Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

“Percy, you say, man? Do you mean Henry Percy? The Lord of Northumberland?”

“The same, yes. He commands here now. As Governor and Sheriff.”

“Lord save us!” The King swung on the others.

“You hear?

Henry Percy it is, who sits in my house. Rules my earldom! That smooth snake!”

Bruce was not the only one roused at the mention of the Northumbrian’s name. They had scores to settle with the Percy.

“And his men are scattered!” Edward cried.

“His captains with him in the castle. If this dolt speaks truth.”

“As why should he not? Fearing no surprise assault, it is what they would do. And … the Castleton of Turnberry is a quarter mile from the castle, no less!”

Suddenly there was no more talk of turning back Percy’s hated name, and the thought of his men dispersed, had changed all that, as far as Bruce was concerned.

“Henry Percy keeps but poor discipline, I think. If his men, drunken, are burning down alehouses at four of a morning!” he said.

“It may be we could teach him a lesson.”

That is better talking, by the Mass!” Edward agreed.

“How do we go about it? Isolate the castle, first?”

Bruce turned to the fishermen’s spokesman, Cuthbert, by name, it appeared.

“Friend-these English soldiers? Can you tell us where they are lodged? Besides the Castleton and the Kirkton. Each mill and farm-toun and place. All that you know.”

There were six men in all, and between them they worked out a list of some eight separate locations where Percy’s troops were billeted around Tumberry, some as much as a mile away from the castle-one indeed only a comparatively short distance inland from this bay, at Maidens Mill, where there was a troop of perhaps thirty hone and some archers. Practically all the locations the King and Edward knew, so that they could visualise the terrain and layout.

Bruce led his group back to their 300 Highlanders, who were now all disembarked and waiting on the shingle. He called for quiet, and spoke to them in their own tongue, his own mother’s tongue.

“I have work for you, after your own hearts,” he told them.

“Quiet, deadly work. Not open battle, you understand, but quiet effective killing. Surprise. There are more of these Englishmen than there are of us, but they are lodged in small numbers, fifty here, seventy there. I need not tell you, surprise, quiet, speed-this is the heart of the matter. None must give warning to other. None must escape to raise any general alarm. Above all, no hint of it must reach the castle, where trumpets could sound to rouse the whole country. So, no fires. Is it understood?”

A fierce elated murmur rose from the Islesmen’s ranks.

“Our first is a mill, quite near, where fifty or so sleep. We will surround it, closely, that none may break out. Then the killers will move in.”

“Prisoners, Sir King?” somebody asked.

“We can afford no men to guard prisoners,” Bruce answered evenly.

There was a sort of rumble from deep throats.

“After that, we divide into three companies. Under myself, the Earl of Carrick, and the Earl of Lennox. One will watch the castle.

The others will find the rest of the soldiers’ lodgings, and deal with them. If we lack success, if the alarm is given, we all come together it the Kirkton. The church stands on a grass mound midway to the point and the castle, and is easy found. Is all understood? Good.

Come, then and quietly.”

With one or two guards left On the boats, Bruce and his brother led the way inland. They followed the course of a stream in its ravine, the Maidens Burn, almost up a waterfall at first, and men, away from the shore, through a winding tree-grown clean, where they must go single file, frequently leaping or splashing through the water. At length, they came to a widening of the little dell. And here, beside a dark mill-pond and swirling lade, were grouped four buildings-Maidens Mill itself, a tall granary, the miller’s house and a double cottage with range of stabling. Silently Bruce motioned his followers to encircle all this.

There was no light or sign of guard or sentry. A faint stirring of horseflesh came from granary and stabling.

The 300 started to close in. Bruce had feared barking dogs, but none

such sounded. The miller undoubtedly would have kept dog sing such a

lonely place; therefore, either the soldiers had got rid of them, or the miller was no longer here.

When the ring was sufficiently tight, Bruce passed the whispered word round to halt, and the assault parties to move in. And to remember that the miller and his people were to be spared, if at all possible. About one third of the force soundlessly detached itself, forming four groups, two larger parties for the mill and the granary, two smaller for the mill house and the cottages. At a given signal, they all advanced on their objectives together.

Bruce and his companions waited outside with the main body.

By common consent this was accepted as no work for kings or those of knightly quality-and admittedly they would be less efficient at it than the Highland cater ans Tensely they stood, and the King, for one, had to steel himself to an acceptance of what he had ordained.

In fact, as a horror, it was less harrowing than anticipated, for gently-born watchers. The Islesmen were indeed experts. There was remarkably little fuss and noise. Only one actual scream rang out, high-pitched- and it was swiftly choked off. There was a certain amount of groaning, gasping, bubbling, some thuds and scuffling, the clatter of steel on stone flags, and a succession of bumps which was almost certainly a body falling down the granary stairs. Otherwise, apart from the sid lings and whinnyings of frightened horses smelling blood, there was little or nothing to intimate massacre to uninitiated watchers. No single refugee burst out from any of the buildings. In a remarkably short space of time, the shadowy Highlanders began to emerge, wiping their dirks and murmuring chuckled pleasantries to one another.

They left a strange sort of muffled and jerky stirring behind them, nevertheless, more seemingly evident of life than heretofore. Dead men lie less quiet, for a while, than do mere sleepers.

The Islesmen’s leaders reported all done thoroughly, decently and in order. There had been no sign of anybody that had looked like a miller or member of his household-certainly no women; all appeared to be just Southron soldiery. There would be considerable pickings?

Bruce said that they must wait for that until the night’s work was done. He did not question whether all were dead within, nor did he venture inside to see.

Forming up, they moved on up the burnside, with a new and feral menace about the Hebrideans that somehow communicated itself to the others, a sort of lip-licking anticipation and relish.

Even the King felt it, and tried to put it from him.

Upon the grassy rabbit-cropped links, amongst the shadowy gorse-bushes, they came to their next objective, a small farmery. Considerably before they reached it they perceived that this would be a less simple proposition. For here lights burned, and as they drew stealthily closer, the sound of uncouth singing, and a thumping beating of time thereto, reached them. It was not yet midnight, of course.

Bruce called a halt, while he considered. Caution suggested that they should perhaps leave this lively billet until later, in the hope that the Englishmen would quieten down and retire to sleep shortly, as was suitable. On the other hand, it would delay the programme to come back here, and this farm of Auchenduin lay between the Kirkton and the sea, so that its people, if roused, would be in a position to interfere with any enforced retiral on the boats.

Moreover, the singing sounded distinctly slurred, and punctuated with raucous shouts, which seemed to indicate a fair degree of intoxication. Bruce decided to risk an assault. After all, making all that noise anyway, a few more shouts and screams would not be apt to be noticeable.