The Honor Due a King (16 page)

Did he guess merely by observation, or had I, in my delirium, said too much? “Whose name did I say, then?”

“
Her
name. The reason you don’t want to go back to Edinburgh and face Walter.”

There was nothing malevolent in his manifestation and yet all the same it left me feeling helplessly exposed. As it had been since boyhood for me, words failed to form. Had I thought he harbored me any ill will, I might have struck him. That seemed to be the only way I knew. But circumstances had softened me. Made me look more inward than out for the things that caused me hurt.

“How do I give answer to that accusation?” I asked pointedly.

But he had no opportunity to respond or query further. The dogs scrabbled to their feet and pitched into a frenzy as the outer doors swung open. With his head bowed, my young horsegroom, Donald, held the door for a lady. As she swept past, Donald gazed at her beneath his dirty locks, then tugged the door shut and disappeared outside.

Archibald rose and managed a quick bow, but he looked blankly at the visitor, not knowing at all who she was. I knew, though, and was more than passing curious as to what had brought her here.

“Lady Rosalind de Fiennes?” Tentative, I went forward, took her cool hand and brushed my lips over it. “This is my brother, Archibald. What brings you? I would not have thought we’d meet again – less that you would ever seek me out.”

She brushed back the hood of her damp mantle. It had been misting daylong and by her sodden outer garments, it was clear she had ridden many miles, days perhaps. Her chin drifted down to her chest. “I regret to tell you, my lords, that Lady Eleanor Douglas died this past spring of a rampant fever. She fought it fiercely. The nuns of Emmanuel even bathed her in the River Avon to cool the fever. But it was not meant that she should remain of this earth.”

Archibald staggered to the table and leaned upon it, shaking his head slowly.

“Your mother, Sir Archibald, she befriended me. We talked often. She spoke of her sons incessantly with enormous pride.”

“I wrote her. Wrote and wrote and in the last two years – and not one in return from her. I went to the nunnery to inquire of her. The abbess turned me away.”

“Judge her not harshly, my lord. Your mother had taken the veil. Almost daily she set out to attend to the poor and infirm and was not even at the nunnery. It was her own selflessness that exposed her to the pestilence in nearby Dalmeny. As for your letters, when we were sorting through her belongings, we found these.” She drew from beneath the shelter of her mantle a leather bag and offered it to Archibald. “The pages were worn, some of the words blurred from her tears. She read them often. I pray they will grant you some comfort in your loss.”

As Archibald stepped shakily forward and took the bag from her, I saw Rosalind’s brave countenance deepen with the shadow of her own lamentations. She would not, however, allow her own sufferings or fear to deter her from her purpose. At Roxburgh, she had shown such fortitude. Even so, there was the slightest sinking of her mouth and her eyes were darkened beneath with private tears and lost sleep.

“Lady Rosalind, please,” I said, “if you will stay a night or two ... rest from your journey. You have family, surely, to return to?”

I was ill-prepared for the cutting glare she cast upon me, so quickly did her façade change.

“I have been widowed these two years, you may recall.”

I glanced away to escape the inculpation in her words. But my eyes settled squarely on the row of arrows spread upon the table. No, no. She could not have known that it was my own hand that took her husband’s life at Roxburgh. She could not.

“You have a daughter, I recall.”

Again, a shadow passed over her face. “I do. She was with me at the Nunnery of Emmanuel – until recently.”

I feared the worst, but asked anyway. “Where is she now?”

A muscle in her jaw twitched almost imperceptibly. “In England, with family. She is safer there.”

“Then if you will not accept my hospitality, good lady,” I said, “allow me to provide an escort. I shall ride with you myself back to Linlithgow. Or to the border, if you prefer.”

Something of a laugh bubbled from her mouth. Just as sudden, her voice was steady and sure. “I see by my own eyes, Lord Douglas, you barely look fit to ride, let alone defend me, after your latest scuffle. Kindly, I decline. I hired a groom who has served me well enough. A fresh pair of mounts would do, however, if you can spare them for now.”

“I’ll have them brought out and saddled for you. But I beg, stay, eat with us, at least.”

“I assure you, we are fine. We’ve a fair amount of day left to travel and shall leave anon for Berwick. My aunt there will take me in and so long as it’s in English hands ...” she paused noticeably in her speech, “I can reside safely there. Farewell, my lords.”

I saw nothing but the swirl of her skirts and the flare of her mantle as she strode from the hall. At the table, Archibald was drawing the letters from the bag and opening them one by one. I left him alone with them.

Not an hour had passed before, while I sat in my study looking over household records, he came running in and slapped one of the letters down before me.

“James,” he began, breathless from his sudden burst up the steep flight of stairs. “The Lady Rosalind ...”

I leaned back on my creaking stool, waiting.

He brought his face close to mine. “Mother, in one of her letters ... speaks of her. Lady Rosalind is the ... was the daughter of ...”

“Who?” She was English, but more than that I hadn’t the slightest notion.

“The daughter of Sir Neville of Raby.”

Robert the Bruce – Edinburgh, 1316

A
n heir. A kingdom. Dreams turned to dust in my fingers as I struggled to hold onto them.

Spring turned idly into summer. Summer faded to autumn, each day’s demise marked by sunsets of crimson. My memories of my daughter were as sharp as a newly whetted blade – which made them all the more cutting to my soul. So many moments carved into my heart. I prayed they would not fade with time – that I would never forget how the sight of her filled me with such love and joy.

Just like her mother, Marjorie had brought a child into the world and left before it could even gaze upon her face or know her touch. While I should have found solace in her son’s birth, it was hard ... my God,
so
hard to do, for now I had no legitimate children of my own. None to watch grow, to teach the ways of the world, to one day take my place.

Even before my grandson could sit himself upright, it was easy to see the curve in his back. The way he strongly favored rolling to one side. The crook in his neck. He would never be the soldier his forbears had been. Robbie was bright and beyond loved, but I prayed that when and if his time ever came to take the throne, there would be peace over the land and that the rigorous tutoring I had planned out for him would prove of benefit.

Sadly, Marjorie and I had never completely reconciled after I happened upon her and James at Melrose Abbey as they exchanged fond gestures. There was bad blood between James and Walter now. A friendship past repair, the injury inflicted by my own obstinacy.

I often wondered if Walter would have taken any offense had I deemed to forego that long ago, hastily sworn oath to his father and allowed Marjorie to choose her heart. But oh, how meaningless to ponder on it. Marjorie’s bones now lay beneath the earth and her soul, God willing, was far beyond the quarrels of a jilted suitor and her jealous husband.

Wedded bliss was far from being mine, as well. Eight years lost. Eight years longing for Elizabeth’s return. Those first months alone, I had longed for my wife’s gentle spirit, her lively talk, the fit of her small, supple back curled against my chest. Needed those simple things like I needed a soft place to lie down after a hard, body-bruising battle. But a life in the wilderness scrapping for existence has a way of eroding earthly desires and trifling sentimentalities. I had to learn to live day to day – without her.

Even though she had returned to me, I was more alone now than when she had been but a memory and a hope all those years. Why had she shunned me? Something had happened during our time apart. But what? Torture? She bore no scars. Besides, that was a tactic more akin to Longshanks than his feeble-willed offspring. Violated? Women do not speak of such things when they happen. It is a stain upon their virtue. A shame they bear inwardly. I seethed to think of it. If anyone had harmed her ...

While I pondered it one day, I delayed all meetings and rode alone in the woods beyond Holyrood with a pair of my favorite hounds loping playfully behind. At the long fading rays of a late summer sunset, I returned to the palace and took dinner in my chambers, again alone. Afterwards, I sent a message to Elizabeth that I wished to meet with her within the hour. How odd that I had to announce to my own wife that I was going to make the short journey down a single flight of stairs to speak with her.

I laid my hand upon the latch of her door, pressed on the blackened iron and was surprised to feel it give. When I opened the door, Elizabeth was sitting on a stool in the middle of the room, her spine as rigid as a spear haft, half a dozen maids scattered around her, laying out her nightclothes with ritualistic precision.

A younger, freckle-faced lass with nimble fingers untwisted the plaits of Elizabeth’s shining auburn hair as it tumbled to her waist and lifted a bone comb to it. In form, my queen was still among the most beautiful in all Scotland, but the blitheness had long since vanished, making her more like some fragile trinket to be guarded from breaking than a woman of flesh and spirit to be desired and embraced.

Elizabeth raised her eyes briefly. “Good even, my lord.”

Mortal enemies had delivered warmer welcomes.

“And to you,” I returned. The women bowed as they went about their work, but they kept a watchful eye on me and yielded no ground as I drew closer. Patiently I waited, as the lass kneeling upon the floor deftly pulled the comb through Elizabeth’s abundant tresses. Every lock glimmered radiantly and I imagined it smelling of sweet woodruff. I stayed the girl’s hand with my own, took the comb from her and laid it aside. In my other hand I clutched a small, plain box hewn from a walnut tree with the letter ‘E’ carved on its lid. Leaning over, I whispered into Elizabeth’s ear. “Tell them to go.”

“I’ve need of them.”

“And I a word with you. Tell them to go. You’ll call on them later.”

She turned her head in my direction, but did not look at me. “An hour then?”

I sighed. Glances passed between her women.

“Go. All of you,” I told them myself. They hesitated, looked to my wife. She dropped her chin in abject compliance. I chased them away with a commanding glare, but the oldest, the woman named Gruoch, who had been there at Melrose nursing her back to health and who still accompanied my wife to chapel several times daily to pray, lingered, rearranging the sleeves of Elizabeth’s night robe where it lay draped across the bed.

Gruoch tossed back her gray head, leered at me sternly, and shuffled toward the door, pausing when she reached it. “Shall I wait without, my lady?”

“Go on, Gruoch,” I urged. “All will be well until morning.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught with a sharpness that pricked my heart. Gruoch grasped the doorframe with gnarled fingers.

“Away, before I toss you out.”

As Gruoch lumbered away, Elizabeth’s lips twitched like a bitch guarding her pup from a stranger. “Must you be so unkind?”

I closed the door softly, leaned upon it. “You prefer her company to mine? Am I truly such an ogre, Elizabeth? If my nearness so frightens you, tell me why. If I don’t know how it is that I’ve offended you, how can I ever remedy it?” I turned to her. With all the ungainliness of an adolescent courting his first maiden, I thrust my gift at her.

Her chin still down, she rose from her stool, came and took the box from me. Flipping the lid open, she gazed expressionless at the set of ornate silver hairpins lying on a pillow of red silk, then snapped it shut. An obligatory word of thanks passed her lips as she placed the box inside the chest at the foot of her bed. From it, she took out a hand mirror. Several cracks marred its shining surface. She gazed at herself blankly. A frown pulled at the corners of her mouth. “I was ill when I returned. It took all my strength. Have you forgotten?”

“No, Elizabeth. I remember. I was there, holding your hand for hours as the candles spent themselves, recalling every fond memory we shared out loud, offering you water when I saw the first crack between your eyelids. I was there more than you remember. But that was over a year ago. In the past few months, I have seen you riding your palfrey over the moors in the gloaming, rising at dawn and walking the gardens with your women clustered about you, laughing cheerfully. You are well enough now, Elizabeth. In body, at least. But something, some blight is upon your heart.”

She shielded her breast with a hand. “You see what is not there.”

“Then why keep from me? Why the lock on your door? The silence?” Vexed, I strode to the bed and sat on its edge, sweeping her robe to the floor in an angry gesture. “What harm have I ever done you? Day after day you thrust me away. Turn from me. Avoid speaking to me. Fourteen years your husband in the eyes of God and man and I am treated as a stranger? Such cold cruelty is deserving of an explanation, don’t you think?” I held my hand out to her, beckoning. “Will you not come and sit with me? Speak from your heart and let me speak mine. My dear God, Elizabeth, I ached for years when you were gone from me. I ache even more now not to be able to touch you.”

She stared at my outstretched hand as if in repulsion. “Touch me? Then take me to your bed? Is that what you wished for all those years? To lie with me. Make a child. Create your legacy? Perhaps your own army of princes to do your battles for you in your old age?”

“Elizabeth, for God’s sake.” I rose, braved those few steps between us as though I were leaping across a deep ravine, and lightly touched her arm. “I love you. And aye, I want those things, but not merely for the sake of an heir. I loved you long before that was ever a thing to be thought upon.”