The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “My father would wait until the end of eternity for the throne that Longshanks dangles before him. I am not so patient a man. Tell me, bishop, how long is long enough?”

  “Ah, Robert, you are hardly your father, are you? You tell me, son – is today the day? Or tomorrow? Or ten years from now? You are wise enough to weigh it all out. Opportunity comes at its own pace. You want to lead, but they turn from you. They do not trust you. The good Lord knows they do not trust each other. Set aside your own visions for now and join with them in theirs.

  “There is strife between King Edward and his barons over taxes imposed on the church. Percy and Clifford have every wish to avoid battle, for they are all there is of Longshanks’ army now, but still they know they stand before us with as many mounted knights and archers as we have paltry footsoldiers. Bide your time. Lay your plans. Keep them engrossed in negotiations... and Wallace is allotted precious time to do his work elsewhere. Quibble over details. Is that not what nobles do?”

  “But hostages? My own flesh?” I begged.

  “Heed Douglas on the matter, my son.” He sighed heavily. “It is done and you must decide what to do from here.”

  “If I knew, do you think I would be in this state of vexation?” I peered at the ragged lines of men, their plain faces painted with grime, their heads bowed as smocked priests floated by, chanting their blessings. By now, the circle of nobles had broken and Stewart was walking toward the bishop and me.

  “Robert, I know where your heart lies and in time others, perhaps, will come to see that. But don’t curse them for wanting to save themselves. They all have sons and daughters to go home to, as well. A farmer is not one whit different from an earl, in that respect. I can arrange safekeeping for your daughter with the Abbot of Inchafray if Bute is threatened at all. As for the young Douglas... Bishop Lamberton knows a schoolmaster in Paris who will take him in. They will be far from King Edward’s long reach.”

  Silence overcame me as Stewart closed the last few strides to us. His face long and austere, he looked at the bishop and then at me.

  “Douglas and I,” Stewart began plainly, “are riding out now. To discuss terms.”

  “Surrender? Is it my blessing you want? Or have you come to escort me to the other side?” My sarcasm failed to pierce his stoicism, however. I knew the bishop was right, but my heart cried for a fight, if only to prove myself.

  “Lord Robert,” the Stewart said, “Scotland is indeed in want of a good king. Much stands in your way... your father being first. Although I would not say this in front of the others, I would much prefer a Bruce to a Balliol.”

  I smiled briefly at so small and yet so huge a victory. Stewart was not one to flippantly cast his lot.

  “Will you ride with us?” Stewart asked.

  “If you would dare ask me that then you do not know me well enough. It would be better if I did not.” Even as the words passed my lips, my thoughts were in two places: in Rothesay, where my daughter lived and grew with each passing day, and in Carlisle, where the man resided who from that day forward was sure to renounce me as his son. “Go. Do as you must.”

  Stewart extended his hand and I clasped it firmly.

  Despair replaced hope as I watched Stewart ride back out with Douglas to meet Percy and Clifford. For me, it was not enough that I had come. I burned with shame as I witnessed the relief on the faces of the ragged warriors who turned to go home and at once began to talk of their crops and their livestock. They had been as quick to muster to a fight as they had been to give it up.

  Wishart was right, though: I was no different.

  Selkirk Forest, 1298

  Now an outlaw without a shilling to my name, I acted as an outlaw does: burning crops far and wide in my own Carrick, for I wanted to leave nothing behind for our enemies to take. While I fed the coals of my temper, Moray and Wallace joined forces. They took Inverness, Aberdeen and Dundee with such ferocity that the aged Earl of Surrey, Longshanks’ appointed viceroy of Scotland, moved toward Stirling to seize and defend that vital gateway to the north of all Scotland.

  With a valiant Scottish army at his back, Wallace faced the English at Stirling across the Forth. He did not retreat; he did not parley. He refused their offer to yield, telling them he was there to do battle and free Scotland. The English never doubted for one moment they would win. The first clash, they thought, would be merely a formality. Ever arrogant, the English began to file across the narrow bridge over the Forth to assemble on the other side, while the Scots waited and watched from Abbey Crag for hours. Until finally... Wallace gave the order. While the Scots attacked along the English front, others destroyed the bridge, cutting off not only a route of escape for the English, but half their army, as well.

  In the year 1297, on the 11th day of September, Scotland claimed the greatest victory it had ever been known. Hope lived again.

  One month later, Andrew Moray died of the wounds he received at Stirling. But Wallace rode on, ravaging the north of England to bring food to his starving countrymen. Commoners, clergy and nobles alike rallied behind him.

  In the spring of the following year, my men and I rode to Selkirk Forest to attend a meeting that was to take place there.

  Tight buds of palest green tipped the branches above, letting mottled sunlight filter through and fall upon the forest floor. Ahead, in a glen sheltered by low cliffs, light morning mist drifted between moss-covered tree trunks, partially shrouding the host of fighting men gathered there. Our guide, one of Lindsay’s men, rode before me along the thinning trail. Smoke from a smoldering cooking fire permeated the damp air. From a stout limb, a deer carcass dangled, blood staining the dried leaves beneath. Nearby, its scraped hide was stretched over a felled log. I pressed my eyes shut, imagining the dark taste of roasted venison on my tongue. Behind me, Gerald and a dozen more of my men groaned at the emptiness in their bellies.

  As we entered the clearing, men scuttled back to allow us through and bowed. It had not been easy to gain their trust – and it had cost me dearly.

  “Lord Robert!” hailed a familiar voice.

  I slipped down from my mount, my thighs burning with the soreness of too many hours spent in the saddle. Gerald took the reins of my horse and led it off the trail to tether it to a bush.

  “Lindsay... I think you may dispense with titles for now. According to Longshanks, I have none.”

  Sir Alexander Lindsay strode forward and clasped my hand. His blue eyes crinkled with a smile of irony. “He gives and takes as he pleases. His word means nothing here. Your father is living off his estates in Essex, I hear.”

  “Aye, with my brothers and sisters. And mad as a honeybee robbed of its hive. Even though he denounced me, Longshanks would not permit him to oversee a post as critical and precarious as Carlisle.”

  He motioned me toward the clearing, where hundreds of men gathered. Many had the gaunt, unshaven look of someone who had been far from home for many months and lived off the land. “Your daughter?”

  “Still at Rothesay.” When the day had come by which we were to produce the sworn hostages, I had let it pass, as if it were of no accord. I would not give my sweet little Marjorie over to the English, not for any price, and I would gladly gamble my freedom and life for hers.

  “And the young Douglas?” Lindsay asked.

  “Bishop Lamberton saw to it that James Douglas was put on a ship carrying furs and wool to Calais. From there, he was supposed to have been escorted by a servant of Lamberton’s to a school in Paris. I pray he made it and that whoever delivers to him the news of his father does so kindly.”

  Lindsay stopped so abruptly I nearly collided with him. He turned around slowly, puzzlement obvious beneath the shadowy hood of his thick white brows. “News?”

  “You don’t know?” We were at the edge of the circle, ringed by those who had joined openly in the cause to stand against the English. Alone, in its center, stood William Wallace, a silver-gray wolfskin draped from his shoulders and his thick crown of
golden hair neatly swept back from his face. He stooped at the waist in acknowledgement. I nodded to him.

  “We heard rumor,” Lindsay said, “he was hunted down and taken in chains to Berwick. Is that what you mean?”

  I shook my head. “They took him on to the Tower of London. He died there not ten days ago.”

  A stunned hush fell upon the gathering. Lindsay’s chin sank to his chest. “We didn’t know,” he mumbled.

  “Then a prayer for Bishop Wishart,” Wallace said as he approached us, “that he’ll come home soon... and well.”

  I, too, feared for the bishop’s health. He was past fifty and suffered from the rheum. A dank cell and a hard bed would offer no comfort for his aching bones. Unlike the rest of us, Bishop Wishart could not take to the forest for refuge. To appease Longshanks, he had given himself up. He was the only one who had done so willingly.

  “William Wallace,” I said, “your sword?”

  Wallace reached over his shoulder and drew his long sword. He held it out to me, its edges nicked with use, the leather binding of the hilt worn smooth by the grip of his hands. Head bowed, he went down on his knees before me.

  I held the great sword aloft for all to see, my arms spread wide to bear its onerous weight. A priest in a black cassock with a sheathed knife at his belt stepped from the circle, incanting a blessing upon the occasion. Someone sank to their knees and soon, like the pulse of the tide upon the shore, others knelt, until none but the priest and I were standing.

  Taking the hilt in both hands, I lowered the blade slowly, glancing one of Wallace’s broad shoulders and then the other.

  “I, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, proclaim thee, William Wallace: Guardian of the Kingdom of Scotland!” My voice echoed ominously in the glen, each word overlapping the one before until only the word ‘Scotland’ resounded, finally fading away – not like a dying breath, but like the whisper of a wind soon to rise in force.

  Ch. 9

  Robert the Bruce – Rutherglen, 1300

  Alas, how wickedly close fortune may loom, brushing the fingertips, only to slip beyond the grasp. Late in that summer of 1298, not quite a full year after his victory at Stirling, Wallace gazed down upon mighty Longshanks’ army from the slopes of Slamman Moor near Falkirk. The English cavalry thundered across the open ground, while Scottish arrows sputtered innocuously against their plates of armor. In the first impact, the English knights shattered the ranks of Wallace’s spearmen. Then, that terror of Longshanks’ genius, the Welsh archers, ripped through the Scottish schiltrons. Wallace escaped with his life, but the veneration he so deserved died that bloody day among the mountains of Scottish dead at Falkirk.

  Flushed with conquest, Longshanks swung west toward Ayr, my headquarters since Irvine. I was gone before he ever got there. In my stead, I left him a smoking town and a castle in ruin. No one can take anything from you if you leave nothing behind.

  In May of 1300, a Scottish parliament was called to convene at Rutherglen. If not for the coaxing of my friend, Bishop William Lamberton of St. Andrews, I might have stayed away.

  A scowling John Comyn, the one they called the Red Comyn for his fiery hair, sat on the other side of the long table, directly across from me. The man had but to part his lips and at the first hiss of his drawn breath I was imbued with loathing for him. Every other moment, he fidgeted like a lad wearied of his lessons. Sometimes he looked askance and stifled a yawn; other times he leaned his elbows upon the table and spewed his dissonance; and all too often he leapt to his feet and sermonized at whoever dared disagree with him. I writhed at every syllable.

  At the end of the table, James Stewart ruled the parliamentary gathering at Rutherglen Castle with a stiff spine, his hands folded loosely in his lap and his countenance clear of judgment. Comyn, Bishop Lamberton and I were the appointed Guardians of Scotland – an awkward triumvirate. William Wallace had abandoned the post after Falkirk. After retreating to the Highlands briefly, he had since made his way to the continent. Some said that shame was his reason, but I knew otherwise. Besides, a man like Wallace never knows shame. How could he, when he lived by his heart and had nothing to regret?

  By mid morning, nobles hungry for an argument crowded the great hall. Those of highest importance were seated at the oversized table in the center of the room; the rest lined the benches along either of the side walls. A strong May sun flaunted its brilliance through high glazed windows. The outer door stood open, but no breeze stirred the sultry air. Tempers, already simmering, quickly rose to a boil in that cauldron of discord.

  Sir David Graham stood before his chair, hands clamped upon his hips. His gray-streaked beard bobbed above a bulging chest as he spoke. “Wallace has been abroad more than at home, negligent of his promises. Possessions granted to him in faith of those oaths should be forfeit.”

  The hall rumbled with both accord and dissent. The Earl of Atholl, never an ally of Balliol, kept his peace, but Sir Ingram de Umfraville, a kinsman of Balliol himself, urged Graham on. Common sense would have led one to believe the Balliol supporters would have stood faithfully behind Wallace, who had fought their battles for them. But he had lost, and in so doing, he had relinquished what little shred of faith they did have in him. A commoner and a failure, he was nothing to them.

  Graham rattled his bulbous fists on the table. “Forfeit, I say!”

  To my right, Bishop Lamberton nurtured his composure and tossed me a stern glance – imploring me to hold my tongue. I was finding it beyond difficult to bite back my words of protest. Even as Lamberton clenched my forearm, I slid my chair back and stood.

  The rumble fell away slowly, like boulders tumbling down a long hill before coming to rest in a valley.

  “Abroad on the business of this kingdom,” I reminded them, “not hidden away in fear on a French estate with casks of wine and silk cushions surrounding him... like John Balliol.”

  In one succinct sentence I had uttered too much. They muttered and shouted and pounded their fists on the table. All eyes shifted to Comyn, awaiting the next move. The Red Comyn’s wife was John Balliol’s sister. He would defend Balliol to his dying breath.

  Comyn wiped away a smirk above his scraggly red beard. With a heavy sigh, he leaned his full weight back in his chair and tossed his boots up on the table, dust rising in a small cloud. “Abroad on whose orders? This council never granted leave for him to go anywhere.”

  “Why should he have ever taken orders from a contrary lot like you?” I countered. “You argued with him at Irvine, abandoned him at Stirling and ignored him at Falkirk, even as you cheered his victories. You prodded him to action and yet criticized his decisions the moment he was beyond earshot. And you dare ask why he would not bow to you or why he is not here now? A hundredfold more able than any of you at bringing the English to heel and still you doubt him! What have any of you done to equal his courage?” I could not hide my contempt then as I looked from face to face. A few looked away in disgrace; others glared back defiantly. “You are too arrogant to defer to him and too ignorant to acknowledge all that he has done. As I stand before you, I know how he must have felt at Irvine and why it is he walked from there. Reasoning with you is like trying to teach hogs to crow.”

  “Hogs are we?” Comyn cocked his jaw sideways, his face reddening. “Well, perhaps you could impart to this fat, snorting boar why it is that Wallace dallies in France? Word has it he takes coin as a mercenary now.”

  “Mercenary?” I echoed, incredulous. “Wallace will fight for none but Scotland, I tell you, and in the accursed name of Balliol, if that is who you would all bow to as your king, whether he be sitting at the head of this parliament or exiled in a foreign land. In that, Wallace is truer of heart than me or anyone here. He has gone to France at Bishop Lamberton’s urging. Longshanks has shoved a treaty before King Philip and Wallace means to convince him not to sign it. It is a treaty which is as good as Scotland’s death sentence if it comes to pass. And if Wallace is persuasive enough, an audience with the pope
may be forthcoming. This very moment, Pope Boniface is contemplating a bull directed at Longshanks that would admonish him for trespassing upon Scottish soil and plundering that which is not his.”

  “Treaties? Death sentences? Papal bulls?” Comyn mocked. “Wallace pulling the strings of Paris and Rome? Hah. More likely our Lamberton stirring the furtive pot of politics.”

  Lamberton drew breath and, eyes downcast, curled his fingers back beneath the hem of his loose sleeves. There were too many sympathizers with Comyn there, circling like buzzards, waiting for the first sign of weakness. The bishop was cool enough to censor his thoughts, but he must have felt as I did – that even blatant lies may plant seeds of doubt.

  I clenched my fists until the blood left them and then slammed them on the table. “How dare you question the intentions of His Grace? He is your fellow Guardian. Do you turn from the face of unity to fling baseless accusations?”

  “I dare as I may,” Comyn replied snidely. “Armor, vestments or hemp-shirts. Traitors wear sundry clothing. Some genuflect to an English king and when –”

  I sprang upon the table and dove at Comyn. His chair toppled backward with his corpulent frame beneath me. We rolled onto the floor and the back of his head struck the flagstones. I pulled back my fist to aim at his scarlet face. But with amazing strength, he threw me off and shot to his feet. On my knees, I spun around to face him, but before I could stand he gripped my neck and throttled hard.