Insurrection: Renegade [02] (64 page)

Inwardly, he had attempted to defend his killing of John Comyn, telling himself it had been revenge for William Wallace and for the Comyns’ crimes against his own family; an honour killing, performed in the name of his grandfather. He had even told himself what he’d told James and the others: that if he hadn’t struck first the man would have slain him. But no matter the partial accuracy of these statements he couldn’t deny the truth of the moment he plunged the dagger up under Comyn’s ribs. The act, when it happened, had not been born out of vengeance or fear. It had been born out of pure, murderous pleasure. In that split second, he had wanted to kill Comyn, not for anyone else, but for himself; for the hot, satisfying thrill of it.

Picking up another stone, Robert ground it between his palms. In his mind’s eye he saw himself at sixteen in the church of Scone Abbey surrounded by the men of the realm, all shouting furiously at one another. Word had just come of the death of the Maid of Norway and the succession was once again in question. He recalled his grandfather’s harsh voice and John Comyn’s father reaching for his dirk as he harangued the old man. Robert had drawn his sword to defend his grandfather. As he’d pointed it at the Lord of Badenoch’s throat, all the men present had fallen into silence. His grandfather had put a hand on his shoulder, told him to lower the blade. Robert’s brow furrowed as he heard his own voice, echoing down the years.

‘
Why would you care that I drew my sword against him, when you attacked his castles? You hate him!
’

‘
Yes! And that hatred has the power to rip this kingdom apart!
’

Rising to his feet, Robert fought off the memories. What was done was done. There was no use looking back. In two weeks’ time he would be crowned king. That was, after all, what they had all wanted; these men, past and present, who now plagued him with questions and doubt. Robert glanced down at the stone in his hand, then tossed it into the river. As he turned and headed up the bank, behind him the ripples spread.

Chapter 52

Westminster, London, 1306 AD

The young men were crushed into the abbey, in a stew of breath and sweat. Almost three hundred in number, they jostled one another, feverish with excitement as they struggled to see those in front receive the accolade, impatient for their own turn. Most had spent the night in vigil at the nearby church of the Knights Templar, numbed by the stone beneath their knees and the long dark in waiting. Around them, radiating out among the marble pillars and tombs of the dead, lords and ladies were packed into the abbey to watch the spectacle.

One by one, when called, the men moved to stand before a dais erected at the crossing of the abbey. On the platform was Prince Edward of Caernarfon, surrounded by the elite of his household. The twenty-one-year-old prince was dressed in a white surcoat trimmed with gold, drawn in at his waist by a belt studded with rubies and sapphires. His blond hair was sleek with perfumed oil, his beard clipped and neat, and golden spurs adorned his boots. He held a broadsword, the blade of which gleamed in the jewelled brilliance of the sun streaming through the abbey’s rose windows. The sword had been girded on him in the palace chapel that morning, when his father made him a knight and Duke of Gascony.

The prince ordered each aspirant who came before him to kneel. With every dubbing, a hush came over the crowd as they strained to hear the oath of knighthood, before the prince raised his sword and brought the flat of the blade down on the candidate’s shoulders. As each man rose, those around him roared in approval, the noise swelling back through the abbey as those who couldn’t see joined in the celebration. Each newly made knight was presented with a surcoat and spurs by one of the prince’s household, themselves all knighted that morning. Piers Gaveston was among them, never far from the prince’s side, his black hair and olive skin dark against the white of his surcoat.

King Edward, seated on his throne, watched as his son knighted another candidate. He sensed the fervour in the young men before him, many of whom would have been hungry for this moment for years. Tonight they would feast in Westminster Palace and confirm their vows over two golden swans, in a pageant to rival any witnessed in the court of Camelot. It made Edward recall his own knighthood – the transformation he’d felt during the solemn ritual; the sense of becoming. He had been fifteen at the time, several years younger than the aspirants here. The ceremony had been performed in Castile by King Alfonso. That same day he had married the king’s thirteen-year-old sister, Eleanor.

The memory pricked Edward with discontent, tormenting him with the still clear image of himself as that athletic youth, full of vigour and brimming with ambition. The parchment-thin skin of his hands curled around the arms of the throne, the ache in his bones, the thinness of his hair, as white as the ermine trim of his robes: all told a tale of years passed and purpose unfulfilled. It maddened him, these young bloods with their supple limbs and fresh faces. He had the same insatiable drive he’d had in youth, but it was trapped now in the decaying body of a man in his late sixties.

Death stretched hoary hands towards him. He could feel its fingers under his skin, picking apart sinew and muscle, clawing at his bowels. The sickness that had come upon him during the withdrawal from Scotland had worsened over the winter, turning his insides to water. The rich meats and wine he had enjoyed all his life had become sources of pain rather than pleasure. His cooks now delivered small, bland morsels and even those plain meals he could barely keep inside him. The skin shrivelled on his broad frame, the muscles shrinking on to his bones. Pain was a constant companion, a gnawing ache growing in the pit of his stomach. But there was one thing that kept him going, one thing that roused him each morning and compelled him through every day. Rage.

At the end of last summer, Edward had thought his life’s work done. Wales, Ireland and Gascony were under his control as was Scotland, which he had turned from a kingdom into a land, taking the symbols of its sovereignty into his custody, first the Stone of Destiny then the young Earl of Fife with his hereditary right as kingmaker. The Scottish magnates had submitted to him, John Balliol was, by all accounts, drowning in claret and self-pity in Picardy and the quartered limbs of William Wallace were rotting in the sun. In gathering Brutus’s relics Edward had – in the eyes of his men – saved Britain from the ruin foretold in Merlin’s prophecy, embodying a new King Arthur. But all that time he’d had a serpent in his house, just waiting for the moment to slither from the shadows and strike.

When the treachery of Robert Bruce was exposed, on the day of Wallace’s execution, rage had threatened to consume Edward. Later, discovering through the interrogation of the guards at the abbey that Bruce had taken both the Staff of Malachy and the prophecy box, he thought he would go insane with it. Then, gradually, over the months that followed, that madness had subsided to a burning, white-hot desire for vengeance. Edward knew now what Aymer de Valence had warned him of all along: his obsession with bringing down Wallace had blinded him to the threat of Bruce. He had underestimated the man: had thought him to be like his father, ambitious, but ultimately pliable.

Now, reports were streaming in from garrisons across Scotland. Robert Bruce had murdered John Comyn and raised a rebellion. Castles in the west were falling to his forces and the first assembly of the king’s new council had been routed. With these frantic messages came word that Bruce was planning to seize the throne. It was playing out as the letter found on Wallace had implied it would, although the murder of Comyn had been a revelation.

Often during these past weeks, Edward wondered if he could have acted sooner. Whether – the moment Valence and the company who had pursued Bruce north had returned empty-handed – he could have sent an army after the Scot. But the winter storms had been closing in and he’d needed time to summon his vassals and gather supplies for a counter-strike. Instead, Edward sent word to his garrisons along the border, ordering them to hunt down the renegade. Word had soon come back, informing him that Bruce was holed up in Turnberry, but that heavy snowfalls made it impossible for them to deploy siege engines that far west. With the castle newly strengthened and reports of a large force of men having joined Bruce, the king’s men feared an effective siege would be difficult to mount until the roads were clear. Edward had recalled them, ordering them to hold their positions. He hadn’t wanted to run the risk of Bruce dying in some futile skirmish. He wanted to capture the man himself. He had to, in order to redeem himself in the eyes of his subjects, or his life’s work would be for nothing, his legacy corrupted before his death. And so he had waited, all through the winter, gathering his forces and stoking that white-hot fire in his mind.

A week ago, when the spring rains were swelling the waters of the Thames, Edward made Aymer de Valence his new Lieutenant of Scotland and sent the knight north at the head of a host of men. This advance was to subdue Bruce’s uprising and pin down the man himself until Edward could arrive with the royal army, fortified by his son and the young bloods being dubbed today. It did not matter that Bruce was an earl, or that he might even be king by the time they caught up with him. Chivalry had flown in the face of Edward’s rage. He would tear the man apart in front of his own people. His limbs, and those of any who supported him, would be strung up to rot next to Wallace’s, a banquet for the crows.

At their parting, the king had given Valence the faded banner he had carried in war since youth. ‘Raise the dragon, cousin. No mercy is to be shown to any who have joined Bruce’s uprising; kill them all. But the man himself is mine. You understand?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Valence had promised, his dark eyes burning with zeal.

To Edward, watching him ride out at the head of the host, he had seemed like a man embarking on a crusade.

A cheer brought the king back to the present as another man was knighted. The excitement among the young recruits in the abbey didn’t extend to the barons ranked in front of Edward’s throne. These older men, who had sacrificed much in the fight against Scotland, were watching the spectacle in silence. Like him, they knew this was no feast day celebration, but as much a preparation for the coming war as the supplies of grain and meat being stockpiled in Carlisle, the taxes being levied and the soldiers being summoned by the commissioners of array. To them this ritual was another exercise in patience while they waited for the revenge they craved. Bruce’s betrayal had affected them all, but it had cut deepest through those he had been closest to, none more so than Humphrey de Bohun. All now wanted their pound of flesh; were ready to fight and die for it.

But would these silent, belligerent men who had dedicated their lives in service to him – sworn oaths of undying loyalty around the oak of his Round Table – be so ready and willing if they knew the truth? Edward’s hands whitened on the arms of the throne as he thought of the locked box Robert Bruce had taken from Westminster Abbey. The box that contained the greatest lie of his reign.

Chapter 53

Balmullo, Scotland, 1306 AD

‘We go after him now, before the bastard has the chance to take the throne.’ Dungal MacDouall stalked the dais as he spoke, his voice splintered with fury. ‘Give me leave to raise the men of Galloway. We can still stop this.’

The Black Comyn sat at the table, hands clasped as if in prayer, although his eyes remained open, fixed on a point in the hall before him, where his wife’s servants were scattering rushes over the floor. ‘No.’ The earl’s broad shoulders swelled as he inhaled. ‘We cannot. My scouts tell me Bruce intends to be crowned at Scone on the feast of the Annunciation. That is less than a week away. I have summoned my kin from Buchan and Badenoch, but the snows still lie heavy across much of the north. My people will not get here in time. Bruce’s army has grown since Dumfries. The Disinherited, however strong their lust for blood, will not be enough to counter his force.’

MacDouall strode to the front of the table. Leaning forward, he forced the earl to look at him. ‘Bruce’s allies are claiming he was defending himself at Greyfriars, but John’s men told us the lord was unarmed when he went into that church. Bruce murdered my master – your kinsman – in cold blood! He cannot go unpunished.’

‘I am not suggesting he will,’ said the earl, his dark eyes fixing on MacDouall’s rigid face. ‘But we must have patience while we prepare our plans. Any action we take will be considered and well executed. I want our revenge to be both effective and lasting.’

MacDouall’s jaw tightened, but he nodded. ‘Bruce must have had some warning back in London to have escaped their clutches, mustn’t he? We know the English found the letter we put on Wallace. We were supposed to be the ones planning a coronation, damn it. Bruce was meant to be rotting in the Tower!’

‘I expect we’ll never know what happened. We failed and John paid the price for that. All that is left to us is vengeance.’ The Black Comyn rose. ‘But it will be well served. When we strike, I want him to feel every inch of it.’

‘It will be regicide if we kill him when he’s king.’

‘I do not care what crown that brigand wears upon his head,’ growled the earl. ‘He will never be my king.’

‘What about the throne? Who will take it when we remove him?’

‘Those are questions for the future. First, we rouse our supporters. The Red and the Black Comyns and the Comyns of Kilbride will be ready when the time comes, but we need others. I will head west, meet with my allies there. The MacDougalls and their kin will join us, of that I am certain. John was the Lord of Argyll’s nephew. He must fulfil a blood oath against his murderer.’