Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

MacGregor nodded.

“Sir King,” he said, “Come you.” And with no more ceremony than if he were dismounting from the saddle, leapt down into the water.

Bruce could not but follow, and his colleagues after him, with but a word of farewell and thanks to the young Dewar-who apparently was coming no further. The water was not cold, but the muddy bottom was unpleasant.

MacGregor was already wading strongly in an easterly direction, parting the tall reeds and rushes before him as he went. In a stumbling, slaistering, cursing line, the others trailed after.

How far, in actual distance, they went, it was difficult to compute. It seemed a long way in the blanketing, featureless reed-sea, so difficult of passage, with wild-fowl exploding into alarmed flight continually, and somewhat heavier creatures, roe-deer perhaps or even cattle, splashing away into deeper fastnesses. Possibly they covered no more than a mile, however indirect their route-and how the MacGregor knew where he was going was a mystery. But he seemed never at a loss-and none had sufficient breath to question him.

At length a new sound, from the splashing and splatter, the quacking of

ducks and the whistle of pinions, rose from the marshes-the sudden

baying of hounds, and from no great distance ahead. Their guide

halted, and responded promptly with a great hallooing cries of

”Gregalach! Gregalach! “The dogs continued to bark, and the chief

ploughed on directly towards the sound.

Soon the water began to shallow, and the dark mass of scrub or woodland loomed ahead. Then they were climbing out on to firm grass-grown ground-but now armed men, restraining snarling wolfhounds, were milling around them. MacGregor demanded to be taken to their lord.

They appeared to be on a fair-sized island in the marshes, a hidden place of scrub and bushes and open turf, many acres in extent. There were tents here, camouflaged with fronds and branches, forming quite a large secret encampment.

A man of middle years, slightly built, of narrow head and fine features, was standing before the largest tent, staring. Him MacGregor approached, shaking water off him like a dog.

“I disturbed your sleep, friend?” he cried.

“But you will forgive me. See you whom I have brought you.”

“I heard your Gregalach. Have you brought me news …?” The other was scanning the newcomers in turn, in the gloom of near dawn. He showed no sign of recognition-and little wonder.

“Malcolm!” the King exclaimed.

“My lord!”

“I am Malcolm of Lennox, yes. Who speaks me so?”

“Save us-do you not know me?”

“My lord-is this your greeting to the King’s Grace?” young Sir James Douglas reproached.

“Grace? The … the King?” the Earl faltered, peering.

“What mean you? The King is dead …”

“Not yet, Malcolm, my friend-not yet!” Bruce said, and went to him.

Lennox, a curiously sensitive man to be a military leader-though he was that by birth rather than by inclination -was quite overwhelmed. He could find no words; indeed he wept on Bruce’s shoulder-to the embarrassment of most there.

Not of the King himself, however. Bruce had learned to despise no man’s emotions, confronted with the stresses of his own.

“My good lord,” he said.

“I believed … you slain … at Methven,” the other got out.

“I

have mourned you. Wept for you. Since. Aye, and mourned this Scotland with you!”

“I was wounded. As I heard were you. Led off the field …”

“Thank the good God for it! This night I shall for ever praise!

The night my liege lord returned to me. And my hope. Returned.

For I had lost all hope. Here, in this desolation of waters …”

“Aye, my friend-I also. Almost I lost all hope likewise. Until it, and I, was saved. Saved by my Elizabeth. And the Dewars of Saint Fillan. Now, I think, I shall not again lose my hope. While life is in me. And if I, excommunicate, who spilled blood on God’s altar, can have hope-why then, I say, hope should be lost for none!

To make amends for this display of emotion, Lennox offered his guests food and drink. Despite the remote and primitive nature of his refuge, he appeared to be well supplied, and the fugitives ate well, hugely indeed, for the first time for weeks, wolfing cold meats and fish, oatcakes and heather honey, washing it down with wine and the potent spirits of the country.

Their own spirits rose in consequence, their host’s with them.

It was obvious that Lennox had been very depressed, deeming all his cause lost and himself a broken man, a mere fugitive on his own broad lands. Not that his state had compared in any way with that of the royal party, for though a refugee on this strange secret island in the reeds, he was in the midst of his own people and vassals, and lacked for little. But his castles and houses were denied him, occupied by supporters of the Comyns or the English. Assuming Bruce dead and further resistance useless, and living thus in winter out of the question, he had apparently decided on betaking himself off, first to the Hebrides and thence to Ireland,where he had links, there to await better days.

Bruce took him up on this, over meats. How had he intended to reach the Isles? Or Ireland? For if this had been a suitable progress for Lennox, it was the more so for himself, and urgently so, with his enemies only a jump or two behind him.

The Earl, clearly alarmed at this intimation of imminent pursuit, said that he had made no arrangements as yet-but that his notion had been to sail by small boat from the Clyde to the Isle of Bute, where the High Steward, he hoped, would provide him with a sea-going vessel to reach the Hebrides. They were only a dozen miles from the Clyde coast, at Dumbarton.

The King found no fault with that-except that the Governor of Dumbarton Castle was still the same Sir John Stewart of Menteith who had delivered up William Wallace to the English-and Dumbarton dominated all the upper Clyde estuary. He might well seek to repeat the process with Bruce.

That gave them pause, until Sir Neil Campbell announced that he had a younger brother, Donald, who had married a Lamont heiress and gained a rich property at Ardincaple, farther down the coast from Dumbarton. If they could reach Sir Donald at Ardincaple, he could provide boats for Bute.

“We must cross Macfarlane and Colquhoun country to get there,” Lennox

pointed out. “Where lie Colquhoun’s sympathies?”

“Humphrey de Colquhoun is a vassal of my own,” Lennox said. ? But he was wounded at Methven, and like me, lurks hiding…”

“I will get you to Ardincaple, through any beggarly Macfarlanes or Colquhouns whatever!” MacGregor interrupted briefly, disdainfully.

“So be it you may trust the Campbell when you get there!”

“I have a higher opinion of my friends than have you, sir,” the King declared, before Sir Neil could rise in wrath.

“But I thank you for your promise-and trust MacGregor to perform it.”

“Tomorrow night? It must be done by night.”

“Tomorrow, yes.” Bruce looked at Lennox.

“I will be ready,” the Earl said.

“To come with you. Tomorrow night.”

The King eyed him keenly.

“My lord-no need for you to come.

We are hunted men. Dispossessed of our lands. Knowing not where we will next lay our heads. Not so yourself. You have still great possessions. Lord of a whole province. Your castles may be occupied, but you need not become a hunted man. Thousands would take you into their houses…”

“And think you, Sire, that I could sleep of a night in any house, mine own or other, knowing my liege lord homeless, hunted? No, Your Gracewhere Bruce goes hereafter, there goes Lennox, God willing!”

Much affected, Bruce gripped the other’s hand, wordless. The earl might shed easy tears, but he lacked nothing in manly resolution.