Kingdom (45 page)

The steward looked round. ‘Sir Humphrey—’

‘Is the king dead?’ Humphrey moved quickly to the bed.

Edward lay still, his legs and torso covered by a thin sheet, dampened by sweat. His body was wasted, his face as white and oily as melting tallow. His eyes were half-lidded and his mouth was open. Humphrey let out a sharp breath, seeing the king’s chest rising and falling and a vein in his neck pulsing rapidly.

‘He has been given the last rites,’ the steward said quietly. ‘We fear it will not be long now.’

Humphrey didn’t take his eyes off the king. ‘Leave us, would you please?’

‘Sir, I . . .’ The steward faltered into silence as Humphrey turned on him. Seeing the look in the earl’s eyes, he nodded.

The steward and the priest retreated behind the curtains, followed by the worried pages.

Humphrey, left alone, stared down at the shrivelled form lying before him. The man they had called Longshanks, King of England, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Ireland and conqueror of Wales and Scotland, had become a withered cage of flesh and bone, from which his soul now strained to be free. Glistening streaks of oil had trickled through his white hair on to the pillow from the unction that had been applied to his temples. This man had been everything to him – he had given his life for him and his cause. Robert had exposed what he had feared for months, but Humphrey now wanted to hear it from Edward himself. The king owed him that much.

Humphrey thought of the questions Edward would have been asked as part of the rites.
Are you sorry for your sins? Do you desire to make amends and if God gave you more time, by His grace would you do so?
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he took hold of his father-in-law’s hand. The king’s eyelids flickered at the contact.

‘My lord, can you hear me?’

Edward’s eyes cracked open. His gaze came slowly into focus. ‘Humphrey?’

‘I am here.’ Humphrey tightened his grip on the king’s hand as his eyes slipped closed, waiting until his gaze was on him again. ‘I have come to help you unburden yourself of your sins. It is time, my lord. Time to give your true confession.’

This time, Edward’s eyes remained open.

An hour later, Humphrey left the king’s chamber. The royal officials and servants, waiting beyond, all turned to him, their expressions shifting at the look on his face.

‘The king is dead,’ he confirmed into their silence.

Humphrey crossed to the steward, who had closed his eyes momentarily in prayer. ‘We must keep this quiet as long as we can for the sake of our men still in Scotland. We cannot allow the Scots to know we are vulnerable, not until our new king has been proclaimed.’

The steward nodded slowly, but he looked uncertain at the task. ‘I will do what I can, of course.’ He let out a breath. ‘I must send word to the prince and the queen at once.’

‘I will deliver the message to the prince directly,’ Humphrey told him. ‘I have business in London.’

Leaving the steward to administer to the king’s body, Humphrey headed for the tent’s entrance. In their shock and grief, the pages and officials didn’t notice the leather bag he now gripped tightly in his fist. As he pushed out of the tent into the grey afternoon, Humphrey realised his hands were shaking.

The Border, Scotland, 1307 AD

Alexander Seton was hauled unceremoniously from the horse. He stumbled as he landed on the uneven ground of the woods. As one of the men turned him roughly around and began cutting through the ropes that bound his hands behind his back, he met the gaze of Neil Campbell, who remained astride his horse. Alexander didn’t speak, but after a long moment he averted his eyes from Campbell’s cold stare.

‘If King Robert or any of his men see you in Scotland again, your life is forfeit,’ Neil reminded him.

‘He made that very clear.’ As his pack was slung at him, Alexander caught it. ‘Robert need not worry. I’ll not set foot in his kingdom again.’ His voice hardened. ‘There is nothing here for me now.’ He headed for the edge of the trees, beyond which the road wound south through rolling hills – south to a life in exile. All he had sacrificed had been in vain. In the end, he had lost everything.

After a few paces Alexander looked back at the unsmiling faces of the men who had escorted him to the border. ‘I did it for Christopher.’

When they didn’t answer, he turned and walked out of the trees into the dusk, pulling up his hood against the mist of rain.

Chapter 32

Burstwick Manor, England, 1307 AD

Elizabeth woke to the sound of voices. She sat up, disoriented. Golden light seeped through the shutters, but she couldn’t tell if it was morning or evening. She had lain down to rest, not meaning to sleep. Perhaps another night had passed without her notice? The voices were louder, coming down the passage towards her. Other than distant calls that occasionally filtered in from outside she hadn’t heard another human’s voice in months. She felt herself flinching at the approaching sounds. As the key rattled in the lock, she pushed herself off the bed.

The first person she saw was Maud. The po-faced maid looked flushed and indignant.

Elizabeth started in surprise as a man moved into the chamber behind the woman. ‘Humphrey,’ she murmured, in one moment elated to see a familiar face, the next terrified he had come to execute some crueller punishment devised by the king.

‘My lady.’

Elizabeth realised that Humphrey had changed, considerably, since she had last seen him almost a year ago. His physical appearance was little different; it was in his eyes and his bearing where the transformation had occurred. He had the look of a man in mourning. There was a haunting clarity in his green eyes.

‘Are you fit to travel?’

‘Why? Where are you taking me?’

‘You’re being moved to my manor in Essex. You will be well cared for there.’

Elizabeth took this in, not daring to hope it was true – that she might leave these walls, even for a moment; breathe fresh air. ‘My father?’ She suddenly wondered if she had imagined her message being returned to her, crumpled on the tray.

‘The king decreed it, shortly before he died.’

‘King Edward is dead?’

Humphrey’s brow furrowed. He turned to the red-faced Maud. ‘You did not tell her?’

‘I was following the king’s orders, sir,’ said the maid sullenly. ‘I wasn’t to speak to her.’

Humphrey held out his hand. ‘Come, my lady. My men are waiting to escort you. But, first, there is someone to see you. She is waiting outside.’

Feeling a heady mix of confusion, excitement and disbelief bubbling up inside her, Elizabeth stepped quickly forward and grasped Humphrey’s hand. His skin was a warm shock after so long without contact, his grip firm as he led her past Maud, down the passage and out into the late August evening. The courtyard was filled with golden light, hazy with dust, disturbed by the horses and wagons. Elizabeth halted in the doorway for a moment, closing her eyes as the sun bathed her.

‘Elizabeth!’

Her eyes snapped open at the voice. She saw a thin, dark-haired girl break free from the group by the wagons and race across the yard towards her. Elizabeth went to meet her, enfolding Marjorie tightly in her arms. Tears stung her eyes as she felt the girl’s body begin to shake against her own. After a few moments, Elizabeth pulled back, smiling through her tears as she studied Marjorie, who had grown taller in the past year and looked less like a girl, more like a young woman. ‘Dear God, but I thought I would never see you again.’

Marjorie looked at Humphrey, then back at Elizabeth. ‘Where is my father? They will not tell me.’

‘In Scotland,’ answered Humphrey, his eyes moving to Elizabeth. ‘Alive.’

‘Will Marjorie be coming with me?’ she asked him. ‘To Essex?’

‘No, my lady. But the king granted me permission to have her moved to Sixhills convent. She will be with her aunts there.’

‘And Mary? Isabel?’

‘It is all I can do. For now.’ Turning, Humphrey motioned to his men. Two of his knights came forward, keeping close to the women. ‘I have something to attend to, my lady.’ His eyes flicked from Elizabeth to Marjorie. ‘When I return we will be leaving.’

Elizabeth nodded, knowing he meant for them to savour this moment. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

Humphrey entered the chamber alone. Closing the door behind him, he leaned against it, letting his eyes take in the patterned rug, faded where the light came in, the hooded hearth, the pitted beams that crossed the ceiling, the table and chairs by the open windows, then, finally, the bed. This room was imprinted on his mind, indelible as a brand. It was the place where the souls of his wife and child had been released.

He had spent days in here after returning to the manor to find Bess had died in labour. Poisoned with drink and grief he remembered little of it – just flashes of rage and bright bursts of violence. He walked across the room, his footsteps hollow on the floor, and touched one of the posts of the bed, scarred by gashes. He had a memory of slashing at it with his sword. Moving around the bed, he put down the leather bag he had carried up from the courtyard and sat, breathing in the chamber’s staleness, faint beneath the acrid smell of the logs blazing in the hearth. The flames were high and bright, the fire just lit by one of the servants, as ordered. Humphrey stayed there for a while, eyes closed, listening to two doves calling in the cote outside. Then, he turned to the bag beside him. Reaching inside, he pulled out a large, leather-bound book. Words shimmered in the burnished light of the setting sun flooding through the windows.

The Last Prophecy of Merlin

Humphrey turned the pages, his eyes following the delicate flow of the script, surrounded by margins filled with interlocking patterns of animals and flowers. He had been granted the king’s permission to read this book the night of his initiation into the Round Table. Even though, by then, he knew the words within by heart, he had come to it in deep reverence, his breath quickening as he saw the sacred quest his king had charged him with set out before him. The soft skin of the pages had seemed almost alive to him then, decorated with whorls and trails of flowers, arched beasts and soaring birds that seemed to writhe on the parchment in the flicker of candlelight, the vivid colours of the inks, made from precious stones powdered down and mixed with wine, dazzling him. He had felt the words, rendered into Latin from old Welsh, calling down the years to him; grasping hold of something inside him, pulling him to follow their thread and surrender himself to their commands.

Now, looking down on the same pages, he couldn’t believe how flat, how dead in his hands they were. The words, scribed in oak gall ink, were not ancient and had never been written in Welsh. They were younger than him. It was six weeks since the king had died, six weeks and yet still the truth was only just forming inside him, like a seed growing. Into what, Humphrey did not know. It was strange to have come to understand how much power there could be in nothing. He paused on a page with an image of a man standing before a fortress, behind which towered green mountains. The man held aloft a gold coronet: the Crown of Arthur, in the circle of which Humphrey now knew the lie had been born.

It was as a young prince, disgraced and exiled in Gascony, that Edward first learned of the crown. It had been raised, then, on the head of the warlord, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, who, uniting the fractured kingdoms of Wales beneath him, had led a new uprising, burning and raiding lands granted to Edward by his father. On the dusty tournament grounds of Gascony, the prince had already come to understand the power of legends. Fighting under his new-made dragon banner, styling himself as King Arthur, men had begun to flock to his standard. He had seen how it empowered and inspired them, how loyal they were to something greater than themselves – something that lifted them above the mundane and delivered them into the realm of heroes. Edward knew, implicitly, that Llywelyn’s achievement in unifying the disparate people of Wales lay in the power of that crown. And knew that to conquer his enemy he must take it from him.

It would be only after another twenty-two years and by great sacrifice of money and men that Edward finally vanquished Llywelyn, in which time he saw his father beaten, stripped of authority and dignity during the bitter civil war with his barons. On taking the throne, Edward had sworn an oath never to be so dishonoured by any man subject to him. To ensure this he began to expand his borders and consolidate his power, rewarding the faithful with gifts of land in the regions he conquered. In the conquest of Wales, his Round Table was formed and he wrapped his vassals – those whose strength he needed – in the mantles of champions: Gawain and Galahad, Mordred and Perceval, his men bound to him by vows more sacred than fealty, their loyalty fused in the table’s endless circle. But what was once just a tournament guise had become something much greater for Edward. He didn’t just want to be called by the name of a hero of old: he wanted to become the legend itself – Arthur, King of all Britain.