The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (58 page)

Edward, being the man and monarch that he was, behaved as though he had been patiently awaiting the Bruce party for some time. Noticing them the moment they were ushered into the audience chamber, he stood up from his throne and welcomed them loudly and with apparent pleasure, dismissing with a wave the group surrounding his seat, the foremost of whom was a resplendently dressed, dark-faced man with whom Edward had been speaking when they entered. The man, whom Bruce had noted immediately as a foreigner by his dress, backed away with a deep bow, accompanied by the others of his group, but he did not quite succeed in concealing a scowl at being interrupted in his dealings with the King. Edward did not so much as glance in his direction after waving him away. Instead he watched the Scots visitors bow deeply, and as they straightened up again he called to the younger Bruce in
a loud voice, stilling the crowd as he proclaimed his delight at seeing the young man there and demanding that he come directly to the throne and kiss his royal hand.

Bruce did so obediently, bowing low over the royal fingers and reflecting that Edward, with his gold, bejewelled crown resting naturally on his regal head, knew better than anyone how to put a faithful servant at his ease and bathe him in the welcoming warmth of the King’s favour.

“You’re well, boy?” the King growled. “I must say you
look
well, though your hair is … different.”

“I am well, my liege. Better than I have ever been, in fact.”

“Is that so?” One royal eyebrow rose in a query. “It pleases me to hear that. And to what is that due?”

“To my lady, my liege. I am to be wed.”

“Are you, by God?” The question emerged as an incredulous roar, filled with gladness and disbelief in equal measure. “You’ll take a wife who makes you smile like that?” All the crowd now watched. “By St. Alban’s martyrdom that’s something few men are fortunate enough to find, though Christ Himself knows you’ve done enough winnowing among the female wheat and chaff around here to have learnt to recognize value when you encounter it, eh? Where is this paragon? Is she here? She
is
? Then bring her to me.”

Bruce stepped back, bowing and turning to obey, but Edward stopped him with a quick hand on his sleeve, his voice now quiet. “No, wait. She comes.” He raised a hand towards Isabella, who had started forward uncertainly, and crooked his finger. “Come forward, my dear,” he called. “I would look upon the face that has transformed my long-faced young earl here.”

The lord of Annandale and his party were still at the rear of the audience chamber, a good twenty paces and more from the dais where the King sat, and as Isabella moved forward alone the people between her and the throne drew aside to clear her way, bowing deferentially. She walked regally, her small head held high, and once again Bruce felt his throat swell with love of her.

“By God, she looks like my Eleanor when first I met her,” the King said quietly, for Bruce’s ears alone. “You have a treasure here, young Carrick.” He rose to his feet and draped the sides of his light cloak of blue-lined, pale gold silk back over the shoulders of the blue robe that covered him from neck to ankles and then he stepped quickly down from his elevated throne and went to meet her, arms stretched towards her to take both her hands in his own before she could dip into a curtsy. “Now, now, enough of that, young woman. It is I should be kneeling to you, for I have just finished telling the Earl of Carrick that you remind me forcibly of my dear wife Eleanor, God rest her soul. In her youth, she had that same flashing-eyed beauty and that regal bearing that you now own. Tell me your name, then, milady, and place me in your debt.”

Bruce could see the truth in what the King was saying; there was a discernible resemblance between Isabella and the Queen he had known, though he could not have described what it was had his life depended on it. Something about the eyes and the cheekbones and the wide and generous mouth, he thought. The Queen had not been young when Bruce first met her, but she had retained sufficient of her youthful beauty to remain striking. As he listened to Edward’s honey-tongued flattery, he felt nothing but pleasure at the effect his beloved was having on the King. It would do Isabella no harm at court for people to know the monarch had been taken with her.

Lost in thought for a moment, he had missed something of what the King was saying, but now Edward turned back to him and beckoned. “Come, Robert, we will welcome both of your fathers together.” Bruce obediently fell into step at King Edward’s right as the monarch, still holding Isabella’s hand in his left, walked between the pair to where the Lords of Annandale and Mar stood waiting with their small entourage. The audience chamber was silent, Bruce noted, though no fewer than threescore people crowded it, and the assembled courtiers parted and stepped aside for them, bowing and curtsying, the only sounds the rustling of clothing and the occasional clack of a heel on the hard, wooden floor.

Despite the formality of the audience chamber, Edward welcomed his visitors warmly, congratulating Domhnall of Mar on his daughter’s beauty and on the fitness and excellence of the proposed match between his own house and the House of Bruce.

He turned his head to Bruce. “And where and when will this event take place?”

“We have arranged no date, my liege. Lord Domhnall and my lady are but newly arrived from Scotland, and we came directly here from Writtle in the hope that you would welcome us as you have and deign to look kindly upon our match.”

Edward almost smiled as he glanced again at Isabella. “And how could I do otherwise? You have my heartfelt blessings and it will be our royal pleasure to attend the nuptials, here in the Abbey of Westminster if that should please you.”

Bruce’s mouth fell open.

“FitzHugh, our faithful seneschal, will see to the arrangements and it will be done within the month—unless there be some pressing need to wait beyond that time?” The King turned to Lord Domhnall. “Would that be suitable, my lord? You have no pressing urgency that must take you back to Scotland ’twixt now and then?”

It was the King of England who had spoken there, though with Edward Plantagenet’s most cordial voice, and no one listening had any doubt of it. Lord Domhnall inclined his head gravely. “None at all, my lord King,” he said. “My place is here until I see this matter done and I am greatly sensible of the honour you do my house.”

“So be it, then.” Edward looked about him now, gauging the distance between himself and listening ears, and then waved the nearest courtiers away. He waited as people withdrew to a discreet distance, then beckoned Sir Robert FitzHugh to come closer. Dropping his voice to a gentle murmur, he spoke directly to Lord Bruce.

“I am engaged at this present time with Frenchmen, from France itself and from my Duchy of Gascony. Always a nuisance but never to be neglected. Matters with which I have to deal privily and quickly, concluding them this night if that is possible, so I have no
time to talk with you at length. I do, however, wish to talk with you and soon as may be done. FitzHugh will inform you of the appointed time when he has made arrangements. He will also attend to your lodgings while you are with us.” The seneschal bowed, giving no indication that those matters had already been dealt with, and Edward nodded, indicating that he knew they had.

“Again, then, I bid you welcome here, and you, young lady, most particularly so.” He bowed and kissed the fingers he still held in his own, then nodded sideways, indicating Bruce. “Keep Carrick smiling, if you will. He seldom does so and never sufficiently, so I must lay this upon you as a solemn charge.”

Isabella curtsied prettily, her head high as she looked into the fierce old eyes of the greatest King in Christendom. “And solemnly will I accept it, my lord King.” She paused, and then added mischievously, “Although solemnity sits ill with smiling, I find.”

Edward laughed, a double bark of pleasure, and drew her across in front of him, handing her off to her betrothed. “May God bless your coming union, my lady of Mar and Carrick. I have no doubt He will.” His eyes scanned the small group again and he nodded. “Until tomorrow, then, for I must return to my Frenchmen. FitzHugh will look after you. Sleep well beneath our roof this night.”

He moved away, back to his throne on its high dais, and as he went the focus of the entire room shifted to follow him, leaving the Scots party to make a discreet departure, shepherded by the old seneschal.

The gathering assembled promptly the next morning in the room assigned to them, a smaller group on this occasion, with none of the attendants who had accompanied them the day before. Bruce found his father and Earl Domhnall already present when he arrived, and within moments they were joined by Nicol MacDuncan and Sir James Jardine who, as senior member of the Gaelic lords of Carrick, continued to serve as Bruce’s unofficial watchdog within his confiscated earldom.

Lord Bruce brought them tersely to attention by voicing the thoughts uppermost in his mind. “Right, we have a quarter-hour, no more, so let’s address ourselves to what might be required of us. I expect Edward will be in need of information about what’s going on in Scotland, probably to confirm or enhance what he currently knows or suspects. That means he’ll have little to ask of me or Robert, since we are as far removed from Scotland as he is himself. Which means he’ll be questioning the rest of you—most probably you, my lord of Mar, since by your rank you’re the one most likely to be privy to the information he will want. Does that disturb you, that you’ll be asked to discuss Scotland’s politics and express your own opinions to England’s King?”

Earl Domhnall shrugged. “No. Should it? It’s because of Scotland’s politics that I am here, as far removed from the stink of it as I can be and looking to the welfare of my own house.”

Annandale looked at the others. “What about you, Nicol? And you, Sir James?”

Sir James, as usual, was frowning as he growled, “Gin he doesna ask me to forswear mysel’ or betray my own folk, I care no’ what else he asks me. He’ll get the truth as far as I ken it.”

“Nicol?”

The Gaelic shrug was close to being French in its expressiveness.

“I say the same. This King has treated you and yours with more respect and honour than our own King has, to his black shame. I’ll take no ill of anything he asks me, given the same provisos that Sir James has named.”

“Good. He will know, from his eyes and ears in Scotland, of everything we know about, but what he will seek from you is confirmation, from the Scots’ point of view, of what he has heard. Most, if not all, of his reports will have come from English sources in Scotland, and the likelihood of their being deliberately misinformed cannot be ignored. He was greatly vexed, this past year, by Pope Celestine’s decree absolving the Scots lords from any requirement to conform to oaths undertaken under duress. Edward sees that as utmost perfidy, on the part of the Pope no less than on the part of the
Scots. He’ll want to know about that—about how the community of the realm perceives it. About what difference, if any, it has made to the lives of the folk there. About how the lords themselves have received it. And most important of all, I jalouse, has it resulted in any real strengthening of Scotland’s will to defy him?” He looked at the three visitors from Scotland. “Can any of you speak to that?”

Before anyone could respond, however, someone knocked at the heavy door, and FitzHugh stepped in and smiled at them, then drew aside without a word as Edward Plantagenet himself strode into the room, followed by two of his ubiquitous recording secretaries, both wearing the plain white robe and black scapula of their Cistercian Order.

“Ah,” he said. “At it already, eh? Good, then let’s sit down and be about it. I have an hour before those damned Frenchmen come pounding at my door again.” He went directly to a high-backed seat at the head of the long table and waved to the others to take their seats beside him while the two secretaries busied themselves at the far end setting up inkhorns and jars of pens.

“Pay no attention to the scribes,” Edward began. “They are here for my own requirements. I like to keep a record of everything being said, by me and to me, lest I forget important details afterwards. But if you are concerned, you have my royal oath that nothing you may say within this room today will ever be used to your disadvantage. I am here alone, save for these two, to speak with you as friends and guests without formality, in the hope of gaining insight—uncluttered and unfettered by the presence of courtiers and functionaries— to what you and your fellow countrymen of similar rank are thinking nowadays. I hope you will honour me by speaking as freely here as you would among yourselves. So, may we proceed?”

He began, almost exactly as Lord Annandale had guessed he would, by expressing his outrage at the arrogance of Pope Celestine in daring to meddle in England’s external affairs by declaring the oaths sworn to him by Scotland’s leaders to be invalid. When he had spat out his disgust he sat glowering from one to the other of them.

“That said, my friends, I hope I will have no need to say more other than this. I am lord paramount of Scotland, duly acknowledged by these same magnates who now have papal authority to flout me. That recognition of my rights, embodied in the title itself—lord paramount—was part and parcel of their acceptance of my fitness to judge in the matter of the King’s succession. They swore a sacred oath to that effect, as magnates of Scotland, in full recognition of my feudal rights in granting the possession of their lands within my own realm of England. Those oaths were freely given by free men, in recognition of my feudal status as their overlord in England. They sought a bargain—my arbitration in return for their acknowledgment of my neutrality in the matter being judged. My terms were straightforward and they were met—acceptance of my judgment and the temporary secondment of the Scots castles to my control to combat the possibility of future rebellion should my judgment be disputed. There was no enforcement involved, no underhand designs, and no threat or duress of any kind.”

And that is true
, thought Bruce.
Unless you happen to perceive the threat of complete withdrawal of support thereafter, and the subsequent reality of civil war and anarchy beneath the guns of foreign-held fortresses, to be a threat or to deserve the name of duress of the most urgent kind.