Insurrection: Renegade [02] (24 page)

‘To kill a king?’ James closed his eyes, the gravity of the statement plain in his face. ‘Why come after you? Who would want you both dead?’

‘His son and heir would have been King of Scotland,’ murmured Robert. ‘If the boy had married Princess Margaret.’

James’s eyes flicked to the open doorway where the faint voices of the guards could still be heard. They hadn’t gone far. ‘Robert,’ he warned.

‘I remember my grandfather speaking of it,’ Robert continued. ‘Of how quickly King Edward moved his pieces into place after Alexander died. I was there, at Birgham, when the treaty was sealed. I heard Bishop Bek read out the king’s proposal. Edward claimed then that Alexander had wanted to join their houses in marriage; that he had spoken of a union between his granddaughter and Edward of Caernarfon. Of course, when Alexander wed Yolande, that proposition was rendered meaningless. Any children they had would have prevented Edward’s son from gaining the crown of Scotland. When Alexander passed without issue and his granddaughter was named queen, the marriage was once again set. It was only because Margaret died on the voyage from Norway that Edward didn’t get his wish. He had motive, James.’

The steward rubbed at his temple, as if his thoughts pained him. ‘Alexander was Edward’s brother-in-law. I cannot believe he would do it. Murder? We have no proof,’ he finished tersely. ‘And no chance of finding any now this man is dead.’

Robert understood the steward’s reluctance to believe. One of the king’s closest advisers and, indeed, a friend, he had been among the first to proclaim Alexander’s fall to be an accident. It must have been a twist in the gut; the prospect he had been wrong and had allowed a murderer to go unpunished. But Robert wasn’t going to let this hinder a search for answers. ‘Perhaps I can find proof in London?’

James took his head from his hand, his face clearing. ‘No. You must put this from your mind. We both must. By my faith, I cannot believe it. But if – God help us – you are right, Edward would not hesitate to remove the threat of you exposing this crime. Do you understand what it means? If proof was found of his involvement in the murder of a king, Edward would be excommunicated and England placed under interdict. He came close to facing civil war when he insisted on continuing his unpopular conflict in Gascony. Imagine what his more rebellious subjects would do if this was exposed and they had to suffer the wrath of Rome because of it?’

‘That sounds nothing but good to my ears.’

James shook his head. ‘I’m saying what the risk to Edward would be – why he would fight tooth and talon to keep you from exposing it. Not what you could actually accomplish. I cannot see what proof you could find to convict him before he finished you. Edward is a dangerous, volatile man even when the land lies open before him. Imagine him cornered and threatened?’

Robert held his gaze. ‘If he did send this man, Adam, to kill me, what’s to stop him completing the task the moment I arrive in Westminster?’

‘If you surrender you no longer pose a threat to him. Indeed, it will be much to Edward’s advantage to accept you. He knows you have been a leader of the rebellion since William Wallace left. Not only will your submission be a blow to our side, it will also prove to his barons that his war is working. I expect, in your usefulness, you will cease to be a target.’

Robert could see from the steward’s eyes that he wasn’t completely convinced by his own assertion. ‘What will you tell Ulster?’ he asked finally.

‘I’ll think of something. Not the truth. That cannot be told to anyone. Not Earl Richard, not your brothers. No one. After tomorrow he goes in the ground,’ finished James, looking over at the dead man. ‘And this must go with him.’

Westminster, England, 1302 AD

The water drying cold on his cheeks, Robert turned from the basin and crossed to the chamber’s window. The voices of his men came to him, muffled through the door, as they conveyed the rest of his belongings from the wagon up to their new quarters.
The glass in the window was slightly distorted, fragmenting the marshy landscape beyond the palace buildings. He toyed with the head of the crossbow bolt as he stared out.

Edward claimed to have discovered the
Last Prophecy
within a stronghold of the rebel prince, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in Nefyn, the same Welsh village where the
Prophecies of Merlin
had been found over a century earlier and were later translated by Geoffrey of Monmouth. In his
History of the Kings of Britain
, Monmouth described a vision of Merlin in which the prophet foresaw the ruin of Britain, unless the relics of Brutus were reunited under one king. It was the prophecy Edward found at Nefyn that named these four relics. Soon after the discovery, he established his Round Table and the Knights of the Dragon, their purpose to help him retrieve them.

The Crown of Arthur, the Sword of Mercy, the Staff of Jesus, the Stone of Destiny: these sacred relics, whose origins were shrouded in mystery, held the essence of each nation’s sovereignty, recognisable to all. By taking them, Edward executed a spiritual conquest over the physical realms he sought to dominate and the
Last Prophecy
excused him, justifying his wars as being fought for the good of Britain.

Robert had always doubted the truth of Merlin’s vision, yet had found its apparently accurate prediction of Alexander’s death difficult to discredit. But now, after his discovery at Dunluce, fate was no longer the only suspect. Was it the fulfilment of prophecy, or a man’s intent? He closed his eyes, thinking through the dates. The timing – Margaret’s recognition as Alexander’s heir and his betrothal to Yolande, Edward’s conquest of Wales and establishment of the Round Table – all seemed to fit. He could have sent Adam to join Yolande’s retinue with the aim of killing the king and rendering the
Last Prophecy
incontrovertible, proving his righteousness to his subjects. The question that remained was whether the text itself was real and Edward had simply sought to fulfil the vision on its pages, or whether he had invented it for his own purposes. The latter had the potential to undo him.

If the men of the Round Table discovered he had fooled them all these years, what would they do? Prophecy had been the fire that had stoked their convictions; had lifted them above the hardship of the campaigns and the loss of men, the rising taxes and the depletion of their fortunes. Edward had survived the civil war in his youth, led by Simon de Montfort, and had come close to one over his struggle for Gascony. Now – with his treasury emptied and his reputation marked by the long, costly war in Scotland – would he survive another?

Robert might never prove what he feared was true: that Edward had ordered the murder of King Alexander to gain control of Scotland. But the prophecy? That might be a key he could turn to change his kingdom’s fate. He had seen the Latin translation Edward claimed to have had made from the original Welsh: a beautifully bound and illustrated book containing images of the treasures and motifs from the legends of King Arthur. But the source from which these writings were taken the king kept in a sealed box, the pages he’d found at Nefyn so ancient it was believed they would crumble into dust if removed. Robert had glimpsed that black box once at the shrine of the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, the day the Crown of Arthur had been placed there.

Hearing his porters moving chests around in the adjacent room, Robert opened his eyes. He was only yards away from the abbey, where the king’s secrets might be unlocked. James Stewart’s warnings about any search for proof echoed in his mind, but they were faint in the face of the determination building inside him. He needed to see inside that box.

Chapter 19

Westminster, England, 1302 AD

As the doorward bowed and opened the doors, Edward swept into the Painted Chamber, the hems of his scarlet robe whispering across the patterned tiles. Humphrey followed, his eyes on the king’s stiff back as he strode to his desk, which was dwarfed by a grand table that divided the narrow room. At the far end was a canopied bed, the green posts of which were decorated with yellow stars, a favourite motif of Edward’s father, Henry III, who had lavished a fortune on the chamber. Edward paused at the desk, before turning to the stained-glass window behind. Violet prisms of light were fractured and scattered by his frame.

Humphrey stood waiting, wondering why the king had summoned only him from Westminster Hall. As the silence elongated, his eyes drifted over the vivid murals that gave the chamber its name. Muted by February’s pallor, the flowing robes of the Vices and Virtues, the crowns of biblical kings and the gallant form of Judas Maccabeus, an Old Testament Arthur, seemed flat and dull. Humphrey remembered when he had first come here to attend an opening session of parliament with his father. He had stepped impatiently in behind the shuffling lords to be dazzled by the blaze of colour. Every stroke of paint on the walls – newly restored after a fire – had gleamed in the sunlight reflected through the windows by the Thames. Behind the canopied bed the Painted Chamber’s greatest glory, a scene of the crowning of St Edward the Confessor, glimmered with gold.

‘Leave us.’

Humphrey glanced round, seeing two pages slipping out quietly. He hadn’t even noticed they were there. When the door thudded shut, the king turned to face him, haloed by the luminescence of the stained window behind. Standing there, erect, the gold crown encircling his head, he looked to Humphrey like an image in the glass itself; a king of old embedded in the fabric of the palace, set there as an example of good, or evil. The illusion was broken as Edward spoke.

‘Do you believe it to be genuine?’

Humphrey knew the king referred to Robert’s surrender, just witnessed in Westminster Hall. At once, he realised Edward had summoned him here because he was the one who knew Robert most; who had been his closest comrade during his time in the king’s service. The realisation was not a flattering one. The fact was he should have seen Robert’s betrayal coming. He often felt Edward thought this too and blamed him for the Scot’s desertion.

‘I smell some trick,’ Edward continued into Humphrey’s taut silence. ‘But I find it hard to believe Earl Richard wouldn’t have seen through a lie in the months Bruce spent in his custody. He vouches for the man. That much was made plain by his proposition.’

‘Sir Richard was an ally of the Bruce family. Who is to say, my lord, that old allegiance isn’t somehow bound up in his trust?’

The king’s eyes narrowed, but he shook his head. ‘I have faith in Ulster. Besides, he had nothing to gain by an alliance with Bruce, not without knowing for certain I would accept his surrender. If I had rejected Bruce, his English inheritance would have been lost to him, along with his Scottish estates. He faced going from earl to pauper overnight.’ Edward paused. ‘But, even discounting Ulster’s patronage, Bruce freely gave up his most powerful means of bargaining with me.’ His eyes glinted with satisfaction as he spoke of his new acquisition. ‘The Staff of Malachy, more than anything, persuades me that his surrender may well be genuine.’

‘My lord, the unification of Brutus’s relics is indeed a moment to be honoured – all of us have striven for this day for years. But this aside, I believe it would be safer and wiser to throw Bruce in the Tower.’

‘Perhaps. But think beyond your prejudice, Humphrey. Bruce could be far more useful to me as a willing ally, closely watched and guarded, than an embittered prisoner. His defection is a severe strike to the rebels’ cause and will do great harm to their morale. Through him I will show them the futility in continuing their struggle against my dominion. In short, Bruce may prove invaluable when I begin my new campaign.’

Edward’s tone sharpened on the last words. Humphrey knew it had aggrieved him deeply to seal a truce with Scotland last autumn on King Philippe’s urging.

After the rebels’ attack on Lochmaben, the damage of which was still being repaired, the king had wanted nothing more than to pursue the Scots into Selkirk Forest and bleed the life from every last one of them, but the loss of his base, along with the approach of winter and the improbability of finding the rebels in their secret lair, prevented him. The only thing that consoled him was the knowledge that the truce was a temporary feint. When the spring came he would lay Scotland waste from sea to sea.

Recently, Edward had been listening with interest to reports from his spies speaking of growing trouble in Flanders, which Philippe had annexed to his kingdom four years earlier. French officials were finding it difficult to keep control and there was rebellion in the air. Edward clearly felt this would keep his cousin occupied long enough for him to find a solution to the Balliol problem, for he had been speaking more frequently and ardently of a new Scottish campaign.

Humphrey was worried that the king was letting his hunger to defeat the rebels cloud his judgement. Resentment bubbled hotly under the surface of his concern as he saw that Edward sought assurance from him; reason to throw caution to the wind and accept Robert into his household if it would help him break the last of the Scottish resistance. ‘What if he has come here on behalf of the Scots to spy? What if he deserts you again, my lord, taking valuable information on campaign plans back to the rebels? It is too dangerous to risk it.’

The king’s craggy face remained impassive. ‘That is why I want the son of a whore watched. My men in Scotland will keep their ears to the ground for any sign he is still in contact with his old allies. Any hint of deception and Bruce will spend the rest of his years in the Tower.’ Edward paused. ‘In the meantime, I want you to win back his trust—’ He held up a hand as Humphrey began to protest. ‘Bruce returned to me out of desperation. I am not fool enough to think he will willingly give up any information that could harm his people. He will offer me only what is required to keep my faith. But I want you to draw the rest – anything that might aid my forthcoming campaign – from him. Drink with him, talk to him, prove yourself a friend.’