The Honor Due a King (34 page)

Driven by lust, Mortimer had abandoned his wife and children. Obviously, he would gamble their safety to rut with a king’s consort. A blessing on my behalf. As a reminder to Isabella that her other three children were yet in my keeping, I snatched up Mortimer’s wife and children and locked them away.

The pen is a powerful weapon and I wielded it freely. Charles would learn of my power. The pope would learn of her indiscretions.
She
would learn that I held the upper hand in this game.

Laugh as you bed the devil, my consort. Take your pleasures to your grave. You’ll not make a cuckold of me and live to tell of it
.

Robert the Bruce – Cardross, 1326

B
arely more than a year passed after Margaret’s birth before our Mathilda came into our lives. Ah, Mathilda, Mathilda. As soon as her feet hit the ground she was running. Her nurses could not keep up with her. She had Marjorie’s spirit: independent, talkative, ever curious. Meanwhile, her older sister would sit hour upon hour at her mother’s knee, absorbing every sacred word that came from her mother’s mouth, as if Elizabeth were God Almighty delivering the Ten Commandments.

Robbie was as stout and strong as a young oak. The crook in his spine was not as evident as first feared. His active nature had sufficiently strengthened his muscles to compensate for the impediment. By eight, he could ride as well as any lad and run nearly as fast. He had promise and courage and so I kept him at my side whenever I could, hoping to instill in him some morsel of wisdom garnered from my years of trial and misfortune, just as my own grandfather had done for me. Walter wrote often from Berwick the first few years to inquire of his son’s welfare. But as each year passed, the letters became less, the visits fewer, the reunions less exuberant.

Robbie was my shadow, my echo and my reflection. He followed me always – whether hunting with James, for whom he had a special affinity, or hawking with Elizabeth, or even as I ambled about the grounds of Holyrood. He begged for my stories, then told them to the other children, embellishing them with god-like feats and golden dragons that breathed fire. Most haunting of all, I saw in him that stubborn, unbreakable spirit that was my own. Already I felt blessed by my daughters and grandson and if God had given me yet another daughter, Robbie would have been more than fit to follow in my steps.

Then, gloriously ... David came into the world. My son. My own. And I fifty years of age. Elizabeth near forty – a time by which many women were looking after grandchildren, not giving birth to bairns of their own.

For Elizabeth, it was as if a great trouble had been banished from her soul in the event of his birth. David was a quiet babe: content at his mother’s breast, often falling asleep there, and when he awoke he would hold his own fingers in front of his face and contemplate them peacefully for incredible lengths of time. He was long of limb, delicate of feature and born with a full head of russet, silken hair that curled around the rims of his ears, making him appear more angel than little boy.

Elizabeth coddled him overly much, so I often told her. But mother and son were like two lost halves that had finally joined and could not be cast asunder. If she had openly conceded to taking second in my life to the affairs of the kingdom, then I myself had silently stepped to the side in hers in favor of our children.

In order to spend time with my growing family, I had a house built overlooking the mouth of the Clyde near a tiny village called Cardross, just beyond Dumbarton. I deigned not to raise my children within a ring of stones, but rather within the comforting warmth of timber-framed walls, where they could listen to the rain drumming on the thatch or run barefoot and wild in the hills beyond. Cardross was such a place: always smelling of salt air, the seabirds gliding overhead on fairer days from shoreline to hilltop, the wind as constant as my own breath. I would teach Robbie to sail on the open water, and one day David, as well.

It was in 1325, that another son was born to us. Unlike his brother, John cried from daybreak to evening and on through the night. Never willing to pass the care of her children entirely to nursemaids, Elizabeth suffered for loss of sleep, trying to soothe young John.

The following summer I remained in Cardross, rather than return to Edinburgh, leaving the business of the kingdom in the competent hands of Thomas Randolph. When he could, he came to me at Cardross to seek my guidance.

So he did that summer. Being too good a day to waste, my nephew and I strolled from the house down the path that led to the shore, where the three oldest children were playing. Elizabeth, holding Mathilda in her arms even as the lass kicked and cried to be let down, waved to us from the crest of a dune and came to join us.

I had never seen my Elizabeth so content as that summer at Cardross. Bathed in the golden rays of summer, she would stroll along the Clyde every day, hand-in-hand with the girls, watching keenly over Robbie and David as they played in the water. The two lads would splash each other, laughing raucously as they wiled away the days, no cares to the future, no pasts yet to trouble them. Too aching and weary, I could but watch from the shore, sometimes with Margaret and Mathilda clambering on the rocks around me, but more often alone.

Elizabeth smiled broadly as Randolph kissed her on the cheek.

“You look well, Thomas.”

“And you never better. Truly. Why, if you were not my uncle’s wife ...” he teased.

“Ah, but you have a wife of your own, I recall. How would we ever do away with them both?” As Mathilda began to fuss, she bounced her on her hip.

“That
is
a problem.” Then Randolph bestowed a little kiss on Mathilda’s rosy cheek. “My wee cousin is in a fit of unhappiness, I see. Wanting to run and play, are you?”

“Aye, but last I set her down near the water she was up to her chin in it before I could blink. Not again. I try to amuse her with searching for shells, but it never lasts long enough.”

“And how is the newest prince?” he asked. “Asleep in his cradle as we speak?”

At that, Elizabeth’s smile faded to a frown. The sun beating down on her face clearly showed the deep lines that fanned out from the corners of her eyes. “Cried all night, he did. They say it is the colic and he’ll outgrow it in time. I only hope they’re right. The other children were so different. I don’t know at all what to do with him. It tears at my heart and when I hold him he only cries that much more.” She sighed. “Sometimes I think that if he had been born my first, he would also have been my last.”

“Last what, mama?” Margaret had scrambled over a small hill of sand behind us and stood with a treasure of shells collected in the apron of her skirt.

Elizabeth looked down, then quickly gathered her composure. “Never mind. Up to the house with you. Mathilda here is past due for her supper. And put those mussels back where you found them. You smell of seaweed, Margaret. Go on, then. Don’t stand there staring at me as if you don’t understand. Off with you.”

Margaret frowned. “Can I sing to wee Johnny, mama? He likes it when I sing to him.”

“Of course you may. Now go on.” She set Mathilda down and shooed them away. Margaret took her little sister by the hand and they went along the path that wandered past the sand dunes, up the rocky hillside and on toward the house. Before setting off after them, Elizabeth said, “Will you gather up the lads when you’re done?”

I laid my hands upon the gentle curve of her shoulders and gave her a kiss. “It won’t be long. Let Margaret sing her brother a lullaby.”

She waved good-bye and left. At water’s edge, Robbie teased David with a crab, its pincers snapping furiously. David squealed and flailed at the crab, knocking it into the water, at which Robbie only laughed. Ten now, Robbie was eight years the senior of his own uncle, little David, and he accepted the duty of looking after him with a mixture of begrudging disdain and simple amusement. David, the timid follower, was half-enamored of Robbie and half-terrified. An interesting relationship. I often wondered how it would develop in years to come. It was imperative that I set things aright for my son and allow him a secure kingdom to inherit – especially if it happened before he was ready for the duty.

I thank the Lord that I have James and Randolph to oversee things, to do what I can no longer do for myself. Without them ... without them I would have no peace
.

“A fine pair of lads,” Randolph said.

“The best. David will do well with Robbie to lead the way for him.”

“Do you think it goes that way – Robbie as the leader?”

“I think, nephew, it’s too early to tell or ponder on. But my family has grown a lot in a little while, hasn’t it? There were so many times when I thought I would never see this day, and now that I have it ... Ah, when I asked God for all this all those years ago, I bloody forgot to tell him to hurry up.” I stopped myself before I could go on anymore. Age had made a cynic of me. “So, you’ve been to see the pope, have you? What says our venerable pontiff? Have I his blessing to go to the Holy Land? Although I don’t see where I should have to ask him first before I do God’s work, but that, I suppose, is how it’s done.”

Randolph shook his flaxen head subtly. “He’ll call you ‘king’ and welcomes your aid against the infidels, but with one stipulation.”

“Ah ... Berwick.”

“Aye, Berwick. He wants you to give it back to the English. King Edward harps on it incessantly.”

“Hah! England’s king has good cause to be in a whining mood. His queen will have none of him. But what a bloody bunch of rubbish ... If we returned Berwick, next they would be asking for Stirling and Edinburgh. After that Perth and Dunbar. No, you know as well as I – and the pope knows it, too – we keep Berwick. It’s ours. Always has been. The excommunication?”

“Still on you. He would not lift it.”

“Then if the price for Berwick is my soul, so be it.” We had walked along the shore a ways, enough to tire me, and so I sat down on top of a small overturned rowing boat and stretched my legs. “And France? Do they agree to renewing the alliance with us?”

“For the time it seems so and aye, they do agree. But not publicly. Queen Isabella has overseen the signing of a peace treaty between France and England, I understand.”

I mopped at the sweat on my brow and pushed up my sleeves. “Wickedly warm for September, don’t you think?”

But Randolph didn’t answer the question. He stared at my forearms, then suddenly poked a finger at my left arm.

“What are these bruises?” His brow furrowed intensely. “So many. Heaven, it looks as though you’ve been given regular beatings.”

“A rash, ’tis all. Rambling through the nettles. I should keep closer to home in my old age.”

He towered before me like some elder scolding a stripling. “That’s no rash, Uncle.”

“Whatever it is,” I said, rising to my feet so I could look down on him, being taller yet in stature than he, “it’s nothing to be concerned over. You’ll see for yourself soon enough. Seems like you are young and strong forever and then one day, you’re just more tired than you used to be, your bones ache when it rains, your cuts don’t heal as fast. You don’t believe me now, but you’ll see, Thomas. You’ll see.”

But what I said to him I meant more than I could say. I no longer sailed or hunted away the days. I couldn’t. Every joint ached – more than I would ever reveal to Elizabeth or anyone. Lying down at night was a welcome event. Rising in the morning a toil. Always, I hid the discomforts, not wishing to burden anyone. First came the small pains: in the knees while climbing the stairs or mounting my horse, in the hands when I reached for a quill or grasped a spoon, in my shoulders and elbows when I tried to lift my own children. Then the bruises with every bump – deep purple turning green, then yellow – and the tiny speckles of red on my arms and back. I learned to keep my marks well hidden, but as time progressed, even that became impossible.

More than my attempts to deny my own gradual decay, I was struck hard by the irony that my father had suffered a like affliction. How little I had understood of him then, seeing nothing but my own life awaiting me, possessed even then by the ambition that had defined me to this very day. But as my father shrank from the world in grim solitude, I desperately tried to cling to it and deny what was happening to me, praying it would pass of its own or at the least get no worse. Inside, though, I knew there was something wrong, something that would gradually eat away at me and steal the life from me.

As I called to Robbie to bring David along and follow us home, the effort snatched the breath from me. Climbing back up the hill toward the house was a task and if not for the wind at our backs I might not have made it without pausing to rest.

My God ... I would rather have died looking into the eyes of my foe as he thrust a blade into my gut, than slowly decaying like this.

As much as I made light of it, the pope’s blessing was more important than ever. Something was happening to me, some slowly growing sickness nibbling away at me from within. Time was like sand sifting through my fingers, and more than grain by grain.

***

O
nce I sat down in my chair to wait for supper in the great hall of Cardross, I did not move for hours. My knees throbbed as if they had been hammered and my feet were on fire from the pounding of the short walk.

Randolph appeared never in better health. At Elizabeth’s polite prodding, he spoke of his wife and children with rare pride, for Randolph, always humble and pious, never boasted.

Elizabeth idled over her meal of fresh venison. John’s colic, which had begun rather abruptly four months past, had robbed her of having her usual patience with the children. That Margaret was old enough to hold her little brother in her lap and sing to him was the only reprieve from his constant caterwauling that Elizabeth had.

She sipped at her wine, a gift from the French king. “What of James? Does he ever leave the forest anymore?”

Randolph leaned back in his chair, his overstuffed belly giving him an ache that revealed itself in the grimace on his face. “Only when he needs to chase the English away, which lately is not often. No, he is content there in Lintalee with his woman.”