The Price of the King's Peace

“Many, yes. Too many. Lancaster is come. He has joined the King.

With unnumbered thousands. He came but yesterday.”

“A curse on it! I had hoped …” Bruce frowned.

“Did you learn anything of numbers, Jamie?”

“Not that I could rely on. The King may have brought some 20,000. But Lancaster and the northern lords have many more.”

“And you say that they have dug these trenches and banks. All round the town?”

“Save at the harbour, yes. The King’s force did that. He has brought a host of foreigners, Low Country men, versed in siege war. With many great and strange engines and devices, I am told.

He intends to have Berwick again. At all costs. The Steward must be sleeping but poorly!”

“Perhaps. But I am more concerned for ourselves than for Walter! Our

own attack. These trenches and earthworks may have been dug to

encircle the town. But equally, they will protect the besiegers

against ourselves. To assail the English dug into these, their

spearmen and archers, with our smaller force-and that cavalry-would be folly. That way lies disaster.”

“So fear I. With Lancaster’s host on the Sank. To sweep us up,” Douglas agreed.

“We cannot do this by assault, Sire.”

“What, then?” Hay demanded.

“Must we sit and besiege the besiegers? Call for more men?”

“The English could call up more men more readily than could we,” Moray pointed out.

“There are more of them nearer at hand.”

“They have brought a fleet of ships, with their siege engines, into the harbour,” Douglas went on.

“These also are a danger.”

“I much fear …” Moray was saying, when the King cut him short.

“Fear nothing, Thomas,” he said.

“This is not the way. I have not come so far to throw my people into hopeless slaughter. As it would be. No-we adopt the other project. We seek to draw King Edward off, since he is too strongly placed for us to fight. Or you do. For this will take too long for me to be away from Dunfermline.

You and Jamie will take the road south, once more.”

To none did Bruce have to explain why he wanted to get back to Dunfermline quickly. The Queen was pregnant again, and nearing her time. The King was on edge, for more reasons than he would admit. This time it might be a son. But Elizabeth was getting past normal childbearing age. And what effect might his sickness have on any issue now…?

Douglas nodded.

“Gladly. How far south this time?”

“York, I think, will serve.”

“Would not further serve better, Sire? To draw King Edward after us?”

Douglas suggested.

“The nearer to London we win, the better. The South will lie

unprotected, with his armies here.”

”Perhaps. But York should suffice, I think. I have word that Edward

Queen, Isabella, is presently there. He left her at York when he

marched north.”

“Ha! You mean …?”

“I mean that, unlike the English, I do not usually make war against women. But this lady, taken into your custody for a little-or even the threat thereof-would, I believe, fetch Edward south promptly, and shorten the siege of Berwick more swiftly than any other means.”

James Douglas slapped his saddle-bow gleefully. But Moray shook his upright handsome head.

“I do not like it, Sire,” he said.

“Of course you do not like it, Thomas! It conflicts with your honour—well known to us all! But it could, nevertheless, save many lives. Thousands, it may be. Perhaps this city itself.”

“It was your honour, Sire, that I was considering-not my own,” his nephew answered stiffly.

“This they would hold to your blame. Not mine. Or the Douglas’s.”

“I could thole it! Jamie-I fear this must be your especial task,

then. Unless you also scruple?”

“It shall be my delight. I have heard that the lady is …

generous!”

“Aye.

That is why I jalouse that her husband will hasten south when he hears!

But, on your return, remember Lancaster. He may seek to cut you off.”

The King paused.

“There is another matter that might bear on this. William Lamberton tells me that Archbishop Melton is now holding some great gathering of his priests at York-synod, convocation, chapter, I know not what. Churchmen have much sway with Edward. This may also help to bring him south.”

“We shall attend on their deliberations, with pleasure!” Douglas

nodded, grinning.

“How many men do we take?” Moray asked, rather emphasising the pronoun.

“Take all. I will go with you as far as my lordship of Tynedale.

To Wark Castle. It is important that I treat it as part of my realm of Scotland. Receive fealties and homage, conduct an assize, show my writ to run there, as monarch. Something to bargain with, when I bring Edward to the peace-table. From there, I shall return to Dunfermline. And expect you both to rejoin me within the month.”

“So soon, Sire …?”

“So soon. I want Walter Stewart relieved quickly-since the English have these especial siege-engines. He may not be able to withstand them. So what you do must be done swiftly, or it may be to no profit. It is not a campaign that I send you on, but a single stroke. You are not going south to fight battles, only to draw Edward of Carnarvon away from Berwick. I am weary of bloodshed -even English blood. I want these thousands of stout lads back, my friends. Is that understood?”

The great mounted force moved on, quietly, down to the ford of Tweed.

Two weeks and a day later, again at midnight, in the bedroom which had been Queen Margaret’s above the plunging ravine of Pittendreich, where her four fine sons had been born, all to be Kings of Scots, her descendant watched his wife in labour, and suffered each pang with her. He would not leave the chamber though she urged him to, and cursed the physicians and midwives as bungling incompetents. Emotionally wrought up, he equally cursed his own uselessness-and possibly, by his sheer helpless invalidity may have somewhat aided Elizabeth by distracting her from her pains.

When, after a moderately short labour, the child was born, a boy, and dead, Bruce was a stricken man. He left the bedchamber at last, set-faced, and went to lock himself into his own room.

Something had told him that this would be the son on which he had set

his heart. Head in hands now, he crouched at the window, staring out

into the blue night. Accursed, excommunicate, rejected of God, the

refrain beat in his brain. And behind it all the still more ominous

word, leper, leper… It was that word which presently sent him

hurrying back to his wife’s chamber. It was not to Elizabeth’s side that he went, however, but to the cot where the pathetic bundle lay inert, silent.

Snatching up his son, he tore off the blood-soaked wrappings and carried the tiny, wrinkled, naked body over to a lamp, there to peer and examine.

From the great bed Elizabeth raised her voice, tired, husky.

“What… what do you, Robert? I am sorry, sorry, my love. Again I have failed you. But-why torture yourself so?”

“I look … to see … if the finger of God … is on him also!” her

husband grated.

“The mark of my sin! To see if … if there is …”

“Hush Robert!” Despite her weakness and the sweat that started from her brow, Elizabeth de Burgh sat up.

“Say it not, I charge you!” That was as good as a command. She looked

warningly towards the women who still remained in the room. And as he

paid no heed, and went on muttering, she deliberately swept down a goblet of wine which stood untasted on a table beside her bed. It fell with a crash.