The Path of the Hero King bt-2

by Nigel Tranter

  “We have been on the move, yes. Seldom two nights in one place. Struck swift blows, and then moved away as swiftly. But.. these are small blows. Pin-pricks, no more. Sufficient only to show our people that their King is active. Insufficient to serve our cause effectively. We must do a deal more than this-and soon.”

  “You have done sufficient to bring Pembroke here. Into Galloway.

  That at least. You have heard?”

  “Yes. We know that he had been called to Carlisle, to suffer a tongue-lashing from King Edward. And now he has come back here. Up to the Cree. That he sits astride the Cree at Minnigaff.

  But fifteen miles away. And sends probing companies up these valleys.

  But he will not adventure his strength into the mountains.

  And we, with only 300, dare not challenge his thousands in the plains. We had hoped that you might have been able to bring us more than these, friend.” Bruce glanced over at the score or so of mounted men Campbell had led in.

  “I scarce thought I could gain even such few,” the other said.

  “These are Bruce vassals of your own. From the Urr. It is hard to convince men that Your Grace’s cause can succeed.”

  “Aye.” That came on a sort of grim sigh. His brother Edward had brought back barely 200 from the great Bruce lands of Annandale -which a year or two before had raised 5,000. Boyd, who had been ambushed by the MacDouall party that day three weeks ago, on the Doon, and only escaped, with the Lady Christian, be cause they were fleetly mounted had managed to return in due course with Sir Robert Fleming and another two score-that was all. And Douglas was not yet back from Lanarkshire. There was still no surge to the King’s standard.

  “Until we strike a resounding blow against the English power itself, our folks will not flock to us,” Edward broke in.

  “If they will not come to us-the English-we must go to them! Not against Pembroke-he has too many. But there are others. Clifford.;

  Botetourt. St. John Percy himself-they say that he is now at Caerlaverock. Dumfries. We must choose one of these. Select the weakest, and strike.”

  “Clifford has now joined up with Pembroke,” Campbell informed.

  “Or so it is said. King Edward’s bastard, de Botetourt, is at Sanquhar. St. John holds Ayr and Irvine. They encircle you…”

  “Three hundred lightly armed can do little or nothing against thousands of armoured chivalry. In open battle,” the King insisted..

  “Our only hope is to make the country, the land itself, fight for us.

  So, by some means, we must coax these English out of their plains into our hills. There must be a way…”

  “They are not fools,” Boyd asserted.

  “They will not budge from Minnigaff and the Cree. Why should they?

  They can wait…”

  “Some have already budged,” Campbell interrupted him.

  “A

  company of them are none so far away. We had to make shift to avoid them, on our way here. Light horse, cantoned at Low Minniwick, in the Water of Trool.”

  “English horse! So near?” Bruce exclaimed.

  “We knew nothing of this. They must be new come. How many?”

  “About 200, I would say. Sent out to probe for you, I have no doubt.

  By Pembroke.”

  “Yet camped …? In daytime?”

  “I faith-we could have these, at least!” Edward declared.

  All round there was a stir of excitement, of anticipation, now.

  “You say that they are cantoned, Neil? At Low Minniwick, down Trool?

  Settled, at least for this night.”

  “Yes. We were warned of them by the miller at Bargrennan. So we took to the hills. And looked down on them from the ridge of High Minniwick. They were camped-cooking-fires, horse-lines, pickets. Two squadrons, I’d say. They did not see us.”

  “Then why wait?” Edward demanded.

  “Why wait till this to tell us. man? We should be on our way-while it is yet light. Minniwick is but five or six miles away. Here is too good a chance to miss.”

  “Wait you, brother,” the King said quietly.

  “Time enough. Let Us use our wits before we do our swords. I have a

  notion that here may be the chance we have looked for. Not just to

  slay 200 Englishmen.

  But to draw Pembroke.” He turned to Campbell.

  “If these are new come-as they must be, for they were not there yesterday, when we rode by-then they have been sent up from the main army. Yet only eight miles, into these foothills, from Minnigaff.

  And already camped. They must be making this Minniwick a centre, to send out patrols. Into all the side valleys, seeking us. Not to attack us-to find us. Some will be up here, at Loch Trool, by tomorrow, for a wager. Tomorrow, then, we must aid the English to find us! But not just a patrol-a host!”

  They all gazed at him now, tensely, there by the lovely water of lone Lock Trool, under the frown of the Merrick mountains. It was the last day of March 1307, Passion Sunday.

  By dark the entire party, mounted and on foot, was on the move down Trool Water in its winding wooded glen. Four miles they went, by the riverside track, then struck off half-right, to ford the incoming Water of Minnoch, and then start to climb, over slowly rising scrub-covered slopes. It was empty foothill country here, with the valley floors narrow and tending to be waterlogged. There were no villages or even houses, other than the occasional summertime shieling for herdsmen.

  The company moved fast, for in that terrain the tough and agile Highlanders could cover the ground fully as swiftly as the horsed men-at-arms, and a deal more silently. In less than two hours they were fairly high on a long gentle whaleback of ridge that ran approximately north and south, flanking the Minnoch valley on the west, which valley, an extension of the Trool, had now widened out somewhat. The woodlands had dwindled away, and only the odd hawthorn dotted the ridge. There were cattle grazing on these rolling upland grasslands, shadowy shapes that plunged off into the gloom in brief alarm at the approach of the purposeful party. Presently, below them a little way, a dog barked its own alarm from the small farmery of High Minniwick, unseen below the crest of the ridge.

  Islesmen scouts went ahead, in case the English had posted sentinels on this high ground; but no warnings came back to the main body. Campbell accompanied Bruce in the lead, and at length brought him to a sort of escarpment on the east side of the ridge, where the ground dropped away rather more steeply, in a long consistent grass slope, down to the riverside flats. The dull red glow of a number of scattered and dying fires punctured the darkness down there.

  “Low Minniwick and the English encampment,” Campbell said shortly.

  “Half a mile.”

  Bruce gathered his leaders round him.

  “This is not just Turnberry again,” he told them.

  “There will be sentinels here. Possibly pickets patrolling round the camp. And we do not want a complete massacre, see you. Sir Neil says there may be 200. I want fifty alive, at the least. But held. So see to it that your men understand. All must be under tight rein. This will be done exactly as I say.” And he looked towards his brother significantly.

  Men murmured acknowledgement “The Islesmen will go down first. Quietly. Take up positions around the camp. Their leaders will prospect the closer approach, for our cavalry. The lie of the ground. To inform us, when we get down. The horse will move down slowly, as silent as may be. To near the camp. Only when I give the word will you charge. If there is an alarm, we will attack only when I blow my horn.”

  These orders were transmitted to the men. In a few minutes the Islesmen melted away into the darkness.

  They gave them perhaps seven minutes’ start, and then the horsed men-at-arms, dismounted, with the two Bruces and the four knights, led their beasts slowly downhill, quietly picking their way, seeking to avoid the chink of hoof on stone, the rattle of harness and the clank of arms. They were by no means entirely successful in this-but they hoped that the fitful night wind and the rush of the headlong river would blank
et the noise.

  No alarm rang out, at any rate. Indeed it was hard to believe that a large encampment of soldiers lay so close ahead.

  Bruce was becoming anxious that they were drawing altogether too close, in view of those fires, one or two of which were to be seen as more than just embers, when two figures rose up out of the shadows in front. They were Islesmen, and reported, in whispers, that all was well. There were about a dozen sentries, but they were clustered around two fires at either end of the camp, one at the bottom, near the horse-lines; the other, that looked brightest from here, up near this top end. While the Highlanders had been waiting, two of the guard had strolled round the perimeter of the cantonment, and then back to their companions. They had not made any probes into the darkness beyond the faint firelight.

  Bruce nodded.

  “Half of your men to the horse-lines,” he directed.

  “Cut the tethers. As quiet as you can. As many cut before the beasts stir, as may be. Their stir will bring the guard to see what troubles them. We will hear when that happens. I will sound my horn. You will drive all the horses you can in amongst the sleeping men. The rest of the Moidartach to attack from the left. We, here will charge mounted. How is the ground, for a charge?”

  Fair,” he was told.

  ”A burn-channel to the left, with broken banks Avoid that Some wet, in

  front-but nothing that will hold you back.”

  “It is well. Off with you.” Bruce passed the word for his own people to mount.

  They waited for what seemed too long a time, thankful only for the noise of the river to drown the chinking bits and bridles and the stamping, scuffling hooves. They heard in fact no stirring from the enemy horse-lines. But presently men could be seen to rise from the dark huddle round the farthest-away fire, and start to move away, towards where the tethered beasts must be. But they did not hurry or sound any alarm.

  Then there was a sudden shout, quickly bitten off. Then more cries. Bruce’s horn was at his lips at the first yell, and the wailing hooting ululation of it rang out, even as he kicked in his spun.

  In two lines, on a broad front, the 200 horsemen drove on, downhill, straight into a canter, men a gallop-though they had scarcely time for that before they were into the enemy lines. The beat of their hooves shook the slope, and the thunder of it was pierced by the cries of “A Bruce! A Bruce!” and the high yelling of Gaelic slogans from left and right, as the Islesmen raced in, swords and dirks raised.

  In the event, it was all over in a ridiculously brief period. Most of the sleepers had little opportunity to do more than stagger to their feet before the fierce tide of slashing horsemen crashed down on them, and through, their confusion increased by the stampede of their own mounts careering in panic through their lines transversely, driven by yelling Highlanders. Bruce found himself beyond the last line of sleeping men and stacked arms, reining up his rearing mount at the very riverside, with only one effective sword thrust delivered.

  He had intended to turn his squadron directly round and plunge straight back for a second charge; but he perceived that in the chaos of frantic riderless horses, reeling sleep-dazed men and bounding cut-throat Highlanders, any such move would be folly, as likely to ride down their own people as the bewildered enemy.

  Instead, he shouted for some of his horsemen to divide and make sweeps round on either side, encircling the encampment, to spread terror and prevent escapes. He and his knights, with the rest, sat their restive mounts, waiting.

  They were not required. It was entirely evident, before long, that the English were wholly demoralised and overcome, that there was no organised resistance and could not be. The Islesmen were in their savage element, and presently the King was blowing loudly on his horn again, to end the carnage, and leading his colleagues in, to enforce his will.

  Fresh wood heaped on the fires revealed a ghastly blood drenched scene of ruin and confusion. It seemed scarcely credible that such havoc could have been created in so few minutes.

  Creating order out of the bedlam took a-deal longer. A slightly wounded but wholly unnerved youngish man, in rich but bedraggled clothing, was brought before the King by Fleming.

  “Here is their commander, Sire. He calls himself Sir Alan de Scrope.

  Do we burden ourselves with prisoners?”

  “What say you to that, Englishman?” Bruce asked, sternly.

  “You, who sleep so sound on Scots soil! Your King only takes prisoners to hang and disembowel them, does he not?”

  The other answered nothing.

  With a semblance of order restored, Bruce called his leaden apart. They had almost 100. prisoners, in fact, and undoubtedly others had escaped in the turmoil and darkness. But this was as planned.

  “Now,” he said, “we set our lure. This English knight, with most of his people, we are going to send up Glen Trool. On foot. We shall cry this aloud. Say that we shall give them trial there, tomorrow, and hang them on trees at the loch-head. Make much talk of that sort. Naming Loch Trool. But a smaller number of the prisoners, perhaps a’ score, we will hold here, after the others are sent off. For a time. Then allow them to escape, with their news!”

  Though Edward frowned, Hay chuckled.

  “To Pembroke! You think it will bring him?”

  “De Valence is cunning as a fox,” Boyd reminded.

  “Will he rise to our lure?”

  “He cannot do nothing. And de Scrope, see you, is a notable name. You may not know it, but Sir Geoffrey de Scrope is Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, in London. This puppy will be a son or nephew. I think Pembroke must attempt a rescue. When he hears that we intend to hang him. He must so hear, therefore. We have captured good supplies and wine and ale with these English-they do not stint themselves. We shall seem to make merry on it-and grow careless of our prisoners. And our talk. Insecurely guarded, and near some of their own horses. We will allow an escape. I swear they will not be backward! They will scurry down Minnoch, to Pembroke at Minnigaff. They will have him out of his bed before daybreak, I warrant.”

  “And we wait for him, here?” Edward showed more interest.

  ”Not here. We must coax him up the glen. Round the head of the loch.There is a place there, I have seen, most apt for ambush. Of a large force. Pembroke may not come himself, but surely a large force he must send. He must think he has the King of Scott bottled up, penned in Glen Trool. His people careless, drunken-or near so. We must coax…”

  Smiling now, they put their heads together.

  So, by dawn, Low Minniwick was deserted-save for a ravaged farm-steading and a few Englishmen tied to trees, naked, heads shaven, and with scurrilous things daubed in blood on their white skins, including the names-Valence, Clifford, Botetourt, Percy.

  But they were alive-and would not die of cold yet awhile. If a punitive force came this far, these would give it information-and send it after the perpetrators, hotfoot.

  Bruce’s small host was now much split up and dispersed. Some few were up on the high ground again, watching, to signal any English approach. Some were no great distance up the riverside track to the loch, moving slowly, trailing their wings as it were, should there be any early pursuit, decoys. Boyd, with the main body of men-at-arms, held the mass of the prisoners up near Loch Troolhead. While the King himself, with the Islesmen, climbed a steep mountainside above the far, east side of the loch, with the first of the slanting April sunlight just beginning to blind them with its early dazzle.

  This east side of upper Glen Trool was very different from the west. Where the other was thickly wooded and rose in great steps and terraces towards lesser heights first, and then to high frowning Merrick itself, on this side the land rose steep, stony and bare in an almost unbroken sweep to the towering summit of Muldonach, more than 1,500 feet higher than the loch. A single thread of narrow track crossed the face of this naked brae side rising and falling, now near the water’s edge, now many scores of feet above it. This track, the only one to lead southwards on that side, Bruce and his party had left, to climb
steeply upwards, panting breath clouds in the sharp morning air.

  There was one sizeable break, or shelf, on the face of that long hill, a rough terrace about half a mile long some 300 feet above the water. This was their objective.

  When they reached it, breathless, it was to find it deeper than the King had anticipated from a distance, more broken. But this was immaterial. It averaged perhaps 200 yards in width, was far from consistently flat, and was pitted with heather-grown hollows and aprons of trapped water and emerald-green moss. But mainly it was bare, backed by screes, and as well as surface-water it had trapped a great variety of stones and boulders, tumbled from higher. Bruce was well satisfied. The whole hillside was stony, of course; but this trap would save them much work and time. And from the low ground they could remain hidden save on the very lip of the shelf. And the view down the valley was not to be bettered, right down to the Cree, indeed across the Wigtown peninsula itself, to Luce Bay and the Solway.

  He set his Highlanders to the collection, rolling and positioning of great stones and boulders, by the hundred.

  With still no sign of movement from down the valley, and assured of progress here, leaving the Islesmen at work, and a lookout to signal any approach from the south, the King went longstrided downhill again, concerned to correctly position his few cavalry. In an operation of the scale he visualised, 200 was pitifully few. And a percentage of that had to be left to guard and accompany the prisoners.

  He gave the impatient Edward the command of seventy-five, and sent them off along the narrow track above the loch shore to the farthest-away position about a mile to the southeast, where a fair-sized stream coming down the mountain had carved a deep, steep ravine, which must serve to give them cover. At all costs they must remain hidden therein until signalled, especially from across the loch. Campbell was to take another seventy-five up the right hand of me two narrowing glens into which the main valley split at the head of the loch, to hide around the first bend. Boyd and Fleming would retain approximately fifty mounted men, with the prisoners, waiting by the shore at the start of the east track, ready to show themselves and to move off south by east. Bruce detailed the signals, for each group, stressing the need for the most exact timing. More he could not do. Taking Hay for lieutenant, he set off once again to climb the hill to his Islesmen.