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  Others told a different story. Messengers came with news of the massive defeats suffered by the English forces in Galloway and Loudoun Hill. They spoke of men flocking to Robert’s banner from across Carrick, Ayrshire, Bute, Kyle Stewart and Renfrew, and of the rebel’s command of an indomitable fleet that now controlled the waters. They spoke, too, of a prophecy sweeping Scotland: a prophecy that foretold his own death and augured the rise of Bruce as a new leader of the Britons. King Arthur reborn.

  His men had failed him. His son, estranged from him in London, had disappointed him. No one else could be trusted to do what must be done. Edward knew that now. Sending missives into England and Wales, summoning the commissioners of array to call all able-bodied men to muster in Carlisle in three weeks’ time, he had ordered his court to make ready to leave Lanercost Priory. He would meet his army in the city, then lead them to the Solway Firth where he would cross into Scotland and take the head of the traitor himself. He was Arthur – the Dragon King, ruler of all Britain. No one else would wear this mantle, least not Robert Bruce, the man who had threatened to undo his life’s work and who now threatened his very legacy.

  As Simon opened the door for him, eyes downcast, Edward moved slowly out into the passage, every part of his body protesting. He could barely breathe for the awful, solid pain in his bowels. He’d pissed black blood that morning. Outside, the June sunlight caused his eyes to water. He squinted against its glare as he made his way across the priory’s lawn, away from the timber building that had been his dwelling all these months. He felt good to be leaving it, despite the agony of doing so. Too long had he stayed within its walls; too long had he relied on others to fulfil his last intent.

  Carts piled with chests, sacks, coffers and barrels were lined up, grooms adjusting the harnesses, porters making last checks of the loads. The royal knights were waiting with their horses and squires. Queen Marguerite was there, mounted on a dappled palfrey, with his sons, Thomas and Edmund, and his infant daughter, Eleanor, swaddled against her wet nurse. His family would ride with him to Carlisle where he would leave them. Maids and cooks, tailors and clerics, all watched in silence as their once formidable, proud king, limped painfully across the grass to where Bayard stood. The warhorse was held by his squire, its scarlet trapper drifting in the wind. His men had prepared a litter for the journey, but Edward was determined he would ride into Scotland of his own volition; ride in as the warrior king he had always been. It was time to end this war, once and for all.

  Chapter 30

  Near Ayr, Scotland, 1307 AD

  ‘They’re coming.’

  Robert turned at his brother’s voice. ‘How many?’

  Edward pushed through the trails of ivy that cloaked the chapel’s entrance. The doorway was one of the only parts of the ancient structure still standing. The rest was a pale skeleton of weather-stained stone, ribs of arches and crumbling walls holding up a ceiling of sky. ‘Ten,’ answered Edward, joining him in the ruins. ‘As promised.’

  Robert nodded, but the tension didn’t leave him. He glanced towards the cracked remains of the altar, where Gilbert and Neil stood over the kneeling form of Henry Percy. The lord’s head was covered with a hood, his hands bound behind his back. He had lost weight during his captivity, although his stomach still bulged over his belt. When they hauled him from the galley that morning, up the cliff path to the ruins, Percy had cursed them, spitting threats through his hood. Now, he was silent, waiting. The fourth figure standing with them was Alexander Seton, his dark eyes fixed on the archway.

  So far, everything was going as planned. Robert’s men had been scouting the area these past three days for any sign this was a trap, as James Stewart and others had feared, but they had found nothing to indicate such. Now the English had arrived as expected with the number of men stipulated, a number matched by Robert’s company. Alexander Seton’s contrition and desire to make amends thus seemed proven, but he’d hardly said a word on the crossing from Barra and his reticence had begun to make Robert uneasy. He felt the man was keeping something from him. But, if so, he wasn’t the only one. Robert hadn’t yet told Alexander about Christopher’s execution and had ordered his men to keep quiet on the matter for the time being. He didn’t want anything disrupting this parley, especially in light of David of Atholl’s reaction to his father’s death.

  Hearing hoof-beats drumming outside, Robert looked back at the chapel’s entrance to see a company come into view through the ivy-covered arch. They pulled their horses to a halt a short distance away, where knights from Carrick were waiting to greet them. Robert watched closely, his hand resting on his sword, as the ten men dismounted. In the cove below, Lachlan’s galley waited, enabling him to beat a hasty retreat if necessary, but that was scant comfort now. If he was wrong in his judgement everything could be over for him in the next few moments.

  There was a brief exchange and a figure stepped forward. He wore a blue surcoat, slashed with a white band, on either side of which were six golden lions. Unsheathing his sword, the man handed it to one of the knights, then began to walk towards the chapel, looking guardedly around him. Robert felt the blood pound in his temples as Humphrey de Bohun entered the ruin, his green eyes falling on him.

  Humphrey had last seen Robert almost two years ago, when the man fled Westminster, his plan to take the throne in defiance of King Edward revealed in documents found on William Wallace. He was stunned by the change in his former friend. Robert, fresh-faced and handsome in youth, looked older than his thirty-three years. The glare of the midday sun beating down on the chapel’s rubble-strewn aisle made a stark display of the scars on his cheeks and the lines that furrowed his brow. The stubble that shadowed his jaw was black, but his dark, shoulder-length hair had a few streaks of grey at the sides. Despite the fact he looked leaner in the waist he was still broad in the shoulders and clearly hadn’t spent long without a sword in his hand. His surcoat displayed the red lion of Scotland, but the garment was damaged, crudely stitched in places.

  After his surprise passed, Humphrey felt a tide of emotions sweep in. First came a spike of anticipation – the realisation that the quarry he’d been hunting all these months was now just within his reach. He thought briefly of Aymer, several miles away in Ayr, unaware that he was here, only paces from their mortal enemy. There was a heady moment where he wondered, if he killed Robert right now, whether the war would be ended, but as Humphrey’s fingers drifted towards his hip he remembered he had given up his weapon. He noted Robert’s hand curled around the hilt of his sheathed sword and felt at once vulnerable without his own. Beneath the urge to violence were older emotions – glimmers of friendship, shadows of regret and betrayal. But, as Humphrey came to a stop before Robert and Edward, one feeling lifted clear above the rest: hope that the man in front of him held the answers he needed.

  Flies buzzed in the sticky air as the three men studied one another in silence. Humphrey saw only hostility in Edward Bruce’s eyes, but there was something more thoughtful and pensive in Robert’s. Beyond the king and his brother, down by the remains of an altar, three men, one of whom was Alexander Seton, stood over a kneeling, hooded figure, who, by the arms on surcoat and his girth, Humphrey knew was Henry Percy.

  Robert followed his gaze with a nod. ‘As you can see, I have what you want.’ He looked back at Humphrey. His tone was stiff with cold formality. ‘I want something in return.’

  Humphrey studied him. If Robert felt anything about this dangerous reunion, he was keeping it well hidden. ‘Sir Alexander told me – you want your family freed.’

  ‘When they are released I will give you Sir Henry, unharmed. You have my word.’

  Humphrey bit back the impulse to demand how he could be expected to trust the word of a traitor. ‘May we speak alone?’

  Edward Bruce cut in angrily. ‘Say what you will. I am staying.’

  Robert held Humphrey’s gaze for a long moment, then nodded to Edward. ‘Let me hear what he has to say.’

  ‘Bro
ther—’

  ‘That’s an order.’

  Edward looked as if he were going to protest, but then he backed away and joined his comrades and their prisoner.

  Humphrey waited until he was out of earshot. There were so many questions. He paused, then chose the first that came to mind – the easiest. ‘Where is the Staff of Malachy?’

  Robert let out a rough bark of laughter. ‘You think I will answer that? This parley is for an exchange of prisoners – nothing more. I’ve not come here for an interrogation.’

  ‘And I’ve not come to satisfy your wishes. I could have brought an army with me today – taken Percy by force and seized you. I haven’t. But in return for that I want something for myself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want answers, Robert.’ When the man didn’t respond, Humphrey continued. ‘Why did you do it? Why take the staff, knowing what you knew?’

  Robert turned away, shaking his head.

  Humphrey stepped in front of him. ‘Or did you never believe? Was it all a lie when you took the oath in Conwy? Did you join our brotherhood never intending to keep your vows? Did you always know you would betray me?’ That last question bubbled up unexpectedly, the strength of feeling behind it surprising Humphrey. He realised, on asking it, that deep down, no matter Robert’s deception, he had not been able to bring himself to believe that their friendship had been a lie. He could not square that with the man he had known all those years. ‘I trusted you, Robert – fought alongside you in battle, laughed with you, confided in you. I bore your burdens, just as you bore mine. Did none of that mean anything? Please, tell me. I have to know.’

  Robert didn’t look as though he were going to answer. A gull landed on one of the fractured arches and called into his silence. ‘It wasn’t all a lie.’

  His voice was so quiet Humphrey had to strain to hear him over the crying of the gull.

  ‘I believed in the oaths I had taken and I believed in our friendship, until the night we rode into Scone.’ Robert glanced behind him to where his men stood, some distance away. ‘Until you forced me to take the Stone of Destiny.’

  ‘It wasn’t belief that turned in you then,’ countered Humphrey, anger shooting through him. ‘It was pride. You wouldn’t give up your claim to the throne, even if it meant bringing both our kingdoms to ruin!’

  ‘I swore an oath to my grandfather long before I swore my oath to Edward. I told him I would defend my family’s right to the throne of Scotland. In that moment, I realised I could no longer serve two masters. I had to choose.’ Robert met Humphrey’s eyes. ‘And now I know I made the right choice. Now I know the truth behind your king’s so-called Last Prophecy.’

  Humphrey felt his heart begin to thump. Now, he was nearing it – the question that had brought him here. ‘What of your prophecy – the death of the covetous king that will augur your rise to power as a new leader of the Britons? Will you try to tell me that is truth?’

  ‘My prophecy is as true as men want it to be.’ Robert smiled, but there was no humour in the expression. ‘King Edward taught me well.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Robert shook his head. ‘Let us do what we came here to do, Humphrey. Let us agree this exchange. My family for Percy. Yes?’

  ‘Tell me. I want to know.’

  As Robert studied him something shifted in his face, his expression changing from cold suspicion to faint surprise. ‘When I took the box from Westminster it broke. When I looked inside there was no prophecy.’

  Humphrey felt an icy tide wash through him, hearing Robert repeat what Alexander had told him in Ayr, but, still, he refused to accept it as truth. ‘The text King Edward found at Nefyn was ancient. He had the Last Prophecy translated and kept the original locked in that box because he feared it could turn to dust. Maybe it had.’

  ‘There was nothing, Humphrey. No trace of anything.’

  ‘It predicted the death of King Alexander. It said he would die without issue. If the prophecy wasn’t real, how is that possible?’

  ‘That’s what kept me doubting, even after I made my decision to fight for my kingdom – what kept me fearing I might bring Britain to ruin by my actions. Until this.’ Reaching into the front of his surcoat, Robert pulled out the fragment of iron he wore around his neck on a worn leather thong. ‘That night in my father’s manor five years ago – the night we fought – I told you I didn’t know the man who attacked me in Ireland. It wasn’t a lie. I didn’t know him. But James Stewart did.’

  Humphrey listened, disquiet rising, as Robert spoke of the corpse in the cellar of Dunluce Castle and the high steward’s shock as he recognised the dead man as Adam, a squire of King Alexander who had come from France in Queen Yolande’s retinue and had escorted Alexander to his new bride at Kinghorn.

  ‘This man,’ continued Robert, ‘who hunted me down in Ireland was with Alexander the night he died. That can be no mere coincidence. I was at Birgham, Humphrey. I heard Edward claim that Alexander had wanted to join their houses in marriage. He said our king had spoken of a possible union between Margaret of Norway and his infant son. If that marriage had gone ahead Edward would have taken control of Scotland through his son. But, then, Alexander chose Yolande for his new bride.’

  Humphrey, seeing the abyss into which this conversation was heading – a far darker, deeper one than he had imagined – turned from Robert. But even as he did so he thought of Adam, commander of one of the king’s crossbow regiments in Gascony and a member of the Knights of the Dragon. He hadn’t seen the man in years. Edward had ordered him to question Robert on the identity of his attacker and whether the man was still alive. Proof. He wanted to know if they had proof. Humphrey had wondered himself about the king’s possible involvement in Robert’s attack, but had dismissed it as unthinkable. Now, a parade of the king’s latest victims marched through his mind: John of Atholl, Christopher Seton, Alexander Bruce. He had seen, first-hand, what Edward was capable of. But the murder of his brother-in-law? Regicide? He plotted against his father. After Evesham, he had the body of his own godfather, Simon de Montfort, mutilated. You saw what he did to his own son, just weeks ago.

  ‘Any children Alexander and Yolande had would have taken precedence over Margaret as heir to the throne of Scotland.’

  ‘Stop,’ murmured Humphrey. There was little force to the command.

  ‘After Alexander died, Edward secured the pope’s permission for his son to marry Margaret as planned. He would have got his wish had she not died on the voyage.’

  Humphrey crossed to a stump of broken pillar and leaned against it. This was it – the spider at the centre of the web of secrets he had sensed spun between the king and Robert. It was, he knew, why he had felt so discomforted by the executions of Robert’s brothers, why guilt had assailed him at the incarceration of the man’s wife and family, and why his questions these past months had begun to shift in another, far more unpalatable, direction. His heart had known something his head had refused to accept: that Robert wasn’t the only one who had lied to him. His wasn’t the only betrayal.

  Robert followed him, impassioned. ‘I believe Edward ordered Alexander’s murder so he could take control of Scotland, easily, without a prolonged war. And I believe he invented the Last Prophecy to legitimise his conquest of Britain and keep his men faithful to his cause. The relics he took are powerful symbols of the sovereignty of each of our nations. In taking them for himself he claimed the very souls of our kingdoms. But he claimed you too, Humphrey. While he conquered my country with the sword, he conquered you with the power of prophecy. You fought for his lie because you believed you were saving Britain. You weren’t. You were destroying it.’

  Humphrey’s mind filled with the slow decay he had seen in England these past years; rising poverty in the countryside and lawlessness growing in the towns. He thought of the reports coming in from beleaguered English settlers in Ireland, towns abandoned as the Irish pressed in on the borders. He had a fleeting thought of the king’s sickn
ess spreading to infect the realm, as if Edward himself had become the canker at the core of it. As he met Robert’s gaze, he realised the man looked relieved, as if lifted of a burden. In turn, he felt as though all that weight were now crushing his own shoulders. ‘Why have you said nothing before now?’

  ‘Edward built this lie over years. Its foundations are deep and the defences he has raised around it – in the Knights of the Dragon and his Round Table – are mighty. It would take a lot more than my word to bring it crashing down. I had hoped to use the prophecy box against him somehow, but it was taken with my brother.’

  ‘Have you told your men?’

  ‘A small number know the box was empty. But Sir James asked me to keep my silence on my suspicions over Alexander’s death. I wanted to find proof in London, but then Wallace was caught and . . .’ Robert trailed off, shaking his head. ‘In truth, I do not expect anything in telling you this, Humphrey. All I want now is my family. My daughter is in a cage, for Christ’s sake!’

  Humphrey pushed a gloved hand through his hair, closing his eyes. He couldn’t take all this in – not yet – and he couldn’t show any more weakness in front of Robert. The man was still his enemy. No matter what else this meeting had yielded that fact remained. He straightened, meeting Robert’s eyes. ‘Marjorie isn’t in a cage. Edward passed the sentence upon her, yes, and she was taken to the Tower on his orders. But she never went into the cage. Queen Marguerite eventually managed to persuade him to house your daughter in a room there. Marjorie even has one of her own maids with her, I believe.’