Insurrection (48 page)

Robert lay in the tent, listening to his brother’s breaths beside him. He was exhausted from the long journey. The atmosphere in their camp that evening, his father blistering over the fact the king hadn’t welcomed him, had wearied him further. So had the momentous question still hanging unanswered, of what would happen tomorrow when King John was deposed. But despite his tiredness he couldn’t sleep.

A sultry breeze lifted the tent flaps, revealing a fat, red-tinged moon, hanging low in the sky. Robert wondered if it was a bad omen. The thought took him wandering back through the soft haze of a Carrick summer to a house in the hills and a tree of webs. Was the old woman still there in that cramped dwelling, full of books and bones, weaving men’s destinies? Affraig would be ancient now, or dead. The thought of Carrick made him long for careless childhood when his mother and grandfather were alive and their halls were filled with friends and laughter. He had spent so little time in his earldom since he had inherited it, his vassal, Andrew Boyd, collecting the annual rents and dealing with any problems, that it hardly felt as though it belonged to him. He should return now the war was over.

Hearing voices outside, Robert recognised the voice of one of his father’s knights, set on watch to guard the camp, then Humphrey’s quiet, insistent tones. Careful not to disturb his brother, Robert rose and ducked out of the tent. He went over, nodding to his father’s man to return to his post.

As he greeted Humphrey, he realised the knight was wearing mail beneath a plain, dark riding cloak.

Humphrey’s eyes glittered in the firelight. ‘I need you to dress, quickly.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To fulfil the prophecy.’

Humphrey continued to speak for some moments more, telling him what to bring and where to meet him. When the knight finished, Robert went to press him on the mission, but he stopped himself. The sense of belonging he had felt on seeing Humphrey was a relief in the face of the stark isolation he had experienced since his return to Scotland. He didn’t want to diminish that by questioning the knight’s motives and, in truth, the thought of leaving Montrose was a blessing. He was tired of being caught between choices, tired of not knowing which direction to take.

You’re going to keep on avoiding him, until it’s too late and the choice is taken from you.

His brother was right. And he cared not.

After Humphrey left, Robert woke Nes to saddle Hunter for him and returned to his tent to dress. As he was pulling his gambeson over his shirt, he heard the urgent cries of his daughter. They were followed by the sleepy whisper of a woman. Robert went out, carrying his sword, just as Katherine slipped out of the tent she shared with Judith and three of the women. The maid held Marjorie in her arms and was shushing her softly. She looked up, seeing Robert crossing the camp. Her brow creased as her eyes went to the sword in his hand. He didn’t say anything, but continued to the wagon, where he dragged out the large chest that contained his armour. Behind him, Marjorie’s cries continued. As Robert took out his hauberk, Katherine began to sing softly. She had a low, strong voice when she sang that sounded as though it belonged to someone else, someone older. It soothed the infant, her whimpering fading into shuddery breaths. Robert, realising he had paused to listen and the hauberk was growing heavy in his hands, struggled into the armour, then reached for his shield, which Humphrey had told him to bring. The dragon shield was wrapped in cloth to keep it from being damaged. Robert hadn’t looked at it since he left England a year ago. In the light from the fire, he realised how scarred the wood was. He was pulling on a plain riding cloak, as Humphrey had instructed, when he heard a voice behind him.

‘You’re leaving, sir?’

He turned and looked down into Katherine’s upturned face. The bridge of her nose was peppered with freckles and her dark hair was sleep-tangled, falling loose and long over her shoulders. Marjorie was held close to her chest. Robert smiled as he looked upon his sleeping daughter. Bending, he kissed her gently, then rose, meeting Katherine’s eyes as he fastened his sword belt around his waist. ‘I’ll return soon.’

Picking up his shield, he spoke briefly to the knight on watch by the fire, then, taking Hunter’s reins from Nes, Robert headed across the camp.

The wooden platform he had seen when they entered Montrose loomed ahead as he followed Humphrey’s directions. In the red moonlight it looked less like a stage, more like a gallows. Some distance beyond the dais, he could see a group of mounted men lit by torchlight. With them was a wagon, drawn by carthorses and driven by two royal knights. As he approached, Robert saw Humphrey and a host of familiar faces.

There was Henry Percy, stockier than he remembered and Guy de Beauchamp, with no smile for him. Thomas of Lancaster was among them, older and taller, poised on the brink of manhood, mounted alongside Robert Clifford, who nodded courteously and Ralph de Monthermer, who smiled in greeting. Then, lastly, Robert looked over at Aymer de Valence. That hateful face slammed him back to Anglesey – to a musty kitchen, Aymer’s black eyes filling with hatred as he rushed in for the kill.

As Robert mounted, Humphrey nodded to the others. ‘Let’s move. We have a three-day ride ahead of us.’

‘Three days?’ questioned Thomas. ‘We’ll miss the ceremony tomorrow.’

‘You still haven’t told us where we are going, or to what end, brother,’ added Ralph.

Robert was pleased he wasn’t the only one Humphrey was keeping in the dark. Again, a flicker of doubt passed across his mind, but he pushed it aside. Whatever their plan, it had to be preferable to staying here, faced with an impossible decision.

‘I’ll explain on the road,’ answered Humphrey, his tone firm.

Kicking at his horse, the knight led the company from the camp, towards the road out of Montrose. The wagon trundled in their wake and the huge, blood-tinged moon lit the way before them.

43

The crowd of men looked on in silence as the solitary figure walked the aisle formed by their ranks, heading for the platform at the centre of the encampment. Tendrils of mist shrouded the waters of the lagoon, the early morning air humid with the promise of another sweltering day. The eastern sky was liquid gold, the burnished light glowing in the faces of the hundreds who thronged the area around the dais. In front of the platform a row of men had been lined up, under the eyes of the king’s knights. They stood together, subdued and pale, dwarfed by the wooden structure that loomed behind them. Only a few of their number watched the lone man moving inexorably towards them.

Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale, waited in the ranks of the English nobles, keeping his gaze on the figure of John Balliol, slowly approaching. The King of Scotland was gaunt, his eyes sunken. His face was grey, despite the heat, the gold surcoat that displayed the royal arms of Scotland the only thing of colour about him.

After Dunbar, Balliol had fled with the Comyns, but with Edward’s unstoppable march north, castles and towns falling before him, there had been no safe haven for King John and the last of his men. The weeks spent on the road were visible in his wasted face and body. In June, he had written to Edward, renouncing the treaty made with Philippe of France and offering unconditional surrender. Now, hobbled by humiliation and crippled by despair, he bore all the wretchedness of a doomed man heading for the executioner’s block.

As Balliol trudged past, Bruce craned his head, willing his enemy to look in his direction: to see him standing there, watching his final moments as king. But Balliol’s eyes didn’t stray from the dais ahead. Behind him, the crowds closed in.

Balliol reached the prisoners corralled before the platform and they were forced to part, allowing him to mount the steps. One man moved forward, as if to say something to the king, but he was compelled back by the swords of Edward’s knights. Bruce, staring over the heads of those in front, realised it was John Comyn. The Lord of Badenoch moved back, but didn’t take his eyes from his brother-in-law, now ascending the steps. With Comyn was his son and heir, the disgraced husband of Joan de Valence, along with the Black Comyn and the earls of Atholl, Menteith and Ross. Bruce’s keen gaze moved over them all. Many of them had been comrades of his father. Like him, their days were over. The past belonged in the ground with the bones of the dead. It was time for a new era in Scotland.

Hearing his son, Edward, murmuring to one of his vassals, Bruce turned with a glare to silence him. At dawn, when told Robert had left in the night on business for the king, Bruce had been incensed. He had questioned Edward at length, but either his son was a better liar than he knew, or he truly did not know why his older brother had disappeared without explanation. Since then, his fury cooling to a rigid anger, the lord had felt a slow-rising relief.

Not once, since the start of the war and his alliance with the King of England, had he openly acknowledged the fact that his son held the right to lay claim to the throne, but the truth of it had burned in him. Haunted by the fear that Robert might assert that claim, he had distanced himself further from his already estranged son. Perhaps, he had speculated, Robert’s absence on the eve of such a crucial moment in their family’s campaign was a sign that he would yield without a struggle. Bruce hoped this was the case, for he himself would not. His father had passed him over to spite him. Now, he would right that wrong. How he hoped the bastard was twisting in his grave.

As the Lord of Annandale looked to the platform, he saw that Balliol had reached the top and was walking towards the centre, where his father-in-law, John de Warenne, waited, with a roll of parchment. Behind the Earl of Surrey crowded English clerks, lawyers and royal officials, Bishop Anthony Bek among them. They stood to either side of a throne upon which sat King Edward. The king was a little blurred at this distance, Bruce’s eyesight not what it once was, but it seemed clear his focus was on Balliol. The Earl of Surrey’s gruff tones sounded as he unrolled the document to read the charges against Balliol, whose treacherous acts as a vassal of the King of England had led to the confiscation of his fief. As agreed by his surrender, he would now resign his kingdom and his royal dignity to his overlord.

When he was finished reading, John de Warenne stepped back, his eyes fixed somewhere distant of his wretched son-in-law. For a moment, Balliol stood alone. He looked around uncertainly, then flinched as two royal knights moved towards him. Each held a dagger. Some of the Scottish magnates below began to protest, but bodily harm was not the intention of the king’s men. Instead, they began picking at the threads on the rampant red lion that adorned Balliol’s surcoat. Balliol’s dumb, defeated expression as they worked showed he had known this was coming. When the head of the lion embroidered on the material was loose, one of the king’s men gave his dagger to his comrade and took hold of the flap of cloth. With one mighty tug, he ripped downward, tearing the royal arms clean off the surcoat. There was a scatter of cheers and applause from the crowd that faded into silence. Balliol staggered forward, off-balanced, but the knight steadied him, holding him upright before the assembly, his gold surcoat trailing red threads.

King Edward had made John Balliol the King of Scotland. Now, he unmade him. Bruce couldn’t be certain, but in the golden dawn he thought he could see tears glistening on Balliol’s pockmarked face.

As Balliol was led away down the steps of the dais, to be escorted to the Tower in London, along with the rest of the Scottish nobles, King Edward rose. Seeing the king heading from the platform, surrounded by his officials, Bruce forced his way through the crowds determinedly. He still hadn’t been granted an audience with the English king, who had summoned him to witness this moment. Impatience was a spur in his side.

‘My lord king!’

Bruce ignored the complaints his forceful advance drew from those in his path, calling as he went, trying to attract the king’s attention. He had almost caught up to Edward, who was making his way across the camp ground with John de Warenne and his chief officials, when two royal knights stepped into his path, barring his way. Seeing they meant business, Bruce called vainly at the king’s retreating back.

‘My lord, I beg you. I must speak to you!’

Edward turned, his gaze alighting on Bruce, standing between the two knights, red-faced from the struggle through the crowd. Edward’s officials turned with him, looking to see who had dared accost the king.

‘My lord,’ said Bruce, pausing to recover his composure and bow. ‘I wanted to talk to you about a matter of importance.’ When Edward continued to stare at him, as if expecting him to state his business here and now, Bruce added, ‘In private.’

King Edward’s gaze didn’t waver or lose its chill. ‘My time here is limited. I will meet with all my vassals in Berwick next month, after my progress north is completed. There, I will accept the homage of the people of Scotland. You may speak to me then, Sir Robert of Annandale.’ He moved to head off.

Seeing the thing he craved, the thing that was now so tantalisingly near, slipping away, the Lord of Annandale forgot himself. ‘I insist, my lord!’ he shouted at the king’s back, his voice striking the air.

At the command, the royal officials looked stunned and the knights barring Bruce’s way grasped the hilts of their swords, clearly intending to draw them should he make any move forward.

Edward turned slowly, the hard lines of his face sharpened by the sun’s blaze. His grey eyes narrowed, all the strength and purpose behind them focusing in on Bruce, pinning him beneath that steel gaze.