The Guardian (19 page)

“I know not what else I might tell you. I know they spoke of many things that day, because Andrew told me how impressed he had been by Sandy’s attitude to the situation in Moray. And Sandy went to great lengths to try to keep Andrew from going anywhere near his family home. Auch lies a mere seven miles away from Inverness, across the firth on the promontory known as the Black Isle. And like every other castle in Moray at that time, it was held by the English, in this case, a knight called Geoffrey de Lisle. In Sandy Pilche’s opinion, de Lisle was the most dangerous and vicious Englishman in all of Moray. Intolerant and ruthless, unpredictable and universally detested—even, it was said, by his own garrison troops. The man had held the local populace in a state of terror since his arrival the previous year, when he quickly established a pattern of hanging men and women for no discernible reason other than whimsy, as though for his own amusement, since he invariably attended all such executions. The word of these atrocities had quickly reached Inverness, of course, but nothing could be done to stop them. De Lisle was all-powerful within his own fiefdom of Auch, and not even Sir Reginald de Cheyne, the military governor of Moray, could raise a finger against him from Inverness when de Lisle claimed to be following his orders and dealing harshly with rebels.

“Even worse than the murders committed, though, Pilche deplored the other effects of the terror. Distracted by fear of losing their own lives and their families, some of the local people had begun informing on others around them, selling their friends and neighbours in the hope of purchasing their own safety. Under such conditions, Sandy Pilche believed, it would be more than merely difficult for Andrew to go undetected. He doubted that the young
nobleman would be able to live openly in his home country, let alone survive there.

“But Andrew merely laughed. Auch Castle was his home, he said. He had been born there, and he would take it back as his birthright. His father’s holdings were enormous, he pointed out, and he could live anywhere within their borders, with the support of his people. He would be safe with them, he said. The Inverness provost had assured him that his wife had been living openly among them since Andrew’s capture, her identity unknown to the occupying English. He did not yet know what he might be able to achieve, now that he had come home, he told Pilche, but he had not returned all that way to sit around idly and do nothing, and it was obvious to him that the first thing that needed to be done was remove de Lisle from Auch Castle. He told Sandy he doubted that his folk would be content merely to hide him. They were Murrays, like him, and they would want him to lead them, too. He was sure they would follow him wherever he chose to go.”

Hearing Father Murray say that, I looked across to where the young Earl of Carrick sat listening. According to the reports I had heard from Bishop Wishart, the younger Bruce had been in similar case to Andrew Murray very recently, but he had lost his young wife mere weeks before my cousin Will had lost his Mirren, and he had received very little support from his father’s tenants in Annandale when he returned to Scotland afterwards. On the contrary, they had viewed him with great suspicion because of his purported relationship with Edward of England, and had pleaded loyalty to his absent father. If the earl was making comparisons, however, it did not show on his face.

“He did do
something
, though,” Lord James said. “Is that not so?”

The priest smiled again. “Oh yes, indeed so. And it was something noteworthy, as all Moray knows today. Within a week of his return, he organized three score of the youngest and strongest of his men into a mounted fighting force, taking them into the wilderness of the Moray uplands to train them. Their mounts were mountain
ponies, though, not English warhorses. Andrew had no intention of riding into battle against English cavalry. He set out from the start to use the land itself, its natural features, as a weapon, and so he trained his mounted corps to move quickly and attack swiftly, then withdraw and disappear into the hills before any organized pursuit could be thrown after them.

“He returned to Auch two weeks later, and late on a Wednesday afternoon his mounted men attacked the scheduled train of supplies and provisions bound for the castle. The attack, within view of the castle walls, was brazen, calculated to achieve precisely what it did. The raiders hit the supply train hard and fast. They inflicted heavy casualties and scattered what was left of the escort, who had numbered less than fifty to start with, most of them on foot. They then led the wagons away with much ado towards the woodlands half a mile to the north, taunting de Lisle and openly defying him to follow them if he dared. And of course he did. He turned out the entire garrison and led them against the raiding party.”

The priest looked about him, meeting the eye of every man there. “What de Lisle did not know, of course, was that the raiders he rode after were not the sole enemy on his lands that afternoon. They were the only enemy he had
seen
, and their impertinence had outraged him because it was the first overt sign of defiance to his rule that he had encountered since his arrival in Auch more than a year earlier. And so, as he led his men through the main gates of the castle on a wild chase after the brigands who were fleeing with his supply wagons, another hundred men, who had spent much of the night climbing the precipice of the motte and were led by Andrew Murray and Wee Mungo, entered the fortress by the postern gate.

“No Englishman knew of it, but beneath Auch’s postern gate is a secret passage that passes beneath the castle walls from a small cave close to the summit of the motte. The entrance to the cave cannot be seen from above, and the passageway, even though unknown to any but the immediate Murray family, was sealed by a pair of heavy iron padlocked gates beneath the walls. Andrew knew all that, having used the passage many times during his boyhood. He entered the
cave alone, unseen by the others, whom he had left behind to wait for his signal, and he carried the keys to both padlocks in his pouch. Minutes later, he opened the postern gate to his men from within.”

Sir Alexander, wide-eyed, whistled quietly.

“That incident,” Father Murray continued, “announced Andrew Murray’s return home to Auch and marked the beginning of his uprising, along with his solemn, public oath, sworn beneath the battlements of Inverness Castle in the town itself, to sweep the English out of Scotland north of the Forth and eventually to cleanse the entire realm of their presence. And people paid attention because Auch Castle had fallen, that easily, and it is still in friendly hands. Geoffrey de Lisle led an army to besiege it soon afterwards, but he was waylaid in the hills on his way to join the attacking force and sustained wounds from which he subsequently died. I am pleased to say that since his death, no one has seemed keen to re-establish the siege.”

He waited until the buzz of voices had died down. “The most interesting aspect of all of this, however, is that within days of the recapture of Auch, Sandy Pilche crossed the firth from Inverness to the Black Isle at the head of more than a hundred well-armed men, all of them free burgesses, to throw in his lot with Andrew. And since then, the Scots cause, and the Scots folk, have prospered, with people coming to join the rising in Moray from all over the north and northeast. Andrew commands overall, of course, but he retains responsibility for the mounted component of his force, which is now several hundred strong, and Sandy Pilche has become his most trusted lieutenant, the commander of the foot forces of Moray.”

“How many men does Murray command now?” Sir Malcolm asked.

“I can’t answer that,” Father Murray said. “Ten days ago, when last I saw my nephew, he told me he had a thousand men at his back, but even that number was nearly two weeks old by then, and the incomers had been increasing daily, sometimes by as many as a hundred a day. So who can say? It might be two thousand or more by this time. They’ve had no reversals, and every skirmish they win
draws new volunteers to their ranks. The English are demoralized, and they’re impotent for the time being, but Edward is not renowned for appointing incompetents. They have some capable commanders up there—de Cheyne of Inverness is no sluggard, and his subordinate, William Fitzwarren, constable of Urquhart Castle, is every bit as formidable. For the time being, however, they simply cannot seem to come to grips with the damages Andrew’s folk are inflicting on them.” He shook his head dismissively. “Frankly, I believe that my nephew is a better general than all of them together.”

“How so?” Lord James asked. “He’s very young for such an accolade, is he not?”

“Perhaps so, my lord, but he has consistently remained one step ahead of everything the English try to do to stop him. Immediately after taking Auch Castle, he came close to capturing Castle Urquhart, wresting it back from Fitzwarren. He might have succeeded, too, had he had more men at his disposal. But that was at the very start of his campaign, when he had only a hundred or so men at his back, and the Comyn Countess of Ross complicated matters there. She had heard about what was happening and marched from her castle at Balconie to offer assistance to Fitzwarren, in hopes of winning favour for her husband the earl, who is imprisoned in London.

“With the Countess of Ross’s army outside Urquhart, Andrew could hardly conduct the siege he had planned, and so he withdrew his men without further incident. That he was able to do so easily, without being counterattacked, was a wonder, but it was possible only because the English themselves were not convinced that the Countess of Ross’s offer of assistance was genuine. Suspecting an intricate plot either to lure them out of the castle or to permit a Scots army to enter it, they chose to do nothing, and so Andrew was able to march his army away uncontested.

“The Countess of Ross’s own fortunes were less happily resolved, because Andrew marched directly north from Urquhart into Ross and captured her own castle. At one blow he rejuvenated the fighting spirit of his men by besting, quite brilliantly and unexpectedly, the very enemy who had thwarted them at Urquhart Castle,
while at the same time, by getting behind her army and cutting her lines of communication with her home base in Ross, he taught the Countess of Ross that he was an enemy to be feared, and that armed adherence to England’s cause was a dangerous course to pursue in Scotland. Her interference in his affairs had cost her dearly. She could not go home to Ross, and she could not safely remain in Inverness-shire.”

He paused. “My nephew himself mentioned another advantage that sprang from what he did in Ross. By seizing Balconie he established an additional safe, easily defensible stronghold for his growing army and a well-known gathering point for all the hundreds of volunteers streaming to join him from throughout the north.

“Setting all that aside, though,” he continued, “the point to be made here is that my nephew always uses the land itself as an ally and a weapon. It is a
sine qua non
of his campaigning. He is more than willing to fight against whatever forces the English bring to bear against him, but he always contrives to command the high ground and he always has rising woodland at his back—woodland and bogs into which he and his men can withdraw when necessary, but which render English heavy horse useless, ploutering helplessly through mud and mire. Fitzwarren and de Cheyne have both learned that to their cost, but so far they have been unable to develop countermeasures to deal with it effectively. Andrew and his people know the land as they know their own bodies. The English do not.”

Sir William Douglas looked up with a sneer. “So let me ask this again. Do we or do we not know whether word of all these goings-on has reached Edward in England?” The provocation in repeating his question was deliberate, but Father Murray refused to rise to it.

“We don’t know, Sir William. We
suspect
that no messengers have managed to get through with word, but we cannot be certain. The very success of such an effort, after all, would ensure that we knew nothing of it. We can but hope, but we must also be prepared to have those hopes dashed at any moment. One thing is certain, though. The moment Edward does become aware of the true state of
his affairs in Moray and elsewhere, the response from England will be immediate and, in all probability, enormous.”

“Aye, it will be all of that,” said Sir John Stewart, speaking for the first time, “but we have more immediate matters to concern us here. This campaign in Moray may be successful beyond its leaders’ wildest dreams, but will it have any effect upon us and what we have to deal with here in the south and southwest?” He looked quickly around the assembly, addressing himself to everyone. “Even were a miracle achieved up there and all the English driven out tomorrow, leaving the men of Moray free to join us as soon as they could be here, would that affect our situation here today, with Percy fast approaching? I think not. Percy could be about our ears within days. Murray might take months to get here.” He turned to look at his brother the Steward. “That’s really why you intend to negotiate, is it not? To give Murray time to organize?”

Lord James smiled tightly. “Aye, it is. Murray and others, elsewhere in the country.”

“And are these others all in touch with one another?”

The Steward glanced towards Bishop Wishart, who answered in his stead. “Not quite. Not yet. But that will be taken care of very soon now. We have plans in place.”

“Awaiting what, might I ask?” The Stewart knight was not trying to sound skeptical, but the question begged to be asked.

“This gathering,” the bishop said. “Or the other, some might say lesser, gathering that accompanies it.” He did not need to look my way. Knowing my employer as well as I did, I knew instantly that I had been correct: my attendance at this dinner was incidental to my true purpose here in Turnberry. I was predestined to be a participant in that other, “lesser” gathering.

Afterwards, when the guests had dispersed, the bishop beckoned to me with fluttering fingers as he bade Lord James a good night, and I went to him as the Steward left him.