Insurrection: Renegade [02] by Robyn Young Page A

dismounted to greet him, Edward’s suspicions had been confirmed. The two men were official papal messengers, sent by Pope Boniface.
    ‘Wine and food for my guests,’ Edward ordered the servants waiting in the interior. Two disappeared through curtains at the back of the pavilion, while the others hastened to rearrange furniture for the visitors. ‘Sit,’ Edward told them, ignoring the high-backed cushioned chair one of his pages moved out for him. He waited as the two papal messengers and the archbishop sat, leaving the clerics to hover behind. Bek wedged himself into a corner, his eyes on Winchelsea.
    Winchelsea frowned at the stool that was offered to him when the king remained standing. He looked for a moment as if he wouldn’t accept it, but under Edward’s unyielding gaze he did so. ‘And how is the young queen, my lord? I hear she gave birth to a boy.’ Winchelsea’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Time passes fast. I can scarcely believe it was little over two years ago that I married you both at Canterbury.’
    ‘Lady Marguerite and my son are in good humour at York,’ Edward replied. ‘But I somehow doubt you made the long journey to the front line of my war for the purpose of enquiring about my wife’s health. Let us dispense with the pleasantries, your grace. They do not suit us. Why have you come?’
    The smile slipped easily from Winchelsea’s face, his broad shoulders hunching as he leaned forward, fixed on the king. ‘My esteemed colleagues here arrived in England two months ago. When they discovered you had left on campaign they came to me at Canterbury. I volunteered to escort them to your presence. I judged the message they bore important enough not to wait for your return.’
    ‘How charitable of you, your grace.’
    The archbishop ignored the king’s ominous tone. As the servants entered, bearing jugs of wine and platters of bread, cured meat and pungent yellow cheese, Winchelsea nodded to one of the scarlet-robed messengers. The man stood and drew a scroll from the leather bag he carried. Bek came forward to take it, disregarding the goblet of wine a page tried to pass to him.
    Edward noted the large papal seal attached to the parchment as the Bishop of Durham opened the scroll. The hush inside was filled by the muted din of the camp outside, over which the sound of splintering stone echoed as the siege engines continued to batter Caerlaverock’s walls. Winchelsea accepted the proffered wine, grasping the silver goblet in his fist. He was the only man who did, the servants backing away to the sides of the tent, bearing the untouched platters of food.
    Finally, Bek finished reading and looked up at the king. ‘The pope, my lord, demands that you cease all hostilities against Scotland, which his holiness describes as a daughter of the Holy See.’
    With these words, Edward understood why Winchelsea had come all the way to his siege lines to deliver a simple message. The man had been vocal about the war since his election to the archbishopric in 1295, on the eve of the first invasion of Scotland. That invasion had been an unqualified success. Within months, John Balliol, the man Edward had set upon the throne after King Alexander’s death and who had rebelled, was deposed and imprisoned in the Tower, the kingdom under Edward’s command. But it had been a victory short-lived, for a year later William Wallace had risen to lead the Scots in insurrection. His treasury drained by wars in Wales and Gascony, Edward had been forced to ask the Church for funds to finance his struggle against the rebels. It was Winchelsea who stood against him, refusing to submit to his demands. In retaliation Edward outlawed the clergy and sent his knights to seize their goods and property, but Winchelsea remained firm in the face of the harsh measures. A test of faith, he had called it.
    Since that time, Edward and the archbishop had slipped into an uneasy truce, but it was clear, by the way he had seized