Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

Here, surely, they would be secure, for the moment. Thankfully Bruce drew rein, and turned to his wife and daughter.

“God be praised at least you are safe here!” he gasped.

Marjory, who had kept up throughout as well as any, now bunt into tears of reaction. Elizabeth leaned over to put an arm around her.

“Hush you, hush you,” she murmured.

“It is by with, now. Remember -you are a king’s daughter!”

“You have done well, lass,” her father said.

“Very well. All of you.” He looked at the women.

“Would that I could say as much for myself!” Sheathing his axe, he reached a hand out to his wife, “My dear-you ill chose a man to wed!” he said.

“I chose well enough. It is the others who chose ill!” The Queen shook her head.

“There are over many traitors in your realm, my lord King!”

“Do not name them traitors. Not yet. I am too newly their king.

I need time to win them …”

“An eternity will not win you MacDougall!” his brother Nigel broke in.

“That was he. The Lord of Lorn and his clan. Come out of the west.

Seeking you. He is wed to Comyn’s sister …”

“MacDougall! So great a man! Then … Lorn is closed against us.

Argyll. A whole province.”

“I could have foretold it, Sire,” Sir Neil Campbell declared sourly.

“Not the ambush, but MacDougall’s hatred. As Comyn’s kin. He has been brought here by Macnab. They are close.”

“Macnab, then, has cost me dear this day! Called both Buchan and MacDougall down on us, from east and west. To trap us in his Glen Dochart. What have I ever done against Macnab…?”

“While his creatures, those Dewars, kept you constrained, bethralled, with their heathenish mummery! Bait to his trap!” That was John de Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl, married to a sister of Bruce’s first wife, and bleeding from two slight wounds.

“No! That I will not believe,” the King cried, “The Dewars would not do that. Not so misuse what they hold most sacred on earth. The old man, I swear, was honest. His blessing true.”

None might flatly contradict the monarch-but only one was prepared to agree with him; his wife.

“True, yes,” she said.

“These you may trust. The blessing was -me.” Whether she believed it or no, Elizabeth de Burgh knew what that blessing meant to her husband.

“You were caught from the rear?” Nigel asked.

“The main body? Where is Edward? Hay? The others …?”

“God knows! They came on us from above. In their thousands.

We had to cut our way out. For the others, we can but wait. And in pray..

Their waiting, at least, was not quite unproductive, whatever the result of their praying. In a couple of hours the King’s party, hidden in the woodlands, had almost doubled itself, fugitives finding their way thither in ones and twos, exhausted, dazed, wounded or just dispirited, but none on horseback. Edward Bruce and Sir Gilbert Hay were amongst the last to arrive, the former, still unsteady from being unhorsed and all but stunned by his own armour. The tail of the column had been as badly cut up as the rest, they reported, being overwhelmed before either of them could reach it. They had seen nothing of Boyd’s rear guard and feared the worst.

A long silence had now settled on the weary and dejected company. So far, the MacDougall host had not come seeking them here. But all knew that it was only a question of time. They would be reorganising, and possibly waiting for darkness. For if Bruce’s own survivors could pick out this wooded hillocks area as an obvious refuge, then undoubtedly the Highlanders could do the same, The King had been pacing, alone, a patch of green turf amongst the heather between two knolls, with the twisted gait of a man in physical pain, and the twisted expression of equal mental pain, Abruptly he halted, and it was his brother he looked at, not his wife and daughter.

“There is nothing for it,” he said harshly.

“We must part company. We cannot go on, thus. We are but playing our enemies’ game. Here is no country for knights and chivalry. Or for women!

Yet, out of these mountains, if I survive, I can raise thousands.

Moreover, all else is closed to me. If I am to win back my strength, as your king, to challenge Edward of England, and the Comyns again, I must have time. As it were to lick my wounds, as might a lion. A sorry lion! And only in these Highland hills may I do it. But not as proud leader of a knightly host. As a cateran against cater ans rather. That way only lies survival.”

It was a strange speech for the Bruce, for any monarch. They all gazed

at him, unspeaking, waiting. “So Nigel-you will take the Queen and

the ladies. With strong escort Take them far north and east To Kildrummy, in Mar. Out of this west country. To safety…”

“No, Robert-no! Not that…!” Elizabeth cried.

“Yes, my heart It must be. I say yes. Indeed, it is my royal command. Here is no life for women. You would not tie our hands? Nigel will take you to Kildrummy. You will take all the horses that are left us for you will need them, and they will serve us nothing who remain here. We shall do better afoot. We shall make for Sir Neil’s country of Loch Awe in Argyll. And come to you again, when we may.”

The Queen could not dispute openly, of course. But she looked unconvinced.

“And what if Edward Plantagenet comes for us at Kildrummy?”

Nigel asked.

Then you will go north. Even further. Ever north. Beyond the great firths. As far as you must, to gain these ladies’ safety. Where Edward cannot follow. Even to the North Isles, if need be. They will receive you kindly, for our sister’s sake who is their queen in Norway. These who I hold most dear, I trust into your hand. The married men, and the wounded, will go with you. My lord of Atholl. Sir Christopher Seton. Sir Alexander Lindsay. Sir Alan Durward. Sir John de Gambo. My lord Bishop of Moray. The rest will turn cateran, here. With Robert Bruce!”

The bun of excited exclamation and comment that followed was interrupted by the arrival, mounted, of Sir Robert Boyd and about a dozen of his rear guard weary and battle-scarred. Boyd was lifted down from his horse, sorely wounded in the leg. He gasped out his report. They had been caught between the two enemy forces, and had had no option but to fight their way out, towards their main body, with appalling losses. Boyd, who had been one of William Wallace’s closest lieutenants, was a doughty veteran, though but thirty, and his survival of major importance; but the loss of almost nine out of ten of his rear guard was dire news. It meant that out of a total force of some five hundred, Bruce had now not one fifth remaining.

Boyd’s leg-wound was also a. blow. It meant that he would be unable to remain with the King’s dismounted party-and he was the most experienced guerilla leader they had. But at least he was strongly in favour of the King’s plan, and would be a source of strength to Nigel’s party. He declared that the sooner they split forces the better. His own flight hither undoubtedly would have been observed, and it would be guessed that the royal survivors were assembling here. He urged that the Queen’s company should make off immediately due northwards through the Mamlom passes before these could be cut The rest could then filter off through this open forestland in small groups, on foot, to come together again at a chosen rendezvous. In Glen Lochy perhaps. Campbell would know… That was accepted. Bruce drew Elizabeth aside a little way.

“My dear,” he said, “I am sorry. But… better this way.”

“Better for whom? Not for me.”

“For you, yes, also. In the end. Would you relish being a hunted fugitive?”

“So long as I was with you.”

He shook his head.

“I would not have my wife harried like a run deer. Nor can I have our men having ever to think of women’s safety. You must see it, my love. But, by the Rude, I am going to miss you! The thought of it is like lead at my heart.”