The Price of the King's Peace bt-3

by Nigel Tranter

  Moreover the Douglas had become a legend in the North of England, by his brilliant and unending raiding, so that fathers used his name as a warning for unruly children, and mothers hushed their offspring to sleep with assurances that the Black Douglas would not get them. The young idealist of a dozen years before had become worth an army in himself.

  Douglas, then, and the Steward, with the Queen and her ladies, were

  there at Loch Ryan to sec the expedition sail. Elizabeth herself would

  have accompanied them had it been possible; not only had she a taste

  for camp-following, but Ulster, after all, was her home, and she had

  brothers and sisters there. Bruce’s intended programme was not one

  into which a woman with a new-born babe would fit, however tough; and

  with her father a leader of the enemy, complications would be likely.Actual sailing was held up, in the end, by the non-arrival of Sir Neil Campbell and his contingent from Argyll. These had by no means the furthest to come, and there was some wonder at this, for Campbell, although in poor health, was not the man to be behindhand in any adventure. When, at length, with the King ordering no further delay and the Campbells to follow on their own later, the famed black and gold gyronny-of-eight banner did appear on the scene, it was at the masthead of a single galley, not a squadron, coming from the north. And the man who stepped ashore at Stranraer and came hastening to Bruce was not Sir Neil but his son by a mother long since dead, Colin Campbell, a young man in his early twenties, darkly handsome.

  “My sorrow, Sire, that I come late,” he cried.

  “But I needs must bury my father!”

  “Bury …? By the Rude-do you mean …? Mean that Neil Campbell… is dead?”

  “Dead, yes. He died the day after Your Grace’s summons arrived at Innischonnel. The Lady Mary, your sister, found him. In the water. At the edge of the loch.”

  “Drowned! Neil Campbell drowned? I’ll not believe it! I have seen him swim a hundred lochs and rivers …”

  “Not drowned, Sire. He had fallen there. Dead where he fell.

  Alone. He was a sick man. Had been failing…”

  “Dear God-Neil! Neil, my friend.” Bruce was shaken, and showed it. Not all had loved the Campbell chief, an abrupt, secretive man of few graces, tending to be quarrelsome-who yet had captured Mary Bruce’s heart thus late in their lives. But he was a mighty warrior, loyal to a fault, and the King loved him well. One of the original little band of heroes who had shared their lord’s trials and perils when he was a hunted fugitive, who indeed had saved them all time and again by his hillman’s skill in the desperate Highland days after Strathfillan, he had become the first to die.

  A thousand dangers, battles, ambushes, treacheries, he had survived-to die thus on the edge of his own Highland loch, a done man. The shock to Bruce, his friend, was partly for himself; for they were of a like age, both in their forty-third year, and the cold hand of the Reaper, in clutching one, momentarily brushed the other’s heart also. In that instant the King felt old.

  But he pulled himself together, as he must ever do, and put on the stern calm face of the monarch.

  “I am sorry, my friend,” he said.

  “Beyond telling. Sorry for you and for my sister. Especially for her, who has suffered too much already. Some, it seems, are fated to suffer more than their share in this life. In the next, it may be, they wall have their recompense. As for you, you are your father’s son. And he ever lived with death, as any knight of mine must. Duly ready to entertain him. Neil Campbell was a noble knight, and many times held my life in his strong hands. Not for you to grieve him. Only to emulate.”

  “That is my humble prayer, Highness. That I may serve you as he did.

  To that end I would come with you on this sally to Ireland.

  In whatever lowly office.”

  “And so you shall. But in no lowly office, sir. You are a Highland chieftain now, head of a great clan. And an earl’s son, in all but the name. I had intended to belt your father Earl of Atholl, in room of my kinsman, David de Strathbogie, traitor. The good Neil is gone to higher honour than I might give him. But to provide for his wife and my sister, I shall appoint her Countess thereof, and endow her with the lands of the earldom. As for you, friend-kneel you!”

  And drawing his sword, Bruce there and then knighted the surprised young man, tapping him on both shoulders with the flat of the great blade which had shed so much blood for Scotland.

  “Arise, Sir Colin. Be thou a good and true knight until thy life’s

  end!”

  There was murmured acclaim, and appreciation of a right royal gesture.

  But some undoubtedly perceived that it was also a shrewd move indeed,

  binding one more great earldom closer to the crown, as the King had

  done with Moray and Ross, and territorially isolating the hostile

  earldoms of Angus and life by putting Atholl in the care of the

  Campbells -but only in the care. The Lady Mary was known to be pregnant, and the earldom was for her, not for her stepson. Elizabeth at least recognised a king’s mind at work over a man’s heart.

  They sailed later, on a calm grey day of leaden seas and chill airs. The galleys took most of the men, leaving the great fleet of assorted slower craft to transport the horses, stores, armour and fodder. It was not a long voyage, with the coasts of -Scotland and Ireland only some twenty-five miles apart at this point; but with Carrickfergus to reach, halfway up Belfast Lough, it would be more like a forty-mile sail from Loch Ryan. The Lord of the Isles had scouting galleys out, for there was always the possibility of attack by English ships, but so far there had been no alarms.

  In one of Angus Og’s sixty-oar greyhounds, Bruce could have dashed

  across the North Channel of the Irish Sea in three or four hours. But

  he stayed with his heterogeneous armada, which was soon scattered far

  and wide over the waters, with impatient scornful galleys circling and

  herding slow craft, like sheep-dogs, in their efforts to maintain some

  semblance of order, unity and a protective screen Fortunately no enemy

  ships put in an appearance; but it was an uncomfortable interlude for the Scots leadership. And it was cold for everybody but the galley oarsmen.

  Edward Bruce, who had an eye for appearances, had sent a squadron to meet them at the mouth of the Lough, under Donal O’Neil, King of Tyrone, no fewer than four of the vessels being packed with musicians and singers; so that the foremost Scots ships went heading up-lough thereafter to the sound of spirited Irish melodies-to the disgust of Angus Og, who considered this an insult and a travesty. Carrickfergus drew near, its lofty, high-set, English-built castle dominating the narrow streets of a walled seaport town.

  But when Bruce landed, with the streets and alleys decked with bunting and evergreens, he discovered that little or no arrangements had been made for reception and dispositions of the Scots forces. A resounding committee of welcome was very flattering to himself, but no other provision seemed to have been made for the disembarkation and housing of 7,000 men and almost twice that number of horses. The town was already full to bursting point with the wild followers of Irish kinglets, chiefs and clerics, and the harbour and even the approaches thereto crammed with shipping.

  Bruce’s veterans swore feelingly. Fortunately, as the King was refusing to proceed with the welcoming magnates up to the citadel for the official ceremonies, without first being assured of the proper reception of his army, a harassed Moray made an appearance, with the suggestion that the main mass of the Scots should not disembark here at all, but sail up the lough a further four miles or so, to a level area of meadow and greensward, at White Abbey, where there was space, water and wood for fuel.

  Unceremoniously Bruce returned to his ship, leaving his high sounding escort standing at a loss, and sailed on, to see to the due installation of his troops in the spreading demesne of White Abbeymuch to the outrage of its Anglo-Irish abbot.
/>   As a consequence, it was well after dark before the King came back to Carrickfergus, with his lieutenants, through the crazy confusion of shipping that packed the lough, to meet a much reduced and very agitated committee of magnificos, now including de Soulis the Butler. By them he was hastily conveyed, in torchlight procession, through the network of lanes and alleys where pigs, poultry and children got in the way, towards the great castle on its rocky terrace, which Edward was making his capital.

  If that proud man was put out by the prolonged delay and implied rejection of his welcome, he did not permit it to divert him.

  Everywhere around the castle torches turned night into day, bonfires

  blazed and coloured lights flared. Every tower and turret was stance

  for a beacon. Probably his display gained in impressiveness thereby,

  even if choking smoke was the inevitable concomitant Music resounded,

  by no means all of it harmon ising

  The wide forecourt of the castle had been turned into a great

  amphitheatre, lined by thousands, while in the centre, jugglers,

  tumblers, bear-leaders and other entertainers performed by the light of the flames, all to the strains of pipers and minstrels and drummers. Through this the visitors were conducted in procession, O’Neil pointing out this and that. Across the drawbridge into the outer bailey, beyond the lofty curving curtain-walls, the scene was different. Here dancers in strange barbaric-seeming costumes paced and glided and circled to less lively melodies, while rank upon rank of personages stood, bowing low as the King’s party passed. A great many of these appeared to be clergy, for Carrickfergus was a great ecclesiastical centre. Beyond the gatehouse, the inner bailey, narrower, was full to overflowing with chieftains, seannachies, knights and captains, drawn up in groups according to their rank and status. Then up the keep steps, past the yawning guardroom vaults and dungeons, and up into the Great Hall, a dazzlement of light and colour, where scores of young women all in white gyrated and dipped and postured to the gentle strumming of harps, with great beauty and dignity.

  “The daughters of kings,” O’Neil observed confidentially.

  “A hundred virgins.”

  Bruce doubted it, somehow. A lot of highly interested, roguish, not to say downright bold glances were emanating from the ladies;

  and his brother was not the man to neglect his opportunities in that direction. But he nodded gravely.

  At the far end of the huge hall was the dais platform, here occupying

  almost a quarter of the total space. It was more crowded than the main

  floor. Massed to the right were standing rows of mitred bishops and

  abbots, with un mitred priors, deans, archdeacons and other prelates,

  all in most gorgeous robes. On the left were lords and officers of

  state of every degree and highly colourful variety of costume, from

  wolf-skins and embossed leather to silks, da masks and brocades. And

  in the centre, forming a horseshoe, were ten thrones, two of them

  empty. The arrangement of these chairs was almost symmetrical-but not

  quite. All were gilded and handsome, with crowns surmounting their

  high backs, four curving on one side and four on the other of two at

  the head of the horseshoe. These two, although placed side by side,

  were not qui tea pair; one was of the same size and type as the other

  flanking eight, while its neighbour was not only larger, taller and more splendid, but was raised on a little platform of its own. On it Edward Bruce lounged, magnificently clad in cloth-of-gold and blue velvet, with a great cloak of royal purple fringed with fur and sparkling with jewels, flung negligently over one shoulder. The chair beside him was empty.

  As the new arrivals came up, trumpeters set the rafters ringing with an elaborate fanfare which drowned and stopped all the competing music, and the dancers with it. In the silence that followed, O’Neil of Tyrone turned and bowed, wordless to Bruce, more deeply to Edward, and then stalked over to one of the empty thrones, on the right, and sat down.

  Another trumpet-blast, and a resplendent herald stepped forward, to intone:

  “The mighty O’Rourke, King of Meath, offers greeting to Robert, King of Scots.”

  A thick-set, grizzled man rose from one of the chairs and held a hand high, unspeaking.

  Bruce inclined his head.

  Another trumpet.

  “The illustrious MacMurrough, King of Leinster, offers greeting to Robert, King of Scots.”

  A giant of a man, but strangely bent to one side from some ancient wound, went through the same procedure.

  “The high-born O’Brien, King of Minister, offers greeting to Robert, King of Scots.”

  A white-haired and bearded ancient, fine featured, serene, but frail, stood with difficulty and raised a quivering arm. Bruce knew him by repute as a sacker of monasteries and ruthless slayer of women and children, but bowed nevertheless.

  The next, a kinsman, O’Brien, King of Thomond, was little more than a child, a pimply, fair-haired youth who scowled-perhaps with reason, for his father was alleged to have been boiled to death in a cauldron by the previous saintly-looking welcomer barely a year before.

  “The puissant O’Carroll, King of Uriel.” A slender dark elegant, who would have been supremely handsome but for a cast in one eye, made flourish of his salute, while Bruce decided that he would not trust him one yard.

  The sixth to rise was the valiant MacCarthy, King of Desmond, a man almost as broad as he was high, with long arms which hung to his knees, said to have the strength of an ox. He, certainly, would be an excellent man to have at one’s side.

  The amiable, red-headed O’Neil, King of Tyrone, was next, and hurried through his performance with some embarrassment, barely rising from his seat.

  Last rose O’Connor, King of Connaught, first among equals, who should have been High King—had the others been prepared to accept him. A studious, delicate-seeming man, he looked more of a scholar than a warrior. He alone did not raise his hand, but bowed towards Bruce, stiffly formal.

  Then the trumpets sounded once more, louder and longer, and the herald took a deep breath.

  “The serene, right royal and victorious Lord Edward, king of kings, by God’s grace Ard Righ, High King of All Ireland, greets the Lord Robert, King of Scots, and welcomes him to this his realm and kingdom.”

  Edward broke the pattern. He did not stand up, or raise his hand, or even bow.

  “Come, brother,” he said, conversationally.

  “You are late. I looked for you hours ago. Have you not some captain, some horse or baggage master, capable of settling your people into quarters?”

  Bruce eyed this good-looking, awkward brother of his, biting back the hot words-as seemed to be ever necessary.

  “I came here to play the captain rather than the monarch, Edward,” he said evenly.

  “I shall continue to do so.”

  “M’mm.” The other considered that. He shrugged.

  “Come, anyway, Robert. It is good to see you, however … delayed. All Ireland welcomes you. Come-sit here.”

  Bruce nodded, and moved unhurriedly up between the seated kings. He stood, looking down at his brother for a few moments before he sat down in the lesser throne.

  “You are content, now?” he said, smiling a little.

  “Content?” Edward frowned.

  “How mean you-content?”

  “Why-High King! So very high!”

  “It is the style. The Celtic style.”

  “Aye. I seem to have been climbing, ever since I set foot on Irish soil! And now my neck suffers stretching!” The elder brother exaggerated the necessary upward-looking posture somewhat, from his lower chair.

  The other ignored that. He clapped his hands.

  “The music. The dancing. Resume,” he called.

  “You like my dancers, Robert?”

  “They are very fair. And doubtless they do more than dance?

  But I m
ight have esteemed them better as cooks! Or even scullions,

  brother! We have travelled far, and our bellies in more need of

  distraction than our eyes and ears! “ “You will be feasting in

  plenty, anon, never fear. Be patient. As I had to be, awaiting you! Much of my provision was spoiled. By the delay. My cooks are working to repair that delay. We would have eaten well, two hours ago, brother. Roasted peacocks. Breast of swan. Sucking boar seethed in malvoisie. Spiced salmon. Peppered lobster. Woodcock …”

  “We would have eaten well, to be sure. But the men I brought-what of them? I found no provision made for them, cold, tired, hungry. This is the first day of December, Edward-winter is on us. Even in Ireland! To have them lie under the open sky …!”

  “It is an army you have brought, is it not? Not a parcel of clerks or women! I’ faith-in the past, our armies found their own meat and shelter well enough! Did they not?”

  Curiously Bruce considered his brother.

  “You say that? You would have me turn my people loose on your land? To do their will? An army foraging! Is that the King of Ireland speaking?”

  “From the man who burned half of Scotland, and more than once, you are becoming exceeding nice, I think!” the other gave back.

  Robert drew a long breath.

  “Remember that, Edward, when your Abbot of White Abbey comes making complaint that I have misused his property!” he said grimly.

  “Now-what of the enemy?

  The English? Do they press heavily? How far south are your

  outposts?

  And where is my god-father, Ulster… ?”

  Edward was not, in fact, eager to discuss the strategic position;

  but thereafter, and especially when presently they moved into the banqueting-hall, next to the kitchens across the courtyard, where he found the soldierly MacCarthy, King of Desmond, sitting at his right hand, Bruce did learn sufficient to give him a fair overall picture.

  Hostilities were at the moment more or less suspended, without there