The Honor Due a King Read Free Page A

inside and build a fire; dry off while we wait.”
    “Eight years is long enough to wait,” I mumbled.
    “So it is,” he said, “but it would be a great shame to have them come home to find you drowned in your boots. Come inside, Robert. The abbot is still in a terror over this shambles, but I warrant he’ll make the best of it to lodge his king.”
    Without so much as a word from me, James put a hand on my back and guided me across the squelching earth, sidestepping the toppled stones, and up the broad steps of sandstone into Melrose Abbey.
    A belligerent wind hammered its way through gaps and cracks, pushing gusts of rain across the floor. Although damp throughout, it was drier toward the chancel. As I drifted warily toward the altar, white-robed Cistercian monks scattered from the shadows of either transept and disappeared behind lofty columns. Rusted hinges groaned hauntingly.
    “Fine welcome,” I murmured. With cramped hands, I wrung the tail of my cloak, then unfastened the golden clasp inlaid with an emerald at my shoulder – courtesy of King Edward – and snapped the water from it.
    James glanced around. “They’re men of peace. They don’t like soldiers: English or Scottish. It’s not so much us they hate, but that we might invite battle to their doorstep just by being here.”
    “I worry about that myself wherever I go. Bring Walter to me and go fetch the abbot. Invited or not, we’re staying here.”
    Reluctantly, James ventured back out into the deluge. Alone, I stood in the middle of the nave, nothing but shadows surrounding me and the distant hushed footsteps of monks in other parts of the church, tending to their devotions and duties. I took four steps more toward the altar. Hushed echoes seemed to question my worthiness of being there.
    Fitful drafts of wind blew out a torch on a column nearest to me. I pressed forward, step by step, in defiance of my tepid greeting, until I reached the altar. There, I dropped my cloak, went to my knees on the cold, wet stones and folded my hands in prayer. A pater noster tumbled from my lips in thoughtless fashion, but before saying my ‘Amen’, I gazed over my knuckles to the crucifix dangling askance above the altar.
    “I ask not for great riches or further glory, My Lord. Only to see those whom I love come home.” I closed my eyes.
    A simple request, and yet ... How could I dare to ask for what God might not deem fit to give me? Here, I was no king, but a man of many sins.
    The rain on the roof pounded louder and louder until it sounded like an army marching above my head. I must have stayed like that for some time: my hands clenched together, the blood gone from my lower legs. A gentle hand touched my back, startling me; I reached for the knife at my belt in a soldier’s reflexes.
    “You’re blanched, my lord. Shivering terribly.”
    Old Ralph de Monthermer, the Englishman, stood at my shoulder. His hand trembled with palsy. How is it that he had survived Bannockburn so infirm? His skin showed the mottled spots of age, his reflexes were slow, he slept overmuch, and yet he never spoke of being old. In his heart, he was the same vigorous warrior who had fought beside my grandfather. A retainer of King Edward II’s now, we had taken him captive at Bannockburn. Recalling how he had saved my life many years ago at Windsor when Red Comyn betrayed me, I had deigned to spare him the usual dreadful prisoner’s existence.
    I rose slowly to my feet, every joint and limb protesting. Remembering my cloak on the floor, I leaned over to pick it up. The backs of my legs tautened so fiercely I thought something might snap. A groan escaped my throat.
    Forty now, my muscles had become stiffer. My sword arm wearied more quickly. The chill of winter and the heat of summer both gave me discomfort, when once I would have run shirtless through the winter snow or been mindless of the sweat pouring down my chest as I practiced at swords with my brother Edward.
    But where