Nigel Tranter: The Path of the Hero King

Crowded as the place was, a little space was left in, as it were, the

first row before the altar, for three persons who knelt-a man, woman

and a child. The man, in mail, auburn head bare, was in his

thirty-second year, medium-tall of build, wide-shouldered,

strong-featured with a rough-hewn sort of good looks, but strained

seeming, drawn, and bearing one shoulder slightly lower than the other

as though in pain. The woman was tall, well-made, and of a proud and

generous beauty, five years younger, her heavy corn coloured hair bound

with a golden fillet, richly dressed in travelling clothes somewhat

crumpled and stained. The child, a girl of eleven, slight, dark and great-eyed, daughter of the man and stepchild of the woman, stared about her in the half-dark and coughed with the lamp-smoke. She at least made no gesture at prayerful reverence.

Strangely enough it was her father, not normally a prayerful or very religious-minded man, who seemed most impressed by the proceedings, most anxious to take part, to be identified. Occasionally his lips moved. His wife eyed him sidelong almost as often as she looked at the altar and the two strange figures before it. She was attentive, concerned-but her concern was not really with what went on but with its effect on the man at her side. None knew so well as she did how important this curious interlude was for the King.

Almost, indeed, it represented a sort of salvation for a man sunk in guilt, the guilt of both murder and sacrilege, excommunicated by the Pope of Rome-whatever his own Scots bishops might say-beaten in battle within weeks of his coronation, a fugitive in his own country. This blessing and acceptance, by even this attenuated remnant of the former Church of the land, put down by the Romish order for over two centuries but persisting in these mountains in some degree still, was of vital moment. And not only to his bruised and harried spirit. The two extraordinary figures before him, lay Dewars though they were, nevertheless were accepted as holy men of major importance all over the Celtic Highlands and Islands. And since all the Lowlands, south, east and north, were barred to Robert Bruce, occupied by the English invaders, or his enemies the Comyns and their supporters, his future, in the meantime, must lie in these Highlands and Islands. This day’s proceedings, therefore, represented hope.

Not all his followers, huddled in the ruins of Glendochart Abbey in

Strathfillan, understood how vital all this was to the King, or looked

on it as more than a passing madness on the part of a man tried to the

limits. Catholics all, good, indifferent or only nominal, they looked

askance at this outlandish performance by a couple of heathenish

Highland cater ans in what was little better than a cattle-shed- and

the only praying they did was it would soon be over. Only those

closest to Bruce-his brothers Edward and Nigel; his sisters Mary and Christian, with the latter’s husband, Sir Christopher Seton; the Countess of Buchan who had placed the crown on his head those weeks before; and one or two of his surviving nearest friends, like Sir James Douglas and Sir Gilbert Hay, had any idea how much their cause might be affected by this weird ceremony.

How long it might have gone on had they not been rudely interrupted, there was no knowing. A messenger came hurrying in and pushed his way to the front, stumbling in the dark and cursing audibly. He reached and spoke to Edward Bruce, who rose, but gestured him on to the kneeling King.

“My lord King,” the man whispered hoarsely.

“Sir Robert Boyd sends me. From your rearward. The Earl of Buchan comes up Dochartside. In force. From the Loch of Tay. Two thousand hone, Sir Robert says. English with him, under Percy.”

“A curse on it! They have found us, then …”

“Aye, we are betrayed again,” Edward Bruce declared, from behind, not troubling to lower his voice.

“Buchan, you say? The Comyns?” The King glanced over his shoulder, shrinking with the pain of it, to where the Countess of Buchan knelt behind his sisters, his wife’s principal lady-in-waiting and wife of the Constable of Scotland who was thus pursuing him even into these mountains. He sighed, and rose to his feet, lifting a hand to the Dewar of the Main, the young man, who was presently holding forth.

“My friend,” he called, “I am sorry. Your pardon-but we must go. The enemy approaches. In strength. We must ride. I thank you…”

Had it been the old man, he probably would have paid no heed and continued haughtily with the ritual. But the other faltered into silence and became suddenly just a young and somewhat embarrassed Highlandman. His companion glared, tugging his long beard, and grabbed his staff off the altar in protest.

“I am sorry,” the King repeated.

“Your blessing I much value.

Your faith and order I will seek to cherish. But now we must go.

Remembering kindly Glendochart.” He took the Queen’s arm and nodded to the Princess Marjory.

“Come.”

Out in the sunshine the Bishop was waiting for him, leaning on his sword.

“Trouble, Sire?” he asked.

“Not the English? In these hills…!”

“The Comyns. Buchan leads them. With Percy.” Bruce turned to the messenger.

“How near are they?”

“They were past Luib when I rode, Sire. Sir Robert retiring before them. To the loch-foot…”

“Then we have but little time. Two thousand, you say? Too many for us, by far, as we are. We can but run for it.”

“Where? Encumbered as we are with wounded. And women.”

Sir Edward Bruce, the eldest of the King’s four brothers, was dark, thin, wiry and of tense-nerved disposition.

“I say that we should fight. Seek a place to ambush them. Use this, land against them…”

Sir Nigel, a little younger, handsomely dashing, laughter-loving and the King’s favourite, agreed.

“To be sure. Even though they are four to one. We have skulked and hidden enough, by God!

Here, in this boggy valley, with the river and the hills, is no place for their chivalry. Hemmed in. We can bring them to battle on our terms…”

There were cries for and against amongst the circle of lords and knights that clustered round the King, fairly evenly divided.

Bruce shook his auburn head.

“Use your wits,” he requested his brothers.

“Think you I would not stand and fight, if I might with any hope of success? But if the Comyns are riding up Glendochart, it is because they have been led here. No host would venture into these trackless mountains by chance. They must be guided to us.

Which means that we have been betrayed. And the only folk who could betray us hereabouts are the Macnabs. When Patrick Macnab came not to greet us, in his own country, I deemed him no friend. Now, I see why he did not come! He has hastened to bring our enemies down upon us. And if they are so led, then think you we could ambush them? Take them by surprise? In daylight? This is their land. They will know every inch of it. And we have no time to wait for darkness. They would be on us in an hour. No-we have no choice, my friends. We must ride. And westwards. We must make for Sir Neil’s country on Loch Awe. With all speed that we may. Forthwith. Sir Neil Campbell-you will lead…”

The Campbell chief, a dark, swarthy, youngish man of sombre looks but a notable fighter, was nothing loth. He had been anxious not to linger in this area of Breadalbane and Mamlom, Saint Fillan’s land or no, these last five days; it was too close and linked to the domains of his hereditary enemies, the MacDougalls of Argyll and Lorn. And the Lord of Lorn was wed to a sister of the late, murdered Sir John Comyn the Red, Lord of Badenoch.

Despite the complaint that they were encumbered with women, and wounded