The Renegade: A Tale of Robert the Bruce (77 page)

“So be it. Let’s hope to God the woman sees sense. I have no wish to spill Scottish blood. I’ll have my folk ready at dawn.”

EPILOGUE

Thursday, May 16, 1297

T
homas Beg was hauling at the last of the buckled straps at Bruce’s waist when the roaring drum rattle of the heavy downpour abruptly died away, leaving only the sluicing sound of running water being shed from the sloping roof.

“Well,” Thomas growled, “thank the Christ for that. We’ll still be arse deep in mud out there but at least we winna get soaked on top. Unless it starts up again.” He stepped away and opened the tent flaps, and stood peering out for a while and listening to the splashing sounds of unseen people moving around in the darkness. A loud clatter of falling pikes and a bark of profanity announced that someone had blundered into a pile of stacked weapons in the dark, and he turned back to Bruce. “Darker than it should be,” he said, “but there’s no use in carryin’ a torch, even if we had one. The clouds must be awfu’ thick. Are ye set?”

“As close as I’ll ever be,” Bruce answered, tugging at his sheathed sword until it hung comfortably. “Let’s see if we can find that clerkly, whining bastard Benstead, then, and make a start to this
auspicious
day.”

Thomas Beg looked askance at him, ignoring the heavy irony in Bruce’s emphasis. “Benstead?” he asked instead. “I thought ye put him in his place yesterday, for good. Why would ye seek him now?”

Bruce grunted, the sound heavy with distaste. “Because of what his true place is. He’s Edward’s official representative. I can’t change that, nor can I ignore it, much as I’d like to. So we’ll go and find him before we set anything in motion, see if he has anything to say. I doubt I’m going to like whatever comes out of his mouth, for the man’s a venomous reptile. But this is a matter of duty, and I owe it not to him but to his master. Come on, now, lead the way.”

“Fine, but first I’ll see to the candles.” Thomas Beg stepped back, releasing the tent flaps, but before he could reach the nearest candle the flaps were raised again from the outside and Nicol MacDuncan stepped in, dripping wet and frowning.

“Wait, Tam,” Bruce said, but Thomas Beg had already stopped. In the act of cupping a hand behind the closer wick he had half turned, eyeing the newcomer, and Bruce heard his muffled, “Uh-oh.”

Bruce spoke to Nicol in Gaelic, his tone apprehensive. “Was that you who knocked over the pikes?”

“Aye. It’s blacker than the pit of hell out there. I walked right into them.”

“What’s wrong?”

His uncle looked at him strangely. “I don’t know, Rob, but the English camp’s empty. I couldn’t sleep with the noise of the rain, so I went for a walk to clear my head. There’s not a soul in the camp, not even guards. Everything’s in place, so they are still around somewhere. They must have left in the middle of the night and nobody heard a thing.”

“Hell’s fire,” Tam swore, but Bruce stood stock-still.

“Benstead,” he whispered eventually. “He must have spent the night threatening Guiscard. I should have flogged the whoreson yesterday while it was in my mind.”

Nicol blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Treachery is what I’m talking about, and hanging children. God damn the wretched man! Tam, quick as you can. Mount up—don’t waste time with a saddle—take the road east for Annandale. You’ll come to a crossroads, less than a mile from here, marked by a big, dead tree. Jardine says it’s impossible to miss. He’ll be camped there, waiting. Bring him here. Tell him there’s no time to waste. He’ll have two hundred men with him—more, if we’re lucky. Tell him we’ve been betrayed by the English priest and I need his bowmen in an arc at the Englishry’s backs, with the others he could muster as a solid block in the centre. He’ll know what I mean. Go, now!”

Thomas Beg was through the flaps and away almost before Bruce had finished speaking.

“Nicol, get our people moving now. Armed and ready. We’ll go straight to the castle. God knows there’s no reason now to move quietly. Have your men form up on me. I’ll be waiting by the English horse lines. Quick, man!”

The men of Carrick had no need to waste time forming into disciplined blocks and ranks like English soldiers. They found Bruce in the strengthening pre-dawn light and arranged themselves behind him, watching him for instructions, and when he estimated most of them were there he gave the signal and rode forward, leading them out, knowing the stragglers would catch up quickly.

Half an hour later, with the Carrick men all soaked to the waist from running through long grass after the overnight downpour, they came in sight of the ancient keep of Douglas Castle and found the English drawn up there, facing the main gates. The great siege engines, mainly catapults capable of throwing man-sized stones that would quickly breach any but the very strongest walls, were being manhandled into their final assault positions by the sappers who tended them, and each of them was already stocked with a large pile of missiles, with more being brought up by wagons. But it was the rhythmic sound of heavy hammering that attracted Bruce’s attention, and as he turned to look for the source of it his eye was drawn to where twin teams of straining men were hauling on ropes, erecting the framework of a tall set of gallows. Even from a distance, he could see that the thing was prefabricated and knew that it had been there all along, brought north from England with the siege engines.

Nicol MacDuncan was close by his side, and behind Nicol, in the grey morning light, Bruce could sense the dozen Carrick lieutenants watching him. He gave his orders without taking his eyes from the men erecting the gibbet, watching as it reached the vertical and dropped into the slotted holes that had been dug to secure the uprights.

“Nicol, take the men forward as we arranged yesterday. Place them between the English and the castle, facing the walls. No man to look back, except you. You keep your eyes on me. I’m going to talk to Guiscard. I’ll need a standard-bearer with my colours but no one else. I don’t know if I can stop what’s happening here but I’m going to try, until Jardine’s men get here. When you see my standard wave from side to side, turn the men around and have them move towards me. At the walk, mind you. No attack, no charge. Keep your approach slow and steady and have your bowmen ready to shoot, but stop when you’re a hundred paces distant, within easy killing range for your bowmen, yet far enough away to remain clear of a sudden sally by Guiscard’s horsemen. It’s a threat I want to present here, not a challenge or provocation. We’ll spill no blood if it can be avoided. Is that clear?”

“Aye. But how will we know if we need to attack?”

Bruce grunted, then took his eyes from the gallows to look at him. “If you see me taken, or if I fall dead, attack. Otherwise wait. I am about to discover whether I’m as good a talker as I hope I am. The rest remains with Guiscard. If he’s the man I think he is, he’ll see the truth of his position when Jardine arrives and he’ll hold his men in check. I’m going now. Wish me well.”

He lowered the visor on his helmet, noted the immediate loss of vision beyond the narrow eye slit, and raised it again before he turned to face the English knights and men-at-arms. But he made no move to start towards them. Instead, he sat looking in their direction, highly aware that they were watching him, too.

The light was growing stronger with each moment, and he felt a growing tension in his chest as he stared into the distance, waiting. He was twenty-two years old, approaching twenty-three, and as he sat there he told himself he was not the callow twenty-one-year-old who had ridden to his marriage in Edward’s abbey at Westminster a lifetime earlier. He had grown since then; learned much of life and loss; he had trusted in God and been deluded, and now, today, he knew he had been used by people he had trusted. Edward of England had used him as an unwitting dupe, without regard for his honour,
his station, or his esteem. He had been sent here purely as a nominal Scot, his rank and name exploited for the most cynical of English purposes. His presence here was a sneering jest, and every vestige of authority he had believed he possessed had been scorned and belittled. He might refuse to hang Scots children here this day, but his attendance would be noted by all of Scotland, his integrity impugned beyond salvage. He thought again, fleetingly, of his grandfather and his warnings about perceptions and how powerful they were, and felt a wave of self-loathing at his own gullibility. God! Edward must have laughed inside the last time they had met, to hear the Earl of Carrick pleading for his Scots folk.

Something moved in the distance ahead of him, at the farthest limit of his sight, and he straightened slightly, peering intently until he could make out the low-lying line of heads approaching the English rear. He turned and nodded to his standard-bearer. The lad was a nephew of Nicol MacDuncan, which must have made him some kind of cousin to Bruce himself, and he found the young man looking back at him expectantly.

“Well, young Ewan MacDuncan,” he said. “We’ll take a walk over and meet Sir Christopher Guiscard. And we’ll do it slowly, since I’m in no rush to die this day. Have you noticed yet that there are men approaching from the English rear?” The young man nodded. “Good. They’re ours, so take one last good look at them and then ignore them. The English will be watching us approach them. Don’t let them see you looking at anything beyond them. Right, let’s go.”

He kicked his horse into motion and then held it to a tight-reined walk as they crossed the two-hundred-yard distance to where the English knights and their men-at-arms sat waiting for them, and as they went Bruce kept talking to the younger man. “Mind you,” he said, “I doubt they’d be concerned even if they saw our fellows coming up behind them. These are the victorious Englishry who mere months ago routed the entire Scots army and won a war within three weeks. They’ll have little fear of another rabble of Scots peasantry. Now, before we reach them—I’ll tell you when to do
it—I want you to sway the standard you’re carrying from side to side. Don’t brandish it like a blazon. Let it sway, as I say, and gently, no more than that, as though you’re having difficulty keeping it upright. Do it twice. Nicol will be watching you, so that will be enough. Do you have that? Good lad.”

They reached the halfway point of their approach, no more than a hundred yards from the English, and Jardine’s men were clearly visible now, moving towards them through the long grass at the rear of the English horsemen. Sir James Jardine rode in the centre of the advancing line, flanked by two other riders Bruce presumed to be his sons, and they drew rein less than two hundred yards behind the mounted force. The Annandale bowmen were already within killing range and now they began to spread outward in a wide arc to cover the English rear.

“The standard. Do it now,” Bruce said, then kicked his mount to a canter over the few remaining yards to where Guiscard and his fellows waited. He pulled his horse to a halt in front of them and sat quietly, waiting for some kind of greeting. When none was forthcoming and he was quite sure that no one would speak to him, he turned his head to glance towards the gallows, where a man was throwing long ropes up to another who straddled the crossbar. Then he looked back at Sir Christopher Guiscard.

“You brought it with you, all the way from Berwick—or was it all the way from England? I thought at first this morning that the priest had threatened you, to bend you to his will, but I see now I was wrong. This plan was settled from the outset, and all your reluctance was sheer mummery. You gulled me, Guiscard. You used me, led me by the nose, and the more fool me for permitting it. And so here I am, outwitted and condemned by my own folly in trusting an Englishman’s word on the matter of anything Scots.”

He saw stirring among the ranks of the men-at-arms before him and saw from their frowns that they were watching Nicol’s Carrick men forming up at his back, but he kept his eyes on Guiscard, smiling now and surprised that he could do so.

“I do not see his oiliness, your slimy priest, but I doubt he’s far away. He would be loath, I’m sure, to miss the chance of seeing children swinging from a rope. Give him a message when next you see him, from me, Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick. Bid him stay well away from Scotland, for when I see him again, he will hang that same day, on my oath as an earl of Scotland.” He raised his voice slightly. “I see you counting the men at my back. They are but two and a half hundred, mostly bowmen. A small number for a mounted force as puissant as yours, but they will empty a lot of saddles before your men can close with them, I promise. You have a hundred men-at-arms and what, sixteen knights? But I believe you are a clever man, Guiscard. Too clever by far to commit your force without looking behind you. You’ll see three hundred men back there, too, with arrows drawn, if you but look.”

It was highly gratifying to see the reaction his words invoked, for Guiscard uttered a startled curse and swung his mount around, pulling it up onto its hind legs as he sought to look over the heads of the men at his back, but he saw enough to bring him wheeling back to face Bruce, his face reddening in outrage.

Bruce could not disguise his smile. In truth there were more than three hundred at their backs—far more, Bruce saw, now that he had time to look more carefully. Jardine had brought fully the four hundred he had promised in the first place, and they were now pouring forward, bows at the ready, to encircle the hapless English who were milling in confusion like a herd of sheep.

“Have you gone mad, Bruce?” Guiscard’s voice was a disbelieving roar. “This is rebellion! This is perfidy!”

“Hah! Perfidy?” Bruce shouted back, curbing his mount. “
You
speak to
me
of perfidy? This is not rebellion, Guiscard, nor is it perfidy.” His voice rose to a roar that matched Guiscard’s. “This is
Scotland
, you dissembling whoreson, and your kind are not welcome here.”

Guiscard kneed his horse forward so that he had no further need to shout. “Not welcome here?” he hissed. “And what of you? Think
you these Scots folk will flock to you? You who are Edward’s favourite dancing boy?”