Now, with Christmas approaching, the earl of Buchan appeared to be gathering his forces for the attack he had delayed before.
Bruce and his brother strode toward the stables three days before Christmas, about to take leave of the King’s temporary refuge.
“In what condition are our horses?” Bruce asked.
“Mostly well ironed,” replied his brother. “We have made use of the laird’s smith.”
As if in response to the words, the clank of metal on metal interrupted their conversation. The King’s ear perked up at the sound. He turned and made his way toward the smithy’s shed, from which the metallic echo had originated.
Bruce walked inside. A rugged-looking man stood beside a hot forge, pounding a bar of iron into the round over the flat top of a great anvil.
Fergus glanced up, arresting his arm in midstroke. He knew at once who had paid him this impromptu visit. He set down the hammer and bowed toward the King.
The Bruce dipped his head respectfully toward the farrier.
“I understand you have helped maintain the equipment of my small army,” Bruce said. “I want to offer you my sincere thanks.”
Fergus nodded in acknowledgment, though he could find no words to speak.
“You are a patriot for your kingdom,” Bruce added, then turned with his brother and left the darkened enclosure.
Fourteen
DECEMBER 25, 1307
An urgent beating sounded upon the wooden door.
Groggily, Fergus MacDarroch groped for a candle, then stumbled toward the door.
Who could possibly—
His thoughts remained uncompleted as he opened the door. In front of him stood a man he had never seen before.
“I come in the name of King Robert of Scotland,” said the stranger with importance in his voice. “The King’s smith has deserted. The King sent me to ask if you would join with him in the fight for Scotland’s freedom.”
Already Fergus was dressing clumsily, the decision made even as the request was spoken. He had been summoned by the King!
“What aboot . . . my tools . . . a cart? I must prepare coals—”
“You will require nothing,” interrupted the King’s messenger. “All is in readiness. We possess cart, a horse to pull it—we need only you.”
Fergus nodded, then closed the door and went back inside to complete his preparations.
“Come . . . come, Donal!” called the rousing voice only a few moments later.
The imperative voice of his father startled his young son awake from a deep sleep. It was Christmas morning, and still dark outside.
Donal struggled to make himself come awake, though it was cold and all his senses fought against it.
“Come, my son—the King an’ his men hae left the castle. The enemy marches on Strathbogie!”
“What . . . what will we do, Papa? Will they hurt us . . . what enemy?” he asked, still sleepy and confused.
“Comyn of Buchan. No, he will not hurt us—he only wants t’ kill the King. We must gae wi’ him.”
“With who?”
The boy was sitting on the edge of his bed now, while his father did his best to dress him in haste.
“With the King.”
“But why, Papa?”
“His own farrier hae deserted ’im. I must be ready with iron and hot coals and a ready hammer gien his horses’ feet need help during battle.”
“You, Papa—are ye gaein’ wi the King?”
Now was Donal awake in earnest.
“Ay, an’ ye’ll gae wi’ me. I spoke wi’ him—with the King himsel.’ His man is waitin’ outside noo.”
By now the wife had wandered toward them with a candle in her hand, hearing the ending fragments of the conversation.
“Dinna be a fool, Fergus MacDarroch,” she said. “The man’s a murderer—he’s no worth fightin’ fer. I’d sooner ye’d take the Buchan’s side.”
“Yer ain people come frae east o’ here where Comyn’s lord,” said the husband. “But mine’s frae Fife, they say, and afore that the west. My ain grit-grandfather Gachan MacDarroch, ’tis said, helped the first lord o’ Strathbogie build the verra castle where oor ain John, rest his soul, lived till the English King took him south t’ kill him. If the King o’ the Scots be my laird’s King, then he’s aye my King too.”
“King!” spat the woman. “The man’s King in his own eyes maybe, but no in the sicht o’ God. He killed Buchan’s kinsman for his ill-gotten crown.”
“Well, Buchan’s not gaein’ t’ be King whate’er comes o’ Bruce, guidwife. Gien the earl kills Bruce, yoong Edward o’ England will make himsel’ King again. And I’ll die sooner than bow t’ an Englishman. No, wife, the Bruce is a Scot an’ he’s my King, an’ I’ll serve him when he calls.”
“An’ gien he takes ye to the grave wi’ him?” retorted the wife, now more angry than worried.
“Then I say it’d be an honor fer a man t’ die fer one wha fought fer the freedom o’ Scotland. ’Tis not mony a man gets such a chance. ’Tis what makes heroes o’ them.”
“An’ fools,” remarked the wife in a muttered outburst of boldness.
“What’s that ye say?”
“I say Donal’s no gaein’ wi’ ye.”
“Wha’s gaein’ t’ pump the bellows?”
“No, my laddie!” asserted the woman.
“We’ll let the boy decide, then,” said the father.
“I must gae, Mama,” interjected Donal, now fully awake and eager to take his place as a man at his father’s side. “He’s the King.”
Fifteen
Though by now Bruce’s army numbered a mere seven hundred men, there were at least two present on that fateful winter’s birthday of the Lord who had not been with the King when he arrived in the region.
The ironmonger Fergus MacDarroch was determined to make sure the horses of the King’s army were well shod. He joined the army of the King for a mere day, but that was enough to draw his son into the ongoing saga of their land and its people.
The earl of Buchan was not so much routed as surprised by the events of that Christmas battle.
Bruce’s force proved small but stouthearted, and Buchan was unable to budge them from their positions. The battle of Slioch, therefore, proved inconclusive.
During its final moments, chance fighting resulted behind the lines when Comyn’s men broke through Bruce’s rear flank, endangering for a brief time the supply carts, grooms, and other noncombatants. Bolting horses, in fear from the fighting erupting about them, overturned the smith’s wagon. Caught unexpectedly in the sudden stampede, the man who had put shoes on the horses of the King’s men during his brief stay at Strathbogie was trampled by fleeing hooves and thrown under the wheel of the errant cart.
By midday Buchan broke off the fight. He would go for reinforcements, leaving his scouts to keep an eye on Bruce and his movements.
Upon the earl’s departure, Bruce’s forces immediately set about assessing casualties and preparing for the next assault. The King, still weak from his illness, rode toward the rear of the force to lie down and rest. He reined in his mount when he observed a boy standing alone and crying. He swung his horse in the boy’s direction, then stopped and dismounted, wondering what one so young was doing so close to the field of battle.
“What is it, lad?” asked the King.
“My father’s dead,” said Donal, struggling to stop crying.
Glancing around and now seeing the overturned horseshoeing cart and the broken form under it where a few men were seeking to extricate the body and put the wagon upright, suddenly the King perceived the truth. The boy’s father was the same man whom he had met in the castle—and whom he had sent for this morning to join his cause and help with the ironwork.
Perhaps made tender by the weakness of his own body, Bruce’s heart smote him with compassion for the boy whom his request had made suddenly fatherless.
He turned and with a gesture signaled some of his men to make haste in r
emoving the body. Dismounting, he knelt and peered into Donal’s face. He placed one of his great hands to the boy’s cheek and wiped away the tears streaming down them.
“Your father is a hero, son,” he said softly and sincerely. The voice was large and deep and resonated with a strength of authority in the boy’s grief-stricken ears. “He gave his life for the land of the Scots,” Bruce continued. “He loved it no less than I do myself. You must be proud of him, son. Your father will be remembered as a great man in the battle for our freedom.”
Donal struggled to draw in a quivering breath and managed to steady himself. The very timber of command calmed him, though he did not know who was speaking to him.
“What is your name, lad?” asked Bruce.
“Donal . . . Donal, son of Fergus MacDarroch.”
“It is a worthy and noble name. How old are you, then?”
“Twelve.”
Donal gazed up miserably into the eyes of the man who had stopped to speak to him.
Behind them, a rider rode up. “You are wanted, King Robert,” said the man. “Your brother asks if you desire that the fleeing Buchan be pursued eastward.”
Suddenly the truth broke in upon the son of Fergus that he had been speaking to none other than the King of Scotland himself. A light came into his eyes as the King now rose. Now indeed did the voice that had spoken to him penetrate with even deeper power into the soul of young Donal MacDarroch.
“No, do not pursue,” said the King to the rider. “Tell my brother we will feign to cross the mountains toward Mar, but then circle back in the direction of Inverurie.”
Again Bruce looked down at Donal, still standing speechless.
Gently he placed his huge hand on the boy’s head, patted it twice, then handed the reins of his horse to him.
“How would you like to feed my horse, young Donal, son of Fergus?”
Later that Christmas night, cursing the man she would go to her grave calling a murderer, the widow of the man who had shod King Robert the Bruce’s horses lay weeping and unable to sleep.
Her son, too, wept in his bed that night. But despite his tears, the disconsolate woman’s twelve-year-old son had become a man that day. His father had fallen. But in the wake of tragedy a King had crowned the light brown locks of his hair with the gentle touch of his hand, and his voice had spoken into his soul. Henceforward would he gladly serve the man his father had counted it an honor to die for.
He had heard what the King had said about the direction of his army. As soon as he could, he would ride after the great man.
The King in whose service Fergus MacDarroch had given his life had a rendezvous with history approaching. Now had his son also been drawn into those events . . . and would, before he reached twenty, take his own share in that coming destiny.
Sixteen
1309
Fortunately, Donal’s eyes did not witness Bruce’s final defeat of the earl of Buchan outside Inverurie—or the raping, burning, and wasting of Buchan’s lands, or the cruel killing that accompanied it. With the blood feud over, Bruce had finally destroyed the power of the Comyns. Only a few more opponents remained to be pacified, and within two years the Scottish throne was his without contest.
By the time King Robert convened his first Parliament at St. Andrews in 1309—made up largely of northerners, Highlanders, and representatives from Celtic families and clans from whom most of his support came—young Donal MacDarroch, who had once been handed the reins to the King’s horse, had left his mother in Strathbogie to follow the army of the Bruce. If he might just help with the great man’s horse again, thought Donal, he would be happy. The King’s groom was the first acquaintance he made upon arriving at the camp, where he then served for several years without again speaking with Robert Bruce or even seeing him close by.
He had no reason to believe the King knew of his presence, but that fact in no way diminished his loyalty.
Seventeen
1311
Are the horses well fed, lad?” asked a lanky man in his early sixties, ambling toward the pen he and his young assistant had fashioned out of ropes an hour or two before.
Most of the men of the army took care of their own horses. But the old Highlander Aonghuis had been the groom of Robert Bruce’s father, and never more loyal servant could a king have to attend his own mount and those of his commanders. Aonghuis treated the creatures as if they were his children.
But the man was aging, and was therefore glad enough for the help of the young fellow who had joined the King’s regiment. Aonghuis was never sure exactly where the boy had come from. He was certainly too young to be in the army. Appearing one day, the boy had simply begun cleaning up after the horses, rubbing them down, and making himself so useful that the old groom had seen no reason to send him away. Day after day, the boy had proved so helpful with chores and shown such a keen eye to the needs of horseflesh that none grudged him a share of the food or a plaid under which to keep warm at night.
Recruits came and went regularly in a mobile army such as this, and most of the time no one asked many questions. When one gave himself to the King, however, it was counted a worthy service and not taken lightly. Everyone could tell instantly that this particular boy was one who knew horses and loved them—and was fiercely loyal to the King.
As time passed, Aonghuis could hardly remember a time when the lad hadn’t been his assistant.
The boy, now sixteen, turned and came walking toward him.
“All fed and content,” he replied with a smile in a deep, masculine voice. He tossed the empty bucket he was carrying onto the back of a cart, where it landed near the sack of oats from which he had been filling it.
“And watered?”
“Ready for the night,” said Donal.
The son of Fergus MacDarroch had indeed grown remarkably in the years since death had taken his father. Though the expression upon his face yet hovered delicately between youth and manhood, in his carriage and strength it was clear that the latter had overtaken the former.
Donal had seen much since joining King Robert Bruce’s following—things no youth ought to see unless he is indeed prepared for the arrival of manhood. Death and blood may be required to fashion a kingdom, but they are grievous sights even for those who can endure them.
With most of Scotland’s nobles and clergy at last lining up in support behind him, Robert Bruce now turned his attention again toward the English and set about removing them from the north. Many key castles—Edinburgh, Perth, Stirling, Dundee, Banff, Dunbar, Berwick, and two dozen others—were still solidly in the hands of English garrisons. The fact that many could be reached from the south by sea insured fresh recruits and supplies and thus greatly added to the difficulty of removing the English presence.
The castles had to be besieged one at a time. This Bruce proceeded to do, with the notable help of his brother Edward and his staunch friend and ally James Douglas.
Edward II, on the verge of a civil war with his own nobles in England, did little to aid his garrisons in the north. His determination to hold Scotland under his thumb was not so passionate as had been his father’s. Though fierce and bitter fighting was required, one by one its fortresses were gradually reclaimed by Bruce as he gradually wrested Scotland out of English hands.
“The King will march south tomorrow,” said Aonghuis as he and Donal replaced the feed in the wagon, then walked slowly around the perimeter of the enclosure to inspect the knots and make sure they were secure. “Have ye e’er been to England, lad?”
“No,” said Donal.
“Are ye going with us?”
“Why would I not?”
“I thought wi’ the army headin’ off t’ raid south o’ the border, maybe ye’d be wantin’ t’ return t’ yer home.”
“I’m the King’s man now,” replied Donal. The look in his eye and the sound of his voice arrested the old groom’s attention. They were those of a man, not of a youth. “Wherever King Robert goes,” he added, “that is my
home now.”
As his groom had said, the King and his two generals began raiding southward into England in 1311—ransacking, burning, and exacting ransom from English landowners in exchange for truce. Casualties generally were light for the Scots in these brief campaigns into Northumberland. One of the heaviest proved the loss, not in battle but to the strain of age and lingering illness, of the King’s aging groom.
The morning after Aonghuis’s death, the King walked to the stables. Bruce had been with the faithful old man the previous night in the sick wagon. Now, ten hours later, he came in search of his mount, expecting to saddle and tend the animal himself until arrangements could be made for a replacement.
He was met instead by a young man, sixteen or seventeen by the looks of it, who handed him the two strips of leather. The horse connected to them was fully saddled and obviously well groomed, appearing fed and watered.
Bruce took the reins slowly, with puzzled expression, glancing up and down at the young fellow, then pausing to peer deeply into his eyes.
“I know you, do I not?” he said at length. “Are you Aonghuis’s assistant?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied the youth.
“But . . . there is something else—something familiar in your eyes. I noticed it when I took the reins from your hand.”
Donal smiled.
“You once handed these very reins,” he said, “to a lad who had just lost his father.”
The light of recognition and remembrance broke over Bruce’s hard-chiseled face.
“I remember the day perfectly!” he exclaimed. “A brave and worthy man, your father.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And you? You have been with my army—?”
“Three or four years, my lord,” answered Donal.
“I must apologize for not realizing it, nor speaking to you sooner. It would seem you have grown into quite a man since last our paths crossed.”
Donal did not reply.
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