The Guardian (44 page)

“What about Dundee?” The question came from one of his own captains.

Will nodded. “Those of you who joined us today know nothing of what has been happening here these past nine days, and you
should know. Because many of you speak only the Gaelic, I’m going to have your commander tell you what you need to know. And those of you who follow me and speak no Gaelic, there will be nothing said here that you don’t already know. Master Murray, will you come up?”

Will jumped down from the stone and Andrew exchanged places with him. He went straight to the meat of things, his Gaelic liquid and beautifully rippling.

“As many of you know, a ship similar to the one we met at Aberdeen arrived at Dundee for Master Wallace a few weeks ago. Unlike Aberdeen, though, which contained a mere skeleton force, Dundee is strongly garrisoned and the English are well supplied, in case of siege. Wallace’s army, thousands strong, reached the town nine days ago and set about besieging the castle—the sight of their numbers served to keep the English penned up inside the place. But Wallace’s main reason for laying siege to the castle was to distract the garrison from the activities down at the wharf, while his men were unloading the cargo of the ship that had been waiting for them. That cargo of weapons and armour is now safe beyond Dundee and distributed where it will do most good. But the siege, which is hopeless at this time, since we lack the proper siege engines, remains in place.

“That is what prompted the question you heard asked, ‘What about Dundee?’ And the answer to that question is that word will go out within the hour to the besieging force to abandon the siege works and evacuate their positions before morning. They will then march westward, following the coast road, and meet up with us there.”

“And these English ships,” someone asked, “what about them?”

“What
about
them?” Andrew dismissed them with a wave of his hand. “Were we to remain in place, besieging Dundee, they could land and assault us from behind, but they can do nothing to us as long as we keep moving. And so we will leave here and keep moving until we reach Stirling. That is all I have to tell you, so you may split up now and tell your men whatever you need to. Eat well
tonight and then sleep well, and tell your lads to do the same, for we’ll be up and away come the dawn. Dismissed!”

He looked directly at me and smiled, extending his hand because I was no more than two paces from him.

“Father James,” he said. “Will you help me down?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHANGES AND CHALLENGES

F
rom the moment we turned our backs on Dundee the following day, to strike west towards Perth and the Tay crossing, the pace of events picked up visibly for all of us. I overheard Will and Long John talking quietly together, on our second day on the road, about how, after long weeks of trying to conceal an army on the sixty-mile march from Lanark to Dundee, everything had changed, and concealment was now the last and least of anyone’s cares.

The same held true for Andrew and his Morayshire men; they and I had come south from Aberdeen and had hardly seen a living soul along the way, but now we were being overtaken daily by new recruits who had followed us southward. They, of course, had the advantage of travelling in small groups, which meant that they could move quickly and without attracting attention. We could not, because an army can travel no faster than its slowest component, the all-important baggage train. The distance from Aberdeen to Dundee, for a crow in flight, was little more than seventy miles, but for an army travelling on foot over mountainous terrain, as we were, that distance was hugely multiplied by many factors, some of which, like the trackless four-mile stretch of sheer-sided ravines and deep gullies we encountered near Kincardine, resulted at times in a daily progress of less than five miles.

Some of the recruits and volunteers who overtook us in those days after Dundee came alone or in small groups, but there were also several substantial contingents of ordinary men from some of
the Highland districts, Forfar in the Mounth being one such place, who marched under the supervision of trusted men selected by their local sheriffs for their steadiness and dependability. These levies were raw and untrained rural folk for the most part, but all of them carried a weapon of some description, even if it were no more dangerous than a hay fork. In addition to the locally raised levies, three groups of well-armed and well-disciplined fighting men under the command of experienced commanders also made their way to us, the smallest of the three consisting of thirty-two mounted men. It was after one such surprising arrival that a discussion among Will, Andrew, and their senior lieutenants threw some light on what was happening.

Forty-four armoured men, well equipped and mounted and wearing uniform surcoats of pale brown linen emblazoned with a black boar’s head, had joined us that afternoon, to the alarm of our forward scouts, who thought them English at first. They turned out to be men from the ancient abbey town of Dunkeld, raised and equipped by Matthew de Crambeth, the bishop of that see. Their commander, Sir Iain Crambeth, was the bishop’s eldest nephew, a soft-spoken knight with a highly pleasant disposition and sufficient education to converse intelligently on a wide range of subjects.

It was after dinner on the night he arrived that the subject of his uncle arose and led to a wide-ranging discussion of the changing realities of Scotland. The food had been cleared away and the army’s high command—though none of the ten men present at that gathering would ever have thought to call themselves by such a title—were seated around a roaring fire, talking freely but drinking sparingly because supplies of ale had run low and the last small cask of good wine had formally been declared dead by Andrew’s cousin Alistair two nights earlier. Will had been in good form throughout the meal, playing the gracious host and keeping his guests amply entertained, but it was Andrew Murray who drove any thoughts of after-dinner music and minstrelsy from the minds of the gathering.

“Sir Iain,” he said, during a lull in the talk, “I am curious about the device on your surcoat, that black boar head. Knowing that
Bishop Crambeth himself is responsible for your joining us here, I would presume it to be the bishop’s own emblem, save that it appears to be a remarkably savage image for a bishop of the Holy Church. And besides, I am sure Father James here told me Bishop Crambeth was in Paris. Has His Grace recently returned? Forgive me if I seem to pry, but it seems to me it would be difficult for the bishop to raise a body of men as well equipped and organized as yours without being here in person.”

I raised an eyebrow, for I could have told him otherwise and I was genuinely surprised that Andrew should not know that for himself. But then I realized I was being naive. Andrew had spent far too much time around senior prelates to be in any doubt about what a bishop could and could not do.

Sir Iain, however, took not the slightest offence at Andrew’s questions. In fact he laughed aloud. “You are in error in both cases, my Lord of Petty. In the first place, the black boar head is our family emblem, not my uncle’s alone. It is the crest of Crambeth and has been since from before the days King David sat upon our throne. The pale brown of the surcoat is my father’s and will be mine one day, and it sets us apart from other septs of our house, which use white, grey, and pale blue.” He smiled engagingly. “As for the need for His Grace to be at home in Dunkeld in order to furnish monies in the cause of the realm, it seems clear to me, Lord Murray, you have not spent much time around the servants of Holy Mother Church. Our Lady Church has a long and puissant arm and can achieve great things with no apparent effort. My uncle Matthew remains in France, at the court of King Philip, where he works incessantly with the good Bishop Fraser of St. Andrews on Scotland’s behalf, to achieve the reinstatement of King John.”

Twice now the newly arrived knight had misnamed Andrew, according him a title he did not possess, and I waited for Andrew to correct him. Instead he looked directly at me, as though divining what was in my thoughts, and winked one eye slowly. He had started people thinking, though, and a fresh question quickly followed.

“Where are all these new people coming from?” The speaker was one of Will’s lieutenants, a newcomer. “Nobody seems to be trying to stop them reaching us.”

“No one is even pretending to try, Cormac, so you needna feel confused.” All eyes turned to Will. “It’s a sign of the times we live in—a sign that folk are taking note of what we’re doing. The only folk in all Scotland today who would want to stop us are the English, and they are all too much in disarray to do anything. You might expect the magnates and the mormaers to try, but they are holding their breath instead, watching each other sideways and waiting to see what becomes of us and our wee uprising.”

His gaze turned in my direction. “Isn’t that the truth, Father James? You know me, and so does everyone else here, and you all know my lack of esteem for the magnates of our land. But that lack means that when I say things like that, folk shrug and think I’m but venting spleen.”

He turned back and raised his voice, indicating with a sweep of his arm that he wanted everyone there to listen to what he was saying. “Father James here is my cousin, for those of you who don’t already know that, and even though his clothing and appearance might not tell you so at first glance, he
is
a priest, attached to the chapter of Glasgow Cathedral. Jamie disagrees strongly with my views on our noble families, and we have argued over that since we were boys. And so I’m asking him, in front of all of you, for his opinion on what I said about the magnates and mormaers holding their breath. Father James, on your honour as a priest, am I wrong?”

Every eye was fixed on me. “No, Cousin,” I said. “In all conscience I cannot but agree with your opinion. Based upon the evidence we know about—the events of the past few weeks in general since we left Aberdeen, and the last few days in particular since we left Dundee—I have to agree that it looks as if the entire nobility of Scotland is biding its time.” I looked around at the faces watching me, and I saw no trace of doubt.

“And why should they not?” I continued. “Politically, they would be fools to do otherwise at this stage. They have nothing to
lose by waiting, providing they don’t commit themselves one way or the other. If they do nothing and we fail and go down in the face of England’s armies, they will provide a hundred different reasons to Edward of England for not having been able to come to grips with us before we met our well-earned ends. On the other hand, if we should win, they will claim equally to have supported us all along, since they made no move to interfere with our patriotic efforts. And even should we do no more than bring about a stalemate, why, then they will have won again, by gaining time to lick their wounds and sniff the air and guess which way the cat will jump next time.”

“Aye, thank you, Father James,” Will said. “I ken how it must gall you to agree wi’ me on sic an arguable point.” That won him a laugh from his listeners, and he switched out of the dialect to the more formal language he used with his lieutenants. “It is true, nonetheless. That’s why we have seen no signs of opposition from the Earl of Buchan and his crew. Even the Balliols, those few of them who remain in Scotland today, have made no move to interfere with us, and nor have the Bruce supporters in Mar or Lennox. The earldoms of Atholl, Strathearn, Menteith, and Lennox all lie ahead of us as we march, but we have heard no word of anyone seeking to resist our passage, have we?”

No one answered him, so he rose to his feet and looked about him. “I’m told we’ve drunk all the ale we had,” he said. “That’s a disgrace. But on the other hand, we are close enough to Perth that we’ll be able to send a wagon in tomorrow night and resupply ourselves.” He waited until the wave of raillery subsided and then raised a hand for silence. “Think of this,” he said. “And that means you, too, Cormac. No one will be attacking us until we come to Stirling, which should be within the week. We’ll come towards it from the northwest, looping down and around through the Ochil Hills, and with the grace of God we’ll get there before Percy and his lackeys show their noses. Now get ye all to bed and sleep well, for we’ve a hard day ahead of us. I bid ye all a good night.”

“Before we go, Will, one more question?”

He smiled. “Always another question, Father James, eh? Ask away, then.”

“Why would you come down through the Ochil Hills? Surely it would be faster and easier to go directly to Stirling from the east?”

“It would be. But it would also be more public. I don’t want to set people talking about the Scots army being on the move, for then the English will hear about it. If we keep our presence unknown, we can approach at our own pace and set up camp in the woods at the base of the Abbey Craig, facing the end of the causeway across the Forth. We can be in hiding there before Percy and Clifford reach Stirling.” He had watched comprehension dawn in my expression as I listened, and now he nodded. “Good, then,” he said, glancing around him. “That’s settled. Now, all of you, go and get some rest.”

The crowd around the fire dispersed slowly after that, the men chatting easily among themselves before drifting off in ones and twos, until eventually there were but six of us remaining: Will, Ewan and myself, and Andrew, Sandy Pilche, who had caught up to us that very day, and Alistair Murray. The talk was desultory for a spell, until Will sat up straight and turned to Andrew, frowning slightly.

“I’ve been sitting here thinking about the Comyns being out of prison, Andrew, and I’m reminded that there is something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a few days now.”

“Then ask, anything you like, though I doubt I can tell you much about the Comyns. We are relatives, and they have always been our neighbours, too, but none of them have ever been close friends to me or mine.”

“In truth,” Will said, “there was only one Comyn in my head— John, the Earl of Buchan. He’s the one who should have challenged you before you ever got as far south as Aberdeen, if he had ever meant to fight at all. And that made me wonder, what
was
Buchan’s intention? Did he ever intend to attack you and commit himself to being Edward’s man against a Scots uprising? And
that
question set me to wondering about this whole liege-and-lackey situation that exists between Edward and our noble magnates. Common folk like
us—and I know you are not really one of us, being one of
them
by birth and station, but I include you as a tried and trusted friend—folk like us will never really understand what is involved in all that, because that system of lieges and vassals and ancestral fealty, of ancient, formal loyalties, doesn’t affect us one whit. It belongs up there”—he waggled his fingers vaguely in the air over his head— “with them, the magnates, somewhere over and above our base-born, ordinary heads. It has no significance to us in our day-to-day lives.