The Path of the Hero King bt-2

by Nigel Tranter

  Bruce actually grabbed his nephew’s arm.

  “Quiet, man! And look! See you there!”

  Moray had cut across through the hillocks from St. Ninians, a mile away. For the first time, staring, he saw Clifford’s force out on the low ground.

  “Merciful saints!” he groaned.

  “Already! And Cavalry …!”

  “Aye, cavalry. And you are here! Get back, man. Quickly!”

  “But-here is what I came to say, Sire. This makes it more than ever vital. We must change plans. If we cannot bold the Cane road, you can be cut off. Your main host. We must retire on Stirling Bridge …”

  “There is neither time nor the men to change our plans now, sir.

  Retire from our strong position, in face of the enemy ready to move, and we are lost. Better that we be cut off, I say-since if lose we die here. But, by the Rude-we have not lost the Carse road yet! Get you back, my lord of Moray, to your post. A rose has fallen from your chaplet, today! But you may pick it up again, yet! You have time, still. Get you down, with your foot, into those marshes, and halt me Clifford. At all costs. He must not cross the Pelstream ford. A schiltrom, this side of it…”

  Without waiting for the rest, or another word, Moray went.

  Bruce sent a runner to Douglas, on the left flank, to be ready to go to the assistance of Moray. But only if need be, and with only half his cavalry. Leave the Steward with the rest, in case the English main attack developed meantime.

  Anxiously the King and his colleagues returned to the vantage point, to watch.

  Presently they saw Clifford’s cavalry reach the south bank of the Pelstream Burn near its junction with the Bannock, and then turn westwards, inland, following it. No cavalry-nor foot either-could cross that mud-lined, mud-bottomed, tidal stream.

  If Moubray was leading them, he must have told them so.

  The Pelstream meandered across the flats in serpentine coils, and Clifford’s hundreds made slow work of following its sodden, sedge-lined banks. But even so, not slow enough for Robert Bruce, grudging them every step. He groaned at the thought of all their barriers and ditches avoided.

  They could see the tip of St. Ninian’s Kirk’s tower from here, but Moray’s force was not in view. Time-it was always timing that counted. Could they be in time? And would Hereford wait?

  The first hint of action the watchers gained was from the enemy.

  Clifford had halted, facing almost due west now. Then his long straggling column began to fan out and form into some sort of line abreast over the marshy ground, no longer following the burn’s edge. It was clear that they had seen something the King’s group could not see.

  “Moray must be down!” Bruce exclaimed.

  “The English prepare to attack.”

  Then the Scots began to appear, from the dead ground at the foot of St. Ninian’s hill, just where the Pelstream Burn passed out of view, banners brave amongst them, but looking a rabble nevertheless.

  They were this side of the burn. “What chance have they?” Hay

  demanded.

  “Foot against cavalry. They must be ridden down …”

  “They have a chance. If Moray holds them tight. Remember Wallace at Falkirk. The schiltroms held. The English cannot charge strongly in bog …”

  This last was very obvious, even from more than a mile off.

  Distant trumpets shrilled, and in some sort of extended order, Clifford’s cavalry began to advance again. But it was no charge, and no true line could be kept.

  The Scots could be seen to be forming, now, into a single great square, based on the Pelstream ford. So their backs were secure, at least; only three sides might be attacked. The bristle of their long spears, thrust out like a hedgehog’s spikes, could not be seen from this distance-but they could be visualised. Moray’s and Hugh Ross’s standards flew above the eight-packed ranks.

  It was a strange battle to watch, so remote, so slow-motion. Like the cumbrous waves of a heavy tide, the cavalry lapped and swirled and seethed around the rock of the packed spearmen, unable to gain sufficient space or hard ground for the charging impetus they required, while the Scots had to adopt a purely defensive role. Moray was the right man for that, however. If anyone could hold those dense ranks tight, disciplined, unyielding either to panic or the temptation to rush out and break position, he could.

  Bruce’s glance often turned in the other direction, southeast instead of northeast. The main English van remained stationary, neither sending further reinforcement for Clifford nor itself moving out along the road towards the high-ground Scots positions.

  Either there was division in policy amongst the commanders, or the orders to await the arrival of the King and Pembroke, with the heavy chivalry, were paramount.

  How long the struggle at the Pelstream Burn lasted, none could have told-but it seemed endless. Had Clifford had archers, all would have been otherwise of course; but lacking them, it was almost stalemate. At one stage, admittedly, it seemed as though the English were achieving a breakin, the schiltrom sagging in front until, at least from a distance, it appeared nearly divided. The watchers fretted helplessly and then perceived a division of cavalry spurring over the higher ground, this side of St. Ninians, Douglas’s well-known banner at their head. But Douglas halted there, on the lip of the descent, and waited, inactive but yet a threat. He could see the position better, and presumably decided that Moray did not actually require his intervention. He was obeying Bruce’s commands to the letter.

  Presently it was apparent that the English advantage was indeed not sustained, and the schiltrom restored to its proper shape. And gradually a new element in the battle became evident; a great bank of fallen horseflesh, dead and dying, was building up in front of the ranks of spearmen, helping to protect the Scots. No doubt there were fallen men amongst the beasts, but inevitably it was the horses that took the brunt of the punishment from that savage frieze of pikes, rather than their mail-clad riders.

  This grim barrier of their own slain obviously became an increasing obstacle to the enemy. Still they continued to attack, but noticeably the pace flagged, intervals lengthened.

  “Clifford is held!” the King declared, at length.

  “He cannot break Moray, and cannot cross the burn. He must turn back.

  Praise God-that fight is ours also!”

  Soon it was apparent that Clifford perceived the fact as clearly as Bruce. A trumpet sounded the recall, out there on the flats, and the English cavalry, having lost perhaps a third of their number, drew off.

  Reforming, they turned heavily to ride back whence they had come. The

  sound of throaty cheering came echoing across the Carse -and everywhere

  reechoed along the Scots positions.

  “Whatever the result of the greater battle, there we have seen something men will wonder at for long,” Bruce told his companions.

  “I have not heard, in all the story of war, where infantry have defeated a greater force of mailed cavalry in the open field. If Moray does naught else, he has had his hour, I say!”

  “But by your contriving and devising, Sire,” Hay pointed out.

  The King shook his head.

  “Moray’s glory is not thereby lessened.”

  Some time later, with the sun already sinking behind the Highland Line to the northwest, Moray, with Hugh Ross, was summoned to the monarch’s presence, to receive a very different welcome from the last.

  “Your chaplet is secure again, my lord,” Bruce said, holding out his hand.

  “Would that I might add to it. But I am in no position to do so, this day-since my own wears none so well, as you will hear!

  But I thank you, and yours, in the name of all. Had you failed, and Clifford won behind us to Stirling and the bridge, we could I think, have but prayed that we might die bravely tomorrow, all of us. We may so have to do, for the main battle is still to be fought. But our rear is secure and our spirit high-thanks to you.”

  “I but obeyed Your Grace’s orders,” his nephew said, flushing.

 
“For the rest, I have not even blooded my sword! Sir Hugh also.

  AH was done by my stout spearmen. “”Very well so. It is as it should

  be. You have proved better commanders than I, today. We shall see if I can do better tomorrow!”

  “Tomorrow, Sire?” James Douglas had come up, to add his tribute to Randolph, whom he had so chivalrously refrained from aiding lest any of his glory be diluted. There are still two hours of daylight And a midsummer night…”

  “See there, Jamie,” Bruce said, pointing.

  “King Edward has come, at last, with his main force. There will be no attack tonight, I swear. The English have much talking to do! Having waited so long, Hereford will not attack now that the King is here. And Edward will be in no state, after long marching, to throw in his army just arrived. At this hour. We have tonight.”

  The Scots stood to their arms for another hour and more, nevertheless, as ever more of the vast array of power and might came into view. It was a tremendous, a terrifying sight-although scarcely so for Bruce himself, whose commander’s eye was inevitably taken up with the problems and logistics of it all. That enormous mass of men and beasts crowding in over the Bannock Burn, and stretching far out of sight beyond-where were they to be put?

  That night? The terrain just would not hold them.

  Presently the King burst out with a mighty and wondering oath.

  The English van, so long stationary, had started to move again-but not now in battle array, or towards the foe. They were moving down into the Carse, slowly, in troops and squadrons and columns, picking their way amongst the pools and pows, the runnels and ditches, spreading out over the wide marshlands. On and on they went, and on and on others came after them, to appropriate any and every island and patch of firm ground, to settle and camp for the night. Down into that great triangle of waterlogged plain, rimmed by the Bannock Burn, the River Forth and the escarpment of St. Ninians, went the flower of England’s chivalry and score after score of thousands of her manhood, in an unending stream.

  Almost speechless, Robert Bruce shook his head.

  “Dear God,” he muttered, “I would not… I would not have believed it.

  The folly of it!”

  “They have little choice,” Douglas said.

  “And is it so ill a choice? It will be uncomfortable, yes. But there is water for all their horse, at least. And the men, though scattered, are safe there from any night assault from us. Their flanks protected by the burn and the Forth …”

  Bruce stared at him with a strange look in his narrowed eyes.

  “You think so? Pray God, then, that they stay there! Pray God, I say!

  And now-call me a council. We shall eat while we have it.

  Every commander here to this knoll…”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  There was little of darkness that June night, and little sleep in it for Robert Bruce at least. Despite the pleas of his friends that he should rest, much of it he passed in restless pacing, anxious eyes ever turned eastwards, down to where the myriad fires of the English host pinpointed the dusk and made the floor of the Carse like the reflection of a star-strewn sky.

  The King was, for that stark period, a prey to doubts and dreads.

  He was that, indeed, a deal more often than even his closest colleagues knew, and always had been. In a few hours he might well be dead, along with so many others. But it was not that thought which unmanned him, but the fear that what he had fought for so terribly for seventeen long years might well be thrown away in one brief day. All along, he had had that dread, and so had resolutely refused to hazard his all in any great fixed battle. That evening, during the council-of-war, he could have been persuaded, even yet, to give up all and withdraw, under cover of night, far to the west, to Lennox perhaps, as that Earl had suggested, and the skirts of the Highland hills, where no English army could follow, so that at least total disaster was avoided. He had been tired, of course, as he was tired now-yet could not rest.

  Oddly, almost as strong a fear in his mind was of a reverse sort.

  Fear that the English would perceive how dangerous was their present position, and move out of it, to the attack, before he could take advantage of their mistake. Attack-there was the crux of the matter. The enemy position in that marshland was fair enough as a resting place, if inconveniently waterlogged. At least it could not be outflanked. It was only a trap if the host had to fight therein, an armoured and horsed host. It was no place for fighting, and undoubtedly the English had only gone there to bivouac. But if they could be brought to battle there …! Which meant attack, early attack. By the Scots. But only if the Scots left their strong defensive positions, with their clear line of retreat westwards. Only thus could the potentialities of the cars eland be exploited. Was this folly upon folly?

  So Bruce paced the dew-drenched turf of his green knoll, and fought in

  his mind and spirit and with his own Battle of Bannockburn that night

  Yet, at the back of it all, he knew what he was going to do, and his

  greatest fear was that the enemy would be aroused and on the move, out of the trap, before he could spring it When he could restrain himself no longer, soon after three o’clock of the Monday morning, the King had all others roused from their rest-but quietly and not by any blowing of bugle. Then, in the dove-grey, pre-sunrise light, Maurice, Abbot of Inchaffray, celebrated High Mass before the coughing, yawning shadowy host, and, aided by the other clergy, great and small, went round the serried ranks with the Sacrament.

  As, thereafter, they all partook of a more material but still austere refreshment, Bruce addressed them sternly, but confidently, swallowing his own fears, telling them what he, and Scotland, expected of them this day, the birthday of John the Baptist, and of how it was to be achieved-with the help of the said saint, also Saint Andrew of Scotland and the martyr Saint Thomas. And not least, their own abiding belief in freedom. Where he led them today there could be no turning back, for him or for any. Holy Church had blessed them. And the Chancellor, the Abbot Bernard, would carry the sacred Brecbennoch of Saint Columba before them in the fray. As would the Dewar of the Main carry Saint Fillan’s arm-bone. For himself, he here and now proclaimed full pardon for all and every offence committed against the Crown to all who fought that day, and relief from every tax or duty of any who fell in the battle. Let the victories of the day before hearten them but also let them remember that today the veterans Pembroke and Ulster were with King Edward, and they must look for firmer command. Therefore, the Scots would strike first-and God be with them, and surprise likewise!

  With a minimum of noise, no shouting or trumpeting, the Scots army then marshalled itself into its four great divisions under the same commanders as before-only this time, all the cavalry was put under the command of Sir Robert Keith the Marischal, to take the extreme left wing, nearest Stirling; and the non-fighting clergy, with the porters, grooms and other non-combatants, sent, with the baggage and packhorses, to a green ridge north of St. Ninians, where they might watch and wait.

  With the sunrise just beginning to stain the eastern sky in their faces, the silent advance commenced.

  They gradually moved into line abreast, Edward Bruce’s division this time in the place of honour on the extreme right, and very slightly ahead; then Moray; the Douglas and Walter the Steward; then the King with the largest number, including the Islesmen under Angus Og. Keith and the cavalry, farther left still, held back meantime. Bruce, only chain-mail again under his vivid surcoat, in arched with the rest, Irvine leading his grey pony.

  Where he was going was no place for chargers-as he hoped he might have opportunity to prove to Edward of Carnarvon.

  At every pace of the misty, mile-long, downhill march, the King listened with ears stretched for the sound he dreaded-English bugles blowing-and heard none.

  At length, on the very lip of the Carse, the light growing and the night mists dispersing, the English outposts became aware of the untimely and outrageous Scots advance, and everywhere tr
umpets began to shrill.

  “I swear King Edward must have had a better night than I!”

  Bruce commented to Angus Og, feeling better already with the prospect of action at last.

  “Now, let us give him a busy day!”

  When Bruce had told his own trumpeter to make the first, short flourish of the day, he stepped forward, with Abbot Bernard and the Brecbennoch reliquary, a little in front, and sank to his knees.

  And behind him, while fiercest excitement and bustle, not to say panic, seethed in the roused and far-scattered English camp, the Scots ranks knelt in their thousands, and a ragged but heartfelt rendering of the Lord’s Prayer rose amongst the shouting larks above the Carse of Stirling.

  “Your prince is become much concerned with God, these days.

  For an excommunicate!” the Lord of the Isles murmured, to Lennox, as the droning prayer ascended.

  “Is it for his own soul? Or to encourage the faint-hearted? Or perhaps to please the flock of priests it is our misfortune to have with us?” The new Pope Clement had, unfortunately, been persuaded to renew the excommunication.

  “I

  think that anathema weighs on his mind,” the Earl said.

  “As does his recurring sickness. But-he will fight none the less well for it. As must we, to survive this day.”

  “

  “Fore God-let us but commence it, Malcolm man!”

  Rising from his knees, Robert Bruce slowly drew his great two handed sword, and raised it high above his head. Then, swiftly, dramatically, he brought it down-but with explosive effort and every ounce of the strength of his powerful wrists, arrested the descent of its five-foot length so that it held sure, steady, pointing directly at the enemy’s centre. No words were needed now. With a roar that drowned all the trumpet-calls, their own and the enemy’s, the long Scots line surged forward.

  The tactical situation was simple, astonishingly so considering the

  large numbers of men involved. The huge English army was penned in an

  enormous trap of level, pool-pitted and ditch-crossed swamp, with