Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

“When your lady comes, tell her that I was grateful for her provision and forethought last night,” he instructed the somewhat confused and costume-rectifying Abigail, grave-faced.

“She was very kind, and I have not had opportunity to thank her, this busy day. But if so be it she is not over-weary when she does come in, and she would have my poor thanks in person-then tell her that my door in the Sea Tower will not be locked! You have it?”

Blinking, biting her lip, and smiling all in one, the other dipped low.

That night, after an evening spent together, when Bruce left

Lamberton’s chamber in the main keep of the castle, earlier than he

might have done-in order that the older man should have opportunity

for a good sleep, in view of his dawn start on the testing journey back

to England-he called in at the Gatehouse PART THREE

Chapter Seventeen

“Another hour,” Bruce said.

“We will give them another hour.

Lest they are wakeful. And it will be darker.” He looked up, sniffing the night breeze of the heather hills.

“It will rain, I think..

So much the better.”

The Lord High Constable of Scotland turned to look in the other direction altogether, not westwards over the dark water to the darker castle on its tiny island, but behind them, south by east, towards the loch-head a couple of miles away, where red pinpoints of light marked the camp-fires of their enemies, their other enemies.

“I do not like it,” he said.

“We could be trapped here, all too easily. It is a bad position. If Atholl were to attack while we were assailing the castle, nothing could save us.”

“Why should he do so? He has waited there four days. He awaits reinforcements, clearly. They have not come. He is young and inexperienced.

He will not risk a night attack, I think. But, if he does, our scouts will warn us.”

“Atholl may be young-but he will have experienced English captains with him, Sire,” the third of the trio by the waterside put in-Sir Robert Keith, Marischal of Scotland.

“If they had the least inkling that we would assault the castle tonight, they would advise him to advance. And they will have scouts on these hillsides, no less than we.”

“I do not doubt it, Sir Robert. But why should they think it might be tonight? You have been here ten days and ten nights, and made no move. Why tonight?”

“They will have seen that we have arrived, Sire,” Gilbert Hay pointed out.

“They may not know that it is you, the King. But they know Sir Robert has been reinforced-though only by a small company. But they may look for action, therefore. I do not like it, Sire. We are less than their numbers. To risk yourself thus-the King! For this? A small unimportant place like Loch Doon …”

“Not so unimportant, Gibbie -to me!” the King said quietly.

“This castle, though small, is a fist shaken in my face! Here in my

own Carrick-or Edward’s Carrick! From here, my good-brother

Christopher Seton was treacherously taken to his shameful death at Dumfries. And on this island, 500 years ago, died my ancestor King Alpin of Dalriada, father of the great Kenneth who united our realmas I seek to reunite it now. I will have no Englishmen defiling Loch Doon Castle, I tell you.”

His two companions were silent at that tone of voice. Nevertheless they were right-and Bruce knew it well. It was a kind of folly for the King of Scots to be here, in a dangerous position amongst the wild hills on the Carrick-Galloway border, with only a small force, besieging a strategically unimportant English-held fortalice.

All over Southern Scotland, this summer and autumn of 1310, small or moderately-sized forces were besieging small and medium stronghold snot the great fortresses, such as Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh and Stirling, for the Scots were almost wholly without the siege engines and trained sappers required to reduce such strengths. But the decision to drive the English out of the scores of lesser castles had been taken: Edward Bruce was investing Buittle in Galloway, Douglas was at Bothwell, Campbell at Livingstone, Boyd at Cavers, Fleming at Selkirk, Lennox at Kirkmillllock, and so on. The situation at large, on a national scale, was as awkward and incipiently dangerous as here at Loch Doon, with the loyal forces so grievously scattered. But it was something that had to be done, sooner or later and this time of alleged truce was as good a time as any. The uneasy and purely tactical truce, engineered by the French King, between England and Scotland, had been in force for nearly a year-but latterly King Edward had broken it by sending shipping to reinforce and supply his garrisons at Dundee, Perth and Banff, as well as commanding general musters to arms in England. Two could play that game. Hence this campaign of the castles.

Sir Robert Keith, the Marischal, as yet untried in the King’s service, had been given the Loch Doon assignment, with a mere 200 men. He would have been left to deal with it on his own, undoubtedly, had it not been for the arrival on the scene of David de Strathbogie, Earl of Atholl. The birth of a bastard daughter to his sister, deserted by Edward Bruce, had so enraged this proud young man that nothing would do but that he must at once take the field actively. From being merely a high-born exile in England, he became a man with a mission-to wipe out this affront to his name and fame. The English gleefully had given him a following assessed at 400, and truce or none he had marched north from Carlisle.

Presumably Edward himself, besieging Buittle Castle deeper in Galloway, was too ambitious a match for Atholl’s first sally; at any rate, he had made for this, the next nearest siege, and taken up a threatening position at the head of Loch Doon -but so far had not dared an attack.

The King had been holding justice eyres in Kyle and Carrie based on his own house of Turn berry, only twenty miles away, when he heard of this situation. Instead of finding reinforcements for Keith from elsewhere, he had come himself, with Hay and a mere bodyguard of two-score men-at-arms. Now he had to justify it… Superficially that was not difficult-for he knew the castle on Loch Doon as few did. Though an ancient strength, renewed and restored by the Baliols during the period when they controlled the Galloway lordship, it had been incorporated in the Carrick earldom and used by Bruce’s father mainly as a hunting-lodge. As boys, the Bruce brothers had spent happy days here amongst the cradling mountains, with the giants of Merrick, Gaimsmore and Corserine all close by. If anybody could discover a weakness in that castle, the King could-for twice he himself had had it repaired from ruin and the effects of siege, the second time, but a year before.

Loch Doon was six miles long, but very narrow, and the island with the castle lay some 300 yards off the east shore at the south end-where it was in a position to dominate the drove road through the high passes from the Ayrshire lowlands south to those of the Galloway Cree, its sole strategic purpose. In the early days, after the Turnberry landing, when Bruce had lurked in this country, he had deliberately avoided the ruined loch-bound castle as refuge, preferring as so much less obvious his spider-cave five miles to the north, away from the road.

Like so many island castles, this one had an underwater causeway out to it, cunningly twisted. Keith had been told about this, but an early night attempt to progress along it unseen had resulted in a sad reversal and loss-for the English had cut a large gap in the hidden stone pavement some two-thirds of the way out, and within arrow-shot of the walls. Not unnaturally the Marischal was wary of a second such adventure.

Back at the camp, where all fires had been damped down, so that no movement would be visible from the island, their hour almost up, Bruce made his final dispositions, taking over entirely from Keith. He arranged that the force should be split, one party taking up position at the head of the causeway; the other placed to guard the south flank from possible attack by Atholl. Then he had the men gather round him closely, so that he could speak to the shadowy ranks without having to raise his voice. A thin rain had begun to fall.