The Renegade(194)

“Hmm. Why? Who are you?” He watched Bruce’s eyes and his eyebrow rose again. “You’ll pardon me, I hope, but there’s a war going on and I have no need, and no wish, to go spouting off opinions that could be taken amiss. I’m a loyal English seafarer, not a soldier or a plotter.”

Bruce shrugged. “I am Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick. And you?”

“Samuel Cromwell, mariner, as you know … Carrick? That’s in Scotland, is it not? And I know the name of Bruce. Are you not a Scot yourself?”

“I am by birth, though outlawed by the King of Scots for holding loyal to King Edward. In all else I am English.”

The brown face remained impassive save for a tiny wrinkling of the skin about the eyes, and Bruce found himself warming to this cautious but forthright man.

“Then why are you not in Scotland with the King? He’d want his earls about him, I should think.”

“I would be, but he himself set me a task before he left for Scotland and I’ve been working on it ever since. I’ve been repossessing the Scots King’s English holdings in King Edward’s name.”

The inquisitive eyebrow flickered again. “Then what can I tell you, Lord Bruce?”

“Was the report my man heard true? Were you in Berwick when the attack occurred?”

“Not in it, but I was close offshore. Our army had been sighted to the south the day before and the entire town reacted. We were barely half-laden, with a cargo of wool for Norway. Everything went mad from the moment the first alarm went up and I lost more than half my loaders. They all ran to the walls to see the English army for themselves. If you know Berwick, you’ll know the quays are on the northeastern shore, inside the arc of the walls and supposedly out of sight—and reach of attack—from the south.”

“Supposedly, you say. Were the Scots afraid? Did you sense that?”

“No, they were … jubilant was the word that occurred to me at the time. They thought they were safe behind their walls. Me, I was angry. I’d been hoping to be laden early and to make the tide. Took me three hours longer than it ought to have to finish taking on cargo and I had to use some of my own crew to get it done. All to no end. We missed the tide and I was stuck out in the shallows, a quarter of a mile offshore with the supply fleet that came up in support of our army.

“And what happened? What did you see?”

Cromwell inhaled deeply. “More than I wanted to. Our forces took the town before the day was out.”

“They stormed the walls in a single day?”

“They didn’t need to. They went around the side, to where the endmost walls along the shore were wooden palisades that hadn’t been maintained. The townspeople were up on the stone walls facing the main army, but the flanking forces went around unobserved to the weak point. They pulled a section down within an hour and that was that—it was all over. Our people fought their way inside from there and it was as though they had an open gate. Hell, it was an open gate. And once they were inside, the inhabitants gave up without a fight. Someone opened the main gates and let the army in.” His mouth twisted in a humourless grin. “For a place that was supposed to be untakeable, it didn’t last long.”

“Did you go back into the town?”

“Go back? Do I look mad? My ship is called The Fair Lass, not The Fearless. No, I stayed right where I was. The army went in under the red flag. I caught the morning tide and cleared the place as quickly as I could.” He shuddered and waved a hand as though to thrust the memory away.

“But your ship is English, and I presume your crew is, too, so what would you have to fear by going back?”

Cromwell looked around the room, but there was no one watching them or sitting close enough to hear. Nevertheless he hunched forward over the table and lowered his voice when he spoke again. “Understand this, my lord. My ship was laden, ready to go, and my crew was safe aboard. All I lacked was water under my keel, to carry me over the sandbars of the estuary. I wasn’t even tempted to return, and especially not after the screaming started.”

“What screaming?” Even as he asked the question Bruce knew he did not want to hear the answer. He knew full well what the dreaded red flag meant—it was the signal to annihilate the enemy. “Tell me.”

“We were close inshore, remember, and the sound carried over the water. There was great slaughter done that night, throughout the night and into the dawn. They burned the town, all of it, even the Dutchmen’s Hall where the traders gathered. I saw that with my own eyes and it was no accidental fire. There was fighting there. Some people, perhaps the merchants themselves, had locked themselves inside before the sun set and were fighting back. We watched a large body of men attack the place and be turned back, and then the fire was set to burn out whoever was in there … ”