“We did it, my friend,” he said to himself, thinking of the young churchman who’d met with him that late August day in 1305 to bring him the news of William Wallace’s death. But William Lamberton, the Bishop of St. Andrews, Bruce’s longtime friend and supporter, wasn’t here to see it. He’d died two months ago—eighteen days before the treaty with England had been signed. The treaty that after nearly three decades of warfare had put in writing what Bruce’s victory at Bannock Burn fourteen years earlier had established: Robert the Bruce was king and Scotland was a free and sovereign nation. This marriage between the Scot Prince and English Princess was only an added jewel on his crown.

But it was a crown that had come at such a cost. Too high a cost, perhaps. As the king sat in the chapel, surrounded by his friends, family, and most loyal followers, he could see the ghosts of those who had given their lives to see this day. Great patriots like William Wallace, Simon Fraser, Andrew Murray, Christopher Seton, and the Earl of Atholl; loyal supporters like Lamberton, William “Templar” Gordon, and Neil Campbell; and the most painful of all, four of his brothers—Edward had died a few years after Bannock Burn in Ireland—two sisters, a daughter released from captivity only to die a year later, and his queen, who’d survived her long imprisonment to give him three children, dying just last year.

He could even see the faces of the enemies he’d vanquished—John “The Red” Comyn, whose fatal stabbing had launched Bruce’s bid for the crown, Edward I of England, the self-proclaimed Hammer of the Scots who’d nearly destroyed him, and Edward II of England, the king against whom he’d won his great victory, but whose favoritism toward Sir Hugh Despenser had eventually led to his downfall and murder last year—reportedly by a hot poker up his arse—on the order of his queen and her lover, Roger Mortimer.

So many lives lost, including—soon—his own. Aye, the veil between life and death was merely a shadow now, for the Bruce was dying. And everyone knew it.

One by one during the wedding feast, his friends, family, and loyal supporters came to pay their respects. His two lieutenants led the way—James “the Black” Douglas, who’d brokered this treaty with the English with his wife, Joanna, and Thomas Randolph, Bruce’s nephew and the man he had named protector for his young son and heir, with his wife, Isabel. His kingdom was in good hands with the two men who had helped him win it.