The Steps to the Empty Throne

Grievously.”

“Need that unfortunate be Robert Bruce?”

He shrugged.

“So… you look for a queen, as well as a wife?”

“Did I say I looked for any woman?”

“No. But you are sure that Mary will not serve, it seems. So you have thought of it.” Christian leaned forward to scratch her mare between the ears.

“Nigel thinks that you are … concerned with another. An Irishwoman.

The Lady Elizabeth de Burgh. Is it so, Rob?”

“It seems that Nigel thinks too much. Talks too much!”

“So it is true? There is something in this?”

“Nothing,” he said shortly.

“Yet you have seen much of this Ulsterwoman? Found her to your taste?”

“Edward once thought to have me wed her. To bind me closer to him, no doubt. But she liked the notion as little as did I!”

“Yet you still see her?”

“Not by our own seeking. She lodged with Percy, while her father was with Edward, in France. Percy sought to use her, to work on me. Not knowing.”

“Not knowing what?”

“That we battle together as soon as we see each other. That there is only strife between us.”

She considered him thoughtfully.

“Strife? Battle? It is thus between you? Then, Nigel has cause for his fears, perhaps!”

“Damn Nigel! He has no more cause to fear than he has to talk. What has he got to fear?”

“An entanglement with one so close to Edward She approves of rebellion—that is how close to Edward she is! But what of it? I am not like to see her again.”

“I wonder I Since you both esteem each other so ill, I think that you will!” Christian smiled a little.

“This Elizabeth de Burgh-what is the style of her?”

“She is proud. And lovely. And believes me two-faced,” he jerked.

“That is all. Enough of this, of a mercy I Where is Nigel?”

“Where do you think? He makes excuse to fall behind. With Isabel. She nothing loth. But you leave Mary with Gartnait! You could be more the man than that!”

“Very well. I will co to her. But … let her not hope for too much.”

Bruce was spared any prolonged skirmishing with the friendly Lady Mary.

Two days later the messenger arrived from Wallace.

He requested that the Earl of Carrick hasten south, with all the force at his command and at all speed. Edward was moving fast, was in great strength, had already taken Berwick, burned the abbeys of Kelso, Dryburgh and Melrose, and was marching on Edinburgh up Lauderdale. Wallace would require all the help he could muster, to halt him, preferably at Stirling. Once the English were beyond Forth, there would be no holding them, in their present numbers. This message was not to go on to the Comyn host, in Moray. They would hear, no doubt—but, it was hoped, not in time to affect the issue.

The intermission was at an end.

Bruce, Nigel and young Alan de Moray of Culbin—Mar stayed at home—led their combined host of about 3,500 southwards as fast as they could.

But Mar and Moray were not Annandale, a great horse-breeding area, and

the vast mass of their men were not mounted. They had 170 miles and

more, to reach Stirling, and though the men were in the main tough, wiry hill men their very numbers, and the need to forage for food, precluded any phenomenal rate of travel. Twelve miles a day, over mainly mountain country, was quite as much as they could manage.

Two more of Wallace’s messengers reached them during the journey southwards, urging haste. Edward had surprised all by circling Edinburgh, not waiting to take it as expected, contenting himself with taking its port of Leith, as a haven for his anxiously awaited supply ships. Wallace had been falling back before him, deliberately devastating the land in the English path, a land already all but famine-stricken, ordering the folk away with their remaining cattle and destroying all grain, hay and fodder that might remain. Edward’s invaders were said to be starving, and his ships delayed, so that there were troubles, the Welsh archers mutinying and eighty had been slain, it was said. Wallace’s tactics were to lure the enemy back and back, over devastated land, right to Stirling and the Forth crossing, the most strategic point in all Scotland to hold a great army; but, perceiving it, Edward was pressing after the Scots at whatever the cost, before Wallace could properly clear the land in front. It had become a race for the narrows of the Forth.

Bruce’s host had just left Dunblane, between Perth and Stirling, in the early morning of 23rd of July, when Wallace’s next courier came up with grim tidings. The Guardian’s army could not reach Stirling in time—that was clear. The huge majority of his force was infantry, the common people; and Edward’s cavalry, in their vast numbers, were pressing them hard. He would try to hold them somewhere in the Falkirk vicinity, a dozen miles south of Stirling. And though cavalry was what Wallace most required, he had been only doubtful in his welcome to an unlooked for reinforcement which had just arrived, even though led by the High Constable of Scotland. The Earl of Buchan had put in an appearance with some hundreds of Comyn horse; he had evidently heard the news, up in the Laigh of Moray, and leaving behind his great array of foot, had raced south with his horsemen, by the coast route, while Bruce had been so much more slowly marching his combined host through the mountains. Buchan was allegedly hastening to Wallace’s rescue; but the latter was uneasy and urged Bruce to do likewise, to leave his foot behind and ride with all haste for Falkirk.

It was about twenty miles from Dunblane, by Stirling Bridge, to Falkirk. Bruce did not delay. He had nearly 700 horse, mounted hill men on short-legged Highland shelts, in the main.

Leaving Alan Moray to bring on the thousands of foot, he and Nigel spurred ahead with this company, unhampered.

At Stirling Bridge they found Wallace’s advance party preparing to hold it, if need be. They urged on the northerners anxiously. The English were in greater numbers than anything known before, they said; the plain of Lothian was black with them. Wallace was standing at Callendar Wood, just east of Falkirk—but it was no site to compare with this Stirling. These men were clearly in a state of alarm.

It was afternoon before they rode out from the dark glades of the great Tor Wood above Falkirk, to look down over the swiftly dropping land eastwards towards Lothian, with the grey town nestling below, at the west end of the wooded spine of Callendar Hill. At the other end of that long spine, no doubt, was the battle.

But none of the newcomers tested their eyes or wits seeking for signs of it there. They did not have to. For below them, on the wide spread of green brae sides between the town and this Tor Wood, was sufficient to take their attention. Scattered all over it were parties of horsemen, in small groups and large, all riding fast and all riding westwards, away from the battle area. Of foot there was no sign—save for the stream of refugees beginning to leave Falkirk, with their pathetic baggage, making uphill, like the cavalry, for the deep recesses of the Tor Wood.

There could be little doubt what it all meant.

Grimly Bruce jutted his jaw.

“We are too late, I fear,” he said to his brother.

“Too late. Cavalry was Wallace’s need-and there is his cavalry!

Fleeing …!”

They hurried on downhill. The first batch of horsemen they came up with, about a dozen, wore the colours of Lennox. Bruce halted them, demanding news.

“All is by wi’,” their leader called, scarcely reining in, obviously reluctant to stop.

“They were ower many. Armoured knights. A sea of them. And arrows. Like hailstanes! It’s all by wiThe battle? All lost? What of Wallace?”

“God kens! He was withe foot.”

“And they?”

The man shrugged. None of his colleagues, anxious to be elsewhere, amplified. Already they were urging their spume-flecked horses onwards.