When the two English priests arrived back shortly after noon, Bruce saw them passing in the distance, but made no attempt to acknowledge them. Benstead seemed to be glaring at him, but he paid the fellow no attention. He gave the man no further thought at all until later that afternoon, when he was talking with his uncle on the inner fringe of the Scots camp. The drizzling rain that had been threatening all day had begun to fall, and Bruce was about to return to his tent for his cloak when Nicol raised a hand and murmured, “I think someone’s lookin’ for you.”
Bruce turned to see an English man-at-arms, wearing a corporal’s insignia, coming towards him.
“Forgive me, Lord Carrick,” said the man after he saluted, “but I couldn’t find you. They told me you were somewhere else.”
“Well, you’ve found me. To what end?”
“You are to attend a gathering in Sir Christopher’s pavilion, my lord. A command meeting. I think it might have started already.”
“A command meeting?” Bruce made no attempt to hide the disbelief in his voice, and he bit down hard upon his anger. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll come. Who sent you, by the way?”
“The priest, sir. Father Benstead.”
“Thank you, Corporal. Go about your business.” He turned to Nicol, one eyebrow raised high as the corporal stalked away. “You were right,” he said softly. “It seems I am being summoned. Well, well.” He raised a hand, seeing that Nicol was set to go with him. “No, Nicol, I’ll collect my cloak and go alone.”
When he entered the pavilion, still racking his brains for what could possibly have justified the extraordinary summons, he stopped no more than a few paces in, seeing Benstead there watching and obviously waiting for him.
“Ah, young Master Bruce, there you are, and late as usual. Come in, come in. You know everyone … ”
Bruce gawked about him like an idiot, swaying from side to side and ducking and raising his head exaggeratedly as he swung this way and that to peer into the shadowed corners of the great tent. Apparently satisfied at last that the corners were all unoccupied, he then turned to gaze keenly, with eyes narrowed to slits, at the men assembled in the semicircle of folding chairs around the pavilion’s open central space.
“Master Bruce?” Benstead said. “In God’s name what ails you, sir? Are you unwell?”
The question, and the alarm in the voice that posed it, brought an end to Bruce’s strange behaviour. He turned and looked frankly at his questioner.
“Unwell?” His voice was strong and calm and filled with assured self-confidence. “No, if it please you, I am very well. I simply thought to see this fellow you were talking to, somewhere behind me. But he’s not there.”
“What fellow?” There was no missing the querulous asperity in Benstead’s voice now.
Bruce straightened his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height. “The young Master Bruce you were speaking to. Where did he go?”
Some of the seated knights traded uneasy glances. The cleric, seated at the table, continued to frown in annoyance.
“Where did who go?”
Bruce threw the edges of his rain-wet cloak back over his shoulders, peering down with lowered chin and draping the folds to his satisfaction before he reached to his waist and unbuckled and removed the belt that hung there, supporting a plain, sheathed dagger on one side and a well-worn leather purse on the other. He hefted the thing in both hands, for it was heavy, and walked forward to the desk, where the now disconcerted cleric sat watching him.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked.
Benstead flushed. “It’s … ehh … it’s a sword belt.”
“No, not so.” Bruce’s voice was mild. “No sword belt, this. Notice the gold on it, if you will.” He hefted the belt again. “The weight and worth of it, I mean. See the crest of Carrick on each of the fifteen lozenges. This is an earl’s belt, and it is mine.” His voice hardened, not by much but sufficiently to add an edge to his next words. “Bear that in mind from this moment on, Benstead. If you ever address me in future by any title less than my lord of Carrick or my lord earl, I will have you lashed to a wagon wheel and flogged until your bones are bare. The right and privilege of doing both lie well within my power and pleasure.”
The stillness in the pavilion seemed unnatural, and no one, including Benstead, so much as stirred. This was a new Robert Bruce they were witnessing; a stone-faced Robert Bruce whose existence no one there had suspected until that moment. And no man there cared to be the first to try to test him. Benstead sat ashen, his bulbous eyes wide with dawning horror.