Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

“It is good to see you back safe, Neil my friend,” he said.

“I

feared that you might have come to ill in this Galloway. No place for a friend of mine, these days!”

“No,” the other agreed.

“Your Grace’s cause scarce flourishes amongst these traitors. You… you have heard the evil tidings? Of your brothers?”

“I have heard,” the King returned briefly.

“I am sorry. What may a man say?”

“Nothing. It is time for doing, not saying. And we have made a start.”

“Aye-so I heard. Even in Galloway your doings are spoken of.

The blows you have struck against the invaders and their minions..

I had little difficult in learning that you were in these mountains.

But finding you was none so easy. We have been in every valley of this land, I think, seeking you!”

“We have been on the move, yes. Seldom two nights in one place. Struck swift blows, and then moved away as swiftly. But.. these are small blows. Pin-pricks, no more. Sufficient only to show our people that their King is active. Insufficient to serve our cause effectively. We must do a deal more than this-and soon.”

“You have done sufficient to bring Pembroke here. Into Galloway.

That at least. You have heard?”

“Yes. We know that he had been called to Carlisle, to suffer a tongue-lashing from King Edward. And now he has come back here. Up to the Cree. That he sits astride the Cree at Minnigaff.

But fifteen miles away. And sends probing companies up these valleys.

But he will not adventure his strength into the mountains.

And we, with only 300, dare not challenge his thousands in the plains. We had hoped that you might have been able to bring us more than these, friend.” Bruce glanced over at the score or so of mounted men Campbell had led in.

“I scarce thought I could gain even such few,” the other said.

“These are Bruce vassals of your own. From the Urr. It is hard to convince men that Your Grace’s cause can succeed.”

“Aye.” That came on a sort of grim sigh. His brother Edward had brought back barely 200 from the great Bruce lands of Annandale -which a year or two before had raised 5,000. Boyd, who had been ambushed by the MacDouall party that day three weeks ago, on the Doon, and only escaped, with the Lady Christian, be cause they were fleetly mounted had managed to return in due course with Sir Robert Fleming and another two score-that was all. And Douglas was not yet back from Lanarkshire. There was still no surge to the King’s standard.

“Until we strike a resounding blow against the English power itself, our folks will not flock to us,” Edward broke in.

“If they will not come to us-the English-we must go to them! Not against Pembroke-he has too many. But there are others. Clifford.;

Botetourt. St. John Percy himself-they say that he is now at Caerlaverock. Dumfries. We must choose one of these. Select the weakest, and strike.”

“Clifford has now joined up with Pembroke,” Campbell informed.

“Or so it is said. King Edward’s bastard, de Botetourt, is at Sanquhar. St. John holds Ayr and Irvine. They encircle you…”

“Three hundred lightly armed can do little or nothing against thousands of armoured chivalry. In open battle,” the King insisted..

“Our only hope is to make the country, the land itself, fight for us.

So, by some means, we must coax these English out of their plains into our hills. There must be a way…”

“They are not fools,” Boyd asserted.

“They will not budge from Minnigaff and the Cree. Why should they?

They can wait…”

“Some have already budged,” Campbell interrupted him.

“A

company of them are none so far away. We had to make shift to avoid them, on our way here. Light horse, cantoned at Low Minniwick, in the Water of Trool.”

“English horse! So near?” Bruce exclaimed.

“We knew nothing of this. They must be new come. How many?”

“About 200, I would say. Sent out to probe for you, I have no doubt.

By Pembroke.”

“Yet camped …? In daytime?”

“I faith-we could have these, at least!” Edward declared.

All round there was a stir of excitement, of anticipation, now.

“You say that they are cantoned, Neil? At Low Minniwick, down Trool?

Settled, at least for this night.”

“Yes. We were warned of them by the miller at Bargrennan. So we took to the hills. And looked down on them from the ridge of High Minniwick. They were camped-cooking-fires, horse-lines, pickets. Two squadrons, I’d say. They did not see us.”

“Then why wait?” Edward demanded.

“Why wait till this to tell us. man? We should be on our way-while it is yet light. Minniwick is but five or six miles away. Here is too good a chance to miss.”

“Wait you, brother,” the King said quietly.

“Time enough. Let Us use our wits before we do our swords. I have a

notion that here may be the chance we have looked for. Not just to

slay 200 Englishmen.

But to draw Pembroke.” He turned to Campbell.

“If these are new come-as they must be, for they were not there yesterday, when we rode by-then they have been sent up from the main army. Yet only eight miles, into these foothills, from Minnigaff.

And already camped. They must be making this Minniwick a centre, to send out patrols. Into all the side valleys, seeking us. Not to attack us-to find us. Some will be up here, at Loch Trool, by tomorrow, for a wager. Tomorrow, then, we must aid the English to find us! But not just a patrol-a host!”

They all gazed at him now, tensely, there by the lovely water of lone Lock Trool, under the frown of the Merrick mountains. It was the last day of March 1307, Passion Sunday.

By dark the entire party, mounted and on foot, was on the move down Trool Water in its winding wooded glen. Four miles they went, by the riverside track, then struck off half-right, to ford the incoming Water of Minnoch, and then start to climb, over slowly rising scrub-covered slopes. It was empty foothill country here, with the valley floors narrow and tending to be waterlogged. There were no villages or even houses, other than the occasional summertime shieling for herdsmen.

The company moved fast, for in that terrain the tough and agile Highlanders could cover the ground fully as swiftly as the horsed men-at-arms, and a deal more silently. In less than two hours they were fairly high on a long gentle whaleback of ridge that ran approximately north and south, flanking the Minnoch valley on the west, which valley, an extension of the Trool, had now widened out somewhat. The woodlands had dwindled away, and only the odd hawthorn dotted the ridge. There were cattle grazing on these rolling upland grasslands, shadowy shapes that plunged off into the gloom in brief alarm at the approach of the purposeful party. Presently, below them a little way, a dog barked its own alarm from the small farmery of High Minniwick, unseen below the crest of the ridge.

Islesmen scouts went ahead, in case the English had posted sentinels on this high ground; but no warnings came back to the main body. Campbell accompanied Bruce in the lead, and at length brought him to a sort of escarpment on the east side of the ridge, where the ground dropped away rather more steeply, in a long consistent grass slope, down to the riverside flats. The dull red glow of a number of scattered and dying fires punctured the darkness down there.

“Low Minniwick and the English encampment,” Campbell said shortly.

“Half a mile.”

Bruce gathered his leaders round him.

“This is not just Turnberry again,” he told them.

“There will be sentinels here. Possibly pickets patrolling round the camp. And we do not want a complete massacre, see you. Sir Neil says there may be 200. I want fifty alive, at the least. But held. So see to it that your men understand. All must be under tight rein. This will be done exactly as I say.” And he looked towards his brother significantly.