The Steps to the Empty Throne bt-1

by Nigel Tranter

  “As he shall. Eh, my lord?”

  Bruce inclined his head. He had put off the unsavoury business of harrying his neighbour’s lands for as long as he could. Not that he had too nice a stomach for raiding and feud, in the time honoured fashion; but Douglas was an old friend of his father’s, distantly related indeed, and it went against the grain to attack his wife and family during his absence in captivity. It seemed, however, that he could procrastinate no longer. Better that he should do it, perhaps, than Hazelrig from Lanark, a man renowned as a butcher.

  “It will take a little time to muster sufficient men,” he said.

  “Two days, no more,” Benstead asserted.

  “We have planned it all, times without number these last months. You agree, Sir Nicholas? Two days.” He turned to the courier.

  “My salutations to your lord, at Lanark. Tell him that my lord of Carrick will be hammering at the gates of Douglas Castle three days from now.

  And that every effort will be made to lay hands on its master. But once we have his lady and children, we shall have the means to halt his treasons, heh? Through them we will bring the cur to heel very promptly—or my name is not John Benstead! Tell my lord of Clydesdale that it is as good as done.”

  Bruce turned away and left them there, the clerk’s mocking laughter following him.

  So, a few days later, a mounted host of some six hundred men wound its

  way through the green Lowther Hills, forded the waters of Daer,

  Potrail, Elvan and Snar, feeders of Clyde, crossed the high peat-pocked

  moors beyond, and over the lonely pass of Glentaggart where the snow

  still lingered in the north-facing corries, rode down the Glespin Burn

  into the fair wide valley of the Douglas Water. Bruce and Sir Nicholas

  Segrave led, with a contingent of half the English garrison; the rest

  were all Annandale men, irregulars, tenantry rendering their feudal

  service. Their stocky, short-legged shaggy garrons, used to the hills,

  made a notably better job of the difficult terrain than did the English

  regulars’ cavalry horses. To the satisfaction of all concerned, Waster

  Benstead had elected to remain behind, allegedly on account of

  pressure of paper work, but, Bruce was pretty sure, actually to conduct a great search for hidden wool, while most of the able-bodied men and heads of households were away with their lord.

  But there was some cause for dissatisfaction also. Hitherto, ostensibly in the interests of secrecy, so that they might descend upon the Douglases unawares, there had been none of the looked for and prescribed harrying and laying waste of the land. These barren uplands, of course, were scant of people and houses, and admittedly this was not the best time to encumber themselves with flocks and herds. But it made dull riding for so puissant a force.

  In the early afternoon of the second day, with the richer broad bottom lands of Douglasdale opening before them, the temptations became much greater. There were still some four miles of populous country to cover before Douglas Castle, when Bruce halted his force and ordered all to gather round and attend well to what he said. Clad in a handsome suit of chain-mail under a heraldic surcoat of red and gold, girdled with a golden earl’s belt, a plumed helmet on his head, he caused his horse to mount a little knoll, and spoke from that.

  “My friends—we are here, not for our own advantage but to bring this Douglasdale into the King’s peace. Remember it. There may well be pickings for one or two, when our work is done.

  But not until then, I say. You hear me? Our task is to reach Douglas Castle quickly, before the Lady of Douglas and her folk have time or opportunity to put it in state of readiness against us.

  For we are not prepared or equipped for a Seigle, as you must know. It is a strong house, and we have no engines to reduce it. So we hasten. It is understood?”

  Men murmured or growled, but made no more specific protest at such a

  poor programme for Border moss troopers

  “I do not think to see much fighting,” Bruce went on.

  “Even if they are warned of our approach, they cannot have had time to assemble any strength. We shall surround the castle and hope to rush the gates, demanding surrender in King Edward’s name.

  Only if they hold against us need there be bloodshed. Have you anything to add, Sir Nicholas?”

  The veteran nodded.

  “If a woman commands here, we may save ourselves much trouble,” he said.

  “We will take two or three children. Bring them before the castle with ropes round their necks. Threaten to hang them if the castle is not yielded. Hang one, if needs be, as example. No woman will hold out then, I wager.”

  Bruce frowned.

  “I do not make war on women and children, sir,” he declared, shortly.

  “No? It is a woman and her cubs we have to oust from this house, is it not? If they resist, many will die. Which is better -one child or many grown men? And likely other children thereafter?

  This is war, not a tourney, my lord!”

  “Nevertheless, we shall do this my way,” Bruce said levelly.

  He did not want to quarrel with the Englishman-was not sure indeed who was truly in command of this expedition. The mass of the men were his, and in theory he was the leader—but he knew that in fact he was little more than a puppet of the English, and Benstead would support this gruff and experienced soldier against him to the hilt. And Benstead, unhappily, stood for Edward Plantagenet in this.

  So, when they rode on, the younger man went out of his way to be civil to the knight, to avoid any rupture. They had got on well enough together hitherto-largely thanks to a mutual reaction towards clerks in authority, though essentially they had little in common. Segrave would make a dangerous enemy, Bruce well realised.

  Scouts sent ahead reported that Castleton of Douglas, the township clustered round the fine church of St.

  “Bride near the castle demesne, was strangely quiet, with nobody stirring-though no visible sign of alarm.

  “It could mean that they have gone. Learned of our coming, and fled,” Bruce commented, sounding more hopeful than he knew.

  “Or moved into the castle. To hold it against us,” the knight countered.

  “As like the one as the other.”

  His companion had his own reasons for thinking otherwise, but did not say so. He was the more disappointed then, when, after clattering through the seemingly deserted village-and sending pickets round the back lanes to ensure that no armed men lurked there-they came to Douglas Castle on its mound above the bends and water-meadows of the river, to find the drawbridge raised, all gates closed, and the Douglas banner streaming proudly from its keep.

  “I thought as much,” Sir Nicholas said grimly.

  “This lady requires to be taught a lesson.”

  “Not by hanging hairns, at least,” his companion returned.

  Douglas Castle, though not so large as Lochmaben, and no fortress like

  Berwick, was an imposing place, and because of the riverside cliff and the swampy nature of the approach, difficult to reach save by the narrow causeway which led to the drawbridge and gatehouse of the outer bailey. It was a typical stone castle of enceinte, consisting of a lofty stone keep, four-square and massive, having five storeys beneath a battlemented parapet, surrounded by twenty foot high curtain-walls to form a square, with circular flanking-towers at each corner. There were the usual lean-to subsidiary buildings within the curtain-walls, but these scarcely showed from without. Now, men could be seen pacing the parapets that surmounted curtains and towers.

  With a trumpeter sounding an imperious summons, Bruce rode forward, Segrave at his side. At the gap of the deep, wide, water-filled ditch, where the drawbridge should have reached, they perforce halted. They were well within arrow-shot of the gatehouse here. The younger man raised his voice.

  “I am Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, come in the King’s name.

  I request that this bridge be low
ered and that I be admitted to speak with whoever holds this castle,” he cried.

  After a little delay a voice answered from a barred gatehouse window.

  “This is Douglas’s house, and Douglas holds it. Bruce of Carrick is known. But in what king’s name does he speak?”

  “There is but one king now. King Edward.”

  “Douglas does not recognise King Edward of England as having any authority in this realm of Scotland, save what he holds with a sword,” came back the careful reply.

  “Does Bruce bring Edward’s sword to Douglas Castle?”

  The other knew a strange reluctance to admit that he did.

  “I

  bring Edward’s peace,” he said.

  “And would speak with the Lady of Douglas.

  There was something like a hoot from the gatehouse.

  “We all know of Edward of England’s peace! Death’s peace is kinder!

  And does Bruce require half a thousand men, to speak with the Lady Douglas?”

  ( Segrave raised his voice.

  “Have done,” he shouted shortly.

  “Douglas is traitor and outlaw. Has broken custody. His house and lands are forfeit. Must be yielded to the King. Yield, then.

  Or suffer!”

  “Ha—there speaks an honest voice, at least I Edward Plantagenet’s true voice. The Lady of Douglas speaks with none such.”

  “Then the worse for her, fool…!”

  Sir Nicholas bit off the rest of that. With a vicious hissing whine, three arrows came flying past the right ear of each horseman, close enough to fan their cheeks—and to cause each to duck involuntarily, and their beasts to rear and sidle in alarm.

  Such carefully-placed shots obviously bespoke expert bowmen, and could equally well have been each three inches to the left and in the eye-sockets of the trio.

  Segrave, cursing explosively, wheeled his heavy mount around, and went spurring back to the host, shouting that they would hereafter do things his way, the trumpeter crouching low in the saddle and nowise behindhand. But Bruce, seeking to quieten his horse, held his ground at the bridgehead. He raised a gauntleted hand-and hoped that any quivering would not be seen from the gatehouse.

  “That was Sir Nicholas Segrave, who captains it at Lochmaben,” he called urgently.

  “Hear me. Robert Bruce.”

  There was a pause, short enough no doubt but seeming an eternity to the man who sat there as target for a second flight of arrows. Helmeted and armoured in chain-mail he might be, but these marksmen could wing their bolts to his unprotected face;

  besides, at that range, a shaft, even if it failed to pierce the mail, could drive the same bodily into a man’s heart or lungs.

  No arrows hissed meantime, but a woman’s voice, high, thin but clear, sounded.

  “My lord-Eleanor de Louvain, wife to Douglas, speaks. Your father I knew. And his father before him.

  Edward’s men both. What has the son to say to me, who would spit in Edward’s false face?”

  Bruce let his breath go in a sigh of relief—although he was unprepared for the venom in that. This woman was herself English, a widowed heiress that Douglas had carried off without Edward’s permission, on the death of his first wife some years before; it appeared that he had made a good Scot of her.

  “I say that I wish you no ill, lady. You or yours. This house must be yielded to the King-as, by his command, must every stone castle in Scotland. But there need be no bloodshed. Your people may come forth unharmed. Go where they will.”

  “My people, sir? And my children? And myself?”

  Bruce hesitated, as well he might. And as he did so, from behind him

  sounded the drumming of hooves. Turning, he saw that perhaps a score

  of riders had detached themselves from the host, and were cantering

  back towards the village, three quarters of a mile away. One glance

  sufficed to establish that they were all English men-at-arms of the

  Lochmaben garrison. The young man had no least doubt as to their mission.

  He turned back, face set.

  “If you yield the house, no hurt shall befall you, lady. On my knightly word,” he cried.

  “Why should I trust your word, when you come in Edward’s name, my lord?” The high voice was less firm and certain now.

  “That tyrant cares naught for promises. Have you forgot that my husband was Governor of Berwick?”

  “It is my word—not Edward’s …” Bruce was returning, when, like the hissing of a pitful of snakes, a flight of many arrows sliced the air above him. Flinging himself low over his mount’s neck, he nevertheless saw three men throw up their arms on the parapet of the gatehouse tower, and one to topple headlong and fall with a splash into the moat.

  Uproar followed. Swearingly savagely, amidst angry shouts from both front and rear, the lone horseman dragged his charger’s head round, and rode furiously back the two hundred yards or so to his own people.

  Segrave’s bowmen, dismounted and kneeling, were already fitting second arrows to their strings.

  “Hold I Stop, fools!” he yelled.

  “I commanded no bloodshed .”

  Segrave gestured with a scornful forward wave of his hand.

  The second volley of long feathered shafts sped towards the castle.

  “I said no, man I How dare you …!”

  “You may command these cattle-thieves and shepherds,” the knight said, as Bruce came up, and threw himself down from his saddle, “But even so, only by the King’s permission. These I command, my lord. And to better effect!”

  “Better? You have ruined all, man. They will hold out against us now.

  Have no faith in our word. And you have soiled my name.”

  “Then your name is easily soiled! Have I not told you—this is war? We are not here concerned with the honour of highborn lord lings I have my duty to do …”

  “You call slaying during a parley duty?”

  “Parley! Talk! You win no wars with talk, young man. I know my duty, if you do not.” He turned away, ordering his archers to raise their aim to the parapet of the keep itself, targets having all disappeared from closer at hand.

  In wrath and frustration Bruce watched-and even in his ire could not withhold his admiration for the magnificent shooting of the English bowmen. That keep’s topmost parapet was more than three hundred yards away, yet straight and true the arrows flew to it, zipping between the gaps and crenellations. As he gazed, a scream came thinly to them from that lofty exposed platform.

  Arrows were shot back at them from the castle, to be sure, but they all fell far short. Archery had never been highly developed or favoured in Scotland. The English long bow, high as a man and shooting a yard-long arrow, made of yew, a tree unknown in Scotland, had fully double the range or the Scots short bows of arbalests. It was also infinitely more accurate. Here, only the odd spent shaft from the castle came anywhere near them.

  Quickly the Douglases perceived how ineffectual was their fire.

  Their shooting ceased, and no more men showed themselves at parapet or loophole. Sir Nicholas called a cease-fire. Bruce left him without another word, and mounting his horse again, rode off in a rageful silence.

  He made a circuit of the castle—no easy task amongst the knowes, bog land and river-channels. He noted how thinly spread even six hundred men looked, when extended round a wide perimeter. From a strategic height he surveyed the scene and its possibilities, and thereafter set about regrouping his force. Instead of trying to maintain any unbroken ring, he concentrated his moss troopers in parties of fifty or so, where they might best command a comprehensive view of the castle and surroundings.

  Night-time patrols were going to be difficult.

  This took time. When he returned to the main gatehouse front, it was to find Segrave’s men hacking and hammering now, erecting a crossbar supported on two uprights, out of the timbers of a nearby cow shed The bar stretched about ten feet above the ground. Men were being sent in search of ropes.

  “Segrave,” Bruce announced tense
ly, at sight of all this, “I tell you, I will not permit the hanging of innocent hostages. Nor even the pretence at it. I have not forgotten my knightly vows, if you have!”

  Permit, my lord? Permit, you say? How think you to permit, or not to permit, what I do? I am King Edward’s captain here, what are you?”

  “I am the Earl of Carrick, and commander of this host.”

  For so long as I permit it! You are a name only, man. You no more command here than you command at Lochmaben Castle, king Edward has more trusted servants than you, sir. And needs by God!”

  ”There will be no hanging, Segrave.”

  “I have my orders.”

  “From that clerk? From Benstead? I congratulate you!”

  Sir Nicholas looked grim but said nothing.

  “Very well. We shall see.” Bruce rode away again.

  Back he went, to the first of the groups of fifty moss troopers

  “Half your men to come with me,” he told their leader, and proceeded on round the perimeter.

  When he had made the circuit of Douglas Castle for the third time, he had some two hundred rough horsemen at his tail.

  As this company rode back towards the causeway area, Bruce could see that there was now some major activity going on beside the completed gallows, with men clustered around in a close circle. Exclaiming, he dug in his spurs.

  Faces turned as the newcomers pounded up-including three notably white faces in the midst of it all. Three children, two boys of eight or ten, and a girl somewhat older, were being held on the backs of three horses, their hands tied behind their backs, rough gags in their mouths. Already a rope was around the girl’s neck and slung over the crossbar above her. The same was being done for the boys. The youngsters’ terrified eyes made eloquent appeal.

  “Sir Nicholas Segrave—cut those children free and let them go,” Bruce shouted hoarsely.

  There was no response. The English men-at-arms went on with their grim work.