Nigel Tranter - The Steps to the Empty Throne

Wallace came back after quite an interval, and beckoned them on.

Quietly they followed him past a pair of cot-houses, where the smell of

smoored peat-fires was strong, and across some tilled land, where they

cast long shadows to the left, in the glow of the castle fires, quarter

of a mile off. There was rising ground beyond, of no great height,

dotted with black shadows—some of which proved to be bullocks, but most whin and broom bushes. At the knobbly crown of this, where there was ample cover amongst the prickly bushes, Wallace, crouching low himself, waved them down on their knees.

“As far as you may come,” he said softly.

“Wait you here. Do not move from it, see you, if you value your lives.

For any man, not of my band, who moves out there tonight, dies!”

“What do you do?” Bruce demanded.

“Why bring us here?”

“You will see, my lord—never fear. Just wait.”

“Is there nothing that we can do, man?” Graham demanded.

“No work for highborn knights!” the other returned, grimly.

“But, if I have not come for you before two hours from now, you may do as you will, my lords. For William Wallace will be no more!

With no further directions for them, the big man slipped away, extraordinarily quiet and agile for so vast a person. The three rejected nobles round that the rest of the party had disappeared also, and they were alone on their whinny knowe.

“He thinks as little of us as he trusts us!” Bruce said, frowning “Perhaps he has reason,” Graham gave back.

“What mean you by that?”

“He knows us not—and there are many false, these days. Myself he knows a-little—I fought with him at the Corheid. A small fray. But that was nothing. And you—you, my lord, yesterday were Edward’s man. By repute. Were you not?”

Bruce shrugged, “It I seemed so, it was because I was not Ballot’s man. I am no more Edward’s man than are the many whom he forced to take the oath. The Steward. Your father, Moray. Lindsay. Bishop Dalton. All these swore fealty.” He paused, and smiled a little, in the dark, if twistedly.

“Although, to be sure, I learned but yesterday that I am now Edward’s chief-est commander in the SouthWest! Now that Hazelrig is dead.

In name. Because I am earl. And here I crouch, this night!”

His companions had no comment to make on that.

They seemed to wait a long time, so that they grew stiff and chilled. Once they thought that they heard a suddenly choked-oft cry from somewhere fairly near at hand—but it might have been only a night bird. There were unseen rustlings amongst the whin bushes below them, though these again could have been caused by bullocks. Otherwise, the environs of Ayr, that night, might have been as quietly peaceful as was usual and suitable. Time passed heavily for high-spirited young men of high degree.

Then, and this time there was no doubt about it, a high thin scream rang out from no great distance in front of them, its mortal agony raising the hair at the back of the listeners’ necks. And quietly thereafter a blaze of flame leapt up, seemingly only about two hundred yards ahead. It grew in size and brightness and was followed by another nearby. Then another. And still another. The crackle of fire sounded, and then muffled clamour, yelling.

Swiftly the fires increased, fanned by the sea breeze. And by their ruddy light, the watchers at last perceived something of what was happening. In front of them, across a dip, was a great building on a low parallel ridge, simple in design but long, bulky, two-storeyed, gabled and obviously timber-constructed. At a guess it might be two hundred feet long and forty wide. And against its many doors and windows, at ground floor level, fires were blazing up—evidently gorse and broom and straw had been piled high at every opening and set alight. Sparking, spluttering, flaring like great torches, this under like and resinous stuff roared devouringly -and dark figures could be seen piling on more and more of the fuel that grew so profusely all around. Already the wooden walls of the place were beginning to burn.

“The Barns!” Graham cried, need for whispering past.

“The English barracks. God’s Blood—look at that! Wood–it is all of wood. It will burn to ashes.”

“It is … it is full? Of men … ?” Bruce’s voice faltered.

“Full, yes. You heard Eglinton. The English, from Lanark, were quartered there. No room in the castle for hundreds. They will be … inside there!”

“Saints of Christ-this is a hellish thing!” Moray groaned.

“Aye.” Sombrely Bruce nodded.

“But did you see Berwick town?”

The muffled shrieks and cries and cursing from within the building were terrible now, rising high above the throbbing roar of the flames. They saw a door crash down, in a great fountain of sparks, and dark frantic figures came rushing out—to be met by slashing, stabbing steel that flashed red in the firelight. A huge leaping shape could be distinguished, silhouetted against the glow, great sword high.

Soon the walls of the barracks were well alight and there was no need

for further fuel. The number of waiting figures around increased. Men

were jumping, now, from upper windows, in a frenzy, many with hair and

clothes ablaze. None could fail to be seen in that lurid fatal light, and none who escaped hot fire escaped cold steel. The sounds that came across the shadow-filled dip from the Barns of Ayr were now blood-curdling, indescribable.

The shrill neighing of a trumpet, from the direction of the castle, drew the three watchers’ eyes momentarily. They could not see what went on at that distance, nearly quarter of a mile away—but they could guess.

“They will come out. Lower the drawbridge and sally out. To aid these. And Sandy Scrymgeour and his men will have them,” Graham declared excitedly.

“They cannot sit within, and watch this!”

“The man is a devil! Wallace! To plan such savagery. Godless I It is unchristian, heathenish!” Moray said.

“True men do not fight so.”

“Maybe so. But I will tell you one man who would not blink an eye at what is done here tonight,” Bruce returned grimly.

“Edward Plantagenet! Nor Bishop Anthony Beck, either.”

“Aye. It may be that Scotland needs such as this William Wallace, in this pass,” Graham nodded.

“But … it takes a deal of stomaching.”

The roof of the barracks was ablaze now, the entire long building a flaming pyre.

Fewer men seemed to be waiting around the doomed barracks, with no sign of Wallace’s gigantic figure. No doubt the main scene of operations was shifting to the castle vicinity. The roar of the fire drowned any noises that might be emanating from there.

Restlessly and with very mixed feelings, the trio waited amongst the whins. Their every instinct and urge was to move out, to be active, involved—but Wallace’s warning as to possible consequences had been as convincing as it was grim. And nothing that they had since seen inclined them towards disobedience.

Though they would not, could not, call it that, of course; obedience was not an attitude that fell to be contemplated by such as these.

They waited where they were, then, in major frustration and impatience, pacing about amongst the bushes to keep warm, since there seemed no further need to hide themselves.

A most unpleasant smell was now reaching them on the sea wind, from the burning building. It was a considerable time since they had seen any men jumping from the upper windows; in deed, no upper windows were now visible, in the unbroken wall of flame.

A scattering of lights showed in the town.

Eventually the priest, Blair, materialised, face streaked with soot, dark eyes glittering in the ruddy light.

“Wallace requires your presence, my lords,” he said shortly.