Nigel Tranter - The Price of the King's Peace

“And I? What am I? A lackey, for you to order as you will?

Great God-I have had enough of that in Scotland!”

“Not so. I have come here tonight with proposals. Either go back to your own great Irish host, and command that as you will-if it will obey you! Or stay with me and the Scots, as my equal in kingship but accepting my command as captain. Agree to be second in the command of the cavalry host.”

“Second? When you have our precious nephew Moray, to your hand! And that barbarian Angus Og! And Hay, Keith, and the rest! Do you think that I am witless enough to believe that you may prefer me to any of these? You never have done!”

His brother opened his mouth for a hot reply, then closed it again. He looked instead into the red glow of the fire.

“You do not remark on my first proposal? That you go back to your Irish host.

So… hear what I propose here,” he said levelly.

“Now that we are like to meet with the enemy at any moment, with de Burgh only an hour or two’s ride away, our present headlong riding will no longer serve. We must advance with a deal greater care-though still fast, if we are to surprise Dublin. And in different formation.

No longer a small scouting force ahead, and then all the main host Still we need scouts in front, flanking vedettes, and a rearward. But the main host should now be split into two. Say 3,000 and 6,000.

Each to remain near the other for support, but some way apart, for safety, for easier handling in close country, for better observation of enemy forces. You understand? I offer you command for the first host. Of the 3,000.”

The other stared.

“You mean it? Command? Full command?”

“Full command, under my direction. I retain overall command.

But within that, this host will be yours. Mainly MacCarthy’s Irish

horse, but with a stiffening of Scots. How say you?”

“Why? Why do you do this, Robert? Is it a trick …?”

“No trick. I offer it because we must come to terms, Edward. If this campaign is not to fail. It may be that I keep too much in my own hands, that I assign too little authority to others. I think not-but it may be so. I am willing to try this. For harmony and the sake of our cause.”

Edward was on his feet now.

“Under your direction I am in full command of this first cavalry force? Is that it? I will not have Moray, or the Islesman, or other of your friends, sitting on my heels? Frowning and reproving …?”

“No. Any Scots veterans that I give you will be lesser men. You will have full command. Only-I expect my directions to be obeyed, Edward. Or else we think again. Or we turn back, here and now-for me, all the way back to Scotland!”

His brother searched his face for a long moment, and then grinned.

“Very well, Robert-we shall try it. Try again. On these terms. Here is my hand on it!”

They shook hands there before the Prior’s peat fire. It was a long time since these two had made any such gesture.

“Now-to planning,” Bruce said briskly, “MacCarthy says that there is much broken, forested country ahead. Mid-Meath. Between Trim and Dunshaughlin. My good-father has a manor and castle at Ratoath, in this part. And Trim is the de Lacys’ most powerful castle. We do not know how they will jump …”

Chapter Twelve

It was just after noon next day that the first fruits of the royal brothers’ rapprochement became apparent. Bruce, at the head of the main Scots force, now little more than 5,000 men, with detachments well out on the flanks and to the rear, was riding at a fast trot through scattered and broken woodland country south of Dunshaughlin, when young Sir Colin Campbell came galloping back from the forward host.

“His Grace of Ireland, Sire, sends me to inform you that he has

captured a kern who declares that the Earl of Ulster is here. Here,

not at Drogheda. At his own house ahead. This Ratoath, he names it”

“De Burgh, here? In front? With how many men, Sir Colin? An army?”

“No, Your Grace. Not many, the man said.”

“That sounds strange. He can scarce be ignorant that we are near. My brother-what does he do?”

“He rides for Ratoath, with all speed. To capture the Earl.”

“He does? Aye, he would!” Bruce frowned.

“I do not think that I like the smell of this! How far ahead is he?”

“Four miles. With another three to go to Ratoath, the kern said.”

“And the country? What is it like? It is still wooded, close? As

here?”

“Thicker, Sire. More hills. Rocks.”

“M’mmm. This kern that you captured? How was he? Did you see him taken?”

“Yes. He was sitting at the roadside, watching us pass …”

“Watching! How many of the people here do that? They flee at the sound, much less the sight, of us! Was he armed?”

“No, Sire. Save with a cudgel. He seemed a simple countryman”

Bruce turned to his close lieutenants.

“How say you?” he demanded.

“It could be honest. Or it could be false. A trap,” Angus Og said.

“I mislike the sound of it,” Moray asserted.

“The Lord Edward has 3,000 men now,” Gilbert Hay reminded.

“It would require to be a large trap!”

“What do you fear, my lord King?” Campbell asked.

“What is wrong?”

“Two matters smell wrong. One large, one small. Your Queen’s father is no ordinary man, no mere Anglo-Irish baron. He is a warrior, and wily, a veteran trained by that great schemer, the late Edward Longshanks. He cannot but know of our advance. Last night we were only ten miles from Drogheda. If he is indeed in front of us now, is he the man to have left Drogheda with only a few men? For this Ratoath, directly in our path?”

“How do we know when he left Drogheda, Sire? He may have been at Ratoath for days,” Hay pointed out.

“We have had no sure news.”

“Our flank vedettes to the east have sent us no warnings of any movement of men, from Drogheda or anywhere else,” Sir Alexander Fraser put in.

“The Earl of Ulster is thought to be at odds with this Bishop and

Mortimer,” Angus added.

“He acted strangely over the relief fleet for Carrickfergus. If they have superseded him as commander in Ireland, it may be that he does not seek to fight you now, but to talk. Parley with his good-son?”

Bruce drummed fingers on his saddle-bow.

“It is possible. But this other matter does not smell well, either.

This of a knowledgeable kern, who waits to watch my brother’s host go by. That metal does not ring true. Had de Burgh wished to parley with me, would he have done it thus? Sent a common kern to let slip that he was in the neighbourhood? However secret, he would have sent me a messenger of quality.”

“The kern could still be just a kern, Your Grace. A villager of this Ratoath, who knows the Earl…”

“Could be-but may not be! I shall ride the easier when I am assured of it. Meantime, we shall hasten. Four miles is too great a gap, in this close country.”

The King’s face grew longer, his frown darker, as they drove on, at a canter now, into ever thicker and rougher country, with rocky bluffs, densely wooded and with flooded scrub-covered bottom land. This was die sort of territory in which a cavalry host was least effective, even light cavalry. If an attack was indeed to be made on them, this was the place for it. Yet, no word had come back from Edward that his force was meeting with any difficulties. And Brace’s own flanking scouts sent no warning of anything unusual.

When Colin Campbell at length announced that it was here that the kern had been taken, here that he himself had turned back with his message, his liege lord all but snapped his head off. They were passing through a small open glade with evil swamp on the left and a steeply rising bank on the right.

“Did MacCarthy, did any of the Irish, say what sort of a castle this of Ratoath is?” he interrupted.