The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (51 page)

“That will not please Edward Plantagenet.”

“No, it will not. But Scotland is not yet an English fiefdom. Your grandfather was right about that, too.”

“He was. And Bruce stands clear of all of this.” It was not a question, but his father responded as though it had been.

“Of course. We have no choice the way things stand. You know that.”

“Aye, I do … I dislike it, but I understand. And we have made our choice long since, to stay in England.”

“For the duration, aye.”

“For the duration … ” Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “The duration of Balliol, you mean? Would you change your mind were that to change, Father?”

The Lord of Annandale shook his head, the gesture studiously noncommittal, his eyes betraying nothing. “So,” he said, “I believe King Edward will be glad to see us.”

Bruce dipped his head, blinking rapidly against a surge of lethargy that told him Brother Reynald’s new concoction was taking effect. “Let us pray it be so, Father.” He could hear himself slurring the words though he forced himself to speak clearly.

“You’re tired,” Annandale said, leaning forward. “Brother Reynald told me not to stay too long. Try to sleep now. I have other things to do … Domhnall, for one. I need to speak with him. Rest now, boy.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ENCHANTMENTS AND INTRIGUES

W
hen he opened his eyes again it was night, and the darkness of the room was relieved only dimly by a dying fire flickering weakly in the grate. He lay still for a while, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness as he listened to the silence, searching for the sound that had awakened him, but as he lay quietly waiting for it to be repeated, he began to believe that it might have been born of a dream.

Then it came again, a whisper, unmistakably feminine, followed by a stifled giggle from the darkest corner of the room, near the door.

“Who is there?”

Another muffled, furtive sound was followed immediately by the darkness in the corner growing blacker, and even as his eyes widened in surprise he knew what had happened. Someone had moved the wooden screen from the wall beside his cot and set it up in that far corner to conceal them from where he lay, and at the sound of his voice they had blown out the candle there. Now he heard the voices again, whispering urgently, and saw hurried movement; the door to his room swung open and a tall, slim shape, undoubtedly a woman, swung into momentary view in the dim firelight before vanishing into the passageway and pulling the door shut behind her.

Silence fell again, deep and unbroken, and Bruce lay still, his mind working quickly and clearly. Lady Isabella’s young women,
Thomas Beg had called them, all of them younger than their seventeen- or eighteen-year-old mistress, and all set to watch him at various times while his physician and Father Baldwin were otherwise occupied. Clearly they had been told to watch over him while he slept, and they had moved the screen or had it moved for them— it was a heavy, cumbersome thing made of carved wooden panels— to where they could do both with the least risk of disturbing him. If that were the case, though, they should have had no need to startle at his awakening and no reason at all to run away. But only one had fled and there had been two of them at least, whisperer and giggler, which meant that one was still there, hiding in the darkness.

He called again, expecting a response this time, but when nothing happened he felt the first stirrings of annoyance. On the point of raising his voice, though, he remembered what he was dealing with here. The young woman hiding from him was from the earldom of Mar, north of the river Forth, and thus it was more than possible that she might speak no language other than her own, the Erse tongue of the northern folk. Keeping his voice calm and level he tried again, this time in Gaelic.

“I know you are there, so come out now and bring your candle with you. Light it at the fire again and then light another one for me, over here.”

Nothing happened for a few moments, and he was on the verge of speaking again when he heard the tiniest of rustling sounds and a child emerged into the dim glow of the firelight and moved slowly towards him. She stopped about five paces from the bed and stood there timorously, staring at him as he looked back at her. He could not see her clearly, but even so her waif-like form reminded him of his younger sister Mary and he reacted as would have done with her.

“You should be abed, child, at this time of night. What are you doing here? And what hour is it, anyway?” He flattened his hands on the mattress and tried to push himself up to sit, but he was rewarded with a blinding pain that made him gasp. He fell back and the pain passed quickly, but by the time he opened his eyes again the
child was standing close, one arm stretched out as though to help him. He grimaced and waved her away.

“Leave me be,” he said, hearing the shakiness in his own voice. “I have no need of help.” He drew a deep, steadying breath, and when he spoke again his voice sounded normal. “It’s too dark in here. I can’t see your face. Light your candle at the fire, as I said. There’s a taper there. Then light mine.”

She moved to obey him, but his mind was already ranging elsewhere, wondering why the other, taller woman had raced away so guiltily. He thought he knew the answer.

The child came back, frowning in concentration as she held one hand protectively over the flame of the thin wax taper she was holding. She went to the table the physician had moved to the foot of the bed and stooped over the thick candle stub in the holder there, her frown holding steady until the wick caught. Then, with less of a frown and still without looking at him, she held up her taper and looked around until she saw the other candle in its tall, floorstanding holder on the far side of his bed. She went to it quickly, lit it, then blew out her taper and took it back to its place at the fireside. Then she set about replenishing the dying fire from the pile of logs in the fuel bunker beside the hearth before lodging the heavy iron poker securely among the logs in the fire basket.

Bruce watched her idly throughout, half amused that she avoided his eyes in everything she did, but he knew exactly why she was doing so; she believed her secret to be safe as long as she did not look at or speak to him.

When she had remade the fire, she picked up her candle holder but remained kneeling in front of the hearth with her back to him, leaning back on her haunches and staring into the flames.

“Come here, child. Place your candle on the table there and pull that chair across to where I can look at you.” She obeyed willingly enough, dragging the heavy chair noisily over the stone flags. “No, come closer. I won’t bite you and I want to speak to you without having to shout. Closer. There, that will do.”

She sat down facing him, a tiny, frowning tic between her brows as she finally looked him in the eye, but then she squinted sideways and blew an errant lock of black hair away from her cheek before tucking it back demurely into the wimple from which it had escaped. When it was safely out of sight, she looked back at him and nodded. “My lord,” she said, in a small, subdued voice.

“What is your name?”

She blinked at him and tilted her head slightly to one side. “Mary, my lord.”

“Fancy that,” he said, and smiled. Even without the Gaelic, her voice would have been unmistakably Scots from north of the Forth, but it had a pleasant, vaguely husky timbre, and he had a sudden certainty that her wit, when she chose to show it, would be quick and wickedly barbed. “The first thing that came into my mind when you stepped into the light was that you reminded me of my sister Mary. Mary what? I can see now, in the light, you’re clearly not my sister Mary Bruce.”

In fact he could see now, in the light, that she was not the child for which he had first taken her. She was small enough in stature, but now he could see she must be four or five years older than he had first thought her. And she was devastatingly pretty.
A heartbreaker, someday
. The tightness of the plain white wimple emphasized the heart shape of her face, and she had high, prominent cheekbones and a wide, generous mouth that looked as though it would laugh easily. But it was her eyes that drew his attention; they were large and brilliantly green in the light of the candle’s flame.

Now she nodded her head slightly, as though reassuring herself that his question had been reasonable. “Mary Henderson, my lord. My father is Sir Gavin Henderson of Thorndell, knight in service to Earl Domhnall.”

“I see. And how old are you, Mary Henderson?”

She hesitated, then quirked her lips ruefully. “I’m seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” He managed to stop himself from smiling but let his voice express his gentle disbelief. “
Seventeen?
”

Now she flushed and tossed her head. “Well, then sixteen … But I’ll be seventeen come July.”

“Good for you. And how long have you been a companion to Lady Isabella?”

“Two years, come Martinmas.”

“And how many of you are here?”

The black eyebrows drew together. “What d’you mean, my lord?”

“How many ladies did the countess bring with her?”

“Oh, five of us. But she’s no’ a countess, my lord. She’s just Lady Isabella … Your own sister, Christina, is to be Countess of Mar.”

“True, but your mistress is to be Countess of Carrick when she becomes my wife.”

The green eyes blinked. “So she is … I never thought of that. Countess Christina is the only countess I’ve ever met.”

“And do you like her?”

“Who, your sister?”

“No, your mistress.”

“Why would I
not
like her?”

Bruce hitched one shoulder in a semi-shrug. “I don’t know, Mary Henderson. You know the answer to that better than I do. The lady is to be my wife but I have never met her. I merely wondered whether you enjoy your life as her companion.”

“I do, as a matter of fact.” The girl’s voice radiated a distinct coolness.

Bruce raised his hands in surrender. “Forgive me, Mary. I did not mean to pry, or to ask you to say anything improper.” He gave her what he hoped was an engaging smile. “I have been stuck in this bed, in this room, since soon after she arrived here and I have yet to set eyes upon her. And so I am curious about her. But I’ll ask no more questions of you … None, at least, that might take advantage of your position.”

Mary nodded slowly, and Bruce returned the gesture equally slowly.

“Who was behind the screen with you when I woke up and spoke to you?” He saw her eyes widen and she looked away quickly. “Was it one of the others, your companions?”

She nodded her head, biting her lower lip.

“Or was it Lady Isabella herself, come here to snatch a stolen glimpse of the ogre she is to wed?”

The great green eyes widened instantly. “That’s not true,” the girl snapped. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“Because she ran away when there was no need.”

“There was a need! But that wasn’t Lady Isabella. The very saying that it was is an insult.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow, surprised by the ferocity of the girl’s defence of her mistress. “How so? I meant no insult—”

“Yes you did! You accused her ladyship of spying on you like … like some kind of thief, and then running away when she thought she might get caught.”

There was no doubting the young handmaid’s outrage, for her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled, and Bruce threw up both hands for the second time in as many minutes. This time, though, he made no attempt to plead innocence or justify himself; he merely waited for the young woman to calm down. When she did, eventually, he said mildly, “This is my house, you know, Mary Henderson.”

A blink of incomprehension, then, “What does that mean?”

“What does that mean,
my lord
?”

A pause, more of a hesitation, followed that before she repeated, “What does that mean, my lord?”

He blinked slowly back at her, knowing the effect was largely lost with one eye covered by bandages. “It means, Mary Henderson, that I can say whatever I please, most of the time, beneath my own roof.” He gave that time to reverberate before he added, “Of course, most of the time I don’t have to worry about quick-tongued young women jumping down my throat. We have no such young women here in Writtle. Or we did not until you and your mistress came to stay.”

“I don’t— I didn’t—”

“Jump down my throat? Did you not? Pardon me, then, I must have been mistaken, but I was sure … ” He stopped, then snapped back with another question. “You said there was a need for your companion who was not the Lady Isabella to run away. What was it?” He saw the sudden, stubborn set of her chin and waited, counting silently to five, then resumed. “Look, you, I believe you when you say that it was not your mistress who fled, but who was it, and why was there a need? I hope you can see that there is a mystery here and that we need to resolve it between us. Because I am a Scots earl in England and this is my sickroom and I could scarce defend myself were someone to attack me.” He saw her eyes grow large with consternation and added, “I am not saying I expect to be attacked and murdered in my bed, or that I fear you or your friends might be plotting against me, but I do suspect that you have fears of causing trouble for someone else by telling me, and that concerns me. If I am right and that is true, then put your mind at rest. Whatever you say to me here will go no further. You have my word on that. Now, who was she?”

She spoke a name. It was indistinct, almost inaudible, but then she cleared her throat and spoke it clearly. “It was Marian.”

“And who is Marian?”

“A friend … My friend … One of us.”

“One of the five, you mean? And why did she need to flee?”

Again the reluctant, almost stubborn pause and then the dam burst and the words came pouring out of her. “Because she was forbidden to be here—not her, exactly, or not really her, but any one of us at all who was not supposed to be here. The old man made it clear—he was very angry with us—but he told us all that whenever any of us was here we were to be alone. You were an earl, he said, and betrothed to our mistress, and you were sick, and if we could not be trusted to watch over you without the need of being watched ourselves, then all our being here was a waste of time and he would make other arrangements and we would not be needed … ”