The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (28 page)

He found it easy to smile at her now. “But not as big as my gransser,” he said quietly, using the name he had given the old man before he learned to pronounce
grandsire
properly. Her eyes flicked immediately to where Lord Robert stood listening, his craggy old face for once lit by a smile of pure fondness for his good-daughter.

The countess smiled again. “No,” she whispered. “Not yet, that’s true. But you will be, someday soon. You’ve the same shoulders and you’re still growing. You’ll be a Robert Bruce to make him proud. You wait and see.”

“He makes me proud already, my dear,” the old man said. “But I believe you’re right.”

The countess nodded. “I’m glad you two are close now” was all she said, and then looked back at her son. “Have you seen your brothers? Allie told me you came home late last night. Were they here?”

Rob’s smile widened into a grin. “Aye, Mam, but they were all abed by then.”

“And you woke them up when you went upstairs, I expect.”

He ducked his head to one side. “I did, but they werena sleeping very soundly. We talked for a while and then I ordered them back to bed.”

“And what did you talk about?” She wiggled her fingers. “Come back to me.”

He moved quickly to kneel beside her again and reached for her outstretched hand, feeling her grasp his fingers again far more strongly than he would have expected earlier. “About living in England and training for knighthood,” he answered. “Are you surprised?” She had no need to know that he had talked with his brothers for hours about her condition and their fears for her—and for themselves, should she not recover.

His mother was watching him closely and he made himself smile again. “Edward can’t wait for his turn to be a squire to someone, and he prays every night that he will find a master who loves horses as
he does. And Thomas and Alec are in despair because they still have to wait years before they can even start.”

His mother’s chin dipped as she nodded gently, squeezing his fingers more tightly. “Aye,” she said in that voice that sounded like a zephyr stirring dried leaves. “But the years fly by faster and faster as we grow older … And what seemed like a lifetime ago is no more than a flitting moment, seen from afar. Their time will come soon enough. Sooner than they would wish were they older and wiser. But for now they are just wee boys, aching to be men. So leave them to fret, Robbie. Remember yourself, how young you were when you were their age, and let them be. Let them learn at God’s own pace. Now, when will you be knighted?”

His face must have fallen, for he saw the alarm in her eyes, and he quickly shrugged, discovering, to his own great surprise, that he really did not care about the temporary loss of his knighthood compared to the gift of being able to see her again.

“I missed it, Mam,” he said. “This time at least. I was on my way here when the ceremony happened. It was today, this morning.” He hurried on as he saw her eyes widen in horror. “Mam, don’t fret. It doesna worry me, and that’s God’s truth. The King himself told me I have earned my knighthood and that he will gladly confer it upon me at the first opportunity that comes. For now I am a knight in all but name.”

“I know you are, my son … You always have been, in my eyes, but it’s a shame you had to miss the ceremony with all your friends.”

He stooped and kissed her again on the forehead. “No, it’s not, Mam. I’ll see them all again soon enough and I’d rather be here with you right now.”

She smiled. “I don’t think you even expect me to believe that, Rob Bruce, but I thank you for that lovely thought. I’ll—” She jerked violently, and suddenly her fingers were digging sharply into his hand and her eyes were wide with fright.

“Mam?” He could hear the panic in the single word. “Mam, what’s wrong?” The pressure of her grasp increased and her mouth twisted into a rictus. Already his grandfather was at the door, calling
loudly for Brother Ethelric, and he bent forward, scooting as close to her as he could on his knees, wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his embrace. She was feather-light, it seemed to him, and he could feel the fierce heat of her skin through the thin stuff of her nightgown. He clutched her close, willing her to be free of this sudden agony, as the door swung open hard and the monk Ethelric swept into the room.

“Out!” the monk said to him, and there was no mistaking the urgency of his voice. “Up and out! In God’s name, make way.”

Rob remembered the rain that blew into his face that second morning of October in the year 1292. It chilled him to the bone befittingly as he stood among his family while they buried the Countess of Carrick. He remembered, too, that his father’s eyes were swollen from weeping, and that the rain streaming down Earl Robert’s face seemed like an extension of the man’s grief. He also remembered the ghostly wailing of the bagpipes before and after the service, the music offered as tribute to the Countess Marjorie of Carrick by a tall, cadaverous Gael whose long plaid fluttered from his shoulders like a flag in the wind. He was from Arran, Rob was told long afterwards, related to the countess on her father’s side. He had been in Maybole town when he heard of her sudden death and had come to pay his respects. He remembered, too, being surprised at the number of people, many of them strangers to him, who assembled at the graveside, more than a hundred of them, old and young, gathered from farmsteads and villages both local and distant, though no formal word had gone out and his mother had been dead for less than three days.

But he remembered little else—nothing of the service itself, not the words that were spoken or the priest who spoke them—and in truth only the storm that morning stayed firm in his mind, a feral thing slashing in from the icy western sea to howl around the forlorn, open grave on the shelf above the tiny beach in front of the castle. His mother had loved that spot all her life, for the view it offered in all weathers and most particularly when the great winter
storms sent mighty waves hurtling on the rocks along the shore, often crashing up towards her in their final throes as though attempting to reach her. Knowing of her love for the place—for they had all shared it with her on countless occasions—it seemed fitting to everyone that it should be her resting place forever.

He stood alone, after the others had returned to the castle, watching Murdo’s men filling in the grave, their hair and clothing buffeted by the blustering, icy wind as they bent and straightened relentlessly, replacing the dirt they had shovelled out the day before. He remembered the wind, buffeting him and snatching at his breath, but he had no recollection of feeling cold, for nothing could penetrate the vast emptiness that filled him. He remembered thinking that he was barely eighteen and was motherless, and that nothing the future held could possibly outdo the awful, crippling bereavement of that day. He remembered watching the men pile the cairn of stones over his mother’s grave and waiting to place the last of them himself.

He remembered arriving back at the castle hours after that and finding Lord Robert in the entrance hall, muffled in his great black hooded cloak of thickly waxed wool.

“Robert! There you are. I wondered where you’d got to.”

“I’ve been at the graveside. But where are you going?”

“Home, lad, to Lochmaben, as quick as may be. I mislike being away from Annandale and I’ve been gone too long. I was hoping I’d see you before I left.”

“But surely you’ll eat first? It’s bitter cold out there and no time to be on the road with an empty stomach.”

Lord Robert shook his head. “I’ve food enough. Allie knew I’d be away right after the funeral and she had food and drink ready packed for me and all my folk. We’ll eat on the road. Alan should be here directly wi’ my horse. But I need to speak wi’ you.” He glanced over his shoulder as a pair of men came into the hallway through a far door, and then he took Rob by the arm. “Come outside. Too many ears in here.”

They went out, closing the main doors behind them, and Lord Robert looked to where his travelling companions were assembling,
safely beyond hearing, before he turned back to his grandson, eyeing him keenly. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

Rob shrugged. How
should
he be feeling? was the question in his mind. He had just buried his mother and her absence would be a blight on his life forever.

“Well enough, considering the day,” he answered quietly. “Don’t worry about me, Gransser. I’ll be fine.” The childhood name fell easily from his lips, and he realized again what that showed of his comfort around the patriarch now.

“I know you will, lad, and I’m not worrying about you. It’s your father I’m concerned about. You’ll need to keep an eye on him this next while.”

“On my
father
?” The disbelief in his voice was obvious even to him and so he hurried on. “Why so?”

“Because he’s lost, that’s why. And because he’s your father, which means there’s much of him—the real man, Robert Bruce, the Earl of Carrick—about which you know nothing, simply because you are his son. Sons seldom see their fathers as real people, and that’s the tragic truth. You and I have spoken of this before, when we discussed my regrets about him. D’you remember that?” Rob nodded. “Aye. And when I was young I had my own difficulties with my father in his time. Sons only see in their fathers what they have learnt and been taught to see. They see no more than the stern paterfamilias who rules and regulates their life, and they seldom have cause to consider the living, human man who lived and dreamed and hoped as a young man himself before he married and cares forced him to become that unforgiving figure.”

He cleared his throat, and his eyes narrowed. “You feel betrayed and bereft because you’ve lost the mother that you loved, and that is right and proper, Grandson. The countess was your mother and a wondrously gifted woman in that respect, and now she’s gone and you will mourn her with all the rest of us. But I want you to try to imagine how my son must be feeling now. Your mother was all the world to your father—his lifelong love, the woman he worshipped, his closest companion and most trusted friend. She was his inspiration
and his salvation in this world. Her love formed the very core of his life as a proud and noble man. And now she’s gone. He will never see her again or hear her voice or be able to seek her advice. His household now has no binding force to guide it other than himself, and he feels helpless. He is faced now with the sole responsibility for tending and guiding the family she reared so effortlessly, and he will see no way of living up to that trust, now that he is bereft of her counsel and wisdom, her guidance and her strength. In his own eyes at this moment, your father’s life is over, his future, if he can see one, filled with emptiness and lacking a focus. He will get over it in time, as all men do, but the grief of it will be overwhelming to him for the next while. And that is why you need to keep an eye on him. I canna do it, nor would I even seek to try. There is too big a gulf between him and me still.”

He fell silent again, and into that silence came a whistle and a loud voice calling his name. He snapped his head up and waved away the summons in annoyance.

“I have to go,” he growled, “but I am not yet done, so listen. Take care of your father in the weeks ahead. He’ll be like a rudderless boat in a heavy sea. And that means you’ll have to look to your brothers, too, forbye your sisters. You’ll have help with the lasses— Allie and the other women will see to that—but you will need to play the father with the boys. You need to be the man of the house these next few months.” He cocked his head, raising an eyebrow. “Can you do that?”

Rob shook his head, his eyes wide. “I don’t know, Grandfather.” His voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t know, but I’ll try.”

“That’s all I need to hear, that you’re willing to try. But you’ll have help. Your mother’s uncle Nicol will be there to guide you, and you can feel free to talk to him. He is a wise and canny man, Nicol MacDuncan. And forbye, your mother’s people here are all solid folk. I’ll be at Lochmaben should you have need of me. But I doubt you will. Everyone in your charge now has been raised by your mother, God rest her soul, and her teachings will bear fruit, you mark my words. I have no doubt that you can do this, Robert. You’re
a Bruce, and a fine one. And when this time has passed, I will knight you with my own hand, as is within my right as Lord of Annandale and a magnate of this realm. That is a promise. Come now and embrace me, for I have to be away.”

Rob stood alone outside the castle gates in the pouring rain and watched his grandfather ride off with his escort into the lowering gloom of the bleakest afternoon of his young life.

Turnberry seemed an alien place without its castellan. Even Allie and Murdo, the two family retainers, were mute and listless in the weeks that followed the funeral, when the visiting mourners had all departed and left the big house strangely echoing and lifeless. They still carried out their routine tasks from day to day, supervising the workers who kept the house and the estate functioning, but as the days progressed and Rob began to notice things again, he became aware that the faithful couple had lost something of their own in the death of their beloved mistress.

The Bruce household had changed in many ways. For one, gone was the long-established ritual of the evening meal, presided over by the countess and governed by laws that had seemed immutable to Rob and his siblings. When there were guests in the castle, the children—those of them deemed old enough to behave themselves in front of company—dined in the great hall with everyone else, where they were seated apart from the adults and closely chaperoned by one of the countess’s women. At all other times, though, the daily family supper was served in a lesser dining room, known for some long-forgotten reason as the Lodge, and no one was permitted to be absent unless they were too ill to leave their sickbed. Countess Marjorie was adamant about the need for everyone to be there, for it was the sole and jealously guarded time of day when the family would meet and share food and conversation together. Other meals in the day could be eaten wherever and whenever food and time might be available, but the family supper was sacrosanct, and lateness, or far worse the occasional failure to attend, was punishable by
a wide range of penances, from drudge duties in the scullery to dire loss of privileges.