The Steps to the Empty Throne bt-1

The Steps to the Empty Throne bt-1 Page 19

by Nigel Tranter

  Grimly the giant considered them all, waiting. Waiting for the outcry that did not materialise. Then he nodded, and turned.

  “My lord Steward,” he said, “it is enough. I thank you for your patience, your courtesy. I thank all. Let a feast, a great feeding, be prepared. For many are hungry. There is much food here in the Forest—the famine has not touched it. Many wild cattle, many deer. Sufficient beasts are already slain. All shall eat and drink tonight.” And, the King’s representative having given his orders to the King’s Steward, he bowed briefly and, waving to his own close group to follow, strode by the vestry door out of the ruined chancel.

  Later, with the camp-fires lighting up the March evening, and the rich smells of roasting beef and venison filling the night air, a very thoughtful Bruce, in company with the Earl of Mar, pacing the shadowy, broken cloisters of the abbey, was startled by a deep voice speaking close behind them. They swung round, to find Wallace there, with the man Lamberton. Like so many big men, he seemed to have the ability to tread very softly.

  “So, my lords,” he said, “you commune closely I As well you might I For in this Scotland, I think, the very stones listen and whisper. And there will be much whispering tonight. How long, think you, before word of this days doings reaches Surrey? And Edward?”

  The two earls, who had indeed been discussing Wallace, looked a little uncomfortable.

  “What mean you, Sir William? By that!” Bruce asked tensely.

  “That wise men do well to look over their shoulders—that is all,” the other answered lightly.

  “This is a notable realm for traitors, is it not?”

  Was this, could it possibly be, some sort of warning?

  “I do not take you, sir,” Bruce said.

  “Then you are less shrewd than I esteemed you, my lord I The House of Comyn may not love Edward Plantagenet. But they may prefer him to William Wallace! Or even Robert Bruce!”

  “So-0-0 I You fear the Comyns will not accept what is done?”

  “Only if they must, I think. And they are very strong. I ask you, my lords, as men of the same noble rank and station as these -should I feel secure, when Edward strikes, with the Comyns in arms at my back?”

  Bruce glanced at Mar, and cleared his throat.

  “I do not know!”

  “Nor do I! Master Lamberton, here, believes that I should not.”

  The tall priest spoke in a crisp voice smacked of the field rather than the chancel.

  “I do not name them traitors,” he declared.

  “But I hold they believe themselves better suited to rule Scotland than is Sir William Wallace I And will not hesitate to stab him in the back, if by so doing they may take over that rule. And esteem themselves to have done Scotland service I To do so, they must be most fully assembled in arms. As they can, in answer to the Guardian’s summons to the nation. The Comyns could raise ten thousand men. A sore host to have at your back, in battle!”

  “True. But how may this be countered?” Mar demanded.

  “You cannot keep the Comyns from mustering their men. Nor deny them the right to fight for the realm.”

  The cleric lowered his voice.

  “My lord-you control the vast earldom of Mar, a mighty heritage in the North. My lord of Carrick, yours is the Lordship of the Garioch, nearby in Aberdeenshire—half a province. Moreover, Sir Andrew Moray is dead, woe is me—but his brothers are sound for Wallace, and hold the great Moray lordships of Petty, Innes and Duffus. All these abut the Comyn lands. If you, my lords, were to go north and, with the Morays, muster the men of these lordships—as all will be called upon to do by the Guardian—then you have a force assembled on the Comyns’ doorstep, do you not? Men so mustered in arms are ever … restless.

  However firm you hold them in, there will be some small spulzie and

  pillage. Reiving, as we say in the East March of the Border, whence I

  come. On neighbours’ lands. Comyn lands. I swear, so long as they

  are there, no Comyn host will come south!”

  Bruce almost whistled beneath his breath. Here was a crafty, nimble-witted clerk. Could it be that this was where the advice came that was turning Wallace from mere warrior into statesman?

  “You would play the realm’s nobles one against the other, Sir Priest?” he challenged.

  “They need but little encouragement in that, my lord! I but urge that, since all the land must be mustered in arms, it is only wise that sound men muster alongside those who might be led otherwise. I wish for no bloodshed, no fighting. But a due balancing of forces.”

  “And Bruce is sound, in our cause, to be sure!” Wallace put in, smiling into his curling auburn beard.

  “Since he it was who made me Guardian! With my lord of Mar’s aid.”

  If there was derision in that, it was fairly well covered over.

  Bruce saw very well that Wallace trusted none of the lords, himself included. He was for sending him north, away from his own great reservoirs of manpower, Carrick and Annandale, to far Garioch, his sister’s portion when she married Mar. There to distract Comyn, the Red Comyn in especial, who was his rival in so much.

  “How do you know that I will not make common cause with the Comyns?” he demanded.

  Wallace actually laughed, apparently having followed the younger man’s train of thought accurately.

  “Because John Comyn is Baliol’s man,” he said simply.

  “And you are… yourself!”

  The acuteness of that silenced Bruce for the moment. Mar spoke.

  “If our hosts are up in Moray and Mar, facing Comyn, then we cannot be aiding you here against the English.”

  “A commander needs more hosts than one, my lord. It is wise not to pit all at one throw. He needs a reserve. Your combined hosts, in the north, will well serve as that.”

  In other words, Wallace was well content to fight Edward with his own common folk, the masses assembled direct from the nation, holding the great lords’ levies at a distance. Bruce saw it, if Mar did not.

  “Beware, sir, that you do not estimate Edward Plantagenet too lightly!” he said.

  “That I do not,” the big man assured.

  “By God, I do not! But all shall not be won, or lost, in one battle.”

  There was a mutual silence for a little, as the four men considered each other. Then Bruce shrugged.

  “You are Guardian of Scotland,” he said.

  “Aye. Thanks to you, as I say.”

  “I wonder!”

  “You doubt my thanks, my lord? That is foolish. You did for me, then, what no other could, or would, have done. The knighting.

  I will not forget it. For that, at least, I do most surely thank you. Your reasons for doing it I do not know. But the deed was good. Of much value. For this, I am in your debt.”

  “It was merited,” Bruce said shortly.

  “Never was knighthood more so.”

  “Not all would agree with you! But … that is no matter.

  What matters now is the future. How long do you give Scotland?

  You who know Edward. Before he comes hammering at our gates?”

  “Three months. A month to return from France. A month to set his own house in order—to bring the English nobles to heel.

  A month to raise the men to march north. I give Scotland until June.”

  “Aye. You have the rights of it, I think. Three months—and so much to be done! So much!”

  “You can do it,” Lamberton said, in his crisp voice.

  “You only. For the folk are with you.”

  “We shall see, my friend. So you, my lords, go north …”

  Chapter Nine

  Strangely enough, that spring and early summer of 1298 was one of the

  happiest periods of Robert Bruce’s life—for which he had to thank

  William Wallace. He was, in fact, essentially a fairly cheerful and

  light-hearted character—had he not a reputation for extravagance and

  display?-and the last two years of stress and deep involvement in

  national tumults had superimpose
d a gravity and tenseness on his nature

  which was not normal. Now there was an intermission, a period of

  enforced detachment—or so he was able to convince himself. His

  prolonged periods of sham negotiation at Irvine and hard unremitting

  restoration work in Annandale, had prepared him to embrace the

  satisfactions of Kildrummy as it were with open arms.

  He had not made his way there in unseemly servile haste, of course. He had his dignity to consider. He informed Wallace that he would take over the duties of governor of the SouthWest, with headquarters at Ayr—and Wallace had acceded with good grace, since it would have been impracticable to appoint anyone else in opposition to him. He had returned from Selkirk to Annan, set affairs there in order, specifically commanding that there was to be no general muster of the Annandale men, save for the lordship’s own defence, whatever instructions might come from the Guardian.

  Then, taking Edward and Nigel with him, he had ridden north to Ayr, where he installed Edward as deputy, to raise the area in arms, including his earldom of Carrick, refortify the castle and keep an eye on Lochmaben—which, being to all intents impregnable, was still in English hands, like Stirling; possibly the insufferable Master Benstead was still there. Then he and Nigel, his favourite brother, had set out on the two hundred mile journey to Aberdeenshire.

  Kildrummy Castle, principal seat of the age-old Mar earldom, was a handsome establishment set amongst the uplands of the Don, and guarding the mountain passes to the north-east. A remote secure place, centred in a world of its own, with the most magnificent hunting country for hundreds of square miles around, it was little wonder that its lord seldom chose to leave its fair attractions. Bruce found it much to his taste.

  There was more than the place itself to hold him. Here his little daughter Marjory had been brought, when her mother, Mar’s sister, died. She was now a laughing, chubby brown-eyed girl of three, and Bruce, who had accepted fatherhood as he had accepted marriage merely as one more normal development in a man’s progress, now discovered delight, wonder, pride. This roguish, impulsive, affectionate child was his, all his, in a way that nothing else was his—and he had not realised or appreciated it before. On Isabella’s death, at seventeen, soon after the baby was born, he had been anxious only to deposit the unfortunate infant with his sister Christian, take himself off, and forget the whole sorry business, a loveless marriage arranged by his father, an ailing, delicate young woman who cared nothing for the world outside Kildrummy, and then left him at nineteen with a pulling, bawling girl-child. But now, here was Marjory Bruce, a poppet.

  Christian Bruce, Countess of Mar, was herself good company, the gayest of the family, all vigour, energy and laughter, and twice as much a man as her gentle, slightly melancholy husband.

  Though womanly enough in all conscience, so that young men were ever round her like a honey-pot; Gartnait of Mar was probably wise enough not to leave home too frequently. She welcomed her brothers with enthusiasm, and proceeded to ensure that time did not hang heavily for them. Nigel himself was a happy natured, carefree soul, and an excellent companion to take the mind off affairs of state.

  Not that all was hunting and jollity, of course. The business of mustering a host went on, with wapinschaws, archery contests, trials of strength, games and races, to keep the men engaged and in training. No doubt the Comyns were doing the same, not so relatively far away—but in this land of vast distances, high mountain ranges, and little sense of involvement with the rest of Scotland, no ominous signs of it disturbed them. Bruce did pay one or two visits to the Bruce lordship of the Garioch, consisting of fifteen parishes, to the east, the rents of which had been Christian’s marriage portion. Here he arranged for eight hundred men to assemble at the somewhat tumbledown old castle of Inverurie, and to train for service—Nigel would command these, in due course.

  April passed into May, with the snow gone from all but the north-facing

  corries of the surrounding mountains, whins blazing and cuckoos calling

  endlessly in all the endless green valleys around Kildrummy. Word

  percolated through from the outside world occasionally, but seemed to

  lack urgency up here. Edward had returned from France, and had

  apparently made a great show of coming to terms with the nobles. He

  consented to ratify and confirm the terms of Magna Carta and the

  Charter of Forests, and agreed that the new taxes and tallage should

  only be levied with the acceptance of the nobility, prelates and

  knights, and withdrew the edict about compulsory foreign service. But,

  having done this, he had set up his headquarters at York, even moving

  the exchequer and law-courts there, as a sign of his displeasure with

  the south and as convenient for his campaign against Scotland. There

  was also news that Lamberton had gone to Rome, and that Philip of

  France had accepted a treaty of mutual aid with Scotland. Wallace had

  been disciplining his army, hanging not a few who had been pillaging

  and running would. The burghs were all raising armed bands, the

  various crafts vying with each other. Roxburgh and Stirling castles

  still held out. A Comyn host, said to number six thousand, was assembled in the Laigh of Moray This last did cast some small shadow at Kildrummy, and Bruce rode north by devious hill passes, further north than he had ever been, to Petty, on the coast east of Inverness, headquarters of the great de Moravia family, of whom Sir Andrew Moray had been the heir—the lord thereof still being Edward’s prisoner.

  Here he found Andrew’s two brothers, Alan of Culbin and William of Drumsagard, had already raised fifteen hundred men, while their uncle, Master David, a priest, had gone still further north to raise Avoch and the Black Isle of Cromarty. He also learned that Andrew’s widow had given birth to a posthumous son, another Andrew to carry on the line. Giving Wallace’s authority, he took the fifteen hundred, with young Alan of Culbin to command them, and rode back to Mar with them, doing a little harmless spoliation and fodder-gathering in outlying Comyn lands en route, as per instructions.

  Back at Kildrummy, in early June, the news was more grave.

  Edward had assembled a mighty army at York, and was moving north. He was said to have no fewer than four hundred knights and gentlemen of chivalry, under the Earl Marshal, the Great Constable of England and the Earls of Gloucester, Lincoln, Arundel, Surrey and Warwick, besides the Scottish Earls of Angus and Dunbar. There was also the ominous Bishop Beck, 2,000 heavy cavalry, 2,000 light cavalry and no fewer than 100,000 foot and archers. These figures were almost certainly exaggerated, but clearly Edward was in deadly and determined mood.

  There was another piece of news which indicated however busy Wallace must be in preparing to resist invasion, he was not failing to use his wits in other directions. King Philip of France’s signature of the treaty of aid was all very well, but he had not sought to use Edward’s return home to implement the bargain by any renewed attack on the English, either on the Flanders borders or by massing for invasion of southern England.

  So Wallace had sent a new delegation to Paris, to urge military action upon him—and this was headed by John de Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, and none other than Sir John Comyn, the Red. To have got Comyn out of the way at this juncture was a shrewd move, and might well make the Comyn forces mustered in Moray less dangerous—for the Earl of Buchan was less of a firebrand than his young kinsman.

  These tidings were not rumour or hearsay, at any rate, for they had been brought to Kildrummy by the daughters of the Earl of Atholl himself. Strathbogie was the adjoining lordship to Mar on the north-west, and Atholl had married Mar’s other sister. Christian Bruce, always a romantic, and a born matchmaker, had invited the Ladies Isabel and Mary de Strathbogie to Kildrummy, clearly for the delectation of her brothers. They were pleasant, amiable, uninhibited girls, not beauties but comely enoug
h and high spirited. Nigel was appreciative at least, and was getting on excellently with Isabel. Bruce, however, found some disinclination to live up to his reputation, with Mary-although he was by no means offended by her company, of which his sister saw to it that he had plenty.

  A week or so after his return from Petty, riding back from heron-hawking up the Don, Bruce, momentarily alone, was joined by Christian.

  “You look thoughtful, Rob,” she said, eyeing him keenly.

  “Indeed, you are much in thought these days. Not as I mind of you.

  I wonder why?”

  “We live in thought-making days, Tina,” he returned easily.

  “We always did. You are but twenty-four—early to become a greybeard!

  You used to be other wise, brother—uncommonly so!

  Something of a rakehell, even. And a notable wencher! Does that sport no longer rouse you, Rob?”

  He shrugged.

  “Say I have other matters on my mind, lass.”

  “ I think you have!” She looked at him quickly, and away.

  “But it is possible to … to allow some small distraction, on occasion, is it not? I would not have you turn into another Gartnait!”

  It was his turn to look.

  “Gartnait … he does not satisfy you, Tina?”

  “No,” she admitted, simply.

  “I am sorry. He is an honest, kindly man—if scarce a hero!

  Generous—and not disapproving, I think?”

  “True. All true. But it is of you we speak, brother—not me!

  What do you think of Mary Strathbogie?”

  He smiled.

  “She is well enough. Good company. And sits a horse well.”

  “She might sit a man well, too, Rob!”

  “No doubt. Who is eager? She—or you?”

  “Not you, it seems!”

  ”Should I be so?”

  “You are still Robert Bruce, are you not? And Mary would make warm try sting Or better, a good wife. Your Marjory needs a mother. And Mary dotes on the child.”

  “Insufficient recommendation for a wife, Tina!”

 

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