The Honor Due a King (12 page)

“Robert, it is a much more complex matter than that and certainly not solved by rejecting a harmless gesture. Diplomacy is about making the other side believe that they have won a concession, however meaningless.”

The king shook his head and knotted his hands in his hair. “I have so many, many times, your grace, taken your advice to heart, against my own leanings, and never regretted following it. But in this I stand firm. The Church has discarded me already. If they are to receive me back, it will be on the clear terms that they declare me as Scotland’s king and that,” – he raised a finger – “
that
act will most definitely secure Scotland’s right to freedom.”

Lamberton rose from his chair and, bowing graciously to the king, took his leave. The rest of us were still sitting there, wondering why we had even been called upon.

Walter breached the silence. “You said, sire, there was another purpose to this gathering? An announcement of some sort?”

The proud determination on Robert’s face at once faded, giving way to sullen gloom. He leaned against the window sill. “Indeed. A blessing it would be should I have a son or grandson and live to see another fifteen years on this earth so that he might come into his own to hold his ground against this Edward of England or the next. But what if I don’t live so long? What if I never have a son, nor you, Walter? What then?”

“Then your brother Edward will inherit the throne,” Walter admitted. “But Marjorie is near to her time. We will know soon. And she and I will have ...” he broke off, realizing he had blown air into a festering wound for Robert. It was certain of Walter – he was not ill-mannered enough to speak of the queen just then or his fortune in having a fertile wife.

“Aye, time will tell. Perhaps I ponder upon what may never be, but I do believe it would be good to prepare. I’ve no desire to leave my country drowning in the same lake of troubles that I grew up in when King Alexander died. Scotland needs an heir to the throne and for now, today, that right belongs to Edward. I’ve convinced Marjorie to waive any claims that she might hold in –”

“My lord!” Keith broke in, bolting up. “Are you mad? Although it may not be customary for a woman to rule in Scotland, it has been established before that it can be done. Had King Alexander’s granddaughter not died on her voyage here from Norway –”

“Then perhaps,” Robert said plainly, cocking an eyebrow at him, “I would not be king.”

“What he’s
trying
to say, my lord,” the Earl of Ross intervened, “is that any of us here would prefer her enchanting grace and pleasantness to Edward and his irrational temper.”

“I’m quite certain that’s true, but hear me out, all of you. I wish Randolph were here to explain this more properly. His skill for arranging words far exceeds my bluntness in wielding them. But I needed him to make things go over well for Edward in Ireland. For as much as my brother has inconvenienced me, to put it most kindly, he would give his life keeping the English from our land. I acknowledge his loyalty and his love for Scotland, but I also know his ambition. Should an heir – my son or yours, Walter – come to the throne before he is of an age to rule independently, Edward would again be thrust back. Denied. Do any of you believe he will concede to that willingly? I doubt so, especially given that his appetite for power has now been whetted. I shall, in an official document, declare my nephew Thomas Randolph as regent for my heir, be it my son or grandson.” He turned toward me and I, at once, cast my gaze to the patterned tiles beneath his feet. “After him, you, James, if you’ll accept?”

I did not look up, even though I felt everyone’s eyes on me.

“James?” Robert neared me, hands held wide, inviting an embrace. “Never has any man known a greater honor than the friendship I’ve found with you. It’s much to ask of you. By now, maybe, you’re dreaming of another life – something beyond battlefields and courts. But there is no one I trust half as much as you to guard and keep Scotland whole. Accept, please.”

This was ever my fate: to serve my king unquestioningly. My conscience warred with my love for him.

He laid his hands on my shoulders. “My good James, don’t force me to beg. It’s unbecoming of a king, aye?”

How could I deny my devotion to this man – he who had saved my life at Dalry, who had freely given his friendship, and marked me as a leader of men? I clasped his wrists and nodded. “Then I’ll spare you and accept, my lord. Though I should have let you go on a bit until you were down on your knees. Fond memory that would make.”

He dismissed the meeting. Along with Walter, who would not meet my eyes, we left the abbey grounds and began up the road on foot toward Castle Rock to peruse the markets. While Walter brooded, Robert and I talked – of matters in the north of England and the borders, of the home I was building at Lintalee, of Edward’s triumphs in Ulster and the deceptive oaths tendered to him as Irish chieftain plotted against chieftain.

The street from the abbey to the old castle was alive with industry as the warmth of spring had stirred the town to life. Sacks of grain to be sown in the fields were stacked high in carts. A fatling pig was being bartered over. Fish, freshly arrived from the docks at Leith, were heaped up in baskets, bringing the rank smell of the sea inland. Mutton carcasses still draining their blood swung from hooks at the butcher’s shop, while on the other side of the street bolts of cloth in hues of saffron, russet and sea blue were haggled over by highborn ladies and pennywise drapers.

I found myself turning my nose to inhale whenever we passed a shop where the door had been propped open to let out the aroma of bacon dripping with fat, loaves of bread or pastries sprung fresh from the ovens, or casks of ale tapped and poured into sloshing mugs.

Robert paused before an inn where the door had been propped open to let out the aroma of bacon dripping with fat, pastries sprung fresh from the ovens, and ale poured into sloshing mugs. “Walter, I’ve a fancy for a meat pie. Go inside and fetch us some, will you?”

Scowling, Walter ducked inside. Several passers-by had by now recognized the king and were pointing fingers and whispering behind their hands. Robert did not seem to expect any deference. He was, in that moment, merely Robert the Bruce of Carrick, browsing the shops of Edinburgh. I peered through the window at Walter, who was jingling the bag of coins at his waist to summon the owner.

“He feels smote, don’t you think?” I asked.

“He’ll recover. My daughter was treasure enough for him. He shouldn’t ask more until he’s proven himself – as you have. James, I owe you, more than I can ever repay. So much that there’s nothing I would keep from you.”

But he had. The one thing I dared not ask of him.

“All I want,” I said, “is to fight in your name against the English. And a good piece of land to call my own. I have that. I need no more.”

While we awaited Walter’s return, a small crowd began to flock to Robert. A wonder they had all let him pass this far. Little children pressed in and reached out to touch the hem of his cloak. He laughed and ruffed the hair of a wee red-headed lass who could but stare up at him with her big, green eyes in amazement, the fingers of one hand stuck in her cherry mouth and her other arm clamped around a squirming pup.

While most of the people in the street that day were on foot, the presence of a lady not a hundred feet away riding on her chestnut palfrey caught my eye – at first it was only the sun rich in her flaxen hair that I noticed, for her head was turned away and I could not see her face. But then I saw Sibylla behind her on another palfrey and my heart leapt inside my chest. Sibylla said something to her lady and Marjorie turned at the waist to search above the throng, her middle near to bursting with the child she carried.

Robert was still enthralled in his host of small admirers. The gangly pup wriggled free of the red-haired lass’s hold and bolted through a tangle of legs. The girl went squealing after the pup, which yapped with excitement.

Walter had just appeared from the shop, juggling an armload of steaming meat pies, when the high neigh of a horse distracted us. I saw nothing but a thrash of chestnut legs in the air, heard the thump and then stood in lost confusion as the crowd at once flowed away from Robert and toward the commotion.

Shouts arose. Faces rife with concern ogled from second-story windows. A smithy rushed from a nearby stall to steady the wide-eyed, startled horse. Robert wrinkled his brow, but it was I who rushed forward first, my belly taut with fear. I shoved bodies out of the way and when I got to where the little girl stood with her whining puppy in her arms, its leg broken, I saw there, lying limp on the cobbles ... Marjorie.

Robert knelt beside her, touched her blanched face, spoke to her although she gave no response. Then he lifted her in his arms and called for a physician. Beside me, Walter dropped his pies in a heap and moaned inconsolably.

Marjorie was taken to the nearest house and laid in a small bed in a back room. The cut on the back of her head from where her skull had struck the cobbles leaked a river of blood onto the pillow until it was dark and wet and soaked through. Walter, shaking and crying, pressed rags to the cut, but the life kept on pouring from her.

The whole room smelled of warm blood. Sweet and final, as after any battle.

I stood with my back to the wall, wanting to stroke her hand as Walter did, but unable to do or say anything. Robert paced and kept watch on the front door. When the physician arrived with a leather bag full of potions and devices, he escorted him swiftly to his daughter and ordered the man to revive her. The demand brought a swift glare and a terse comment, thick with a Flemish accent about not having ‘the powers of Heaven in my hands’.

The physician pressed an ear to Marjorie’s small chest. A long moment later, he lifted her eyelids to look at her pupils. Then he rose and took the king aside in conference.

Robert’s face drained of color. “I ... I will tell him,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

Walter, shaking his head forlornly, looked up at Robert.

The physician and I were sent to the front room. Robert closed the door behind us. I heard Walter cry out. At that moment, my heart plunged to a lightless place – an abyss of grief so deep and endless I felt it impossible that I might ever love again.

They took her back to Holyrood Palace in a litter piled with cushions. But by the time they placed her in her own bed, her heart had almost ceased beating. The loss of blood was immeasurable. By evening, a team of physicians had been called to her bedside and all agreed on what had to be done to save the life of the child within her. It was sometime deep in the night that Marjorie died.

You could no more live without me, James, than I without you
.

Dear God, how true ... I could barely draw breath to go on living.

They cut open her belly, just as they had my own mother’s when Hugh was born, and took the babe from her. The bairn, a boy, was cleaned up and handed at once to a wet nurse, who suckled and rocked him. His lusty wails could be heard throughout the palace.

Marjorie would not open her eyes again to see the world around her. Or walk through the meadows in springtime to name the flowers at her feet. Or listen to the shorebirds as they crowded along the strand in their thousands strong. She would never hear the cooing of her own bairn or live to see his first wobbling steps. None of those things.

I heard the physicians speaking afterwards. They said he survived only because he was close to his natural time for being born; otherwise he would have been too small and weak to draw air on his own. In my head I counted the weeks over and over.

My son.

Red-eyed, Walter crouched into a tight ball, staring at the door where on the other side the babe cried. He took no notice of the people coming and going, not even Robert when he came into the corridor with the wee, squirming bairn swaddled in his arms. To others, it might have seemed a strange sight to see the fierce and noble King of Scots cradling such a fragile thing so tightly, but in the way he clutched the babe to his chest, in the solemn downward curve of his mouth and the shadows behind his pupils, I could see the sorrow there.

“Walter,” Robert said above the babe’s long wails, his tone thick with mourning. “You have a son. Whole and hale. A son who needs a father.”

“And mother,” Walter mumbled into his arm.

“Aye, we’re all grieving for Marjorie. I no less than you. But she left us a child to remember her by. We must take some comfort in ... ” – his voice caught so abruptly that I thought for a moment his spirit might shatter into a thousand shards, but he drew his shoulders up and went on – “this small miracle.”

Robert held the infant out, its tiny purple hands beating at the air. “Stand, Walter. Hold your son.”

Slowly, Walter pushed himself up, supporting his weight on the wall behind him. For a long minute he stared at the child and then, as if afraid of it, he took him and held him loosely. But as the child writhed and kicked, threatening to shake himself loose from Walter’s reluctant grasp, Walter drew the child in to his chest.

Minutes went by as we all let grief yield to wonderment. Walter’s eyelids fluttered. He looked directly at me and said, “If she ever loved you, does it matter now?”

I hung my head and said the proper words, not the ones I wished to say: “You are blessed, Walter. The boy, too. I wish you both a long and happy life.”

I placed a kiss upon my fingertips, brushed the bairn’s cheek with them and left. Walter had had his say; I would never have mine. It was how it should be. Done. Forgotten. Given up for peace. Truth was sometimes best left buried and undisturbed.

They called the boy Robert. He was hale as any infant naturally born, but as time went on and he was encouraged to sit on his own, crawl and stand holding onto his nurse’s skirts, the lad had a noticeable bend in his spine. Always he leaned to the left – the result, the physicians said, of his mother’s spill – and although walking came a little late for him, it came and he was a bright and merry boy whom Walter loved incredibly.