Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy)

by Sasson, N. Gemini

  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. Th
ey 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.

  “He said he would come?” I asked the bishop as we both squinted into the cold cut of the wind.

  “Indeed, he did,” Moray replied with a raised eyebrow, as if to question that I could even doubt his word.

  “And he said that he would submit?”

  “And beg for pardon.”

  Between two stands of trees to the southwest, a narrow road parted the way. A party of horsemen appeared there, their mounts pressed to a steady clip, their colorful cloaks snapping from their shoulders.

  Malice throttled my soul. “Pardon has a heavy price.”

  “Vengeance –”

  “Is mine, sayeth the Lord. Aye, I know.” I glanced at the bishop, a thin fringe of dull brown hair peaking from beneath the miter that covered his balding head. “But if we all believed in that there would be no wars, would there? What men say and what they truly believe are two different things, your grace.”

  Clouds of turbid gray, pregnant with rain, marched across a foreboding sky. The man who had betrayed my beloved – pursued her and given her over to vile English hands – closed the distance between us.

  The Bishop of Moray clasped his hands together, the reins lightly looped over his thumbs. “Could it be that men care more about this life than the next?”

  “If you’re trying to provoke an argument,” I answered with a grin, “you’ve chosen the wrong man.”

  “I am trying to uncover your purpose in bringing the Earl of Ross here. I wonder, my lord, if it is as you said.”

  As his eyes met mine I nodded. “It is. Because I know this: that although vengeance is deeply rooted in my soul, as it is in most of mankind’s, I know that I have much to be forgiven for myself.”

  He knew only a part of my meaning. Two and a half years had gone by since John Comyn died in Greyfriar’s Kirk because of my anger and hatred for the man. And for two years now I had suffered in unspeakable anguish without Elizabeth and Marjorie. For two years, for every victory that belonged to me, I was reminded that I did not have them to share it with. And then I had bedded with Christiana of the Isles for mere ships. How did I ever think that infidelity would bring them back to me? This meeting with the Earl of Ross – this was God’s test of me. I truly believed that.

  If I have not been pure of heart, My Father, know that I am trying to put things aright.

  William, Earl of Ross, pulled at his horse’s reins and dropped to the ground. The rest of his party, the twenty he had sworn to limit himself to, dismounted also, but stayed where they were as he came forward. A roll of parchment was clenched tightly in his right hand. He kept his eyes downcast. When he reached me, he went to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.

  “Rise, Lord William,” I told him. I made eye contact with a distinguished-looking, silver-haired noble behind him. “Sir Robert Keith? I suspect the English king hovers over you like a hawk. Which side do you fall on this year?”

  My question was a facetious one, as I suspected his heart had never wavered. Keith had served as Marischal of Scotland under Balliol and later, after his release, as a justice under Longshanks, doling out rulings that bordered on bias in favor of various Scots. He detected my sarcasm and answered with a comfortable grin, “Having spent quite some time in English prisons, sire, I can fairly say I have no desire to return there.”

  Slowly, Ross lifted his face. “Sire. Your grace. In utmost humility, may I speak?”

  “That is why we called you here,” I said. “I, for one, would like to hear what you have to say. I brought as many holy men as I could muster. They make more believable witnesses, I am told, than Scots nobles.”

  The jest fell short, as the blanched, wide-eyed look was still upon Ross’s countenance.

  “Please, William,” I told him again, “rise. Such groveling does not become you. I remember, when my grandfather still had enough vigor in him to chase after the crown, you rallied to him. I don’t forget those things.”

  “His was clearly the stronger claim. And he was the more fit man to wear the crown.”

  “Then did you think me not so?”

  Lowering his eyes, he swallowed and squeezed the parchment tighter.

  I leaned forward and put my weight upon my right elbow, which rested on my mount’s withers. A fierce wind, cold and damp, beat at us without relent. It pulled at my cloak and tangled my hair. Wanting to appear neither mistrustful nor condescending, I had left both helmet and crown behind that day. Soon, it would rain and when it did it would likely go on for days.

  “No, you needn’t answer, William. I fought for England once, as well. At the time, I had my reasons. Even though a king, I do not claim myself to be without flaw. Now, up. And give me what you have there. We need to get on with this business before we’re all soaked to the bone. I’ve been wet more times than I cared for these past years and am dreadfully sick of it. So go on. Straight to it.”

  Ross delivered an eloquent speech, wherein many times and
in a very flattering manner he pointed out my grace in this matter. He went on to proclaim his oath of fealty, both for himself and his heirs toward me and mine. But also, he did not fail to mention the lands I had promised him. I forgave him that pettiness. It appeared his eyesight was not keen, as he read excruciatingly slowly. By the time he spoke the last words and placed his hand upon the Holy Gospel that the Bishop of Moray presented to him –

  “... I do swear upon the Gospel of God.”

  – it was misting. A cold, wetter than wet mist, familiar to Scotland. The Bishop hurriedly made the sign of the cross, blessed the occasion with a few words and tucked the letter beneath his robes to save its ink from the deluge. I thanked the earl and invited him to Nairn for a supper. As he climbed upon his horse and we readied to go, Thomas Randolph, who I had quite forgotten about even being there, stood before me holding the reins of his new horse.

  “My lord... sire.” He bowed his bare head and, with one hand swept across his abdomen, he knelt.

  The formality of his address left me with no reaction but to look at him and wait for more.

  “I ask for your pardon,” he said.

  I must have looked more than puzzled as he gazed up at me through the blur of rain, for he continued, trying to explain himself.

  “I beg that you would grant me pardon for what I have done. For fighting against you. My faith, my loyalty – they are yours now, if you will have them.”

  I squeezed the water from my beard and blinked as the rain drove harder. I looked for James in the crowd of my most trusted fighting men and nobles. He was some thirty feet away and even so, he seemed to tell me in the careless tilt of his head that the choice was mine.

  “Betting on my good humor today, are you?”

  “The timing would seem to be good, aye,” Randolph admitted.

  “Honest and shrewd.” I put forth my hand. “Lay yours in mine and we’ll call it done.”