by Young, Robyn
Fionn’s barking alerted the men to the approach of someone. Robert heard the hooves before he saw the company, coming along the road from Carlisle. A group of knights rode at the head in front of two covered wagons. They wore the livery of King Edward. Some of Robert’s men shifted their stances, hands near weapons. Their victory over the enemy, although overwhelming, hadn’t yet ended the war. Robert, however, was confident that it would be a long time before the English king would be able to send another force north to engage him. Edward’s reputation, tarnished before the battle, had been severely damaged by the catastrophic defeat. The riders halted a short distance away. Some of them dismounted, staring down the road at the waiting Scots. Others moved to the back of the wagons, from which they escorted a number of figures.
Robert stepped forward, shielding his eyes from the sunlight. He felt a strange mixture of hope and dread at the sight of them. Did they blame him for these lost years? Would they even know one another now? As the figures began walking towards him, watched over by the English knights, he fixed on one at the front: a tall, slender young woman, in a plain black gown, a white coif on her head. For a moment, he didn’t recognise her, then he realised, with a stab of emotion, that she was his daughter.
He had last seen her, eight years ago, when he had thrust her, weeping and begging him to stay, into Elizabeth’s arms during their desperate parting in the woods beyond St Fillan’s shrine. Marjorie wasn’t a girl any more. The years they had lost were all too visible in her face and body: those of a woman’s. With Marjorie walked his sister, Christian, hand in hand with a young boy, who looked so much like Christopher Seton Robert felt the sort of joy he imagined he would feel if he saw the man himself again. Behind came his youngest sister, Matilda, and his half-sister, Margaret, grey-haired and stooped.
Unable to contain herself, Mary ran to greet her sisters, crying out with grief and joy as they embraced one another. At his side, Robert saw Edward’s blue eyes were shining. Thomas Randolph was the next to break from the company, hastening to his mother. At the last, came Elizabeth, Robert’s wife and queen, arm in arm with a shuffling, bent old man. It was Robert Wishart, the Bishop of Glasgow. William Lamberton murmured a prayer at the sight of his friend.
All of them were the price of an earl’s ransom.
Robert turned to Humphrey, watching the company approach in silence. The earl’s eyes held a sorrow he couldn’t fathom.
Humphrey met his gaze. ‘Am I free?’
‘Yes.’
Humphrey hesitated, seeming about to say something further, but he merely inclined his head.
Robert understood. There was nothing more either of them could say.
He watched Humphrey walk away, along the road towards the waiting English knights. The earl paused as he passed Elizabeth. Leaving Wishart – once the leader of the insurrection, now an old blind man – to be guided by Bishop Lamberton, she turned to him. Robert couldn’t hear what they said, but he saw her look at the ground and shake her head and saw Humphrey’s hand move, as if to reach towards her, then stop.
Whatever question was forming in his mind was vanquished as Marjorie ran towards him. Robert went to meet his daughter, drawing her into his arms. He pulled back after a long moment, smiling as he brushed away her tears with his thumb. ‘My God, you look like your grandmother.’
Marjorie returned his smile with a laugh. ‘That is what Christian says.’ Her eyes searched him as she spoke, as if familiarising herself with this new face of his – all its unfamiliar scars and lines; stories she did not know.
Robert looked over at Christian, who was hugging Matilda and Mary, her young son standing close by. He realised there was someone absent from this company. He knew about Isabel Comyn, having been informed during negotiations for the exchange of prisoners that the countess, delivered into the custody of Henry Beaumont, had died, much to his grief and his guilt for not being able to release her sooner. But he was expecting his nephew, Donald of Mar, Christian’s son by her first marriage. ‘Where is Donald?’
‘He chose to stay in England, in the king’s household,’ Marjorie told him quietly, her eyes on Christian. ‘He said he felt at home there.’
‘My lord king.’
Robert looked round to see Elizabeth approaching. Marjorie moved aside, allowing them to greet one another. Robert inclined his head to her. ‘My lady.’ As they lapsed into silence, unsure of one another, unsure of what to say, Robert held out his hand. Elizabeth took it, glancing up at him as his fingers closed over hers.
After more greetings were exchanged, Robert led his family over to where their horses and the rest of his men were waiting. The English had already gone, dust settling on the road in their wake. After calling for the squires to bring horses for his wife and daughter, Robert paused, looking up at the broken keep of his grandfather’s castle. Ivy had trailed up the sides, covering over the ruin. Below, an oak tree that he remembered climbing as a youth had grown tall, its branches reaching almost to the crown of the motte.
He thought of the tree in Turnberry that had held the web Affraig had made for him in the fire-bruised dark of her hovel, a lifetime ago. When he took the throne and the web didn’t fall he had doubted its power. Now, he felt he understood. Affraig’s belief in him had carried his prayer all the way to Barra and there, burned up in the funeral boat with the old woman, his destiny had been fulfilled not by a fall but by a rise; of smoke and sparks on the night air and of his people’s faith in him, their king. It was in that moment, surrounded by men and women of his realm, that his hope had been rekindled and his war had risen from the ashes.
His gaze lingered on the ruins of the keep. Twenty-two years ago, he had made a promise in the shadow of those walls – a promise to uphold his family’s claim to the throne.
In the end, he had done so much more than that. In the end, he had upheld his nation’s claim to their kingdom.
Epilogue
1329 AD
Dumfries, Scotland
1329 AD
Robert made his way slowly down the aisle, his footsteps hollow on the floor of the empty church. A smell of incense lingered in the air. He paused for breath, placing a hand on one of the pillars that flanked the nave, his eyes on the rood screen at the end. Behind that screen was the high altar. He felt a tightness in his chest; more so than the usual pressure he’d been beset with this past year as the debilitating sickness enveloped him. Steeling himself to it, Robert passed the screen and entered the choir.
At the sight of the altar, his mind flashed with memory – himself and John Comyn, struggling, eye to eye, his hand thrusting the dirk into the man’s ribs, blood, wine-dark, flowing. He let the ghosts come; let them fight their ancient battle once again, in silence in his mind. When the memory faded, he crossed to a row of candles, set alight by the monks in preparation for the afternoon office. As promised, they had left one unlit. Robert picked it up, the wax cold and smooth in his hand. He had come to say a prayer for one man, but now he was here so many more dead crowded around him, wanting a flame for themselves. Turning the candle over in his hand, he thought what an impossible task this pallid length of beeswax would have, were he to light it for the souls of all who had gone before.
Almost fifteen years had passed since the battle by the Bannock Burn. That battle had taken the lives of many, but the years that followed had claimed more. Despite his great victory that day, the war with England had rumbled on, the two nations biting at one another; skirmishes and raids, sieges and bursts of violence interspersed with brief truces and fruitless negotiations, neither side willing to yield to the other’s terms. Then, nine years ago, he had sought the aid of the papacy in recognition of Scotland’s freedom and its independence from England. To this end a letter was sent to the pope from Arbroath Abbey, in the name of the community of the realm and set with the seals of numerous Scottish noblemen. Four years later, the papacy had recognised him as King of Scotland and a long-lasting truce was established with England. But the wa
r had one final convulsion to make, which had shaken both countries to their foundations.
Two years ago, King Edward had been deposed in a rebellion led by his wife, Isabella of France, and her lover, Roger Mortimer. The king was imprisoned and his young son set upon the throne as Edward III. It was rumoured Isabella had ordered the murder of her incarcerated husband by way of a hot poker inserted into his bowels. Robert, fearing the intentions of the new king, who was guided by the powerful forces around him, moved to meet him in force. The campaign ended in young Edward’s resounding defeat at Stanhope Park, at the hands of James Douglas and Thomas Randolph and, finally, last year, resumed negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Edinburgh, which had seen Scotland granted its sovereignty and the end of the war begun thirty-two years earlier by Edward Longshanks.
Fortune had turned many revolutions, in him and in his kingdom; their fates entwined. He had achieved much, in both the wheel’s rising and its downward courses, but victory and honour had not come without cost. Now, as he felt death’s pull in his wasted body, Robert wanted one more chance to atone for the sin that had seen his reign born in blood.
Taking the candle, he held the wick to one of the other flames. As the fire fluttered to life, he cupped his palm around it, lest it gutter and wink out. Setting it down carefully, he closed his eyes and said a prayer for John Comyn’s soul.
When it was done, he said a prayer too for the others: for Marjorie, his daughter, who’d had less than three years of life beyond her release, dying in a fall from her horse and leaving behind a son, born to her husband, Walter Stewart. He said a prayer for Elizabeth, his dutiful wife and queen, who had passed last year and who, despite the coolness of their marriage, had given him four children. David, his only surviving son, was now his heir. Robert said a prayer for Neil Campbell, his brother-in-law by the knight’s marriage to his sister Mary, which had lasted only a year before Neil’s death. He said another for his brother, Edward, who, unable to live a life in his shadow, had embarked on a campaign to Ireland to aid the Irish in their struggles. He had crowned himself High King of Ireland, but the expedition had ended in disaster and Edward, his last surviving brother, was captured and beheaded, just four years after the battle at the Bannock Burn. Lastly, and after a pause, Robert said a prayer for Humphrey de Bohun, killed along with Thomas of Lancaster seven years ago by King Edward’s forces, the king finally taking his revenge, long-sought, for the murder of Piers Gaveston.
Opening his eyes, Robert lingered for a moment on the candle, its flame fluttering in the cool air of the Greyfriars Church. Then, he turned and headed back down the aisle and out into the spring sunlight, where his men were waiting for him: faithful Nes and Thomas Randolph, Gilbert de la Hay and Sir James Douglas, nicknamed the Black by the English, who had learned to fear him.
Now he had lit that candle, which he had paid the monks to keep alight through the years to come, Robert had one last journey to make before he travelled the long dark road all men must take – a journey west across the sea, to a distant isle.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Voltaire is thought to have said, history is the lie commonly agreed upon, and when dealing with the life of Robert Bruce that statement often seems to ring true. This part of Robert’s career – from the rout at Methven to midsummer’s eve at Bannockburn – is, in terms of the recorded facts, frequently ambiguous and, on occasion, downright impenetrable.
When Robert disappears from Dunaverty Castle on the Mull of Kintyre in September 1306, we have no idea where he went or what he did for more than four months before he reappears in Carrick early the following year. The island of Rathlin off Ireland was cited as Robert’s hiding place by John Barbour in his epic poem, The Bruce, written c.1375. But others have suggested Ireland or one of the Western Isles, even Orkney or Norway. I went with Rathlin, the most common theory and somewhere I was relatively easily able to get to for research (albeit on a vessel nicknamed the Vomit Comet). I also placed him on Barra in the Outer Hebrides, which has a strong natural harbour and is believed, at this time, to have been in the possession of Christiana MacRuarie, who was said to have aided Robert.
There are many other gaps in our understanding of the rebel king and the band of men who ‘took to the heather’ with him on the long march to Bannockburn and the struggle for independence. As is often the case with medieval armies it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to pin down numbers of troops. A letter written to Edward II in around 1308 by John MacDougall claims Robert was then menacing Argyll with a force of ten to fifteen thousand, but at Loudoun Hill in 1307 Barbour puts his army at six hundred fighting men and perhaps as many ‘rabble’, while modern historians suggest he commanded only around seven thousand in 1314 at Bannockburn.
Dates, too, prove problematic. We don’t know exactly when the Battle of Inverurie against the Black Comyn was fought and we don’t know whether Robert’s campaign in Argyll against John MacDougall took place in 1308 or 1309. The Battle of Glen Trool is afforded only a fleeting, rather confused mention in the records, but has swelled over the centuries to become one of Robert’s greatest victories, now complete, at its atmospheric setting, with information boards that neatly set out the battle’s location, along with a date, troop numbers and sequence of events, none of which is actually known – as I discovered after hiking up there with the historian, Edward J. Cowan.
Other, even more important, locations confound us. The site of the Battle of Bannockburn has been pitting historian against historian for years without conclusion. Most historians, including Fiona Watson who was kind enough to give me access to her report on the subject, favour what is known as the Dryfield (now the site of the Bannockburn High School playing fields) as the place where the main battle was fought. Although some, including Scott McMaster who showed me around the battle-site, give compelling arguments for the Carse (a lower-lying area formerly known as the Pows or Les Polles), where the English were thought to have camped on the night of 23 June. Two other sites: the Borestone and an area of the Carse nearer to the Forth, have also been mooted, although these are now afforded less credibility. In the end, I opted for the Dryfield, but until more archaeological evidence is found the argument will no doubt continue.
Likewise, many myths have sprung up around Robert and his contemporaries over the centuries, perhaps the most famous of which is the spider. The earliest reference we have for the now legendary arachnid appears in a posthumous edition of David Hume of Godscroft’s The History of the House of Douglas, published in the mid-seventeenth century, in which it is James Douglas who witnesses the creature trying and trying again to spin its web. Sir Walter Scott, writing his Tales of a Grandfather in the nineteenth century, attributed this story to Robert Bruce. Of course, the allegory fits Robert perfectly – the man who, despite all the losses suffered, refused to give in and forced himself on to succeed finally. But, for me, there could be no actual spider in the narrative. Instead, I used Affraig and her webs of destiny, partly drawing on medieval magical practices and partly echoing Ariadne and her thread, to capture the spirit of this enduring myth.
It is both a blessing and a curse that so much and yet so little is known about the life and times of Robert Bruce. The gaps in our knowledge offer exciting opportunities for the historical novelist, but it is often a challenge to join up this fragmented narrative when there are so many contradictions, repetitions and holes in the accounts. Also, as I’ve noted in the previous novels, while we may sometimes know what someone was doing, and where and when they were doing it, we very rarely know why. The novelist, unlike the historian, is always required to make a decision as to a character’s motivations.
It is a challenge I relish, but I’m always aware that even when fictionalising events – whether for the sake of plot or pace, to fill in a blank, or to turn a complex, drawn-out episode into something more thrilling and readable – I want it to be at least plausible and since the history is what inspired me in the first place I want to respect it, even within th
e boundless imaginings of fiction. To this end, what follows is a breakdown of the significant alterations I’ve made to the history, such as it is known. For those wishing to know more about the period please refer to the bibliography.
Alexander III and the succession
Rather than duplicating what I’ve written about at length in the previous author’s notes, I’ll just say briefly that chroniclers of the time and modern historians regard the death of Alexander III – separated from his escort on the road to Kinghorn and found dead the next morning – as an accident. The murder is pure fiction. It was the fact Alexander was thought to have mooted the possibility of a union between his granddaughter and Edward’s son and heir in 1284, and that when the king married Yolande any offspring they produced would have rendered this proposition meaningless, that led me down the what if route.
Also, Robert acquired the earldom of Carrick in 1292 shortly after John Balliol was appointed king by Edward, but it was his father who inherited the family’s claim to the throne. However, Robert was accused of aiming at the crown as early as 1297 and so I chose to have the legacy passed directly from his grandfather to him. The Bruce family were at Norham, not Lochmaben as I have it, when Edward announced his decision to choose Balliol as king.