by Robert Low
There were ponies, too, stamping nearby as they kicked hopefully at the ground to try to dig up a little to eat and Dog Boy wanted to leave the men and go to his with a handful of oats he still had in his pack. He dared not, for it would mean admitting he had a peck of oats in the first place and he was sure these wild men of the north would have something to say on it.
He and Sim Craw, Hal and Chirnside were all that was left of the Herdmanston men, who had been running and fighting since Methven, driven north and dependent now on the good graces of these Campbells and MacDonalds and even wilder tribal trolls from beyond The Mounth. He did not want to seem to be getting above himself.
Hal caught Dog Boy out of the corner of one eye, watched him fret and saw his eyes move to where his horse was, saw him shift, but not dare move. He did not like to think of the boy… God save us, hardly that these days… fretted by the presence of these Kintyre growlers. They were fighters, these men of Neil and Donald Campbell, Angus Og of the Isles and others, loyal still to King Robert, where the earls of Ross and Sutherland had turned.
Ross especially, who had broken into the sanctuary shrine at Tain and dragged out the Queen and all her women. Isabel… Hal felt the rising heat of it, was almost driven to his feet by it and fought to sit still, though it trembled him to do it.
All anyone else saw, if they looked, was a lean, grim man, all planes and shadows, made darker by the greasy black wolf cap he had taken from a dead man and the thick cloak he had filched at knife-point. His maille and hardened leather were hung about him, wrecked and rusted by weather and hard use; with his gaunt, unsmiling face he looked like a cadaver, newly surfaced from the forest mulch.
Neil Campbell appeared and men stirred. He wore simple clothes and a furred cloak, affected a fox hat — ears and all — while his own hair was as red as the hat and he wore gold in a thick braid round his neck, like one of the Old Norse.
Hal and his men — a dozen when they had set out weeks ago — had been making for Dunaverty in Kintyre, where it was said King Robert had taken refuge, but the English were already sieging it when they arrived.
They had then fought running battles in and around the steep glens and forests until, cut to shreds by disease and half-starved, they had fallen in with men barely clothed never mind armoured, with slings and short spears and long knives.
A lot of Herdmanston men had thrown up their hands then and Hal had sent them away, back to whatever life they could make round the ruin of his old tower, or at Roslin. There was no such possibility for him — and, besides, he needed to find out if Isabel had escaped the Earl of Ross’ wrath, or had been taken with the Queen; in the sinking stone that was his heart these days, he was sure he knew the truth.
Now himself, the ague-trembling Sim, Dog Boy and the grim Chirnside Rowan were what was left, living more and more like animals with these hillmen, who spoke in their own way and knew little or no other tongue. It wasn’t until Neil Campbell turned up, with as much easy command of French as he did the Gaelic, that Hal caught up with the news.
It was grim enough — the King had escaped from Dunaverty and was gone, almost certes out of the Kingdom and probably for good. Isabel was taken. The King’s brother, Niall, was dead. Even the Earl of Atholl was dead.
Yet the Campbells and MacDonalds, as much fighting against old enemies the MacDougalls as the Invaders, had at least a thousand bare-footed, bare-arsed fighting men, which was a feat considering the time of year and the fact that they had been at war since the summer. No harvest had been gathered and the families of these men hungered — though that seemed the lot of these people, Hal saw.
Here, though, there were barely a hundred, the leaders and what passed for a mesnie, met to try and sort out what to do now that their king seemed to have vanished, as if taken by Faerie. They gathered in a circle round the fires, the flames dangerously close and unheeded at their own cloaks, passing a jug of something harsh as burned wine and glaring at each other, for old tribal grievances lurked just under the surface of them all.
Not that it mattered much to Hal, now that his worst fears were confirmed; all he wanted was to find the King and plead for whatever help he could raise on Isabel’s behalf.
Neil Campbell, big and splendid and grinning, raised the jug, drank deep, smacked his lips and began the matter by raising the oak branch he held in one hand. At once someone rose and took it from him and the others subsided, growling and waiting for him to finish having his say.
The man spoke Gaelic and Neil Campbell waited, then translated it for the benefit of Hal and his handful of men; the wild men glowered impatiently and the speaker curled a hairy lip. He had braided hair and missing teeth, a Lennox man Hal recalled vaguely, from some wild cleft above Loch Lomond.
‘I have heard,’ the translation said, ‘that the siege at Dunaverty has failed to locate our King Robert. Yet the Invaders are still there and so we must be after deciding — do we fight them, or go home.’
No-one spoke. No-one passed the jug to Hal, whose grin turned feral and snarling at this rudeness. This was a farce, he thought. These men had no choice but to fight, since anything else returned the English raids to their pathetic little lives. He almost said so, but chewed on it, thinking of Sim Craw lying, sweating and groaning in a thick fever and needing their care.
‘The power of hills and isles will destroy them in the end,’ Neil Campbell translated, as a man took the stick and spoke. It was Grann, a MacDonald islesman Hal had been fighting with for several weeks, a black-avowed killer with a tangle of hair and beard who gralloched captives like stags in case they had swallowed their coin and trinkets.
According to Neil Campbell, Grann came from some island to the north and west and thought himself something because of that and the fact that he had a fine weapon, a sword, taken from some old Viking pirate, with a tarnished and worn-smooth silver cross set in a fat pommel. It did not make Grann any less of a heathen.
‘Only the power of the arm will halt them,’ Hal growled, unable to stop himself. ‘Our arm, with steel in it.’
There was a silence, for some were chilled by the teeth-grinding delivery and others embarrassed that Hal had dared to speak without the stick, or dared to at all, for he was a southerner with so few men that he was of no account.
Neil Campbell translated for those who had no Southron, glancing at the dark scowl of this Lord of Herdmanston, but showing nothing in his face as he did so.
He saw the corded sinews and old scars on the back of the man’s hands, the tangle of grizzling hair and beard, the whole of him hung about with tattered links and old leather. Somewhere in these hills, he thought to himself, this Lothian lord has become like darker, older folk, even older than the one in Ma-ruibhe ’s sacred oak grove, like the ones who had blood-sacrificed to gods. He reached for the oak stick and held it up.
‘The Lord of Herdmanston is correct,’ he said, in English and Gaelic, and that brought heads up.
‘We scattered the Invaders at the Old Glen,’ he went on, ‘while Angus Og and his men killed many good warriors and took a deal of their provender as plunder.’
He broke off and looked round at them all.
‘But the Invaders are like lice. If you do not kill them all, they will simply return.’
There were nods and grunted agreement at this — then a man stood up and held out his hand. Dog Boy knew him as Gillespie a small chief from somewhere that was barely in the Kingdom at all. He did not like the man, the way he did not like strange dogs.
‘I am Gillespie, known as Erkinbald of the True People of Auld Burn in Cawdor,’ he said, sibilant slow. ‘I have listened to His Honour and seen the Lothian lord who stands with him. It is all very fine that this Lothian lord has come to defend the birthright of the True People of Auld Burn and very fine that we are gathered here to do the same.’
He stopped and looked round at the others while Neil Campbell muttered the meanings to Hal and the wind flared into the silence, flurrying snow and flattening
the flames.
‘I did not see anyone here defending the birthright of the Auld Burn folk when the Irishers raided, even though they had to cross some of your lands to get to us. Nor do I hear the Lothian man telling me how he and his wee handful will kill all the lice.’
Again he paused and folk stirred, some eager to reply but bound by the conventions of the oak branch. Others had their hands out, but were silent still.
‘My father’s father,’ Gillespie went on with maddening slowness, ‘fought against your people, Grann. Seventy-four different battles. My father never passed a day without shedding the blood of either Grann’s folk, or of less than kindly neighbours to us. I myself have fought the Invaders fourteen times. You claim we are all of one blood, but if the Invaders had not come to these lands, we would be fighting each other, or even the lowland men from Lothian, who send priests to turn us to their way of God and away from the old way of our own saints and Christ priests.’
There was a flurry, like a shadow of wind and, suddenly, Grann had the stick and was almost nose to nose with Gillespie, who took a surprised step away from the man snarling at him. He spat out the words like the sparking of wet wood, looking round the fire-blooded faces.
When he had finished, he waited, standing stern as an old tree, while Neil Campbell spoke the English of it to the Lothian lord. Then he went on, with the same bitter rage as if he had not stopped.
‘There is Gillespie, whose father’s father fought mine and lost as much as he won. Whose father fought all his neighbours and gained neither land nor honour from it. Who himself fought the Invaders — who still burned him out. Until he came here with all the rest of us, he has never won.’
He broke off and slashed them with his feral stare while Neil Campbell bent to murmur the translation only in Hal’s ear, glancing uneasily at Grann, for he felt the tension coiling in the snow wind.
‘I know my father’s deeds and his father before him,’ Grann spat, the Gaelic liquid as flowing fire, ‘but I also know what I myself have done. I have fought these English and everyone who supports them, be it MacDougall or MacDonald, every day of my waking life since good king Alexander died.’
There was a half-angered, half-shamed shifting among the MacDonalds at that, for there had been a birling of politics beyond The Mounth since Bruce had taken the throne.
Before it, the MacDougalls had been patriots and the MacDonalds pro-English; now the reverse held true, though Hal was black in his thoughts that it could all change, just as easily. No matter which of them supported Bruce, Hal knew, the other would take the opposite stance, for old feuds would not suffer a MacDougall and a MacDonald to stand shoulder to shoulder.
‘There has never been a day I did not take a head to preserve in oil,’ Grann went on and folk shifted uneasily at that, which was altogether too heathen for Christian men to hear.
‘But Gillespie is right in one thing,’ Grann went on, ignoring them. ‘Not all blood is the same. These English have blood that is black, like the belly-blood of slaughtered hogs, fat with the best of our own land. The blood of the Lothian lord’s people is red, but flows thick and slow. The blood of the Auld Burn people is thin and clear — like water.’
There was a howl at that and Gillespie hauled out his only weapon, an eating knife. There were yells and growls and, eventually, Neil Campbell signalled to his own men and they waded in, dragging people apart.
Neil himself took Grann by the arm and led him out of the circle, taking the stick from him as he did so. He handed it to Hal and then called for silence; the Dog Boy saw the Lord of Herdmanston, slightly embarrassed, turning the stick round and round in one grimy hand.
Hal did not know what to say or what he thought Neil Campbell wanted him to say. He no longer cared whether King Robert ruled or ran away, only that he had enough power left to help him free Isabel and could be persuaded to use it.
Hal could not believe how bestial these trolls were and did not envy anyone trying to rule them. These were the ones left to defend the Kingdom? He wanted desperately to gather his men and ride back to the Lothians, to ferret out the whereabouts of Isabel and leave all this dog-puke rebellion alone — but Sim Craw was raving sick and he had two men left to him in all the world.
He needed food and shelter. He needed news on Isabel and where she was. So he smiled at them and nodded to Neil to translate his words.
‘The gathering in… this place,’ he announced, forgetting what these skin-wearers called the bowl-shape in the wilderness, ‘is so that you can all settle your differences…’
‘This new king,’ said a voice, sing-song sibilant and speaking English the way a man walked in new shoes, ‘is he a Wallace or an Empty Cote?’
The man was white-haired, bland-faced as oatmeal — at least what could be seen of his expressions under the great smoke-puff of hair and beard. Hal knew he was a rebel MacKenny chieftain from the true wildlands which belonged to the Earl of Ross and had a holding on the shores of a loch Neil Campbell called Ma-ruibhe in the Gaelic. Even in a land as strange as a two-headed goat, this Alaxandair Oigh caused his neighbours to blink.
‘There is an island in his loch,’ Campbell had told Hal, ‘where Saint Mael Ruaba has a shrine and where many folk are buried. There is a tree there, an oak and on it are nailed many bull’s heads, for they sacrifice there in the old way. To get to this island you have to brave the loch’s monster, the muc-sheilch. Truly, these folk are not like us.’
Coming from the likes of Neil Campbell, that was almost laughable, but Hal was chilled to the marrow by the tale of Alexander the Elder and had no mirth left in him. For all his lightness, Neil himself was careful around the old chief.
‘You should have demanded the stick, Alaxandair Oigh,’ Neil Campbell said sternly, though Hal heard the deferential politeness in his voice. The old man waved a hand.
‘Aye, aye. A Campbell puts me right, so he does — yet the question remains, wee stick or no wee stick.’
The silence fell like the sift of snow. A Wallace or a Toom Tabard — a fighter or a kneeler? Hal marvelled at how far and fast the legend of Sir Will had gone — and how the future of the King himself depended on it. Trolls or not, these were the only forces left.
‘He is the King,’ Hal replied carefully. ‘Wallace was Wallace, Balliol is his own man still. King Robert is also his own man — but if you want to know if he will fight, then let me say that his knees do not bend and the only way his cote will be stripped is from his dead body.’
There were approving growls when Neil translated that and Alaxandair Oigh nodded thoughtfully; amazed at himself, Hal realized that he actually believed what he had told them and the rest of it spilled from him, unbidden.
‘Your folk are gathering for this,’ Hal went on to his face. ‘It will be a foolish leader who, in years to come, has to tell his children that he missed out on the saving of the Kingdom and its king because he was cold and did not like his neighbours.’
That brought laughter and Hal handed the stick back to Neil Campbell and stepped away, glad to be rid of the whole matter. He went swiftly to Sim Craw’s sickbed, followed by the padding faithful of Dog Boy and Chirnside Rowan; they all looked down at Sim, seeing the pale of him and the fat sweat drops popping out on his forehead like apple pips.
Then they looked at each other, these last three and could find nothing to say. Hal tucked the blankets tighter round Sim, hoping that what he felt on them was cold and not damp, though it was hard to tell with his numbed fingers.
He glanced up at the rough canvas and branch roof of the bower, praying the snow did not turn wet, or even to rain and that the wind did not rise enough to blow this mean roof away. Dog Boy fed sticks to flare their fire to warmer life.
‘Bigod,’ said a growl of voice. ‘Ye turn a fair pretty speech — His Grace the King will be pleased to hear that his esteem is being lauded in these wild hills.’
They all whirled to see the familiar, dark, gaunt figure hirple out of the shadows, a lopsid
ed grin on his face.
‘Kirkpatrick,’ Hal managed weakly.
‘The same,’ Kirkpatrick declared, hunkering stiffly by their fire and peering briefly at Sim Craw. He tutted and sucked his teeth.
‘He is looking poorly, certes,’ he said. ‘Jesu — the snaw is early this year. Another bad blissin’ frae Saint Malachy, whose day this is.’
Hal stared blankly back at Kirkpatrick’s revelation of what day it was, as numbed by his appearance as by cold.
‘What brings ye here?’ demanded Chirnside truculently and Kirkpatrick held out his hands to the flames and rubbed them, unconcerned by Chirnside’s scowls or the frank amazement of the others.
‘I am here telling these chieftains that His Grace is alive and well and will return in the spring,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘This will be greeted with smiles by these sorry chiels, since it means they can go home for the winter.’
He rubbed his hands more vigorously, as if the mention of the word had brought more cold, though it might have been the sudden swirl of snell wind.
‘Then I am headed south on a mission for… someone else,’ he said mysteriously.
‘So he is alive and well,’ Hal declared. ‘Himself, the King.’
‘A wee bit battered and bruised,’ Kirkpatrick admitted, ‘after taking a dunt at Methven. He and others have been scrambling ower these hills since, runnin’ an’ fightin’ like hunted wolves.’
‘Where is he?’ demanded Chirnside Rowan roughly and Kirkpatrick placed a shushing finger on his lips.
‘Safe. Last I saw of him he was smiling like a biled haddie at Christina Macruarie of Garmoran and his dunted face seemed no hindrance to her liking of it. He is in the care of a wheen of Islesmen of that rare wummin’s mesnie, including a fair fleet of galleys. Mind you, I suppose he will be on his knees most of this day, begging the forgiveness of Malachy in the hope of better advancement.’