The Crown in the Heather (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  “Besides,” I added, desperate to salve his wounds, “she is several years too young yet to... She is a little girl still.”

  He shook his head and I saw the glint of a tear in the corner of his eye. “You will forget me.”

  “How could I ever? You will become dearer and more important to me with every year.”

  “You say now.”

  “And I will prove it. You’ll see. Lands, office, titles – I will hold nothing from you that, in your devotion, you have not shown yourself worthy of.”

  He looked down. His mouth twisted with worry. “But you? Will I have you?”

  “Do you doubt? You have me now, don’t you?”

  “And Ponthieu? Nothing would mean more to me than the fief of Ponthieu.”

  “I would give you the sun if it would not burn my hand to reach for it.”

  His fingers crept up and closed around mine. He stroked my hand and smiled, satisfied.

  “You’re right. I would have won. Bashed the Scotsman’s bloody skull in.”

  In that moment he was all to me: shining and tender. I would have stood against an entire army to keep him at my side. He tugged my hand, then let it drop as he went toward the great oak that clung with fierce stubbornness to the hillside.

  “Shall we hunt tomorrow, Edward? Just... you and I. Leave Gilbert and the others behind.”

  “Impossible, I’m afraid.” I hung my head and scraped at the earth with the pointed toe of my shoe. “The king and I are to leave within a fortnight for the north. Parliament has approved the funds, although they quibbled terribly over it. Nasty lot of cantankerous old men, more concerned with their wine cellars and rabbit warrens than anything. Neville recently routed Comyn from Selkirk Forest, but not without losses, and so my father is bent on revenge.”

  “I see...” Piers sank down and leaned back upon his elbows in the grass. “If not a wife’s bed beckoning you to duty, then war is to be your mistress.”

  “I will be king one day.” I drew my shoulders up, listening to my own statement and pondering on the strangeness of it.

  “You will. And as king” – Piers lay on his back and gazed at me as the rays of a lingering sunset fell copper upon his face – “can you make the world disappear? Will the king command the kingdom – or the other way around? I think, Edward dear, it will only close in on you more.”

  Try though I did, I could not rid myself of the sickening portent of Piers’ words.

  Two months later, on the same day my sire, King Edward of England, affixed his seal to a treaty with France, I was joined by proxy to Princess Isabella, daughter of King Philip.

  As with all things, Piers was right.

  Ch. 16

  Robert the Bruce – Lochmaben, 1304

  After my humbling, public submission to King Edward, the reprieve, oddly enough, was a pleasant one. In the mornings, when I was not away on the king’s business as sheriff of Lanarkshire, Elizabeth woke me with sweet kisses and soft words. When I came home, she greeted me with her slender arms flung fiercely about my neck. At night, she gave me endless comfort and delight.

  There was some reward in swallowing my pride... ecstasy even. But still, deep inside, I could not stomach the cost of it.

  Meanwhile, my father had remained firmly ensconced on his English estates in Essex and Huntingdon, weaseling his way back into favor in any fashion he could: sending Longshanks gifts, issuing public proclamations of his agreement with every policy the king spewed out, supporting him with whatever troops his restricted funds could bear. Aside from a handful of carping letters that had found their way to my headquarters in Ayr, my father and I had not spoken in nearly seven years. But when I received word from my brother Edward that my father had returned to Lochmaben in Annandale and was mortally ill, I bowed to a son’s duty, however difficult or unwelcome, and went.

  It was late when I arrived at Lochmaben. The residence, lately refortified by Master James, had been recently returned to my family’s possessions – a token of the faith I had gained from Longshanks himself. Mary, the sister who always put a smile on my lips, however weary or heavy of heart I was, greeted me in the dimly lit hall.

  “Mary?” I put my hands on her shoulders and gazed at her long before I embraced her. “What happened to that frail wisp of a girl I knew?”

  “I’m nineteen, Robbie. Hardly a girl anymore. I’ve a husband now, mind you,” she said, referring to Neil Campbell, whom she had wed this past year while I was about on Longshanks’ never-ending business. She kissed me sweetly on the cheek and pulled her wrap snug around her upper body. “And not at all frail.”

  “Aye, hardly a girl. I shall have to post a guard outside your door to keep the men away when your husband’s not about.”

  As I embraced her, I heard the rushes on the floor rustle and peered through the half-darkness to see my sister Christina. Her jet-black hair swung loose at her back. Her high-belted gown was modestly cut, but of a deep red that drew attention to her dark hair, eyes and long lashes. I drew her into my arms and saw a few steps behind her a young man of about her age, who was obviously captivated by her every movement.

  I whispered into her ear, “Would this be the proper time to express my condolences on the loss of your husband last year?” Christina had been married to the Earl of Mar, who had died young, but like so many marriages, it had been a contract meant to weave alliances, little more.

  “A hunting accident. Quite unexpected.” She pulled away and took the hand of her admirer. “Robert, this is Sir Christopher Seton, my betrothed.”

  “My lord,” Christopher said, bowing slightly. He was as lean as a willow sapling.

  I cuffed him sharply on the upper arm, sending him sideways a step. “Look after her well. I’ll not have my sister unhappy. Understood?”

  He nodded and they smiled at each other in that secret way lovers do.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “Asleep,” Mary said. “It’s nearly midnight. I’m surprised you would travel at such an hour, dear brother. You’re lucky the robbers did not get you.” She bunched up her chestnut brows at me in disapproval.

  “You still worry enough for all of us, Mary. But I thought it urgent.” I pulled off my riding gloves and laid them on the main table, then unfastened the clasp of my cloak. “Father, is he...”

  “He is very, very ill, Robert. He hasn’t long, I’m afraid.” She extended her hand. “Come, I’ll take you to him.”

  I took her hand. Mary lifted a rushlight from the wall and guided me through the narrow corridors. Gently, she nudged open the door to father’s apartment. A sickening stench wafted from within.

  “Who’s there?” came a voice so frail and cracked that I wondered if I had heard it at all.

  I took the rushlight from Mary, kissed her on the forehead and nodded. Then I stepped into the room. The awful smell suddenly grew stronger. I held my breath a moment and swallowed, until the impulse to vomit passed.

  “Father, it is me – Robert.” I rested the light in an empty sconce on the wall and moved closer to his bed. “Edward asked me to come.”

  “Come to sniff out your inheritance, have you? Who says I’ll give you any? He was always my favorite, you know. Edward, I mean.” His voice came from behind the heavy curtains hanging from his canopied bed.

  I moved closer, but a shadow from the curtain fell across his chest and face. Ever contrary, he played us against one another so that we would compete for his attention. “You used to say Alexander was your favorite.”

  “That changed when he left me.”

  “He hardly left to spite you. He’s been at Cambridge. I hear they offered to make him Dean of Glasgow.” Brilliant beyond his years, Alexander had a passion for learning as large as my brother Edward’s love of women.

  “Why have you come, Robert?”

  My eyes, by now, had begun to adjust to the darkness in the room. I could discern the lumps and blotches on his face that betrayed his illness. A shudder went throug
h me and I looked away. “I told you. Edward sent for me.”

  “Ah, I remember now. I told him to do that.”

  “Why?”

  He attempted to sit up, but the effort strained him so much that he only sank down further. “Merely wanted to congratulate you.”

  “For what?”

  “Coming to your senses.”

  “Ironic. Longshanks said the same thing. I was never aware I had lost them.”

  “Clever of you to strike a deal and wed the daughter of one of the king’s faithful. Very, very clever. There is spiced wine on the table there. Have some. You look bedraggled. You could use it.” He grappled at his blankets with hands wrapped in loose strips of cloth. “I had not thought you capable of such duplicity. Tell me – was this your ploy all along? You have played it exceedingly well.”

  I swept the half full jug of wine and cups to the floor. Gritting my teeth, I gripped the edge of the table and leaned as close to his shadowed, putrid face as I could stomach. “Do not pretend to know my mind – even less my heart.”

  He eyed me from the cavern of his pillow and shook his head. “So, Robert, this was not some clever plot, after all? You fell in love with her – followed your heart. That is never wise.”

  “Coming from one who seeks naught but self-preservation and comfort? My heart tells me one thing. My head, two or three or four. And you yet another.”

  “Such anguish and confusion, son. Let it be. The match is wisely done – profitable and politic. You have returned to the fold. Even after all the grief you have caused me, I shall die with joy in my shriveled heart.”

  Your heart has ever been that way.

  I watched the yellow light on the folds of the canopy over his bed dance and sway, interplaying with shadows. His words were always like that – light and shadow mixing. Telling me to go in one breath, asking me to stay in another. Any wonder I questioned my heart, even as wildly strong as it beat inside my chest? I turned my back on him and walked away.

  Early the next morning, Mary woke me to tell me father had worsened. I did not go to him. What else could I have said? That I loved him? I did not. That I hated him? That neither. Simply put, I did not care, cruel as that may sound. Instead, I dressed and asked her which room was Edward’s. I could tell by the way Mary stammered and blushed that he had a woman with him.

  The door was not barred. I pushed it open so slowly it made no sound. The sight of Edward’s bare back greeted me as he mounted an eager wench beneath him on the bed. All I could see of her was a pair of curving ivory thighs beyond bent knees. The room was small and the scent of sex powerful.

  “Mmm, Edward, have you any idea how you delight me?” she purred.

  “Aithne?” I exclaimed. “Why, I think you used to say that to me.”

  Edward rolled from her, snatched up a pillow and launched it at my head. “Have you abandoned manners, brother?”

  “And you morals?” I retorted with a grin. “Well met, Edward. How is your husband, Aithne?”

  She pulled up the sheet, but only far enough that her breasts were still half exposed. Her coppery hair fell like a rope of silk over her shoulder. “If I ever saw him I would be able to tell you. How are you, my dear, sweet Robert? You have wed, too, I hear. Or is that a wild rumor meant to crush the hearts of hopeful women?”

  Aithne of Carrick had been my first lover. And the first of many a young man as I later discovered. Mostly lads just sprouting their whiskers, like myself, tumbling with her in the stable hay, but she had a skill and hunger for pleasing men that brought them crawling back over and over again – including me. Edward, as well. In our youth, it had driven a deep wedge between us. I had thought I loved Aithne and might have married her, had my father agreed. But that was not to be. Rather than have us squabble over her, father had found a willing suitor for her and sent her away. Obviously, her allure had not waned with the years, nor had a marriage contract tamed her. I pulled up a stool.

  “Elizabeth de Burgh,” I said. “My second wife, actually. The first, Isabella... she died in childbirth.”

  “I’m so sorry, Robert.” She turned on her side so that the sheet fell away. “So this Elizabeth – she is well bred? And beautiful?”

  “Exceedingly.” I could not help but glance at her plump, white bosom.

  Edward yanked the sheet up to her shoulders. Then he slid an arm possessively around Aithne’s waist, pulled her buttocks close against that part of him seeking to know her and drowned her neck in wet kisses. “Perhaps we could continue this conversation later?” he said with a swift glare at me. “If you don’t mind, Robert, I believe Aithne and I were in the middle of something. Or rather, I was in the middle of her.”

  “Of course.” I rose and made toward the door. “Meet me at the stable at noon, Edward. We shall ride along the River Annan. The rain will lift soon and I have a proposition to make.”

  But when I stole a last glance, I doubted that Edward had heard me at all. He was already indulging himself in Aithne’s gifts with selfish, ravenous fervor. If he had meant to rouse a shred of jealousy in me, it only made me long for Elizabeth more.

  Eight roe deer studied us from the far bank of the River Annan. A late fog that followed a soaking rain overnight had kept them about well past their usual hour. They stood with their backs to the pines, lifting their heads from lush, new spring grass to reflect our own fascination.

  “Thomas brought down two stags a week before last,” Nigel informed us. At the sound of his lilting voice, they bounded back into the mists.

  That morning, I had roused Edward, which took great effort, and my youngest brothers, Nigel and Thomas, and told them to come along. Nigel would rather have been whispering prayers from Prime until Lauds. He yearned to join the Church, so he had told me that very morning, even though we had all known that since before he was five. Shorter than myself by a head, he was constantly bested by the rest of us in every pursuit and so he had taken early to a life of devotion, although I suspected he had secret aspirations higher than an abbacy. Thomas, however, yearned toward nothing that was not directly in front of him. Take him on the hunt and he was the first to spy and take aim at the boar, but getting him out the door and on the horse to begin with was a near to impossible task. Upon first impression, he might have followed Edward’s traits, but Edward had ambition, however thwarted by a quick temper and impatient mood. Handsomest of us all, naturally gifted in physical talents, Thomas was indolent and indifferent. He never complained, never took sides and, in general, made a joke of life.

  Even though we had only paused to view the deer, Thomas had already slipped from his saddle, led his horse to the river’s edge for a drink and then climbed upon a rounded boulder clinging to the bank. There he laid belly down, dangling his fingers in the white swirls of water rushing by. Before I could say anything, Nigel and Edward followed.

  I surrendered and went to join them. As I neared the lip of the bank and knelt to take a drink, a rock the size of my fist plopped into the river. A shower of ice cold water doused me.

  Thomas slapped Nigel on the back and laughed raucously.

  “Always were an easy target, Robert,” Thomas remarked, his face luminous. For Thomas, amusement was easy to come by.

  “Do I need to remind you, weeee Thomas, of the last time we wrestled?” I pushed my hair back from my face as streams of water ran onto my shoulders. “You ended up with your head in a bucket. Had difficulty breathing, didn’t you?”

  Thomas rolled his chestnut brown eyes at me and stuck out his tongue.

  “How was she, Edward?” asked Thomas, as he flipped over and sprawled on his back to look up at a cloud-wrung sky that threatened more rain. A flirting sun had been chased into hiding and the day was yet no warmer than when the first silver hint of dawn broke above the distant hills. “Sweet as honey?”

  “Little boys brag,” said Edward. He bounded up on the rock and stood there, hands on hips, watching the young salmon slip along the water’s rippling surface. A f
ull minute later, he traced a finger from his chin, down his neck, to his collarbone and said, “More like wine, really, she was. Intoxicating. Numbing. Every taste left me wanting more.” He moved his hands in the empty air as if caressing her outline.

  I picked up a flat stone and tried to skip it across to the other side, but the rapids were too deep and strong from the winter run-off and my little stone sank after the first skip.

  “When Longshanks dies,” I declared, “I am going to take the crown.”

  “Of England?” Thomas exclaimed, bolting upright.

  “No, France, you dolt.” Edward smacked him in the forehead. “Bother, Robert. I was in a mood for boasting. Must you always outdo me?”

  “I mean it. I need to know you’re all in with me.”

  “In?” Nigel looked from face to face in bewilderment. He pulled at his tight brown curls as his neck shrank down to meet his shoulders. “But I am to go to the Sorbonne to study theology.”

  “Then go. I’ll not hold you back. But when the time comes, Nigel, know that I will need you in whatever way you can aid me.”

  “There is more to the world than women and fighting,” Nigel grumbled, arms clutched around his knees and pouting as if he were a lad of five and not a man full into his twentieth year.

  “Aye, he’s right.” Thomas chuckled. “There’s food, ale, and a good soft bed to greet you afterwards. War I could do without, but women...”

  “I would hardly call those pock-faced milkmaids you’ve been groping ‘women’.” Edward leapt from his perch jauntily and came toward me. “So you get a crown and what do the rest of us get, Robert? A pat on the back, a wreath of laurels, a herd of cattle? Maybe a fine house in the country?”

  “You get to be second in line to the throne, my brother.”

  “But you have a wife... and you’ll have sons.”

  “But until and unless I do – you are after me.”

  “You have a daughter. And she could have sons.”