The Guardian (35 page)

“I will,” Fillan said. “I’ll wait and see. But why should they? They never did before.”

I saw the consternation that sprang into Andrew’s eyes at the simple truth of that statement.

But the amiably witless Fillan was already nodding vigorously. “Of course,” he said, bubbling with enthusiasm, “we’re going to win easily.”

Andrew Murray’s eyes, unreadable in his emotionless face, swivelled to meet mine, and he closed one eyelid in a conspiratorial wink that I construed as a warning to say nothing that might discourage Fillan’s enthusiasm. Then he led us back down the rear of the ridge to where we had left our mounts.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SILVER STARS AND GOLDEN STOOKS

A
ndrew was right: John Comyn, the Earl of Buchan, along with his namesake and marching companion John Comyn, the Lord of Badenoch, and their assorted allies, was being careful to provoke no confrontation. The group clearly had no wish to alienate their own people by appearing to align themselves too blatantly with the hated English and their rapacious King. At the same time, no open rapprochement between the supposed antagonists was possible, for fear of reprisals against those hapless captives remaining in Edward’s prisons in England. And so an appearance of hostility had to be maintained.

From the moment the two armies first came into view of each other, it was evident that the contest to be played out would be one between a hedgehog and a tortoise. The Highlanders of Moray had developed a technique for defending themselves against English heavy cavalry, using dense infantry formations they called schiltroms. These tapering, double-ended wedges were safe from even the heaviest-massed cavalry, because the defenders presented bristling walls of extremely long, thick-shafted spears against their attackers, whose mounts balked at impaling themselves. The English footmen, on the other hand, took shelter from attack beneath a protective roof of upraised, interlocking shields that the ancient Romans had developed almost two millennia earlier, and they were equally impregnable.

I watched the developments from the outset, though as a noncombatant and a diplomatic observer I had nothing to contribute. I
merely held myself available to be consulted should anyone show interest in my opinions, and, as I had expected, no one did. The English advanced doggedly, steadfastly keeping to the road and refusing to be coaxed off the beaten path, and the two equally matched armies lumbered awkwardly around each other at every stage of the journey north to Elgin, neither one daring to attempt an attack in the face of almost certain failure and defeat. The result? Not one drop of blood was spilled on either side.

Late on the evening of the second day of these manoeuvres, immediately after the evening meal, a visitor arrived in our camp demanding to speak with Sir Andrew Murray. Even muffled and cloaked to the eyes as he was, his clothing made it obvious to the guards who first challenged him that he was a nobleman, and so he was taken directly to the command area, where Andrew was relaxing with some of his commanders. I was there, too, minding my own business by the fire, when the stranger arrived. He stood stiffly between two escorting guards and uncovered his head. I was astonished to recognize, once again, the Earl of Carrick’s goodbrother, Gartnait of Mar.

“Come and sit,” Andrew said, rising to embrace him. “You’ll have a cup of wine, I hope?”

Gartnait looked about him quickly and shook his head. “No,” he said, his voice hard-edged. “We need to talk privily, Cousin. You and I, alone.”

“Of course.” Andrew turned to the assembly and gently waved us all away. “My friends, leave us now, if you will. I wish you all a good night’s sleep, and may tomorrow’s morning be as bright as this day’s was.”

I was probably no more disgruntled than any of the others around that fire at being so effectively excluded from what was to pass between our leader and the envoy from the enemy’s ranks. I returned to my own tent, where I lay wondering what the two were saying to each other. I must have dozed off, though, because I was startled awake by angry voices, and I had swung my legs out of my cot and onto the cold ground before I understood that I was hearing but a
single voice, and that it belonged to Andrew Murray, summoning his guards.

I was crouched over on the side of my cot, my arm outstretched in search of my sandals, when I heard Fillan’s voice.

“Name of God, my lord Murray, what’s amiss?” Something about his tone held me in place so that I stayed still and listened, not even bothering to draw back my hand.

“Nothing’s amiss, Fillan—save for this sorry world and the English folk who pollute it.” His voice was loud and angry. “Our guest here, the young lord of Mar, has outstayed his welcome and will now return to report to his masters.” He stopped, ominously, then continued, slightly louder. “To report
failure
to his masters, both in Scotland and in England.”

His voice changed slightly as he addressed Gartnait of Mar directly. “Tell them, though they should know full well by now, that Murray is not for sale. Not for English silver, nor for rich grants of English lands. And tell them, too, they have no place here in Scotland and no right to
be
here. And as for surrender, they will have no such thing from us until we are reduced too far and bled too weak to stand and fight them longer.” His voice changed again. “Fillan, see his lordship to the edge of the camp and on his way to Buchan, and instruct your guards to bar him from any camp of ours from this time on. I’ll have you out of here now, my lord of Mar, without the need to see your face or hear your voice again. Fare ye well, among your English brethren.”

I listened as the guards formed up and led Gartnait away, but no one spoke after Andrew’s parting words, and soon I heard the slow, muffled footsteps of people drifting away quietly. Eventually I lay down again and made myself comfortable, listening to the silence. It took no great mental effort to know that Andrew would be in no mood for pleasant conversation for the remainder of that night.

On my way back from saying Mass the next morning, soon after dawn when the camp followers were busily engaged in breaking down our overnight camp, I caught sight of Andrew headed for the latrine pits below the campsite, and though he was a long way from
where I stood, I could tell, simply from his bearing and the way he strode, stiff-legged, that he was still angry. When we took the road again he rode ahead of everyone else for much of the morning, so that long before noon the word had spread throughout the entire host that the chief was in a foul frame of mind and should be avoided. By the end of the afternoon, by which time he had found fault, ill temperedly and loudly, with what appeared to be every single detail of the day’s march, people were audibly cursing Gartnait of Mar, John Comyn of Buchan, their entire army, and their damnable English arrogance.

The morning after that, as I was preparing to mount my horse, he came striding in my direction, resplendent in a fresh white surcoat with his crest of three white stars against a field of deep blue on his chest. He was frowning deeply, unaware of me, I thought, but then he stopped and dipped his head to me in greeting, eyeing my mount as he did so. I returned his nod and he flipped a hand, beckoning me.

“Come, ride with me a while,” he said, and so I stepped up into my saddle and followed him slowly to where a groom stood waiting for him, holding his horse’s reins. He took the reins from the boy and pulled himself easily up into his saddle. I rode behind him in silence as he led me around and between piles of baggage rolls and groups of wagons until we had left the camp and its people behind us and were cantering almost side by side across a stretch of open heath. He looked back at me over his shoulder.

“You look as though you want to ask me something, Father James,” he shouted over the thumping of our horses’ hooves.

I kicked in my heels and pressed my mount forward until we were side by side. He turned and looked at me squarely, and I was surprised to see him smiling.

“Well?” he shouted. “Have you been stricken mute?”

“Not me,” I shouted back. “But you’ve been quiet yourself … for a while now.”

He reined in his mount, slowing it to a walk and standing in his stirrups to peer all around before he settled back into his seat. “So,” he said then, turning to look at me directly. “Ask your questions.”

“There’s but one. What did Gartnait of Mar say to make you so angry?”

He smiled. “He said I must make sure that everyone believed I was angry at him. I have to assume I was successful.”

I hauled back on my reins, pulling my horse to a standstill, and he stopped beside me. I stared at him. “That—that was all a ruse? It was! Of course it was. A nonsense, all of it. You’re not angry at all.”

“Not a bit.” He grinned. “But Gartnait was right and I knew it. We had to make the whole encampment think he had insulted me past bearing—past friendship and kinship.”

“Why?”

His eyebrows shot up. “You need to ask me
why
? I thought it was obvious. We had no choice, Jamie. We needed everyone to think there is bad blood between us and the Comyns now. Having seen and heard for themselves what was said and done, none of our folk would ever imagine for a moment that there might be anything
friendly
going on between us. And that means we don’t need to worry about any unguarded word or drunken slip of the tongue that might betray to the English in Inverness that we acted in collusion to defeat Edward’s purposes.”

“And are you?”

He quirked his mouth into a lopsided grimace. “We are. That’s why Gartnait came here—to propose a compromise dreamed up by Buchan and Badenoch and to work with me to hammer out the details. A truce of kinds, though none of us can ever let it be known such a truce exists. That knowledge would vex Plantagenet, and once vexed sufficiently, there’s no telling what that man might do to those of our countrymen left in his prisons. He’s supposed to be a civilized and Christian King, but I’ve seen the man up close and he frightens me. By my lights there’s little in him that’s Christian, Father, and I would not want to cross him and remain within his reach. I doubt we’ve seen the worst of him yet.”

He broke off, his gaze distant, then seemed to shake himself. “Be that as it may, the truth of the matter is that I was right. The Comyns have no wish to fight on Edward’s side here in Scotia. So they sent
Gartnait, and we arrived at an agreement. We will proceed as we are now, equally on guard and alert for treachery and attack, until we reach Elgin and turn west for Inverness.”

“And what will happen then? Surely once the Comyns are safe in Inverness, they’ll have to fight you. They’ll be surrounded by their bloodthirsty English allies, all of them clamouring for your blood.”

“Let them scream their heads off.” He grinned. “I won’t be there.”

“You won’t? You mean you’ll let them do whatever they want then, free of threat?”

“God, no, man! What d’you take me for, an idiot?
They
won’t know I’m not there. Sandy Pilche will bring his garrison the seven miles from Auch to Inverness under cover of night, and I’ll move off with a strike force, including you, that same night. When the sun comes up, no one in Inverness Castle will be able to tell that the army in front of them is different from the one that was there the previous day. It might seem a bit smaller, but they’ll have no wish to test it. Mark my words.”

“And where will you be?”

“I’ll be where you said I need to be! On my way to Aberdeen.” He laughed aloud, almost crowing at my slowness in understanding what he had said. “They’ve left the place defenceless, Jamie, in their rush to get up here. They brought most of the garrison with them, never thinking that we might jouk around them and go there ourselves. Aberdeen lies undefended. Gartnait let that slip when we were talking—I don’t think he even knows he said it. So we’ll purge the castle like a dose of salts, and once we have the town in our hands, we’ll claim the cargo waiting for us in the harbour. We’ll load it into wagons, distribute the weapons, and then head south, towards Dundee, where we’ll join up with Will and his group.”

“And what about the rest of your army? D’you mean you’ll leave them here in Moray?”

“Not at all.” He peered at me from beneath lowered eyebrows. “You really have no high opinion of my strategies, do you? The folk
I leave in place will threaten the English in Inverness for another week, then they will disengage and head directly south through Badenoch to join us at Dundee for the march to Stirling.”

I allowed myself to smile. “In fact, Master Murray, I have the greatest admiration for your strategies. It’s merely in my nature to ask questions. But what about Auch Castle? Will you leave it sitting empty?”

“Never. We’ll leave a holding force to man it, though I think we may leave Balconie empty, as a gift for the Countess of Ross. An unmerited gift that might remind her where her loyalties should lie.”

“I see,” I said, and I did. “You have thought everything through.”

“From start to finish, with Sandy.” A smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. “Have I earned your approval?”

“You have,” I said. “And my blessing.”

A fortnight later, on the Friday of the first week in August, we arrived in Aberdeen to a welcome none of us would have imagined. The Earl of Buchan had indeed stripped the garrison of nine-tenths of its manpower when he set out northwards, and he had apparently done so in complete ignorance of the extent to which the native Aberdonians detested all things English. Whether or not that decision reflected irresponsibility on the earl’s part was debatable, and a capable lawyer could have made a strong case on Buchan’s behalf, claiming that the earl’s ignorance of local conditions was natural and wholly logical, since he was newly returned from having spent an entire year in prison in England—a year, moreover, the advocate might point out, throughout which the earl had been informed, time and time again by his captors, of how completely vanquished and subdued Scotland had been since the battle in which he had been captured at Falkirk. What reason might such a man have, then, the advocate would ask, to suspect that there was any peril in leaving a formidable, English-held fortress such as the one at Aberdeen in the care of an adequately armed and provisioned holding crew in the temporary absence of its garrison?