Kingdom (59 page)

‘My lord king,’ Gilbert greeted, rising from the table he had been sitting at. The late June sun had turned his mop of hair white and burned his nose an angry red.

‘What is it, Gilbert?’ Robert asked sharply.

‘Sir Edward has agreed terms of surrender with Stirling’s commander.’

Robert frowned. ‘But this is good news. Dear God, Gilbert, by your face I thought—’

‘He made a deal, my lord,’ Gilbert cut in quickly.

‘A deal?’

‘Perhaps challenge would be the better term. Sir Philip Moubray sent an envoy to your brother’s camp, begging him to lift the siege. Moubray asked for a respite in which to seek the aid of King Edward. He swore, if the English king did not come north to relieve him, he would surrender Stirling without a fight.’

‘Tell me my brother turned him down?’ said Robert in a low voice.

‘My lord, I’m afraid he agreed. In fact, he told Moubray to tell the English they have until next Midsummer’s Day. A full year. If they fail to appear before the walls of Stirling Castle to lay claim to it by then, Moubray and the garrison will give themselves up to you.’

‘He called them out?’ murmured Robert. He crossed to the table, which was covered in maps and charts, marked with the castles and territories he had captured these past four years. He went to sit, then changed his mind and remained standing, fists balled on the table.

Thomas glanced at Gilbert, then spoke into the silence. ‘My lord, the English are surely too involved in their own struggles to agree to Moubray’s request for aid?’

Robert said nothing. He stared down at the maps beneath his hands. He’d had men patrolling the border all these years, watching for sign of the enemy. Had King Edward marched north against him he would have done what he had during the last campaign: scorch the earth and retreat beyond the Forth. His victory over Aymer de Valence’s forces at Loudoun Hill had been remarkable, as Wallace’s triumph at Stirling Bridge had been. But other than that one pitched battle, in which God and fortune had blessed him, his war had been fought by skirmish and ambush, sea raid and night attack. No matter his strength of arms, no matter the loyalty of his men, Robert knew his army could not compare with the force of England. Battles that pitched foot soldiers against the iron might of their heavy cavalry were doomed to fail. Wallace and ten thousand Scots had learned that lesson – it was written in blood in the fields of Falkirk.

‘My lord?’

Robert looked at his nephew, who repeated his question. He shook his head in response. No matter how divided their enemy was, this, he knew, was something that could unite them. By this deal, made in his name, his brother had effectively gone to the border and challenged the English to a duel. To ignore it would render King Edward a coward. The king’s honour was now at stake.

‘No,’ Robert murmured. ‘They will come.’

Pleshey Castle, England, 1313 AD

‘Welcome home, my lord.’

Humphrey nodded to his steward as the man crossed the yard to greet him. ‘Thank you, Ranulf.’ Around him, his men dismounted, removing caps and gulping at wine skins. It was warm for late September and they had ridden many miles that day.

‘How fared you in Westminster, sir?’

Humphrey noted the apprehension in Ranulf’s voice. Such anxiety had become characteristic of his staff over the past year, all of them fearing what the outcome of the rift between their lord and their king might be. There had been times – England teetering on the brink of civil war – when not only their livelihoods, but their lives had been in danger. He smiled to reassure the older man. ‘Do not worry, Ranulf. I have made my peace with the king.’ Humphrey slid off his gloves. ‘He still needs my service against the Scots.’

Ranulf nodded. ‘When will the muster take place?’

‘In the spring. We’ll receive the summons in the next few weeks.’ Humphrey handed his dust-stained gloves to the steward. ‘Is Lady Elizabeth in her chambers?’

‘I believe she is in the garden. Shall I have her brought to you?’

‘No, thank you.’

Leaving his steward to see to the rest of the company, Humphrey headed across the yard, through the arched door in the wall that surrounded the kitchen gardens. Stooping beneath trailing strands of ivy, he saw a guard loitering on the pathway that ran around the beds of flowers that bordered a lawn dotted with pear and plum trees. The guard had his thumbs hooked in his belt and appeared to be enjoying the sunshine. Some distance away, his charge was sitting on a bench reading.

‘My lord.’ The guard straightened as he saw Humphrey.

Humphrey nodded to him. ‘You may go, Nicolas.’

As the guard ducked through the door, closing it behind him, the figure on the bench looked up from her book.

Elizabeth smiled as Humphrey headed over, but her expression held the same uneasy question as Ranulf’s. She went to rise as he approached, but he gestured for her to stay, acutely aware this dance between them was still so faltering. Elizabeth was a queen, but she was his prisoner. She was his enemy, yet she was his lover. He sat on the bench beside her. The air was sweetened by fennel and sage.

Elizabeth studied him. After a moment she nodded, as if he had answered a question. ‘It is happening, isn’t it? You are going to war?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

Humphrey paused. A year ago he never would have spoken to her about such matters, but many things had changed in that time. Her hand was splayed on the bench beside him. Reaching down, he threaded his fingers through hers. ‘Next spring – before the truce made for Stirling runs out.’

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I thought, with the Earl of Lancaster against him, that the king would not—’

‘Sir Thomas and Sir Guy have been accepted into the king’s peace.’

Humphrey took in her surprise. There had been similar reactions at court when the king had made the announcement. For a time, it had seemed such a thing would not be possible, despite all the mediations and negotiations that had taken place over the past sixteen months since the execution of Piers Gaveston.

The bloody demise of the Earl of Cornwall, whose gored and beheaded body had been found by four shoemakers on Blacklow Hill, had sent shock waves throughout England. Aymer de Valence, throwing himself on the king’s mercy, had revealed the identities of those involved in the conspiracy to abduct Piers, which ended in the man’s murder. Edward, mad with grief and rage, pointed the finger of blame directly at Lancaster and Warwick. Guy de Beauchamp vehemently denied any part in it, but the king was out for blood and was determined that all who had plotted against him be punished severely.

In little doubt the deed had been done at Lancaster’s hand, Humphrey and the other barons had been furious at being taken for fools, but nonetheless had stood firm against the king, refusing to relinquish their lands or their freedom for what they maintained had been done in the best interests of the realm.

For a time, civil war seemed inevitable, but then the first steps towards peace had been brokered by King Philippe of France and Edward’s nephew, the young Earl of Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare. The reconciliation between the king and the barons had been finalised at the autumn parliament, but Humphrey knew it was a fragile peace at best – made only for the sake of the war to which the king had been forced, by the challenge of the Scots, to turn his attention. There was hatred between Edward and Lancaster that Humphrey believed would not now be satisfied, except with blood.

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I cannot believe he forgave his cousin.’

‘We all have a common enemy now.’

Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes sharp. ‘My husband, you mean.’ She removed her hand from his. ‘Will you be leading the army? It is your honour as constable, is it not?’

‘It is.’ Humphrey looked out over the gardens. ‘But I’m not certain of my place yet. I may have earned the king’s forgiveness. His trust will be harder won.’

‘So you will prove yourself in battle against Robert? Win back your spurs?’

Elizabeth’s voice was tight. Without waiting for an answer, she stood and walked over to the flower beds. Plump red roses decorated the thorny bushes. Bees were busy among them, gathering the last of the pollen before the flowers withered with autumn’s chill.

Humphrey went to her and put his hands on her shoulders, feeling the tension in her body. ‘This war is inescapable,’ he murmured. ‘Sooner or later, we knew we would be going back.’

Elizabeth turned, looking up at him. ‘It is you I am afraid for, Humphrey. But what does that make me?’ She raised a hand to her head, laughed humourlessly. ‘My husband made me a rebel and you have made me an adulteress.’

Humphrey wrapped his arms around her. He’d been beset by his own demons of guilt and castigation since their affair began, but he had ignored them for the sake of the miraculous feeling of his soul’s reawakening, after the long night of grief caused by Bess’s death.

‘And if you win?’ she murmured, reaching up to grasp his arm. ‘What happens to Marjorie and my sisters-in-law? What happens to Robert? To me?’

‘I do not know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘Let us not speak of it. Not yet. It is months away. We still have the winter.’

Humphrey closed his eyes, the sun warm on his face. If only they could stay in this garden. If only this was another time, another place – where his destiny and hers weren’t entwined with that of a man who had once been his friend; a man he was now duty-bound to meet with a sword in his hand.

Chapter 45

The Torwood, Scotland, 1314 AD

Around a circle of fire in the heart of the ancient forest a host of men were gathered. The flames lit their faces as they talked among themselves, passing around wine skins and bowls of oat-thickened stew, with the ease of men who have known one another for years. Above them, branches of trees formed a tangled ceiling.

For Robert, seated with them, a tree stump for his throne, the forest was just another hall. He had taken counsel and broken bread with these men in many such places these past eight years since his enthronement – in the ruins of sea-girt fortresses, on lonely, heather-clad moors, in the snow-wreathed heights of mountains, on wave-dashed beaches under a vault of stars. He had sat with them in prayer and mourning, in defeat and triumph, in sorrow and exultation, their union bound by the bonds of this war.

As he nursed his wine, his gaze moved over them: Earl Malcolm of Lennox and Sir Neil Campbell, Lord Gilbert de la Hay, Nes and Cormac, Walter Stewart with the mantle of the kingdom on his young shoulders, and William Lamberton with those keen eyes, one ice-blue the other pearl white, that seemed able to see into men’s souls. There, too, were the heroes of the hour, Thomas Randolph and James Douglas, fresh from daring assaults on Edinburgh and Roxburgh castles, won in the spring by extraordinary feats of courage and cunning. Tales of their bravery were being lauded far and wide, Douglas’s use of a herd of cows to conceal him and his men from Roxburgh’s garrison leading to jokes that Scotland’s cattle were being employed in the fight against the English. Robert hadn’t thought it possible, but now, of all the great strongholds that had been in enemy hands, only Stirling remained.

Robert looked at his brother, whose challenge last summer at the gates of the castle had brought them all here. After learning of the pact, he had reprimanded Edward severely, but the two of them had since settled into a tense truce. Even with his impetuousness, Edward, his only surviving brother, was still one of his most competent captains. Often, in recent years, Robert had seen a hungry, discontented look in his brother’s eyes, as though he were a man searching for something to satisfy him, but not knowing what would. Now, that look was gone. Edward had wanted this confrontation.

‘My lord.’

Robert looked round as one of his knights leaned in to speak with him.

‘More have arrived.’

Seeing a company of men heading through the trees, Robert rose to meet them. The other men around the campfire halted their conversations, turning with calls of joy as Angus MacDonald approached. The Lord of Islay was swathed in a black cloak that swung from his broad shoulders. His bright blue eyes gleamed in the flames of the torches carried by his men.

Angus dropped to one knee before Robert. ‘My lord king.’

Grinning broadly, Robert raised him up and embraced him. ‘It is good to see you, my friend.’ Looking beyond the lord, he saw more figures appearing in the forest gloom, scores of them, some leading mules with packs strapped to their sides. ‘And you come with an army it seems.’

‘Four hundred from Kintyre and Islay. Some from Argyll too.’ Angus smiled. ‘And I am not the only lord come from the Isles.’

Now, among the men, Robert saw a motley crowd of scarred, muscular figures, clad in leather aketons and short tunics, many bare-legged and all with great axes hanging from straps on their backs. The galloglass had come. As he looked for sign of their captain, his gaze fell on a slender figure emerging through the trees, her red hair flaming in the torchlight.

Christiana smiled at his surprise, coming forward to kneel and kiss his hand.