Kingdom (39 page)

Turning at their approach, Ralph’s long, lean face, framed by a black beard, showed surprised pleasure. ‘Sir Humphrey, I didn’t know you would be here. Well met, brother,’ he said, extending his hand.

As Humphrey clasped it, Aymer cut in, curt with impatience. ‘What word from Turnberry, Sir Ralph?’ He peered over the man’s shoulder. ‘You have prisoners?’

Humphrey noticed Ralph’s expression cool, but the earl called to his company, five of whom approached, marching two men between them and leading a pack-horse. The animal had large sacks strapped to its sides, the sodden material straining with the weight of whatever was inside. Humphrey studied the two captives. One met his gaze, defiant despite the bruises on his face. The other, the younger of the two, kept his eyes on the ground, flinching as Ralph’s men compelled him before Aymer. Humphrey didn’t recognise either of them.

Evidently neither did Aymer, the dissatisfaction apparent in his tone. ‘I was told they were Bruce’s men?’

Ralph nodded to one of his knights, who tugged aside the defiant prisoner’s threadbare cloak to reveal a tunic. Once white, it was covered in layers of blood and dirt. Humphrey’s eyes alighted on the red chevron, just visible beneath the filth.

‘One of my patrols caught them in southern Carrick. Show them,’ Ralph said to the man leading the pack-horse.

The man complied, untying one of the sacks. The rain pummelled him as he worked. Humphrey glanced up, realising the sky had grown darker. Menacing clouds were flying fast and low overhead. As Ralph’s man hefted the pack free with the aid of one of his comrades, both men struggling under the weight, the sack split. Humphrey and Aymer watched as a bright stream of silver gushed into the courtyard mud.

‘I believe they’ve been collecting rents for Bruce,’ said Ralph, turning to them as his men fought to stem the flow.

Aymer’s expression had shifted to eagerness at the sight of the coins. ‘Then they must know where he is based?’ His eyes flicked to the prisoners. ‘Tell me – where is your master? Where is Bruce?’

The older man met Aymer’s baleful gaze, his own eyes narrowed with hatred. ‘Your time is coming, English. Your doom draws near. When your covetous king dies we will reclaim our lands. The Britons will rise under King Robert, the Welsh and the Irish joining with us to push you back from our borders. This is the true prophecy of Merlin!’

Humphrey stared at the man, astonished by the vehement proclamation.

Ralph nodded grimly. ‘He’s been saying that since we caught him. But nothing more useful I’m afraid.’ He grimaced, hunching up his shoulders as the rain became hail, pelting down around them, turning the ground white.

Servants, moving through the yard on errands, dashed for the shelter of the buildings. A loud rumble of thunder drowned the labourers’ hammering. The black sky pulsed with lightning.

Aymer motioned to Matthew, raising his voice above the storm. ‘Secure them for interrogation.’ As the knight led Ralph’s men towards the barracks, the two prisoners marched forcibly between them, Aymer turned back to the earl. ‘My steward will show you where you can lodge for tonight.’

Humphrey cut in. ‘I’ll take him.’

Aymer frowned. ‘You’ll not help me question them?’

‘I need something from my room. I’ll join you shortly.’

‘As you wish.’ Turning on his heel, Aymer followed the prisoners into the barracks.

Ralph sighed with relief as Humphrey led him into the dry. ‘It’s like the end of days out there.’ Pulling back his hood, he pushed a hand through his wet hair, rain dripping through his fingers. ‘Aymer is becoming quite the lord of his little kingdom, isn’t he? All that’s missing is a crown.’

Humphrey looked round. Preoccupied by the prisoner’s outburst, he realised he hadn’t caught what Ralph had said. When his friend repeated himself, Humphrey laughed dryly. ‘Indeed. But if anyone can make those men talk it is Aymer. You cannot fault his powers of persuasion.’ He watched Ralph nod curtly, unsmiling.

There was little love lost between Ralph and Aymer. Three years ago, Aymer had told the king that Ralph was involved in an affair with the king’s daughter, a revelation that had led to Ralph’s imprisonment. His fortune had come good in the end for, on Joan’s pleading, Edward eventually allowed them to marry and, by right of his wife, Ralph became Earl of Gloucester. But he’d never forgiven Aymer for the betrayal.

‘Have you been here long?’

‘A few weeks,’ answered Humphrey, leading the way down a gloomy passage. A couple of servants hurried past, bobbing their heads at the two barons. ‘The king sent me when he got word of Bruce’s fleet.’

‘Is my wife still with him at Lanercost?’

Humphrey nodded. ‘Joan asked me to tell you that you’re in her prayers.’

Ralph smiled. ‘She is well?’

‘She had a fever when I left, but she was in good spirits.’

‘And my stepson? How is Gilbert?’

‘He’s been doing well in the prince’s company,’ Humphrey said carefully. No doubt Ralph would hear about the scandal that had swept through the royal court soon enough, but there was no need to fuel it with gossip. ‘There has been some difficulty with Piers Gaveston, but I believe that is behind us now. Gilbert seems to have become firm friends with my nephew, Henry.’

‘By God, when I think of those young bloods I feel old.’ Ralph shook his head. ‘It seems like an age since we were in their place – Knights of the Dragon.’

Humphrey halted outside a door. ‘This should do you.’

Ralph paused, his face changing. ‘Do you ever wonder, Humphrey, what our lives would now be like if Edward had allowed Robert to take the throne of Scotland when he was still loyal to us? Will Gilbert and Henry see peace in their lifetimes or will this become their war?’ He pushed open the door, his brow furrowing. ‘Where does it end?’

Humphrey didn’t answer. He thought of the king in Lanercost, conducting this war from his deathbed, at each command from his lips another man strung up on a gallows, another mother’s son cut down in a field. Where, indeed, did it end? ‘I’ll have wine and food brought.’

Leaving Ralph to settle in, Humphrey moved down the passage to his room. As he entered and closed the door, thunder boomed, rattling the window. The chamber was dark, the fire in the hearth burned to ash. He crossed to one of his chests, crouched and opened it. Rifling through the clothes inside, his fingers closed around a leather-bound book. As he pulled it out, the gold leaf writing gleamed.

The Prophecy of Merlin

Geoffrey of Monmouth

Humphrey knew the translation of the
Last Prophecy
, found by the king at Nefyn, off by heart, but although he’d read this book several times he was less familiar with those penned by Monmouth. Yet, as he stood scanning the pages, he knew in his heart he would not find the words the prisoner had uttered. He would have remembered such a prophecy. Was Robert using his knowledge of Merlin’s visions, gleaned during his time as a Knight of the Dragon, to instil some new belief in his followers? Or was this something to do with the ancient text, missing from its vessel?

He heard the footsteps thudding fast across the chamber behind him, but before he could turn someone had grabbed him from behind. Humphrey stiffened as a blade pressed against his throat.

‘Make a sound and I’ll kill you.’

Burstwick Manor, England, 1307 AD

Elizabeth winced as the needle stabbed her. Holding up her finger she watched the drop of blood bead on the tip. Sucking it quickly, she continued threading the blue silk through the square of linen, fingers clumsy with lack of practice. The lettering was untidy, but she had no time to make it neat. Last week, after months of her pleading, they had finally allowed her to have tools for embroidery, once a week for an hour. That time was almost up. Her heart seemed to beat down the moments.

Time had taken on new meaning for Elizabeth these past six months in this cramped chamber. In the first weeks of her incarceration it had stretched endless before her, each day an eternity. The whitewashed walls of her prison, furnished with only a hard bed, a table and stool, seemed to contract until her mind felt as though it were collapsing in on itself. In those early days, when the fear she would be harmed left her and she came to realise she might sit in this room, alive and well, until she died, she had gone mad, throwing herself against the door, screaming and pounding her fists on it. Now, time was a single day, repeated over and over, with little variation except the slow changes of season she witnessed through the slats in the shuttered window that looked out over fields to distant woods.

Dipping the needle in and out through the cloth, Elizabeth thought of all the times when, as a girl, she had begged her father to allow her to enter a convent. She had been desperate for a life of silent prayer in the face of marriage to an elderly lord, whose last wife died giving birth to another of his children; so desperate she had run away with Robert, hoping he would lead her from that future. Fate was a cruel mistress. Not only had Elizabeth found herself locked in a loveless marriage, but now she finally had her wish – a life of solitary confinement, where all she had to occupy herself were prayers.

She finished the last two letters, cut the thread with her teeth and tied it in a knot. Turning the square of linen over, she read the stitched words.

Father, please help me. Your loving daughter.

Footsteps echoed in the passage. Elizabeth hastily tied the four corners of the cloth together. It wasn’t much of a deterrent against prying eyes, but she hoped the gift she was sending it with would be enough to keep the bearer’s silence, if not stay their curiosity.

As the footsteps stopped outside the door, Elizabeth tugged off her wedding ring, the gold band embedded with its glossy ruby. She remembered Marjorie once asking why women wore them on that finger and her answer that the vein there ran to the heart. Looking at it, lying in her palm, she felt a tinge of regret. She had always thought that vein ran cold in her, but now the ring was gone from her finger she felt its absence and thought of Robert. A key rattled in the lock. Elizabeth curled her hand around the ring and the cloth. She had to do this, despite the loss and the risk. Not just for her sake. Her prison might be bleak, but Marjorie, Mary and Isabel’s ordeals must surely be unbearable. If she could, she would help them.

The door opened and a young woman appeared, carrying a tray. Elizabeth’s fist tightened around the ring in relief. It was Lucy, not Maud. The maid closed the door behind her and balanced the tray on one hand while she locked it with a key, attached to her belt on a cord.

Lucy nodded to Elizabeth, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth. ‘My lady.’

Elizabeth counted each word, each hint of a smile from the young maid as a victory. Back at Lanercost she had begged King Edward to allow her servants, Lora and Judith among them, to remain with her, but the king decreed that the women who served her would be forbidden from smiling or even talking to her. Maud had followed the king’s order to the letter, but Lucy, over the last few months, had begun to thaw in her bearing towards her prisoner.

‘How are you today, Lucy?’

The maid shot her a nervous look, then dipped her head. ‘I am well, my lady.’

Elizabeth watched as Lucy set down the tray, on which was a bowl of brown stew, with a hunk of bread and a goblet of what she knew would be watered-down wine. ‘And your son? Is he better now?’

Lucy looked up, smiling despite herself. ‘Oh, yes, my lady. Much better.’

Elizabeth crossed the room slowly, moving towards the tray. At the last moment, she turned to Lucy. Grabbing the maid’s hand, she thrust the crumpled linen and the ring into it. ‘Lucy, I beg you, get this to my father in Ireland.’

The maid stepped back, staring in alarm at the cloth and the ring beside it, now nestled in her palm.

‘The ring will be enough to pay for that cloth to be delivered to Ballymote Castle and to compensate you handsomely for your trouble. You only need find someone willing to take it. Someone you can trust.’

‘My lady . . .’

‘If your son sickens again you’ll have money for medicine.’ Elizabeth pushed Lucy’s fingers over the ring.

The maid looked at her apprehensively, but her fist remained closed.

Chapter 27

Glen Trool, Scotland, 1307 AD

The glen reverberated with sounds of battle. Distant screams rose above the clash of weapons. Robert stood listening to the echoes rising from the valley depths, trying to gauge what each discordant sound might mean.

The downpour had passed, leaving the rugged heights lost in a miasma of fog, as thick as soup. Before him, the hillside sloped away into the mists, the wet soil scarred with dark wounds where his men had levered out the boulders. Behind him, a banner was planted in the earth. The royal standard was long gone, left in Wishart’s safekeeping, but before Robert had departed from Barra Christiana had given him this replacement. The cloth might be linen rather than silk, dyed yellow with saffron and emblazoned with a crudely sewn red lion, but it was still a powerful symbol with which to herald his return.