Free Kingdom by Robyn Young

Christian Bruce was already locked in an embrace with Christopher Seton. In her arms, crushed between them, her four-year-old son, Donald, protested loudly. John of Atholl’s wife went to her husband, clasping the earl’s grime-streaked face. The countess, a sister of Robert’s first wife, kissed John fiercely before hugging David to her. David pulled back from his mother, the proud young man self-conscious at the display. The countess looked over at Robert. His sister-in-law’s joy faded as she took in the beaten, worn-out faces of the men around him.
    Robert’s attention was drawn by a small figure who squeezed through the press of adults. With no bows, no formalities, his eleven-year-old daughter flung her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his sodden surcoat. Robert laughed, taken aback by the ferocity of Marjorie’s grasp, then, with a surge of emotion, he crouched and drew her into his arms. Her hair was soft against his cheek and smelled of smoke and lavender. Holding his daughter at arm’s length, he forced himself to smile at her grave expression.
    ‘You are hurt,’ murmured Marjorie, frowning at a spot over his eye.
    Robert’s hand drifted to the place. He felt a sting of pain as he touched it. A graze from a sword? A stray branch in the flight through the woods? He had no idea.
    ‘Come away now,’ said Elizabeth, grasping Marjorie’s shoulders. ‘Let your father be.’
    Not so long ago his daughter would have shrugged angrily from Elizabeth’s touch, but under the tutelage of a governess these past two years she had changed from a sullen, difficult child into a serious young girl. She let herself be guided to where her maid, Judith, was waiting.
    Elizabeth turned back to Robert. ‘What happened in Galloway? Why are you so few?’
    ‘Valence.’
    As Robert told his wife how they had been surprised outside Perth by Valence’s forces, aided by the Disinherited, those around him quietened, the women straining to hear over the noise of the hall, the men silent, their faces mirroring the emotion of his words. Christian moved closer, whispering for her son to quiet. At her side was her younger sister, Mary, her blue eyes sharp as she listened to the grim tale.
    By the time Robert had finished, Elizabeth’s hand had strayed to her throat. He saw she was grasping the ivory cross she wore on the chain around her neck, a childhood gift from her father, the Earl of Ulster. Its edges had been worn smooth over the years by her worrying fingers. ‘But how did they find you?’
    ‘Valence’s – or maybe MacDouall’s men – must have been lying in wait. None of my scouts made it from the battle. My guess is they were killed just before the attack.’
    Elizabeth shook her head, her gaze slipping from him to take in the men slumped on the hall’s floor, too exhausted to strip off wet cloaks and bloodstained mail. ‘I knew this fate, the day we were crowned.’ Her eyes drifted back to him, full of unspoken meaning.
    Robert remembered well her words, uttered that day on the Moot Hill; had thought of them while looking down on the walls of Perth and had felt the doom of them. As he put his hands on her shoulders, distress tightened Elizabeth’s features, rendering her younger than her twenty-two years. He was reminded of the girl she had been in Ireland, trailing miserably behind him those endless miles through the wilderness, both of them trying to escape the prisons devised by her father – his a locked room, hers a marriage to a middle-aged lord. He had led her into danger then for the sake of his ambition. This was little different, only now the danger threatened to engulf everyone around him. ‘It isn’t over,’ he told her, the force in his voice as much for himself as for her.
    ‘If you could not stand against Valence and the men of Galloway, how can you hope to stand against the rest? King Edward and his knights? The Comyns?’ Elizabeth searched the crowd, her gaze falling on the