The Honor Due a King by N. Gemini Sasson Read Free Book Online

conversing with the sick and maimed as she dabbed salve on their wounds and gave them tincture of willow bark to ease their pains; sometimes in the orchard alone, footprints in snow betraying her.
    By far, she had been less difficult in her youth. But I began to suspect her reason for elusiveness was something more than willful disobedience.
    When I saw her that December morning, her cheek pressed to the smooth stone column in the south aisle of the church, humming a tune from many years ago that I had taught her, there was only that moment, only the sight of her. Nothing else.

Ch. 4
    Robert the Bruce – Melrose Abbey, 1314
    E arly arisen, I knelt before the humble altar in the little chapel of the abbot’s house to give thanks to God and St. Waltheof for returning Elizabeth to me. Already her appetite had returned, but it would still be many days before we could depart from Melrose for someplace with more domestic comforts than a ruined abbey. Last night, she had been well enough to sit at the supper table in the abbot’s house. Although she ate heartily, the exertion of having walked even so short a distance had exhausted her. More than once I placed my hand over hers, just to feel the warmth of her flesh beneath my own.
    But I could not, should not hope for too much. She was home. She was well, or nearly so. That should have been enough. Still ... an old oath dogged me. An oath I had yet to fulfill.
    “My lord?” My nephew Thomas Randolph stood at the chapel doorway. He raked fair locks from his eyes, nodding a bow. Aside from the monks, I ventured to guess that he was the only one who woke as early as I did each day. Captured by the English at Methven many years ago, he had sworn his loyalty to Longshanks to spare his skin. When he later led a contingent over the border, James Douglas had slain his company, captured him and brought him to me as a prisoner. Randolph had been reluctant to renounce his loyalty to the English crown, but in time he did and had proven himself steadfast a hundred times over. He hitched a thumb behind him. “I took some fresh bread and cheese to your room. When I didn’t find you there, I thought to come here.”
    Stooping over the candles, I cupped a hand behind the wicks and blew them out one by one. “I thank you, Thomas. But the food will keep awhile. Find Walter Stewart. Tell him I wish to meet him in the cloister at once. We can talk there privately, at least until Abbott William discovers us and runs us off.”
    “As you wish, my lord. Is there anything else?”
    “Nothing, no. We can speak of repairs later. There’s sparse little left to do and I fear we are a grave imposition. The Cistercian brothers are not keen to welcome the outside world. We distract them from their devotions and invite iniquity – or so the abbot often informs me.”
    I followed Randolph outside and we parted ways. With a new, brightly dyed, red wool cloak clasped at my right shoulder, I strolled the perimeter of the grounds, beholding the hallowed beauty of the abbey in the hush of early morning. Bold rays of morning sun cast their warming glow upon its walls, the great eastern window capturing the virgin light within the blush of its traceried rose. While spires strained heavenward, rows of winged buttresses anchored the massive structure to terra firma. Melting snow spouted from the mouths of gargoyles affixed at the roof’s edge: clawed demons with pointed ears, winged angels plucking their lutes and dancing ladies with arms held aloft.
    The abbey grounds were just now beginning to stir with activity after the morning’s devotions. A cart piled high with hay and driven by two lay brothers rumbled past on the road leading away from the abbey. The lay brethren, while not initiated members of the clergy, gave their labor in service to God. Orphans and younger sons of the poorer classes, most could not read, but their efforts in farming and shepherding in particular provided the abbeys with their