The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (52 page)

She was almost breathless by the time she finished, and Bruce stared at her, trying to make sense of what she had said. At length
he raised a calming hand, palm out towards her. “Very well,” he said, keeping his voice low and unhurried. “First, which old man are you speaking of? Brother Reynald?”

“Yes, the old French monk … The physician.”

“And why was he angry at you?”

“Because—” She stopped, and her shoulders slumped. “Because we were being silly—
flighty
was what he said. Elaine was here with Marian and me and we were chattering while he was doing something. I think he was mixing your physick.”

“And your chattering annoyed him?”

“Yes … ” She stopped again, then shook her head. “No. It was more than that. Elaine pushed Marian against the table and it fell over.”

Bruce’s eyes widened. “She knocked the table over? With the box on it, the wooden box that held the medicinal powder? She spilt it?”

“Yes … and no. She knocked the table over and the box was on it, but it was closed and Marian almost caught it as it fell. She missed, but nothing spilt. But he was very angry. I picked the box up off the floor myself and it was tight-shut, but the old man snatched it away from me and railed at me as though I had been the one to knock it over.” She pouted. “He does not like young women, that old man.”

“He is a monk and a physician, Mary—a Knight of the Hospital, and he is
very
old. He has little patience with young people at the best of times, even with me, and I’m older than you are. Besides, his monkish training as a knight would have taught him long ago, before ever you were born and perhaps even before your parents were born, to avoid all women under pain of mortal sin. He would have sworn a sacred oath to shun
all
women—not merely young ones. Besides, that box of powder has more value than you could ever begin to calculate. It would be irreplaceable, were it lost, for it came from the Holy Land long years ago and its like does not exist in all of Christendom. Small wonder he was angry. So he banned you from the sickroom?”

She shook her head tightly. “No, my lord. He forbade us to be
together
in the sickroom. We could be here, he said, but no more than one at a time, alone. Otherwise we would be banished.”

“So why did you not just leave? What made it so important for you to keep watch?”

The young, earnest face cleared suddenly as though it had been wiped clean, and Mary Henderson smiled at him, emitting a radiant burst of pure and innocent beauty. “And leave you to lie here alone?” She shook her head, dismissing any such possibility. “You are Sir Robert Bruce, the Earl of Carrick and our mistress’s betrothed. Our welfare lies with you in the years ahead, so how could we neglect a chance to care for you?” She hesitated, briefly, and then shrugged. “Besides, there is nothing else to do here in England. Not in this place, at least. We would all die of boredom otherwise, waiting for you to heal, and that would do no one much good.”

Bruce nodded, as gravely as he could, flat on his back. “I see …

” A sniff, small and dainty, followed by a fumbling and the appearance of a small kerchief to wipe a dainty nose. “Marian came with a message from Lady Isabella. She was to deliver it and leave, but we started talking and woke you up. You frightened us and Marian ran away.”

“Hmm. And how long will you stay here, Mary Henderson?”

“Until midnight. Then the old man will come back. He sleeps over there.” She pointed towards the corner to the left of the fireplace, and Bruce turned his head to see a plain cot that had escaped his notice.

“It must be nigh on midnight now, I reckon.”

She bowed her head. “Aye, sir, it must.”

“What next, then?”

“Oh! Your physick. I near forgot.” She sprang up and crossed quickly to the table, where she picked up a large clay mug and took it to the fireplace. After wrapping her hand in a heavy cloth, she pulled the iron poker from the roaring fire and plunged its red-hot end into the mug, releasing a dense cloud of hissing steam. She waited until the hissing died away and then rose again and carried
the mug carefully to where Bruce lay watching her. She hesitated at the bedside, eyeing him uncertainly.

“Can you sit up to drink this?” Somehow the “my lord” formality had been lost again, and Bruce felt no need to remind her of it.

“I think I can, if you’ll help me.” He raised an arm towards her. “Set the cup down and hook your arm under this one, then pull me up and let me lean on you until I’m stable.” She did as he had said, and up close she was even smaller than he had anticipated. He felt her forearm hook into his armpit and sensed her bracing it with her other hand, and then she leaned back, throwing her weight against his.

“Gently,” he said, grunting. “Don’t try to lift me. All you need to do is take my weight and brace me a little to stop me from falling back. Now, on three. One, two, and—there! That should do it. Now let’s have that devil’s brew.”

She sniffed at the mug before holding it out for him. “It does not smell like a devil’s brew,” she said.

He grinned at her as she brought the mug closer to his mouth. “You’re an expert on the Devil, are you, Mary Henderson?”

She frowned slightly but said nothing until he had emptied the mug, and then she stepped back, holding the vessel in both hands and frowning at him in what was almost a squint.

“Will that make you sleep? It’s different from the other stuff. That made you sleep like a dead man.”

“And so will this. At least, it did this afternoon … So what now? Brother Reynald will be here soon. Will I see you tomorrow, Mary Henderson?”

“No, sir. Tomorrow you will have Elaine in the forenoon and Margaret in the evening.”

“Who are they, this Margaret and Elaine?”

“Elaine MacGregor of Tarbolton and Margaret MacWilliam of Mar, Lady Isabella’s niece.”

“Ah! Yet another of the House of Mar. They are a prolific family.” He saw her frown at the unfamiliar word and added, “They breed a lot.”

“And why not?” She sounded disapproving again. “That’s what families are for.”

He grinned at her, enjoying her pertness, but at that moment the door swung open behind her and Brother Reynald stepped inside, carrying a shielded candle. He stopped short when he saw the young woman standing over the bed.

“Brother Reynald,” Bruce said in French. “We have been expecting you. The young lady has just fed me your latest brew and is about to seek her bed.” He looked back at the young woman and switched back to Gaelic. “Away with you now, Mary Henderson, and sleep well. I will look forward to seeing you again one of these days.”

The girl flushed red and bobbed a hasty curtsy before scuttling out.

Brother Reynald was watching him as a boy might watch a frog, waiting for it to leap. “You slept most of the day today,” the old man said.

Bruce nodded. “I know. And having drunk another draught but moments since, I suppose I’ll sleep throughout the night as well.”

“That is the intent. Are you feeling well? No aches or pains?”

“No, Brother, but as you yourself reminded me, they are there, waiting to be provoked.”

“Then do not provoke them. We are making progress. Can you see clearly?”

“Not with this blindfold wrapped round my head.”

“We will take it off tomorrow. But you are not seeing double? Nothing appears blurred?”

“No, sir. My sight is well enough—what there is of it. Tomorrow when you remove the bandages it should be perfect.”

“So we can but hope.” He crossed behind the bed and blew out the candle there, then stooped to do the same with the smaller one on Bruce’s table. “Sleep well.” He moved away, blowing out his own candle as he went towards the cot in the corner, and left Bruce in darkness illuminated only by the flickering of the fire. Plainly it was time for rest, needed or not.

True to his word, Brother Reynald removed his bandages the next morning and pronounced his healing to be more than satisfactory, with no scarring and scarcely a scab. Bruce’s eyesight was clear, and, after some careful experimentation, he found that he was able to sit up in a chair and take more solid food.

For the next half-hour the Earl of Carrick sat and watched as fragments of the life of the household beyond his chamber door spilled inside to where he sat alone. A group of servants arrived first, none of them quite daring to meet his eye, and he admired the speed and efficiency with which they cleaned the entire room, straightening his bedding and sweeping out the ashes from the fireplace before building and kindling a new fire. They worked in a kind of breathless hush, communicating with one another only in grunts, and they were finished and away again in a miraculously short time, it seemed to him. One of them, though, in backing away from the hearth as he examined it for flaws, caught his shoulder on Bruce’s great sword, where it hung in its belted sheath from a peg on one of the room’s supporting pillars.

“Wait,” Bruce said as the man steadied the swaying weapon. “Bring me that, if you will.”

When Thomas Beg and Nicol arrived a short time later, bringing more servants with an array of food set out on trays, they found their quarry seated by his bed, holding the big sword that had been William the Marshal’s and was now his. He had unsheathed it, and the discarded scabbard and belt lay on the floor at his feet while the long, gleaming blade tilted upward, pointing at the mantel.

While the servants began to lay out the food they had brought, Thomas Beg stood in front of the fireplace with his back to the flames and his hands crossed behind him. “Are ye thinkin’ o’ using that?” he asked Bruce.

Bruce smiled faintly, lowering the point to rest on the floor between them. “No, not at all,” he said. “In fact I was thinking of how
little
use I’ve made of it since I’ve owned it. I’ve never swung this thing in anger.”

“And pray God you never have to, lad.” Nicol MacDuncan had seated himself on the edge of the freshly made bed. “It’s a vastly unrewarding pursuit, and killing men, no matter how deserving they might seem of being killed, is no way to find lasting satisfaction. What brought you to thinking about that?”

“Oh, I was thinking about my friends, the ones I chanced across just before you came—Harry and John and Humphrey de Bohun. They are all hardened warriors now—veterans, they call themselves—and you can see it in their faces and the very way they walk. They’ve all been in battle, in Wales, putting down Madog’s rebellion.”

“Words, Robert,
words
.”

Bruce looked up in surprise, unaccustomed to hearing Nicol MacDuncan sound so emphatic. “What d’you mean,
words
, Nicol? Did I say something that offended you?”

“Aye, you did, but the words were not yours. You were spouting words your English friends had used, without thinking about what they meant.
Their
words, and meanings that mask meanings.”

Bruce was gaping now, and making no attempt to disguise it. “Nicol,” he said, “I have no idea what you are saying.”

“But I know full well what
you
said. You were talking about Madog Llewelyn’s rebellion, and that makes me angry. Madog led no rebellion. He led an
uprising
.”

He stopped, glaring into Bruce’s astonished eyes, and then he shook his head. “You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you, Nephew? Then listen and learn. The Welsh are not English. They never were. They were here before the English came to Britain and they were here before the Romans came. Wales is their ancient homeland. That’s why the English call them Welshmen.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you understand that, Robert?”

Bruce nodded. “Of course I do. I tried to explain it to Percy and the others, when they were bleating about the Welsh not liking them. What I am failing to understand is why you’re saying it.”

“Well then, maybe you will be able to answer a question for me.” He glanced over at the servants preparing their meal, but he had
been speaking in Gaelic, and unable to understand a word, none of them was paying any attention to him. The head man straightened up, scanned the tabletop one last time to ensure that everything was in place, then ushered out his crew with a wave, leaving the three Scots to themselves.

“Tell me, if you can,” Nicol continued, “how Welshmen, defending their own land against aggression and outright invasion by foreign armies, can be said to be
rebelling
against the invader? To make that sound reasonable you’d have to be English, with an Englishman’s particular view of things. Me, I’m a Scot, so I have no time for such blatant haverings. No more should you, for all that you live here in England. If a thing has an honest name, then use that name in truth and don’t try to twist it into something else. An uprising is one thing and may sometimes be justifiable. Rebellion is another thing altogether—the treasonous disputation of legally established order and the rules by which it governs. Your friends may have won their spurs in Wales, just as you say, but I would argue against the validity of the cause in which they earned them. What say you, Thomas Beg?”

Thomas Beg had crossed to the table and was raising the cloth covers from the steaming bowls and platters to inspect their contents, narrow-eyed. “Hot porridge wi’ fresh cream,” he mused. “New-baked, crusty bread frae the oven, butter, salt, some kind o’ eggs, mixed up, an’ juicy fried slices o’ thick pork. Ye’ll be better served eatin’ this than e’er ye will talkin’ about shite like that.” He glanced at the other two, wry-faced. “The English hae their own way o’ seein’ things, and what they want, they take. Wales is the proof o’ that, an’ nothin’ the likes o’ us can say or do is apt to change a bit o’ it. So let’s eat.” He stepped back and stood beside Bruce’s chair while Nicol returned Bruce’s sword to its sheath and hung it back on its peg. “A hand here, if ye will, Master Nicol. This poor soul isna fit to walk yet, so we’ll lift him, chair and a’. I’ll get the arse o’ it and you hold the back. Are ye ready? Right.”

They stooped and took hold, then straightened, grunting in unison, and swung Bruce, chair and all, to a place at the table, where
they set about demolishing the meal spread out there. Bruce ate heartily, enjoying real food for the first time since the fire, and he was grateful for the similar single-mindedness with which his two companions addressed themselves to their food, for he had much to think about.