An Ancient Strife

by Michael Phillips

  “What, Papa?” asked young Gachan.

  “Our heritage, my son . . . the inheritance and blood of our ancients! Scotland is the land of our forefathers. Now it rests with you to carry that heritage forward into new generations.”

  The boys sensed the solemnity of the moment and were silent.

  Their father now removed a small leather pouch from around his neck, opened it, and took out two identical objects of great antiquity.

  “Though you two are the youngest of my offspring,” he said, “a compulsion has come over me to place this into your hands. I have shown it to you before, but as you can see, I have severed its links into two equal lengths. I know little of the history of this relic except that it has been considered sacred in our family for generations—so sacred that we would not part with it even when we had no food. Some say it was once worn about the neck by an ancient King, though it seems heavy to have been put to such a use. After what I have done to it, though, such a function will no longer be possible. Whether it has earthly value, I am not expert enough to know. I have already told you something of how it came into my father’s possession and thus into mine.”

  He paused in his speech, then handed one half of the weighty silver chain to Gachan, the other to Beath.

  “Take these, each of you now possessing half of what until a brief time ago was one,” he said. “Let it be a reminder of the things I have told you—a reminder that wherever the fortunes of life take you, you will always be one. Never forget the ancient lesson of the white stag. Do not forget the two brothers of the Caledonii. Though they were two, they were one. So are the two of you, my sons—as shown by these links you each now carry. Now you must carry forward that ancient brotherhood of Caledonia.”

  Eleven

  The day for parting came. That there had been a week to prepare for it, and to explain the necessity for the change to the children, in no way lessened the trauma of the moment for the poor mother and father.

  Darroch himself stood watching the carriage disappear with stoic resignation. Nara wept. And the suddenly destitute Beath hung his head like a forlorn puppy that had lost its master, wondering what would become of him.

  The family endured the day of Gachan’s departure, however, and the next . . . and the next after that.

  These were days when necessity was too severe to worry long about happiness. Life therefore continued, as it always manages to do. Hardship was the essential building block of survival. Where work is to be done, and is done, even heavy anxieties eventually relinquish their hold on heart and brain.

  And the earl was not an unkind man. He allowed young Gachan to return to his old home one day each month. Though these happy intervals brought a return of sadness, the rest of the family gradually accustomed themselves to the new arrangement, and all five came to relish the visits more than dread their end.

  Their sadness was also alleviated to see the bright expression on Gachan’s face at his arrival back home after his first month with the earl. He too had cried as he left and was fearful at what might become of him.

  Now he came with reports of being well fed—the clothes he wore certainly gave indication that he was far from neglected—and of spending much time with the earl’s son, which boded well. He was cared for, they learned, by an old woman and her husband who lived in a house attached to the castle. The woman had once been a lady’s maid to Lady Duncan, and now her husband tended the earl’s horses.

  “But I cannot understand him, Father,” said Gachan. “He speaks a funny language.”

  “Gaelic,” said the father, “as my own father and his father spoke. It is the tongue of our ancient people, Gachan. Is the man a Highlander?”

  “I don’t know, Papa. I only know that when he speaks to his wife or the horses, the sound is very strange.”

  Darroch smiled. He could not have hoped for better. That his son was in the care of an old Highland couple warmed his heart.

  “Are you with the man every day?”

  “Yes, Papa. He shows me all about the horses, and I help him keep the stables clean and the horses fed.”

  Such a prospect would even have delighted Nara if only it had come when the boy was older. For such a family to place one of its children in the stables of the earl was good fortune indeed. Even now, if she could not delight in it, she saw much ground for a quieter form of thankfulness. Thus Darroch, Nara, and the two brothers and one sister who remained readily accustomed themselves to the change.

  Twelve

  Several years passed.

  Gachan, son of Darroch and Nara, was now twelve and happily growing as a bright and capable stable assistant to Calum Dhuibh. The old Highlander was delighted to discover that the boy was also of Highland stock and spoke to him in the Gaelic tongue at every opportunity.

  He also taught him the ways and secrets of the stables, and the young boy learned eagerly. The smell of manure was offensive to the sensitive nostrils of the earl’s youngest son. To Gachan, combined as it was with all the other evocative sensations of Lord Duncan’s stables, it was of the aroma of heaven.

  The sound of old Dhuibh’s step behind him intruded into Gachan’s daydreams one morning as he tossed another load of straw and dung from his fork to the cart.

  “How’re the arms, laddie?” said the stableman kindly in the soft language Gachan had come to understand.

  “Tolerably well,” he answered, “—the dung’s no heavier today than every other.”

  “Sit down, lad,” said Dhuibh. “I would tell you of one who lived in the old times, in the hills not so far from here. He would be your own kin, I think, just like he’s mine.”

  Gachan listened as one entranced while the melodic Gaelic tongue of the Highlander spun out the tale, then broke into the gently mysterious chant of an ageless bardic melody.

  Fàgaidh mi ùpraid, sùrd, agus glagarsaich,

  Dh’ fhaicinn an fhuinn anns an cluinnteadh a’ chagararsaich

  Chi mi na mór-bheanna,

  Chi mi na coireachan.

  Chi mi na coilltean, chi mi na doireachan,

  Chi mi na maghan bàna, as toraiche,

  Chi mi na féidh air làr nan coireachan

  Falaicht’ ann an trusgan de ched.

  O chi, chi mi na mór-bleanna,

  O chi, chi mi na mór-bleanna,

  O chi, chi mi na coireachan,

  Chi mi na sgoran fo ched.

  I will leave confusion, hurry, and clatter,

  To see the land where whispering can be heard.

  I will see the big mountains,

  I will see the valleys.

  I will see the woods; I will see the groves,

  I will see the fair and fertile fields.

  I will see the stag at the foot of the hollows

  Enshrouded in a mantle of mist.

  Oh, I will see, see the big mountains,

  Oh, I will see, see the big mountains,

  Oh, I will see, see the corries,

  I will see the peaks under the mist.

  Silence fell in the stable, broken only by the gentle shuffling sounds of the horses in their stalls. They likewise seemed to have been calmed by the spell of the otherworldly crooning.

  “Our lord the earl’s of the old blood himself,” remarked the groom.

  “He is not a Norman like they say are most of the earls?” asked an inquisitive Gachan.

  “Nay—he’s no Norman. He comes of the same stock as I do, and you do yourself. ’Tis even said his line goes back to the Pictish kings. He’s a man we can take pride in serving. Why, lad, ’tis the earl of Fife who holds the hereditary right to crown our kings at Scone.”

  “Did Earl Duncan crown King William?” asked Gachan in astonishment. The very thought struck the young man with awe. If it were true, it would give him a link to the King himself.

  “Ay, he did, lad . . . ay, he did. Our earl may be the King’s man, but he’s also the man that made a King o’ William.”

  The link to royalty was thus establi
shed in the boy’s brain, and ever afterward deepened his loyalty to both his lord and the Scottish King.

  “Who’s to say?” Dhuibh mused, at length picking up a fork to help Gachan with the remainder of his pile. “When I’m gone, you might yourself become groom t’ the earl. And maybe one day, when he goes to see the King, you’ll hold the reins of the King’s own horse.”

  The old man’s words penetrated the heart of his young assistant. Gachan said little for the rest of the afternoon. Visions of kings and horses and battles filled his youthful imagination, with himself in the middle of them, a great sword in his right hand, a cape of burgundy flying from his shoulders, a vest of leather protecting his chest while he acted as groom to a majestic King of the future, ready when the summons should come to follow his master into battle.

  The old Highlander’s prophetic words would not be fulfilled within Gachan’s lifetime. But they would not be so far wrong with respect to one of the boy’s descendents, to whom would be passed the love both these two felt for the magnificent beasts upon which kings rode into battle.

  Thirteen

  Another five years passed, and another bitter parting was in store for the family of Darroch MacDonnuill.

  Gachan and Beath, Darroch’s twin sons, were now seventeen, but the fact that they were nearly men could not alleviate the anguish of what they were informed would soon happen.

  This time Gachan would be taken not merely a few miles distance from the family, but far to the north of the country. Old Dhuibh, said Gachan, was eager for the change because it would mean a return to the region from which his people had come. But only sorrow greeted the news on the part of Darroch MacDonnuill’s family. All Darroch, Nara, their older son and daughter, and especially Beath, could think was that they would probably never see Gachan again.

  Word had been delivered through the earl’s factor.

  King Henry II of England was dead. After a long period of occupation, the English were now withdrawing from Scotland. The new King Richard of England, called the Lionhearted, had renounced the feudal superiority given his predecessor by William the Lion and had removed his troops. The humiliation of Falaise was broken.

  As a result, however, great resistance to the King of the Scots had suddenly sprung up among many Highland and island clans. Even though he was Malcolm Canmore’s great-grandson and thoroughly Scottish by blood, William the Lion was also thoroughly Norman by custom. This fact caused him great difficulty in keeping down native resistance to his rule, especially in the northern region of Moray.

  The King had resolved, therefore, to send his man Duncan, earl of Fife, to the region, to a certain valley known as Strathbogie. There, in that predominantly Celtic region, the earl would act as lord on behalf of the King, to prevent further outbreaks of the clans against him. In return for the earl’s service, the King would provide him with a huge tract of land to administer as his own. Dhuibh, who could speak the old tongue to the natives should it become necessary, would accompany him north.

  “What . . . what does all this mean?” asked Darroch when the factor was through.

  “That the earl will be removing from Fife,” answered the man, “to take up residence in Strathbogie.”

  “Permanently?”

  “The earl will maintain his residence here, for he will remain, of course, the earl of Fife. But he will take much of his household with him.”

  “And our son?” asked the fearful wife.

  “The earl’s stable staff, as I said,” replied the factor, “will go north, and thus Dhuibh’s stableboy must go as well.”

  “When . . . ?” was the only word Nara could utter.

  “Four months.”

  Tears waited until the man had left, then flowed freely.

  What Dhuibh had told Gachan some years earlier was entirely true. The earl himself was not a Norman. His ties of race were closely linked with MacDonnuill’s own, for he came of the same Celtic stock as many of his vassals. But Duncan was a practical man. He had long ago embraced the new order and adopted Norman ways. Why should he not better his own position, just as he had offered opportunity for betterment to Darroch MacDonnuill for his son? It would profit nothing to resist change as the rebels continued to do in the remote Highland regions.

  Change was coming—that was clear enough. Year by year, old tribal chieftainships were being forced to come under the dominion of the King of Scotland. Duncan, earl of Fife, would fit in with the new scheme and take what was offered him, even if it meant having to squelch rebellion on the part of his Celtic kinsmen.

  After all, if he refused William’s offer, Strathbogie would go to some Norman knight.

  Fourteen

  The first objective on Lord Duncan’s part in the far north country would be to construct an impenetrable fortress.

  He chose as the most defensible site one between the two rivers, the Bogie and the Deveron, some half a mile from where the former emptied into the latter. The location offered a strategic position along the route stretching from Aberdeen and Kildrummy to Elgin and Inverness. This gave the earl control over the wide valley on behalf of Scotland’s King. Near the banks of the Deveron, therefore, he would erect a great timber tower to serve as his castle.

  Designs were drawn up, and the earl moved most of his staff and family to Strathbogie and into temporary quarters in the village near the site of the future fortress. By the time wagons, tools, horses, supplies, and other equipment were brought in, laborers, quarrymen, carpenters, and assorted craftsmen enlisted for the undertaking, and the digging of trenches and foundations was begun, two years had passed.

  All work ceased during the winter months. In those far northern regions, the snow piled high, and the ground froze solid as granite. No dirt could be dug or hauled for the castle mound until the cold months had passed.

  But eventually a new summer came to the valley and work resumed. The earl of Fife was enjoying the bright sunshine—a treat after the long months of winter overcast—as he rode toward the construction site where Gachan MacDarroch was working.

  Young Gachan was now a strapping and muscular twenty-year-old youth—with the looks and intelligence of a man of thirty. Never had the earl been happier that he had made the twin one of his household. If the truth were known, the young fellow was twice the man his own son was. The two boys had forged a decent friendship in their early years but no longer saw much of one another. Young David had spent several years in England and had been less than indifferent over the prospect of returning north. He now showed little enthusiasm over the plans that were under way. Gachan, meanwhile, had become an increasingly valuable worker—all the more so now that the huge project was progressing.

  The earl reined in his horse and dismounted, then walked toward the ditch where twenty or thirty men were digging. The young son of Darroch pulled himself up from the depths of the hole and strode toward him with a smile. It was a warm day, and sweat poured down his dirt-smeared chest.

  “Ho, Gachan!” greeted the earl, thinking again what a manly specimen he was. If he had had a daughter, he would already have married her to him!

  “Hello, my lord,” said Gachan. “The foundation for your new home advances nicely!”

  “And you, it appears, have been working harder than all the rest!” laughed Duncan, looking him up and down. “Though I should find nothing so unusual in that!”

  “Your men all work hard,” rejoined the young man with a smile. “We shall complete this portion of the trench by tomorrow. The motte I would say will then be about half the height you desire. Then we shall begin with the moat, which will give us sufficient dirt to complete the motte.”1

  “And the second mound, for the bailey?”2

  “Will be under way by week’s end.”

  “Well, I shall be away in Fife for two, perhaps three weeks. I leave in the morning. I am placing you in charge of the completion of the motte. Hector will be engaged gathering lumber, overseeing the work at the quarry, and making plans for beginn
ing the construction. I need a man here on the site at all times. I have decided to make you that man.”

  “I am honored you feel you may trust me, my lord.”

  “I know I may trust you, Gachan,” returned the earl.

  By summer’s end, both the tall conical motte, with its steeply sloping sides, and the much more extensive but lower mound encircling it were completed. Atop the former would be erected the earl’s castle. On the larger would sit the enclosed bailey, whose walls would contain a number of separate buildings, including servants’ quarters, kitchen, cellars, chapel, and stables.

  Fifteen

  The construction of all the buildings for the castle complex took several years.

  Gachan continued to show himself faithful and rose steadily in the service of Duncan, earl of Fife and now lord of Strathbogie.

  As construction neared completion, while Gachan was supervising a critical joint where roof and one of the chimneys met, high atop what would soon be the castle, a voice called from below.

  “Gachan . . . you have a visitor.”

  Puzzled who would ask for him rather than for the factor, Gachan finalized his instructions to the two men with him, then began his descent. It took him three or four minutes to reach the ground by use of several ladders. He turned and walked down the steep slope of the motte. The assistant who had delivered the message pointed out a large, broad-shouldered man, a peasant worker by the look of him, standing some distance away with back turned, watching the progress of one of the bailey walls.

  Gachan walked toward the stranger.

  “I am Gachan MacDarroch—” he began as he approached.

  The newcomer turned. Gachan gave a start as his vocal cords seized him. Standing in front of him was an exact image of himself!