Lion at Bay by Robert Low Page B

a sovereignty over the island nation that none before him had ever enjoyed.
    He was sixty-six years old – less than half a year would take him past the point of being the longest-lived king England had known. Nor, Bruce added moodily to himself, was he showing any signs of ailing anytime soon – it was clear to everyone that his young queen was pregnant again.
    The Plantagenet voice was equally firm and ringing loud when he spoke, of discordance made harmony, of lambs returned to the fold. Bruce watched some of the lambs – Buchan and the recently freed Lord of Badenoch for two, smiling wolves in fine wool clothing, watching him in return and offering their lying, polite nods across the rushed floor.
    Then there was Wishart, wrapped in prelate purple as rich as his complexion, and Sir John Moubray with his lowered scorn of brow. My ox team, Bruce thought to himself, the three of us shackled to Longshanks to bring the Kingdom – no, the
land
– of the Scots to order for his nephew, John of Brittany, to rule as governor. That was a platform Bruce had a use for.
    Yet even now the Comyn were exerting themselves, insidious as serpent coils, and Bruce could feel them undermining him with an inclusion of extra ‘assistance’ on this concordat of
nobiles
. Like mice, he thought, eating the cake from the inside out.
    One by one, the summoned Scots lords came forward, knelt and swore their fealty in return for the favour of the silvered king and the restoration of their lands with only hefty fines as punishment. Bruce was last of all; once he would have bridled at this affront to his honour and dignity – he had once before, signing the Ragman Roll – but he had been younger and more foolish then.
    Smiling, a beneficent old uncle, Longshanks raised him up pointedly, so others would see the favour – Bruce saw the silk and velvet Caernarvon scowl as Gaveston whispered something in his ear; Gaveston was a mistake, Bruce saw, and not the bettering influence Edward had hoped for his son.
    The music returned, the talk, the bellowed laughter and the mingling. It was then that Edward sprang the steel trap, signalling Wishart and Moubray and Bruce close to the high seat. In front of him was a wrapped bundle, which he twitched open with a small flourish.
    Bruce’s heart faltered a beat, then started to run at the sight of the battered gilt. The rubies had been removed, but the Rood reliquary, blackened and charred still glowed with gilt; Jop’s half, Bruce thought, trying to gather the wild scatter of his thoughts.
    ‘Taken from Riccarton, my lords,’ Edward growled, his drooping eye baleful, ‘which was a Wallace holding in the lands of the Scotch.’
    Behind him, the prince and others craned curiously to see better and it was a mark of things that Edward let them.
    ‘Indeed?’ Wishart replied, frowning, his voice innocent. ‘That looks greatly like the cover for the Black Rood, which Your Grace took to the safety of the minster.’
    ‘It is the same,’ snapped Edward, then waved one hand dismissively. ‘Removed by thieves last year. Now it seems likely your Scotch were responsible, my lords. A chapel was left in flames at Riccarton and a man murdered, a certain Gilbert of Beverley also known as Jop; a search of his belongings discovered this. A miracle it was not consumed by flame, my lords.’
    ‘Christ be praised,’ intoned Wishart.
    ‘For ever and ever.’
    ‘Gilbert of Beverley,’ Moubray pointed out sourly, ‘is an Englishman.’
    The drooping eye raked him.
    ‘Kin to the Wallace.’
    The King presented the fact significantly, like a lawyer ending his case.
    ‘Has Your Grace made enquiries?’ Wishart asked blandly and the King’s drooping eye twitched a little as he considered if the bishop’s innocence was real. In the end, he made a small flicking gesture of dismissal.
    ‘The local priest claimed only to be witness to the invasion and torching of the house of God. He might have said more than he did,