The Path of the Hero King bt-2

by Nigel Tranter

  She put her hand to his clammy brow.

  “A fever, yes. How strange is your skin! Angry, broken.”

  “Is it so all over. Chafing, scaling. It near drives me mad!”

  “I have never seen the like. Poor Robert-it is a grievous thing.

  But, ‘fore God, this is not the way to mend it! Lying (intended in this chill barrack.”

  “Not untended-the saints pity me! There is an old monk, a friar. One Mark, of Kintore. Reputed hereabouts as a physician.

  He would dose me every hour with his noxious stews, daub me with stinking brews made from the offal of toads and the like! The man’s a pious hypocrite, for by …”

  “Then we will be quit of him. I will be your physician now. A cailleach, my old nurse, taught me much of the art. It is time you were rescued, from monkish and knightly fools both! And from yourself, I think! Let me but restore myself, from my journey, and we shall make a start.”

  “No need …” the King began-but he might as well have spoken to the wind.

  Christina MacRuarie was as good as her word, and better. It was not long before she had the invalid out of that mill house altogether and into a nearby cottage whose occupants presumably got short shrift. Admittedly this was small, little better than a cabin, with earthen floor, turf roof, and walls of smoke-blackened clay; but somehow she had got the place cleaned up, arranged a more comfortable bed, and brought in some simple furnishings from heaven knew where. Moreover it was warm, with a well-doing fire of holly and ash logs.

  Bruce, of course, did not admit that this was any great improvement;

  indeed he complained that the heat made his itch the worse.

  But that was an error of tactics, for Christina promptly declared that that would soon be put right. He discovered that she intended to wash him down with some salve of her own concocting. No amount of outraged protest had any effect on her-and the deplorable Gibbie Hay, not to mention Neil Campbell who had brought her, not only had deserted him quite but were completely in the woman’s pocket The sufferer’s resistance to this feminine assault on his integrity was vehement, but more vocal than physical. The strength just wasn’t there, he discovered-and this was a young woman as vigorous as she was determined and unscrupulous. Neither royal commands nor appeals to her better nature were of any use. Taking shameless advantage of the situation, she stripped him naked and began to wash off the friar’s medications from his shrinking body with warm water.

  “Dia -but you are thin, Robert!” she declared, ignoring all that he was saying.

  “You are worn down to the bone! This is the work of no sudden sickness. What has happened to you?”

  Bruce well knew himself to be in poor shape. Long months of privation, poor feeding, and sleeping out in all weathers had taken their toll. He recognised that his present illness was more probably a result of a general physical run-down, than the other way round.

  “I have had little time for growing fat,” he told her briefly.

  “I know what you have been doing, and how you have been living. Sir Neil has told me much. And the word of your fightings and warfare has not failed to reach even Moidart. But this-this wretchedness of the body speaks of more than hard living. And this of the skin. So dry and red. It is grievous to see …”

  “Then, of a mercy, cover me up, woman!” he exclaimed. He was acutely embarrassed by this open inspection of his shuddering cringing body. Even though he had lain with her not a few times and they were no strangers to each other’s nakedness, to have Christina, or any woman, peering and poking and dabbing at him, was highly distressing, highly unsuitable-and not a little humiliating in the all too obvious feebleness of his shrunken masculinity.

  Paying no attention to his requests, she went on with her ministrations.

  But perhaps she gave him her own comment.

  “We must make a man of you again,” she said.

  ”I swear this is not what Irode all the way from the West to see! Turn

  over, Robert-turn over.”

  Her washings and anointings, however to be deplored, at least produced some easing of his itch. Not that he admitted it. And he had to concede that she kept Brother Mark away, indeed kept everybody away. Moreover the food which she brought him presently was incomparably better than any he had been offered for long-not that he had any appetite for it. The fact that she sat by his bed and more or less forced it into him, of course, was cause for legitimate complaint.

  In the midst of all this feminine attention, the Earl of Lennox arrived unheralded from the South, with 200 men. Even Christina MacRuarie could not prevent a belted earl from having audience with his monarch, and Bruce was enabled to pour a flood of his troubles into his old friend’s ear. Unfortunately Malcolm of Lennox was altogether too much of a gentleman successfully to resist the Isleswoman’s methods, and before long found himself on the wrong side of that cot-house door. The King more or less resigned himself to the inevitable.

  Nevertheless that night Christina alarmed him in a new and major fashion; first by producing a pile of sheepskins and plaids over and above his own; and then by authoritatively allowing Lennox, Campbell and Hay, and one or two others, to come and say a very brief goodnight before shooing them out again like a hen wife with poultry, and shutting the door behind them in remarkably final style. By the light of the flickering log-fire she laid out the sheepskins, one on top of another, on the floor at the side of his bed, and arranged the plaids on top, thereafter proceeding calmly to undress herself. The King eyed all this with mixed feelings;

  but even so he was quite unprepared when, standing in unabashed, complete and lovely nakedness, she threw back the covers of his own bed, and urged him to move over somewhat as she was coming in beside him meantime. The sick man’s protest that he was in no state for haughmagandy or anything of the sort, met with no least response.

  Settling in alongside him, she took him in her arms, not fiercely or passionately, but gently, comfortingly, her soft firm shapeliness enfolding him. He held his limbs stiffly-but that was all his reaction.

  “You needed a woman once before, Robert,” she murmured.

  “I

  think you need one again-only differently. The other will come, in time. But now you require some cherishing, some kindliness.”

  “I am not a child, a babe!” he mumbled, seeking to turn away.

  But she held him strongly. And because she lay slightly higher in the bed than he, and her breasts warmly and cares singly encompassed his face, he found it scarcely feasible either to move or complain satisfactorily. Here was a struggle which apparently he did not sufficiently wish to win.

  So he lay, and presently even began to relax. Sensing it, she gathered him a little closer, not to smother or constrain him but to soothe and cradle him. Gradually the warmth and smooth strength of her had its way with him, and he felt more at rest than he had done for long.

  “Why do you do this?” he asked presently, not very clearly, from the hollow of her bosom.

  “Because some woman should. And because of my love for you.

  One day, perhaps, your Queen will thank me for it!”

  At that the man stiffened momentarily, but she calmed and quelled him with hand and voice, almost as a mother might.

  “Hush you, hush you,” she said.

  “Your Elizabeth will look for a man, will she not? When she comes back to you? Not a shrivelled gelding. Nor yet a corpse! She cannot cherish you. So I shall.”

  He did not argue the point.

  “Have you had news of her? Of her state? Of late.”

  “Aye. Bishop Lamberton makes shift to send me word when he may. He is warded not far from her, has contrived to visit her. At Burstwick Manor, in Yorkshire. She is held secure, but less hardly than in Edward’s days-the old Edward. She is well enough. But …” He left the rest unsaid.

  “You did not give her a child?”

  “Think you our state was such that she would have thanked me for making her pregnant? We have been on the move, hunted or homeless, almost since we w
ere wed.”

  “She might have thanked you for it now, nevertheless! And your daughter? How is it with her?”

  “I do not know. She was held, alone, cut off from all, in London Tower. But Lamberton, though prisoner himself,-has some small credit with the new King. He said that he would seek his mercy on the child. I pray God for her, daily. For them both …”

  “Yes, yes.” Again the soothings.

  “This other Edward is not the mad tyrant that his father was. He will be kinder to a child. Your Marjory will be none the worse-for children throw off these hurts more readily than we fear. It is not good-but all might be worse, see you. One day the sun will shine again for them. And for you.”

  She settled herself more comfortably, stroking the back of his head.

  “But now, rest you. Sleep. Is the itch troubling you?”

  “Aye. But not as it was. I can thole that. It is the itch in my

  mind that irks me most. So much to be done, while I lie here

  helpless”

  “Never fear but we will put that to rights. We have made a start to it. You are not shuddering and trembling now, at least You are no longer cold, Robert?”

  “I am not. But I cannot forget those who are. My sister Mary.

  And Isobel of Buchan. In their cages on Berwick and Roxburgh walls. In this winter cold. For my fault. I dream of them, hanging there. Weak women …”

  “Women, I vow, will survive the like better than most men,” she asserted.

  “We are none so fragile a tribe! But think no more of it now. Be at peace. Sleep.”

  But he had to get it out, now that he had someone to tell, someone with whom he did not have to maintain a pose of royal reserve and confidence. He poured it out, all the bottled-up agitation and concern which had been racking his mind as he lay helpless. He told her of the nagging guilt of his brothers’ deaths; his fears of his surviving brother Edward’s headstrong violence, excellent cavalry commander as he was; his disappointment that still no great men and no really large numbers were rallying to his banner-even the powerful Lennox had only been able to gather his paltry 200. He had money to purchase support, thanks to the Church-but still men held back. He told her of his fears that young James Douglas, in whose care he had left the SouthWest, would not be experienced enough, or strong enough, to hold it. He told of his own recurring doubts and near despair-but thereafter was moved to speak of the spider in the Galloway cave, his desperate resolve, his vow one day to go on a Crusade if only victory was granted him.

  The woman listened without further chiding, perceiving his need. And presently something of the urgency went out of his voice, and pauses developed that grew more frequent and longer.

  At length he slept.

  And after a while Christina of Garmoran gently eased herself away from the man’s side and slipped from the bed. She covered him again need fully and for a few moments stood there, warmly naked in the dying firelight, considering him, before betaking herself to the couch she had made near by.

  There was no doubt that Christina’s arrival and ministrations were good for Bruce. In two days, indeed, she was having to change her attitude and urge care, restraint, when he sought to be on his feet again. Admittedly, while she was out of the cottage and he did venture over the side, it was to find himself a deal weaker than he had realised, light-headed and unsteady on his legs; so that he was safely back between the plaids when Christina returned. But even go this was a major advance, of the spirit more than of the body-though the itch was undoubtedly much lessened by the bathings, the red patches less angry, the shivering gone.

  Oddly enough it was his brother Edward who was responsible for effecting the major cure. He came clattering into the Milton of Uric two afternoons after Christina’s arrival, all shouts and clashing steel, demanding were they all asleep here, all sick men abed?

  Buchan was upon them, in force. Had it not been for him, Edward of Carrick, they would all be dead men, not sleeping, by now.

  Etcetera.

  This brought Bruce out of his bed and reaching for his clothing, demanding details.

  “What do you mean? Have you clashed with Buchan? The earl himself? Hereabouts? In what force? Where is he now?” All weakness was for the moment forgotten.

  “Not Buchan himself, no. It was Brechin. Our nephew Sir David de Brechin, one of his captains. But Buchan himself is not far off.

  At Oldmeldrum, they say …”

  “They say! They say! Who says? Fact, man-I want fact!” The King was transformed, vehement, commanding again, with so little of the invalid about him that even Christina was astonished.

  “Oldmeldrum is but five miles away. Where is David de Brechin? Talk sense, my lord!”

  Edward seemed about to expostulate, but a look at his brother’s face changed his mind.

  “Brechin is now running. Back to Oldmeldrum no doubt Like a whipped cur. I taught him his lesson-but not before he had wiped out your picket to the east, on the Bourtie heights. Making here from Udny, I found our dead near yon cairn on the Bourtie ridge. They had been surprised and cut down to a man. De Brechin, with about 200 men, was in the low ground making for the Souterford and here, when I reached him. He has not half 200 now!”

  “The enemy so near? Dear God! Sir Gilbert-what of your sentinels?

  What means this, sir?”

  Hay flushed.

  “I am sorry, Sire. I have heard nothing of it. No word has been sent to me. Of enemy approach. I have sentinels posted, scouts out, all around. But…”

  “Aye! I have lain too long, by the Rude! When my foes can ride within a mile of me, and I know naught of it!”

  The Lord of Erroll bit his lip, but said nothing.

  Bruce whipped back to his brother.

  “Speak on,” he jerked.

  “And tell it as it happened. But shortly.”

  Edward explained. He had been returning from his harrying of the low

  coast lands of Fonnartin, on the edge of Comyn territory, with his 350 men, when his scouts learned that the Earl of Buchan himself, with a large force, was marching south-by-west from the heartlands of Buchan towards Inverurie. The scouts could not tell numbers, but it was thousands rather than hundreds-too many for him to challenge. So he had made all haste here, but sent back men to find the enemy host, and report. Then, only an hour or so ago, he had come on the slain Bourtie outpost, and then on the advancing de Brechin -his banner and arms clear. He had managed to trap him against a bluff and a curve of the river. Brechin had managed to cut his own way out, with some few of his people, but left most behind him. He, Edward, had taken no prisoners-but before they died, one or two of the Comyns had said that Buchan was positioned on the south face of Barra Hill, just south of Oldmeldrum, with many men, one said 2,000, another 3000.

  “So! Buchan would cross swords with me. In person! Perhaps he had word that I was sick. Well, I shall not disappoint the High Constable of this my kingdom!” Bruce produced a smile, grim but the first for long enough.

  “You have done well, Edward. I thank you. But whoever commands our sentinels on that east flank hangs tonight-if he is still alive then! Gibbie -you will see to it. But not now. You have much to do, first. We all have. Out, and sound the assembly. Christina-aid me on with my harness.”

  “Robert-my lord King!” the Islewoman protested.

  “This is not for you. A sick man, you cannot go riding to battle”

  “I am no longer a sick man-thanks to you, woman! Besides, this has made me hale and sound. No medicine could have cured me as this news has done! I have four great enemies in Scotland, apart from the English invaders, four men who have earned my wrath more than all others-Buchan, the Earl of Ross, MacDougall of Lorn, and MacDouall of Galloway. One of them is now near, come seeking me. Think you I will fail him-or myself?”

  She spread her hands helplessly, recognising the finality of his voice.

  “Now, quickly. No more of talk. My lords-to your duty. Christinathat shirt of mail…”

  So, within the hour, the royal army of just
over 1,500 men marched out of Inverurie, northwards, the King of Scots at its head under his own great red-and-gold Lion Rampant standard carried by his armour-bearer, William de Irvine-even though the said esquire had also to prop up his royal master in the saddle. Only half a head behind rode Christina of Garmoran, no royal commands having been effective in holding her back at the Milton.

  They crossed the Burgh-muir and thereafter splashed across the Uric at the same Souterford where the litter of dead bodies, men and horses, testified the accuracy of Edward Bruce’s claims. The road to Oldmeldrum followed the far east bank of the river for a couple of miles before swinging away due northwards up the long gentle slopes of a flank of Barra Hill. This was a foothills land of green rolling hogbacks and smooth grassy ridges, almost devoid of trees, with wide waterlogged troughs between. Oldmeldrum lay, a grey village on the lip of one of these lesser ridges ahead, with a clear prospect in this direction-and obviously not to be attacked directly from the low ground in front. Bruce sent the Earl of Lennox off, with some 200 horse, to make a diversion to the left, to the west, skirting the boggy Loch of Barra, for the higher ground of Lethenty and Harlaw, from which he could circle round on firm ground towards Oldmeldrum and menace Buchan’s flank. He himself swung the main body, the majority on foot, sharply right handed, off the line of the road, to follow the Bourtie valley round the back of Barra Hill itself. At this stage they were still out of sight of Buchan’s position.

  Barra Hill was no mountain, rising to little more than 600 feet, but it was the bulkiest and most prominent height in the area.

  Buchan almost certainly would have lookouts placed along its crest, and born his own and Lennox’s progress would be only too evident from the heights. There could be no surprise, therefore-but they might hope for some confusion.

  Up the gentle green Bourtie valley, only a shallow depression in the grassy hills really, they advanced steadily north by east with protective screens of outriders right and left. Bruce could have sent parties out to clear the ridge above them, but deliberately did not do so. Now and then they caught glimpses of movement up there, and were satisfied.