Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

“Sire,” he said “you have brought me here for good purpose, I have no doubt. What do you require of me?”

The other looked at him as though astonished.

“Why, Robert—your good company and presence. Your love and leal esteem.

What else? Is that so stranger” “You have been fighting me, hunting me, burning my lands, taking my castles. I see little of love and esteem in that. Why have you changed?”

“Because circumstances have changed, boy. Then we were at war, and you

chose to go against me, to my sorrow. Now there is truce. I hold this

land, South Scotland, in my hand. And shall soon hold the North. All

is changed. You have lost much. No longer is your insurrection any

threat to my peace. I may allow my natural affection for you to prevail. Did not Sir John tell you all this ? Is it not proven by my tokens of goodwill offered ?”

“I conceived there to be something more, Sire. Your Majesty is namely for hard bargaining!”

“You say so? But, that is when I am fighting. When I have won, it is otherwise. Think you I cannot be magnanimous?”

“You believe that you have won, then?”

“Should I not? I sit here in Linlithgow’s hall, secure. My armies straddle the land.”

“There is a deal of Scotland north of Forth.”

“No doubt. But I have conquered it before. And can do again, if need be. It is my hope that I shall not have to.”

“The North will not yield tamely. If that is what you hope.”

“You think not? But… you have yielded, have you not?”

“No, Sire. I have not yielded.”

“No?” Edward turned in his great chair, to eye the younger man wonderingly.

“Do my eyes, my wits, fail me?”

“I came under the safe conduct of an honourable man, Sire.

Sir John de St. John. Who vowed, in your royal name, that I could turn and go again, freely, should so I decide. I came, in time of signed truce, to discover your mind. Further to what St. John told me. Is that yielding?”

The King toyed with his goblet, narrow-eyed.

“But you came, my young friend—you came!” he said softly.

“I came, yes. But I did not bring my brothers, Sire! If by mischance I am prevented from returning to them, there are four of them still to head the Bruce power!”

“What Bruce power?”

The other took a quick breath, but was silent, biting his lip.

“Let us not misjudge, my young friend,” Edward said, then.

“Between power and love. Esteem. You nave no power. None left. But my esteem and love can raise you again. High. High as you must needs be if you are to counter John Comyn.” He paused.

“Let us look reality in the face, Robert. It has ever been my custom.”

“I

have, perhaps, more power left than you believe.”

“I think not. I have made shift to discover. Your earldom of Carrick lies shattered and occupied by my forces. Your father’s lordship of Annandale is a blackened waste. As are the Bruce lands in Galloway. You have less than three hundred men, hiding like outlaws in Ettrick Forest. That is your strength and power, Robert. A notable heritage squandered.”

“Squandered …! You are well informed, Sire. But have you forgot? I have friends, allies, kinsmen. As well as brothers.”

“Most in little better state than you are! How many would give what they have left to aid one so weak as the Earl of Carrick ? Weak, that is, today. Tomorrow you could be strong again.

for you have a better friend than any of these, lad. You nave Edward of England for friend.”

Bruce said nothing.

“This matter of the earldom of Mar. The late lord was your brother-in-law twice over, was he not? Your sister’s husband, and your wife’s brother? Control of the heir and his inheritance, until he is of age, could greatly aid you.”

“And will. I am my nephew’s closest kinsman.”

“If I grant you that control. The wardship of all earls who are minors is in the gift of the Crown.”

That was true only if Edward was King of Scots. But this was no time to debate that assumption.

The Plantagenet did not give opportunity, anyway.

“There are three great royal properties, hunting-forests, bordering on the Mar earldom. Each with strong castles. Kintire, Darnaway and Long morn. At present keeper less The man who held those, with Mar and the Garioch, would be a force in the North, indeed. Comyn’s country.”

Bruce still made no comment.

“I make a progress up to those parts in a few months, sword sheathed or sword drawn. When the weather opens. Think on it, Robert. Think on it.” Abruptly the monarch pushed back his great chair, and rose. All men hastily rose after him.

“My dear,” he said to the Queen, “we retire. You will be tired. Come.” He held out his arm. Edward of England had had enough of being pleasant for one evening.

Bruce looked ruefully after the hastening ladies. Elizabeth de Burgh was the only one who was not tripping and scurrying. But even she had had time for only a single significant glance at him, in passing.

It was fully two hours later, with Bruce preparing for bed in the small

tower room which he had been allocated—eloquent of his present

prestige, as sole occupant, in the overcrowded palace where great men

were sharing rooms—when a tapping at the door announced a slender, pale and pimply youth, a walking clothes-horse of magnificence, who introduced himself as Harry Percy, a page of Her Majesty, and son of Northumberland. He came from the Lady Elizabeth de Burgh, he declared in a dramatic whisper. Would the lord Earl accompany him? But discreetly, very discreetly. And to wear a cloak.

While declining actually to tip-toe after this chinless apparition who was the Lord Henry Percy’s son and heir, Bruce did follow him, intrigued. He was led down a winding back stairway, across a cluttered yard where wine-barrels were stacked, through a range of stabling to the outer-bailey, and then by a postern gate, where an armed guard looked the other way, stamping his feet with the cold. Thereafter, down a grassy hillside path of a pleasance garden, they came to the shore of Linlithgow Loch. Here a skiff lay, dipping to the babble of the black water. Harry Percy pointed.

“The island, my lord,” he breathed.

“You can just see it.” And with elaborate caution, like a stealthy crane, he paced back whence he had come.

Bruce seated himself in the boat, and took up the light oars.

The island was nearer and smaller than it had seemed in the darkness, a mere couple of hundred yards from the shore. It was probably no more than an acre in extent, grown with ornamental trees and bushes. There was a little jetty, with rustic steps and rail. Here a dark cloaked figure stood.

“Come, my lord. And haste you. For it is plaguey cold!” Elizabeth greeted him. She held out a hand to aid him ashore.

He said nothing, was in no state for eloquence. But he hung on to that hand.

“This way,” she directed, leading him along a narrow path through dripping bushes.

“You were sufficiently discreet, I hope?”

“Discreet…!” he croaked.

“You speak of discretion!”

Her tinkle of laughter sounded amused, at least.

A more solid blackness loomed before them, a building of some sort.

She drew him inside, and closed the door.

“It is a bower. A summer bower, fashioned like a grotto,” she explained.

“More comfortable in summer than now, I fear. But at least here we may speak alone. We are safe.” She disengaged her hand.

It was Bruce’s turn to jerk a short laugh.

“I can think of few women who would bring a man to such a place, in the night, and then declare that they were safe!”

“Why, sir—am I mistaken in you?” She did not sound really alarmed.

“That I do not know. But… I am a man, you’ll mind, Elizabeth!”