The Honor Due a King (40 page)

“I’ve had better days.” I held out my hand and he squeezed it gently before letting go, as if afraid he might break my fingers. Randolph stood just behind him, ever watchful, always with that proud, nearly arrogant bearing of his. “Enough of me. How are David and Joanna getting along?”

Randolph moved to the foot of the bed. “Mostly they play with their own friends. The princess came with her own entourage of playmates. She very much misses her home. I think David in particular is a bit young to grasp the arrangement. He sometimes talks of his new ‘sister’ Joanna.”

“So very young, they are. You’ll help David understand, Thomas, how important this marriage is? He must treat her with kindness, see that she is happy, aye?”

“I’ll try.”

“And you’ll succeed. By God, you always did.” How faint my voice was, even in my own ears. I rested several breaths, my heart glad to see them and yet sad that I might not again. “How far we’ve come. Do you remember, James, my good man ... Thomas” – I tried to grin, but the effort sapped me – “remember running free in the hills, plucking berries from the brambles, drinking from the rivers ... sleeping beneath the stars, game so fresh it squirmed on your knife?”

“I remember being cold and wet and starving near to death,” Randolph said. “The toil of battle. The thrill of victory. The peace in between.”

“I remember standing frozen to a tree trunk,” James reflected, inspecting his hands as if he held a weapon there and was pondering its power, “my heart banging in my ears, my breath held, while an English soldier scoured the thicket a few feet away in the darkness. The game of waiting, moving without making a sound, judging fear in a man’s eyes. I remember being able to guess the number of dead by the strength of the smell of blood. The pain of metal biting into my flesh. Hunting for good arrows in a pile of corpses. Reuniting with a friend after battle, only to learn of those who had not lived. I remember it all.”

“How is it,” I asked, “that we all remember so differently? Were we not in the same places together at the same time?”

James’ voice bore the strain of burgeoning grief. “This is not how it is supposed to be, Robert. Not like this.”

“How should it be? Should we have died fighting at Methven, Dalry, Bannockburn, Byland Moor? That would have been too soon. We are older now. Our work is done. What better way to die than with my friends beside me?”

“You’re not going to die.”

“We all die, eventually. Only our deeds live on.”

“We’ll go to the Holy Land: Randolph, you and me. We are going to fight the Infidels.”

“Aye, that was my dream once, too.” I closed my eyes and lay there so long and with breath so shallow I could sense them pressing closer to see if I was still breathing. “I ... I don’t want to die in battle anymore. Or in some other land. Here is where I will rest. My home. My land.
Scotland
. This is where they shall inter my bones. This is where I choose to die.”

James’ eyes were pressed tightly shut, his head tilted back, his mouth open. Weeping, he sank to his knees as he held my hand. So stoic to the world, yet underneath was a soul as deep as the Forth itself.

“You have many years ahead. A son to watch grow. More to come, maybe?” There I paused. “You’ll both look after my David and young Robbie, won’t you? Thomas – how to conduct one’s self in the company of popes and kings and how to compose a proper letter. You are good at those things. James, teach them to pull a bowstring well, wield a sword and ride a horse lightly. It is time you gave such pursuits up to those younger than you and settled down – stayed in one place awhile. Time for gentler things. Will you?”

Still kneeling at my bedside, he bunched a handful of my blankets in his fists and nodded.

“Thomas, will you leave us?”

With true dignity and never a flicker of jealousy, Randolph bowed and departed. I could not turn my head to see, but I heard the curious onlookers dangling at the doorway as they moved aside to let Randolph pass. The door closed and it was just James and me. I put out my other hand for him to hold. Whether his grip was heavy or light, cool or warm, I could not tell.

“At first, I regarded you like a father does his son, did you know? There you were, alone on the road, seemingly ignorant of highwaymen, oblivious that English soldiers might run you down. So eager to throw your lot in with a rebel. You needed guidance and I, in my arrogance, thought to give it to you. But then you became my teacher. A knight among knights.” I paused, not for thought, but to let pain pass. It stayed and so I swallowed, fought for breath. “Has any king ... any man ever known such loyalty? Such ... friendship?”

His fingers tightened even more around mine, willing me to stay.

“Yet, I denied you what mattered most, even when I knew ...”

Again, the pain. Rolling like thunder. White as lightning.

“ – that you loved each other. How could I have done that to you?”

He lifted his head. “Done? What, Robert? I don’t –”

“No more pretending. I knew, all along, and closed my eyes to it, just as you both tried to hide it. You loved Marjorie, dearly, deeply. And yet, I think, you would not ask to have her because, could it be, that you loved me more? Fool that I am, I forced you to choose. I also thought I knew my daughter. I doubted what she felt was the same as it was for you. Whether right or wrong, I should never have questioned either of you.”

The tears were drying on his cheeks. This unspoken truth that had wrecked the past decade between us was out. What could not be said then had now tumbled from my clumsy tongue as easily as a lullaby. How I had wronged him. In no way could I put it right, except to say I regretted it.

“But you have Lady Rosalind now and a son of your own. I do hope you have found your happiness, James. I am never quite sure I had it myself.”

He drew breath, preparing to speak. But speeches were hard for James. Words were never his weapons or tools, only actions.

“What, James? We’ve nothing anymore to keep from one another, have we?”

His grip loosened. His chin sank to his chest, so that the words, when they came, were a muffled whisper. “It is I who has wronged you.”

“Well, then,” I reassured, “if you have done me any wrong, don’t speak it. I will forgive you, if you do but one deed. Aye, James? When I die, carry my heart to Jerusalem. Will you? Pay me that honor. I had Thomas ask the men whom they would choose. You, they said. It is all I ask. The one thing that I pray will get me into Heaven,
if
there’s a place for me there. But I shall not worry on it. I’ve done as well as I could and if that’s not good enough ... well then, I’ve no time left to put it right. So I’m depending on you – for this. When you come back, look after the lads. Be here for Randolph. I have such boundless faith in the two of you. How would I ever have done so much without you both beside me?”

He nodded. “I would do anything for you, Robert.”

“I have never doubted that. Ever.” I tried to lift my arm, to point, but I could barely summon the strength for even that. I was cold in my core, numb in the extremities. “There, James. Do you see it against the wall? I had it made for you.”

His steps dragging, he retrieved the shield from where it was propped in a corner. He studied it a moment before picking it up and testing its weight by slipping his forearm inside the straps. At the top were three stars on a band of blue and below them a field of white.

“The stars – those are for you, me and Randolph. Just don’t ask me which is which. I couldn’t decide what to put in the middle, though. Thought I’d leave that up to you.”

“Thank you, I ...”

But if he said anything more, I did not hear it. A tide of pain swept over me again – every joint wrenched with it. A hand, strong as iron, gripped my heart, challenging it to go on beating. I fought, for I was not yet ready to go.

James put the shield down so abruptly it thudded against the wall. In three strides, he was back at my side.

“Call them back,” I said.

Through tears, James found his way to the door and opened it wide. They came in then: Gilbert de la Haye, who had been with me from the very start; Robert Keith, so brave at Bannockburn; Cuthbert, the stuttering spy; Neil Campbell, husband to my sister Mary; William Bunnock, who took Stirling by a simple ruse; Robert Boyd, whose blood ran with ale until a young wife sobered him up and fattened him; and more, their faces blending together as the pain behind my eyes pulsed wickedly. Behind them all, Aithne shepherded the children in. Our son Niall was there, grown strong as an ox and more handsome than myself, I admit. Robbie held his chin high, but David, Margaret and Mathilda all trembled with tears as they held hands.

“James shall carry my heart to the Holy Land.” My voice was so weak that I wondered if any of them heard. “I thank you, my friends ... your courage ... loyalty. Thank you, all.”

Friends they were, above all. Not servants. Not soldiers. Not subjects. But friends that I loved and to whom I owed everything. I had been blessed to know them. Honored that I was struck with a dream I could not part from. A simple dream.

Freedom.

All men are born free. We Scots have merely fought for what God intended us to have.

I have done all that I can do. All I was meant to do. In that, I am at last content
.

James Douglas – Lintalee, 1330

F
or two days more, Robert clung to life, half-sleeping peacefully, half-awake in terrible misery. I slept beside him in a hard-backed chair, rousing at every moan or rustle, determined to be there with him to the very last.

Aithne of Carrick saw to his needs with a tender hand, but never a tearful eye. In her strength, she reminded me much of Rosalind. Whenever I left the room to relieve myself or partake of a meal in the hall, I would return to find her sitting on the edge of his bed, delicately cleansing the perspiration from his brow with a cool cloth and speaking as if she were carrying on a casual conversation with him. But Robert spoke very little in those waning days. He never cried out in pain, even though we could all see every wave of it crashing through his enfeebled body.

For two years, I had known Robert was ill – that he would in time die. But no matter how long the knowledge had preceded the fact, I was not ready for it. Every moment that I remained beside him those last days, I could but wish for one more year, a month, a day even. I listened to his breath fading, watched his eyes go grayer, saw him growing weaker, paler. Yet with all my will and all my love, I could not bring him back from that brink of nothingness.

The saddest of all the days in all the ages for Scotland came at last: the 7
^th
of June in the year 1329. Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, Champion of Freedom and Independence, died. His body was laid beside Queen Elizabeth’s in Dumfermline Abbey. His heart was embalmed and placed in a casket of silver and given unto my care. I traveled many miles in a dazed, empty fog with the weight of that casket slung about my neck, as heavy as ten stones, before I arrived home.

Around me, it was summer, yet I felt nothing but winter, cold and dark, in my heart.

***

I
n the months following, my duties as co-regent for David took me frequently to Edinburgh and elsewhere, but I returned to Lintalee as quickly and as often as I could.

During those brief times we had together, I said nothing to Rosalind about my final promise to Robert. I lived foremost as husband and father. My son, Archibald, I carried on my shoulders and spoke to him of things he could not even begin to understand. I did not know how to speak to him as a child should be spoken to and for that Rosalind often chided me.

“James, he is an infant – not a forty-year old soldier! If you want to put him to sleep, though, you’re quite effective. Now bounce him on your knee or sing him a song.
That
is what he likes.”

I could only laugh at her. Little Archibald, it seemed, found me quite amusing no matter what I said to him, fingering my lips as I chatted to him in a hushed tone, or gazing into my eyes and breaking out in a spontaneous smile whenever I posed a question to him. I showed him my horses and explained to him how to shoot a bow and arrow and wield a sword. The bright flash of metal intrigued him. The arrows were not so interesting. The horses he was afraid of. A bittersweet time it was, both happy and sad. But I was there, his chubby hands clenching the ends of my fingers, when he let go and took his first step, wobbling like a drunken sailor. I was there when he said his first word: “Da-da.”
Father.

Every night, I held Rosalind against me as we lay in our bed. She understood, I think, the grief and hollowness I felt over Robert’s loss. Her presence was a comfort. But her nearness was a source of pain, as well, for I knew I would have to leave her once more for too long a time, and so I said nothing, until my last visit to Edinburgh and there the subject came up among several young knights, eager to serve their lost king’s cause. Many of them had been too young to take part at Bannockburn and so they craved a part in Robert’s legacy. As fast as it was said, arrangements for passage were made. A date was set. Letters were received and others dispatched.

I had to tell her. I
had
to. If I did not, soon enough she would learn it from someone else: that Sir James Douglas was scheduled to sail for the Holy Land on a mission honoring his deceased king. And in her head, she would hear that I was leaving her alone with a son not yet weaned off her breast.

She had just finished nursing the bairn when I entered our room. Archibald, his stomach full, was fast asleep, but smiling still. Rosalind laid him in his cradle, halfway between our bed and the hearth. I tended to the fire, then knelt by Archibald’s cradle and gazed at him long.

“Your brother came to see his namesake while you were gone,” she said, parting the covers and sliding into bed. “He and Beatrice just had their fourth child. It was a girl or else he said he would have named the child ‘James’.” She drew the pins from her long black hair so that it tumbled about her shoulders like a cascade of midnight. Then she curled her finger at me. “Come, James. We’ve much catching up to do.”