Insurrection: Renegade [02] (9 page)

The composite bow was made of horn, sinew and yew, covered with leather and decorated with coloured cord that criss-crossed the stave all the way to the stirrup that was used to load it. It was the weapon of mercenaries; banned by popes, employed by kings. Feared by all. Along with the packs strapped to his saddle swung a basket of quarrels, each iron-tipped head capable of piercing a knight’s armour, his leg and the saddle and horse beneath. Glenarm, under the lordship of Robert Bruce, lay in hostile territory, for much of Antrim’s hinterland was controlled by the English. But even here, in these troubled times, people weren’t accustomed to seeing such a weapon.

As the goats crowding the thoroughfare were driven into a pen, Adam pricked his horse into an idle trot, leaving the stares behind him. The young man with the basket was heading for the beach, his russet tunic like a flag against the blue sea. Adam hung back, watching as his target approached a fisherman standing by a line of lobster pots. The two men greeted one another, their voices faint on the breeze. When Adam had arrived he had worried that he wouldn’t be able to glean any information from the Gaelic-speaking inhabitants, but after a fortnight watching Lord Donough’s hall he realised that quite a few of them could speak English, no doubt from living so closely with the settlers for generations.

The youth opened the lid of his basket for the fisherman to deposit four lobsters inside, then, hefting the basket on his hip, made for the river mouth where a track ran alongside the estuary, following the narrowing waters inland. Adam trailed him, keeping his distance until the wattle houses of the town gave way to fields and animal paddocks. Lord Donough’s hall appeared in the foreground, rising from its mound above a loop in the river. Beyond, the hills rose into rocky peaks where buzzards circled. As his target approached a copse of trees, Adam trotted closer. The young man glanced round at the jangle of the bridle and wandered off the track, expecting horse and rider to pass. Adam drew nearer. The youth turned again, a frown furrowing his brow as he took in the great horse and the armed man astride it.

‘You’re Lord Donough’s man?’ Adam called.

The young man halted at the strangely accented English. He looked nervously around, as if seeking assistance, but the track was empty. Only a few horses grazed in the paddock that ran alongside the river. ‘Yes,’ he answered, uncertain.

Adam dismounted, looping the reins over one of the paddock’s posts. He held up his hands. A gesture of peace. ‘I am looking for Sir Robert Bruce, the Earl of Carrick. I bear a message for him.’

The youth’s frown relaxed a little. ‘He was here, sir. But no longer.’ The English was thick in his mouth, as though his tongue were wrapped in treacle.

‘Where is he now?’

The man shook his head, too quickly. ‘I know not.’ He began to walk. ‘I must go. My master waits.’

‘Please,’ called Adam. ‘The message is urgent.’

The young man hesitated. After a pause, he nodded towards the distant hall. ‘You must speak to Lord Donough, sir.’

Adam watched him turn and walk away quickly. The youth knew more than he was saying; that much was clear from his manner, but even if he hadn’t been so furtive Adam would have known he was lying. Servants knew everything. Invisible, they waited at the edges of halls to clear the platters at feasts, ignored by kings who plotted wars and lords who schemed for power. They filled basins in ladies’ bedchambers and emptied bedpans, silent witnesses to affairs of state and love: a horde of listeners, thronging every passageway. Adam could wait and find a more malleable target, but he had neither the time, nor the patience. He had already spent too long chasing a phantom.

Scotland, ravaged by war and overrun with insurgents, had proven a challenge, even for him. Forced to remain inconspicuous lest he be recognised, unable to get near the rebels – holed up in the hidden base established by William Wallace deep in Selkirk Forest – it had taken far longer than anticipated to discover that Bruce was long gone. Finally, picking up his trail from Carrick, Adam had followed him across the race – the wild stretch of sea between Scotland and Ireland. Arriving in Glenarm a fortnight ago, it had been a blow to discover the earl had moved on again. He wasn’t about to spend another six months kicking his heels in this hovel.

Adam let the servant go only a few paces before he moved up behind him, drawing a dagger from the sheath on his belt. Grabbing a fistful of the young man’s hair, he brought the blade up to his throat. The servant dropped the basket in shock. The lid fell open as it hit the ground, the lobsters scuttling for the river. The young man cried out a stream of high-pitched Gaelic that could have been surprise or fear, or anger for the loss of his catch, then Adam was dragging him into the copse of trees.

‘Tell me,’ he commanded, pushing the servant up against a trunk, one hand on his chest, the other keeping the dagger at his throat. ‘Where has Bruce gone?’

The young man licked his lips. ‘He left after the Christ Mass. Weeks ago.’

‘Where. Not when.’

‘South. On the road to Kildare.’ The servant’s eyes pleaded the truth of his words. ‘With Lord Donough’s son and the monks.’

‘Monks?’

‘From Bangor Abbey. The monks who took the staff from Armagh. The staff the Earl of Ulster burned our hall for. Sir Robert wants it.’

As the reason Robert had abandoned the war in Scotland and resigned his position as guardian became clear, Adam’s blood was stirred. It was even more imperative that he fulfil the king’s order. Bruce could not be allowed to take possession of the relic, under any circumstance. All the king had worked to achieve would be in jeopardy. ‘Will he return when he has it?’

The servant shook his head. ‘Please,’ he murmured, glancing down at the dagger and swallowing dryly. ‘It is all I know.’

‘I believe you.’

Adam sliced the dagger swiftly across the young man’s throat, severing his windpipe with one brutal cut. The servant dropped to the ground, where he convulsed for a few moments, then shuddered to still. Bending, Adam wiped the blade on the grass. As he did so, his mind filled with an image of a cliff-top path in stormy darkness, a thunderclap drowning the scream as Alexander sailed over the edge with his horse. Adam sheathed the dagger, musing that metal had no compunction about rank. It killed servant as easily as it murdered king. Returning to his horse, he mounted.

The hunt was on.

Chapter 7

Ballymote, Ireland, 1301 AD

Robert stirred as he felt the wagon slow. Outside the thick cloth covering men called to one another, their words obscured by the hollow clopping of the horses’ hooves on what he guessed was a paved road. Somewhere up ahead he heard a heavy clanking.

‘Cormac,’ he murmured.

His foster-brother raised his head groggily. ‘Are we stopping?’

‘I think we’re here.’

Cormac came fully awake, frowning as he strained to hear the voices outside. The two squires hunched opposite them glanced nervously at each other. One was pale with pain and exhaustion, his leg boxed in a crude splint. The wagon’s fifth occupant kept his eyes downcast, cowl low over his head, his bound hands clasped in his lap. The monk had hardly said two words since they began the trek north, the days merging into one another inside their jolting, airless prison. Robert had lost count, but guessed it was more than a fortnight since they had left the shores of the lough. The physical discomfort of the journey had only been part of the ordeal; Robert had been forced to endure hours of silent reflection, in which he was tormented by worry over the fate of his brothers and men, and what he would face at the end of the road. All he knew was what Ulster’s captain, Esgar, had told him.

After he and Cormac had been disarmed, Esgar had ordered the rest of his knights to hunt down the fleeing company. Robert had refused to answer any of the captain’s questions, his eyes on Uathach’s prone, bloodied form. The hound wasn’t the only victim of the skirmish. Several of the knights, searching the immediate vicinity, had found Murtough crushed beneath his wounded horse. Pulling the monk free, they discovered his neck was broken. The injured palfrey they put to the sword, along with Esgar’s horse, badly lamed by Robert. After ordering the dead monk to be buried in a shallow grave, Esgar had waited for his men to return.

The knights and squires came back slowly, the last rejoining the company an hour later. To Robert’s relief they had been able to recover only two squires, both from Donough’s household, who had been unhorsed during the flight, one of whom had a broken leg. Of the others, the knights told their silent captain, there was no sign.

Seeing the triumph in Robert’s face, Esgar had made him a promise. ‘We will find them, Sir Robert, and when we do your brothers will be subject to the Earl of Ulster’s justice. They’ll wish they hadn’t run.’ Ordering twenty of his men to track them down and secure the staff – for as long and as many miles as it took – the captain corralled his five prisoners. ‘I’ll take them to Sir Richard at Ballymote. Half a prize is better than none.’

On the journey north Robert and the other captives had only been allowed out of the wagon whenever the company stopped to rest. From the banks of the lough they ascended into mountains, travelling by drovers’ roads, the peaks around them often invisible, bearded by clouds. For several days up in the heights the air was cold and sharp as if winter had returned, then slowly they descended into glades of ash and budding oak, filled with birdsong and rain. All at once, the mountains were behind them and the land stretched ahead for endless miles.

The mood of the company shifted with the change in landscape, the knights becoming silent and watchful. Fires were kept low and Esgar set four knights on guard through the nights, wary of some unseen threat. They stopped for rest where possible in forts garrisoned by vassals of the Earl of Ulster. Throughout this time, the five prisoners had not been mistreated. They had been given food, drink and blankets, and the injured squire tended to. But, for Robert, the concern over whether his men would make it safely to Scotland and unease as to what lay in store for him and his foster-brother had been torture enough.

The wagon slowed, almost to a stop, the interior darkening. The clanking had ceased and men were calling instructions, the horses jostling as the drivers urged the beasts forward. The wheel spokes scraped against something; a gateway or tunnel, then they were through, sunlight brightening their juddering prison once more.

As the wagon came to a halt, the cloth flaps were hauled back and Esgar’s face appeared. ‘Out.’

Robert’s hands and feet were bound, but with enough slack that he could shuffle to the edge. Sliding from the back of the wagon, blinking at the light, he found himself in an expansive courtyard, enclosed by high stone walls. In places, timber structures had been erected against the fortifications: stables, kennels and outbuildings. All of them looked newly built, the thatch on the slanting roofs still being laid in places. The walls were flanked by six towers, two of which were covered with scaffolding. The towers at the four corners of the castle had open platforms at the top, each surmounted by a siege engine.

Looking past the wagon, Robert saw a double gatehouse guarding the narrow passageway through which they had entered. Hanging above the tunnel was a golden banner embroidered with a red cross, in the top left-hand corner of which was a rampant black lion. The clanking noise had come from a portcullis, which was now being lowered, its iron teeth closing over the gateway. Ballymote was a mighty castle, well-defended and heavily garrisoned. A man would find it hard to enter uninvited. He would also find it hard to leave.

A door in the gatehouse opened and three men appeared. Robert dismissed two of them as guards, before fixing on the massive figure at their centre, who came striding towards him. Robert knew, though he had never met him, that this must be Sir Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster and King Edward’s chief magnate in Ireland. Ulster looked to be in his early forties, his face marked by battle and full of the unmitigated arrogance of a man of rank and power. He wore a sumptuous gold mantle, embroidered with a red cross.

Ulster greeted Esgar curtly, his eyes moving to take in the rest of the company. His attention came to rest on Robert. ‘Sir Robert, is it? I see your father and grandfather in you. In body at least. In spirit, I judge you are quite different.’ The contempt in his deep voice was unmistakable.

Standing there, devoid of armour or weapons, wearing only a sweat-stained shirt and hose, his beard and hair unkempt, Robert felt acutely discomforted by the earl’s forceful gaze. Ulster reminded him of his father: the same barrel-like physique and domineering demeanour, the same condemnation in his stare. He fought away the sting the reminder provoked, meeting the earl’s gaze with defiance. ‘It is unfortunate we meet under such circumstances, Sir Richard. Your family and mine have enjoyed a long friendship, from which you have always benefited. It is regrettable you now jeopardise that alliance by taking my men and me prisoner. You may see my grandfather and father in me, but they are illusions. My grandfather is dead and my father in England. In their place, I am lord of our estates and head of the Bruce family. You should respect that.’

Ulster’s eyes glinted. ‘You lost any respect from me when you turned traitor and sided with outlaws and felons. You had everything – rich lands in Scotland, Ireland and England, the illustrious friendship of King Edward, even a claim to the throne of your kingdom. Now what do you have? Your father has disowned you from what I hear, your family’s home at Lochmaben has been destroyed and your earldom is forfeit to the English crown. When King Edward takes control of Scotland, Carrick will be lost to you for good. Even your new allies have deserted you. William Wallace is abroad and the rebels founder in his absence. And here you are: a prisoner with nothing but the shirt on your back, an earl in name alone and scarcely fit to be called so. Tell me, Robert, was it worth it?’