Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy) (20 page)

He smiled, showing off a mouth full of crooked teeth, but not a single one missing. “I d-d-did – and he was not hiding, either.”

“Is he in the pass?”

His head bobbed. “In, above... around.”

“Very good, Cuthbert. Today’s to be the day, then.” I tossed him a farthing, for whatever good it would do in these parts. He flipped it over in his palm several times, ogling at the way it reflected the light.

Under the watch of Sim and William, Randolph remained behind in a long-abandoned shepherd’s hut, built of dry-stacked, crumbling stone and with half a molding roof full of roosting starlings. After Gil said a hasty prayer, we gathered our weapons and went, following the River Awe. The Awe’s waters were deep and strong, for they rushed down from steep-sided mountains. One such giant was the great Ben Cruachan, overlooking the Pass of Brander. As we approached the mountain, Angus Og took his nimble men around its backside, where Cuthbert said that more of Lorne’s forces were lying in wait.

Morning light spilled down into the chasm. Lorne’s men gorged the Pass of Brander – thousands of them, although by numbers it was a fairly matched fight. Some stood atop stone heaps choking the road, baring their asses and whatever other puny parts they usually kept concealed under their breeches.

They rattled their spears and taunted us to come on, but we tarried at the mouth of the pass, biding our time as the sun crept higher. Down below, a long, shallow-bellied galley dropped its oars to slip from the place where the river widened out toward the loch, headed in our direction.

“We’re being watched,” I told James, who stood holding the reins of his horse – a fine roan taken from the English when he captured Randolph.

He raked his fingers through its mane to part a tangle. “John the Lame there. Staying out of the fray. Angus said he’s been gravely ill of late.”

“Not down enough, though, to miss seeing this fight. Shall we?”

“Aye. Looking a bit over-confident, they are. I say they’re in need of being humbled today.”

James handed his horse off to Gil, who in return gave him his bow. He caressed the length of yew, pulled the string from a pouch at his belt and strung it tight. With a glance toward Ben Cruachan, he strode away.

While James worked his way back through our column to join his burgeoning band of archers, I dismounted and called some of my knights to me. Doubtless, Lorne thought we were arguing last-moment strategy or debating over the sensibility of trying to plow our way through the rubble. Instead, we killed time with idle small talk as we waited for Angus to move into position.

“If the fool refuses to forfeit,” Boyd said as he buffed his blade on the tail of his cloak, “I can give you fifteen ways to stretch out his death.”

“Only fifteen?” Gil gibed. “Do any involve a near drowning?”

Boyd rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. “Of course.”

“Death by eels?” I suggested.

Cupping his ear, Boyd leaned from his saddle toward me. “Ale, did you say?”

“Not ale,” I said. “
Eels
. Forced feeding. Live eels, I mean.”

Rumbling with laughter, Boyd hitched up his belt. “I thought you meant we could drown him with
ale
.”

Gil crinkled his nose. “That would be a waste now, wouldn’t it?”

“Hah! Right you are. Never mind, then.”

The sun beat down, drenching us in our own sweat beneath our links of stifling mail and leather jerkins. Flasks of water were emptied into parched mouths. As the sun reached its pinnacle, I ordered the men back to their places.

A single arrow arced through the sky from the black slopes of Ben Cruachan.

Nudging my mount forward, I brought my sword up. I drew a circle above my head and jabbed the point of my blade heavenward. Spurs and bridles chinked discordantly behind me. Ten abreast, we pressed ahead onto the roadway that led into the pass.

Above the thunder of hooves came another sound. A bigger one. I looked up in time to see boulders crashing down the slope toward us. Lorne’s men rushed from hidden crevices, hurling stones. A fist-sized rock clanged against Boyd’s helmet, knocking him sideways. His horse veered into mine, before he shook off the blow and righted it.

The first swarm of arrows blotted the sky. Lorne’s men faltered, then scrambled in disarray. James’ archers were now rushing over the eastern rise of the slope. In moments, another cloud of arrows hissed toward their marks. Many clattered against the stones; others pierced bare flesh. Argyll warriors shrieked in agony as yet another volley followed.

A signal went up for the Argyll men who held the higher ground to fall back. James’ band had no sooner slung their bows to pursue them on foot, when Angus Og and his men popped over a ridge far to the west, trapping the Argyll warriors between them.

While my right wing split off and guided their horses up the slope, the rest of us plunged toward the barrier. Abandoning our mounts, we scaled the loose wall of rock to meet our foes at last. The first horrible clang of weapons tore through the air. A hulking warrior in a rusted hauberk towered over me on his pile of rock. Clutching his long sword two-handed, he flailed it down at my head. I flinched backward, my feet slipping on the loose and uneven footing, and brought my shield up. The jolt of his weapon reverberated through my arm. I jerked at my shield, but his sword was embedded in it. With a guttural grunt, he tried to wrench it loose. The pull was enough so that my left arm slipped free of its straps and he reeled backward, his sword still attached to my shield. In the moment it took him to realize his blade was useless, I had snatched my axe from my belt. I swung it hard at his ankle. He toppled sideways with a curdling howl, his bloody foot flopping at the end of his leg. I plunged my sword into his chest to end his misery, then climbed over his corpse to meet the next man.

Confused by the assault from numerous sides, the Argyll men lost cohesion. They began to draw back and soon found themselves wedged in the very trap they had themselves set up. In the erupting chaos of retreat, they forced some of their own too close to the precipice. Bodies dropped like stones against the rocks below. Those who could retreated, clogging the only bridge over the River Awe. Even as some of their own were still struggling toward it, James’ archers picked them off with precision. While bodies surfaced and were swept downstream, clouds of crimson spread across the dark waters of the Awe.

This time, it was the men of Argyll who had scattered and fallen.

Lorne’s galley slipped quietly downriver, past the floating bodies, further and further away until it disappeared into a swirl of mist.

Ch. 20

Robert the Bruce – Pass of Brander, 1308

Two years ago, Lorne had broken us at the Pass of Dalry. That was the day I had last seen my beloved Elizabeth, watched her go from me, no time for farewells. I’d exacted my revenge on Lorne, defeated him – although he had slipped away – but little good that would do to bring my Elizabeth back to me.

Our casualties had been remarkably few, for the real fighting had happened only in the first clash. We stripped their dead for goods and cleared the pass. Parties of our mounted chased their stragglers and killed those who did not give up their weapons and swear allegiance. My men returned with cattle fat from Highland pastures. That night, after we slaughtered some, we ate till our bellies were near bursting. The flames of our fires licked the sky, heralding our victory.

Randolph sat cross-legged on a rock, his chin resting on his knuckles, elbows upon his knees. The firelight cast deep shadows over his features. His countenance was far too sober, the lines on his forehead too many for a man of his few years. By the time I was his age, I had bedded more women than I could recall, been married, widowed and raised a daughter. And after all the politics and fighting and rough living, I still managed a sense of humor, even in trying times.

He scowled at the hoots and whoops of my men as they heaped up the firewood and danced around in drunken jubilation. “Are they always so merry?”

“They’re making up for the hard times, Thomas. We have a lot of those. Days without food. Nights without sleep or the comfort of a woman. Months without seeing or hearing of our loved ones. Nursing our wounds as we sit in the pouring rain and grieve at the unmarked graves of our friends and brothers.” I paused there, knowing he must have known about my younger brothers and womenfolk. “You make merry when you can. Today is a good day for it. They’ll be burying more of their own tomorrow, but I reckon there won’t be any more on account of John of Lorne after this.”

Boyd began to sing – always a sign that the drinking was at its height. Randolph rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “I need to shave. Your men won’t let me do it for myself. I might turn the knife on one of them and run off.”

“Would you,” I said as I offered him a cup of ale, “still?”

He stared at the drink, then snubbed it. “I prefer my wits to that.”

I downed half the drink, feeling its fire ease my aches. “But you didn’t answer me. Would you?”

“Would I run? In a blink. But where would I go? West, deeper into Argyll? Never a friend for our family there, was there, Robert? South to Galloway? Uncle Edward would trounce on me and have a blade skewered through my gut before my head hit the ground. Back to Berwick? I’d earn myself direct passage back to London for playing the spy now, don’t you think? Anything short of a proper escort to the border is as good as a hanging.”

“Full of questions, Thomas, and too serious for your own good.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation. “What do you want from me, Robert?”

“Most men here call me ‘my lord’. Although ‘sire’ is fitting, as well. I fancy the ring of that. I always shuddered to speak it to Longshanks, though.”

“Your name is ‘Robert’. You’re not my lord. And my sire is long since in heaven. I don’t have anything to give you. Why can’t you understand that?”

“I want your loyalty, desperately,” I informed him, “but it has to be something freely given. I can’t take it from you if it isn’t there within you.”

His pale blue eyes sparked like flint struck against steel. “You’re one to speak of loyalty,
lord king
. You know best how to give it and take it back and then demand it from others. Teach me how to fashion ‘loyalty’. Under what tree does it grow, is it made from clay, or do you keep it hidden in a hole somewhere?”

I took another draft from my cup. Feeling suddenly philosophical and caring little about the world except crawling under my blanket and sleeping off the day’s efforts, I said, “You can’t hold it. You live it.”

A sneer contorted his face as he fixed his stare on the dwindling fire. Lord in heaven, but he was a stubborn one. Not altogether a bad quality, I mused.

“Oaths or not,” I said, “think on what the English have done to you. They took pleasure in it, Thomas. Wicked pleasure. Reveled in watching a Scotsman squirm in agony and squeal like a babe, crying for their lord’s mercy. They kept you barely breathing just to hold the power of life over you. You have noble blood. You’re an able knight. Better than the brunt of all the knights on this entire damn island and half Christendom. But in King Edward’s flock you’re just another underling. Survive his battles and you’d have a square of land big enough to scratch a living off of and maybe, if you quibbled for better recompense, he’d toss you the youngest toothless, bow-legged daughter of some inglorious baron as a consolation prize. No one would remember who you were or what you did or where you were buried. Fight for Scotland and men will follow you. They’ll remember you.”

“Fight for Scotland,” he muttered into his folded hands, “and perish like the rest of you under the might of England.”

“Maybe. But I’ve killed enough Englishman the last two years to be able to tell you they’re not invincible. They’re men, not gods. And just like you and I, they have faults. Arrogance for one.” I finished off the ale, stood and tipped my empty cup upside down to shake the last drops from it. “Sleep well. We’ve one less cocklebur in Scotland as of today.”

Indeed, it was later learned that Lorne had fled to England to seek Edward II’s protection. His father, the decrepit and half-witted Alexander of Lorne was uncovered at Dunstaffnage, which we besieged for only a short time before he capitulated. Powerless and devoid of the ambition that had fired his son, Alexander of Lorne was kept as hostage in his own abode.

Brother Edward swept headlong through Galloway. At a ford of the River Dee, he appeared from the fog with his army and shattered the forces of Sir Ingram de Umfraville. Later that year he took Rutherglen.

Galloway, Argyll, Angus, Moray... one by one they came into the fold. But my kingdom was not yet complete. Ross stood apart, still. So north we went, this time at an easy pace, better fed and rested, for nothing stood in our way any longer, the whole length of the land. Many castles in Lothian and the borders still remained in English hands, but the time for those would come.

Auldern, 1308

A stiff October wind hammered its might across fields of stubbled corn. Upon a commanding hill crowned with red-barked pines just beyond Auldern in Moray, I sat upon my horse. Beside me on an aging gray was David, Bishop of Moray, wearing his silk belted robe and a red chasuble with the Savior embroidered on the back in gold thread. To his right stood a clutch of clerics – abbots, priests and monks – there to provide some solemnity to the occasion. If I had anyone to thank for having come this far, it was the clergy of Scotland that had served so absolutely, conveying messages, recruiting soldiers and most of all exhorting to the lay people the right and faculty of Scotland to stand by its own means. Behind us were my knights, those who had upheld me, fought beside me, saved my hope and starved, suffered and endured in the name of Scotland: James Douglas, Gil de la Haye and Neil Campbell among them. Brother Edward was still behind in Galloway, where disorder demanded his attention. My nephew Thomas Randolph sat upon a striking chestnut horse I had given to him. The binding on his hands had long since been cut loose and his guards dismissed.