Insurrection (14 page)

As he moved closer, breathing hard, he saw the opening wasn’t deep, really just a hollow overhung with roots. He could see a hunched shape within, darker than the shadows. It was larger than he had expected, although not as large as some of the reports had stated. The face was long and lean, the jaw thrust forward, lips peeled back to reveal hooked incisors. Its fur was thick and black, its winter pelt not yet fully shed. The stink of it was horrendous, a caustic animal reek that was like nothing Robert had ever smelled before. But it was the eyes that were the most startling thing about it, twin pools of molten gold. How many things, he wondered, had died while staring into that burning gaze? He had seen the bloody destruction in the pastures outside the town over the course of the winter, sheep ripped apart, cattle pulled down and gutted. The wolf, his grandfather taught him, killed not just for food, but for the pleasure. His was a hunger that could not be satisfied by blood alone. There was darkness in his heart and poison in his bite.

The horns had silenced now. Robert could hear the shouts of men and the drum of hooves as the rest of the hunting party converged on the clearing. Gripping his sword, the hilt slick with sweat, he steeled himself to lunge at the shadow in the cave. The wolf was faster. Out it sprang, eyes blazing. Robert jabbed with his blade, but only managed to rake its side as it passed him. The wolf gnashed at one of the dogs, then, finding itself cornered, turned and leapt at Robert. He ducked away, but his foot caught on a coiled tree root and he hit the ground, yelling as the wolf’s jaws clamped down around his ankle. Grabbing his fallen sword, Robert twisted round and stabbed out, striking the creature in the neck. The keen blade punctured the bushy pelt and entered thick tissue beneath. The wolf relinquished its hold, went to spring again, then howled as three hounds fell on it from behind, teeth punching into its hind legs and rump. Rolling away from the thrashing limbs, Robert scrabbled upright as two more dogs leapt in, pinning the animal. As they tore at its flesh it cried in rage and pain. Blood splattered the dusty ground. Moving in, both hands around the hilt, Robert stabbed down into the wolf’s side. Blood erupted, spraying his tunic and face, the hot stink of it catching in his throat. He turned his head, trying not to gag, as the din of men and horses entered the clearing.

The huntsmen came first, running down the bank, forked sticks in their hands, ready to pin down the quarry. They slowed as they saw Robert hunched over the wolf between the dogs. Two of them unhooked whips from their belts, ready to force the hounds away. Others drew leashes. Robert heard them calling to him, but he was watching the gold fire drain from the wolf’s eyes. Its head had lolled back and it was panting shallowly. Finally, it shuddered to still. Robert pushed himself to his feet and withdrew his sword with a tug. As the huntsmen closed in, whipping away the hounds, he turned to see his grandfather. Behind came his father and his brother, Edward, along with ten local men, summoned to join the hunt. Robert met his grandfather’s steel gaze. Feeling pride swell in him, he went to grin, but the old man strode past to where the huntsmen were rounding up the dogs. The wolf was lying prone in the dust, blood pooling around it. Two hounds had been injured in the fight. The old lord bent down beside one of them, inspecting the gash in the animal’s side. It was Scáthach, his favourite bitch. Robert glanced queasily at the bite-marks in his boot.

The old lord straightened, turning to him. ‘Why didn’t you use your horn?’

Robert licked his dry lips. ‘There wasn’t time,’ he lied, feeling victory slipping away.

His grandfather’s scowl deepened. He motioned to the huntsmen. ‘Make sure those cuts are well cleaned.’

‘How badly is she wounded?’ asked Robert’s father grimly, heading over to inspect the dogs, not even glancing at his son.

Robert watched as the men crowded around the injured hounds, the excitement of the hunt gone, dead like the wolf, forgotten in their midst. Turning, he headed off through the trees, pushing branches out of his way. Finding a rotten tree stump, he threw his bloodstained sword down and sat. His fingers were shaking as he tugged off his boot. Slowly, he pulled up his hose. There were two livid red lines encircling the white skin of his ankle.

‘Did it draw blood?’

Robert jerked round to see Edward heading towards him. He looked back at the marks. ‘No,’ he told his brother. ‘The skin isn’t broken.’

‘You’re lucky. I’ve heard the only cure for a wolf-bite is to bathe naked in the sea nine times.’

Robert said nothing, but busied himself pulling on his boot. Edward came and leaned against a tree in front of him, unavoidably filling his view. Robert glanced at him, suddenly aware of how tall his brother seemed, lounging nonchalantly against the trunk. His green tunic and brown hose made him one with the woods, and his dark sweep of hair was hidden beneath a feathered cap. At fourteen, his face was full and boyish, still marked with creases in his cheeks when he smiled. It no longer fitted his lengthening body. Although a year apart in age they had always looked alike, everyone said, and Robert wondered now at the changes that must have occurred in him in the two summers since he came to Annandale to serve as his grandfather’s squire. He hadn’t seen his brother, who had barely returned from Ireland before he left, in over a year.

‘That thing was a
brute
,’ Edward continued with relish. ‘If I’d killed it I’d have it stuffed and hung in my hall, although the reek would drive out my guests.’ His face wrinkled. ‘It smelled like Father’s boots!’

Robert chewed his lip, but couldn’t stop the smile.

Edward was laughing, shaking his head. ‘You must have got the fire of Mars in you, tackling it when it was cornered like that.’

Robert’s smile vanished. He snatched up his sword, grabbed a handful of leaves and swiped at the blood on the blade. ‘We’ve been after him for months. We took the rest of the pack, but he always evaded us.’ He rose and faced his brother. He wanted to shout that Edward hadn’t seen the bloody fields after the wolves had come, hadn’t been out in midwinter with the men of Annan and Lochmaben, setting snares, working long into the raw dark, fingers needled with cold, breath steaming as they passed around the wine skins. The day of Robert’s first hunt, when he helped run a wolf into the nets, his grandfather daubed a red line of the animal’s blood across his brow, telling him he had become a man now. He turned away, the words stopping in his throat. They weren’t meant for his brother. They were meant for his father.

After the crushing disappointment on his return from Ireland – his continued tutelage under the earl a gruelling, thankless experience – Robert had at last begun to thrive in his grandfather’s household. At the old lord’s side, he had taken his first steps on the path to manhood, moving with certainty and rising confidence towards the noble lord he was destined to become. He remembered well his first night in Lochmaben Castle, his grandfather sitting him down in the hall, his voice solemn with gravity as he impressed upon him the importance of the heritage into which he had been born.

‘Think of our line as a mighty tree,’ the old lord had said, ‘with roots stretching back through the ages to the time of the Conqueror and the reign of Malcolm Canmore, then back further still, on your mother’s side, to the ancient kings of Ireland. The roots go deep, nourishing the branches that spring from them, entwined by marriage, through the royal house of Scotland and the noble houses of England down to my father and to me. You, Robert, are a new shoot, sprung from the great boughs beneath you.’

Now, those same words rang hollow in his memory. The earl had arrived at Lochmaben only two days ago and already Robert felt as though he were twelve again, rather than fifteen – as if these past years and all his achievements had been erased. He could hunt and kill a vicious beast, but he was still powerless in the face of his father’s cold disapproval.

‘We thought there might be wolves in the woods outside Turnberry last winter,’ said Edward, watching as Robert crouched and continued cleaning his blade. ‘Some lambs were taken. Father reckoned it was the old woman’s dogs.’

‘Affraig?’ said Robert, sitting back on his heels. He hadn’t thought about the old woman with her tree of webs in a long while.

‘I still can’t believe what you told me before you left.’ Edward paused. ‘Did you ever ask Grandfather about it?’

Robert nodded, scraping the fistful of leaves along the flat of the sword.

‘Well?’ Edward urged.

‘He wouldn’t speak of it, or her.’

‘He didn’t deny it?’

‘No. But he didn’t admit it.’ Robert stood, sheathing the sword in the scabbard that hung from his belt. He would clean it properly later. ‘I take it you never spoke to Father?’

‘I wouldn’t have wanted the whipping. Father has been quick to anger lately. He took to Niall with his belt the other week. He had a fever a few months back and Mother blames his temper on that.’ Edward gave a snort. ‘But I heard him shouting about Salisbury enough times to know the physician could use a hundred leeches on him and it wouldn’t put his humour right.’

‘What was he saying?’ asked Robert, his interest snared.

‘That it wasn’t right he wasn’t involved in the negotiations with King Edward. That he should have been at Salisbury with Grandfather.’

Robert felt a stab of satisfaction. True, he hadn’t been present at the council during which the Treaty of Salisbury had been sealed, but he had travelled to the town in his grandfather’s retinue and had seen the stately party from Westminster arriving for the negotiations.

After the queen gave birth to a stillborn son tensions had threatened to rise, but, soon after, missives arrived from France in the name of King Edward, requesting that the men of the realm abide by their council of guardians until the infant Margaret could be enthroned. Robert’s grandfather, pleased by the decision, had withdrawn the rest of his men from Galloway and, for the good of the kingdom, returned the captured castles to Balliol and the Comyns. After this, the air calmed, many agreeing with Edward’s orders and those who didn’t nonetheless unwilling to risk their estates in England by refusing the king. By the time Robert had been taken into his grandfather’s household, the kingdom was again at peace.

Last autumn, King Edward returned after three years in Gascony and contacted the guardians to discuss the conveyance of young Margaret, now almost seven years old, from Norway to Scotland. Lord John Comyn contrived to head the Scottish delegation that would travel to England for the talks, but with the help of James Stewart, the Lord of Annandale had been elected into this party. Robert had journeyed south with his grandfather to one of the most important councils in decades, at which it had been agreed Margaret would come to Scotland by the end of the year. Now there were just the details to finalise, which would be done soon at the assembly to be held in the town of Birgham.

Robert wished his father hadn’t been summoned to attend the final talks, but as one of the thirteen earls he couldn’t have been omitted. He was determined, however, not to let him disregard the status he’d attained in his grandfather’s household. The hunt had not been the success he’d hoped for. In his attempt to prove himself he had become reckless, but now he knew of his father’s own frustrations he didn’t feel quite so impotent. ‘Come on,’ he said to his brother, ‘let’s watch the unmaking.’

The two brothers walked through the trees to the rest of the party where the huntsmen had already set about disembowelling the wolf. Its stomach removed, the cavity would be washed out and filled with a mixture of mutton and oats. The hounds would then be released and allowed to have their fill, this sweet
curée
their reward for a successful hunt. The men were passing around skins of wine, their mood now jovial.

Robert headed to his grandfather, keeping his head high as he passed his father. ‘Will Scáthach be all right?’ he asked, looking at the bitch, who was licking her wounds.

‘She’s a tough girl,’ responded his grandfather, after a pause.

Robert looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry, Grandfather,’ he said quietly. ‘I should have waited for you.’

The old lord grunted.

Chastised, Robert nodded and moved off to tend to his horse, which was cropping the bushes close by. His grandfather’s voice sounded behind him.

‘But I’ll wager the shepherds of Annandale will sleep easier tonight.’

As he took up the reins of his courser, a grin spread across Robert’s face.

12

Robert rose up in his stirrups as they plodded along the track towards the small Borders town of Birgham, trying to catch a glimpse of the gathering crowds. His grandfather was riding at the head of their company, along with Earl Patrick of Dunbar, the powerful magnate who had been at the talks in Turnberry four years ago and at whose manor they had been staying for the past three nights. Robert’s father rode behind with six knights from Carrick, and he and his brother brought up the rear with the squires and the other retainers. Ahead, in a field by a church, hundreds of tents had been erected. Smoke fanned from cooking pots and men stood talking, while squires tended to their horses. The whole place exuded an atmosphere of festivity. There was even a group of minstrels playing.

‘Can you see the English?’ asked Edward, following Robert’s gaze and craning his neck. ‘Are they here yet?’

‘We’re too far away,’ replied Robert impatiently, as their grandfather continued the slow, steady pace, the horses’ hooves squelching in the churned earth.