Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

“Will you dance the next measure with me, Isa?” he asked.

“And save me having to trip another Highland reel with Christina MacRuarie! Or she will be the death of me!”

“I am not dancing, Sire,” the other returned.

“By your leave.”

“No? You are the wise one, then! I should have said the same. I saw your sister dancing with Sir Gilbert.”

“No doubt.”

“Aye. I’phimm. You are well enough, Isa?”

“Well, yes. Over well, perhaps!”

“Eh?” Somewhat heavily he changed the subject.

“Have you been at Kildrummy of late? We had good times there, did we not?

It seems long ago. I have not seen it since… since the English took it. And Nigel with it.” Strathbogie Castle was not far away from Kildrummy, at the junction of Bogie and Deveron, in Aberdeenshire.

“It is a sad ruin,” she answered briefly.

“Yes. I will have to rebuild it. So much to do. They took young Donald of Mar south. To England. My nephew and your cousin.

Have you heard aught of him?”

“If you mean, Sire, has my brother informed us of Donald, from Englandthen I say no. We have no truck nor communication with David. Do not reproach us with his treason!”

The King sighed a little. He had never thought of Isa Strathbogie as a prickly female.

“I do not,” he assured.

“My lord of Atholl has a wife-and I murdered her father.” Frequently he made himself use the word murder, lest he forget, a sort of penance, “Who am I to blame him? Blame is profitless, I have found, and men’s passions not always subject to reason.”

“Your Grace is magnanimous-as all do say today! Too magnanimous, I say! I am not! Towards my brother—or yours!” And she glared over towards Edward.

’-“M’mm. Well.,. Edward is Edward! You know him. I know him! more to

the point, he has known me! And seems to forget it And with the assassin Ross’s daughter, of all creatures!

My poor slain father will turn in his English grave!”

Bruce shook his head wearily.

“There is nothing in that, lass. A mere passing fancy…”

“And I a past fancy! Is that to be the way of it? We shall see! I promise you, we shall see …”

The King was grateful indeed for the sudden extraordinary noise which drowned his companion’s bitter voice. It came from the minstrels’ gallery. With the bears gone, the music had ceased, and now was succeeded by a high, wild moaning and whistling sound that rose and fell, rose and fell, for all the world like the gusting of a storm wind. Presumably fiddles and fifes, and the drones of bagpipes, were responsible. Then the splash-splash of water, skipped from pail to pail, was added. Everywhere talk died away.

At the foot of the hall the doors were thrown open, and the representation of a large ship moved in. It was handsomely made of painted canvas on a wooden frame, with three tall masts and sails. It held a crew of a dozen, who, although they actually walked on the floor, seemed to sit within. They wore breastplates and helmets, with the Leopards of England painted on them, and from the mastheads flew stiff banners, two red Grosses of St. George flanking another Plantagenet Leopard. They came in chanting, “Death to all Scots! Down with King Hob!”

King Hob was the English term of scorn for Robert Bruce.

This tableau produced the expected cries and groans of execration from the company, some of those who suffered most from liquor even advancing threateningly, fists raised.

Then, behind, emerged a smaller vessel, with only four occupants.

These also were in armour, three with the white-on-blue Cross of St. Andrew painted on their breastplates, and the fourth, a handsome youth who stood amidships-indeed, none other than William Irvine of Drum, the royal armour-bearer- wearing the Lion Rampant and having a gold circlet round his brows. The supporting trio shouted “God save King Robert! Freedom or death!” while Irvine bowed graciously all round.

The loud applause that greeted this party was quickly drowned in

violent shouting and war cries, as the larger craft swung cumbrously

round and bore down on the smaller, its crew brandishing suddenly drawn

swords.

A fierce and very noisy battle thereupon took place, a dozen against four, with much whacking and clashing of steel and the Scots taking some resounding knocks, the masts of their ship tending to come adrift realistically in the process-in fact, Irvine having to hold the mid-mast up. Sundry of the more excited spectators had to be restrained from forcibly joining in.

In the midst of this stirring if unequal contest a third vessel appeared on the scene, midway in size between the other two. This was skilfully represented as a galley, with a single mast, a great square sale on which was painted the device of three red lions on gold, and three oars pulling rhythmically on each side. Its crew wore Highland dress and bonnets, and its leader the eagles’ feathers of a chief, with bunches of juniper as badge. Cheers shook the hall as the newcomers drove in towards the contestants.

But the cheers died away to shocked silence, and then changed to varied exclamations of wrath, jeering, abuse and laughter, as it became evident that the Highlanders were in fact attacking the Scots vessel, not the English. Only then it dawned on those sufficiently mentally alert at this hour of a gay night, that the redandgold colours, the juniper badge and the three lions device on the sail, were all the marks of the earldom of Ross; and that the leader with the eagles’ feathers was a huge fat youth, made grotesquely fatter with pillows and the like.

Bruce, drawing a quick breath, looked over at Christina MacRuarie—who smiled back at him unconcernedly. This was her doing, for certain, her way of hitting back at Ross for many things, but in especial undoubtedly for the attack on her personal galley that October day some thirty months before, in the Hebridean Sea, when Bruce had first met her. This was her method of showing that while the King might overlook and forget slights and injuries, she and others did not. The realisation of it grew on all there, and the noise was deafening.

Not a little anxious now, Bruce glanced across to where he had last seen the Earl of Ross drinking at one of the side tables. He was still there, but now happily had fallen forward, head on arm, goblet spilt beside him. Nobody was thinking to rouse him, apparently, to view the spectacle, much as he might hear of it afterwards.

His sons however were not thus spared. Sir Hugh, beside Bruce’s young sister, looked discountenanced and unhappy; while Sir John, with his Comyn wife, fumed and spluttered. Farther over, Edward Bruce laughed loud and long, his arm still possessively round Ross’s blushing daughter.

“Your Isleswoman has a nice wit, at least!” Isabel Strathbogie observed.

“Pay heed to what she is telling you, Sire.”

The King said nothing. A policy of statesmanlike forgiveness and unity

might be well enough for the monarch, but it seemed to be less than

popular with his subjects. How to impose it, then? Of his close

friends only Lennox supported it, and that scarcely wholehearted And

yet, was there any other way to face the greater menace, the English?

These thoughts were temporarily banished by still another disturbance at the door. Into the hall swept a fourth vessel, and this quite the most eye-catching of all, magnificent indeed. It was all white and gold, another galley, everything-sail, mast, hull, oars, hanging shields-dazzling white picked out in gold. The crew were all in white also-but any insipidity in this was banished by the fact that they were all young women. There were a score of them in the galley, all but one clad wholly in diaphanous snow white lawn or cambric, of a clerical fineness of quality that was only made for high churchmen’s surplices-indeed, these were all surplices, only a little adjusted almost transparent. That the ladies wore nothing else beneath was swiftly apparent to delighted male and scandalised female eyes. The glow of pinkish flesh, with darker patches here and there, through the white, as well as the arms and legs more frankly bare, was the only failure, if such it could be called, in the white-and-gold harmony. Each girl bore a gold-painted wand in her hand.