by J. R. Tomlin
"And Nigel with me," the king muttered and James suspected it wasn't really to him. "Following me wherever I went like a pup at my heels."
The king never said, but they all knew that Nigel had to be dead, that he had died under the knives and torture of an English execution. His own brothers, thank God, were hidden in England and too young for even the English king to hunt them. Or so James had to hope. A wind caught James's cloak and it snapped around him. "Will you come in, Sire?"
"I like the fresh air. You go. Break your fast. It may be a long wait." He didn't turn from his vigil, staring towards the mass of Carrick in the distance.
James stomach grumbled and the king gave him an amused look. James rubbed his flat stomach. Hungry again.
Bruce finally came down and was in a corner, talking to his brother Edward when the watch shouted, "A light." The sentry clattered down the narrow stairs, but the king was already dashing towards them and pushed past the man. The men watched, but some began checking their weapons, muttering to each other. James and Campbell dashed up the stairs after the king.
Dense clouds hid the sun. In the dimness, a dancing point of light was clearly visible, a blot of yellow against the blackness of the hills.
Campbell stroked his red beard. "It'll be a rough trip with the cross current and ill winds. By the time we man the galleys and reach Carrick, it'll be dark if we leave now."
"So it will." The king stepped to the stairs and bellowed, "To the galleys."
Below, there was a clattering dash for the door. Men whooped eagerly as they ran. For the Islemen and highlanders, war was a sport they savored.
In an hour, the galleys were loaded with men. The king stood in the prow, staring ahead. The ships tossed, waves dashing over the sides, as they fought the tide towards the opposite shore. Ahead the flames of the fire arose then fell, yellow and orange. They headed straight for it. James balanced at the prow as wind and spume lashed his face. The blanket of night dropped over the sea. They swung hard around the white reef where savage waves dashed higher than the masts. Oarsmen pulled hard to the beat of a drum, fighting the sea that pulled them towards the rocks. Then they were around it. The breakers smoothed. Ahead, the fire burned on a long stretch of beach that gleamed white under a dark cliff. The galley's prow slid onto the sandy beach with a splash.
James was already soaked through, armor and face dripping from the sea spray. He jumped off into the shallows and splashed ashore towards the fire that had burned down to a smoldering pile.
Against the sky, on a cliff top in the distance, loomed Turnberry Castle.
"That's a hut," he said, puzzled. He turned to the king who was splashing ashore a couple of steps behind. "Your man burnt a hut?"
A figure ran out of the darkness from behind the smoking ruins. James's sword scraped metal as he jerked it free.
"Sire." The man threw himself down on both knees a few feet back, out of sword's reach. "Sire, I swear I didn't set it."
"Put away the sword, James." He motioned to the man, stocky in plain jacks and a helm. "Up with you, Cuthbert. What goes here?"
Cuthbert sidled closer with an uneasy glance towards James. "It was the English. They seized a man who lived there. Said he was a rebel and fired the hut."
"Called here by accident?" Edward exclaimed.
"Wait." Bruce held up a hand. "But you scouted? Found what?"
"There's a large force under Lord Percy. Hundreds."
"How many hundreds though? What kind of force? Knights? Men-at-arms?"
Cuthbert shook his head. "I didn't dare enter the castle. I'm not sure. But four or five hundred at least."
"How fare the people here? Will they rise for me?"
The man's Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed. "You can see what's been happening, my lord." He motioned to the burned hut. "A priest was killed when he was caught preaching your cause. Other houses burned. Women raped. They're afraid. Some will come to you. A few men with no wives or children to be harmed like me. But-- No."
Bruce pounded a fist on his thigh. "It's what I feared."
Maol of Lennox pushed past Edward Bruce. "There's no way we can take the castle with that many. It's impossible." He held up a shaking hand. "We have to turn back. Join your brothers in Galloway."
"No, my lord," James said. "We're here. We have a strong force. We should use it." No more running. It was time for action.
"He's right." Edward Bruce gripped the hilt of his sword and glared. James had to suspect the man loathed agreeing with him. "I'm not turning back. I'm tired of playing the craven."
The king was staring up at the castle, arms crossed. "Cuthbert." He turned back to his spy. "Five hundred or more. That's a goodly number, true. Are they all in the castle?"
"No, my lord. It seems as though the castle won't hold them all. Many they've housed in the village. Two hundred mayhap."
Bruce turned to the group of captains around him. "I'd have council on this. Edward, you're fixed that we should not turn back? Even though the fire was a mistake?"
"We're landed. And Percy. We have scores to settle with that man."
"The rest of you?"
"It's unwise. They're too many," Maol of Lennox said. "Another defeat would destroy you."
King Robert looked at the others.
"I say, go on," James said. It was a strange thing to agree with Edward Bruce. Mayhap that meant he'd lost his mind. But they couldn't run forever and who knew whether they'd land in Galloway unopposed as they had here.
"I'm not sure," Boyd said. "To attack the castle with so few-- I can't advise it, but they're right that we're here and unopposed, too."
"No, not the castle." The king paused, frowning. "I told you after Methven that I'd learned a hard lesson. Aymer de Valence taught it to me. But I should have learned it from Edward Longshanks and Wallace beforehand. How many years has this truth been staring at us, and we didn't see it? We can't meet them in the field and beat them. Can't lay siege to castles and defeat them. There are ten English for every Scot. They'll do what ever they have to in order to destroy us."
Bruce paced back and forth. He bent and picked up a rock, rolling it in his hand. "It's hard. It's not how we were taught to fight. But either we change or we die. A nation that fights for its very existence doesn't have the luxury of chivalry."
Boyd said, "You know that I'm with you, my liege."
"It's how Wallace almost won--would have if all of us had been behind him. Now I'll do it his way. So-- Will you follow me in this war? Fight secretly? In the dark? Because from tonight, that is how I fight the English. We attack the village. At night. As they did to us at Methven. And I'll take what victory I can."
Edward Bruce made a sound in his throat. "I don't like that kind of sneaking, Robert--my lord. I won't say that I do. But if it's fighting, then, all right. I'm for it."
"I'm your sworn man," James said but it was more than that. What the king said made sense. He'd not worried about honor when he was hungry and alone in Paris. Now he wouldn't worry about it to save his own lands or the people there who counted on him. This was how it must be. "Where you go, I follow."
There was a muttering of agreement, except from Maol of Lennox but even he nodded at last. They would attack.
"We'll hit fast and quiet. Unless our own villagers fight, spare them. I've not come to kill my own people."
Their three-hundred highlanders had disembarked in the meantime and gathered into a dark, silent mass. The king quickly divided them; Lennox and Gilbert de la Haye with a score of men to watch the road to the castle and make sure no one got past to give the alarm. They trotted up the winding road to hide along the tree and gorse lined track that led to the cliff-top citadel. A hundred men were for Edward and Campbell to ring the town and keep guard whilst the others went in to do the dirty work.
Those two with their men headed towards the valley where the town of Turnberry nestled within a ring of woods. After giving his brother and Campbell a few minutes, the king divided the f
orce between James, Boyd and himself. The first assault would be silent and unopposed. After that, no doubt, things would get hot, but it had to be done quickly before the castle was aroused and help arrived.
They followed a whispering stream to the castle's village. One of Edward's highlanders, a dark shape crouching next to some broom near the road, nodded to them as they trotted past. An owl hooted somewhere in the woods, and the wind rustled the branches high overhead. They came within sight of the village from the sheltering trees. It was small cottages. Bruce pointed to the larger buildings--the kirk, a stable, and maltings to make a goodly establishment supporting the keep. He waved a couple of scouts ahead. Any village dogs must be silenced. A half-moon peeked through the heavy drifting clouds casting strange shifting shadows and gave their only light. The huts were dark and silent. The shadow of an owl crossed the moon.
They gathered around the king. "We can't guard prisoners. You understand that. Quick. And quiet." He gave his final instructions in a low intense voice.
James walked to the side and motioned his three score men to join him. He worried at his lip as he waited. He'd slit a few throats on their flight through the mountains but a night attack? A bead of sweat trickled down his rib and he took a deep breath. How did one go about this business?
"Wat," he whispered, "we're to take the place on the right. The malting. What say you?"
A yelp cut off told that the scouts had found a dog. James looked towards the king who held up his hand to wait. Another few minutes passed and the scouts trotted back. To the left lay the village kirk. The king waved to James and then turned that way, his men following. Boyd had divided his men into two groups to attack the houses faster.
"We kill whoever is in it," Wat said with a shrug.
"Aye. Let's get to it." James drew his dirk and crept towards the door. It opened with a squeak. He stepped aside to let the rushing men flood by him, a grim menace in their silent dirk-laden rush. James followed them in. Blind in the dark after the moonlight, he stopped. Blinking, he tried to make out what lay around.
The Highlanders seemed to have no such trouble. A coughing choke from one side said the killing had started. A short scream was cut off. James made out lumpish figures in the darkness where his men were at work. In a corner, someone shouted, "Help." A thrashing struggle started, soon finished.
Overhead, rustling and footsteps sounded. A lighter patch of dark, James at last made out the stairs. He headed towards them. A black shape hurtled downward, shouting, "What goes down here?"
James threw himself forward. He hit the man in the chest with his shoulder and thrust his dirk. It sank deep in the man's belly. He scrambled to hold the man down with his knee. A startled shriek rose that James cut off, jamming his hand down on the open mouth. Teeth sunk into his hand and James jerked his dirk out. A hack to the man's throat and the teeth parted. Upstairs, there was shouting and the clank of metal.
Panting, James stood but the highlanders were already running past and up the stairs. Crashes and cries came from above. James reached halfway up. A fleeing figure leaped onto the stairs and slashed at him with a sword. James dodged backwards. He went sprawling his length when his foot caught on a body he hadn't seen in the dark. The sword whistled over his head. On the stairs, the swing overbalanced him and his man stumbled down the steps and half-fell past James. Scrambling to his knees, James twisted. He slammed his dirk downward into the back of the man's neck. He jerked it free and let the body bump the rest of the way down the stairs.
James jumped to his feet. Outwith screams and shouts came from every direction. A horn trumpeted nearby. Wat ran down the stairs at the head of the highlanders.
"All dead. No sign of villagers though," he said.
"Sounds like the others need a hand," James said. "Go."
He slapped their shoulders as they ran by. Wat burst out the door with the men at his heels. James followed. He glimpsed a highlander impaled on an English sword. The king caught a spearman as the fool ran at him. His battleaxe severed through mail and leather and muscle and ribs. James sprinted towards a knot of the enemy fighting, back to back. His world shrunk to a few feet of ground within reach of his sword. A man-at-arms thrust at his chest. James lopped the head off the spear, and shattered the man's face with his backslash.
An arrow hurtled at James from the right. He whirled, looking for where it had come from. Wat brought the archer down with a plunge of his sword.
Breathing hard, James turned in a slow circle. In his part of the village, not a single enemy remained, except for corpses he could count in the gray of pre-dawn. The king leaned on his sword not far away. He saw Robbie Boyd going from cottage to cottage. From a house across the road, a woman screamed--shrill and long.
The king pointed in that direction with his battleaxe. "Boyd, see to that," he shouted. "These are my people."
At the edge of the village, Edward had brought up his men in support of the attack. Some of them had a handful of English trapped with their back to a wall of the kirk. They were swinging claymores, chopping at the thrusting pikes. Then the English were surrounded.
Trumpets sounded from high above, and James turned to the castle that massed against the sky atop a cliff. A watch fire blazed up on one of the towers and then a second. No surprise though. They'd been bound to hear the fighting.
He went looking for his men. In the maltings, he found Jonat on the second floor in a pool of blood, his arm hacked off at the shoulder. He found another slumped under a tree, skewered by a pike. The rest of the highlanders were looting the bodies of the dead. Of the three score who had followed him into the fight, only two had died.
The king put his horn to his lips, a gift from Angus Og, the curling horn of a highland bull. He blew the retiral. James trotted towards him. How soon would there be an attack from the castle? They wouldn't stand a chance against mounted knights.
His hand throbbed and he realized of a sudden that it was covered with blood. When he poked at it, he discovered the bite from the fight on the stairs had slashed open his palm. A wound all too likely to fester. He cursed under his breath and then put it from his mind.
The king waited until most of his men gathered around him. Now fires blazed on the all towers and light shown through the window slits of the castle.
"Hurry. I want any supplies we can carry with us. James, Percy won't take a chance on attacking at night without knowing our numbers. Find Lennox. He must return to Angus MacDonald and gather more force if Angus will send them. You and Robbie Boyd hold our rear as we move. We aren't to be followed into the hills. And mind, warn the people and then fire the village behind you. We'll leave nothing they might use against us."
James yelled for Wat to gather the men. He trotted up the road towards the cliff-top castle. Sleet began to whip at him. It cut at his face. The cliff wasn't high but the castle walls rose blackly into the sky at the top.
Lennox's men jumped out from some broom, weapons raised.
"Where is his lordship?" James shouted before they quite got to head-splitting.
"Ho, Jamie. Where's the king?" Lord Maol stepped out from the trees with Campbell following.
"We're to move and hold the rear." He looked at the rise and fall of the watch fires on the castle towers that flared and whipped in the sleet. Under their feet, it formed a rime of ice. "Any sign of they're finding their courage and coming out?"
"Horses and harness noises. A few shouts. Percy will have scouts out at first light, I'm thinking, and he with his full force once he knows our numbers. That will be strong enough," Maol said.
"Then best they don't find us here. The king says we go--for Loch Doon." He relayed the king's instructions for Lennox and clasped the man's hand. In the dark, they parted ways.
Campbell loped ahead to find the king. James rubbed his cold benumbed face thoughtfully. Fire the village, the kind of work they'd have to do much of to rip the land from their conquerors, but not to be relished. He looked towards Wat. "We need torche
s."
An hour later, James stood in the middle of the village, heat bathed as flames leaped skyward whipped by the icy wind. "Let's go," he said.
Chapter Twelve
Carrick, Scotland: March 1307
James scrambled between high crags of rock above the narrow valley. He ran slantwise downhill over rock falls and scree. At the bottom ran a burn that gurgled over a stony path. Squatting, he splashed the frigid water on his face, washing off the sweat and grit. He breathed in the green smell of pines; it was good to be alive.
At last, he sighted a sentry beside a tall boulder. James jumped down and the man whirled but then relaxed when he recognized the knight. The man nodded so James turned to trot past a sharp turn with a shallow dip. It that led to a hidden green hollow in front of the yawning mouth of a cave.
Before he went back, he'd check the sentry above the loch. For a half-mile, he followed a small side glen. During the week since the attack on Turnberry Village, they'd seen no pursuit. But Percy and Edward Longshanks were not going to let such an offense go unpunished. Every morning and nightfall, James made a tour of the sentries. They wouldn't be caught unawares. A disaster like Methven would not happen again. The furthest sentry was at the top of a gorse-covered rise. He waved frantically to James when he spotted him. It was no friendly hello. James ran to the peak. The sentry pointed.
From here, you could see down the valley. Coming up the track two miles away where sunlight turned Loch Doon into shimmering silver was a party of forty horsemen. The sun struck arms and armor adding to the sparkle.
The party flew no pennon or banner. Only forty. Surely, Percy wouldn't have sent such a paltry force against them. Even though the king had divided their force, Percy couldn't know this, and he was too cautious a man from everything people said to take such a risk.
Two days before, a week after the attack on Turnberry, the king saw that only a few men were trickling in to join them from his earldom of Carrick. He sent Sir Edward with three-score highlanders to try to raise fighting men in his lordship of Annandale. Sir Niall Campbell had gone off with a few of his own men to try to locate the other two Bruce brothers who had landed with Irish gallowglasses in Galloway. The king had fretted and paced at the lack of news.