“Edward of England is all you see in him, make no mistake on that. But he is much, much more than you perceive and, in some ways, admittedly minor ones, he is far less. He is a king and he does what a king must do, manipulating everyone about him to his own ends … everyone. Because the plain truth is, a king can have no friends, as other men know friends.”
Rob’s frown became a scowl, and when he spoke next his words were directed as though to an equal. “That can’t be so. King Alexander had close friends. I saw them with him when he came to Turnberry. And one of them was King Edward himself. And I know he, too, has friends.”
“Name them.”
Rob hesitated, thinking quickly, drawing from his memories of Westminster. “The Earls of Suffolk, Norfolk, Hertford, and Hereford. I’ve seen them with him. Relatives, family, and close companions.”
“And who were Alexander’s friends?”
No hesitation this time. “My father, the Earls of Mar and Buchan, James the Stewart, and the bishops, Fraser of St. Andrews and Wishart of Glasgow.”
Lord Robert smiled and stooped forward to pick up a fresh, thin log of apple wood from the fuel rack, then used it as a poker to stir up the glowing coals before he thrust it deep into the fire.
“You have named vassals, every one,” he said, “save for the bishops. The others are all liegemen, barons and earls, each with his own needs dependent on being pleasing to the King. That is not friendship, Robert, and the few friendships that can persist against such needs are precious indeed and scarce as dust motes in a cloudburst. As for the bishops, their prime allegiance is to God and His Holy Church. Their King may be God’s anointed, but they themselves are God’s wardens, and their sworn devotion is to His eternal Church’s welfare, not to the brief, uncertain rule of any mortal man.” He paused, and when he resumed, his voice softened into the common, slightly slurred Scots tongue of his people. “Ye’ll have heard the auld saying that nae man can serve twa maisters, have ye no’?”
Rob nodded, and his grandfather’s speech changed again, his tone now wry.
“Aye, well when one of those two masters is God Himself, which one will the bishops choose, think you?” The old man’s face was grave. “Yet Edward of England has one true friend, I believe—two, if you count his wife, Eleanor, who has been his bedmate, soulmate, and keeper of his conscience these forty years. But there is one man who is closer to Edward than a brother and has nothing to gain from his friendship or from duplicity. Can you guess who that man is?”
“No, sir. Who is it?”
“A bishop, against all odds. The man is Robert Burnell, Chancellor of England and Bishop of Bath and Wells. He’s a quiet man. You might live in Westminster for a year and never see him, but he is the King’s friend in every sense of the word. He is incorruptible, steadfast, and loyal beyond suspicion, and he and Edward have been fast friends for decades. Alexander Canmore had no such friend in all Scotland.”
The boy blinked. “Not even you, Grandfather?”
The old man laughed. “Least of all me, boy. I was his regent when he was a boy half your age, and I served him well, but before he confounded everyone by being born, when everyone thought his mother barren, his father named me heir to the Scots throne. Then the boy was born and I was dismissed as heir potential. I became, instead, a threat in the eyes of many. The Bruce holdings were among the largest in Scotland, as well as numbering among the largest in England, too, and I was directly descended from Isobel, the second daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon. I was descended, too, on my father’s side, from King David—a second cousin, by relationship—and that won me the title Tanist, or heir-presumptive to the throne by ancient Gaelic law should anything happen to the King himself. So the King and I, you may see, could never be true friends, if for no other reason than that others mistrusted my motives.”
“You mean the Comyns.”
“Aye, I do. There has never been love between our houses.”
“I met one of them in London, too. He came down with Bek.”
The old man’s eyebrows shot up. “Did you, by God? Which one?”
“The youngest, I think. John, of Badenoch.”
“The Red cub,” his grandfather murmured. “In London?” His voice changed again. “What did you think of him?”
“What you said a moment ago, sir—there has never been love between our houses. I think that is not likely to change in my time.”
“Hah! You disliked him?”
“From the moment I set eyes on him, sir.” Rob hesitated. “No, that’s not quite true. By the time I looked at him he was already looking at me, and the sneer on his face was what decided me.”