Nigel Tranter - The Path of the Hero King

“Take half. Round that side. The gatehouse. I take this. Quiet as you may.”

They split up. The castle consisted of a central square keep, surrounded by this high perimeter wall with its parapet-walk on top, with subsidiary lean-to buildings within the courtyard. At the far side of the perimeter, or outer bailey, nearest the shore and facing the unseen causeway, was the entrance, an arched pend with iron grille gate piercing the small gatehouse-tower which contained the watch-chamber and guardroom. In castles this was always the base from which sentry-duty was taken. The naked attackers now stealthily approached it from two sides, swords and dirks in hand.

This was a comparatively small fortalice, and was unlikely to have a garrison of more than perhaps thirty men. So no large number were to be expected on night-guard at any one time, and the sixteen assailants had no fears of being unable to deal with them effectively. The danger was that the dealing might be insufficiently swift and silent, so that the rest of the castle might be warned before the main keep could be reached.

In the event, when Bruce reached the gatehouse-tower, it was to find its door, opening on to the parapet-walk at this side, shut. It faced east, and there was an east wind, so this would be for the guard’s comfort. Holding up a hand to halt his party, he put his ear to the planking, to listen.

What he heard was a gasping, choking noise, the crash of an upset form, and then a single high cry, swiftly cut off. Almost immediately, from down in the courtyard somewhere a dog barked twice, with yelping enquiry. Bruce cursed and threw open the door.

By the flickering firelight within he saw that Hay was already in control, the small warm chamber crowded with unclothed men.

The men with clothes, three of them, lay twitching on the floor.

“Quick!” Bruce said, “Down to the courtyard. That hound …”

A voice called out thinly from higher-a Northern English voice.

“What’s to do, down there? What was that, Tom?”

Frowning, Bruce took a chance. That had come from the keep parapet-so there was another guard up there.

“Tom burned himself.

His hand,” he called, trying to sound as English as the others, and hoping the muffling of his voice from indoors would help.

“A

burn only. The fire.” He even produced a hollow-laugh.

The man above still called down enquiries, but less concernedly.

He must be ignored. The King gestured urgently towards the turnpike stairway. The dog had not barked again.

Down they all streamed, into the entrance pend. Across the courtyard,

the keep door stood ajar. Detaching three men to look to the buildings

in the yard, stables and the like, and to silence the dog if need be,

he led the others at a rush across the paving-stones for the other door.

The basement of the keep contained arms, food and storage; but within the springing of its stone vault would be a timber sleeping-loft for men-at-arms. Racing on silent bare feet up the main stair, Bruce signed to Hay, at the first door, to deal with that loft. He himself took only three men, and hurried on.

The Hall, on the first main floor, was empty, a dying fire on the great hearth. But two deer-hounds lay thereat, now sitting up at the arrival of intruders, growling deeply in their throats. Bruce pulled the door shut-but not before the hounds began to bay. He dashed on upstairs.

On the next floor would be the master’s chamber, the keeper of the castle’s quarters. As he reached the door it was thrown open from within, and dimly seen, a man stood there, pulling on a bed robe, a woman’s querulous voice sounding behind. Bruce felled him with a single great flat-sided blow of his sword. The woman began to scream. Motioning his three companions higher, he rushed into the dark room, made for the bed by ear rather than sight, groped hands on a naked squirming woman until he found her open mouth, and shut it.

“Silence!” he ordered.

“More noise from you, and you die! You understand? Die! Bide quiet here, and no harm will come to you.”

He left her, choking and gasping and whimpering, but otherwise quiet.

There was only the one room to each floor. Above he found two of his trio coming out of the chamber, wiping their dirks and going in higher. Inside sounded more female cries and sobs. Silence was pointless now.

He demanded information, in the darkness.

“Two dead …” he was answered grimly, and, after a brief pause, “Three now, by God! These bawling doxies! Dirty bitches!”

“Leave them. Come higher…”

But they were not required higher. Men were coming bounding up the stairs, naked men, shouting that all was over below. Leaving the remaining two storeys, and the guard on the keep’s parapet walk, to them, Bruce went down.

Hay had not had to kill more than a few of the sleepers in the main dormitory-loft. Now, in the light of a smoky lantern, he had about a dozen sleep-bemused or terrified prisoners, staring at the demon-like naked apparitions with the dripping swords.

Loch Doon Castle was taken, a bedlam of shouting, moaning men, screaming, weeping women, barking dogs and stamping, uneasy horses.

“Neatly done,” Bruce commended briefly.

“Now-lights, And let us find some clothes, a mercy’s sake! And get word to Keith …”

They found a timber pontoon contrivance laid along the entrance pend and weighted with stones, obviously an underwater gangway to bridge the gap cut in the causeway. Forcing at dagger point sundry of their prisoners who clearly knew how this contraption worked, to manhandle it out into position, shouts from the victors soon brought Sir Robert Keith, and others, on horseback, out over the causeway, from the camp. The Marischal was suitably impressed by the swift and effective capture of the strength which had defied his 200 for ten days; but he was otherwise preoccupied also.

“A messenger has arrived, Sire,” he said to Bruce, now in the bed-robe of the knightly but unfortunate English captain.

“From Turnberry: He came soon after you were gone. From England.

From Bishop Lamberton. The English invade. They are over the Border, in strength. King Edward at their head …”

Before the words were out, Bruce had grabbed the nearest horse, pulled himself into the saddle, and went clattering out through the pend and splashing into the dark waters above the causeway, robe flapping.

Before the misty dawn, the King and the Marischal’s force, leaving only a small garrison in the captured castle, were on their way northwards through the sleeping hills for Turnberry, riding as fast as the night would permit. The Earl of Atholl would have a pretty puzzle to unravel in the morning.

Bruce learned from Lamberton’s courier, another friar who had been searching for him for two days, that the truce was indeed broken with a vengeance. He had known that Edward of Carnarvon was mustering troops but that strange, unpredictable man had done the same before and then failed to use the assembled host, to the fury and despair of his nobles. Indeed, latterly his lords had been ignoring his summonses. Now, it appeared, he had acted with unusual haste and vigour, and made a sudden dash northwards from York-possibly to impress his notorious favourite, Piers Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, who was with him. Bishop Lamberton was actually with him also, taken along as an adviser apparently.

The Primate had managed to send off this friar from Alnwick, five days

before. Berwick should have been reached by the army, of about 75,000,

two days later. The Earls of Gloucester and Surrey, with the Lords

Percy and Clifford, were with King Edward. Lambertonbelieved the

English to be heading across Scotland for Glasgow, before going on to relieve beleaguered Dundee.