Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

most powerful lord. Needlessly to offend him, for the sake of this

Angus of the Isles! Who does not even acknowledge your suzerainty”

“Malcolm, my friend-apart from the sacred laws of hospitality, these waters are most certainly within the Lordship of the Isles. If these are Ross’s galleys, then he is engaging in piracy. My duty, as sovereign lord of them both, is surely to uphold he who has the right of law…”

The laws of piracy or hospitality notwithstanding, Lennox -who in fact merely hated fighting-was the only protester;

indeed the remainder of the King’s company were all preparing

themselves for the fray. Warriors all, they would have been grievously disappointed and resentful had their liege lord’s choice been otherwise-as well Bruce knew. After months of skulking and frustration, all were in fact itching for a fight, their master not the least.

Their approach and run in did not go unnoticed, needless to say.

Clearly a certain amount of disengagement was going on in the birl inn with some warriors jumping back into the two attacking ships.

Kiloran’s tactics were uncomplicated to a degree. He merely drove his craft straight for the assailed birl inn -and therefore in between the sterns of the two galleys which closely flanked it. As they ran in, the forward oarsmen raised their sweeps high, to avoid impact, and even before the crash of collision, lessened by the rear oarsmen backing water with the expertise of long practice, grapnels were being hurled into the enemy vessels and lines tightened.

Yelling MacDonald slogans, the first boarders were leaping over, left and right, seconds later.

In the absence of any guidance from Kiloran, or anyone else, the King’s party acted as each thought fit They had all congregated at their own galley’s high poop and they could not be amongst the first wave of boarders. They had to jump down, and press forward along the narrow gangway between the rowing-benches, where they were jostled and pushed aside by oarsmen shipping their sweeps and rushing to join the attack. Some flung themselves over into one or other galley as best they could, but most remained in a tight knot behind the King himself.

Bruce in fact followed Kiloran, who he guessed would make for the enemy leaders. He had clambered up over their own bow platform and on to the raised stern of the birl inn It was there that the most intensive fighting seemed to be taking place.

Bruce, like most of his Lowland colleagues, had chosen the short battle-axe as the most practical weapon for such close fighting, where the long two-handed swords would be at something of a disadvantage. Most of the Islemen were wielding claymores, but even these were on the long side for crowded decks. Some had already abandoned them for the handier and deadly dirk.

The King leapt down from the prow of his own craft to the poop of the birl inn a drop of about five feet across a gap of six-and almost ended his personal engagement there and then. For only a tiny portion of the crowded deck was available for leaping on, and this was already slippery with blood. Bruce slithered on landing, and fell headlong. Only a desperate effort saved him from tumbling over into the tea-an effort which was not aided by the crash of a writhing body across his own and its struggles thereafter to avoid the dirk-jabs of a third contestant, jabs which in the circumstances were just as likely to end up in Bruce as in the selected target. What might have, eventuated had not James Douglas and Gilbert Hay jumped down, to all intents on top of the sprawling trio, there is no knowing. They despatched the dirker, and pushed his wounded victim off, with scant courtesy, in some uncertainty as to which side either belonged to.

There was no opportunity for niceties, even towards the fallen monarch. Before Bruce was fully upright again, the three of them were engaged by about half a dozen of the Rossmen, who left off their assault of a group at the head of the poop steps to attend to the newcomers. Bruce, aware of a red-dripping claymore blade dashing down on him, ducked and jerked aside urgently, cannoning into Hay, and almost overbalancing again on the heaving, slippery deck. But he had clung on to his battle-axe throughout, and now brought it up in an underhand swipe, more instinctive than shrewd-which however did make contact with the attacker sufficiently to knock him back against one of his colleagues thus saving Douglas from a vicious thrust.

But now the superiority of the short-shafted axe over the long sword-blade was quickly demonstrated, for in-fighting. Moreover, Bruce was something of an expert with this clumsy-looking weapon. Unwieldy as it seemed, it could do major damage in minimum time, not requiring anything like the precision of sword strokes, the swinging circle, or the point-versus-edge decision-for, in fact, wherever it struck or at whatever angle, it was effective, whether it hacked, slashed, shattered or merely numbed.

Steadied back to back with Hay, with half a dozen short smashing blows Bruce had cleared a space before him, one man crashing to the deck, head opened, one disarmed and cringing a pulverised shoulder, and a third backing away, only grazed but suitably alarmed.

But this very clearance held its dangers, for it gave room for swords to swing and thrust. The axe man had to keep close or be outranged. And he had to remember his back. Hay, a seasoned fighter, would look to that last; and Douglas, though younger and less experienced, was trained to the tourney in France, and would support both.

So Bruce leapt forward, smiting hugely, while these strange tactics

still confused the Highland sworders -than whom, indeed, there were few

better. Some wore helmets, but more did not; and there was no armour,

other than toughened leather jerkins and arm and leg paddings, save for

a little chain-mail amongst the leaders, Most indeed were bare to the

waist, with only tartans and saffron and targes -small round shields as protection. Plus their own agility, swiftness and great oarsmen’s muscles.

Hay and Douglas, perceiving that Bruce had got into his stride, contented themselves with protecting his rear and flanks, backing up behind him while the King formed the driving apex of the triangle, lashing, thrashing forward with tremendous vigour and controlled accuracy. Robert Bruce, at his best, in action, was of a calibre few could rival, and few indeed would wish to challenge. He had not forced his way into the empty throne merely because he was his father’s son and of the blood of the ancient kings … How many went down before that deadly weaving axe he did not know, for apart from the disciplined determination of this close-set trio, there was great confusion aboard the birl inn -valour, yes, but little coherence or direction. The reason for this was probably the fact that MacDonald of Kiloran, having singled out the chieftain of the Rosses, had cut his way straight to him, to engage him in mortal combat-from which lesser men respectfully drew back. He had brought the other down, too, a thick gorilla of a man of middle-years and fiery red hair, with a claymore through the gullet. But he was himself thereafter slain, almost casually, by one of the onlookers, with a dirk in the back-this leaving both sides without effective leadership.

Bruce became aware of something of this when, tripping over a body and down on one knee, momentarily endangered, he perceived that it was Kiloran.

Recovered, thanks to his friends, he perceived something else hitherto unnoticed-that the group at the head of the poop steps, towards which he was driving, was in fact centred round a woman.

This was sufficiently unexpected to disconcert him somewhat, slightly to put him off his stroke. But when a sword-tip ripped open his doublet sleeve, scoring a shallow flesh wound along his forearm-the first actual blood he had shed in this encounter-he very quickly retrieved his due concentration. The more fiercely vehement on account of his lapse-and of the stinging pain-he leapt in under the swordsman’s dropped guard, and cut him down from shoulder to breastbone.