The Steps to the Empty Throne

“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!”

“But a cautious man. Did not the Queen say so?”

He sensed the smile behind the words, though he could not see it. He could see only the vague cloaked shape of her—but he was very conscious of her woman’s presence, her nearness, in that confined space.

“I would not say that caution has been my guide in life, till this,” he told her, a little breathlessly.

“Any more than yours, I think.”

“I have been sufficiently cautious where you have been concerned, at least. Have I not? Until now, perhaps.”

“Elizabeth-you have been kind, most kind. Your letters—I do not know how I would have done lacking them. They saved my reason, I think. Apart from the word of Edward’s plans, which so greatly aided me. For that, I thank you. But the letters their words, their warm, kind words. I have read them and read them. I carry them always. Indeed I have them here, in my doublet now …”

“Then that is very foolish of you, sir! I believed you to have burned them. For my name is on them. If they fell into wrong hands, were shown to the King … I Besides, I would not have thought it of you. Of Bruce, Lord of Carrick, who was Guardian of Scotland. A warrior, a man above such soft toyings. No callow youth—indeed, a married man, with a daughter …”

“A man who needs a woman the more, then.”

“Ha! A woman? But Bruce can have any woman. Almost!

Can he not? Can have many women. Lord of great possessions.

Of men—and of women! He needs not to cherish poor paper and ink to his bosom.”

“No,” he said. His hands reached out to grasp her arms, through the cloak.

“No. Not now.”

She did not draw away from him; but nor did she come closer.

“You have not forgot that I named you witless dolt. And masterful ape!”

no,” he agreed.

“Nor ever shall.” He pulled her to him, his lips seeking her face in

the hooded cloak. The young woman turned her face away a little, so

that his lips met only the damp fur-trimmed broadcloth.

“My Lord Robert,” she objected, “if a woman you so greatly need, perhaps I might even find one for you. There are many at this Court who would serve you willingly, even hotly, I swear! For myself, I am … otherwise.”

“What do you mean? Otherwise?”

“I am no… serving-woman, sir. I am Elizabeth de Burgh.”

“You think I do not know it, woman? Think you I would be thus with any other? It is Elizabeth de Burgh I want, have ached and pined for, have dreamed of, sought and awaited. Aye, and prayed for. All these years. You—your beauty and proud spirit.

Your adorable person and Comeliness.” He had pushed aside her hood now, and was gasping this into her hair and against her ear, her soft turned cheek.

“So it is my body you want, my Lord Robert? Not just any woman’s.