Kingdom by Robyn Young Page B

Bohun walked at his side, keeping pace with the king’s long stride. The sunlight dazzled Edward as they headed out. Raising his hand to shield his eyes, he saw four men garbed in the blue and white striped surcoats of Pembroke. Horses, their flanks foamy with sweat, cropped the grass close by.
    Seeing the king emerge, one of the men hastened over. Dropping to his knee, he bowed. ‘My lord king.’
    ‘What word from my cousin?’
    The knight rose quickly at the king’s impatience. ‘Sir Aymer de Valence engaged Robert Bruce five nights ago, outside Perth. Men from Galloway under Captain Dungal MacDouall aided us. Their pledge of loyalty was proven, my lord. Together, our forces destroyed his army.’
    ‘And Bruce?’ demanded Edward, his heart thudding hard against the cage of his ribs.
    ‘He evaded capture. But we came close, my lord.’ Turning to his comrades, the knight gestured.
    One of the others approached, carrying a bag. With a bow to the king, he reached inside and drew out a folded silk cloak. As Edward took it the material slipped open in his hands to reveal a red lion, rampant on gold.
    ‘Many hundreds were killed in the assault,’ continued the knight. ‘Others we took prisoner, including a member of Bruce’s own family. The rest were routed.’
    Edward didn’t answer, his gaze on the lion’s narrowed eye. The red beast had been hoisted defiantly with the first declaration of war by John Balliol, the man he had chosen to be his puppet king, but who proved to be in thrall to the powerful Comyn family and by their will had stood against his attempts to dominate the kingdom. When he defeated Balliol and first conquered Scotland, Edward had thought the reign of the lion ended when his men ripped the royal arms from Balliol’s tabard, stripping him of his kingship and sentencing him to a life in exile. But soon it had risen again, rearing over the heads of the rebels under William Wallace, who fought in the name of their banished king. He remembered the lion, huge and lurid on a wall in the ruins of Ayr, painted by the followers of Robert Bruce, who had turned on him.
    There followed campaign after campaign, draining Edward’s treasury and testing the loyalty of his barons. Two years ago, when the royal banner had been torn from the battlements of Stirling, the last castle to fall to his might, he believed it brought down for good. The magnates of Scotland had surrendered at St Andrews, the kingdom was relegated to a land and Wallace had been executed, his quartered body packed in barrels and sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth to be strung up on their walls; bloody tokens of Edward’s imperial might. But then Robert Bruce had risen up once more and with him that lion, proud as Satan.
    He had taken the man into his household. Not once, but twice. He had fed him, trained him, sanctioned his marriage, given him land and authority. All the while, the serpent had been waiting to strike.
    Humphrey’s eyes, too, lingered on the cloak. ‘It is a poor substitute for the man himself.’
    Edward stirred. ‘Did you find anything else? Any other possessions?’
    ‘Only supplies and gear, my lord. We took a good number of horses, along with weapons and armour.’
    ‘We will find him, my lord,’ said Humphrey, turning to the king. ‘And that which he took.’
    Edward met his gaze, knowing his son-in-law had read his mind.
    How many nights had he lain awake, pain gnawing at his bowels, his thoughts fixed on the box Bruce had stolen? His feverish mind had drifted often to the fate of the Gascon commander, Adam, missing since he was ordered to Ireland with a crossbow bolt meant for Bruce. Was Adam truly dead, as Bruce had told Humphrey, or had he been kept alive – proof of Edward’s sin? And if Bruce knew enough to take the box from Westminster Abbey when he fled, did he also know the truth about King Alexander’s death on the road to Kinghorn?
    ‘Where is Bruce now?’ Humphrey asked the