Insurrection (27 page)

The black-haired knight kept his gaze on Robert. ‘
This
is a private gathering.’

Ignoring him, Humphrey addressed the others. ‘May I present Sir Robert Bruce, the Earl of Carrick.’

‘Of course,’ said one knight, nodding to Robert from the couch where he was sprawled. He was stocky, with thick blond hair and a lazy smile that wasn’t quite reflected in his eyes, a chilly shade of blue. ‘Your family owns lands near mine in Yorkshire, Sir Robert. My father knows yours well. I’m Henry Percy, Lord of Alnwick.’

There was a natural haughtiness in the man’s tone, which by now was quite familiar to Robert. He recognised the name and knew the young man was the grandson of Earl John de Warenne.

Another youth, barely out of adolescence and wearing a bold grin, raised a hand in greeting. ‘Welcome, Sir Robert. I’m Thomas.’

Robert inclined his head. A few nodded in return, the rest striking up their conversations once more. Eventually, the black-haired knight turned his hostile gaze away.

‘Don’t pay Aymer any heed,’ murmured Humphrey, leading Robert to where a servant was standing with a jug of wine. At Humphrey’s gesture, the servant poured two goblets. ‘He is just sore that I beat him today.’

‘Aymer?’

Humphrey took a sip of wine. ‘Aymer de Valence.’ He motioned subtly to the black-haired knight. ‘Son and heir of Sir William de Valence, the Earl of Pembroke. You must have heard of him.’

Robert had. His grandfather had fought alongside William de Valence at the Battle of Lewes and his father had been on campaign with him in Wales. A half-brother of Henry, born and raised in Poitou, Valence had come to England as a young man and had been one of the main causes of the war between the king and Simon de Montfort. If Aymer was William’s son that made him King Edward’s cousin. ‘I know the Valences by reputation,’ he said carefully.

Humphrey chuckled, seeming to get his meaning, then pointed to the youth who had introduced himself as Thomas. ‘That’s Thomas of Lancaster, son of Earl Edmund, the king’s brother.’

‘I don’t think I saw him in the joust today.’

‘You wouldn’t have. He’s only sixteen.’ Humphrey pursed his lips appreciatively. ‘But he’ll be in the lists the day he’s dubbed. I’ve never seen anyone so good so young.’ Polishing off his wine and handing the goblet to the servant for refilling, Humphrey gestured, one by one, to the other men in the chamber.

Robert listened as he drank the potent wine, impressed by the list of titles. These men, despite their youth, were lords of England’s greatest estates, or else were due to inherit them. As an earl, not in waiting but in name, he outranked them all, but there was no denying the blatant power held by these young men, relaxing in a former king’s apartments. The setting seemed worlds away from the sea-stained walls of  Turnberry.

Before Humphrey could finish the private introductions, the door burst open and a boy darted in. Slamming it shut behind him, he dived behind one of the couches.

Some moments later, the door opened again and an elderly man appeared. ‘My lords,’ he wheezed, staring around at the group. ‘Have you seen the young master?’

‘He came and then he went,’ said Thomas of Lancaster, motioning to a door on the other side of the chamber.

‘Thank you, Master Thomas,’ breathed the man, heading on through. ‘Good evening to you, my lords.’

When the old man had disappeared, his footsteps fading, the boy vaulted over the couch and wedged himself between a grinning Thomas and Henry Percy. He was rather lanky, with feathery fair hair and a very familiar face. Robert realised he was staring when Humphrey leaned in.

‘He looks a lot like his father, doesn’t he?’

Robert knew at once where the familiarity came from. It was with the king himself. The boy must be his son, Edward of Caernarfon, heir to the throne of England. Robert recalled the meeting years ago, after Birgham, at which so many men had argued over the future of this boy and his marriage to Scotland’s queen. It seemed strange now to be standing in his presence.

Thomas of Lancaster snapped his fingers at the servant, who poured out a goblet of wine. ‘If you tell your father, I’ll deny it,’ he warned when the servant handed the goblet to Edward. ‘Wine is not for the young and silly,’ he intoned, as if reciting something an adult had once said. ‘It is for men.’

The boy’s pale brow creased as he took the goblet and drank, the wine staining his mouth. ‘My father doesn’t care what I do, so long as it is out of his sight.’ He shrugged. ‘Not since Mother died.’ As he caught sight of Robert, his frown deepened. ‘Who is he?’

Humphrey went to answer for Robert, then paused at the sound of more hurried footsteps outside. He raised an eyebrow. ‘How many governors are chasing you tonight, my lord?’

The door opened and a man appeared, clad in a yellow mantle embroidered with a green eagle. Robert recognised the coat of arms from the joust.

The man glanced quickly around the room. Seeing Humphrey he crossed to him.

Humphrey’s smile of greeting faded at the man’s grim expression. ‘What is it, Ralph?’

‘Earl Edmund has returned from France.’

Thomas of Lancaster stood at the mention of his father.

‘King Philippe has gone back on his word and confiscated Gascony. He has withdrawn the invitation to King Edward to seal the peace agreement and has poured an army into the duchy.’ The knight glanced around at the silent men in the chamber. ‘It is a declaration of war.’

23

Gone were the dancers and the music, the silver platters piled with delicacies and the jugs of wine. Gone too was the gaiety. All that remained of the feast was a lingering smell of burned meat and a few crushed rose petals, missed by the servants’ brooms. The great hall was filled with men, their voices raised not in song or laughter, but in anger. The spring parliament the king had summoned to discuss his hopes for the liberation of the Holy Land had been taken over by the matter of France. King Philippe himself had recently pledged his support for a new crusade and had built a fleet of ships for the move east. Now, it seemed, those ships were turned towards England.

King Edward was on the dais above the assembly of nobles, his hands curled around the arms of his throne. He wore his fifty-five years heavily this morning, the pallid light filtering through the hall’s high windows turning his hair to coarse silver and highlighting the droop of his eye, the defect inherited from his father. John de Warenne and Anthony Bek had joined the king on the platform along with several black-robed clerks. The rest of the company were packed in on benches that faced the throne, their heads turned towards the Seneschal of Gascony, who was speaking.

‘After the order came from England that we were to surrender the towns temporarily, we waited for King Philippe’s men to arrive and take our posts.’ The seneschal looked up at Edward. ‘But it wasn’t just officials who came, my lord. It was an army.’ His voice strengthened with feeling. ‘They told us that Philippe had declared the duchy forfeit and he was now its ruler. The knights that poured into Bordeaux and the Agenais, Bayonne and Blaye told our men the same thing. They said Gascony was no longer English territory and that if we ever returned the soil would run with English blood.’

‘How could this have happened?’ said the Earl of Arundel, rising as the seneschal finished speaking. ‘My lord,’ he said, facing Edward, ‘none here could have known that King Philippe had no intention of returning Gascony to you after its surrender, or that the peace agreement and marriage settlement were nothing but ruses intended to force you to yield the duchy without a struggle. But what I cannot comprehend is how his lies were so readily believed?’ He looked around the hall. ‘And why none of us was consulted on the terms Earl Edmund delivered from Paris? I think I speak for many when I say we would have strongly urged the sealing of the peace agreement before the duchy was ceded.’

Robert, some distance back, craned his head to look at the Earl of Lancaster, seated in silence on one of the benches. He had initially been surprised to see the king’s brother on the floor with the barons and knights, rather than on the dais, but it seemed this was perhaps punishment for Earl Edmund’s handling of the negotiations in Paris, which had ended in this disaster. If it had been Edward’s intention to make an example of his younger brother, however, it didn’t seem to have worked, for few of the noblemen present were blaming the withdrawn Earl of Lancaster, all their anger instead directed to the throne.

‘The king did consult,’ responded John de Warenne roughly, ‘with his officials.’

Warenne, his flint-grey hair cropped brutally close to his head and his stare bellicose, seemed more aggressive than Robert remembered. He wondered if the change in the earl’s character might be due to the recent death of his daughter, John Balliol’s wife.

The Earl of Gloucester, a beefy man with thinning auburn hair, got to his feet. On the bench beside the earl, Robert saw the elderly nobleman who had criticised the king at the feast the evening before.

‘He may have consulted them,’ said Gloucester, his strident voice echoing, ‘but from what I heard, our lord dismissed the advice of those closest to him in favour of his own counsel. The chancellor advised him to reject the terms from Paris, as the rest of us would have done if presented with them.’ He turned his belligerent gaze on the king. ‘My question, Lord King, would be why. If I did not already know the answer.’

As the Earl of Gloucester’s words rang accusingly, Robert’s gaze remained on the king. He had never imagined the man on that throne, above all others except for God, so privileged, so powerful, could appear vulnerable, but Edward did – vulnerable and alone – a rigid mast thrust above a sea of accusatory faces. Recognising something occasionally glimpsed in his father and grandfather, Robert realised he was looking at the isolation that came with power. Perhaps the Comyns had the right idea: to be close enough to the throne to control it, but not so close as to become the object of men’s discontent.

‘Earl Gilbert,’ warned John de Warenne, ‘you would be advised to keep a civil tongue.’

‘Why?’ demanded Gloucester. ‘When it is my sword that will be required to win back the duchy? My men who will have to be raised for the fight? Had all of us here been equally betrayed by France then we would stand with our king united in anger and defiance. But we were not given the choice of rejecting Philippe’s terms. Neither did any of us have the hand of a French virgin dangled before us on a hook. We were not the ones reeled in. Why should we be served up on Philippe’s platter?’

As a host of voices, some incensed, others concurring, broke across the hall, Robert looked over at the aged Earl of Gloucester, whose long history of antagonism towards the king was well known. Gloucester had recently been married to one of the king’s daughters, a surprise considering his reputation, but then by bringing the powerful earl into the royal family and keeping him close, Edward had no doubt hoped to avoid just this kind of altercation. Recalling his grandfather’s talk of the war between Simon de Montfort and King Henry, Robert guessed Edward must have learned well at the feet of his father how an unhappy baron could be a dangerous one.

More earls were rising, some adding their agreement to Gloucester’s accusations. Others were coming to the king’s defence. Robert saw that one man, who now stood to harangue the Earl of Gloucester, had been sitting beside Humphrey de Bohun. Gone was the young knight’s amiable manner as he looked up solemnly at the man speaking, whose broad face was so alike his own that Robert guessed he must be his father, the Earl of Hereford and Essex, and Constable of England. Hereford wasn’t the only one defending Edward. The voice of Anthony Bek boomed out, demanding Gloucester be held in contempt for his lack of respect for his king, who had been deceived not by lust for a new bride, but by the cunning of his iniquitous cousin, who, like a wolf garbed in the wool of a lamb, had offered peace and delivered wickedness. France, not their king, deserved their wrath, he fulminated, raising his fist to the gathering as if he were on a pulpit.

Edward rose from his throne. ‘Enough!’

At the harsh command all fell silent, those on their feet sitting back down, one by one. For a long moment, the king said nothing, but stood there in his black robe, a dark tower of rage. Then, all at once, the fury seemed to drain from him and he hung his head. ‘Earl Gilbert is right.’

Men glanced at one another. Many looked over at Gloucester, who was staring at Edward, his face filled with uneasy mistrust.

Edward raised his eyes. ‘I was a fool to trust Philippe.’

For a moment, Robert thought he saw anger still struggling within the king’s face, then it was gone and his expression was one of remorse.

‘I admit the marriage agreement seemed a blessing to me. Most of my children are dead. I have only one male heir and one is hardly enough.’

Robert found himself nodding, thinking of King Alexander.

‘It was not lust, but duty to this realm and to my subjects that spurred me to act as I did. Rash though it may have been, imprudent though it was.’

The barons were hushed to a man. Gloucester looked uncomfortable, no longer able to meet the king’s gaze.

Edward walked from his throne, down the steps of the dais. He paused for a moment before them all, then knelt on the floor in front of the benches. Robert sat up to get a better view of the kneeling monarch. His hair steely in the morning light, his robes settling around him in a black pool, Edward looked more regal in that moment than he ever had before.