The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (29 page)

Within a week of Countess Marjorie’s death that family ritual had begun to unravel, for Earl Robert had chosen the same means of mourning the loss of his wife that Edward of England had espoused two years earlier: he avoided all human contact and remained shut up in the quarters he had shared with his wife for more than twenty years. Rob found himself reluctantly, and resentfully, supervising the evening meals served in the Lodge, and it became clear to him very quickly that he lacked any authority to sustain his new status. The first few days after the funeral were naturally doleful. The children gathered in the Lodge each night, but for three entire days no one spoke at the table, and more than once the silence was broken by the sounds of sobs.

They were ten siblings—five girls and five boys—an astounding number of healthy children for one family, and they ranged in age from four to twenty. Christina, the eldest, was already married to Gartnait, the future Earl of Mar in the far northeast, and she had remained in Turnberry after the funeral to see her siblings over the worst of their mourning period. Rob’s sister Isabel was almost exactly a year younger than him, at seventeen. After Isabel came the four younger brothers, Nigel, almost sixteen, then Edward, Thomas, and Alec, newly turned eleven. Behind them came Mary, Margaret, and Matilda, aged nine, seven, and four. Watching the three little girls in those first few days, Rob wondered how much they understood what had happened. Mary certainly knew her mother was gone, but Rob doubted whether she understood the permanence of it. Little Matilda cried constantly, but probably only because she saw the grief among her siblings.

His brothers, though, were a different matter. They were old enough to understand that their mother was gone, but not yet mature enough to deal with the tragedy as adults, and their obscure, confused feelings, allied with the absence from the table of their father, quickly resulted in bickering.

It was little Matilda who started an uproar towards the end of the first week by throwing a tantrum, screaming for her mother and refusing to be pacified. Her outburst upset her young sisters, who burst into tears, infuriating Edward, always the least patient of the brothers. Nigel shouted at him to shut up, and one word led rapidly to the next, so that in moments everyone except Christina was adding to the tumult, each of them trying to shout above the others.

Rob rose in a rage, snatching up the clay water jug and hammering it hard on the table as he bellowed for quiet. The jug shattered, water splashing everyone around the table and one whirling shard catching Isabel on the cheek, instantly drawing blood. For a few moments everyone froze, the only sound the loud splashing of water pouring from the table to the floor. Then Isabel sprang to her feet, one hand pressed to her injured face, wet with splashed water mixed with blood, and ran sobbing from the room, closely followed by Christina, who glared at Rob as she followed her sister. The three youngest girls started screaming again, and the harried nursemaid, pale faced and wide-eyed, snatched up little Matilda and shepherded Mary and Margaret out of the room, leaving Rob alone with his four younger brothers, the handle of the shattered jug still clutched in his hand.

Edward was white faced with fury, glaring at Rob as he flexed his fists.

“Don’t even think of it,” Rob warned, and then looked at the others. “Sit down, all of you.”

“Where?” Edward’s voice was a hiss. “Everything’s soaked. Even our food. And you could have put Bella’s eye out.” He walked away towards the door.

“Come back here,” Rob told him, but he was gone in a few strides.

“We’re going, too,” Nigel said, his voice barely recognizable.

“No, you’re not,” Rob said. “I need you to stay here.”

Nigel looked him straight in the eye. “Edward needs us not to even more,” he said, then glanced at the others. “Come on.”

They followed him, and Rob stood watching them, his face twitching with anger. He looked at the wreckage of the table, wondering how things had come to such a pass and thinking that his brothers had become strangers. He came closer to weeping in frustration at that moment than he had in years. But then the truth hit him, and he had to clutch at the table for support. It was he who was the stranger here, not them. This was their home, their world, and it had been pulled down on their heads in the space of mere days, all their familiar anchors severed, leaving them without leadership or support. He, on the other hand, had been gone for two full years while they’d remained at home and grown closer to one another than he could possibly be to them by now. Nigel was their leader now, in age and rank, and he had just demonstrated his leadership by defying his man-sized elder brother. It had been Edward, though, always the mercurial one, who had been the first to rebel against the stranger who had been attempting to bully all of them.

Rob stood in the quiet of the Lodge, mulling those thoughts and listening to the random drops of water still falling to the floor, and then he snatched in a deep sigh and went looking for his uncle Nicol.

He was cold in the October chill by the time he finally found Nicol in the stables, grooming his horse by the light of a single lantern.

His uncle took one look at him and grunted. “Sit,” he said, nodding towards a stool by the gate to the stall. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

He finished his task with a few more strokes, then led his horse back into its stall and piled some fresh hay into its crib. He came back out to close the gate and leaned against it, eyeing his nephew.

“You look like a jilted lover,” he said. “What happened?”

Rob told him all about the fracas in the Lodge, and Nicol stood and listened.

“Hmm,” he said. “It occurs to me that yon might have been a good place not to be. Thank God I was safe here, talking to my horse. The boys defied you, you said? And how did you respond?”

Rob shook his head. “I didn’t. I had already done and said too much.”

“Hmm. And the girls, Christina and Isabel, where did they go?”

“I don’t know. To see to Bella’s face, I suppose … ”

“You didn’t check? How badly was she cut?”

“Bad enough. I saw blood.”

“And you didn’t think fit to go and see how she was?” “No. I was shamed.”

“Where are the others now?”

“The young ones went with their nurse. I don’t know where the boys went.”

“Right. Well, we need to go and see to Isabel. After that, it seems to me the next question should involve what you have to do next. Did you speak to your father?”

Rob’s eyes went wide with surprise. “No. He made his wishes plain two days ago. He said he wanted to be alone without being bothered by any petty squabbles. I never even thought to go to him. I came to you instead.”

“Aye, probably just as well … So, what d’you intend to do to make matters right?”

“About Isabel, you mean?”

“No, Isabel’s cut and can’t be uncut. We can only hope it’s not too bad and she won’t be disfigured. I meant what do you mean to do about the others, the whole thing?”

Rob straightened on his stool and shook his head. “I don’t know, Uncle Nicol. I don’t know what to do about anything any more. That’s why I’m here … I hoped you might be able to tell me. Besides, I did nothing to make it wrong in the first place.”

“That is true,” Nicol agreed, nodding his head slowly. “But wrong it is, nevertheless, would you not agree?” The soft sibilance of his Gaelic speech was comforting to Rob.

“Yes,” he whispered. “It’s very wrong. Our mother will be weeping in Heaven.”

A kindly smile lit up Nicol’s face, and he waggled a raised finger. “No, lad, I doubt that. Your mother was never a weeper. She will be watching, though. No doubt in my mind about that. She will be watching to see how you handle matters now, on your own.” He saw
his nephew’s baffled look. “It’s the truth. What you are facing here, Nephew, is your first real test of manhood, in the sense of being responsible—the matter of whether or not you are capable of acting as both father and mother to your brothers and sisters.”

“I’m not, obviously.”

“Yes, you are. You simply haven’t come to grips with it yet.”.

Rob frowned at him “Come to grips with it? How would I even begin to do that? I’m a knight, not a nursemaid, and I don’t even know how to begin to be different. That’s why they all hate me.”

“Och, Robert, there speaks a man who is feeling sorry for himself.” Nicol heaved himself away from the stall door and tightened the belt at his waist, then shrugged mightily and bloused the front of his tunic until it hung comfortably again. “You saw how glad they all were to see you last week. How then could they have come to hate you so quickly? They’re angry at all the world right now, that’s all that ails them. It’s only natural that they’ll strike out at anyone they can rage at. But that will pass quicker than they or you might believe, I swear to you, for they are all young and life goes on, no matter what is lost. What
you
have to decide, and quickly, is what you can do to help them find their way again. What do they need that you can give them most easily?”

Rob shook his head. “I don’t know, Nicol.”

“Well, I know. And I know, too, how easily you’ll do it once you see what’s needed. You’ll give them love, and leadership, strength, and guidance. They all look up to you, as they should. You’re the eldest man in the family now, apart from your father, and you’re grown up, forbye, a knight, fully trained and lacking only the tap of a blade upon your shoulder to complete you. You share their pain and their grief, but you must bear both of those as a man, while they are only boys and little girls.

“And so tomorrow you will preside at supper in the Lodge and you will do it properly, with the full dignity of your rank and status. You’ll do it naturally and with kindness and you’ll make no mention of today’s debacle. Forget that ever happened, and if any of them should bring it up, dismiss it as forgiven and forgotten, a thing of no
significance. I will talk to each of them during the day and make sure that they attend. And I’ll warrant you they will all be feeling as miserable as you are about what happened tonight. I think, though, that it might be wise to have the youngest children sup with their nurse for a few days, until everything settles down again.” He paused, then asked, “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“I do, I think.” Rob drew in a great breath, and then he sat thinking for a few moments. “You want me to encourage them to talk … And to listen to them rather than to talk to them. Is that right?”

“Good man. That’s it, exactly. Listen, and encourage them to speak up. Once they start talking about their mother, the relief will act as a poultice. The poison that’s affecting them will drain away like pus from a festering cut.”

“But how will I get them to start?”

“By asking questions, lad, and by remembering they all look up to you. Ask them what’s been happening while you were gone. Ask them about your mother, about what she did for them as children, about what they remember most about her. It won’t be difficult, you’ll see. But most of all, don’t be afraid to let them see how much you care yourself—how much you miss her and how much you loved her. Tell them a few of your own favourite memories of her.”

The beginnings of a smile flickered at Rob’s mouth. “Like the time she raised the big tents to house the Kings and surprised my father so much that he couldn’t show it?”

“Aye, things like that. Once you make a start, the rest will come naturally, you wait and see. All you have to do is be yourself. Don’t preach at them and don’t talk down to them … So, you can do this, you agree?”

“Yes. I can do that.”

“Good, then, because soon Christina must go home to her goodman in Mar, and she should do that without feeling guilty for leaving grief and misery behind her. Once she sees that the others are in good hands with you, she’ll be much relieved.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now, I suggest we go and find Isabel and see to her
wants if need be. Then we might go and find something to eat by the kitchen fire. I have the feeling you did not sup much tonight.”

That won him a reluctant grin as Rob rose to his feet. “I haven’t had a bite since this morning and I’m starving.”

Nicol wet his fingers with saliva and crossed to where the lamp burned smokily. “Wait for me outside while I make sure this thing is out. It would be too bad to burn down the stable while solving a minor problem.”

The result of it all was that the dam of sorrow and resentment and self-pity that had sprung into being in the previous week was completely broken, and the family suppers from that day forth became almost as carefree and enjoyable as they had been while Countess Marjorie had been there to adjudicate. They spoke of her constantly with love and longing.

It was Nigel who brought up the absence of their father for the first time.

“What will we all do now?”

His question brought silence and curious looks, for no one knew what he was talking about.

“About the house, I mean. We won’t be able to stay here now, for Da isn’t really Earl of Carrick. Not now. He only held the name because he was married to Mam. She was the true countess, and Carrick belongs to her family. It’s their holding, not Bruce’s. Now the earldom will go to the next heir in line, and that’ll be a Gael, one of Ma’s cousins. That’s the law. So where will we go when the new earl comes to live here?”

Even Rob was stunned by what Nigel had said. But he saw the truth of it and saw, too, the worry on the faces of the two youngest boys, whose eyes were darting everywhere as though they expected the walls to collapse or the door to crash open as strangers burst in to dispossess them.

“No, that’s not true,” Christina said, drawing every eye to her. She looked at each of them in turn, briefly but commandingly. “We will all stay here.” Her voice was more authoritative than they had ever heard it, the words of a countess coming from their big sister’s
mouth. “This is our home and nothing will change in that.” She looked at Rob. “Uncle Nicol—who is really Ma’s uncle—is the heir Nigel’s talking about. Nicol stands next in line for the earldom. But he wants no part of it. He is content to leave things as they are. I’ve heard him talk about this with Mam, several times in the past few years, and I know what they agreed upon. Mam wrote it in a letter more than a year ago, before my wedding. She sent it to the Bishop of Glasgow as the senior bishop of the southern realm, and Uncle Nicol added his own wishes, as did both my goodman, Gartnait, and his father, Domhnall, Mormaer of Mar, when we were wed. Uncle James the High Steward added his approval, too, in writing, since our mother was his sister. All of them are staunch supporters of Grandfather Robert, and all of them felt that since Uncle Nicol was in agreement with his niece’s wishes, our mother’s wishes should be observed should such a need ever arise.”