Authors: Robyn Young
Edward looked between him and Christiana. ‘I didn’t realise you were awake, brother.’
‘I wanted to show Lord Robert something,’ Christiana told him. ‘You are welcome to join us.’
Robert nodded his agreement and Edward fell into step beside them as Christiana led the way across the dunes, to where another track wound through the machair above the shoreline. Moving inland, past a reed-fringed loch in the shadow of the hill, whose green flanks were scattered with boulders, they passed a couple of fishermen, nets slung over their shoulders. The men greeted Christiana courteously, but cocked their heads suspiciously at Robert and Edward.
Robert frowned at their backs. His cloak was open at the front, displaying the red lion. ‘They do not know the arms of their king?’
‘They do.’ Christiana laughed. ‘I doubt, by now, there is a man, woman or child on this island who doesn’t know that you are here, my lord. Word moves faster than the tides on Barra.’
He didn’t share her mirth. ‘I am their king, my lady.’
Her smile faded. ‘You must understand, for many years the kings of Scotland have seemed’ – she struggled for the words – ‘foreign to us. A distant power that tried to impose its will by force, without respecting our rights and customs. We were Norse-led for a long time before we were ruled by Edinburgh. My uncle was chosen as King of the Isles by Hakon of Norway. On his death, my father succeeded him. It is difficult to go from king to king’s man.’
Robert nodded after a pause. Although the Western Isles were part of his kingdom, he hadn’t fully understood how intricate their politics and history were. Shifting on the sands of Norse and Scottish rule for centuries, Somerled had been the cement that bound them together for a time, until the islands were broken up among his sons, then sold to Scotland on the parchment of a Norse treaty.
The track began to rise, sloping over the headland. Redwings and golden plovers cast from the carpet of rock-strewn grass, wings flickering. The sun disappeared behind a cloud, throwing them into chilly shade. Hearing the shrill cries of gulls, Robert looked towards the sea, realising that they had climbed a fair way up a steep promontory. The sun appeared again, gilding the waters.
‘My God.’
At Edward’s murmur, Robert looked back round to see they had crested the rise. He stopped in his tracks. Spread out before him was a bay, sheltered by two encircling arms of headland that created a huge, natural harbour. In the wide mouth between the rocky bluffs, he could see the surge of the green ocean, but in the harbour the waters were as calm as a mill pond. In the centre was a small island, from which rose a stout castle. But it was what lay between the island and the shore that had caught his attention. There, where the waters turned jewel blue as they neared the sands, were scores of galleys. Forty, he guessed, at first count. A few were fishing craft and there were a couple of round, merchant cogs, but most were slender birlinns – the war galleys of the Isles. His heart quickened.
Christiana turned to him. ‘I spoke at length to Lachlan last night, my lord. My brother will keep his pledge. You will have twenty ships at your command, equipped with fighting men, all for the promised price.’
Robert, noting again the shadows around her eyes, wondered what this had cost her. ‘I do not have the revenue to pay him yet,’ he warned. ‘I won’t until I’ve collected the rents from my lands in Carrick.’
‘He will wait. I persuaded him of the benefits we might one day enjoy for loyal service to our king, especially if our galleys help turn the tide of the war.’
Christiana’s smile was light, but Robert caught a shrewd glint in her eyes. He thought of the refugees she had so generously conveyed here and wondered how many of the men and boys might be destined for service as mercenaries aboard MacRuarie war galleys. His sense of her shifted to the guarded respect he might feel towards a worthy rival. This was, he thought, not a woman to take lightly.
‘With the fifteen galleys Lord Angus promised from Islay, we’ll have a fleet of thirty-five,’ said Edward, surveying the distant rows of galleys. ‘We can take the bastards,’ he said, grasping Robert’s shoulder. ‘We can avenge Niall’s death.’ His tone was fierce, but his voice cracked with emotion on their brother’s name.
Robert thought of Affraig’s questions, back in the gloom of her hut.
Can you reclaim what is ours? Take back our kingdom?
He felt his answer begin to rise.
Chapter 22
The West Coast, Scotland, 1307 AD
They sailed on the spring tide, the twenty birlinns making short work of the fast-flowing channel between the Outer and Inner Isles. The long ships were slung low to the water, which surged around their prows as the oars carved white circles through the blue. Rising and falling in perfect time, all along the sides of the vessels, they looked like wings, propelling these beasts through the deep.
The ships were crowded with men, clad in an assortment of mail hauberks, quilted gambesons and leather aketons, boiled and steeped in oil to stiffen them. Some were barelegged, others clad in hose, but all had iron basinets and double-headed axes, the hafts of which were six feet long. They were the galloglass, West Highland mercenaries, shipped and sold by the MacRuaries to Irish chieftains for the war against Ulster and the settlers. Recruited for their stature and moulded, through ruthless training, from lean farmhands and fishermen’s sons into lofty, muscular men, they formed a fearsome company. Almost five hundred in number, they had all been bred to fight the English.
On the second morning, heading south to Islay under sail, the fleet was escorted briefly by a school of dolphins, the young bulls leaping before them. Even the hard-bitten veterans among the crew smiled at the spectacle, declaring it to be a blessing. Robert watched them from the largest galley, a vessel of thirty-four oars with a crimson sail, captained by Lachlan himself. He was accompanied by Angus, Edward and Malcolm, along with Nes and the other knights who had survived the MacDougalls’ attack. There was one notable absence, in the form of David of Atholl. Two days before they were due to leave Barra, the young man and his band of knights had disappeared. Questioning Kerald, Robert discovered that David had bartered his way on board one of the supply ships returning to the mainland. The man hadn’t been able to look at him since learning of the execution of his father and Robert guessed grief had turned to blame. He took the news with little emotion. Let deserters fall by the wayside, he wanted only the ready and willing on this campaign.
Robert and his men wore new armour and clothing: coats of polished mail, helms and woollen cloaks for the lords, gambesons for their men. Robert’s surcoat had been cleaned and mended by Brigid, watched closely by her daughter, Elena. Scotland’s red lion now had a scar running the length of its snarling face. When Christiana handed out the garments and weapons, Robert had wondered how much of the gear had been stolen by her brothers, recalling tales of Lachlan and Ruarie plundering their way across Lewis and Skye. If, before, such stories had given him pause, they now gave him heart. He would need that brute audacity in the coming days. He just prayed the MacRuaries would not switch in the wind at the first sign of trouble. Proof they would not came the day after they reached Islay.
The sight of the MacRuarie fleet entering the harbour at Dunyvaig, in the shadow of Angus MacDonald’s cliff-top castle, must have appeared as an invasion to the people of Islay, for beacons had been lit on the castle walls and a host of men were there to meet them on the beach, ranks bristling with spears. Seeing their lord jumping down from Lachlan’s galley, safely returned to them after two months at sea, their alarm had turned to joy and there, in the harbour, Robert found the remainder of his promised galleys and three hundred men, come from across MacDonald’s lands at the call to war. This past year, after death, capture and desertion had whittled his army down to scarcely more than two hundred, he now had almost the same size force he had commanded at Methven Wood.
After re-supplying, the thirty-five galleys set out, negotiating the wild waters around the Mull of Kintyre before heading up towards the southern tip of Arran in sight of the Carrick coast. Here, the dome of Ailsa Craig filled Robert’s vision like a marker, counting down the miles to home. It was off Carrick that they encountered their first enemy patrol – four English galleys. At the sight of the great fleet bearing down on them, they had come sharply about, but the heavy, cumbersome vessels were no match for the sleek birlinns. One managed to escape, making for the coast of Galloway, but the other three were grappled and boarded. Lachlan’s mercenaries proved not only their loyalty, but their reputation for savagery. After making a bloody slaughter of the crew they had slung the dead and dying into the waves, a feast for fish and gulls, before stripping the vessels of anything valuable and sinking them. That afternoon, as the setting sun gilded the tip of Holy Island, the fleet arrived on the shores of Arran. Here they were met by a patrol headed by Gilbert de la Hay, who greeted Robert with a fierce embrace, and led him to where the rest of his men were camped.
The reunion with Neil Campbell, James Douglas and the others, raised Robert’s spirits in a way he hadn’t thought possible. The company, hidden in their remote coastal camp, hadn’t heard any word of events on the mainland and it was with heavy hearts that they listened to Robert’s account of the fates of his family and friends. James Douglas, his voice resolute, informed the king he had sent a message to Bute and avowed, if his uncle was alive, he would answer the call to arms. Neil privately told Robert that James, who’d led several night patrols along the coast and had discovered Henry Percy was in command of Turnberry Castle, had proven himself a keen and capable leader.
In honour of this, Robert placed the young man in command of the first company to cross from Arran. If the garrison at Turnberry was judged ripe for attack, James was to light a beacon as a signal for the rest of fleet to follow. He had left the next night, leaving Robert and his men to settle down to wait, watching the Carrick coastline for a point of fire.
Near Turnberry Castle, Scotland, 1307 AD
His eyes on the castle, James cursed beneath his breath. He heard Alan creep up alongside him in the tangled darkness of the woods.
‘What is it?’ asked Alan, breathing hard after the climb from the beach.
‘See for yourself.’ Moving aside, James pointed through the branches of wych-elm and ash towards the next headland, which jutted into the sea across a small bay.
Alan, one of Gilbert de la Hay’s squires who had come across with him from Arran, stared at the castle that rose from the promontory. Torches on Turnberry’s battlements blazed against the midnight sky, an orange halo of fire. There were more lights down in the courtyard, the glow of them wavering up the walls. Alan shook his head in question, unsure of the reason for James’s frustration.
‘The banners,’ James explained. ‘The gold one with the blue lion – those are Henry Percy’s arms.’ He moved his finger along the battlements to where another standard snapped in the breeze. It hadn’t been there on his last scout along the coast. The banner was striped blue and white. James couldn’t see the red birds at this distance, but he knew they were there. ‘Pembroke,’ he murmured to Alan. ‘Aymer de Valence is in residence.’
There was a crackle of twigs behind them. James turned to see the other two men who had climbed up the cliffs with him emerging from the undergrowth. Relaxing, he let Alan convey the bad news as he scanned the bluffs beyond the castle gates. The village of Turnberry had stood there until Prince Edward burned it to ash. Now, there was a large encampment in its place, scattered with campfires, which highlighted scores of tents and wagons. James had glimpsed the camp from the sea, but it appeared much bigger now. No doubt augmented, he thought grimly, by Valence’s men.
James’s gaze flicked back to the battlements, lingering on the banners. How he wanted to see another beside them, one whose colours were burned into his mind: a blue and gold chequered ground cut in half by a wide red band, the arms of Robert Clifford, the man who had been granted the lands of his father.
Lord William Douglas, governor of Berwick and the first nobleman to join Wallace’s insurrection, had been a tower of a man, whom James had loved and revered. Captured at the fall of Berwick, he had died in chains in the Tower of London. James, sent by his mother to live with an uncle in Paris, had returned to Scotland three years ago in the company of William Lamberton, who took him in as his ward with a pledge to help him regain his lands. Toughened by his uncle’s training in France, determined to avenge his father’s death, James had joined the rebellion with a fire in his heart. But now the Bishop of St Andrews was languishing in one of King Edward’s dungeons and, with his uncle still missing, he felt as though all the hopes of his family had settled, heavy, on his shoulders.
Forcing his gaze from the battlements, James nodded to his companions. ‘Come. We must tell the others.’
‘Do we light the beacon?’ asked Brice, one of Neil Campbell’s men from Argyll.
‘No. We need to know how large the garrison is. Percy’s company we could have overcome, but Valence is the king’s lieutenant. He commands a formidable force.’