RIVALS FOR THE CROWN
by Kathleen Givens
ISBN: 1416509925

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1290

Turmoil erupts when Scotland's child queen perishes en route to claim the crown.  Two bitter foes - John Balliol and Robert the Bruce - emerge as possible successors, but England's Edward I has his own design on Scotland.

In London, Edward has expelled all Jews from his kingdom. Rachel de Anjou is heartbroken to leave behind her best friend, Isabel de Burke, and travel with her family to the Scottish border town of Berwick.  Danger is everywhere, but the tall, dark Highlander Kieran MacDonald presents a risk of a different sort.

Isabel, appointed as lady-in-waiting to Edward's queen, Eleanor, attracts the notice of two men - Henry de Boyer, an English knight, and Highland outlaw Rory MacGannon.  Isabel and Rachel are soon reunited, but as the enmity between Scotland and England reaches its violent peak, each woman must decide where her loyalty - and her destiny - lies.

PROLOGUE

London
July, 1290 

“Rachel!  Rachel, wake up!”

At first Sarah’s whispered words blended into her dream.  Rachel turned her head away from the fear in her sister’s voice and tried to find sleep again.  She’d been dreaming of winter, of snow falling softly from a bright sky.  She and Sarah, little girls, had been dancing, laughing as they collected the flakes in their small hands.  Then Sarah’s mouth had opened in a wail and the sky had darkened and the snow turned to rain.  Rachel climbed her way back to the world, her mind resisting, for whatever had frightened Sarah would frighten her as well.

“Wake up!”  Sarah shook Rachel’s shoulder.

Rachel opened her eyes. It was still dark.  And summer, not winter, although the air was chill.  Outside the rain drummed on the roof just above their heads and the shutters clattered as the wind shook them against the wooden frame.  She heard it then too – a terrible pounding on the door, male voices raised in anger. 

“They’re here,” Sarah whispered.

Rachel sat up, fully awake now.  She knew who they were:  the king’s men, here to drive them from their home.  Just as Mama had predicted.  Just as Mama had prepared for.  Papa, ever optimistic, had argued that his family would remain untouched, no matter what King Edward’s proclamation had said, for he was a clerk of the Exchequer and too valuable for the king to lose.

She could hear her father’s voice now from her parents’ room below.  The pounding on the door stopped. The rain was too loud for her to hear their words, but Papa talked for a moment before she heard hurried footfall on the stairs.  The door to their bedroom was flung open and Mama rushed in, her finger to her lips.

“Get dressed, girls,” she said, still fastening her own clothes as she spoke.  “Remember the bundles under your clothes.  Say nothing.  No matter what happens, do not argue with them.  And if . . . if there is violence . . . run.   Remember the plan.”

Sarah nodded, already out of bed and pulling her skirts on over the chemise in which she’d slept. 

“Mama,” Rachel said, but her mother shook her head rapidly.

“Get dressed.  Say nothing.  Do it, Rachel!  For once in your life do not argue.  Just do what I say.”  And then she was gone.

It was blur then, as Rachel and Sarah dressed and stuffed the bundles they’d prepared under their clothing, attaching smaller ones to each knee, where they could be hidden under their skirts.  The satchels they carried held only clothes and a few keepsakes that would alarm no one:  ribbons for their hair, a lucky stone, a lace collar, a cloak pin.  Nothing to cause suspicion.  They had been tutored well.  But she’d never believed it would happen.  Despite all the preparations, all Mama’s instructions, Rachel had not believed they would have to leave.

King Edward had announced his edict on July 18th, expelling the sixteen thousand Jews resident in England from his kingdom.  Within days, the streets of London were full of those who had already begun their exodus.  Some simply left everything they could not carry and walked away from homes and shops and all they contained.  Others tried to sell their businesses and houses, and of those, some were able to receive fair prices, but most got only a pittance of the value.  They scattered, neighborhoods and families separated, perhaps forever.

Many of the Jews said they would not go at all, declaring that King Edward had been their protector in the past.  Had he not even brought them within the walls of the Tower of London and kept them safe and that not just a few years ago?  He would not abandon them now.  The edict, they said, was to soothe the feelings of those whose voices had been raised against them, a political move on Edward’s part.  Nothing more. 

At first it seemed that they were right, for there was no mass routing of Jews, no massacre of those who did not immediately leave.  But for others, it was different.   Several families had already received a knock on the door in the middle of the night, and had been removed from their homes, escorted to the gate of London, and cast out to fend on their own.  There did not seem to be a pattern to it, but it had happened every day for almost a fortnight.  And now, on the 30^th of July, it was their turn.  Her father had been so sure they would not be included.

This is not real.  This is my dream and I will wake to find myself in a snowstorm with Sarah.  This is not real.

“Hurry!” Sarah hissed.  “Faster!  I can hear them on the stairs.”

They were barely dressed when the first soldier appeared outside their bedchamber.  He was older, his grizzled hair gray and refusing to stay under the helmet of the king’s guard that he wore.  He touched the brim with a sharp gesture.

“Mistresses.  You have been given until daybreak to pack your belongings.”  He glanced outside at the dark.  “Not long now.”

“And if we’re not ready by then?” Rachel asked.

“Rachel!”  Sarah exclaimed.

“My orders are that you are to leave.  If you want to live . . .”  He shrugged, as though it were of no matter. Which, to him, it probably was not.

Rachel nodded tightly.  There would be no mercy, no small kindnesses, from this man.  He watched with a stony expression as they stripped the bed and tied the linens together.  Sarah, her head bent over the bundle of linens, picked up her satchel.  Keeping her eyes lowered, she squeezed past the man and slowly made her way down the stairs.

Rachel took one last look at the room she’d slept in her whole life, at the empty bedframe, the mattress sagging against the ropes, the empty hooks on the wooden wall that had held their clothing.  At the iron candlestick on the small table in the corner, which held the one precious candle they’d been allowed on winter nights.  She reached for the candlestick and heard the guard clear his throat.  She glanced over her shoulder.  He met her gaze and shook his head.  She pulled her hand away as though the candlestick would burn her, feeling her face flush.  For one mad moment she wanted to shout at him that the candlestick was a paltry thing for him to take from her when he was already taking her home and her past, but instead she kept her silence and followed her sister.

Downstairs her father was packing his books in an oiled cloth bag.  His prayer book, the family Bible, the Menorah and the embroidered linens he used on the Sabbath lay in a small wooden chest at his feet.  Outside she heard the rattle of the cart her mother had reserved, just in case.  She could see the tears in her father’s eyes as he worked, but he would not look at her.  Neither would the two younger guards, both just a few years older than she and Sarah.  One, without meeting her gaze, gestured for her to go into the back room they used as their kitchen.  Rachel stood frozen, staring at him.  He wanted her to go in the empty dark room.  With him.  Alone.  She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to look into Mama’s eyes, seeing banked anger there.

“The cart is here,” Mama said softly, in a diffident tone that Rachel had never heard her use.  “May we load it, please, sir?”

The guard must have nodded, for Mama picked up a box and carried it out the front door.  Rachel did the same, glad to be out of doors, and that the rain had lessened to a drizzle.  The carter met them with a hand upraised to stop them.

“Payment first,” he growled.

“We will pay you when we’re out of the city,” Mama said.  “That’s what we agreed.”

The carter laughed low in his throat.  “Then carry your own goods, madam.  You have until daybreak.”

Mama stiffened, but nodded and handed the man the coins from the pocket at her waist.  He shook his head and named an exorbitant price.

“That’s not what we agreed!” Mama said, an edge of fear in her voice now.

“Daybreak,” the carter said.  “Decide.”

“We’ll take it,” Papa said and reached past Mama to hand the man the rest of the money.  The carter bit each coin in turn, then grunted. 

“Load it yourself.  Only two ride.  The others walk.”

It took less than an hour to load everything.  Mama and Sarah rode on the back of the cart as they made their way through the dank streets.  Every moment the sky was brighter and Rachel could see the fear in their eyes as her parents’ gazes met.  Daybreak was here and they still had much of the city to cross.

She’d not looked back at their house, refused to think, even to herself, that she would never be back.  She did not acknowledge the few faces at the windows above the street as they’d left.  She knew each of those who watched, but no one had lent them assistance, no one had raised a cry of dismay.  No one had said a word, even of farewell.  It was as though they’d never known these people at all.

They’d left much behind – their furniture, except for a few stools - but they’d taken her father’s books, her mother’s precious plate, her sister’s dowry box, and three chests holding their possessions.  Her mother had sighed as she’d looked around her kitchen, trailing a hand in one last caress on the wooden table she’d used daily.  Rachel had turned from the sight, her anger threatening to erupt.  What had they done to deserve this?  They’d been good citizens of London, good subjects of the king.  Their customs and beliefs might be different from the Christian, but they prayed to the same Father God, obeyed the same rules.  What sins against society had made them outcasts now?

And what of those who stayed despite all the warnings, those who watched them now – would they pay dearly for their decision?  Would soldiers truly kill all those who remained behind?  She would not think of it, would not remember their names.  She would not think of the boy who had promised to woo her when they were older, who watched her family leave without even a wave.  Would not think of Isabel, her dearest friend, who would never know what had happened, only that Rachel was gone with no farewell.

The light was brighter now and the rain stopped altogether.  But still they were in London.  There were others too, people carrying bundles and babies, hurrying toward the city walls.  Carts like theirs fought for places in line to pass through Aldgate, and their carter swore and whipped his horse to push forward.  Rachel, like her father, kept one hand on the cart, frightened now by those around them, and the fear that suddenly filled the air.

Boys pelted them with rotten fruit from overhead, but none of those leaving complained, intent only on the sunrise and the slow moving line passing through the gate.  And then her mother was hit with refuse, the dark stain stinking on her shoulder.  Her father whirled, his face a mask of rage.

“No!” Mama cried.  “Jacob, no!  Ignore it.”

Papa was hit next and his face went scarlet.  “Is it not enough that we are forced from our homes?  Is it not enough that we are running like cattle?   Must we endure this humiliation as well?  It is beyond bearing!”

Mama grabbed his arm.  “Jacob, think!  They are nothing, those boys throwing this at us.  They want you to be angry.  They want you to go after them!  And then what?  We will still be here at dawn.  And what will happen to you, to us?  Ignore it.  They are nothing.  This is nothing.  We will survive this.”

They stared into each other’s eyes.  And then Papa nodded.

There was a sudden commotion behind them and a troop of the king’s cavalry burst through the throng, coming forward with a great show of weapons and armor to line the path to the gate, the horses’ breath looking like smoke from a foul fire.  Rachel looked at the faces of the king’s men, at the glances they gave each other and the sky.  Would they be given orders to fall upon those who were still in London at daybreak?  She began to pray, for her family, for those behind them.  Ten people ahead of them, then six.

And then she heard Isabel.

“Rachel!  Rachel!”

Only Isabel de Burke would have braved this madness, Rachel thought, her heart lifting.  One person in all of London still cared whether she lived or died.  “Isabel!” she cried, standing on her toes to find her friend.  “Isabel!”

The line moved forward and Papa grabbed her arm.  “Do not stop, Rachel!”

“But, Papa, it’s Isabel!  How did she know?”

“She lives at court,” he said.  “They all know.”

“Rachel!”  Isabel’s voice was louder now.

A slim hand with long fingers waved madly above the fray and Rachel finally saw her.  Isabel’s light brown hair was in disarray, tumbling around her shoulders as though she’d risen hastily from her bed.  She was dressed as a servant, her clothing simple and drab, but not convincing.  Servant girls did not look like Isabel.  Rachel’s her eyes welled with tears of gratitude that her friend had found her.

“Here!  Isabel, here!”

“We have no time for this, Rachel!” Papa said.

Rachel stayed where she was, waving her arm high.  The group in front of her family was arguing with the guards at the gate and it became clear why the wait was so long.  They would have to pay to leave.  The word spread to those behind them and she could smell their fear and anger.  The king’s men let their horses paw at the ground, as though impatient to start their tasks.

“I thought I would not find you!”  Isabel darted through the crowd and embraced Rachel.

“I could not send word to you!  Soldiers came . . .”

“I heard what was happening and ran to your house,” Isabel gasped, “but you were not there.  Oh, Rachel! Where will you go?  Sir, where will you go?”

Papa’s expression softened.  “I don’t know, Isabel.  I don’t know.”

“I did not believe the king would enforce it!” Isabel’s eyes were wide with worry.  “You’ll have no safe passage.  You’ll have no protection!  It will be dangerous.  You know how treacherous the roads are!”

“We have no choice,” Papa said.

“How I wish I had money or the power to send men with you!  Be careful, be so careful!” Isabel wailed and hugged Rachel tighter.  “I cannot bear it!  It will be so long until we see each other again!”

“Isabel, we will never see each other again!”

“No, no, do not even say that!” Isabel cried.  “We will meet again.  You must believe it!  We must both believe it!  We will always be friends.  Nothing, not even this, will change that!”

“Rachel, come!” Papa said as their turn came to pass through the gate.  “Farewell, Isabel.  Thank you for being a friend to my daughter.  Rachel, come.”

Rachel tore herself out of Isabel’s arms, both girls sobbing.

“Stay safe, dear friend,” Isabel said.  “Rachel, oh dear God, take care!  I will pray for you every day!  I will pray for you all!”

“And I you, Isabel!”

“Rachel, come!”

Rachel passed with her family through the gate.  She turned to look for Isabel, but could not see past the frenzied throng pushing through behind them.  The sun’s rays touched the tops of the London’s buildings and her father turned her away from the sight, hurrying her along the road behind the cart.  Her tears, unleashed by Isabel’s appearance, continued to flow unimpeded.

“Rachel,” Papa said, his voice comforting.  “We are out of London, and we have much ahead of us.  Dry your eyes.  We’ll face the future together.”

CHAPTER ONE

 London might officially be in mourning, but one would never have known that by the behavior of its citizens. Each day looked like a feast day. Hawkers roamed the streets with trays of hot chestnuts and dumplings carried in iron pits, ladled out into wooden bowls that were emptied, then reused by the next customer. Innkeepers wore wide smiles as their rooms were filled, and butchers worked long hours, preparing the food for all those who would need a funeral feast.

The streets grew ever more crowded with new arrivals. Nobles on horseback jostled with farmers bringing the contents of their root cellars to sell. Fruit from Spain and Italy sold for a premium. Stuffed figs and persimmons were piled on trays next to bright oranges, sold from open stalls set up in the squares. Every church was filled, whether because of the warmth from the pans of coals allowed for these few days to burn in braziers above the worshippers, or whether Londoners felt a sudden upsurge in piety at the news of Eleanor’s death, he could not say.

Every building seemed to have people hanging from windows and doorways. The houses, dark wood or half-timbered plaster, stretched out toward each other over the narrow streets below. Walkers had to take care to step over refuse – and worse – as they pushed their way through the crowds. Whores invited them inside brothels and Rory and Kieran bantered with them, but did not linger.

The ceremony itself would take place at Westminster Abbey and all of London seemed to be heading there. Edward the Confessor was buried there, as he’d planned before being driven into exile by the Danes. William the Conqueror was crowned there on Christmas Day in 1066, and every monarch since had held important ceremonies there.

“The queen’s ladies.” He heard the murmur as the women were ushered past, the most important of the noble women first, wives and daughters of dukes and earls, begowned and bejeweled in amazing fashion. Behind them was another group, less lavishly costumed.

“What was her name?” Rory asked Kieran. “Rachel’s friend, the one we said we’d try to find? What was her name?”

Kieran thought for a moment. “Isabel de Burke. She must be one of them. But which? They all look older than I thought.”

Rory nodded. Isabel de Burke. He could not guess what her connection to the queen might have been, but certainly none of these women looked like a possible friend of Rachel’s. And then he saw them, two younger women, one blonde, pretty, her cupid’s mouth drawn and blue eyes anxious. And the other, taller, with a regal manner.

Her lovely face was framed by a wimple of creamy white and topped by a headdress of the same material, brown hair curling softly around her temples. She had a very fine body, lithe, the curves of her breasts and waist revealed by the line of her gray gown, the same gray as her eyes. Her sleeves were a deep yellow, almost golden color, a bright spot in this sea of somber hues. She turned her head, showing him her profile and the line of her jaw, smooth and feminine, then nodded at something said to her and hurried forward, propelled by the guards behind them.

He nudged Kieran and gestured to them.

“I’m thinking the blonde one,” Kieran said.

“Wager?” Rory asked, not from any conviction that the brown-haired lass was Isabel, but more to see what Kieran would do.

“Wager.”

#

The entire world, it seemed, would attend Queen Eleanor’s funeral. Leaders from every known country had been invited. For weeks London had been filling with those eager to see history made, and now that the day was here, the streets were almost impassable. Isabel watched the crowds from her spot in one of the many royal carriages.

She’d not expected to be here. She’d thought she would be dismissed upon their return to London, but instead, both she and her mother were instructed to continue as they had been before. Even more surprising, Isabel was instructed to be in court every day. Every day she woke with the expectation of being called to the Wardrobe Tower. And each evening, when she had not, she sighed with relief. It would not last, she knew.

She had avoided Alis. Difficult, since they slept in the same bed. And the next day she shared a royal coach with her on the way to Eleanor’s funeral. She was dressed in silk and ermine, her hands folded on her lap. She told herself she was enjoying Alis’s open enmity, but the truth was she missed their former camaraderie, false as it had turned out to be. She felt very alone. Rachel, she thought. Where are you?

It was time to live in the world as it was, not as she would have it be. Henry was here somewhere in this throng, she knew, for all the king’s knights were in attendance. But she would not look for him.

The coach stopped and the door was flung open. Hands reached in for the women, and suddenly it was time to join the people crowding into the abbey. It was frightening to be jostled and shoved, and she did not complain when Alis, her eyes wide with fear, grabbed her arm.

“You may despise me,” Alis whispered, “but stay close. I would have both of us survive this day.”

Isabel nodded, and together they pushed through the openings in the crowd the guards made, arriving at last inside the cathedral. They sat silently for what seemed like hours. A choir began to sing and Isabel heard the trumpets outside blare to the world that the king had arrived.

Edward made his way up the North Aisle, slowly. How strange this day must be for the king, Isabel thought, for Edward and Eleanor had been married in this building, and had been the first king and queen to be jointly crowned here. This was where Edward had raised monument to his father and where his son was buried.

Behind him were men from every part of Edward’s life, magnates from all over England and Scotland. Barons and knights and wealthy merchants who were among Edward’s favorites. His six children, from the child prince Edward, the newly married Joan on the arm of her husband Gilbert de Clare, to the eldest, Eleanor, who had traveled far to come to her mother’s funeral.

Isabel remembered little of the ceremony itself, for the sights and sounds were mixed with her sorrow. And her worry for what the future would hold. At the conclusion of the hours long service, the king and his entourage filed out first, then the nobles who had sat near him. And then Isabel and the rest of Queen Eleanor’s ladies, walking down the North Aisle only to wait at the end of the Nave while the crowd outside dispersed.

It was there, as she stood next to Alis and pretended to ignore her, that Isabel met the gaze of a man standing near the door. He was blond, Irish, perhaps, or Norse, for he was quite tall.

His eyes were very blue, his hair pale and drawn back from his striking face. His nose was straight, his cheekbones were sharp, his jawline well-defined, his mouth wide and lips pressed together as he examined those leaving. He looked like a warrior, but was dressed as a noble, his wide shoulders covered by a beautifully woven cloak with a circular golden brooch set with jewels. He glanced at the others, then looked into Isabel’s eyes. And smiled. And suddenly the noise of the people around her disappeared, the slow shuffling as they moved forward now unnoticed.

She smiled in return, and his smile widened. Handsome man. Golden-haired man who lit the dark space he stood it. And then he was gone, his face blocked by a tall man who moved between them. She was hurried forward by the guards, through the crowd, and into the coach. She peered through the open door until it was slammed, looking him, but it was impossible to find one tall blond man.

The funeral meal was overlong and all those who had not had a chance to talk to Edward before or at the funeral itself clamored for a moment now. He ignored most of them, sitting with his closest companions at the dais, speaking little and eating less. But none could leave until he did, and so they sat and waited.

“Are you in need of anything, demoiselles? Isabel?”

She recognized Langton’s voice at once, but pretended she not to hear.

“Isabel?” His tone was insistent. “Is there anything you need?”

She forced a smile. “Thank you, my lord. But I am in need of nothing.”

“Be sure to visit me soon. I insist.” Langton patted the hand of the woman whose arm rested on his, then continued to his seat with the other officers of Edward’s household.

Isabel shivered, trying to mask her revulsion. The man terrified her.

“Langton, Isabel?” Lady Dickleburough asked. “Have you not been warned? He is a snake and you would not be the first to be devoured by him.”

“I am careful, madam,” Isabel replied.

“Wise.” She emptied her wine. “Alis has been telling interesting things about you lately. Have you two argued?”

“No, not at all.”

“Ah. Then it must be that she is jealous of your youth and beauty.”

Isabel took another sip of wine. “How do you know this?”

Lady Dickleburough smiled slowly. “I hear everything, Isabel. Everything.”


She was miserable. Her days were long and she either suffered Alis’s presence or agonized in her absence, wondering if Alis and Henry were together. She visited her mother, who complained bitterly of nothing to do. When she told her mother to be glad they had roofs over their head, her mother had asked what she would know of earning a roof over her head.

She had let more time pass before her next visit. And the one after that, for they argued again, her mother accusing her of being cosseted while she lived in one tiny room. Isabel thought of the bed she shared with Alis. And the apartment she shared with the rest of the queen’s ladies. And said nothing.

Two days after the queen’s funeral, when a guard came to fetch her where she and Alis sat in their apartment, doing embroidery.

“There are men here to see you, Demoiselle de Burke,” he said.

Isabel looked up. She was expecting no one. “Who are they?”

The guard’s disdain for the visitors, or for her, was obvious. He examined his nails and waited for her reply. “Foreigners, but aren’t they all these days? I could not understand their names.”

She exchanged a glance with Alis, their uneasy truce since the funeral still untested.

“Don’t bring them here,” Alis said. “Go to them instead.”

Isabel nodded, for a moment tempted to ask Alis to accompany her, then thinking better of it. “They asked for me by name?”

“Which is why I am here, demoiselle.”

She stood, her irritation flaring. “Take me to them,” she said, tossing her needlework onto the cushion she’d abandoned, and wondering how quickly the word would get to Lady Dickleburough.

The guard did not answer, but led her down the stairs and through the corridors to one of the anterooms used by the queen’s household for meeting with tradespeople. He paused outside the door, looking down at her, then thrust the door open and waved her inside.

There were two men waiting there, both tall, both outlandishly dressed, their cloaks well-tailored but of a fashion she knew was not from London. They wore high boots and long saffron shirts and tunics of finely woven wool, with a pattern that featured lines crossing themselves. Gaels, she thought, knowing them now for what they were. One was dark, his black hair well-brushed and just below his shoulders, his blue eyes curious. A handsome man. He bowed, smiling.

And the other was the blond man from Westminster Abbey.
           

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