Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

making a narrow passage even narrower by plaiting and lacing together

the scrub birch-trees so that scarcely even a rabbit could have got

through, much less a cavalry force, ill-led. The slaughter had been

enormous. Douglas killing de Richemont with his own dagger-though

Arundel had escaped. Later a strong party of Edward’s Gascon knights

forded the Tweed at Coldstream, and were raiding and burning in the

Merse and Teviotdale, when Douglas slipped down out of Ettrick Forest

and waylaid them as they returned towards England, sated with booty,

wine and women. Most of the invaders died there, at Skaithmuir,

including Raymond de Calhau, Piers Gaveston’snephew, whom King Edward

had made Governor of Berwick.

Douglas said it was the hottest encounter he had ever known. On another occasion, near to Berwick itself, Sir Robert Neville of Raby, the Peacock of the North, with a strong squadron of English North Country knights, was routed. Douglas himself slaying Neville.

These were only a few of the victories.

“Bless him-Jamie was ever my best pupil!” the King said.

“But-what of defeats, Walter? Even Douglas cannot have all

victories!”

“None, Sire. Save that we have not yet taken Berwick.”

“Aye, Berwick is a hard fist to unclench. One of the hardest in the two kingdoms. It can be supplied by sea, and is protected also by the town and its walls. If a besieger is prepared to sack the town first, and slay its people-as was Edward Longshanks -then perchance he may win Berwick Castle. That I am not.”

“There was another victory-but not of Jamie’s winning,” the Queen put in.

“Despairing of getting past the Douglas, an expedition from Yorkshire,

from the Humber, came by sea. They sailed up Forth, and landed at

Inverkeithing, in life. The Sheriff of life made but feeble

resistance, it is said, and the Englishmen drove them towards

Dunfermline. But the good Master William Sinclair, Bishop of Dunkeld

* he that is brother to my lord of Roslin -was at his manor of

Auchtertool. Perceiving disaster, he grasped the Sheriff’s spear from him, shouting shame, and with sixty of his own servants rode back to charge the enemy. It was more than the Fifers could stomach, and with or without their master, they followed on. The Yorkshiremen were driven back to the sea, with 500 dead it is said, and more were drowned in their boats. And the good Bishop none the worse!”

“They do say the Bishop told the Mac Duff that Your Grace would do well to hack the spurs from off his heels!” the Steward added.

“And cried that all who loved their lord and country should follow him.”

“Ha! We must cherish my lord of Dunkeld—a cleric after my own heart. And, I think, find a new sheriff for life. A case of poor master, poor man-for though the Earl of life has been returned to my peace for two years now, with all his lands returned to him despite his former treachery, he still loves me not. Alas for Mac Duff We must consult William Lamberton on this …”

“I sent a messenger to him so soon as I heard of your coming,” the Queen said.

“If I know my lord, it will not be long before he is at Turnberry.”

Bruce gazed around him as he rode, sniffing the scents of heather dust, pine resin, opening bracken and raw red earth, laced with the overall tang of the sea-which was for him the smell of springtime in Scotland. He would not have disclosed how glad he was to be back in his own land, how inexpressibly dear and sweet that land was for him. He had scarcely realised, until now, just how much it meant to him, the very growing, enduring land itself, not only the idea that was Scotland and its people-a land which, God knew, he had paid enough for, to call his own. If Ireland had taught him how much his own land, the actual soil of Scotland, meant to him, then perhaps Ireland was not all loss.

As ever, thereafter, Robert Bruce found the waiting until he could be

alone with Elizabeth frustrating, almost intolerable. But he was the

King, not his own man; not even, in this his wife’s. At Turnberry

Castle innumerable men waited to see him, officers of state,

secretaries, ambassadors, churchmen, courtiers, kinsmen, deputations. A banquet had been hastily conjured up for the returned, tired and hungry warriors, and entertainment thereafter.

Through it all the man forced himself to patient endurance, even apparent appreciation. At his side, Elizabeth watched him and understood. Occasionally she touched his wrist, his forearm, with gentle pressure-and grieved to feel him so thin.

At last, up in their own tower-chamber, at parapet-level, with the door closed behind them and the half-light of the May night about them, he held her in his arms for long, just held her, not speaking, not even kissing, gripping her splendid rounded body to him, face buried in her plenteous flaxen hair. Quiescent she waited.

Weary, strained, jangled as to nerves and emotions as he was, the desire rose in him. Smiling, she responded, aiding his suddenly eager fingers to unfasten and drop her gown, her shift; then, feverishly now, to throw off his own attire.

The great bed received them. Their urgency had become mutual.

When the fierce first passion was spent, and the man at least lay back, exhausted, Elizabeth raised herself on one elbow, to consider him, running light searching fingers over his hot, but not sweating person. And as he jerked and shivered uncontrollably, involuntarily pushing her hand away, she sat up.

“Robert!” she said.

“What is this? You are burning hot. Your skin. I can feel it. And rough. Broken. What is this?”

“Only my old trouble, lass. You know of it. This itching…”

“But this is worse. Harsher.” She peered, in the dim half-light,

trying to inspect him. Then she jumped up and hurried, wholly naked

as she was, to an aumbry near the door, where was kept a lamp and flint and under. Lighting it, she came back to him.

“Hold it up,” he instructed.

“No-to yourself, not to me. That I may see. I’ faith, woman-you are magnificent!”

“And you are not! Robert-you are patched red! Patched like an old hide. Great marks Rough. Flaking. My dear, my dear! And so thin, so desperately thin. Oh, my love-what has become of you?”

“Nothing that your presence and your fine feeding will not cure,” he asserted strongly.

“I have been in the saddle for months, lass. Eating poorly. And

living less cleanly than I would. Give me time…”

“No! This is more than that. More than you say. Here is no mere chafing of the skin: No simple dryness. You are sick, Robert.

Sick.”

He was silent.

“This is worse than it has ever been, is it not?” she demanded,

holding the lamp close.

“Even the time you told me of. At Inverurie.

And at Melrose. I think it was less harsh, less angry than this, was it not? It is a scurvy!”

“It is only the skin. I was more ill then. Weaker, more fevered.

It is but this skin affliction that is worse. Nothing of grievous

“So-o-o!” she said slowly.

“It is as I thought. You conceive yourself to be sicker than you say.

You admit it, Robert? You fear it.”

“Aye, I fear. I fear that my sins have caught me up!” His voice was tense now.

“Fear that I am not to escape the price of murder, of presumption before God, of excommunication!”

She stared.

“What… what do you mean?”

“Elizabeth.” He gripped her with both his hands.

“You do not think …? It is not…? It could not be … leprosy?”

She drew a quick, gulping breath, speechless, appalled.

“Sweet Christ-am I a leper!”

As still the woman did not answer, save to wag her head, he sank back on the bed. But not in despair. Suddenly he was less tense. It was out, at last. This ghastly secret dread, this spectre that had haunted him for so long. He had put a name to it now, said the dire words, shared the fearful weight of horror with another. He knew a kind of relaxation.