The Price of the King's Peace bt-3 Read online

  “But-save us, the tongue of man should be better employed than parading mere words for such delights!” And he closed his lips to better effect on fair, throbbing, thrusting flesh.

  Whatever sweet confusion he aroused in that superb bosom, Bruce was all too aware now that his own arousal was all too potent, and time running out. He dared not linger, then, as he would, and as the woman’s reaction invited. Biting his own lip rather than her swelling flesh, he raised his head, hand drawing down the linen shift that still part-clothed her, spread fingers smoothing.

  “Her belly is polished ivory. With a central well of sheer

  enchantment.

  Her bush a golden thicket of happy entanglement guarding the valley of of paradise. In sweet delay.”

  But he did not delay there, a man all but in extremity. His touch on the soft insides of her thighs, he got out, “Thighs … thighs satin-smooth … long… long… smooth …” He smothered the rest against her breast, wordless, tense, no longer stroking.

  “Robert, my dear,” she whispered.

  “Have done, my heart. Yield you. Yield. Do not distress yourself.

  Come-yield now, Robert.”

  But whether she had thought of it or not, that was a man to whom the word yield had become, above all others, anathema.

  Whatever else, he was no yielder. Now the very sound of it seemed to give him new strength and control. Between clenched teeth he found more words.

  “You are … altogether beautiful. Desirable … beyond all telling. A woman fairer than any … that man could dream of.”

  “Oh, my love! My love!” she breathed.

  “I pray you-do not wait. Do not wit hold For my sake. Not yours!

  Quickly. Come-come into my love, Robert. Mine! Mine!”

  “Is it true? Not for me? You do not cozen me? True that you want me?”

  ”Yes, yes. Quickly. He held back no longer from entry to her warm

  embrace. Yet still, even on the delirious tide of satisfaction, achievement, triumph, he did hold back, in some degree controlled himself with fierce effort, sought to contain himself, determined as ever he had been in all his struggling, that Elizabeth should know fulfilment at last. This he could do, must do, owed to her … When at last, with a strangled cry, she reached her woman’s climax, it was nevertheless not a moment too soon for Robert Bruce, as, thankfully, he let nature take its thwarted course. He had seldom fought a more determined fight. It was indeed sheer thankfulness, not any masculine triumph with which he let himself sink into the damned-back surging tide.

  It was the taste of salt tears on his lips against her hot cheek which presently revealed to his returning awareness that Elizabeth was in fact quietly weeping.

  “What now?” he mumbled.

  “Tears? Surely not. Why so, lass … ?”

  “Tears-but only of joy, Robert. I thank you-oh, I thank you. Dear heart-you have made me whole again. My brave, true, kind knight-you have rescued me indeed! Lifted my fears from me. I was afraid that that never again would I know this joy, this oneness with you. That the empty years had made me less than woman …”

  “I’ faith-if you are less than woman, then I am less than half a man!” he exclaimed.

  “A callow boy, no more! Who could not handle a full woman. Have mercy on me, lass!”

  “I shall make up to you that sore trial, Robert. I shall…”

  “You shall indeed. But give me a little time-just a little time!

  Have mercy on my forty years!”

  “Sleep, then …”

  “Sleep, no! I have had nights a-plenty for sleeping. To have all this splendour beside me in my bed, and to sleep-that would be sacrilege, no less! I can still… appreciate, woman, even when … a little spent!” And his hands began to prove his words once more.

  Her chuckle was warm and throaty, and all Elizabeth de Burgh again.

  After a while, out of the desultory talk and enriched silences, she spoke, without any change in tone or stress.

  “Christina MacRuarie?”

  she asked.

  “Tell me of her.”

  The man drew a long breath, and on his part at least, tension came back.

  “You know of her?”

  “Think you that was a name of which my gaolers would leave me unaware?”

  He moistened his lips.

  “Christina of Garmoran was-is- my friend. My good friend.”

  “Friend, yes. And lover?”

  “Friend, I said. Lover only in so far as she gave me her body.

  From time to time.”

  “That was friendly, to be sure. And could conceivably be more than that!”

  “Could be, but was not, Elizabeth That I assure you.” He raised

  himself on an elbow, to address her.

  “See you, lass-only you I love.” That was urgent.

  “Only you I have loved. That I swear.”

  “Yes, Robert-I believe you, I know you love me. Have given full proof of it. But she? How is it with the Isleswoman? When a woman gives herself, not once but many times, over years-then more man friendship is mere, I think! Do not mistake me. I am lying here, in your arms, and joying to be so. Fresh from your loving. Not here playing the jealous wife. God knows I have no right to that role, even if I thought to play it. Which I do not.

  But-I would know what I have to face, in this. Will my husband’s friend Christina be my friend? Or my enemy?” This was very clearly still the old Elizabeth de Burgh.

  He shook his head.

  “Your friend also, I do believe. But, if she is not-if she becomes your enemy-then she becomes mine also.

  That I promise you. But why should she be your enemy?”

  “When a woman loves a man, she will fight for him. Husband or other.

  Does this woman love you, Robert?”

  He frowned.

  “No. Not as you mean love. As we mean it. We have never spoken of love, Christina and I. When … when she first came to me, at Castle Tioram, after we had rescued her from the Rossmen. When she came, she said that I had need of a woman. A woman, not a lover. That, being deprived, I was showing it. Less than the man I should have been therefore less the king also. I came to accept that as true. And … and she could lend me many Highland broadswords, as well as her body!”

  “Aye-that is one way into a man’s bed! But it could also be the way to his heart. Was she content with the bed, think you?”

  “I believe so. I was, at least. She was a woman of experience.

  Widow of Gartnait of Mar’s brother. Your own age, or older.

  Proud. Hot of temper. A fighter …”

  “As Elizabeth de Burgh once was! And as beautiful?”

  “No. By no means. Different in all ways. But kind. When I needed kindness. And you not there. She said … she said that one day you would thank her. For me. That you would want a man returned to you.

  Not a half-man. Or an ailing cripple She said that, did she! I see.I think I have something of the measure of your Christina now! The Lady of Garmoran. And shall deal with her accordingly!” She gave a little laugh.

  “But, in this she was right, at least. It is a man that I have

  returned to-no half-man. I can feel it now!”

  “Aye-enough of Christina! And enough of talk…”

  And now Robert Bruce did not have to hold back. Nor yet to coax and gentle. Elizabeth, it seemed, was thus abruptly herself again, vehement, zestful, far from passive. Joyfully, the man proceeded to lose himself in her returning passion.

  In time, drowsily, he spoke.

  “What ails you at, Elizabeth de Burgh? Myself, I find no fault. Now you it is who makes me feel my years!”

  “Years …?” she said.

  “What then are years? Time? In these last minutes you have given me more of true time and being than in all those lost eight years. I have begun to live again, my Robert …”

  Chapter Two

  Stirling so throbbed with life and activity as to all but burst its

  bounds. The great castle on top of the towering rock; the grey, red
/>
  roofed town that clustered and clung round all the folds and skirts of

  that rock; and the handsome Abbey of Cambuskenneth with all the spread

  of conventual and domestic buildings that filled the wide near-island

  in the coiling, shining Forth below both-all were so full that lords

  and ladies roosted in attics, knights and lairds were thankful to share

  cot-houses, and bishops and mitred abbots must perforce occupy holy

  men’s bare cells and the like which they had long since thought to have

  outgrown. Even the host of English prisoners from Bannockburn still un

  ransomed were packed and herded still more tightly into deeper pits and

  prisons, even dove cots that their vacated accommodation might house

  their captors. Scarcely within living memory had the royal court of

  Scotland taken up full residence in this its so royal and ancient

  citadel-though King John Baliol had held a hurried and furtive

  convention here in 1295. That August of 1314, Stirling was the centre and heart of Scotland in more than geography, after being an enemy-held canker for eighteen years.

  The atmosphere quivered, as it were, with more than just the numbers and the noise and the August warmth. There was a great sense of celebration, of relief, of achievement, in the air. After all these years of outright war, invasion, and usurping tyranny and terror, the land was free again, with no single English garrison remaining. After almost thirty years of weak rule, near anarchy, or foreign domination, Scotland had a strong king again, a firm hand at the helm. There was a vast amount to be done, a whole nation to build up from the ruination and savagery of the past; but the way seemed reasonably clear ahead, the task their own to handle or mishandle. Six weeks after one of the greatest and most significant battles of history, this was the celebration of victory.

  Strangely enough, it was with the victor himself, and those closest to him, that this attitude of celebration was least evident.

  For Robert Bruce realised as did few others that, substantial and seemingly overwhelming as was that victory, it was in fact inconclusive, partial, even dangerously illusory. A round had been won in this tourney, that was all. And there were still all too many in Scotland, and of the ruling class, who wished him less than well, and bided their time.

  Nevertheless, it was right to celebrate, even wise, so long as the hazards were not lost sight of or minimised. This programme indeed was all of the King’s own devising. But he hoped that even in its festive activities the lesson might be brought home in some measure-that the enemy was bloodied but unbowed.

  The afternoon’s tournament and games could be made fairly apt to his purpose. The theme and background was still warlike, competitive, challenging. And deliberately Bruce had made it more so by freeing, temporarily and on parole, not a few of the English prisoners, to take part. Some of the most renowned knights in Christendom had fallen captive at Bannockburn. The victor would use them, not to make any sort of Roman holiday, but to remind his own people that the foe was still potent, a force to be reckoned with.

  The huge tilting-yard that lay just below and to the east of the castle

  proper, on a broad terrace of the rock, was the scene of the day’s

  major activities. The English garrison had long used it for

  horse-lines and even cattle-courts, for the maintenance and

  provisioning of some hundreds of men. Bruce had had it cleared and

  cleaned up, and great quantities of dried peat brought from the nearby

  Flanders Moss to carpet it thickly. Lists had been enclosed, a great

  railed-off jousting-ground and arena, surrounded by hoardings and

  tiered timber seating, with a handsome royal box and gallery, the whole

  brilliant with colourful heraldic achievements and decoration,

  standards, flags and banners flying everywhere, by the hundred.Gaily-hued and striped tented pavilions had been set up, as undressing and arming rooms, and all around saints’ shrines, and the booths and stalls of pedlars, chap men hucksters and entertainers proliferated. The clamour was deafening-minstrels played, merchants proclaimed their wares, mendicant friars touted supposed relics, children screamed, dogs barked and horses whinnied, all against the roars of acclaim, advice or disgust of the watchers towards the contestants in the arena.

  Robert Bruce loved it all, for this was the heady, rousing clamour of peace, not war, something which had not been heard for long in this land. Up on the royal dais beneath the huge Lion Rampant standard of Scotland, where he stood beside the ornate throne, he gazed round on it all with satisfaction, if tempered with a kind of caution.

  That the Bruce’s place was to stand beside the single throne, today, not to sit in it, was because this was Elizabeth’s day. In that throne she sat, radiant, Queen of the Tournament as well as the realm’s queen. Dressed all in white and gold, golden circlet around her heavy flaxen hair, she looked regal, supremely lovely and supremely happy-and the man at her side as often glanced down at her for his satisfaction as at the stirring scene and activities, proud to pay her his own tribute. Occasionally she reached over to touch his arm lightly, and their eyes would meet.

  As well that the Queen’s beauty was thus supreme and quietly assured this day; for she was surrounded by beauty and good looks which might have proved a sore embarrassment to one less well endowed than Elizabeth de Burgh. A goodly selection of the fairest in the land were present today, and a surprising number seemed to have managed to insert themselves into the royal gallery. Moreover, all had somehow contrived to dress themselves, after long deprivement, in the height and extreme of fashion, so that the enclosure was a blaze of colour and pulchritude, with the women for once rivalling their knightly escorts, whose brilliant heraldic surcoats and coat-armour was so apt to steal any such scene.

  Nevertheless it required all this beauty and colour to counter and balance the all but overpowering loveliness of the scene and setting itself. Surely nowhere could such an occasion have been so spectacularly placed as here, high on the flank of Stirling Rock.

  For this, the very key to Scotland, was also one of that most scenic land’s most dramatic viewpoints, where the Highlands abruptly met the Lowlands, where the great estuary of the Forth became a river, where the noble vistas spread far and wide before the constrictions of the mountains. This terrace above the teeming town was so drenched in light and colour and vivid, challenging scene, as almost to be painful to contemplate. From the silver serpent of the Forth, coiling through the level cars elands to the thrusting green heights of the Ochils; from the vast rolling canopy of the Tor Wood to the village-strong shores of the Lothian coast; from the grassy glades of the royal hunting-park to the loch-strewn infinities of the Flanders Moss-all against the tremendous ramparts of the blue-shadow-splashed giants of the Highland Line, the eye of even the least perceptive was all too apt to be distracted from the small doings of men, however positive and spectacular.

  A spectacle of some compulsion was indeed proceeding in the great arena. It was the final round in a prolonged contest between teams of wrestlers, four men to a team, each put forward by some great lord or other. Bruce himself had fielded a group from his own bodyguard-to see them soundly defeated in the second heat.

  Now, in this final round, the eight men who struggled there, all but naked save for the distinctively coloured drawers, represented, of all things, the Abbey of Inchaffray and the English prisoners.

  Egged on, implored and berated by their panting and gesticulating if non-playing captains, the Abbot Maurice and Sir Anthony de Lucy, the mighty but wearying musclemen were obviously nearing the limit of their efforts, their greased and shining bodies now so slippery and sweat-soaked as to prevent all gripping. Two pairs were already reduced to a merely formal and slow-motion pawing.

  “Poor men-they are done, quite,” Elizabeth declared.

  “There is no sport left in this. As Queen of
the Tourney is it not in my right to call a halt? To declare the contest over and each side equal?

  And so spare us all more of this?”

  “It is in your right and power indeed, my dear if you would have both sides decrying you! Most of this assembly, indeed!” her husband told her, smiling.

  “Halt them now, and both sides will conceive themselves stripped of the laurels. And some of the crowd saying that you chose to spare the English, others that you chose to spare Holy Church! Either way, you lose! But have it your own way, lass-you are mistress here, today.”

  “Here is foolishness …” she said. But did not interfere.

  Sir Hugh Ross, son and heir of the Earl thereof, who had once been Bruce’s deadly foe, came up with the Lady Matilda, the King’s youngest sister, a pair now all but inseparable.

  “Your Grace,” he put, to the Queen, “the English grow over sure, I vow!

  They claim that they have as good as won this wrestling bout And now

  they challenge us to a jousting. One, or many. Single combat, or

  massed fight. They would try to wipe out the shame of Bannockburn, I think. Have I Your Grace’s permission to break a lance with their challenger?”

  “Mine, Sir Hugh?” The Queen looked doubtful.

  “Must I so decide?” She glanced over at her husband. When the English prisoners actually started to initiate challenges, it was perhaps time to pause and consider.

  Bruce took over.

  “Who is this bold challenger, Hugh?”

  “There were many in it. But the spokesman, the true challenger, was Sir John, the Lord Segrave.”

  “Segrave! That man!” The Lord Segrave was a senior English captain, brother to one Sir Nicholas who had once been as good as Bruce’s gaoler. He had been Edward the First’s Lieutenant in Scotland in 1303 when Comyn and Simon Fraser had ambushed the English army at Roslin, and he had barely escaped with his life -to make Scotland pay for his fright thereafter, to some time. He was therefore one of the most important captives of the late rout.

  This might well pose a problem. To refuse the challenge of an eminent veteran could look unsavoury, playing safe; on the other hand, for Scotland to be beaten in so notable an encounter, in one single combat fight, would be unfortunate. And Hugh Ross, although a sound wartime fighter, was untried in the tourney. Yet the King could by no means put it to this eager young man that he might not be of the calibre required.