A Trust Betrayed (34 page)

“What are you asking?”

The intensity of
 
his regard made her heart pound. “John Balliol is my king. I want to know what I might do to help him.”

“Truly?”

Slowly, she nodded. “I do not want to look back on this time with regret.”

“What does your uncle say about this?”

“He is not to know.”

Comyn dropped his gaze, shook his head. “You have a strange way with you, Margaret Kerr.”

“You will consider what I have said?”

He reached over, took her right hand, turned it over and back. “You do not shy from work.” He looked up into her eyes. “I will give it some thought.”

She withdrew her hand.

In a little while Comyn rose, took his leave.

Margaret sat on the wall for a long while, listening to Besseta’s tearful farewell to her sister, watching the cloud shadows glide across the castle high above. After a time Margaret hugged herself, trembling with the import of what she had set in motion. She had done it. She had embraced her mother’s visions as the best hopes she had. Pray God Christiana was right.

Historical Note

Scotland and the Scots have been the subject of so many popular tales that readers often come to works about them with set ideas—which may be contrary to the people and the country depicted in
A Trust Betrayed.
I mention plaids, but no clan tar-tans—they had not been formalized at this time. Also, although I pepper the speech of my characters with some Scots words, I do it with a light touch. Scots lowland speech was much closer to that of northern England in the late thirteenth century than some might expect, and the majority of the lowland Scots could not understand the Gaelic of the highlanders.

Nor were the Wars of Independence a simple two-way battle, Scots versus English, at this point. To explain the complication I must go back to the death of the Maid of Norway, the last member in the direct line of kings of Scotland from Malcolm Canmore. After her death, two major claimants arose— John Balliol and Robert Bruce, but eventually ten additional claimants stepped forward. In an effort to prevent civil war, the Scots asked King Edward of England to act as judge. In hindsight, they were tragically unwise to trust Edward, who had already proved his ruthlessness in Wales. Edward chose John Balliol as king, and then proceeded to make a puppet of him, which is somewhat puzzling considering the powerful Comyn family to which Balliol was connected by his sister’s marriage.

Robert Bruce, known as the Competitor to distinguish him from his son Robert and his grandson Robert, still seething under the lost opportunity, handed over his earldom to his son, who was more an Englishman at heart than a Scotsman. He in turn handed over the earldom to
his
son, who would eventually become King Robert I. Through the 1290s this younger Bruce, Earl of Carrick—the Robert Bruce who appears in this novel— vacillated between supporting and opposing Edward. When he at last resolved to stand against Edward, he was not doing so in support of John Balliol, but was pursuing his own interests.

As for William Wallace, he was in 1297 and thereafter fighting for the return of John Balliol to the throne. He was never a supporter of Robert Bruce.

The reader might at first be puzzled by the small size of Edinburgh in 1297. Until the siege of the town of Berwick, it had been the jewel in the Scots crown. Edinburgh did not come into its own until the fourteenth century, and largely because of the fate of Berwick. At the time of this tale what is now called the Old Town was all that existed of Edinburgh, and truly just the bare bones of that.

The Bishop of St. Andrews was essentially the head of the Church in Scotland: There were no archbishoprics in Scotland.

The treachery of Adam, Abbot of Holyrood, is fact, though the particulars in this tale are speculation.

Scotswomen did not take their husband’s family name, so a woman would be known by her own family name, the exception being when she was widowed. Then her status was marked by her late husband’s surname, as in “Widow Sinclair.”

Glossary

arles: When two people strike a bargain in goods or services, the purchaser gives arles, a money payment to show that she is in good faith.

backland: The part of a burgh plot that stretches behind the main house.

bowyer: One who makes bows for archers.

brewster: A woman who brews ale.

canon: In some religious orders, including the Augustinian order, the priests were called canons; Holyrood and Soutra were Augustinian houses.

card weaving: Also called tablet weaving, an ancient technique for weaving bands that predates loom weaving. A set of cards with four holes are threaded for the warp, each hole in each card carrying a single warp thread; the space between these holes creates the shed. As the cards are turned one quarter, individually or in clusters, new threads are brought to the surface, making the pattern. The warps twist, or twine, around the weft, completely covering it. The cards are often made of bone or wood.

close: A pathway between burgh properties larger than an alley but not public (see “wynd”).

cruisie: An oil lamp with a rush wick.

Edward Longshanks: King Edward I of England was long-legged, hence the nickname.

factor: One who buys and sells for another person; a mercantile agent; a commission merchant.

flyting: Scolding.

gate: Street.

gey: Very.

gooddaughter: Daughter-in-law.

goodmother: Mother-in-law.

kirtle: A gown laced at the bodice that served as an undergarment.

lugs: Ears.

lyke:
 
Corpse.

lykewake: The watch over the corpse.

merrills: A popular board game with a board containing holes and pegs that the players move in the manner of tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses.

Paternoster beads: Rosary beads.

pattens: Wooden platforms attached to shoes for walking in mud.

plaid: Varicolored wool cloth, precursor to the tartan but linked to an area only by the dyes available to weavers.

port: Gate.

queyn:
 
Girl.

Ragman Rolls: An oath of fealty to Edward I signed by the Scots, dated September 28, 1296, Berwick.

scarlet:
 
The finest cloth, not necessarily red in color.

scrip: A small bag, wallet, or satchel.

siller: Money (from “silver”).

smiddie: Smithy.

trencher: A thick slice of
 
brown bread a few days old with a slight hollow in the center, used as a platter.

tron: The marketplace weigh beam for weighing goods.

wean: Baby.

wynd: An alley between burgh properties more public than a close.

For Further Reading

Geoffrey W. S. Barrow,
Robert Bruce and the Community of the Realm of Scotland
(Edinburgh University Press, 1988).

Elizabeth Ewan,
Townlife in Fourteenth-Century Scotland
(Edinburgh University Press, 1990).

Andrew Fisher,
William Wallace
(John Donald, 1986).

Marta Hoffmann,
The Warp-Weighted Loom: Studies in the History and Technology of an Ancient Implement
(Robin and Russ Handweavers, 1974).

Peter Yeoman,
Medieval Scotland
(B. T. Batsford/Historic Scotland, 1995).

Alan Young,
Robert the Bruce’s Rivals: The Comyns, 1212–1314
(Tuck-well, 1997).

Alan Young and Michael J. Stead,
In the Footsteps of Robert Bruce
(Sutton, 1999).

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An expanded list for the Margaret Kerr and Owen Archer mysteries is available on my Web site:
www.candacerobb.com
.

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