Shabib’s smile tightened, and he dropped his face under his hood.
“James, you well know my peace awaits me after my death, when I join my family in the afterlife.”
James shook Shabib. “Aye, that is most assuredly true. But would your wife want ye to pine away while ye still walk the earth? Or would she desire that ye find peace here while ye may?”
Shabib grew stiff under James’s hand. He’d struck a chord, one Shabib wasn’t ready to release. Now was not the time to continue that train of thought.
“Did ye have a need of me?” James asked, changing the subject. “Were ye waiting on me?”
“Aye. The Bruce desires to meet before the eve tide meal, to study your next moves on the English. I’d ask that I might be able to attend?”
James nodded. “Of course, as ye will. The invitation is always open to ye. Let us go.”
Shabib’s eyes lifted back to James, and he shook his head. “Not until ye wash the blood and grime from your clothes. I dinna know what you do with your wife in the wood, but perchance make it a little less aggressive?”
James’s jaw clenched again as his hand went to his tunic. Was it that obvious? Shabib chuckled under his breath as he walked away, leaving James to his ablutions before he attended the king.
Chapter Nineteen: A Plan for Scotland
The summer drew nighas did the Scot’s trampling the English south of the Great Glen. Asper Sinclair announced to the Bruce and his men that he was to travel north to retrieve his brothers and spread word that they were going to start the king’s conquest of the Highlands. Robert embraced him warmly, and James noted the king’s reticence. Sinclair had been by the king’s side since he’d returned from the isles last winter. Sinclair’s absence would create a hole that needed to be filled.
After Sinclair departed, the Bruce turned to the men who crowded the room. MacCollough and his man, Torin, stood to the King’s left as James sat to his right, with Shabib standing behind him, between James and the door. Several other lairds and their representatives had made their way to Auchinleck, MacMillans and MacKenzies having recently arrived, with more riding through the port gate daily. A few of those men sat at this important table as well.
Robert recounted their present successes at beating back the English swarm, which had resulted in a surge of Scotsmen joining to swell the Bruce’s ranks. As James had been present at most of those skirmishes, he only half paid attention. His eyes focused on his sword that he held in between his hands, the tip balanced on the floor. He spun it between his hands, the steel glinting and ringing softly as it rotated.
He kept spinning his sword but lifted his eyes at the Bruce’s next words.
“Which brings me to the message I’ve received on behalf of Edward the Second.”
At this, this entire room fell deathly silent, with only the ringing of James’s sword breaking the thick atmosphere.
“What message?” James asked.
The Bruce’s hooded gaze swept the room, looking pointedly at each man present.
“They want to speak on terms. His representative, Hugh Despenser the Younger, has asked for a meeting at Locherbie to see if a resolution might be reached.”
