Robert the Bruce--A Tale of the Guardians

by Jack Whyte

  “Did you go back into the town?”

  “Go back? Do I look mad? My ship is called The Fair Lass, not The Fearless. No, I stayed right where I was. The army went in under the red flag. I caught the morning tide and cleared the place as quickly as I could.” He shuddered and waved a hand as though to thrust the memory away.

  “But your ship is English, and I presume your crew is, too, so what would you have to fear by going back?”

  Cromwell looked around the room, but there was no one watching them or sitting close enough to hear. Nevertheless he hunched forward over the table and lowered his voice when he spoke again. “Understand this, my lord. My ship was laden, ready to go, and my crew was safe aboard. All I lacked was water under my keel, to carry me over the sandbars of the estuary. I wasn’t even tempted to return, and especially not after the screaming started.”

  “What screaming?” Even as he asked the question Bruce knew he did not want to hear the answer. He knew full well what the dreaded red flag meant—it was the signal to annihilate the enemy. “Tell me.”

  “We were close inshore, remember, and the sound carried over the water. There was great slaughter done that night, throughout the night and into the dawn. They burned the town, all of it, even the Dutchmen’s Hall where the traders gathered. I saw that with my own eyes and it was no accidental fire. There was fighting there. Some people, perhaps the merchants themselves, had locked themselves inside before the sun set and were fighting back. We watched a large body of men attack the place and be turned back, and then the fire was set to burn out whoever was in there…”

  “And did they come out?”

  “You tell me, for you know as much as I do now. None of us saw what happened at the end, once the sun went down. We heard the roar of the fires, and the screams, but we could see nothing from where we were.”

  Bruce was unable to believe what he was hearing.

  “How many—?” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Were you to guess … How many deaths think you there might have been?”

  The seaman sighed. “Did you have people there?”

  “No, thank God. But I know the town.”

  “No, my lord, you knew it once. It was still burning when we sailed away. As to your question, with the red flag flying…” His shake of the head was slow, ponderous. “Thousands, I would say, from what we heard that night. Perhaps the entire town. I simply don’t know, Lord Bruce. But I know I have nothing more to tell you. We left on the tide and we were glad to be gone.”

  There was nothing more to say. Bruce thanked the man for his time and offered him a gold piece, but Cromwell shrugged it away. “I haven’t earned that,” he said flatly. “All I have done is speak of things that shouldn’t be mentioned. I’ve been to Berwick many times and knew the people there. They were as much like us as any other Englishman could be. It sickens me enough to think that English soldiery could act that way anywhere, but to do what they did, where they did? That makes me ashamed of my own folk.”

  * * *

  The eleventh of July marked Bruce’s twenty-second birthday, though the event went unacknowledged by everyone except Isabella, who presented him with a magnificent pair of riding boots, ordered months earlier from London to mark the occasion of his first birthday as her husband. He wore them daily thereafter because they were not only beautiful but practical, soft and supple despite their weight and substance, and perfectly suited to the way he walked, which could not always be said of riding boots.

  Several more weeks elapsed with no word from Carlisle, though, and by that time Bruce had grown seriously worried about his father. The Lord of Annandale had never been a letter writer, but even so Bruce felt that Carlisle’s situation on the very border of the southwestern invasion route from Scotland should have merited a communication of some kind, if only a word to let his family in the south know that he was alive. He himself had intended to write to his father, but in the aftermath of returning to Writtle and finding Izzy pregnant he had let the matter slide, telling himself that Carlisle would have been relatively unaffected by the hostilities thanks to Edward’s pre-emptive strike into Scotland. Now, though, with so much time having elapsed in silence, he acknowledged guiltily to himself that he might have been less than perfectly filial in not contacting his father.

  The end of July was approaching by the time he finally gave in to his uncertainties and decided to ride to Westminster in search of substantial news and information. Isabella was seven months into her carrying term by then, her tiny body made to look even smaller by the grotesque hugeness of the burden she was carrying inside her, and even though the road between Writtle and London was an excellent one and the weather appeared to hold no threats, Bruce and Allie both agreed, over Izzy’s outraged protests, that the potential hazards of a fifty-mile return journey in a poorly sprung coach were far too high to justify the risks. She finally relented and agreed to remain in Writtle when Bruce pointed out that the journey would be pointless for her even in the best of circumstances, since Edward himself was still in Scotland. Without his royal presence and with all his glittering entourage accompanying the monarch on campaign, Westminster would be an empty shell, inhabited only by those senior ministers of the Crown whose duties kept them in place, running the kingdom in the King’s absence.

  Two days later, Bruce and Thomas Beg arrived in Westminster to find the place surprisingly busy, though in a way that Bruce had never seen before. The precincts surrounding the main buildings were crowded with soldiers and their officers, and scores of saddled horses were drawn up in ordered ranks in the great courtyard within the main gates. Bruce had never seen horses in the inner yard before, but judging by the dried manure scattered all over the cobblestones, this had evidently become a commonplace with the King not in residence and the constant comings and goings of mounted personnel. The guards were still in place where they always were, though, and Bruce presented himself to the guard sergeant on duty, asking to be announced to Sir Robert FitzHugh. The sergeant nodded, apparently recognizing Bruce, and sent a guardsman to accompany him to where he could wait for FitzHugh to receive him. A short time later he was shown into an anteroom where a good half score of other people were already waiting.

  Waiting turned out to be the operative word, because Bruce sat there in silence for two hours while others came and went, though none of them was sent for by the seneschal. He was thoroughly bored and out of sorts by the time the door opened and FitzHugh crossed directly to him with an outstretched, welcoming hand, apologizing for having kept him waiting for so long. He had been in conference, he said, but was now free, at least for the moment, to spend some time with Bruce. He waved in invitation, and Bruce followed him from the room, all impatience banished by the warmth of the old man’s welcome.

  Sir Robert’s private quarters were located close to the centre of palace activity, as was fitting for the seneschal, and he led Bruce into his small, private room at the rear where, in spite of its being high summer outside, a cheerful fire blazed in the grate. He went directly to a small table in one corner and uncovered a tray that held a jug of cold ale and two mugs, with new-baked, crusty bread, fresh butter, cold sliced meats, and two dishes of pickled onions and raw chopped carrots.

  “Join me, my lord, if you will. I’m famished. Talking for hours on end breeds thirst and hunger both and I have been talking since dawn about one thing after another. Come, help yourself. I told them I would have a guest with me, so there is ample for both of us, and as you can see, there are two cushioned seats there by the fire … Unless you are too warm?”

  Bruce grinned and moved to the table. “Never too warm in this place, my lord FitzHugh. No matter how hot the day, the warmth never seems to penetrate the stone of castle walls … And there were no cushions on that seat in your anteroom.”

  The old man smiled back at him. “Nor will that ever change. The last thing one needs in such a place is comfort for one’s supplicants. Hard seats keep them suitably anxious. Sit down, sit down
. I trust your countess is well?”

  They talked while they ate of Isabella and her pregnancy and of how a mere man feels useless and foolish in the face of such female mysteries, and eventually they came to the purpose of Bruce’s unheralded visit.

  “So, I confess I was surprised to hear of your arrival this morning, my lord. It has been months since last we spoke on your return from your circuit of the Balliol estates, on which, in retrospect, I should offer my deepest congratulations. Everything is precisely as it should be there and your attention to even minor details in what you achieved—details that many another might have deemed unimportant—has not passed unnoticed. But I am sure you did not come all the way from Writtle simply to hear that. How, then, may I help you? Is there something you require?”

  Bruce wiped his mouth and set his empty platter carefully on the small table by his side. “Yes, my lord, there is. I need information.”

  The old seneschal smiled. “Information is the most precious commodity in the world, my young friend, sought after equally by kings and paupers. May I presume you are asking about the war in Scotland?”

  “Aye, sir, you may. And in Carlisle. I have heard nothing from my father since hostilities began. I know not whether he is alive or dead, and that does not sit well with me.”

  “Nor should it. Your father is alive and well. I had a lengthy report from him the day before yesterday, although he had written a preliminary report which I received last month. Carlisle was attacked at the outset of the war, while our main army was in the east, but thanks to Lord Robert’s preparations the assault was beaten off. Since the Scots had no siege weapons and the defenders were ready for them, they turned back and went to raid elsewhere in the region—to little effect, I am glad to say. They set fire to some of the buildings in Carlisle, but the fire was quickly contained and the damage has been repaired.” He took another swig of his ale.

  “In his first report your father mentioned that the Scots leadership had appeared to be disjointed, which had resulted in their lack of cohesion in pressing the attack on his position, but obviously, in a report written in haste in the aftermath of the action, he had had access to little concrete information about the situation. Since then, though, the details have become more clear. The force that attacked Carlisle contained no fewer than seven earls, apparently, each with his own retinue of followers and each thinking himself the paramount leader, though the Earl of Buchan would have been in nominal command. In consequence, their invasion, as they thought of it, foundered quickly and resulted in little more than isolated raids on several nearby communities, civil and religious. As for the Scots war in itself, it is over … Has been for months.”

  Bruce blinked. “For months? When did it end?”

  FitzHugh shrugged his shoulders eloquently and rose to carry his own empty platter to the table. “On the twenty-seventh of April,” he said. “Three months ago. There were some skirmishes beyond that date, but nothing in the way of threat to our campaign.”

  “Sweet Jesus, that was quick. In God’s name, Sir Robert, what happened?”

  “From what I have been able to gather from all the reports we have amassed—not merely I myself but the other ministers in residence here—what happened was a repetition of the folly that turned the assault on Carlisle into such a shambles—incompetence and inadequacy on a staggering scale. The Scots leadership was overconfident from the start, and they showed a dismal lack of leadership on every front. No Scots leader, in fact, led anything, anywhere, other than uncoordinated and overconfident advances. Once challenged, they fell to pieces everywhere.”

  “And what happened to end it all on the twenty-seventh of April?”

  “A battle, of sorts, at a place called Dunbar. A cavalry engagement of some kind.”

  “Dunbar. I heard something about that, but discounted it as idle rumour. What happened there?”

  “A fiasco. Dunbar Castle belongs to the Earl of March, who has been a steadfast supporter of King Edward, as I’m sure you know. But the earl’s wife, Marjory, a sister to the Earl of Buchan, was chatelaine during March’s absence and took her brother’s side rather than her husband’s. She turned over Dunbar Castle to the rebels.

  “The King was marching north from Berwick at that time and he dispatched the Earl of Surrey, Lord John de Warrenne, with a strong force of cavalry to take the castle back. But the Scots garrison, knowing we would be about their ears very quickly, had sent an urgent appeal for help to the Scots King, who was, unknown to our forces, encamped nearby, at a place called Haddington. The Scots dispatched a cavalry force as powerful as Warrenne’s, although their King himself remained safely behind in his camp. The two forces met each other with very little warning. The Scots had the advantage, for they were on high ground and well disposed to repel any attack.” He stopped suddenly and cocked his head, looking at Bruce inquiringly. “May I speak freely? This will go no further than this room?”

  “Of course not, Sir Robert.”

  “Good, because I am about to voice a personal opinion, something I normally do solely to King Edward. I am no soldier, as you know, but even I can recognize folly when I see it—or read of it. As I said, the Scots had the advantage of a vastly superior position, sufficiently so for there to have been no question of attacking them. But Earl Warrenne attacked them anyway. He dispatched a large part of his forces to take the hill, and he should have lost his army then and there. But here is the tragic folly of the Scots. In order to attack the Scotch position, Warrenne’s men had to turn their backs to the enemy and retrace their steps for a quarter of a mile to a spot where they could most safely climb down into a semicircular defile that lay between them and the enemy, and watching them ride away and disappear, the Scots believed they had quit the field. So what did they do? They left the high ground and charged down as a rabble to pursue and plunder the supposedly fleeing enemy. By the time they reached the bottom of the hill, they found Warrenne’s cavalry advancing towards them in perfect order.” He shook his head. “I cannot believe any leader could be so stupid. They were an undisciplined rabble as they streamed down from their heights and they were even more so when they encountered Warrenne’s squadrons on level ground. They scattered and collapsed at the first charge. We took more than a hundred Scottish lords, knights, squires, and men-at-arms as prisoners. The rest fled westward to the great forest there.”

  “Selkirk Forest.”

  “Aye, that’s the name. In any event, those prisoners are all now safely contained in England, some of them, the most notable ones, in the Tower itself.”

  “Here in London! Is that why there are so many soldiers about?”

  “Here and everywhere else, aye. The war may be over, but the army has not been disbanded. The King himself believes Scotland is safe now, but he has yet to deal with France, and so he keeps the army ready.”

  “So what is happening in Scotland now? What about Balliol?”

  “Balliol is no more—”

  “Dear Jesus! He’s dead?”

  FitzHugh shook his head quickly. “No, I started to say he is no more the King of Scotland. He has been deposed.”

  “By Edward?” Bruce sat blinking. “But how can that be? Cretin and fool and dastard Balliol may be, but he is Scotland’s anointed King. Has Edward seized the Crown, then?”

  “Certainly not, nor has His Majesty any intention of so doing. Having solved the problem in Scotland and established the peace again, he is even now on his way back here.”

  Bruce sat back, frowning. “Pardon me, Sir Robert, but I am confused. In fact I am completely at a loss. I know I am only a simple knight, with little of a head for such affairs of state, but how can this be?”

  FitzHugh smiled tolerantly. “Frankly, I can understand your confusion, my lord earl, but it really is quite a simple matter, in terms of feudal constitution. As you know well, King Edward is feudal overlord of Scotland, ratified as such by the Scots nobility several years ago. The King of Scotland, who was party to that ratificati
on, was, and remains above and beyond all else, a feudal vassal of House Plantagenet. You yourself repossessed those assets that he held in that stead here in the south. This brief, unfortunate war we have lived through was precipitated by the actions of John Balliol—with the aid of his council of advisers, certainly—but Balliol was King there at the time, and in seeking alliance with Philip of France, King Edward’s mortal enemy, and thereafter declaring war against England, he rebelled flagrantly against his feudal overlord. It was on those grounds that His Majesty dispensed his justice, proceeding not as one king against another, but as lord paramount of Scotland against a rebellious vassal who happened to be a king and used that circumstance to foment both war and rebellion. In feudal law, King Edward’s hands were tied by the legalities of the situation. He had no other option in law than to insist that the delinquent vassal resign his fief. And that resignation had perforce to entail the loss of his kingship and the breaking of the seal by which he had committed his subjects to join him in his rebellion. That forfeited fief will remain in the King’s hands henceforth.”

  “But what about the realm? The kingdom?”

  “The rule of that is held in abeyance until another monarch be chosen. In the meantime, King Edward will rule directly from England, through an apparatus established to make that possible.”

  Bruce slowly shook his head, his eyes still wide with incomprehension, and the old minister continued.

  “I know what you are thinking. This has all happened very quickly. But that victory at Dunbar, despite the folly of the move that sent our cavalry where it should not have gone, was the decisive moment of the war. King Edward moved immediately and took Dunbar Castle, then struck north with the utmost speed, and as he went, the Scots castles all fell before him. Edinburgh held out for nigh on a month before surrendering, but in Stirling, the strongest fortress in all Scotland, our scouts found the castle being held by a single gatekeeper, who fled when they approached. Fiasco was the word I used, and it’s an apt one.