The Honor Due a King (8 page)

Shoulders slumped, he left. Shadows passed him ahead in the corridor. As the forms shifted into the light, I made out Christina’s serene face and beside her ... Marjorie. Her eyes widened in surprise. Immediately, I looked at the floor. As they brushed past, I muttered a greeting. Their footsteps faded away, but just as I braved a look back at them, Marjorie pressed a hand on Christina’s arm.

“Go on,” she said to Christina. “I forgot to light a candle for my father’s brothers.”

Christina kissed her on the cheek and went. Marjorie waited until she was out of sight before approaching me.

A halo of light shone from behind her as she stepped closer. “Would you escort me to the chapel?”

“I ... w-w-would not consider it proper,” I replied, stuttering to my embarrassment.

“Please.” She tilted her head at me and looked at me with such depth and tenderness, that I could not have denied her any request.

I gave her my arm, but kept my eyes forward as we went to the chapel. The corridor was so narrow that her skirt brushed my leg. We turned a corner and went down a short flight of stairs. There, the door of the little chapel stood before us, iron studs arranged in the shape of a cross.

She turned to me and opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when snatches of conversation and broken laughter drifted through the tunnel of the corridors. After the voices ceased, she said to me, “Edward wishes I had never come back. Least of all does he wish for me to be married and having children.”

I wanted to ask her if that was what she wished for, to marry and have Walter’s children, but I was too angry. Angry at things being the way they were. Angry at myself for not having said more to her or to Robert. But ... what if I had been wrong? What if she cared nothing for me at all beyond friendship?

“He’s convinced Robert to let him conquer Ireland and claim it as his own. But he won’t be content with that. Do not cross him, James. And if you can’t support him, stay out of his way.”

Voices struck up again somewhere. They were far away and not coming any nearer, but at once she pulled me into the chapel and closed the door. Candlelight danced across her features, painting every line and surface around us in molten gold. A small altar, draped with a cloth of red silk embroidered in silver thread, stood at the far end of the tiny room, but I felt no calling to go toward it and commune with the Holy Spirit. I could only stand there and gaze at her – flesh and blood within my reach – wanting to ask her a thousand questions. In the end, I could only dare one:

“Why have you confided this to me?”

The narrow space between her eyebrows creased in bewilderment. She drew back and spun toward the altar. “Is it not plain? Oh, James, how can you be so ... so
daft
?”

I moved to stand behind her, close enough that I could have put my arms around her. Over her slight shoulder, I said, “I could guess a hundred things, but it would save time if you would say it outright.”

She kneaded at her skirts, chin lowered toward her breast. “Because it is
you
I love.”

How I wanted to lay my hands on her, turn her by the waist and pull her into my arms. Before Dalry, she had ridden mile after mile on the back of my saddle, her arms wrapped about me and her head resting on my back. I had known her touch well then, but differently. I was her protector, her guide and escort. She had returned a lady of marriageable age, in full womanly bloom, and that small seed of affection that we had nurtured for one another had somehow in a drastically short time sprouted and taken root. I had imagined nothing after all. But still ... it was maddening. I began to mull over Edward’s advice:
‘Wait till after she’s married.’

She went to the altar and leaned against it. Wringing her hands, she brought them to her lips, as though she were about to pray.

“Haven’t you anything to say? Anything at all?” Marjorie paused a few seconds before turning back to me. “How can you just stand there, looking at me like that?”

I shook my head, sorting through a flood of thoughts, feelings and urges. “I don’t know what to say or –”

“Say that you love me. Or say that you hate me. Say that I am nothing but a confused little girl with her head in the clouds who ought to do what her father tells her.” She wrapped herself in her own arms, as if to contain her troubles. “Walter is like a brother to me. I would not hurt him for the world, but I don’t love him. I want to be with you. I always have. The very first time I saw you, when you came to look for my father at Lochmaben, I knew there was something about you, something that drew me to you. And I swear unto God that I have no wish to marry Walter and yet ... yet I am told this is what I
must
do – for Scotland. Even though I care not one whit for thrones or who sits upon them. All because of some pact made long ago with Walter’s father. If my choice is to be taken from me then I wish my father had never become king. I wish ... I wish that you and I needn’t care about what anyone else thought or said – that we could just run from here, together, and be alone for once.”

The light from flickering wicks glowed behind her, outlining each subtle curve. The tight tendrils of her hair crowned an angelic face with trembling lips.

“We’re alone,” I said, “now.”

Her hands fell to her sides. “Then say
something
.”

I went to her and took her hands in mine. Gently, I pulled her to me. “Why say anything at all?”

And I kissed her.

***

T
he touch of her lips sent a wave of passion pulsing through every limb of my being. I kissed her harder. Her hands fluttered over my upper arms, up around my neck, tickling the hairs there. Light fingers wound deep in the tangle of my hair.

I explored her mouth, my tongue flicking in and out in a yearning rhythm. Caressing her back, my hands slipped gradually lower. In response, her body molded against mine so that I felt every curve and hollow, every angle and the suppleness of her. I drew her more firmly against me. She stiffened slightly, feeling that part of me which desired her most. But as our kiss lengthened, I felt her soften, then yield, then wanting more. There was still much of the little girl in her – untouched and pure and bursting with the joy of life – and I would take nothing from her that was not given freely.

Between breaths that I fought to control, I drew back slightly to lean my forehead against hers. “Or would you rather I simply told you that I loved you?”

“Say no more, James, my love. Only hold me. Kiss me.”

I pressed my mouth down upon hers. Low in her throat, she moaned. I kissed her cheeks and chin, trailing my way wetly down her neck and onto the white slope of her shoulders. Gently, I slipped my fingers beneath the collar of her garment and shifted it aside, so that her one shoulder lay entirely bare. Her head lolled invitingly as I kissed her more, from shoulder to neck, to the base of her throat, damp with perspiration, to the ridge of her collarbone.

“Then I will tell you that I love you, whenever I am near.” I slipped my hand beneath the collar of her gown and brushed fingers over the peak of her breast, my palm curving beneath the tight cloth to cup its fullness. “And if I cannot say it with words, only look at me ... and know. Somehow, we –”

Light knuckles rapped upon the chapel door. Marjorie spun from my hold and bumped into the altar. The candles struggled to keep their light, then fed by a draft of air as the door creaked slowly open, they sprang to life again. Hurriedly, she straightened the neckline of her gown.

“Who is there?” came an old, frail voice. Gnarled fingers wrapped around the edge of the door and nudged it open. Bishop Wishart stood in the doorway, one gnarled hand on the door for support and the other clutching a walking staff. He squinted and turned his head from side to side, more to keen his ears than anything, for he could no longer see except for faint light. “Please, who is there?”

Marjorie motioned me toward the wall, then readjusted her garment so that it hung properly. She swallowed and said, “Marjorie, your grace.”

Wishart smiled and hobbled forward, leaning on his stick with each footfall. He tottered momentarily, then steadied himself and put out a hand. Marjorie took it and led him to the altar, looking back nervously at the doorway. I crept to it, then shook my head to let her know there was no one else there.

Wheezing, the bishop leaned against her. “I thought I heard voices. When I lost my sight altogether I felt no loss, because at the time I could still hear quite well. But now even my ears begin to fail me. I cannot hear what is said to me and I hear what is not there.”

“I was saying prayers for my father’s lost brothers.”

“Fine lads. Thomas had gifts that would have made a fine knight of him. And Alexander – ah, what brightness he shed upon the world. A genius and yet ever so humble and gracious. Nigel spoke to me once of joining the church. It would have been good to have one of Robert’s brothers take my place one day.”

Robert’s three younger brothers had each died as a consequence of Scotland’s war with England. Nigel had been captured at Kildrummy Castle and was later hanged and beheaded at Berwick. Thomas and Alexander, ambushed in Galloway, met a similar fate at Carlisle.

“Let me close the door, your grace,” Marjorie said. “Perhaps you can say a prayer on my behalf? These are complicated times and I have need of guidance.”

“Of course, of course. If you would but place my hand upon the wall or some furnishing, to keep me upright?”

Carefully, she led him to the wall across from where I had stood and put his hand upon the stones.

“There. A moment.”

I waited for her at the doorway, then left her with a fleeting kiss. Stepping out into the dim corridor, the door groaned shut behind me.

James Douglas – Selkirk Forest, 1315

I
fingered the goose-fledged arrow at my belt and slid it free. Snow crunched underfoot as I shifted my weight. I grimaced. The stag raised his head, flicked his ears and looked about. Clouds of steam billowed from his black nostrils. I stood as rigid as the tree against which I leaned, my bow stave gripped in my left hand. A long minute later, he lowered his great, pronged crown and wandered forward a few steps. With a black hoof, he dug at the ground and began to nibble.

Recently, Robert had stirred with fever for a hunt. The winter had been both too long and too trying, and so we were all as eager as he was to escape the city. On the first March, we rode southward – the king, his brother Edward, Walter and I – only to arrive in Selkirk Forest and be reminded that winter was not yet over with. For two days we huddled in an abandoned woodsman’s hut, tending a meager fire while snow fell thick and fast. The third morning, we rose to the steady drip of snow melting through the decaying thatch of the roof.

After a bland meal of beans and salted pork eaten in silence, we set out together on the one discernible trail we could find. We stumbled across deer tracks not a mile out, but there was more than one set and so Robert and Edward went one way and Walter and I another. Walter had long since bored of the hunt and I of him. I abandoned him on a fallen log as he whined about sore feet and frozen toes. Following the tracks alone to a thick stand of woods midway down a gentle slope, I had found the noble beast.

Slowly, I pulled back on my string and brought the bow up, leaning out from the tree to eye my prize. But the stag was directly on the other side of a thick beech tree. I had a clear mark on his brownish-gray rump, but a shaft to the heart would bring him down quicker. I had no desire to chase after him through the forests of Selkirk, following a thinning trail of blood. My fingers stung with cold as I waited for him to move, but he was content where he was, tearing at the stems of winter dead grass. Finally, he twitched and shook his head, then moved forward a step. I held my breath, pulled long until the string cut into my cheek and –

Hissss. Thud!

I whipped my head sideways to see an arrow deep in the trunk of the tree next to me. The feathered end hummed. Before I could look back to the stag, he was already bounding away. The tuft of his tail flicked tauntingly from side to side with each ground-swallowing stride. Vainly, I loosed my arrow. The arc was not high enough and it dipped too soon and skidded over snow-dusted earth.

Angered, I tossed my bow to the ground and looked behind me. Walter stumbled from the woods just up the ridgeline from me, his face long with shock. For a few moments, he stood there with his bow dangling from one hand.

I dug my heels in and raced uphill toward him, slipping on the muddy ground. I threw a hand out and caught myself on a sapling, then lunged forward again. As I bore down on Walter, he began to scramble backward, then run. The bow dropped from his grasp. I snatched it up and flailed it against a tree with a loud crack. As he faltered, I snagged the hem of his short riding cloak and swung him to the ground.

I stamped a foot on his chest, pinning him down. “You’re either a damn poor shot ... or a damn good one.”

He quaked. “I swear, James ... I swear, I only misjudged. I didn’t know you were about to shoot. I didn’t want to lose him. God in Heaven, I swear! Now let me go.”

I lifted my foot from his chest.

Instantly swept with relief, he began to breathe more deeply. “I thank –”

“You saw me there and you let go anyway?” I roared, slamming my boot against the side of his face. He flailed like a fish thrown up on shore.

“What is this?” Robert called from somewhere further up.

Close on his heels, Edward Bruce wove through the tangle of trees until the two brothers were sliding side by side toward us. I held Walter beneath my weight, pressing so hard against his jaw that he cried out.

Edward slammed to a halt and scraped the bottoms of his boots on a stone. He clucked his tongue. “A tussle over lost quarry, lads? Did someone sneeze at the wrong moment?”

“Let him go, James,” Robert implored. Breathing hard, he stepped closer.

I looked at Robert, then down at Walter, squirming beneath my foot, clawing his nails in the muck. When I glanced at Edward, a devilish smirk tilting his mouth, I suspected that Walter’s mistimed shot was not an accident – that Edward had said something to Walter. But what could I say with Robert present? Or Walter, for that matter? To trust that Edward Bruce would keep a secret was like asking the wolf to stand guard over the sheep flock.