Insurrection: Renegade [02] (35 page)

The maze of streets, lined with timber-framed shops and scores of religious houses, was always crowded with traders and ale-wives, fishermen and friars, while the rivers Ouse and Foss teemed with fishing craft and merchants’ cogs. Elizabeth had come to know the thoroughfares and markets well in the months she had been here, but for all its familiarity it remained a foreign, transitory place where she felt squeezed out on the borders by the bustle of others’ lives.

Moving on past the stables, the warm air clotted with pungent odours, she chose her direction and headed for the castle gardens. As her feet took her from the dust of the yard to soft grass and the rumble of barrow wheels and laughter faded into the thrum of bees, her pace slowed. Smells of lavender, fennel and mint rose around her, soothing and sweet. Over the bright faces of peonies, butterflies tilted at one another. Two men were digging up onions and off through the apple trees and climbing roses she saw other figures pruning and watering the herbs, their hoods up to keep off the sun. In comparison to the bailey the gardens were an oasis of calm.

As she walked, Elizabeth’s guilt rose, Marjorie’s cheek, scalded by the slap, filling her mind. She had seen some of the wardens of the sons and daughters of English barons being forceful with their charges, violent even. But it felt wrong to her, whose father would have whipped any governess who raised her hand. More than this, she understood how Marjorie felt. The girl wanted to be back in Rothesay with people she knew, just as Elizabeth longed for the old comfort of her father’s home. The fact that they had both been abandoned in this foreign city should have united them. Instead, she had pushed the girl even further away.

Hearing raised voices, Elizabeth was drawn from her thoughts. Ahead, through the pink bells of a row of foxgloves, two women stood facing one another. Tall and dark-haired, they were a mirror image of one another, both clad in fine silks, erect and tense. Elizabeth halted as she recognised Bess and her sister, Joan, King Edward’s eldest daughter.

‘You told me it was over. You swore it!’ Bess’s tone was sharp with accusation.

‘I swore it to keep you silent. I was worried you would go to Father.’

Elizabeth turned to leave, not wanting to find herself in another argument.

‘You should know I wouldn’t. But, Joan, you must end it with him.’

Elizabeth paused, her curiosity piqued. She hated spying on her friend; it was the kind of thing her older sisters would have done and then tattled about it. But there was something undeniably reassuring about listening in on someone else’s scandal.

‘If Father does find out . . .’ Bess trailed off. ‘I am concerned for you. He will want you to marry again soon. What suitor will want you if this comes to light?’

Joan turned away abruptly. ‘You should be happy for me. You know how miserable I was married to Gilbert de Clare. The man was a beast.’ She tilted her head to the sun, her pale features tightening. ‘I cried myself to sleep for five years in his bed. My tears only stopped when he died.’ She faced Bess. ‘You don’t know how blessed you are to be married to a man you love.’

‘I didn’t love my first husband. Count John was a stranger to me when we were wed. We scarcely became more than that before he passed away.’

‘He never treated you the way Gilbert treated me.’ Joan clasped her sister’s hands. ‘I need you to keep your silence. I beg you.’

‘Imagine the cost to your lover if our father discovers your affair? It isn’t just your reputation you endanger,’ said Bess, removing herself from her sister’s grip.

Joan backed away, shaking her head, then turned on her heel and hurried across the grass. Bess watched her go, a pained expression on her face, before she too began to walk. With a start, Elizabeth realised she was coming in her direction. She looked around for a hiding place, but there was no time. As Bess ducked under the low bough of an apple tree and came around the row of foxgloves she saw her standing there.

Bess halted, her face still taut from the conversation with her sister, then her features softened and she came forward with a questioning smile. ‘Elizabeth?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Elizabeth, flustered. ‘I was just trying to find somewhere quiet. I didn’t mean to spy. Forgive me.’

Bess brushed aside her apology. ‘Nonsense, I’m glad to see you.’

‘Is everything all right?’ Elizabeth asked as Bess embraced her. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear.’

‘Love’s madness.’ Pulling back, Bess frowned. ‘But what is this?’

When the princess touched her cheek, Elizabeth remembered Marjorie lashing out. The girl must have left a scratch. ‘Marjorie and I had a fight. Worse than before.’

Bess sat, her gown pooling around her. She patted the grass beside her. ‘Tell me.’

Elizabeth felt the weight on her mind start to ease a little as she spoke to the princess of the argument, the setting sun warming her shoulders. ‘Two years ago,’ she finished, ‘I was so desperate not to marry, I ran away in order to escape it. For that foolish act, I find myself trapped in a marriage my husband has no desire for and mother to a growing girl who hates me.’ She hugged her knees to her chest. ‘I wonder, had I consented to my father’s match, would I have been happier? Living close to my family in Ireland, raising children of my own? My bridegroom was much older than me, but at least he might have loved me.’

‘Love can take time to grow.’

‘Maybe, if I had Robert’s child, things would be different between us,’ ventured Elizabeth. ‘But what with the war . . . Well, we have not had much chance to make one.’

‘Humphrey and I are the same,’ confided Bess. ‘Though not for want of trying.’ She touched her stomach with a silvery laugh. ‘But nature is capricious, so my mother used to say.’

Elizabeth blushed as she thought of the times she and Robert had shared a bed. She could count the uncomfortable occasions on one hand. Was it her? Did she repulse him? Or did he not think she wanted him to? She supposed she had not given him many signs. Lora had talked a lot about signs when Elizabeth had confided in her back in Writtle. The maid had even, to her deep embarrassment, given her a powder of dried rosebuds, laurel and cloves, which she quietly instructed her to rub on her breasts and between her legs before lovemaking to entice her husband better.

To deflect the conversation, Elizabeth continued. ‘Robert is so distant. Even when he’s with me I feel he is somewhere else.’ She stared at a beetle crawling across the grass, remembering his long silences during those weeks on the road in Ireland. The few times he had spoken of anything beyond their miserable day-to-day existence it had been about King Edward, the hated invader of his homeland. He had spoken with such hostility. Now, he was in Scotland fighting for the man. It made no sense. ‘I don’t know him,’ she finished, absently fingering her wedding band. The ruby embedded in the gold flashed in the sun. ‘Not at all.’

Bess caught her gaze. ‘There was another thing my mother used to say. Men are like seasons. You just have to learn when he moves from one to another and dress accordingly.’

Elizabeth nodded, but inwardly she thought Robert only had one season. The cold silence of winter.

Chapter 29

Near Carlisle, England, 1303 AD

Under the dead light of a half-moon, the figures threaded wraith-like through the long grass. The shadows of broad oaks thronged the field, the swell of their branches haloed black against the sky. Other than the wind in the leaves the only sounds were the distant noise of sheep in a pasture and the shrill call of an owl. The men moved silently with practised ease, their cloaks making them one with the darkness, shrouding the glint of mail and blade.

Reaching the crest of a shallow hill they dropped to the ground, pressing down in the grass. Though the air was balmy, the earth was cool with night. A damp smell rose from the soil. Rye fields stretched away before them, recently harvested, the ground stubble-coarse. Beyond was a ring of thirty or so thatched houses, barns and animal pens clustered around a small stone church. The men’s eyes gleamed, catching the moonlight, as they fixed on the settlement, where the faint glow of nightlights flickered in several windows. A tang of smoke hung in the air, not from the town, but from the men themselves. Echoes of other, less pleasant odours lingered on their clothes, stained with the rust of dried blood.

Lying belly-down in the centre of their line, his weight crushing the grass beneath him, William Wallace surveyed the moon-washed vista. After counting the houses and barns, his gaze roved over the blackness of a meadow to the River Eden that carved its way through the countryside to the south-west. He studied the ghost-grey channel of water, eyes narrowed in thought. There was movement behind him; soft footfalls on grass.

‘Sir,’ came a whisper, as the squat form of Gray hunkered down beside him. In the half-light, the commander’s bald, scarred head looked like a boulder perched on his thick neck. ‘Comyn is getting ready to move.’

‘He hasn’t even looked at the town.’

‘I don’t think he intends to, until he’s riding through it.’

Wallace cursed beneath his breath. He stared down the line of men, past the familiar silhouettes of Gilbert de la Hay and Simon Fraser, then Alexander and Christopher Seton. The cousins had been Bruce’s men for years, but with the Earl of Carrick turned traitor in England they had pledged themselves to him soon after the battle at Roslin. Despite the fact Christopher was a Yorkshireman by birth the young man had fought as fiercely against the English as any Scot in his service. As Wallace’s keen eyes fixed on the hawkish profile of Neil Campbell, lying just beyond the Setons, he gave a low whistle. When the Argyll knight turned, Wallace raised his fist. Neil nodded, knowing he was now in charge.

Edging back through the grass, rising only when he knew he would be hidden by the incline of the hill, Wallace strode towards the copse of trees he and his men had come from, his huge frame towering over Gray, who marched steadily beside him. His broadsword, strapped to his back beneath his cloak, rattled in its scabbard. Wallace swore again as he saw the glow spreading from the thicket.

‘What does the whoreson think he’s doing?’ seethed Gray. ‘Lighting a beacon? Christ on His cross, we’re less than twelve miles from Carlisle. The garrison will be on us!’

Pushing through the undergrowth, Wallace entered the haze of torchlight. A crowd of men were spread out through the trees, some sharpening weapons and adjusting armour they had taken from the English dead at Roslin, others sharing wine. It was a smaller force than the one Wallace had led down into these hills and valleys six years earlier – his men still bloody from the battlefield at Stirling – but these fifteen hundred foot, commanded by a hundred mounted noblemen under John Comyn, had done ample damage on their way south nonetheless.

After assaulting the English garrisons at Dumfries and Galloway, depleted by King Edward’s call to arms, they had crossed the border ten days ago. Giving the walled town of Carlisle a wide berth, they had busied themselves burning villages and farmsteads across Cumberland, meeting little or no resistance.

Around three hundred of the infantry gathered among the trees were under Wallace’s command, but the majority were from Galloway. Most still bore the white lion on their tunics, although their captain, Dungal MacDouall, had forsaken Balliol’s arms in favour of his new master’s. The captain was standing in a circle of men, arms folded, no trace of humour in his hard face. Beside him, John Comyn was swigging wine and chuckling at something his kinsman, the Earl of Buchan, was saying. The Black Comyn cut a formidable figure, his powerfully built frame enlarged by a coat-of-plates beneath his mail. With them were Edmund Comyn of Kilbride, head of the third branch of the family, David Graham, John of Menteith and the barrel-chested, white-haired Earl of Strathearn, who was married to the Black Comyn’s sister.

Close by, their squires shortened stirrups and tightened girth straps. Even as Wallace headed for them, John Comyn tossed the wine skin to one of his knights and moved towards his horse.

‘Sir John.’

MacDouall looked round sharply as Wallace loomed up, his hand going to his sword.

Comyn was slower to turn. ‘Sir William.’ His tone was stale.

‘You’re planning the assault?’

‘We’ve planned it. We mount up. We ride in. We sack it.’ Comyn’s mouth curled. ‘What more is there to it?’

The contempt in his voice was mirrored in the faces of the men around him. Wallace was used to that look; had seen it often during the early days of the insurrection, levelled at him from men like these – lords and earls – who had tried to keep him in his place. He had seen the look change after his victory at Stirling when thousands of peasants and freemen alike had flocked to his banner roaring his new name to the sky.
William the Conqueror
.
In some, it became grudging respect. In others, fear. Fear that he, second son from a minor family, could wield more power than they.

‘I’ve surveyed the terrain,’ he told Comyn. ‘The Eden flows close to the south of the town. We risk getting trapped if challenged.’

‘And who will challenge us, pray tell, Sir William? Farmer Edgar with his pitchfork?’ It was John of Menteith who had spoken, his red hair flaming in the torchlight.

Menteith, himself a second son, of the well-respected Earl Walter who had died some years earlier, had only recently latched himself to Comyn’s band, but already he had become one of his most vocal allies. Wallace knew his type: a leech, who fed off the success of others. His older brother, the Earl of Menteith, had disappeared into English custody after the Battle of Dunbar at the start of the war, leaving him in charge of the earldom and its estates. It was known Menteith liked a wager. Cock-fighting, bear-baiting, horse-racing and the dice had all helped him squander his family’s fortune these past five years. Looting had been his primary concern since they crossed the border.