“It surprises me to see you still here, Sir James,” he said when they met. “Do you not have a war to fight?”
Douglas grinned. “In due time I do, but for the nonce, I remain here. The King wishes to speak with you.”
“Now, you mean?”
“Aye, if you have the time.”
It was Will’s turn to grin. “Or the inclination to ignore a royal command? I’ll suspend all my important activities immediately and come with you now. Lead on.”
Douglas led him back through the length of the hall and out through a postern door to where a small encampment had been set up for the King’s party within a square yard protected by high, sharply pointed palisades. Will glanced at the unexpected fortifications and the heavy presence of guards, but said nothing, and within moments they came to the King’s pavilion, where their entrance was barred by a pair of vigilant men-at-arms. They knew the Douglas by sight and stepped aside without comment to let him and his companion pass, and Douglas raised the protective curtain of the large tent’s doorway to allow Will to precede him.
The interior of the massive pavilion seemed dim after the sudden brilliance of the July sun outside, and Will was unsurprised to find it crowded with men, most of them nobles and high officers of the realm, standing around in groups, some small, others larger. Will looked about for the King, his eyes moving rapidly from group to group without finding the Bruce. His brother Edward was there, as was Sir Thomas Randolph, the latter conversing with three of the King’s oldest and most trusted friends, Sir Robert Boyd of Noddsdale, Sir Gilbert de Hay the Lord of Erroll, and Sir Neil Campbell of Lochawe. Behind them, huddled together and muttering solemnly, stood a group of mitered prelates, only one of whom Will recognized: Master Nicholas Balmyle, Bishop of Dunblane, a scholarly, ascetic-looking man who had served for years as chancellor of Scotland and must now be close to eighty years old, although he still retained his faculties. Will had never met Bishop Balmyle, but he knew the old man was one of King Robert’s most able and respected counselors.
The crowd eddied and parted as a procession of servitors moved among the assembly bearing trays of sweetmeats, and Will saw the King, seated at a table towards the rear of the huge space, deep in an earnest conversation with the Bishop of Moray. His heart skipped a beat the moment he saw the two talking together so privately, for the first thought that leapt into his head was that de Moray was telling the monarch about the discovery of the new land in the west. He dismissed the thought immediately, knowing it was unworthy, and fell in behind Douglas, who was already making his way towards the royal table, beckoning him to follow.
As Douglas reached the table, bowing slightly in greeting, Bruce looked up. The beginnings of a frown ticked between his brows at being interrupted, but his face cleared immediately on recognizing Douglas, and his eyes went immediately to Will, standing close behind Sir James.
“Sir William. Welcome to you, my friend.” He rose to his feet at once and stepped around the edge of the table, extending his hand, but as Will was on the point of bending over it, he snatched it away. “It is for clasping as a friend, William, not for kissing. You owe me no liege loyalty and I expect none from you. Your friendship, and the willing support you extend to us without being asked, are more than I could expect, so take my hand as friend and brother.” And then he clasped Will by the hand and pulled him into an embrace that was but slightly hampered by the half armor both men wore. Will was aware that every man in the great pavilion was watching this and taking note, and he wondered if any of them might resent him because of it, seeing his reception as a threat to their own situation.
“So, Sir William, did you enjoy our gathering? I swear to you, these Scots crows and peacocks far too seldom come together at one time, save only for our Parliaments. I trust you were impressed.”
“I was, Your Grace. I have seldom seen so much achieved so skillfully in so little time.”
“Aye, it was well done, I think. And now we must disperse and see to it that all we decided upon is done, too, and quickly. My men are being marshaled as we speak and will move out as soon as I can join them—which is why I sent for you. Would you care to ride with us?”
“Into England, Your Grace?”
“I have an abbot or two down there I intend to press for funds … for charitable work, the rebuilding of this realm of ours after the depredations England has wreaked upon it. Will you come?”
“I will, Your Grace, and gladly. But I have no more than a few men with me—my squire and an escort of four others. We would not contribute greatly to your fighting strength, I fear.”
Bruce laughed. “I have no need of your fighting skills, William. It is your company I seek … your conversation on civilized matters that have nothing to do with the ailments that beset my kingdom. Though mind you, if it does come to fighting, five extra swords would be very welcome. What say you?”
“I will be ready to depart when you are, Your Grace, but I will need to warn my people to strike camp and be ready.”
“Aye, go then and do that speedily, and meet me in the marshaling yard when you are ready.”
FIVE
They had crossed the shallow tidal flats of the Solway several days after leaving Ayr, and had struck first at the wealthy Lanercost Abbey, near the walled town of Carlisle. Bruce had taken great satisfaction in capturing the abbey that had for so long offered sustenance and support to England’s King, and within which he himself had almost died at Edward Plantagenet’s hands a few years earlier. A vast sum of money in gold and silver coinage had been surrendered by the Abbot to avert the flames of Bruce’s vengeful wrath, and Bruce had ordered the chests of coin to be transported back to Scotland and into the care of Master Balmyle at St. Andrews for safekeeping.
The wagons and the treasure they carried were the responsibility of a young knight called Sir Malcolm Seton, another nephew of the King, being the son of his sister Christina, the Countess of Mar. Sir Malcolm’s squire was of an age with young Henry Sinclair, Will’s own squire, and the two had become fast friends during the short time they had spent together on the ride south, so when Henry had come seeking permission to ride out to watch his friend’s departure, Will had granted the permission and then decided, on a moment’s whim, finding himself with nothing to do at that time, to accompany the boy.
Henry had changed greatly in the space of four years, shooting upwards and outwards to transform the slight, wide-eyed boy he had been at the outset. Now he was tall and strikingly attractive, with wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and strong, well-formed legs. His face was open and guileless, with a wide-lipped mouth and strong white teeth beneath a long, straight nose and sparkling eyes the color of the bluebells that covered the ground here every spring. He was now a fine young man, and Will had no doubt that in two years he would grace the ranks of knighthood as well as any knight he had ever known.
It was a bright, clear summer’s afternoon, and Will and young Henry, both of them glad to be free of responsibilities for a spell, had ridden hard, galloping from time to time to stretch out their horses, to the top of a wooded ridge above the road the treasure party would use. Will thought about the spectacle they might have made, charging uphill like a pair of fools, but quickly decided that on this day he cared nothing about threats to his dignity from cavorting on horseback with his young squire. His dignity had begun to irk him lately, anyway. Having committed so unexpectedly to the excursion across the border into England, he had determined to make the most of it, keenly aware that he had not swung a sword against an enemy in earnest for more than four years. But after ten days of raiding he had not encountered a single Englishman with whom to trade blows, and had now resigned himself to the possibility that he might not find one at all. A linnet sang brilliantly among the trees at the two horsemen’s back, and far below them, though not so far as to make recognition and a wave of farewell impossible, the advance contingent of guards led the first of the three loaded wagons up the steeply winding road from the Scott
ish camp.
Will felt a swelling sense of well-being to be alive and free on such a perfect summer day, the mid-morning sun warm on his armored back and the lazy droning of a fat bumblebee briefly catching his attention. He was aware, as young Henry suddenly spurred his horse higher onto a rocky knoll that crowned the escarpment, that behind him the linnet had stopped singing, but he paid it no heed as he set spurs to his own mount, pulled hard on his reins, and sawed at the bit, wheeling the horse around in a rearing spin for no other reason than that he felt like doing something to express his own high spirits.
He neither heard nor felt the impact of the crossbow bolt that struck the back of his cuirass. The missile glanced off the curved surface of the steel covering at his back, digging a deep gouge into the metal and hammering him from the saddle to crash senseless to the ground.
He regained his wits moments later and opened his eyes, but was unable to draw a single breath, every ounce of wind smashed out of him by his fall, so that he could only splutter and whoop in agony, vainly trying to suck air through the flattened air passages in his breast.
His sight was as sharp as ever, nonetheless, and he saw every feature of the four men running towards him, weapons drawn. They were unarmored and poorly dressed, and he assessed them instantly as local peasantry who had seized the opportunity to attack and rob an unescorted knight. One of them carried a crossbow, useless now that it had shot its bolt, but two others carried daggers and the last of them held a long-bladed, single-edged dirk as though it were a sword. Will tried to draw his own blade, but although he held the hilt of it in his hand, the sheath was trapped between his legs, hampering his draw.
Time must have seemed suspended, he realized later, but at that moment he heard the clatter of hooves as a charging horse smashed into the four running men, sending three of them flying. Young Henry Sinclair had no weapon at all, for squires were not allowed to carry a lethal blade before they were knighted, but he spurred into the fight as though he were fully armed. His horse snorted and reared after the collision with the runners, and the man holding the crossbow swung it like a club and caught the young squire on the thigh, drawing a high-pitched shout of pain. He threw down his weapon and grasped Henry by the booted heel, wresting his foot from the stirrup and heaving upwards, unseating the boy, who fell heavily on the other side of the horse, and after that things started happening far too quickly for Will’s taste.
He was just beginning to catch his breath. The unmanning pain in his chest had abated and he had managed to untangle his legs and the sheathed sword between them, but he still had not enough strength to rise to his feet, although he was fighting to do so, both hands crossed on the guards of his still-sheathed sword and using it like a crutch to pull and push himself erect. The three downed men righted themselves quickly, little the worse for being knocked aside, and now two of them scrambled towards the supine Henry while the other two scuttled towards Will, splitting to take him from opposite sides like rats converging on a wounded squirrel.
Still gasping for air, Will managed to stand up at last and drew himself as erect as he could, finally stripping the sheath from his sword blade and casting it aside, and even though he was weaving on his feet and plainly weak in the legs, the sight of the long, lethal blade was enough to give his attackers pause. They glanced uncertainly at each other, and Will gave silent thanks, for he could feel the strength flooding back into him with every heartbeat as his breathing steadied towards normal. Looking from one to the other of them, he moved his point from side to side in concert with his eyes, waiting all the while for his breathing to steady, yet trying to give no indication that he was recovering. The two hovered there, now glancing at each other for support and growing more apprehensive by the moment. And then Will saw the other two rush on the boy Henry with their daggers raised.
He exploded into movement, leaping towards the man on his right and felling him with a single angry overhead slash before spinning, sword rising again, towards his companion. As the fellow turned to flee from him, his upraised arms bent over his head for protection, Will hacked around and down, severing the tendons behind the running man’s knee and dropping him like a stricken ox, and at once leapt towards the other two men and the unmoving form of his young squire.
One of the two heard him coming and turned to face him, drawing himself up to his full height, but as he did so Will heard a tearing sound in the air and three arrows hit the fellow in the torso at the same time, their combined force clubbing him to the ground. Again Will paid no attention, his entire being focused on what was happening to Henry Sinclair. The ruffian above the boy had him by the hair, and his hand, clutching his long dirk, plunged down even as Will threw himself forward with a despairing howl and stabbed his blade deep into the murderer’s back. Raging with grief and disbelief, he wrenched the steel free and struck again, this time at the killer’s neck, and as the severed head went bouncing down the slope of the hill, he kicked the torso violently aside and dropped to his knees beside the boy who had saved his life.
He was aware of the sound of hooves galloping towards him, but he could not pull his eyes from young Henry, whose face was the color of whey, his cheek pushed out of shape by the blade of the dirk that thrust upward, dripping blood, from the neck hole in the boy’s long shirt of mail. He felt hands grasping him and pulling him up and away, and saw someone else take his place, kneeling above the still form and slicing with a sharp blade at the leather thongs holding the mailed shirt in place from neck to waist, stripping the garment back before cutting the coarse shirt beneath it and ripping it away to expose the boy’s white skin and the thumb-wide hole in which the dirk was lodged. Thick blood welled from the wound and spilled sluggishly down the dead boy’s chest, coating his skin and soaking into the wadded cloth beneath his armpit.
“My fault, my fault.” He heard the voice repeating the words and knew it was his own, but he could do nothing other than keep repeating it. “My fault, my fault.”
The hands bracing him gripped him tighter and he felt himself being swung around until he was facing the man who had spoken. It was the King’s nephew, Sir Malcolm Seton, and the young knight’s face was creased in a deep frown as he looked at Will.
“Sir William, are you hurt? You are covered in blood.”
“I killed him.”
“You killed more than one of them. You killed two and spared another to hang.”
“No, young Henry. I killed him. Brought him up here blindly, without looking.”
“Sir William, the lad is not dead. Sore wounded, but not dead, not yet. Look at him. Dead people do not bleed.”
The words penetrated the buzzing that filled Will’s head and he frowned, then turned and glanced sharply down at his squire, seeing the still-welling blood. The sight of it brought him to his senses immediately, and the strangeness fell away like a discarded cloak.
“Sweet Jesus, he is alive.” He swung around, searching the hillside below. The three treasure wagons had halted on the road, guarded by roughly half the men who had set out; the others had come charging up the hill as soon as they saw what was happening. “I have to get him to safety—to where he can be tended. Let me carry him.”
“No need for that. We’ll make a litter.” Seton pointed to the two men closest to him. “You two, use your spears, quickly, and your belts. Tie them across the poles—here, take mine, too—and spread a cloak over them to wrap the lad in. No!” He had turned to where one of the men crouching above the motionless boy was gripping the dirk’s hilt securely. The fellow hesitated, caught by the urgency of the knight’s shout as young Seton dropped to one knee beside him and caught hold of his wrist. “Leave the blade where it is, Robbie. If you pull it out he’ll bleed to death. Leave it there for someone who knows what he is doing. Hurry with that litter, you two.”
Moments later, Will stood side by side with Seton, watching as four men carried the boy carefully, moving slowly and taking great pains to keep the litter level on the steep hillsid
e. Will had not spoken since the younger knight had assumed command of the operation, but now he huffed through his nostrils and looked at the other man.
“Thank you, Sir Malcolm, for your assistance.”
“Don’t thank me, Sir William. You owe your thanks to the sharp eyes of my squire, who was looking up at you when this began. I did not even know you were here, but young Donald saw you knocked from your horse and raised the alarm.”
“Where is he now, then? I should like to thank him.”
“He’s still down there. I ordered him to stay. He’ll see enough dead friends once he is knighted, and I doubted you or your squire would be alive by the time we reached you. I thought to spare him the sight of that.”
“Then you are a good master, as well as a true knight. You have my deepest gratitude, Sir Malcolm.”
Seton cocked his head and eyed Will with concern. “And you yourself are well? Are you sure? You are drenched in blood.”
Will looked down at himself and shook his head. “None of it is mine, although it should be. I should be flogged for dereliction, riding up here like a fool without taking a moment to check the woods for enemies.”
“That was unfortunate but understandable. These were not soldiers.”
“No, but they were enemies. I should have—”
“Pardon me for a moment.”
He turned aside to where two of his men had bound the hamstrung survivor’s hands in front of him and were holding him upright with a spear shaft thrust across his back between his elbows. No one had made any attempt to stanch the bleeding from his damaged leg. Sir Malcolm looked the man up and down. “We will have the devil of a time getting you down to the camp in that condition, and you might die before we reach it. On the other hand, you will certainly hang if you do reach it, and for good and ample reason. You are guilty of brigandage and the attempted murder of a guest of Robert, King of Scots, and his squire might yet die.” He addressed the two men flanking the prisoner. “Take him into the woods and find a tree strong enough to hang him from. And be quick.” Seton caught the look on Will’s face. “Do you object to that, Sir William?”