Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

This is war, not a tourney, my lord!”

“Nevertheless, we shall do this my way,” Bruce said levelly.

He did not want to quarrel with the Englishman-was not sure indeed who was truly in command of this expedition. The mass of the men were his, and in theory he was the leader—but he knew that in fact he was little more than a puppet of the English, and Benstead would support this gruff and experienced soldier against him to the hilt. And Benstead, unhappily, stood for Edward Plantagenet in this.

So, when they rode on, the younger man went out of his way to be civil to the knight, to avoid any rupture. They had got on well enough together hitherto-largely thanks to a mutual reaction towards clerks in authority, though essentially they had little in common. Segrave would make a dangerous enemy, Bruce well realised.

Scouts sent ahead reported that Castleton of Douglas, the township clustered round the fine church of St.

“Bride near the castle demesne, was strangely quiet, with nobody stirring-though no visible sign of alarm.

“It could mean that they have gone. Learned of our coming, and fled,” Bruce commented, sounding more hopeful than he knew.

“Or moved into the castle. To hold it against us,” the knight countered.

“As like the one as the other.”

His companion had his own reasons for thinking otherwise, but did not say so. He was the more disappointed then, when, after clattering through the seemingly deserted village-and sending pickets round the back lanes to ensure that no armed men lurked there-they came to Douglas Castle on its mound above the bends and water-meadows of the river, to find the drawbridge raised, all gates closed, and the Douglas banner streaming proudly from its keep.

“I thought as much,” Sir Nicholas said grimly.

“This lady requires to be taught a lesson.”

“Not by hanging hairns, at least,” his companion returned.

Douglas Castle, though not so large as Lochmaben, and no fortress like

Berwick, was an imposing place, and because of the riverside cliff and the swampy nature of the approach, difficult to reach save by the narrow causeway which led to the drawbridge and gatehouse of the outer bailey. It was a typical stone castle of enceinte, consisting of a lofty stone keep, four-square and massive, having five storeys beneath a battlemented parapet, surrounded by twenty foot high curtain-walls to form a square, with circular flanking-towers at each corner. There were the usual lean-to subsidiary buildings within the curtain-walls, but these scarcely showed from without. Now, men could be seen pacing the parapets that surmounted curtains and towers.

With a trumpeter sounding an imperious summons, Bruce rode forward, Segrave at his side. At the gap of the deep, wide, water-filled ditch, where the drawbridge should have reached, they perforce halted. They were well within arrow-shot of the gatehouse here. The younger man raised his voice.

“I am Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, come in the King’s name.

I request that this bridge be lowered and that I be admitted to speak with whoever holds this castle,” he cried.

After a little delay a voice answered from a barred gatehouse window.

“This is Douglas’s house, and Douglas holds it. Bruce of Carrick is known. But in what king’s name does he speak?”

“There is but one king now. King Edward.”

“Douglas does not recognise King Edward of England as having any authority in this realm of Scotland, save what he holds with a sword,” came back the careful reply.

“Does Bruce bring Edward’s sword to Douglas Castle?”

The other knew a strange reluctance to admit that he did.

“I

bring Edward’s peace,” he said.

“And would speak with the Lady of Douglas.

There was something like a hoot from the gatehouse.

“We all know of Edward of England’s peace! Death’s peace is kinder!

And does Bruce require half a thousand men, to speak with the Lady Douglas?”

( Segrave raised his voice.

“Have done,” he shouted shortly.

“Douglas is traitor and outlaw. Has broken custody. His house and lands are forfeit. Must be yielded to the King. Yield, then.

Or suffer!”

“Ha—there speaks an honest voice, at least I Edward Plantagenet’s true voice. The Lady of Douglas speaks with none such.”

“Then the worse for her, fool…!”

Sir Nicholas bit off the rest of that. With a vicious hissing whine, three arrows came flying past the right ear of each horseman, close enough to fan their cheeks—and to cause each to duck involuntarily, and their beasts to rear and sidle in alarm.

Such carefully-placed shots obviously bespoke expert bowmen, and could equally well have been each three inches to the left and in the eye-sockets of the trio.

Segrave, cursing explosively, wheeled his heavy mount around, and went spurring back to the host, shouting that they would hereafter do things his way, the trumpeter crouching low in the saddle and nowise behindhand. But Bruce, seeking to quieten his horse, held his ground at the bridgehead. He raised a gauntleted hand-and hoped that any quivering would not be seen from the gatehouse.

“That was Sir Nicholas Segrave, who captains it at Lochmaben,” he called urgently.

“Hear me. Robert Bruce.”

There was a pause, short enough no doubt but seeming an eternity to the man who sat there as target for a second flight of arrows. Helmeted and armoured in chain-mail he might be, but these marksmen could wing their bolts to his unprotected face;

besides, at that range, a shaft, even if it failed to pierce the mail, could drive the same bodily into a man’s heart or lungs.

No arrows hissed meantime, but a woman’s voice, high, thin but clear, sounded.

“My lord-Eleanor de Louvain, wife to Douglas, speaks. Your father I knew. And his father before him.

Edward’s men both. What has the son to say to me, who would spit in Edward’s false face?”

Bruce let his breath go in a sigh of relief—although he was unprepared for the venom in that. This woman was herself English, a widowed heiress that Douglas had carried off without Edward’s permission, on the death of his first wife some years before; it appeared that he had made a good Scot of her.

“I say that I wish you no ill, lady. You or yours. This house must be yielded to the King-as, by his command, must every stone castle in Scotland. But there need be no bloodshed. Your people may come forth unharmed. Go where they will.”

“My people, sir? And my children? And myself?”

Bruce hesitated, as well he might. And as he did so, from behind him

sounded the drumming of hooves. Turning, he saw that perhaps a score

of riders had detached themselves from the host, and were cantering

back towards the village, three quarters of a mile away. One glance

sufficed to establish that they were all English men-at-arms of the

Lochmaben garrison. The young man had no least doubt as to their mission.

He turned back, face set.

“If you yield the house, no hurt shall befall you, lady. On my knightly word,” he cried.

“Why should I trust your word, when you come in Edward’s name, my lord?” The high voice was less firm and certain now.

“That tyrant cares naught for promises. Have you forgot that my husband was Governor of Berwick?”

“It is my word—not Edward’s …” Bruce was returning, when, like the hissing of a pitful of snakes, a flight of many arrows sliced the air above him. Flinging himself low over his mount’s neck, he nevertheless saw three men throw up their arms on the parapet of the gatehouse tower, and one to topple headlong and fall with a splash into the moat.

Uproar followed. Swearingly savagely, amidst angry shouts from both front and rear, the lone horseman dragged his charger’s head round, and rode furiously back the two hundred yards or so to his own people.