by Robyn Young
As the man tumbled from the saddle, Robert hauled Ghost around. ‘Back! Back!’
Alexander gasped, struggling to draw breath back into his lungs. He was doubled up on the damp ground, curled around the knot in his stomach, where Comyn’s man had slammed a fist, cutting off his warning shout. It was from this perspective that he had seen the cavalry ride out from the trees, the plunging hooves shaking the earth beneath him. He had choked in the first few merciful breaths as the foot soldiers charged in their wake. The world, which he hadn’t expected to see again, came back into focus as his lungs were filled. The army had gone, out over the fields, the only ones left his two captors. One was at the tree line watching the battle unfold, the other was looming over him, the fallen rope in the man’s hands, ready to tie him up again.
Taking one last lungful of blessed air, Alexander grabbed hold of the rope and pulled his captor sharply towards him, at the same time thrusting his head up. His forehead connected with the bridge of his captor’s nose. The man reared upright in pain, clutching his face. There was a distant, resounding clash as the two forces met on the field. Faint screams rose above the roars of the foot soldiers, still surging across the grass. Tearing the rope from his captor’s hand, Alexander pushed himself to his feet, his bruised and beaten body screaming. Over the sounds of fighting, the other guard didn’t hear the snap of undergrowth as Alexander threw himself on his comrade, twisting the rope apart in his hands and bringing it down over his head to yank it tight against his neck. The man’s gurgled shout was cut short as his windpipe was crushed, but now the other guard was alerted. Seeing his comrade bucking and choking as Alexander strained on the rope, he drew his sword and ran towards them.
Alexander charged. Using the guard as a shield, he propelled him on to the outstretched point of the other man’s sword, forcing the guard down the length of the blade. The second guard toppled back with the momentum. The two men went down together, one on top of the other like lovers. Alexander lunged for the skewered guard’s sword, hauling it from his scabbard. He swooped on the man who had gone down first, ready to punch it into his vitals. He had no need. The guard had fallen back on to a tree root, splintered into a sharp shard by a charging horse. The root had gone clean through his skull and burst up through one of his eyes.
Breathing hard, Alexander staggered to where the guards’ horses were tethered. Keeping the sword in his fist, he freed one with a trembling hand. His captors had left him with only his undershirt and hose, torn and bloodstained. Digging his bare foot into the saddle, he mounted. Wrenching the beast around, he kicked at its sides with his heels. Once out of the woods, the rain soaked him to the skin, but its chill revived him and his mind sharpened as he urged the horse into a furious gallop. Across the great meadow, churned by hooves and pounding feet, the two forces of cavalry had merged, the different colours of coats of arms bleeding into one another. Racing past the first lines of foot soldiers, Alexander caught a glimpse of yellow, bright among the black of Comyn’s men. He recognised John of Atholl’s arms. Robert wouldn’t be far from his brother-in-law. The two were inseparable in battle. Alexander jerked on the reins, steering his horse towards those colours.
With a desperate burst of speed, he overtook the rest of the foot soldiers, the front lines of which had almost reached the skirmish. His horse crashed into several running men on the way past, knocking them flying. He entered the battle just behind Atholl’s men, barrelling through Comyn’s knights, hacking at their backs with his stolen sword. They didn’t expect attack to come from behind and those he struck toppled easily. Alexander felt a crushing pain in his leg as his horse was forced up against another. A stray sword grazed his arm, opening flesh to the bone, but the madness of battle was raging through him, taking him dancing along the brink of life itself, and he barely felt it.
The wet air stank of mud and opened bowels. Alexander was close enough to see the faces of some of Atholl’s knights. He felt a jolt go through him, catching sight of a young man among them, snarling over the rim of his shield. Strands of fair hair had come free from his mail coif and were stuck to his face.
‘Christopher!’
Alexander’s hoarse shout was swallowed instantly by the din of the mêlée, the crack of blades on shields harsh over the clamour of the foot soldiers, who had now entered the battle, axes and spears raised for a first strike at the enemy. They were too late. Robert and his men were breaking away, galloping back the way they had come, leaving scores of dead and dying behind them. Not all the king’s men followed, some caught too deep in the battle to leave it so easily. Christopher was among them with a small band of Atholl’s knights, hewing desperately at Comyn’s men who were pressing in, threatening to overwhelm them. Alexander roared in desperation, jabbing his blood-slick sword into every inch of flesh he could see, trying to reach his cousin. For a moment, the tide of fighting swept them close together. Over the shield, Christopher’s eyes widened in recognition. Alexander went to shout to him, then the metal rim of a shield cracked into the side of his head. The world vanished.
Alexander came to, coughing mud from his mouth and nose. He pushed himself up on to his hands and knees, vomiting up a vile stream of brown liquid. His eyes stung. Wiping them with the soaked sleeve of his shirt, he blinked his vision back to clarity. The world around him had changed. For a moment, he thought he had died and woken in another place. Hell, surely, for all the moans and whimpering. The rain had ceased and the plain was cast once more in sunlight. It shone garishly on the red mess of severed limbs and opened corpses that clogged the marshy ground. Wounded horses twisted among the dead and the dying. The air reeked. The marsh birds had vanished and crows had taken their place, winging their way from the foothills, drawn by the stench of carrion. Alexander sank back on his heels, staring at the plain. Where had the battle gone? The men? The thought brought his cousin’s face to mind.
Swaying with pain and exhaustion, Alexander managed to rise from the mud. His whole body was shaking uncontrollably. He stared around him, trying to keep his balance, until his gaze fixed on a patch of yellow and black stripes, vivid between the broken blades of grass. He staggered over and crouched beside the knight, one of Atholl’s.
‘Christopher Seton.’ Alexander’s voice came out as a croak. ‘He was fighting with you. Did he escape?’
The man’s eyes were open. He stared at Alexander with dazed incomprehension. Looking down the length of him, Alexander saw the knight had a wide gash in his side. The rings of his mail coat had been torn apart and the straw that padded his gambeson had burst up out of the gash. Like a scarecrow, thought Alexander numbly. The raw pink and yellow of intestines glistened beneath. The man continued to stare at him, licking his lips. Hearing the long note of a horn, Alexander jerked round. His eyes focused slowly on the great mass of men riding towards him. For a moment, he thought Comyn and MacDougall had returned, but these men weren’t dressed in black. He fixed on a banner, raised at the vanguard. The device was unmistakable – three golden lions on scarlet.
Pushing himself to his feet, Alexander forced one foot in front of the other, finally managing to break into a run. He heard distant shouts and the horn’s call ring out again. He was still running as hoof-beats came pounding up behind him.
PART 2
1306 AD
It is your country which you fight for, and for which you should, when required, voluntarily suffer death: for that itself is victory, and the cure of the soul.
The History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of Monmouth
Chapter 11
Finlaggan Castle (Islay), Scotland, 1306 AD
The procession made its way across the causeway that spanned the reed-fringed waters of Finlaggan’s northern shore; the stone umbilical cord linking the two islands of Eilean Mor and Eilean na Comhairle. Ahead, at the end of the causeway, the council hall dominated the smaller man-made isle. Torches burned at the entranceway, their reflections jewelling the water. Cattle lowed in the velvet dark of the surr
ounding hills. Beyond, in the distance, the scarred flanks of the Paps of Jura were stark against the pearlescent evening sky.
As the line of men filed in through the hall’s arched doorway, Thomas Bruce looked over his shoulder, past the cluster of buildings on Eilean Mor, where smoke plumed from the chimney of the great hall. For a moment, he thought he saw the shadow of a boat, lying low in the water, where another causeway joined the larger island to the shore beyond, but the reflections of the hills made it impossible to be certain.
Cormac had to bring himself up short to avoid knocking into him. ‘They’re not coming, brother.’
Thomas met his gaze. ‘Perhaps.’
His foster-brother looked steadily back, his red hair seeming to flame in the torchlight. Like the ten Irishmen who had accompanied him from Antrim, Cormac wore it in the traditional cúlán, the front matted thick and hanging in his eyes, the back shorn short. ‘For what it’s worth, I think that a good thing.’
‘Come, Thomas,’ called Alexander Bruce from the hall’s entrance, where his hooded brown robe made him one with the shadows. ‘Let us not keep our host waiting.’
Turning, Thomas hefted his bag higher on his shoulder, feeling the weight of the chest straining the leather. He would have thought the promise inside would have drawn the lords of Garmoran like wolves to blood.
As he entered, closely followed by Cormac, Thomas scanned the chamber. He had been on Islay for almost a month, having sailed from Ireland where Lord Donough had been raising the men of Antrim for Robert’s war, but this was the first time he had set foot in the council hall on Eilean na Comhairle – the heart of the MacDonald lordship. Torches spread fans of light up the whitewashed walls. Above, beams criss-crossed into shadow where bats skimmed the air, disturbed by the murmuring voices as the men shuffled into rows of benches, all facing a dais at the far wall on which stood a solitary chair.
The man who had led them here climbed the steps of the dais and seated himself. Angus Og MacDonald, the Lord of Islay, was a broad-chested man in his early forties with nut-brown skin and a strong face framed by sandy hair, streaked grey at his temples. He scanned the chamber as the men settled into the benches, his sharp blue eyes watchful. They had come at his summons from across his lands in Kintyre and Islay, southern Jura, Oronsay and Colonsay. Seasoned chiefs who had fought the Norsemen at their last battle on western shores forty-three years ago were joined by strapping sons and eager grandsons, many of whom now aspired to knighthood rather than the wild, sea-governed existence of their plundering forefathers.
Directed by Angus’s usher, Thomas sat at the front, placing the leather bag on the floor between his feet. He hadn’t trusted anyone else with the burden since Robert passed it to him at Dumbarton Rock along with the Staff of Malachy, now returned to the monks at Bangor Abbey. Alexander moved in beside him, hands folded in his lap, the silver cross he wore around his neck glinting in the torchlight. Cormac and the men from Antrim, who had been ordered to escort the brothers to Islay by Lord Donough, were shown into the benches behind. Looking up at Angus seated on the dais, a banner on the wall behind displaying the MacDonald arms – a black galley with sails furled – Thomas thought the man looked more like a king than a lord. As the great-great-grandson of Somerled, he supposed in some way he was.
The ancient sea kingdom, made up of more than five hundred islands that curved along the western coast of Scotland at the mercy of the moods of the Northern Ocean, had been carved up on Somerled’s death among his sons. The influence of the Norse kings, who plundered and settled along the chain of islands, had divided the allegiances of Somerled’s descendants, plunging them into a feud that had echoed down the generations. Forty years ago, once the Norsemen had conceded control, the Western Isles had been drawn under the authority of Scotland’s kings, but the lords of the three families who governed the fractured territory were fierce, proud men with long memories and they still commanded a king-like respect from the communities they governed. Thomas had seen that clearly these past few weeks on Islay.
‘Welcome,’ said Angus, his Gaelic rich and deep. His eyes swept the company, seeming to connect with every man in turn. ‘I have summoned you here at the behest of my esteemed guests, Sir Thomas Bruce and Alexander, Dean of Glasgow. They have come under the authority of their brother, King Robert, who requests my aid in his war against King Edward.’
The hall filled with a rumble of surprise.
Thomas glanced behind him, taking in the frowns and shaking of heads. He had expected as much. The MacDonalds, like his father and other Scottish magnates, had been supporters of King Edward since the start of the war. The statement presented a dramatic volte face.
‘My lord,’ spoke up an old man, whose hands were planted on a stick as gnarled and bent as he was, ‘while the war with England has ravaged the mainland we have remained untouched. Why risk King Edward’s wrath after all these years?’
‘We have a new king now, Gillepatrick,’ answered Angus.
‘A king who took the throne by force, my lord, against the will of many.’
There were murmurs of agreement at this.
Thomas wanted to speak, but held his tongue. Angus might have shown him great hospitality, but he had no authority here.
‘Gillepatrick is right,’ said a younger man. ‘By his actions Bruce has made many powerful foes, not just in England. It is only three years since Richard de Burgh was ordered to attack the stronghold of Sir James Stewart on Bute. All our lands lie in easy reach of Ireland. Who is to say the galleys of Ulster will not be seen on our shores if we ally ourselves with King Edward’s enemy?’
‘Right now, the Earl of Ulster has his own troubles to attend to,’ Cormac said, rising. ‘My Irish countrymen continue to press in on the borders of English settlements in the south and west. My father, Lord Donough of Glenarm, is preparing a fleet of ships that will bring the warriors of Antrim to King Robert’s aid. So preoccupied is Ulster by the advance of my people, he doesn’t even have the resources to stop my father. He will not come for you.’ Cormac caught Thomas’s warning look. ‘With respect,’ he added, nodding to Angus.
Angus raised his hand for silence. ‘My father pledged himself to the Bruce cause before John Balliol was crowned – before the war began. I was at Turnberry when the oath was sworn to the Lord of Annandale. His grandson has now called upon me to uphold that oath. It would be an insult to my father’s honour to refuse.’
‘Honour? Is that what you call it?’
At the harsh voice that came from the back of the hall most of the men turned, craning their heads to see who had addressed the lord so insolently. Thomas saw a figure step from the gloom into a pool of torchlight. He was a tall man, wiry of build, with dark hair that fell to his shoulders. He wore a sky-blue cloak, pinned at the shoulder with a silver brooch. A few days of stubble darkened his angular jaw, partially concealing a defect, or perhaps a scar, that twisted the corner of his upper lip. The man’s gaze remained fixed on Angus.
‘I call it ambition.’
Angus sat forward, hands curled around the arms of the chair. ‘Lachlan. I was expecting you days ago.’
At the name, Thomas knew this was Lachlan MacRuarie, West Highland captain of the galloglass, bastard son of the Lord of Garmoran and another of Somerled’s descendants. He nudged the leather bag at his feet with his boot, his anticipation sparked.
‘You would support Bruce not because of your father’s pledge, but because you believe it may bring you what you desire most. Do not pretend otherwise, cousin.’ Lachlan’s twisted lip curled. ‘You must know the MacDougalls have been raising an army against Bruce, planning to strike at him for the killing of John Comyn. You know, too, if you aid Bruce and he is triumphant, he may finally grant you their island.’
Angus rose. ‘Lismore is ours by my brother’s marriage to that MacDougall bitch. The lords of Argyll’s refusal to honour her dowry doesn’t make it their island. It makes it stolen territory: territory my brother lost his life fo
r, as well you know, cousin, since you aided the whoresons.’ Angus gestured to two of his men, standing near the back. ‘Seize him.’
As they made towards him, Lachlan shouted a command. Through the doors of the hall burst a band of men. Most were clad in patterned woollen tunics, their bare arms sun-browned and corded with muscle. All had swords or daggers in their hands. Two of them held a man between them, a blade pushed up against his throat.
Thomas recognised the captive as Angus’s steward. Reaching down, he grasped the leather bag as the hall erupted with shouts of indignation and the scrape of swords. Behind him, Cormac and the men of Antrim were on their feet, weapons drawn.
‘Hold!’ Angus shouted at his men. He held up his hands to Lachlan; a gesture of peace. ‘Do not do this.’
Lachlan’s mocking smile had vanished. His green eyes were glacial. ‘Did you think I would be fool enough to come alone into the hall of the man who imprisoned me and my brother on a godforsaken rock for five damn years?’
‘Five years? As Christ is my witness you didn’t serve one – the MacDougalls saw to that.’
‘Ruarie wasn’t so fortunate though, was he? Your guards made him pay for my escape.’
A man emerged from the group to stand beside Lachlan. He was shorter and broader of body, his bald head laced with ugly scars. One of his eyes was missing. There was a dark, empty hole in its place.
‘I negotiated your brother’s release,’ said Angus, hand on the hilt of the dirk that hung from his belt. ‘Even though King Edward wanted him detained for life for the burning and looting of one of his royal galleys.’
Ruarie stared back, his one eye unblinking. He looked like a mastiff, poised to attack. There was an axe gripped in his fists.
