earl to see his reaction. ‘With more still coming in.’

  ‘Ready fighters?’

  ‘Ready and able,’ replied John, thinking of the rough Highlanders who had come down out of the hills and the leather-skinned men of the Isles who came from the sea, summoned by the beacons. These mercenaries and pirates, all keen for plunder, were augmented by disciplined knights of Argyll. Many had served his father for years, but it was he – John MacDougall – who would now lead them into battle against Bruce; he who would avenge the murder of his cousin, John Comyn. Blood demanded blood.

  ‘I have nigh on seventy with me here,’ said the earl, turning to him. ‘And I’ve sent word for my tenants, now gathering in Buchan with men from Sir John’s lands in Badenoch, to make their way west. Together, we’ll outnumber the bastard three to one.’

  ‘What about the English? Will they join us here?’ John’s anticipation was further whetted by the thought. His family had been enemies of the English king since the early days of John Balliol’s rebellion, only submitting with reluctance to Edward’s authority two years ago, along with the rest of Scotland’s magnates. But now Bruce had rebelled, taking the throne in defiance of John Balliol’s right and murdering his nephew, things had changed. If he helped defeat their common enemy, what would King Edward grant him in return? Perhaps the MacDougalls might finally hold sway over the Western Isles as their ancestor, Somerled, had.

  ‘I sent Captain MacDouall to the king at Durham to tell him Bruce’s plan, but it will take time for Edward to muster his forces. Indeed, I’m counting on it. The kinsmen of John Comyn deserve this victory. Not the English.’

  John smiled grimly. ‘I agree.’ Turning from the encampment, he led the way back down to the courtyard. A thought occurred to him. ‘Brother, how did you discover Bruce was headed for Islay?’

  The Black Comyn motioned to one of his knights. Grooms had led away most of the horses, except for the one with the sack draped over its back. As the earl ordered the knight to untie the burden, John realised it wasn’t a sack at all, but a man.

  As the ropes were unbound, he slid from the horse’s rump and collapsed in the dust of the courtyard. John thought him dead, until the earl’s knights hauled him to his feet. The glow of the torches highlighted the injuries on his face, a bloody mess of bruises and cuts. The skin around one of his eyes was swollen and purple, the eye itself red with blood. His lips were torn and more blood coated his neck and stained his shirt. He was a well-built man, about the same age as himself, John guessed, with black hair and a beard filthy with dust. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Alexander Seton,’ answered the Black Comyn with satisfaction. ‘One of Bruce’s commanders. He gave up the information. Eventually.’

  The broken man licked his lips and murmured something. John thought he caught the word bastard in the rasp of his voice.

  The earl nodded to one of the knights, who punched a mailed fist into Alexander’s stomach. Alexander doubled over in the clutches of his captors, retching and gasping.

  ‘I’ll send out scouts tonight,’ said John, looking back at his kinsman. ‘We’ll waste no time. If five hundred men are hiding in these hills, believe me they will find them. My galleys will patrol the coast, blocking the sea routes to Islay. By the blood of my cousin, Bruce will not make it to the haven of the MacDonalds.’

  ‘One last thing, John,’ said the Black Co
myn, gripping his shoulder. ‘I am told my wife is still in Bruce’s company.’ His voice was low, but emotion now simmered beneath the surface, his dark eyes glittering. ‘I want Lady Isabel taken alive – her and the man who took her to Scone, John of Atholl. They are mine, you understand?’

  ‘Of course, brother,’ said John, his own mind on the prize he wanted: the head of the false king, Robert Bruce.

  Near Ayr, Scotland, 1306 AD

  ‘You were a lion on the field today.’ Prince Edward watched Piers Gaveston recline on the rug beside him. It was damp where the evening dew had seeped through the weave.

  The Gascon knight rested his elbow on the ground and propped his head against his hand. In the other, he cradled a silver goblet, over the lip of which he met the prince’s gaze. ‘Proud, you mean to say?’ His eyes were black in the gold haze of the candles and his olive skin glistened with the sweat of a day spent fighting on the sun-baked bluffs.

  Edward smiled. ‘Fierce.’ He took a sip from his own goblet. The wine was warm and slightly tart. Setting it on one of the chests that lined the tent he lay back, resting his head on the rumpled blankets that formed his bed. Young men’s shouts and laughter echoed outside. The night air was redolent with wood-smoke, horse dung and roasting meat. ‘I’m surprised anyone else dared face you after you knocked poor Henry de Bohun so soundly from his horse.’ Edward’s smile faded. ‘I thought you had killed him.’

  ‘He was fine,’ retorted Piers. ‘The lad has spirit.’ He exhaled sharply when Edward’s expression didn’t change. Placing his own goblet on the rug, he reached across and touched his friend’s hand, where it was splayed on his stomach. ‘What is wrong, my prince? You’ve been quiet all afternoon.’

  Edward closed his eyes, feeling the heat of Piers’s palm as it closed over his hand and the calloused ridge of skin where the lance had rubbed, even through the protection of his gloves. ‘My father wouldn’t approve.’ Opening his eyes, he glanced at Piers. Seeing the knight was unsure of his meaning, he added, ‘Of these tournaments. Of our’ – he waved a hand to indicate the outside world – ‘frivolity.’

  ‘The king is hundreds of miles away.’

  ‘That does not mean he will not find out,’ said Edward darkly. Every error he made, his father always somehow unearthed it and brought it up to chastise or humiliate him. ‘What if Henry had died today? He’s the constable’s nephew!’

  ‘Your father has long been a lover of the tourney. My own father told me it was his greatest passion when he was in Gascony, a youth of your years now. His knights called him King Arthur, did they not?’

  ‘I know my father’s history,’ said Edward shortly. How could he not? It was part of the long shadow the man cast over him.

  ‘Then you are doing no more than he himself has done. You’ve often spoken of the jousts he organised in Wales for the men of his Round Table. He was famous for them. And, lest we forget, those celebrations in Perth a few years ago – a whole week of tournaments.’ Piers’s mouth curled in a self-satisfied smile. ‘At which I was crowned the victor.’

  Edward recalled Piers’s swagger at the victory feast and his drunken antics, the Gascon laughing as he leaned in and kissed him on the mouth in full public view, then slid a hand up the inside of his thigh under the table. He remembered too the looks and mutterings among the older barons and the stone-cold disapproval in his father’s eyes as he presented the cocksure knight with his prize. He frowned, not wanting to be distracted from the point of the conversation. ‘Those were celebrations of victory – when he had conquered his enemies.’

  ‘And what have you done here?’ pressed Piers. ‘You’ve taken Bruce’s castle, burned his lands and soaked the ground with the blood of his people. He will find no shelter in Carrick. We’ve destroyed his home.’ Piers threaded his fingers through Edward’s. ‘You are the conqueror now, my prince.’

  Edward turned his head to look at the knight, whose angular face was half cast in shadow, half flushed with candlelight. There was a blade of grass caught in his black hair. Piers, accepted into the royal household after the death of his father who had served the king in Gascony, had a blind spot when it came to the king. Despite the fact he had grown to manhood at court, assigned to the prince’s household six years ago when the two of them turned sixteen, he still didn’t realise how unforgiving – how dangerous – the king could be. Edward stared up at the dome of the tent. ‘A conqueror, am I? Yet still my father treats me like a dim-witted child.’ He gritted his teeth at the words, humiliated by the truth of them. ‘I’m sick of his damned disapproval!’

  ‘I’ve told you, Edward, you must stand up to him. You are Prince of Wales, Duke of Gascony and commander of the king’s army. He has given you the authority. Now, you must command his respect.’ Piers gripped the prince’s hand, forcing him to listen. ‘Your father is old and ailing. I do not believe it will be long before you take his place. The barons must learn to honour and fear you now, if you are to keep them in check once he is gone. I will be at your side, always, but you alone will control them. Make a stand. Tell the king what you want. Demand it!’

  Edward felt the familiar weight pressing in on his mind. More and more since the sickness had begun stripping his father’s strength he had dwelled on his future, which stood waiting in Westminster Abbey – a coronation chair made at his father’s behest, beneath which Scotland’s Stone of Destiny was encased. The prince’s brow knotted. He was named after his father and with his fair hair and tall, strapping frame everyone told him he was a mirror of the king in youth. But that was where any similarity ended. His father had wanted to create from him a mould of himself, but since the death of Edward’s mother, Eleanor, only Scotland had been granted the attention of the king. Over the past ten years it was as if the kingdom had become an errant child that needed to be beaten and cowed into obedience, while Edward, who tried to be the good son, waited in the shadows for his father to notice him.

  God, how he hated this place.

  Feeling Piers’s hand tighten around his, Edward met the knight’s eyes. Things would change when he was king. He sat up, determination rising in him. The rug shifted, toppling Piers’s goblet. Edward grabbed for it, cursing as wine spilled over his hand. He went to shake it off, but Piers grasped his wrist. The knight smiled slyly, then slid his tongue lightly up the side of Edward’s hand, droplets trickling into his mouth. Edward felt a spasm of pleasure. Grabbing Piers by the back of the neck, he pulled the knight towards him, opening his mouth over his. They kissed deeply, tongues entwined. Edward tasted the salt of Piers’s sweat, felt the man’s stubble scraping his skin. Beneath his hand, pressed into the wine-soaked rug, he sensed a shudder, like thunder rumbling through the earth. He drew back abruptly, looking to the tent flaps, in the gap between which the evening sky was a thin strip of blue.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Do you feel that? Hoof-beats?’ Edward strained to listen, but all he could hear were the raucous voices of his knights, enjoying the wine and food they had taken from the stores of Turnberry Castle.

  ‘It is just our men out there.’

  Edward kept his gaze on the tent opening, until Piers pressed his palm to his cheek and turned him to face him. The knight’s lips glistened in the candlelight, his black eyes smouldering like coals. Feeling desire bite deep, the prince pressed in. He dug his fingers into Piers’s shoulder. Beneath the knight’s shirt, muscles tightened. The outside world disappeared. Edward no longer heard the faint drum of hoof-beats approaching.

  They had been careful for a long time, ever since Edward Bruce had glimpsed them together during the hunt in the woods of Burstwick Manor, the prince fearing the truth of his friendship with Piers would be discovered. His father had become suspicious, he knew, and had spoken with new determination and frequency of Edward’s forthcoming marriage to Isabella, daughter of the King of France. His father wasn’t the only one. Edward’s cousin, Thomas, the Earl of Lancaster, with whom he had once been close, had become increasingl
y cold and aloof, often making cutting remarks about Piers. For months on end, Edward had suffered for the touch he craved, dreaming of Piers and waking fitful, drenched in sweat. But out here on campaign with the men of his own household, far from the king and his barons, he had let down his guard. The two of them had come together in the dark cocoon of the tent these past few nights like men starved.

  ‘My lord prince!’

  Edward jerked from Piers at the call from outside.

  ‘A company has come, my lord.’ The voice was Henry de Bohun’s.

  The young squire, Edward was relieved to see, was standing to the side of the gap in the tent’s opening. His heart slowed from gallop to trot. He wouldn’t have seen anything. ‘Whose company?’ he demanded, wondering who on earth would have travelled all the way out to his remote camp on this wild strip of coast.

  ‘It’s my uncle, sir.’

  Edward felt a jolt go through him at the unpleasant surprise. He glanced at Piers, who stared calmly back. ‘Tell him to wait,’ he called, after a pause. As Henry’s footsteps receded, Edward sat back on his heels and pushed his hands through his hair. ‘God damn it!’ He looked over at Piers, anger and shame prickling inside him. ‘I said my father has eyes everywhere!’ Leaning over, he snatched his goblet from the chest and drained the sour wine in one swift draught. ‘Now he has sent his right-hand man to spy on me and no doubt report back on my inadequacies. I told you we must be careful!’

  As Edward set down the goblet, Piers took hold of his wrist. ‘And I told you, my prince, to seize the authority your father has bestowed upon you. It isn’t God waiting outside, nor is it the king. It is Humphrey de Bohun. The constable is a powerful man, yes, but you are more powerful still. Go, speak to him, find out why he has come, but do it with your head raised, for you will be his king and however high he thinks himself he will soon be on bended knee before you.’