The Steps to the Empty Throne

“It is nothing, Father,” the girl said.

“You need not concern yourself. Travellers with more haste than manners—that is all.

There is no hurt done.”

“There had better not be, by God!” The newcomer glared around at all and sundry, as men and horses sorted themselves.

“You were not upset? Outed? From your litter?”

“No. I … stepped down.” The young woman raised an eyebrow at Bruce.

“There is no profit in further talk. Nor in further delay of these so hasty young men.”

“No? Yet you are in a rage, girl! I know that face on you!”

the man declared.

“If these have occasioned my daughter offence .!”

“Scarce that, my lord,” she returned, with a flash of scorn.

Their offence will be if they linger further!”

Bruce cleared his throat.

“I have apologised, sir,” he said.

“It was a. mishap. We had no notion that there was a lady in it. I would not otter offence to any lady. Especially such as … such as …” His words tailed away—which, in that young man, was unusual.

“No doubt. You would needs be bold indeed to choose to offend Richard de Burgh’s daughter!” the older man said grimly.

“De Burgh? You… you are de Burgh?”

“I am. Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster. And you, sir? Have you a name?”

The younger man drew himself up in his saddle.

“Some, I think, would call it a name, my bra of Ulster, I am Carrick.

Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick.”

“Hal Bruce? A sprig of that tree! Carrick, eh? Then I went crusading with your father, my lord. And found your grandsire a sore man to agree with!”

“Many, I fear, so found!” Robert Bruce risked a smile. He actually bowed a little.

“Myself he could see no good in. Nor my brother here, either.”

The Lord Nigel grinned, and sketched a comprehensive flourish rather than a salute, less awed perhaps than he should have been. He knew the name, of course—who did not? Richard de Burgh, Lord of Connaught and Earl of Ulster, was the greatest Norman name in Ireland, one of the most noted warriors of the age—and, more important, King Edward of England’s most trusted crony, adherent and companion-in-arms.

“It may be that the old devil had the makings of sense in him, than” That comment was accompanied by a distinct twinkle of the eye, strange in so ravaged and stern a face. It was strange, too, how the Norman-French de Burgh voice had, in only three generations, acquired so liltingly Irish an intonation and character.

“Your father, the Lord of Annandale—is he in health? And in the King’s peace? Or out of it!”

“I scarce know, my lord. From day to day!” That was bold, in the circumstances.

The older man grimaced fierce appreciation of the fact.

“Aye.

No doubt. His Majesty’s peace is not always easy to keep. But, as I mind it, your father was always a fool where his own good was concerned!”

“In that you have the rights of it,” Bruce acknowledged.

“I

swear he …”

It was the Lady Elizabeth de Burgh’s turn to clear her throat—and she did it in no tentative or apologetic fashion.

“These young lords travel in great haste, Father,” she interrupted loftily.

“That, they made all too clear! It is not for us to hold them back.

Moreover, I would not choose this place and company to stand and talk!” Most evidently she disapproved of her righteous indignation being submerged under a masking tide of masculine camaraderie.

She turned to her litter again.

Her father grinned, and nodded. He reined round his horse to ride back to his place at the head of his company.

The elderly horse-master, from gentling and soothing the jennets, was moving forward to aid his mistress into her equipage when he was roughly thrust aside. Young Nigel Bruce had leapt from the saddle, and in a stride or two was seeking to hoist up the Lady Elizabeth, with laughing gallantry. She did not reject his help, but, settling herself unhurriedly on to her couch, eyed him up and down coolly.

“What do I thank for this?” she asked.

“My father’s name?

Or King Edward’s?”

Abashed, the young man drew back.

“I but … would serve you,” he said.

“A lady. And fair…”

“Was I not that when you tipped me out? A good day to you, sir.”

The other returned to his horse, wordless, and with his brother, bowed, and rode on. It was no mean feat to have silenced the young Bruces.

It was perhaps a pity that in their stiff constraint, however, they did

not” could not, look back—or they might have perceived a notably

different expression on the young woman’s

They rode soberly now, in single file, past the remainder of the Ulster entourage, respectfully saluted de Burgh at the front, and then, once well past, spurred ahead, with one accord anxious to put distance between them and their humiliation.

“A hussy I A shrew! A very wild-cat!” Nigel exclaimed, as he drew up level with his brother.

“Have you ever seen the like!”

“No. Nor wish to.”

“So much to-do over so little a thing! Women are the devil!

And yet…. she is bonny!”

“So, perhaps, is the devil! Who knows?”

Their brooding over their wrongs did not last long—only as far as the

outskirts of Berwick town. Thereafter where the broad silver river

reached the azure plain of the sea, sparkling, clean, infinite, even

the young Bruces, used as they were to the detritus of invasion and

civil war, became increasingly preoccupied with other matters. Never had either of them seen the like of this.

Here was offence of a different sort, on a different scale, offence to every sense—but especially, perhaps, to their noses. Everywhere they looked, in the narrow fire-blackened streets, were bodies—bodies in heaps and piles, bodies that hung and swung, bodies crucified, disembowelled, decapitated, mutilated and made mock of, bodies untidily aspr awl or neatly laid out, bodies of all sizes, ages, and of both sexes, naked, clothed, half-burned. Every ruined house was full of them, every gaping window festooned, every street and alley lined with them, only sufficient of the causeways cleared to give meagre passage through the main thoroughfares. And all this vast dead populace of Berwickon Tweed was in an advanced state of putrefaction, for all had been slain weeks before. It was now August, high summer. The stench was utterly appalling, suffocating. The throbbing hum of the flies was like a constant moaning of this host of departed souls in their anguish, and the clouds of them like a black miasma over all.

Coughing, choking, next to vomiting with the stink of it, Nigel gasped.

“What folly is this? Have they taken leave of their wits?

The English. Letting all these lie? Should have been buried weeks ago.”

“Left of a purpose. Edward overlooks nothing,” his brother answered grimly.

“This will be on his orders. A lesson. To all.”

“But,.. to hold a parliament here! Amidst this.”

“The more telling a lesson. The parliament’s but a show, anyway.

This, to point it!”

“God—it is not to be endured!”

“It will be endured. Because it must.”

“It could raise revolt.”

“More like to raise the plague!”

“Aye. In this heat. Is your King Edward mad?”

Even in the company of their own moss troopers Bruce glanced round and behind him quickly, frowning.

“Watch your tongue!”

he jerked, low-voiced.

“I counsel you—save your breath!”

It was good advice. Seeking to breathe as little and as shallowly as they might, the brothers trotted through those terrible, silent streets of Scotland’s greatest seaport and trading centre, the customs of which were said to have been worth a quarter of those of all England. They were climbing, by steep cobbled alleys and wynds still black with the blood that had cascaded down them to stain the very estuary, up from the wharves and piers and warehouses of the once-crowded lower town towards the lofty proud castle which crowned its soaring cliff-top promontory, high and serene above river and town and horror, the great banner of England streaming splendidly from its topmost tower. Up there, at least, the air would be pure.