Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

That is why he must win that aid, now. Without it, his kingdom will fall fast. Even faster than it was raised up.”

“And you think that should concern me?”

“Aye, Sire, I do. For if the English win a swift and easy campaign in Ireland, you-and Scotland-will suffer. That is sure.

Now they are down, licking their wounds, out of faith in themselves and their leaders. But give them a quick and easy conquest of Ireland-as it would be, God knows-and there will be no holding them. They will be up again. And the English, sure of themselves, resurgent, are hard to beat. You know that. And there are still ten times as many of them as of us.”

Bruce was looking at the younger man sidelong.

“My sister bore a son indeed!” he observed.

“What has ailed me from doing the same?”

Moray flushed a little.

“If I have learned anything of affairs and rule, I have learned it of you, Sire.”

“But your wits are your own, lad.”

”You take my point, then?” “I perceive that there is much in what you

say, yes. That will require much thought.”

“So long as you do not dismiss the Lord Edward’s requests out of hand. As they would seem to deserve. And then have to face a triumphant England, in Ireland! Victorious and but fourteen miles from the coast of Galloway!”

“Aye. But what of consuming away my power? The very real danger of wasting my strength in Ireland? Always this is what I have feared in the Irish adventure. Of draining my Scots forces into the bottomless bogs. Already I have sent many thousands. To what end? How many remain? Ill-led, misused, they are squandered.

I make no criticism of you, Thomas, who are only their commander in name. I have well understood your difficulties. That it was not for you to devise campaigns and teach your uncle how to fight a war.”

“Sire-it is all true. You say that you fear to waste more men, to squander your strength. There is one sure way to avoid that, to make certain that your forces are used to best advantage. Go with them. Come back to Ireland with us!”

“Eh…?” Bruce frowned.

“Do you not see? This could answer all. With you there, my uncle could no longer delay, hold back, and use your forces for his own ends. With your sure hand on the helm, the galley of war would sail straight. Moreover, Angus of the Isles would work with you, where he would not with the Lord Edward.”

“But, man-you are asking me to engage in full-scale war.

Across the seas. The thing I have ever been most against.”

“Not full-scale war, no. Not for you. Not for Scotland. For the Irish, perhaps. But for you, only a campaign. Which you can leave when you will, commit such forces as you will. It is your presence that is required. That could change all.”

“The English are already pouring new forces into Ireland. In the

south. You know that? We learned it in Yorkshire.”

“No. But I did not doubt but that they would. They must. That is why I say that they will overrun all Ireland, and swiftly. If you do not stop them. And if they do, you will have to try to stop them, one day. Somewhere. Better to do it on Irish soil, with mainly Irish levies. Is it not so?”

“I will have to consider this,” Bruce said slowly.

“Here is a great matter.”

“That is all I ask,” the younger man acceded.

“That you think on it…”

Not a great deal of that thinking was done that day, or night.

For just before they reached Lochmaben in mid-Annandale, an urgent courier caught up with them, with the news from Turnberry that the Queen’s labour had started, at least two weeks early. In a cursing flurry of alarm, Bruce abandoned all else, and leaving the supervision of his army, guests and prisoners to others, spurred off on the sixty-mile road to the Ayrshire coast. On this occasion Walter Stewart stayed behind, but Douglas and Moray, hastily yelling orders and instructions, flung themselves after their liege lord.

They were hard put to it to catch up. The King rode like a madman, taking shocking risks, savaging his horse. If the blight and doom which seemed to hang over his life-or, at least, the lives of those near and dear to him-was to strike again, if he was to fail Elizabeth as, he told himself, he had failed so many, then Scotland truly would have to look for a new king!

Far into the night they rode, through the shadowy hills, with mounts stumbling now, flagging, snorting with every pounding beat of their hooves. Bruce pounded his own mind as relentlessly. What had he done? What had he done? Elizabeth! Elizabeth! A little light-headed, perhaps, he was beginning to confuse this night with that he had ridden seven months before. And the horror grew on him.

When at last he thundered over the drawbridge timbers at Turnberry, the watch shouted down at him from the gatehouse-parapet.

But he did not pause. He flung on through the outer bailey to the inner, vaguely aware of all the lights ablaze. It was one of the grooms who ran to catch his steaming, blown mount as he leapt down who shouted after him.

“You have a bairn, my lord King! A bairn. A wee lassie!”

Bruce hardly took it in, as he ran clanking into the keep and up the winding turnpike stairs.

It was not the same room, at least. He knew that it would be their own chamber, up at parapet-level, indeed the apartment in which he had been born. Outside, on the small landing, was the usual group of whispering servants, who fell back at the sight of the frowning, mud-stained monarch. A courtier hurriedly threw open the door.

There was the sound of a child crying-but it came from a little turret chamber off, where lay Robert Stewart, Marjory’s child, whom meantime the Queen was bringing up almost as her own.

He strode across to the great bed, and as he came Elizabeth’s

corn-coloured head, damp a little with sweat, turned. She smiled up at

him. It was a good, honest smile, though tired. “Thank God! Thank

the good God!” he gasped.

“Elizabeth, lass-praises be! You are well? Dear heart-you are

well?”

“Well, yes, Robert. Weary a little, that is all. I am sorry. Sorry that I came before my time. That I brought you hastening. After… after …”

“I feared, lass. I feared. Greatly.”

“I know what you would fear. But you need not have done. You wed a great strong Ulsterwoman, Robert!” She looked down at the infant that slept within the crook of her arm, so like that other wrinkled entity whom he had stared down at in March, and who now cried fitfully in the turret.

“I should not say it, my dear. It is unfair to this moppet, who has come to us after so long. Is she not a joy? And so like you, Robert! The same frown! The same haughty disdain of mouth! I should not say it-but I am sorry that I have not given you the son you sought.”

“I care no whit! So long as you are well. Nothing else concerns me”

“No-you must not speak so,” she chided.

“It is not true. Not kind. This little one is a great concern. Part

of you, and part of me.

The Princess of Scotland. It has taken me long, long to produce her! I will not have her spumed. Least of all by her sire! Take her, Robertfor she is yours. More so than that boy in there, that you dote on! Take her.”

“As you will.” He lifted up the baby, gingerly, in his arms, steel clad and spattered with horse’s spume as they were. He peered into the tight-closed tiny face.

“Another Bruce,” he said, gravely.

“Dear God-what have You in store for this one!”

“Enough of that!” Elizabeth exclaimed, with surprising strength and at her most imperious.

“Such talk I will not have. I am a mother now-and no mere queen! We will have no talk of fate or curse or doom. This is our daughter, not any pawn of fate. Mind it, Robert Bruce!”

He smiled, then, and almost involuntarily jogged the infant up and down.