The Honor Due a King (22 page)

I glanced at Walter, his eyes straining to search in the darkness. Reflexively, I reached over my left shoulder, searching for the quiver of arrows that I no longer kept there. I had never quite regained full strength in my one arm after the fight with Neville and so had given up the bow that had been an extension of me for so many years. I forced my hand down to my hip, touched the hilt of my sword for reassurance.

“Aye, by God’s eyes,” Boyd muttered as he stood again, feet planted wide, “that
is
him. Plain enough. And they came alone. Brave fools.” He took another swig, dropped his empty flask, and pulled out his sword with a dangerous, silent strength.

“Put it away, Boyd. They come unarmed.” I motioned for him to follow me on foot.

We skidded down the embankment, grasping at tufts of grass to steady our descent, then waded through the rushes crowding the stream’s edge.

The lady stayed her companion with a flip of her hand. He clenched his reins nervously, as if weighing whether to stay by her and see this through or bolt and be gone.

I hoisted myself up onto the far bank and helped Boyd ashore. Then, heedless of the risk, I strode forward. “My lady?”

“Sir James.” Lady Rosalind de Fiennes drew her hood back and extended her hand to me. “Always such peril and tragedy when we meet. I wish it were otherwise. I trust all was clear and you find this agreeable?”

Relieved, dazzled, anxious and suspicious all at once, I took her hand and kissed it. “True to your word. Everything is in order. But I fail, as yet, to understand, why it is you are doing this? And why, of all people, you requested for
me
to meet you here?”

“Because you allowed my husband and I to go free from Roxburgh when you could have done us harm. How can I forget such kindness?”

I gazed up at her, her back as straight as a birch tree, her shoulders held tall in strict formality, her clothing ordinary and unimpressive in its cut. She could have ridden there on a donkey and herself in sackcloth and still been a force worth reckoning with. I had judged as much in the few times we had met so far. “Governor William de Fiennes was gravely wounded. To ransom him would have been senseless. To retain you, under the circumstances, cruel.”

“So you are indeed a merciful soul beneath that hugely fierce reputation? All the same, it was not required of you. Furthermore, I owe a debt to you, my lord.”

I blinked at her. “I have done nothing on your behalf that I know of.”

“Not directly so, perhaps.” Blithely, she crossed her hands over the front of her saddle and tilted her chin. Even in the moonlight, her dark hair shone with each subtle turn of her head. “You know by now, do you not, that Sir Robert Neville of Raby was my father?”

The hairs on my neck prickled. I heard the leather of Boyd’s jerkin crunch as he shifted his arms. “Archibald told me, after he read the letters. I didn’t know before that, I swear. I should think... expect that you would despise me.”

“No, I don’t. The fight was fairly done, my lord. It could as well have been you who died that day, and nearly did, from what I hear. But let me inform you further. Your stepmother and I became very close while at Emmanuel. Do you think she was the first woman he ever laid hands on? Or that even his own daughter was beyond his craving? A simple world you live in, kind lord, if you have not witnessed some of the evil that lurks in it. After my husband died, I naively returned to my father’s house. How ignorant of me to do exactly as a dutiful daughter should. Too soon I discovered my folly. I even feared for my own daughter, to tell you something of his affliction. Little girls or defenseless widows, it mattered not – he liked them all. That is why I took up residence with my daughter at Emmanuel – and the deeper in Scotland I was the safer I felt. No, my lord, I despise nothing about you. You’ve justly rid the world of a sinister man.”

“Still, you risk your own life – for what?”

“Let us say I have a bone to pick. And enough sense to judge right from wrong. The funds that my late husband intended for my daughter and I were without warning seized by my father and promptly squandered by my brothers. King Edward dismissed my grievances without ever hearing them. So I have nothing. No home, no husband, no daughter – ”

“But I thought that she –”

“She died before we even spoke last. The same sickness that took Lady Eleanor.”

“My condolences, my lady. But why did you not say so then?”

She glanced down, as if to gather her thoughts. “Because I did not know you well enough to trust you, Sir James. And the irony is that now I’m asking you to trust me. Lord Hugh Despenser wanted me to believe that she was still alive – and that he had her. He wanted me to spy against you, your king and the Earl of Lancaster. But I knew all along it was a lie. And so now I have no one, no family, no home, no country, nor a penny to my name. Let all who hear me be my witness – I have no loyalty left for England’s king. Therefore, I do this, because for now it’s all the power and retribution I have.”

I nodded, the complex web of her troubles slowly beginning to make sense.

“Peter here,” she indicated, as he shrank inside his collar, “will take you to the place where the wall tonight is left unguarded. You may gain the town there, and quietly, so that you shall be well inside before the garrison is roused.”

“And how can I be assured, Master Spalding, that I will find all as you say?”

He jerked in his saddle, as if pricked by a thorn. I realized then that this quivering mouse was no spy – the English would have chosen better had they some baleful plot set in action. No, Peter Spalding was no pawn, but the lady was not so plainly read.

Spalding pinched at his horse’s reins with trembling fingers. “Watches are easily bought off. The watch at the east end, mine, stands empty. The next one north, as well. Stay low in the ditches. You’ll have no trouble. The castle is another matter.”

My task was but to take the town and allow way for Robert to wear at the castle when he arrived.

As I nodded to Boyd and readied to call on my men, Rosalind spoke, “I ask, m’lord, but one favor of you in exchange for this boon.”

I shrugged. “If the town is won and it’s within my power. What?”

“Refuge. Far from where the English will ever think to find me. I ask no more.”

I stepped in close and grabbed her stirrup. “You ask much indeed. How can I be assured that you are not yet in the employment of King Edward as a spy? Or an assassin, even?”

She reached down and laid a gentle hand on my arm, precisely where that deep scar lay – as if somehow she knew that it spoke of my own vulnerability and she, in coming here, sought to share her own. “Assassins make quick work of their targets, my lord. I could have killed you when I brought your brother his letters. I could have led the English there in the two years since to burn you out, couldn’t I? And I would not have wasted my time with this drawn out talk we’ve just had. As for a spy ... so far I’ve given you every bit of information and gained none. If I am a spy, I fail miserably, don’t you think? Most certainly I would not be here with just one man,” she lowered her voice, “this harmless man, at my side while you have dozens armed and mounted within a stone’s throw. Go. Seize Berwick. Take back what was long ago taken from your father. Let
that
be your reassurance.”

She both bewildered and intrigued me. The gamble was great, but the prize, if taken, was immeasurable – the last patch of Scottish soil still under England’s foot. Either Rosalind would deliver me straight into the hands of the English king and thus be the death of me ... or drop Berwick like a floating feather into my outstretched palms. I bowed and gave a sharp whistle for my men to come forward.

“If we take Berwick, my lady, seek me out. I’ll put you in a place that even you yourself wouldn’t think to look.”

***

W
hen we came within sight of Berwick, we halted in a grove of pines to study the ramparts for activity. The sentries on the castle wall were sparse. The town walls appeared even barer. An English guard walked the length of the wall between two towers of the castle slowly, almost sleepily. He disappeared behind a merlon.

My breath whistled in and out of my nose. Beside me Archibald shifted. The leather of his gauntlets creaked as he brought his hands up to stifle a sneeze. My stomach pulled tight. When he had quieted, I raised a hand in signal.

We scurried along a hedgerow and inched closer to the ditch. If my men had learned one thing, it was how to move fast without the slightest rustle. We snaked on our bellies in a shallow gully that drained spring floodwaters. I crawled over the frozen mud to where the gully broadened out and laid a hand on Peter Spalding’s trembling arm.

“There?” I asked, pointing to a section of the wall that he had described earlier. A broad ditch ran along its length.

He nodded. “Aye, that’s the place.”

“Time,” I said to Randolph, close behind me.

His smile flashed in the darkness. He got to his knees and gathered up one of the rope ladders over his shoulder.

I took a long spear from Boyd and motioned to the others to follow. Over the bank of the ditch I scuttled and slipped carefully in. Although grassy, the bottom of the ditch was clogged with oozing mud. I struggled to step forward, crouching so low my legs began to cramp. The fresh stench of human filth and urine stirred. I keened my ears for the flick of arrows. Midway out the muck began to suck back at my boots and so I jammed my spear pole into the bottom and pulled myself along. As I went I checked the depth and found a deep spot that would have left me sinking in my armor. I moved around it and gestured at those around me to avoid it. Walter stood up to his knees in muck, his teeth clicking together and the bulk of the ladder weighing him down.

“Half way there,” I whispered.

I returned my sights to the opposite bank, a ragged line of black against a high gray wall, willing it closer. I tightened numb fingers around the long spear towering above my head and began to rise from the black, stinking ooze. I gained the bank and gasped for breath, fighting the urge to curse at the freezing clumps of mud that had turned my feet to stone. Carefully, I laid the pole down so it would not roll back in and slithered back down the bank as I grasped at slick clumps of grass that tore loose in my hands. Once on the far side, I helped pull several of my men to drier land.

We spread out along the thin edge of earth at the town wall’s lip and began readying the ladders. The spear ends went through a hole in the top rung which had a hook of iron on one side to fit over the wall. Glancing back to the ditch, I saw that Archibald was the last to emerge. I lent him my hand, but his fingers, stiff from the cold, slipped. He fell with a thud. Back toward the bottom he tumbled, finally rolling into a tussock of grass. Unsteadily, he staggered to his feet, resting a moment with his hands on his knees. Then he scrambled back up the steep, slick sides of the ditch. He was almost to me when the sound of shuffling boots reached our ears. His dark eyes, reflecting the moonlight, darted to the wall.

“Hurry,” I urged, thrusting out my hand again and leaning far forward. Boyd grabbed my other arm to steady me. Together we pulled Archibald to safety and dragged him back to where we hugged the wall.

The footsteps came closer, paused and passed by. I held my breath. Several minutes went by before I signaled for the first ladder to go up. As Boyd steadied the bottom of the long spear against the ground I worked it upward until it was standing straight and very, very carefully leaned it against the wall. My arms burned. A cramp knotted my shoulders. I bit my lip till the worst of it passed. Looking upward, I gave the shaft one good heave. The iron hook landed over the edge of the rampart with a sharp click. We let the spear down. Two other ladders went up and a third and a fourth.

Walter, in a rare burst of courage, was the first to scramble up. The ropes went taut with his weight. With my knife blade clenched between my teeth, I followed him. It was the knife my father had given me when I was ten on these very walls, just before Longshanks massacred thousands of Berwick’s citizens. Archibald later returned it to me before Bannockburn and I had kept it at my side ever since.

Cautiously, Walter pulled his torso through the gap of the crenel and stole a glance left and right over the ramparts. Then he swung his legs over. On his cue, Scots poured over the unguarded walls of Berwick.

A cry rang out from a nearby tower of the castle. Shouts relayed our unwelcome arrival. My men dispersed in a dozen directions, descending from the walls by rope to the ground or onto nearby roofs. The town’s watch stirred groggily. Shapes raced through the darkness. Metal gleamed in scattered flashes in the blackness of nearby alleyways. Walter moved away from the wall to stand in the street, taking in the chaos erupting around us.

“Walter, don’t –”

Whoosh.

He reeled backward. His head slammed against the wall. An arrow clattered to the ground beside him. He crumpled, his sword dropping from his grasp. His empty sword hand slid across his body to cover a gash in his mail, just above his other elbow.

“Walter?” I stooped beside him. “Are you hurt?”

He grimaced and kicked his legs in agony. Air hissed between his teeth. “Hurt? Near to dead, I’d say.”

Blood oozed between his fingers. I hooked a hand beneath his armpit and helped him up. He would live – I hoped.

“Merciful ... What is that ringing?” Walter rubbed at his temple with bloodied fingers. “Jesus, make it stop.”

“Church bells. Town’s awake now.”

Our men were by now fully engaged. But the surprise had loaded them with a distinct advantage. The townsfolk had no time to rally. They were coming at us one by one and falling against a wall of Scotsmen. The fighting closest to the walls was thick and wicked. A flicker caught my eye and instinctively I yanked Walter down. Another arrow smacked against the wall behind us, ricocheted and dinged against Walter’s helmet.

“They’re aiming for us.” I plucked up his sword and dropped it in his slick, wet hand.