The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (30 page)

She broke off, her eyes filling with tears, but she swallowed hard and kept going. “Well, now that need has arisen, God help us all. But Gartnait believes that Da will be made Earl of Carrick in his own right, for the good of the Scots realm.” She raised a hand, a mere flick of the wrist, to her oldest brother. “And before you can ask me if I’m sure it’ll happen, I’m not. I only know what Gartnait told me his father said. But they both believe it’s possible.”

“He might be named earl, but will he ever come out of his room again?” Edward’s voice sounded much older than his fourteen years, and it flashed through Rob’s mind that his brother was attempting to be wryly humorous. But none of the others at the table found it amusing.

“He’ll come out, never you fear.” Rob felt all their eyes turn to him at once. He looked at none of them but spoke towards the centre of the table. “Da’s mourning. We are all suffering from the loss of her, but Mam was Da’s whole life, and he’s dealing with her loss more quietly and privately than any of us is. So we must give him time, as much time as he needs.” He looked from one to the other of them, missing none. “The best thing we can do for him is leave him to conquer it in his own way. He will come back to us.”

CHAPTER TEN

ALARUMS

T
heir father did come back to them, even sooner than Rob had anticipated, but he was a changed man from the Da they had known a mere month earlier, and even the youngest girls remarked upon it. He had lost weight in the weeks since his wife first fell sick, and was gaunt and haggard looking. The lines in his face, which had been there before whenever he smiled or grimaced, were now deep-graven and had a look of permanence about them. He had never been a garrulous man, not merry or jocular—the Scots word
jocose
, meaning both of those things and more, was one that no one would ever have used to describe him—but he had always been gentle and considerate to his children. Now, though, once he had reappeared to his family, Earl Robert was deeply melancholy. He spoke quietly and listened courteously when anyone spoke to him, but there was an unmistakable air of distraction about him, as though there were some other place he would rather be at any time.

Reassured by ten days of harmony among her siblings and confident that they would now be able to support one another in whatever lay ahead, Christina had made arrangements to return to her home in Mar by the time the earl reappeared. It was her final night in Turnberry, and she had made her farewells to her father before presiding over supper in the Lodge for the last time. They had finished eating and the remnants of their meal had been cleared away and, as usual, they remained seated around the table for what had quickly reverted to being the favourite ritual of the family’s day, just as it had been when their mother was alive. Christina knew, however, that this would be her last chance, perhaps for a long time,
to deputize for their missing mother, and she was haranguing them gently, reminding them of the importance of sharing their love and kinship with one another after she was gone and of being the family their mother had loved so dearly, when the door opened at her back and Earl Robert stepped into the room. His arrival took everyone by surprise, so that no one even thought to stand up as they all turned to stare at him. Looking slightly bewildered, he scanned the gathering.

“Forgive me,” he said, then blinked. “For what?” he added. “Why should you forgive me? I’m your father.” The merest suggestion of a smile tugged briefly at the corners of his eyes. “But you all looked so serious that I felt for a moment as though I were intruding …”

Rob sprang to his feet, pushing his chair backward with his knees. “Forgive us, sir,” he said, feeling a flush on his cheeks. “We had no thought of your joining—” He checked himself, aware of the implied insult in his words, and his confusion deepened. But his father was already nodding.

“Quite right, of course. I’ve been neglecting you all, and for that I must beg your pardon. But it pleases me to see you all gathered together here, just as—” He hesitated, very briefly. “As you did when your mother was alive.” He glanced around the table. “Is there a chair for me?”

Rob moved briskly to bring forward a heavy chair from against the wall, and Christina dragged her own lighter one from the head of the table around to one side, making room for the earl, who then seated himself with a nod.

For the next half-hour, he spoke to each of his offspring in turn, beginning with Christina and working his way down the table by age, and by the end of that time the atmosphere was again relaxed and comfortable. It was only at the end of things that he told them their eldest sister, Christina, would return home to her goodman, Gartnait of Mar, the following day. Her place at supper would be taken over, at least for the next few weeks, by their next eldest sister, Isabel. It would be her task, their father said, to supervise these
family gatherings while he and Rob were away, for they, too, must leave the following day.

That provoked a storm of questions that the earl quelled by simply raising his hands, palms outward, until they were all silent again. When they were, he held his pose for several moments longer, then asked if any of them could tell him how many messengers had visited the castle that day. None of them could.

“Well then, I’ll tell you,” Earl Robert said. “There were two of them. One of them arrived this morning and one came late this afternoon, but it’s the one from this morning I want to tell you about. Can any of you tell me what is meant by ‘
de jure uxoris
’?”

Rob raised his hand, as did Nigel and Christina, but it was Nigel to whom their father pointed for a response.

“Aye, sir. It means ‘by right of his wife,’ does it not?”

“It does. By right of his wife, or more commonly, by right of marriage. Your mother was the born Countess of Carrick and it was she who ruled the earldom. I was but her husband and as such, by tradition, I was given the name Earl of Carrick as a courtesy—since a countess may not be married to a common man.

“Your mother, may God rest her soul, often fretted that I would lose the title in the event of her … of her death. And so she set out to see that it would never happen. It was your mother’s wish— shared with her successor, your great-uncle Nicol—that should she die before I did, I should be named Earl of Carrick in fact.”

All eyes were on the earl.

“The messenger who came this morning brought word from Bishop Wishart in Glasgow that he and other nobles had agreed to grant your mother’s wish in this matter, so that I am now recognized, with the blessing of the lords of this realm, both spiritual and temporal, as the legitimate Earl of Carrick from this day on.” He paused. “That means that we—that
you
—will not have to leave this place you call your home. Turnberry will remain yours and ours, and your uncle Nicol will be welcome here for the remainder of his life should he wish to stay with us. I thought you would all be glad to hear that.”

He allowed the buzz around the table to subside. “The messenger who arrived this afternoon came from your grandfather.
His
message was that I must make my way directly to Lochmaben and bring your brother Robert with me.” He smiled fully, permitting them a glimpse of the man he had been before their mother’s death. “I have to obey that summons,” he said quietly. “For Lord Robert is far more than your grandfather. He is my father, and only an ingrate or a fool disobeys his father. Would you not agree?”

They set out early the next morning, accompanied by a small party of fifteen retainers, and they rode hard, wasting no time on the road throughout the day. Rob was glad to see his grandsire’s fortress come into view in the distance just before nightfall. He had been wondering about their summons ever since his father had mentioned it, and he was impatient to discover the reason for it.

Lochmaben’s taciturn steward, Alan Bellow, met them at the main gates and ushered them directly to Lord Robert’s den, where the old man threw down his pen as soon as they arrived and abandoned the parchment on which he had been writing. He rose to his feet at once and waved them to the three plain, high-backed chairs grouped around the brazier in the corner. The steward poured each of them a mug of beer and collected a platter of food from an oaken sideboard, placing it on a small table beside the chairs. Earl Robert sat down in one of the heavy chairs, eyeing the savoury tidbits laid out on the broad wooden platter.

“Eat, Robert, eat,” Lord Robert said, waving a hand over the food. “I remembered some of the bitties you favoured as a boy and had Alan order them for you from the kitchens. Ye’ll have been on the road long enough and without sustenance, so I thought I might as well tickle your tastes while I picked your mind. You, too, Rob.”

Earl Robert, though, made no move to touch the food. Instead he looked at his father, and then spoke without inflection. “You called us here without warning, Father, aware we are in mourning. That made me think your summons must be urgent, and so here we are, but I can live without food for a few more hours, so be it you will
put my mind at rest over why you must have us here in Lochmaben so suddenly. What has happened?”

The old man looked at his son, and Rob thought he could detect the beginnings of a frown, quickly suppressed as his grandsire glanced away towards the fire and then sucked in a great, deep breath.

“Life has happened,” growled the Lord of Annandale, removing his elbow from the back of the chair on which he had been leaning and moving to stand in front of the glowing brazier, presenting his backside to the warming glow of the coals. “Life. Confusion and frustration.”

Neither of his listeners moved, and he looked from son to father before speaking again. “I regret having called you away so urgently, but I had no other choice. How are the children?”

Earl Robert pursed his mouth, but his voice, when he spoke, betrayed no resentment. “They are well. Well enough, that is, considering the newness of their loss. But they are yet … fragile. That is, I think, the word most fitting to describe them.”

“And so it should be,” his father replied. “It’s apt enough. But you’ll find my reason for calling you here equally apt. When things are fragile, it behooves the prudent man to pay attention to the possibility of losing them, through accident or carelessness.” Now the patriarch looked at his grandson directly, though his words were still addressed to his own son. “Our world is changing rapidly, Robert, and the worst thing we could do would be to accept those changes without demur.”

“What d’you mean?” Earl Robert was all attention now, leaning forward. “What changes?”

“Several. Edward, and England.”

“Has there been a decision, then, from Norham?”

Lord Robert shook his head. “Not yet. But I have heard that one is coming soon.”

“And that disturbs you, evidently. What have you heard, exactly?”

The old man’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “That Edward is inclined to favour Balliol.”

“But how can that be, Father? Yours is the stronger claim.” The earl’s voice was high pitched, almost querulous, and his father nodded, curtly, Rob thought.

“It is, if you cleave to the ancient law of Scots succession through the female side. But you were there in Perth and heard what Wishart said about the old Scots tanist law being out of favour. This new law, this primogeniture, passing the rights to the firstborn son, rules out the female claim, and it appears it has been widely adopted throughout Christendom, as Wishart said. And particularly so in England. Edward and his delegates now favour it, and that bodes ill for me and mine.”

Neither of the two younger Bruces responded, each of them thinking deeply on what those words entailed.

Lord Robert breathed in deeply. “The damnable part of that is that Edward’s no’ alone in his thinking. Some of our own bishops within the court agree with him, and of course the Comyn crew is eager to back his judgment therein, as you might jalouse.” He frowned. “There’s more to it than that, though. At least so I hae come to believe after weeks of thought on the matter. And that’s why you are here. I have made a decision—decisions, in fact—that will affect you and young Rob directly.”

“Based upon
your
thoughts?” Earl Robert’s emphasis was barely discernible.

His father nodded. “Aye. That’s what I said.”

“And are we to learn what those thoughts are?”

Again Rob thought he saw a flash of irritation in the old man’s eyes, but the moment passed and Lord Robert stood silent. “Aye,” he said eventually. “You are … My thoughts are these. I now believe Edward will give the nod to Balliol, for diverse reasons, not all of them without prejudice. By favouring the law of primogeniture, he undermines my entire claim and he can argue legally that he is right to do so. God knows his English clerics will support him there, and they, with the added weight of the Balliol and Comyn faction, will outnumber the pro-Bruce voices in the proceedings.”

Earl Robert was frowning. “‘Not without prejudice,’ you said. What do you mean by that?”

The old man frowned. “I have suspicions, nothing more— nothing on which I could rely for proof. But I believe now that Edward believes he might make more use of Balliol than he could of me, were I the King of Scots.” He glanced at Rob, then swung his eyes back to his son the earl. “You’ve met John Balliol, Robert. He is a good man, douce and pleasant, but he will never make a strong king. He needs too much to be liked … craves the good opinion of everyone. And that is fatal in a king, if not to the man himself, then surely to the realm he governs. John Balliol is too weak for kingship. And I suspect Edward knows that well, and plans to use it for his own designs.”

“What designs, Father? If Balliol becomes the King of Scots, he will be sanctified as such, anointed and crowned and unbeholden to any man or any other King. How then could Edward use him?”

This time the irritation broke through. “In God’s name, Robert, are you deaf or simply stupid?
Weak
, I said. The man is a weakling, and because of that his kingship will be feckless, too. Edward Plantagenet now seeks to place a puppet on our throne.
His
puppet, on
our
throne.”