The Lion at Bay

EPILOGUE

Crossraguel Abbey, Ayrshire

Feast of St Drostan, July, 1307

The fields lolled, the forest was still, both breathing in the hot air of noon through leaves and grasses, sifted with dragonflies, green frogs and brown toads all looking to the relief of water. There were curlews and hares and squirrels — but most of all, there were flies.

They came to feast on the bloat of dead cattle and sheep, rising off the carcasses as thick as the smoke that curled from the abbey buildings. Folk moved with cloths over their mouths against the stink and even the hardiest of them winced at the smell.

‘Bad cess to them,’ Jamie Douglas said and the Dog Boy, looking at the bloodied, snarling muzzles of the abbot’s dead hounds, could only agree. Bad cess to the English, who had viciously swiped one petulant claw at the defenceless, as if to reassure themselves that they were still in charge despite being beaten at Loudon Hill scant weeks before.

That had been the garland on a new spring. There had been a long hard winter of exile and then, as the thaw melted everything to drip and yellow, the news went out, leaping from head to head like wildfire.

The King was back.

Slowly, like a winter bear emerging from its cave, the Scots crawled out into the Kingdom and started to make their mark against the surprised English.

Kirkpatrick had been busy, too, with coin and promises, most of which came to ripeness — the last fruits had arrived only the night before, clutched in the brown mouth of a man who looked like a packman and had been taught as a priest.

There were a score or more of them, men and women both. Anonymous as dust and dark, they went where Kirkpatrick sent them and did as they were bid for revenge, the promise of advancement or — and Kirkpatrick’s cynical nature was amazed by it — increasingly for belief in the King and the Kingdom.

This one brought news.

‘He’s dead,’ the man said and, for a moment, Kirkpatrick felt the coursing shock of it plunge him to limpness — then the next words rushed him with relief.

‘At Burgh on the Sands, a week or less. They have not told the army yet.’

Longshanks. The news should have raised Kirkpatrick up, but he was too relieved that it was not the other man he had set agents to watching. Not Hal, then — Kirkpatrick blew out his cheeks. He had found where Hal was held and did not understand why the man was still alive. But he was, though no closer to rescue than before.

Now Kirkpatrick waited impatiently while the abbot of the charred Crossraguel, grim and resigned, accepted the commiserations of his king — after all, the Bruces of Carrick had founded the place and it was donations from there that kept it going. So the abbot tried to ignore the ruin and war that had been brought to him, smiled and bowed and fervently agreed to keep perpetual Mass for the souls of the King’s brothers, Thomas and Alexander, who had been slain at the start of the year.

The chapel was a miracle of beauty, left untouched even by de Valence’s rabble. It was a beautiful kingfisher of stone, small and perfect as a jewel, whose glowing painted walls were barely smoked by time, tallow and incense.

Bruce genuflected and then knelt, placing his hands on the eternal, untarnished altar as if to force it to prevail over the memory of those he mourned. He remained kneeling while all those half-in and half-out of the dimmed cool vault of it dared not come any closer, even though some were kin. Even the King’s chaplain remained outside, hands clasped inside his sleeves and head bowed.

They looked at the disordered, bowed head, the long, scarred face and the hands laid flat on the cold stone and thought he looked the very image of a warrior king, bowing before his Maker to ask for mercy and peace for those lost and for help in returning to claim the Kingdom from the Plantagenet father and son. They lowered their own heads, for they were back in the Kingdom — and would need all of God’s help to stay.

Bruce felt them like the rustle of moths in darkness, his mind full of the sins he had committed — and the ones yet to come — while the harsh taint of burning seemed to heighten the loss of two more of his brothers; Alexander, especially, was a crushing ache, for Bruce would miss the inciteful young mind.

Then there were the others, the defectors and waverers — Randolph, his own nephew, taken at Methven and pardoned into King Edward’s good grace on condition that he fought for the English; that he had so readily agreed to it was what rankled. And young David Strathbogie, new Earl of Atholl, who had been panicked enough to run off and clamour for English mercy from the very king who had hanged his father.

He heard the sudden burst of wild laughter, angrily shushed, that marked where Jamie Douglas had arrived from yet another herschip raid; even he had wavered and sent a letter that seemed to beg King Edward’s mercy. The success at Loudon Hill had forestalled him and both he and Bruce pretended no such letter had happened at all, yet it was an ache to Bruce that even Black Sir James, who so hated the English, had been brought low enough to offer a hand to them.

But young Alexander Bruce was the worst loss, the more so because all he had wanted was to be a scholar. Now only Kirkpatrick knew the secret he and Alexander had shared and Bruce was aware of the irony of events; I am returned and my forces swell daily, but even as my kingdom grows the circle of those I can trust shrinks.

As if in response, Kirkpatrick hirpled up, pushing through the throng, even shouldering past the scowl of the last brother, Edward.

Kirkpatrick felt as he knew he must look — grey-faced and sick. Nichol’s knife had missed vitals by a fingerwidth and the recovery from it had been seven long, feverish and painful months; even now he was not fit for much — yet he was still invaluable to his king, more so now than ever.

In the dim of the chapel he waited until Bruce had raised himself up, crossed himself and turned back into the world. Then he said it, having thought of ways to present it all the limping way here and discarding them at the last.

‘Longshanks is dead,’ he said flatly. ‘Has been for a week or more, but they will not announce it yet for fear of taking the heart out of the army. They wait for the son to arrive.’

There was a long pause and Kirkpatrick knew that others had heard him say it — the sudden shouts rippled out as the news leaped from head to head.

Bruce did not need to ask if Kirkpatrick was sure. Instead, he turned away, blinded by a sudden spring of tears and Kirkpatrick looked on, amazed; the Covetous King had slaughtered three of his brothers, imprisoned his queen, his sisters and daughter — yet Bruce wept for him.

Bruce was surprised himself, yet he knew the lie of it and knew, also, that everyone had seen the same and was marvelling at it. The tale would spread, of the saintly king who could weep for the death of his worst enemy, though the truth was something Bruce would never admit — that it was simple relief and release.

Longshanks was dead. This is the moment I should have waited for, he thought, the moment to claim the throne. If he had waited until now, if he had never gone to Greyfriars, so much might have been different — Thomas and Niall and Alexander…

He threw it from him with a violent shake of his head and turned into Kirkpatrick’s worried frown, not helped by the sight of his king’s face, the livid scar above and below the left eye and the still unhealed blight of his right cheek.

Yet the King was smiling and his eyes glittered as he looked at all the expectant faces.

‘The pard is dead — now the lion can roar,’ he said and they murmured their approval. The abbot began offering thanks to God, sonorous and fervent, while folk bowed, crossed themselves and knelt.

Bruce had a sudden vision of his grandfather’s face, grim as a shroud. The Competitor had been the one who had dinned into him the justice and rights of the Bruce claims to kingship, pointedly ignoring the disapproving scowls of Bruce’s own father, who seemed to have turned his back on all of that.

Until now, Bruce had reviled his father for his lack of spine, for not having the commitment that drove The Competitor and himself. Hag-ridden, he had thought, by the Curse of Malachy.

Now he knew the truth that his father had realized long before — there was no God in the right of the Bruces to rule. Brothers, friends, marriage, the grace of golden opinion, peace of mind, the very wine of life — even eating and sleeping — had all been subsumed and sold for a throne and what went with it. Smiling lies and mouthed honour, deceptions, delusions and the accusing whispers of Judas. Scorpions of the soul. The Curse of Malachy.

Ambition, he now knew, was the Devil.

Burgh-on-Sands, Cumbria

Feast of St Swithun, July, 1307

The world had ended days ago, yet somehow people moved and spoke and acted as if it had not. The Royal clerk himself found that there were still matters to attend to, ones which always took him back to the room, laden with sweet-smelling flowers and herbs and burning incense that still failed to hide the stink.

He was here again, standing at the door of the room where the world had ended, with his head down so that all he saw were the clacking boots that arrived — green and red leather, fine heels and Cordoban workmanship, all muddied with hard travel.

‘You are?’

He raised his head into the eyes of the Lord of Caernarvon, seeing the resemblance, like a blur in water, to his beloved king. He is as tall, he thought…

‘Norbert the Notary,’ said a voice at Caernarvon’s elbow as the clerk hesitated. The Lord Monthermer, he noted, struggling to find his voice.

‘You took my father’s last words down?’ demanded Edward and Norbert nodded, fumbling for the parchment; Edward waved impatiently, then indicated the closed door.

‘In there?’

Norbert nodded again and Monthermer stepped forward and flung it open, then recoiled at the smell, cupping his nose and mouth with one hand.

‘A week dead,’ Edward said thinly, ‘in this damp heat and having died of a bloody flux of the bowel. You should have expected that, my lord — what did he say, at the end?’

Norbert, taken by surprise at the last sharply-barked question, hummed and erred, then brought out the parchment of it, though the truth was that he knew it by heart.

‘He wishes his heart removed to the minster in London,’ he croaked. ‘His body is to be boiled and the bones casked up and placed at the head of the army, for he swore to invade Scotland and so he will.’

There was silence, for a moment, then Edward stirred.

‘Did he now. Nothing else?’

Norbert cleared his throat nervously.

‘Pactum serva,’ he answered and saw the prince’s drooping eye flicker a little. Pactum Serva — hold to the vow.

‘Is there more?’

Like a father’s love, thought Marmaduke Thweng, coming up in time to hear this. You will find none of that, new little king, only your da’s reminder of what you swore at the Feast of Swans. Then he took to breathing through his mouth against the smell, noting the surreptitious attempts by all the others in the coterie to ward it off in some way.

Edward did not seem to notice them or the smell, but his next words gave the lie to it.

‘Cask him up. Lead line it — strip the church roof here if you have to. We will take him south for burial.’

Norbert blinked.

‘My lord,’ he began. ‘The King’s command…’

‘Is that you tomb up the dead man in the room,’ Edward declared in a grim voice. ‘And do something about the stink. Am I understood?’

He did not wait for a reply, but walked off, while Monthermer closed the door on Edward the First and turned to Norbert.

‘You have annoyed your king, notary,’ he said with a sharp smile. ‘I would start running and catch up with events if I were you. That and look for a new position.’

Norbert swallowed hard and then looked at the lists clutched to wrinkled ruin in his sweaty fists, all the prisoners awaiting the King’s pleasure in castles scattered all over the north. The most dangerous, those who had assisted in crowning the rebel king or colluded in the murder of the lord of Badenoch, had been granted the King’s peace until he decided on their fate.

Three miles, three furlongs and three acre-breadths, nine feet, nine palms and three barley-corns, he thought, the mystical radius of the verge of the King’s peace. Within it, no man was to come to harm. But the world had ended and that king was dead — did his peace still exist, in law or under God?

It was clear that the insouciant new king — Norbert still could not accept it completely — was in no mood to consider the matter. So let the captives languish, he thought, with a sudden, sharp rebellion of his own, until this new king is remembered of them and comes to me. Or someone like me, he added, recalling Monthermer’s parting words.

Out in the air, folk breathed easier, benisoned by the persistent cold drizzle of rain which had suddenly relieved the oppressive heat in a thunderstorm the night before.

‘What of the army?’ asked Marmaduke Thweng. ‘Do you join it, my lord? Or go south with your father?’

Edward sighed. The army waited under de Valence to lumber north on a pointless exercise that would add to the crippling debt that was his inheritance. Debt and boiled bones my father left, he thought bitterly, yet no loving final words for me.

He wanted to be in Langley, swimming. Digging a ditch. It came to him, in a sudden heady rush, that he could do that without worry now.

He looked round at the assembled lords, more suspicious of them than he was of the Scots; Monthermer arrived, smiling blandly and bowing and Edward bowed back. A mummery, he thought savagely — his sister, Joan, had just died and she had been Monthermer’s wife, so that the lowborn former household knight had enjoyed the titles of Earl of Hartford and Gloucester, and added Earl of Atholl to them after Strathbogie had been hanged.

Now, of course, he had nothing — Joan’s young son Gilbert had the first two titles restored to him on his mother’s death and young David Strathbogie had been given his Atholl lands back, so that Monthermer had a pile of gold in lieu.

Half of it from the royal coffer, Edward realized with bitter anger, yet another debt my father left. From having three earldoms Monthermer now had no title at all — and Edward did not trust him; Gaveston had been sure the man had been too friendly with Bruce years before.

Gaveston. The ache for him was intolerable…

‘Bruce is gathering strength, Your Grace,’ added a voice, deep as a bear’s. ‘Since he kicked de Valence’s arse at Loudon Hill, he and the raggle he commands have been strutting. Folk believe more and more in him and that cursed lie being preached by hedge-priests, that the death of your father is a prophecy from Merlin heralding liberty for Scots and Welsh, in concert against us.’

It was delivered firmly by Sir John Segrave, all grim in black and silver, and had obviously been rehearsed — though Edward knew the truth of it well enough already. Bruce, curse him.

‘We must let them know differently,’ Segrave added and Edward closed his eyes briefly against the beat of it.

The truth was that the army his father had so expensively and painstakingly gathered would never meet a Scots army stupid enough to face it. It would march up and down in a pointless chevauchee and then retreat south again, before it melted away. Everyone knew it, but the ritual dance of it would have to be followed one more time.

After, Edward thought viciously — the crown is on MY head…

‘First, I will have to at least escort my father some of the way south,’ Edward pointed out and no-one could argue with that. ‘To York seems fitting enough. Then I will need to be crowned king, my lords, before I lead any army.’

In my name, he thought triumphantly. Not my father’s, nor led by his bloody boiled bones. His time is done — an exultant thought struck him like a thunderbolt.

‘Send to France,’ he ordered to anyone who was listening. ‘Fetch my loving brother Lord Gaveston and the others who languish there. If we are to have a coronation and a war, we will need all the lords of the realm.’

Segrave looked darkly at Thweng, who merely drooped his moustache a little more and cocked a jaundiced eye at the rain. St Swithun’s Day, he noted — there will be forty more days like this if the prophecy of the saint holds true.

Hopefully, by the time the King is ready for the army, neither it nor its commanders will be too damp or hungry to appreciate it. He looked at Segrave and saw the scowl that gave lie to hope.

Thweng hunched his shoulders, against the weather and the bad cess of the moment. Once more, he thought, we will scour the north and bring fire and sword to everyone in it, making a place where wolves survive while sheep go under. And all the fighting men of that land have wolves as godfathers; one day those beasts will bite us back…

Cold rain and Black John, he thought bleakly. Not the recipe for a happy war.