Free Insurrection by Robyn Young Page B

son’s face. ‘No harm will come to you.’
    ‘Not without my father,’ said the young man, forcing the words through his teeth. ‘He was Sir John Balliol’s steward. He deserves proper burial.’
    After a pause, the lord nodded to two of his men. ‘Help him.’
    Bearing his father’s bloody body, aided by two knights from Annandale, the young man passed the Earl of Carrick. ‘The curse of St Malachy for ever upon you!’ he hissed.
    Bruce gave a bark of scornful laughter. ‘Malachy? Save your threats for someone who believes in such things,’ he rasped, stepping forward.
    The lord stopped him. ‘Leave him.’ It was spoken forcefully.
    But as he watched the young man carry the corpse into the ashen morning, the Lord of Annandale’s face was full of fear.

6
    Please, his lordship is in prayer. If you will wait in the parlour I can—’
    Ignoring the monk’s protestations, John Comyn pushed open the doors of the Church of St Mary. The nave stretched before him into dusky shadows perfumed with incense. Letting his eyes become accustomed to the gloom, he noticed a figure halfway down, kneeling in front of an altar alight with candles. As Comyn started forward, the monk moved in front of him.
    ‘Sir, I beg you. He asked not to be disturbed.’
    ‘He’ll make an exception,’ said Comyn, heading purposefully towards the kneeling figure.
    The figure raised his head abruptly as Comyn approached. The anger in his face vanished, replaced by relief. ‘Brother,’ he called, rising and holding out his hands in greeting. ‘Thank the Lord, you received my message.’ He waved away the monk who was lingering uncertainly, then turned his gaze back to Comyn, appraising the bulk of armour beneath the man’s cloak, which was emblazoned with the arms of the Red Comyns: three white sheaves of wheat on red. ‘You are a tonic for a troubled mind.’
    As he met John Balliol’s eager eyes, Comyn felt a stab of resentment. It was hard to suppress, even as he accepted his brother-in-law’s embrace. Comyn’s attention moved over Balliol’s shoulder, caught by the altar. Surrounded by a ring of candlelight, beneath a slender statue of the Virgin, was an ivory casket. As Comyn saw it his resentment flared into anger. Galloway – which Balliol would assume full lordship over when his mother died – was being invaded by enemies and here the man was on his knees in this isolated monastery, praying before his dead father’s heart. If Comyn set his finger upon his own family’s pedigree and followed the creeping lines of Latin back, he too could claim descent from the royal house of Canmore, just not as directly as Balliol could. How slippery a thing blood was; how arbitrarily it chose who would rise to power. He quashed the thought. The Red Comyns had always done well behind the throne. The king was but an instrument, as his father used to say. They were the musicians.
    Balliol followed his brother-in-law’s gaze to the ivory casket. He nodded soberly, mistaking Comyn’s preoccupied expression for compassion. ‘It was the first thing my mother took from Buittle when we left. She still sets a place for it at dinner every night.’ Raising his hands to encompass the thickset pillars that formed arches down both sides of the nave, Balliol turned in a half-circle. ‘It is incredible, isn’t it, what love can inspire? My mother built this abbey in my father’s memory. I told her to bury his heart here when the high altar was finished, but she refuses to be parted from that casket, not until her own passing when she has ordered that it be buried with her. I wonder at her strength, a woman widowed in the winter of her life, to complete such a creation as this.’ Balliol’s faraway stare fixed on Comyn, coming back into sharp focus. ‘Do you think they could destroy it?’
    ‘Destroy what?’ questioned Comyn, still thinking of the casket with the former Lord of Galloway’s heart trapped inside.
    ‘This place.’ Balliol was