Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy) Read online

  When they’ve killed your family and burnt your home to the ground, what is there left to do but dream of revenge?

  If only a short while ago, I had wondered if the struggle was worth such sacrifices, I wondered no longer. Enough of suffering, enough of fear. No more.

  A moan drifted from the back of the cave. Dawn stretched its pale light upon the clotted mass of battered bodies. Shapes came into focus, although it was a wretched, ugly site to behold. The stink of blood, urine and infection hung thick in the air. It might have turned my stomach, had I not been so accustomed to it. Somewhere, a body stirred. The scrape of a weapon over stone. Muffled weeping. The hushed whisper of desperate prayers. Another ghostly moan. Longer, more distressed.

  I ventured further inside the cave. With dozens crammed tight in such a small space, there was barely room to walk between. I went slowly, carefully, I thought. My foot struck a stone. I stumbled, threw my hand against the wall to stop my fall and quickly righted myself. A sticky veil clung to the whiskers of my beard. I pulled back, my eyes focusing as I scraped at my stubbled chin. Before me, a cobweb glinted with morning dew like pearls strung on silver threads.

  Last night, I had watched the wee spider dangling from the cave’s ceiling, trying in vain to weave her web. Finally, a chance draft had wafted her to the wall, where she anchored her thread. Aye, the spider was still there, her intricate task complete. Resting now. Her creation still mostly intact, despite my clumsiness. Already a fly had become entangled in it, its meager movements tugging in vain at the fibers. The spider scurried forth, then froze, waiting for the fly to exhaust itself.

  Beyond the web, a spindly, narrow-shouldered figure stood motionless. With an overturned kettle hat – doubtless taken from a fallen Englishman at Methven – tucked beneath his arm, Gil de la Haye gazed solemnly at James Douglas lying on the floor, as if studying him. Then he crouched down and balanced the helmet on his knees. With a thin hand, he brushed James’ cheek. Next, he took a cloth from inside the helmet and twisted it. Brown water streamed into the helmet. As tenderly as if he were caring for a sick child, he dabbed James’ forehead and temples. A fierce warrior in his own right, Gil was sometimes physician to us. He knew how to treat wounds, set bones, and what herbs to use to soothe an aching head or settle a disagreeable stomach. And when we were desperate for a prayer, it was Gil who repeated long verses of Latin, imploring God to guide our blades through English hearts and our shields and armor to ward off their arrows.

  I picked my way through the tangle of bodies and discarded weapons. As I squatted down beside Gil, I said lowly, “Fever?”

  “No, not so far, thanks be to God.” Gil handed me the helmet, water sloshing onto the ground. He bent nearer to James, whose right arm lay across his chest. Between wrist and elbow, the arm was bent at an odd angle, the broken point of the bone jutting against the inside of his flesh. Gil rubbed a hand across his hawkish nose and sighed. “The sooner I set it, the better, I suppose. But he’ll be in more pain then. He won’t sleep. Best to let him rest for now.”

  We all needed our rest – only, I could not sleep with so many troubled thoughts crowding my mind. Last night after the battle, I had not slept at all and the night before that Elizabeth had thrashed beside me.

  Yesterday, there was something she had wanted to tell me. A small thing, she said, that could wait. How long before I would see her again, before she could tell me? Would I ever know? Pray to God my brother Nigel could get her and the rest to Orkney: my daughter Marjorie and sisters, Christina and Mary. There, they could wait out the winter and join us in Ulster come spring, where Elizabeth’s father was the earl. If he would have us. A distant hope, but what other sort was there now?

  “Take care of him, Gil.” I set the helmet down and rose on stiff knees. A faint breeze stirred the hair on the nape of my neck. At the opening of the cave, a tall shadow blocked the light from outside.

  “Cursed spider,” my brother Edward growled. In one arm, he clutched a small bundle of logs. Scowling, he waved his free hand in the air and, with a flick, smacked his palm against the wall, crushing the tiny creature. Then, too loudly: “Ah, dear brother, there you are!”

  A collective grumble of protest rolled through the cramped space. Without grace or care, Edward made his way to me, kicking a wounded soldier in the shin. The man pulled his fist back, aiming for Edward’s kneecap. But Edward was too quick. He snatched a log as thick around as his forearm from the bundle and swung it downward. Finger bones cracked. The man howled, then swore, “Virgin-fucking bastard!”

  “I am no bastard,” – Edward’s lips flickered in a wry smile, the log held out before him menacingly – “but I do favor virgins. Now get out of my way, you steaming puddle of dog vomit, before I piss on your wounds.”

  The man dragged himself backward, his teeth gritted as his wound scraped over rocks. Blood streamed from his leg, leaving a bright trail that darkened as it seeped into the dirt. Gil leered long at Edward, as he went to the man to tend to his freshly opened wound.

  I took a step and banged my head on the low ceiling. Biting back a curse, I went to my brother.

  “How many are we now, Edward?” My fingers probed the lump on my skull.

  Shrugging, he heaved the logs upon the fading coals of the fire. A cloud of ashes burst upward. Soon, everyone was awake, those closest coughing, and those that were not... well, it was doubtful they were even still alive. “A guess? Eighty less than yesterday, give or take twenty. Sorry to be so vague, but I haven’t had time to take a formal count. While you’ve been staring at the wall and lamenting your poor luck, I’ve been getting things done. Gathering firewood, for one. Sending men to fetch water and find food. Assigning the more alert ones to stand guard. Do you know that last night I tripped over a corpse in here? Boyd said his name was... och, I don’t bloody know. Maybe he didn’t say. Does it matter at this point? Anyway, we were all too tired until this morning to drag him outside and pile stones over him. The maggots were already at work on him. That’s where I just came from. Burying a dead man whose festering wounds stank like rotted meat. A man I never knew. Soon, the buzzards will be circling. That’s certain to alert the English to us.” Sniffing, he looked around. “Dear God, it reeks of death in here still. Have you checked them all?”

  He nudged at a nearby lump with the toe of his boot. The body rolled away, groaning.

  “Hah, not that one then.” Hands propped upon his hips, he swung around to face me. “Well, Robert, what next? We can’t move on with this many ailing. And if we stay long we’re sure to be found and slaughtered in our sleep. Doomed either way, it seems.”

  “We stay. For a few days, at least.” I brushed past him, as weary of body as I was of his crassness.

  “And eat what, exactly?” he said, his voice nearly lost against a cascade of coughing from behind him. “My gut’s so empty I can feel my spine against the back of my navel.”

  Ignoring him, I stumbled out into the daylight. As I passed Colin, I saw that his eye was open, unfocused. His body an empty husk. Thank God he had not suffered long. I plucked up my cloak and slung it over a shoulder.

  As I stepped outside, I squinted against the glare of sunlight. The chill was lifting. There would not be many warm days left in the year. We needed to push on, find someplace safer. Those not gravely wounded and in the few caves tucked into the hillside were scattered on the slope below, some huddled behind boulders, as if they could hide. In truth, we were no better than lame deer, hoping the wolves did not stumble upon our scent. One keen pair of eyes from any vantage point within miles and we were fallen prey.

  Close by, a sheep trail wended along the ridge before plunging downhill. I followed it, not so much because I had any purpose in mind, but because it was easier to let my feet carry me toward some unknown, than to stay and face the misery I had caused.

  Far above, the first buzzard floated, held aloft by a gentle, but steady wind. Great wings etched a dark crescent against a gray sky. The grass arou
nd me stirred into a rising rustle. The buzzard dipped a wing and glided eastward, where clouds were gathering to blot out the sun.

  Soon, I found myself in a thicket of brambles, canopied by a mosaic of ash and oak. Thorns caught on my sleeve and pricked my arm. I dropped to my knees amidst the tall grass and sank down. Wadding my cloak, I laid my head on it and pushed my fingers up over my face to trace the long scar that bordered my hairline: a reminder of Methven.

  Before Methven, we had numbered in the thousands. Before Lorne’s ambush as Dalry yesterday, over five hundred. And yet, was it only yesterday that I held my wife in my arms and spoke to her of what I dreaded most?

  “Elizabeth, whatever you think, I’ll not risk losing you. I swear it to both you and Our Lord. But I’m not ready to fight again. Not after Methven. Not yet. It’s too soon. We’ve lost too many men and have neither the weapons nor the strength to defend ourselves.”

  “But you will fight,” she said. “You’ll have to. You... we... we can’t keep running forever.”

  She drew back, gazed at me softly as her lips parted, then quickly buried her head against my chest again.

  “What, my love? Something else?” I said.

  “’Tis a small thing,” she murmured. “It can wait.”

  “You’ll tell me tonight then?”

  “Aye, tonight,” she whispered. “When we have more time.”

  That time had not come. Maybe, it never would.

  Ch. 2

  James Douglas – Balquhidder, 1306

  A slat of yellow light pried between my eyelids. Hunched forms surrounded me. Voices wove together in a muffled buzz.

  I tried to look around, but a dull throbbing mass of pain in my right shoulder seized me. A murky fog filled my head. Closing my eyes again, I succumbed to the unfeeling comfort, the nothingness. My body became heavier... slipping away, sucked down into some endless chasm of blackness.

  Calloused fingertips clamped against either side of my jaw, snatching me back to awareness.

  “Hold now. Tight,” a voice said.

  My eyes flew open.

  Robert Boyd gripped my bare shoulders, while Edward Bruce held my head. Someone had removed my shirt and chain mail. My chest and arms were bare. I shivered at the cold. A tattered blanket lay across my lap. As I reached for it, pain jolted through my arm – the lower half bent at an odd angle. Dead might have been better than this.

  Gil de la Haye positioned himself to set the bone.

  “Pain me on your life!” I growled.

  “James,” Gil murmured with a patronizing smile, “I was mending bones long before your father and mother made you.”

  Boyd jammed the hilt of his knife between my teeth. “Quiet now, lad, and let Gil do his work. If you don’t, y’may be able to thrash your sword with the other arm, but you’ll have a damnable time stringing a bow.”

  Face fixed in concentration, Gil yanked and twisted. Bone ground against bone. White, hot pain shot up my arm, into my chest and opposite shoulder. I gnashed at the hilt. Edward clamped tighter. Not daring to watch, I pitched backward against Boyd. Finally, Gil stood back and scratched at his frosted head.

  Peering over my shoulder, Boyd grunted. “No, doesn’t look right. You need to turn it a bit more.”

  I prayed to be struck unconscious at that moment.

  Gil nodded in agreement. With one slender hand, he clamped onto my right arm just below the elbow and with the other he pinched my wrist. I closed my eyes, expecting another excruciating flood of pain. I heard a little pop and he let go.

  “Impressive, Gil,” Boyd exclaimed with genuine wonder.

  Edward slipped his hands from my head and pounded Gil on the shoulder. “Well done. Now if there are any of us not reeling too hard from all the blows, I need to find someone to relieve the sentries. Lorne may have left more of ours dead than his, but he won’t swallow the humiliation of not having taken Robert alive.”

  The king’s brother strode off and Gil, oddly skilled in plucking haft splinters and arrow shafts out of flesh, went to work elsewhere. Boyd took the knife from between my teeth and stood grinning above me.

  “It will plump up like a piglet by sundown. A pleasure seeing you down for once,” he gloated. “I was starting to think you were one of those fairy folk that live forever, like the Irish have.”

  “Maybe I am.” I attempted a grin, but from his stiff reaction it must have looked more like a sneer. I think I had bruised my lip in the fall, as well. “That pleases you... that I was knocked from my horse?” The numbness in my arm was beginning to wear off. My whole right side throbbed with every pulse.

  “Every scar tells a tale, young Douglas. Some day you’ll be an old man like me. No one will ever ask you what it was like to fight alongside Robert the Bruce, King of Scots. They won’t believe you ever did with that pretty face of yours.”

  I didn’t bother to mention the scars his wife had given him or the fact that he wasn’t as old as he said. One day he was twenty-five, the next he was fifty. It was a habit of Boyd’s to bend the truth. He gimped toward the mouth of the cave.

  I called out, “Boyd?”

  “Aye?”

  “Thank you.”

  He shrugged. “For calling you ‘pretty’? Tell anyone I said that – and I’ll gut you like a fish.” Sunlight curling around his bearish form, he turned and went outside.

  For once, Boyd had not exaggerated. From just above my elbow down to each fingertip, my arm swelled so much that I had to tear the lower part of my sleeve lengthwise for relief. While we loitered in the damp cave beyond Balquhidder, the first frost gripped the land. Gil, with his nimble fingers and keen eyes, mended the injured in a crude and sometimes unconventional manner. He made me drink a potion of juniper berries. Bitter, but it numbed my pains. Piece by piece, we ripped at the hems of our cloaks and shirts for bandages. I suffered the least. Beside me lay a man younger than me named Torquil. During that first week after Dalry, he bled so heavily that he was as wan as his silver-fair Viking hair. He had a wound in his chest, just below his right shoulder. One of Lorne’s men had plunged a spear between his ribs. With his bare hands, he had pulled it out and killed the man. He came from an island he called Ba-Rah or something, to the west of Skye. So peculiar was his speech, I could only understand some of what he said. His lady, he told me through one of the other wounded who understood him better, was the widow of Duncan of Mar, the brother of Robert’s first wife Isabella. Her name was Christiana of the Isles.

  There had been no sign of Lorne’s Argyll men since Dalry, but even now we were wary, afraid to go out into the open for fear of discovery. I have no recollection of how many days we passed there in the glen, only that I was aware of the chill that crept over the land at nightfall and the frost that sparkled on the clumps of heather every morning when I rose and sat at the cave’s edge, battling not warriors of Argyll or the Earl of Pembroke’s knights, but my own persistent, nagging pain. When the swelling started to go down enough, Gil freed my arm of the crude splint he had fitted on it. He put it in a sling made from the lining of my colorful cloak – the one Robert’s wife Elizabeth had given to me. I had never deemed myself worthy of it, but still I was grateful for it.

  One morning, feeling stronger and itching with restlessness, I sat upon a rock as the sun rose pink in the east. Most of the men were still asleep, but a few had begun moving about quietly. Brisk air wrapped around me and I pulled my cloak close, hugging my knees to my chest. Robert walked along a meandering trail up to the cave. He held out a handful of berries.

  “Take these,” he offered.

  I extended my left hand and he poured them, red and bright as precious gems, into my cupped palm.

  “I’ve no penchant for them. I’d as soon live on beef and bread, as have my mouth puckered by something so tart.” Wrinkling his nose, he wiped his hands on a tattered shirt and added, “You look like some skeleton the crows have picked clean. Eat.”

  I threw them in my mouth, let them swim there f
or a few seconds while their juice flooded my entire being like a surge of fresh blood, then swallowed them all in one gulp.

  “Mmm, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so good,” I said, my hand on my throat as if I could capture the sensation again. “Thank you, my lord king, with all my heart.”

  “Thank me all you want,” – he settled down on the rock beside me and glanced at his red-stained hands – “but call me Robert.”

  “Robert?”

  “Aye. ‘Tis my name.” Shoulders hunched up toward his ears, he tucked his hands into his armpits. “Aside from Edward – and there’s a voice I deign not to hear every day for the rest of my life – no one calls me that anymore. Not since Nigel and Elizabeth left. It’s a lonely feeling, not hearing your own name. As a lad, sometimes there were three of us by the same name in the castle – myself, my father and grandfather. They had no trouble with it, but you can imagine the confusion it caused for a bold-spirited, sociable bairn like me. My grandfather... he is the one who taught me how to sit upon my horse so I would not fall, how to sail in strong winds and what words to whisper to make the maidens blush. He called me Robbie.” He paused, smiling to himself.

  They had called his grandfather Robert the Competitor, because he had contested the Balliol claim to Scotland’s empty throne. Many agreed that it belonged to the Bruces. Even England’s king, Longshanks, had promised it to Robert after his grandfather and father died. But when it became clear that Longshanks wanted Scotland for his own, Robert began to weary of empty promises. In time, John ‘the Red’ Comyn betrayed him to Longshanks, thinking it would earn him lands and titles. Greed has always been Scotland’s downfall, whether Comyn or someone else.

  When Robert called Comyn to meet him at Greyfriar’s Kirk to confront him, Comyn attacked him. Though Robert only wounded Comyn, his companion Roger Kirkpatrick finished the scoundrel for him. I would have done the same.