The Honor Due a King Read Online Free PDF Page A

me as a cough ripped from her chest.
    With bone-thin fingers, the abbot touched her forehead. “A warm bed is the best place for her. Fortunately, she will sleep through most of this.”
    “Will she be well soon?” I asked, both needing and not wanting to know the answer.
    His brow wrinkled. “There’s no knowing about that. It may pass within a few days. It may linger. We can only say our prayers and leave it to God’s will.”
    But holy men are ill liars. I could see it in his face and hear it in his words that he feared for her. As did I.
    “A Mass every day until she’s well again, Abbot William. If you can win His grace in this, then I’ll see to it that this abbey and every one in Scotland knows favor as long as I live.”
    The abbot nodded. “I doubt any abbey will turn away a king’s generosity, my lord. But if it’s thanks to God you wish to give, He prefers souls over coins.”
    Near the main doorway, Neil Campbell was still crushing his Colin with such ferocity that my heart pained me.
    Somewhere in Carrick, I had a son, too. A son Elizabeth knew nothing of ...
    ***
    F or a fortnight, Elizabeth rolled in and out of a burning fever while she lay in the abbot’s own bed swaddled beneath deep piles of blankets. Her fever subsided several times, only to fire up again and snatch the fight from her. Her countenance paled to the color of ashes. Her breath was but a whispered reminder that her heart yet beat. The woman that they had brought to me – my beloved wife and queen – faded before my eyes like the very sunset that signaled the end of each passing day. And as winter encroached upon the earth, those days were growing shorter and so, it seemed, was her life.
    Even though she seldom woke and spoke not at all, I set aside all thoughts and preoccupations of state and warfare to be by her side. But too often I was herded away and told to let her rest by her hovering lady servant, Gruoch.
    On those too rare occasions when I could snatch time alone with my wife, I spoke of our days at Lochmaben riding at morning dew, of Christmases at Turnberry where we played games and danced giddy with laughter until our stomachs hurt, and of summers spent at Kildrummy roaming the paths above the Don by the old stone quarry where the wild roses bloomed, her hand fitted perfectly in mine. Those times had been few, for so often I had been abroad on Longshanks’ business, but they were golden times. Times that I had lived for. Times that I did not know if I would ever see again.
    When not by Elizabeth’s side, I was in the barley fields beyond the abbey, one eye straining to focus on the broken barrel that served as my butt, the taut string of my bow cutting into my fingers and the fledging of an arrow tickling my cheek before I let it sing across the distance. But my arrows too often missed their mark, their points plowing into soft dirt. James attempted to join me one morning, retrieving the arrows scattered about the fallow field from the previous evening, but he soon sensed I was not in need of company and left me alone with my silence.
    Cold whispered against my neck and I looked around to see the first snowflakes of the season falling. I tucked the last arrow back in my belt and dragged the corner of my cloak across a runny nose. All around, the world blended in shades of gray, transmuted between the faint light of a cloud-choked day and the heaviness of descending night. The faint silhouette of the abbey’s narrow belfry against a silver sky beckoned and I started back. At once, I stepped upon a frozen puddle, too lazy or lacking in care to go around it. The ice cracked and broke under my weight. Mud splattered over my leggings and frigid water seeped into my boots. Toes numb, I trudged across the snowy ground, up mossy stone steps and down the narrow corridor that led to Elizabeth’s room.
    It was well past vespers when I nudged open the door. Instantly, I was assaulted with the caustic scent of lye mingled with a