Lords of Misrule

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Cultural Heritage; Historical Fiction; War & Military

Synopsis

In turbulent 14th century Scotland, the ruling House of Stewart was a house divided, beset by hatred and jealousy. Descendants of the Bruce's daughter, they only kept the throne by an astonishing genius for survival - or, as many said, the lick of the Devil. Their rivals were the Douglases; and when the second Earl was slain in battle, the Stewarts were suspected of foul play. When young Jamie Douglas vowed to avenge his master, he only had his wits, courage and integrity with which to challenge the most eminent and the most unscrupulous men in the kingdom. And while vengeance burned in his heart, he could not prevent his fatal attraction for the beautiful and spirited Stewart women - and one in particular. This is the first volume in the Stewart trilogy. 'Through his imaginative dialogue, he provides a voice for Scotland's heroes' Scotland on Sunday

Release date: December 20, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 416

Sample

LADY EGIDIA STEWART, LADY DALKEITH: Sister of the King; wife of the Lord of Dalkeith.

JAMIE DOUGLAS: Illegitimate eldest son of Sir James, Lord of Dalkeith. Esquire to the 2nd Earl of Douglas.

SIR JAMES DOUGLAS, LORD OF DALKEITH: Statesman and wealthiest noble of the kingdom. Chief of the second line of Douglas.

SIR JAMES LINDSAY, LORD OF CRAWFORD AND LUFFNESS: Lord High Justiciar, chief of the name of Lindsay, and son of Lady Dalkeith by an earlier marriage.

JAMES, 2ND EARL OF DOUGLAS: Most powerful noble in Scotland, Chief Warden of the Marches and Justiciar of the South-West.

ROBERT II, KING OF SCOTS: Grandson of the hero-king, Robert Bruce.

JOHN STEWART, EARL OF CARRICK, HIGH STEWARD OF SCOTLAND: Eldest surviving son of the King and heir to the throne — later Robert III.

ROBERT STEWART, EARL OF FIFE AND MENTEITH: Second surviving son of the King; later Governor of the realm and Duke of Albany.

DAVID STEWART, EARL OF STRATHEARN: Fourth surviving son of the King.

WALTER STEWART, LORD OF BRECHIN: Youngest legitimate son of the King.

GEORGE COSPATRICK, EARL OF DUNBAR AND MARCH: Great noble. Justiciar of Lothian.

LADY GELIS STEWART: Youngest of the King’s legitimate daughters.

MARY STEWART: One of the King’s illegitimate daughters. Maid-in-Waiting to the Lady Gelis.

SIR ARCHIBALD DOUGLAS (The Grim), LORD OF GALLOWAY: Great noble; later 3rd Earl of Douglas.

JOHN DUNBAR, EARL OF MORAY: Great noble. Wed to another daughter of the King. Brother of Earl of Dunbar and March.

MASTER JOHN PEEBLES, BISHOP OF DUNKELD: Chancellor of the realm.

SIR WILLIAM DOUGLAS OF NITHSDALE: Illegitimate son of the Lord of Galloway. Warrior and hero.

SIR HARRY PERCY (HOTSPUR): Great English noble and champion. Heir to the Earl of Northumberland.

JOHN BICKERTON: Son of Keeper of Luffness Castle. Armour-bearer to the Earl of Douglas.

GEORGE DOUGLAS, EARL OF ANGUS: Young noble. Founder of the Red Douglas line.

LADY MARGARET STEWART, COUNTESS OF ANGUS: Widow of late Earl of Mar; Countess of Angus in her own right. Mother of the boy Earl of Angus.

LADY ISABEL STEWART, COUNTESS OF DOUGLAS: Daughter of the King. Wife of 2nd Earl of Douglas.

LORD DAVID STEWART: Eldest son of the Earl of Carrick; later himself Earl of Carrick and Duke of Rothesay.

LADY ANNABELLA DRUMMOND, COUNTESS OF CARRICK: Wife of King’s eldest surviving son. Later Queen.

ALEXANDER STEWART, EARL OF BUCHAN: Known as the Wolf of Badenoch. Third surviving son of the King. Lieutenant and Justiciar of the North.

DONALD, LORD OF THE ISLES: Great Highland potentate. Son of eldest of the King’s daughters.

MASTER THOMAS STEWART, ARCHDEACON OF ST. ANDREWS: Illegitimate son of the King.

LORD MURDOCH STEWART: Eldest son of the Earl of Fife.

SIR ANDREW STEWART: One of the five foremost illegitimate sons of the Earl of Buchan, Wolf of Badenoch.

SIR ALEXANDER STEWART: Eldest of above. Later Earl of Mar and victor of Harlaw.

SIR WALTER STEWART: Still another of above.

MARIOTA DE ATHYN (or MACKAY): Mother of above, mistress of Buchan.

LACHLAN MACKINTOSH, 9TH CHIEF: Mac an Toishich, Captain of Clan Chattan.

FARQUHAR MACGILLIVRAY: Mhic Gillebráth Mor, 5th Chief.

MASTER WILLIAM TRAIL, BISHOP OF ST. ANDREWS: Primate.

THE GREAT HALL of Stirling Castle made a fair representation of Bedlam, and had done for some time. It was fuller than usual, of course, with so much of the country’s nobility assembled; and the meal and entertainments, hastily arranged but on a lavish scale, had gone on longer than usual also. The more fastidiously-minded of the women had retired discreetly considerably earlier, and that included three of the King’s daughters and the Countess of Carrick, wife to the heir of the throne. Those who chose to remain tended to have anything but a restraining influence, their skirls and screams contributing to the general uproar in significant degree, with effect on wine-taken men. And such as had disarranged clothing were by no means all serving-wenches, entertainers and the like; some, in young Jamie Douglas’s opinion at least, were certainly old enough and distinguished enough to know better. His own step-mother, for instance — if that was the right description for his father’s second wife, when even the first was not Jamie’s mother — the Lady Egidia Stewart, was behaving unsuitably, and with the French ambassador, her gown torn open almost to the navel. Her husband, the Lord of Dalkeith, like her brother the King, was asleep, head fallen forward on bent arms amidst a pool of wine at the Douglas end of the dais-table; but her sons by two of her previous marriages were present and very much awake; and Jamie considered that they must find the spectacle embarrassing — although the eldest of them, Sir James Lindsay 12th Lord of Crawford and Luffness, Lord High Justiciar of Scotland, admittedly did not demonstrate anything of the sort, as he knelt on one of the tables further down the hall, amongst toppled flagons and empty platters, boxing with a brown Muscovy bear of the dancing variety, its keeper weeping and declaring that there would be injury done, while most of the wolfhounds in the room bayed and slavered their excitement. Jamie Douglas was no prig, and appreciated his fun as much as most young men; but he felt that the present occasion and company was not the most suitable for it, that things were getting out of hand, and the important business of the evening was still to be concluded.

He himself was heedfully sober. He was rather inclined that way, anyhow, but had been specifically warned by his master, the Earl of Douglas, to hold himself prepared to act scribe, if necessary, in case none of the trustworthy churchmen were in a state to wield a quill. He was sitting near the head of the esquires’ and pages’ table, at one side of the great smoke-filled apartment, where he was really quite close to his lord at the left of the daistable — the King’s left, that is, the male Stewarts being all on the right, naturally. Normally the table-plan was T-shaped, the daistable on its slightly-raised platform crosswise at the head of the hall, the main board stretching down the room slightly to one side, leaving ample space for the servitors, the entertainers and spectacles, with the esquires down the far wall. Tonight, on account of the large numbers present, an extra lengthwise board had been inserted, parallel; so there were in fact three tables reaching down the room, complicating precedency arrangements, cramping the service and the entertainment and adding to the present uproar.

Jamie dutifully kept his eye on the Earl of Douglas. He had been only six months promoted esquire to his hero and chief, after serving for four years as page; and he recognised well the great honour the Earl had done him — and perhaps to some extent, his father — in making the appointment. For many young lords in their own right would have been glad to be principal esquire to the puissant head of the most powerful house in Scotland; and for an illegitimate son, even of the wealthy Lord of Dalkeith, aged only eighteen, to be selected, had been unexpected and the cause of some heartburning. Although Jamie would not have admitted as much, he rather suspected that the Countess Isabel of Douglas had had something to do with it. The beautiful daughter of the King, she had always shown him especial kindness, as a page, and had on occasion called him handsome. He did not know whether his typically dark, almost swarthy and somewhat sombre Douglas features were handsome or not, nor greatly cared; but he was glad that he was well-built, tall and wide-shouldered, since so much in life depended on that. He was taller than the Earl, indeed.

James, 2nd Earl of Douglas, clearly was sober also tonight; and likewise and evidently less than approving of the way the evening was shaping. A dark, stocky, thick-set man in his early thirties, with strangely still though rugged features, he sat glowering, shoulders hunched, staring distastefully down on the pandemonium of the hall. But every now and again, he would glance along the dais-table itself, to his right, past sundry notables and his snoring monarch, to where John, Earl of Carrick sat immediately on the King’s right, quietly reading in a curling parchment, amidst all the hubbub, an odd sight; and beyond him to the next seat where his brother, Robert, Earl of Fife and Menteith sat back, stiff face raised towards the smoke-dim hammer-beam ceiling, eyes closed — although no one would ever suggest that that man would be asleep. Two more of the King’s sons, David, Earl of Strathearn and Walter, Lord of Brechin, the youngest, sat still further along, the first staring moodily, the second sprawling hopelessly drunk; but neither of these concerned the Douglas. It was their elder brothers, John of Carrick, heir to the throne, and Robert of Fife, the real power behind that throne, who were the objects of his assessment and speculation, of his less than patient waiting. And it was not often that the chief of the Douglases had to exercise patience in public.

The two princes, on whom the entire success or otherwise of the evening hinged, could not have been less alike, in appearance as in character, although sons of the same mother — which was by no means always the way with the royal offspring — and only some two years apart in age. John, although but fifty-one years, looked an old man already, gentle, sad and studious in aspect, delicately featured with great expressive eyes, hair and beard already grey, diffident and awkward of manner. He was the second son of Robert the Second, the first of the Stewart kings — the eldest, Walter, had died young — and although he had qualities of intellect and great compassion, these were scarcely those most demanded for the next King of Scots; and it would be safe to say that he represented the major disappointment of the kingdom, to himself most of all. Some of the poor folk loved him after a fashion, for he was kindly towards them, when princes were expected to be otherwise, humble-minded, generous. He had been kicked in the knee by a horse, long ago — it had to be a Douglas horse that did it — and the bone had set badly, so that John Stewart limped through life thereafter, where the Scots expected their leaders to stride manfully.

Robert Stewart, as it happened, was scarcely popular either; nor did he stride with much élan, to be sure. He was not pitied — he was feared. A tall, slender, stem-faced man, good-looking in a spare, long-featured way, he had a tight mouth, watchful almost colourless eyes and a severe manner — an unlikely Stewart in fact. Always well if soberly dressed, where his brother John was untidy and careless to a degree in his clothing, he had for years now taken more and more of the rule of the kingdom into his own long-fingered hands, as the aged, half-blind and failing father Robert the Bruce’s grandson, sank towards senility. Although that certainly did not mean that Scotland was well or adequately governed, in the year 1388, nor had been for a decade. If men did not love Robert of Fife, they tended to feel that putting up with him was probably the lesser of evils — they had little choice, anyway — for the next brother was Alexander, Earl of Buchan no less, the terrible and notorious Wolf of Badenoch so-called, not present this night for, praise God, he was apt to confine his outrageous activities to the northern half of the kingdom, where he reigned as Justiciar and Lieutenant of the North; the thought of him governing the realm was enough to come between a man and his sleep. And the other two surviving princes, David and the second Walter, were by way of being nonentities.

So the Earl of Douglas watched and waited, with smouldering impatience. That his glance seldom lingered on the slumped and open-mouthed person of King Bleary himself, held its own significance.

Jamie felt for his beloved and admired master, who was patently bored to an extremity. The Countess Isabel, his wife, had left the hall an hour since. The Papal Legate, who sat on his right, spoke Italian, Latin, French and Spanish, but neither Scots nor English; and the Earl of Douglas’s scholarship in such matters had been neglected. On his left he had long exhausted the conversational resources of George, Earl of Dunbar and March, a somewhat morose man although a good enough soldier. The entertainment itself was fair enough of its kind, a gipsy troupe now dancing with wild abandon to screaming fiddles, the women half-naked and becoming more so; but there was a time and place for all things, and it had been a long and active day, of tournament and pageantry and chivalric sports, in all of which the Earl had taken his major part, indeed largely organised by himself as an excuse to gather together this large assembly of great and lesser nobles and chieftains without the monarch or his heir suspecting what was afoot. But there was important work to be done this night yet, and the hour was already late. Worse, too many of the lords and knights on whom so much depended, were already either drunk or so drink-taken that they would be increasingly difficult to handle and bring to a state of usefulness. The thing was nearing the impossible.

It was all, as so often, John of Carrick’s fault. The man had a genius for upsetting things and people — all with the best will in the world, which made it the more irritating. Tonight he was a danger to the plans of better men — or at least more active and venturesome men. Every endeavour had been made to contrive his absence from the table, but he had confounded all by turning up, late, to sit beside his father, a right which scarcely could be denied to the heir to the throne. Since his arrival, the project had been either to get him to leave early, through offence, disgust or boredom; or else to make him sufficiently inebriated for his presence not to matter. It had not worked. John could drink deeply too, on occasion, like all the Stewarts — but not tonight. And although clearly he was not enjoying the proceedings, he stayed on in his seat, having brought in his wretched parchment with him, the study of which seemed to console him. As far as Douglas could see, it was poetry or something such. Yet the business of the evening could not be proceeded with whilst Carrick was present, or conscious, for fear of his interference, his disapproval, his influence on the King. It was galling in the extreme. Young Jamie recognised all this, since he was in some measure involved himself — but he could not help being a little sorry for the unfortunate prince nevertheless.

At length, the Earl of Douglas could stand it no longer. Pushing his wine-goblet away, he raised his head, caught Jamie’s eye and beckoned. The young man rose, and made his way round behind the dais-table to his master’s side, stooping between him and Dunbar. The Earl gestured him round to the other side, where the Papal Legate’s ignorance of the language would afford better privacy.

“This is damnable, beyond all,” he jerked, low-voiced. “We must get him out, somehow, or nothing will be done this night. I swear Robert could have got him away, if he would — but Robert is none so keen on this project himself, a plague on him! I can think of one thing only, Jamie — the Lady Gelis. We must use her.”

The esquire’s swarthy features flushed. Like many of the younger men there, he was helplessly, hopelessly in love with Egidia Stewart, youngest legitimate daughter of the King, usually called Gelis to distinguish her from her aunt, the Lady Dalkeith. Almost all the Stewart women were handsome but Gelis was a raving beauty, a darkly lively, sparkling creature of just twenty years, all gaiety, verve and challenge, in person as in personality. She now sat at the far right end of the dais-table with the usual bevy of lordlings around her, two of Jamie’s legitimate brothers amongst them, a noisy colourful group. Jamie had, in fact, been disappointed in her that she had not long since left the hall with her elder sisters and other discreet ladies — for in his mature opinion that room was now no place for fair and virtuous young women. But, of course, it had been her day. As the only unmarried princess, she had been Queen of the Tourney. She was clearly loth to end the day’s excitements.

“Get her out of here,” the Earl James went on. “You are friendly with her, I hear. She should have been gone long since. Then have her send for the Earl of Carrick, her brother. He dotes on her, all know. Some upset, outside. A tulzie — some young fools. She is troubled — sends for her brother to escort her to her chamber. He would not come back, I think.”

The younger man all but wailed. He would gladly have laid down his life for Scotland’s greatest soldier and chief of the name of Douglas, his master. But this command was beyond him. “My lord — how can I?” he protested. “She will not leave because I ask her to. She smiles on me, on occasion — but that is all. I have no power with her. All these around her are more important than I am. How shall they take it if I come urging the princess to leave them . . .?”

“Damnation — then get your precious brothers to take her out, boy.”

“Why should she go? But if you asked her? Or better, my lord — if you asked my lord of Carrick to take her, himself. Say that the company grows unruly, too ill-mannered, that she would be better away. He would take it from you . . .”

Douglas frowned. “There would have to be more noise, horse-play, around her before I could do that. But — you go, Jamie, and stir up some buffoonery. Seem the worse for wine, if you like. Raise a turmoil. Then I can approach Carrick. Off with you.”

Unhappily Jamie Douglas did as he was commanded. It was appallingly unfair. The very last thing he wanted was to raise an uproar, make an object of himself in the eyes of Gelis Stewart. Damn the Earl of Carrick!

At the end of the table it was as though a separate little party was in progress, heedless of what prevailed in the rest of the great apartment. Seven or eight young men, sons of the highest in the land, eddied around the princess, sitting on her bench, on the table-top itself, even on the floor at her feet, laughing, chattering. One, the Master of Dunbar, heir of the Earl thereof, was singing a madrigal to her, plucking soulfully at the strings of a lute as accompaniment.

Perplexed, Jamie eyed them all. He insinuated himself to the side of his half-brother and namesake, James Douglas Younger of Dalkeith, nearly two years his junior but born in wedlock and so heir to their father. They were good enough friends. The Dalkeith family, like most other noble houses there represented, made little difference between the legitimate and illegitimate, save in the all-important matters of heritable property and titles.

“James,” he muttered in the other’s ear. “You are to make a to-do. A noise, something of a riot. Fight. It is the Earl’s orders. No — hear me. He wants the Lady Gelis to be in the midst of a turmoil. So that my lord of Carrick can take her out. No questions, of a mercy! Do something. Pick a quarrel with Willie — as though you were drunk. Go on.”

His brother peered at him. “Are you drunk, Jamie? Taken leave of your wits?”

“No. It is the Earl James’s orders, I tell you.” He grabbed his other brother, William, a year younger still. “Willie — come, pick a fight with James,” he urged, in a sort of commanding whisper. “Or with me. All of us. We have to make a noise . . .”

His normally far-from equable and pacific kin gaped at him and at each other. Some of the other lordlings were following their gaze, likewise. All knew Jamie as the mighty Earl of Douglas’s principal esquire, and so with his own importance. But they would take ill out of any interference with their evening’s pleasure.

“What is it, Jamie?” That was Gelis Stewart herself, kindly enough. “Your brows are even blacker than usual — which is a wonder! Is anything wrong?”

He cleared his throat. “No. That is — no. It is these, my brothers. They, they should be gone. The hour is late. Willie is but fifteen.” He reached out to grasp the youngster’s shoulder — and whether out of brotherly regard for the command to seem to quarrel, or from a more natural resentment at this high-handed intrusion, the youth twisted violently away. Jamie, however, hung on, and the other brother took the opportunity to join in, an arm round Jamie’s shoulder, in turn. The trio, lurching together in a reeling huddle, cannoned against the table — and Jamie judiciously swiped a wine-flagon and a goblet with his free arm, so that both crashed to the floor, spilling blood-red contents. Angrily now, some of the lordlings sprang up, and George Dunbar ceased his serenading.

Turmoil, of a sort, was achieved.

Normally, to be sure, such goings-on in the presence of the monarch would not have been permitted for a moment, and royal servitors would have hurried forward to hustle the offenders out. But this was not a normal occasion, the monarch was fast asleep and had been for an hour at least, as had many another, and the rest of the hall resounded to such noise and uproarious mirth that what went on up here was scarcely noticeable. But it was sufficiently noticeable for the Earl of Douglas, who rose and went to tap the heir to the throne and High Steward of Scotland on his hunched shoulder, to speak and point.

Catching sight of this out of the corner of his eye, Jamie heaved a sigh of relief, and almost relaxed his pushing and pulling at his youngest brother. But the turmoil must not stop too soon, of course, so he continued with some token struggling. Alexander Lindsay, son of Sir David of Glenesk and another princess, the Lady Katherine Stewart, came to separate them, in laughing remonstrance — and was turned upon for his pains. As one or two others came to Lindsay’s aid, the scuffle took on a new dimension. Gelis Stewart was scolding them all, only half in laughter.

Jamie had a momentary glimpse of the cold eye of Robert, Earl of Fife and Menteith, considering them remotely from up the table. Then, thankfully, he realised that the Earls of Douglas and Carrick were beside the princess, stooping to speak with her.

Disentangling himself from the other young men took a little while, none sure what it was all about but now roused and the wine in them making its presence felt. Then Jamie, receiving a buffet on the head from his master of all people, staggered aside, to glower distinctly querulously at the entire scene. He saw his brothers scowling at him similarly, the Earl of Douglas stalking back to his seat, and the Earl of Carrick limpingly escorting the Lady Gelis from the hall — although she looked back in some bewilderment as she went.

He found another young woman looking speculatively at him, likewise, and from much closer at hand.

“That was a strange business, Jamie Douglas — and not like you,” she said. “What does it mean, I wonder?”

He frowned at her; Mary Stewart, half-sister and lady-in-waiting to the princess, a comely, cheerful and friendly creature, popular with all and particularly well-endowed as to figure, one of the many royal bastards about the Court. Jamie and she, as a rule, got on very well together. “It means that this hall is no place for princesses — or for other decent young women!” he jerked. “Ought you not to be following your mistress?”

“I see,” she said, slowly. “I see something — but not all. I shall enquire more, hereafter. Your doublet is torn. If you bring it to me in the morning, I might stitch it for you — and learn the rest, perhaps? A good night, Jamie.” And dipping a less than respectful curtsey, she turned and hurried after the prince and princess.

Some little time and explanation was required to achieve detachment from his brothers and the other sprigs of nobility. By the time this was accomplished, his lord was beckoning to him again.

“You did well, Jamie,” the Earl said briefly, as though it was all normal duties for an esquire. “Now to serious business.” He looked along the table. “His Grace seems sufficiently asleep still. We can make a move. You have the list of the men we want, lad? Have them to come to the Chapel-Royal. Not all at once — one at a time. Such as are not too drunk. But no others, mind. And tell Lyon to bring on his more women dancers — the gipsies. They will keep the rest ogling, for they are to throw off most of their clothing! You have it all?”

“Yes, my lord. Shall I inform the Earl Robert of Fife?”

“No. He would not take that kindly, I think! I will do it. Off with you, now, Jamie.”

The Earl of Douglas rose again, and moved along to the Earl of Fife’s position, to stoop and say a word or two. That self-contained individual altered neither attitude nor expression, but he did incline his stiff head somewhat. Douglas moved further, to David, Earl of Strathearn, and again spoke quietly. That handsome but rather weak-featured prince looked a deal more interested and would have started up, but the other pressed down on his shoulder and indicated to wait for the elder brother, Fife, to make a move. He glanced at the sprawling Walter Stewart of Brechin, snoring drunk, and shrugging, went back to where the Lord of Dalkeith, second man of the Douglas clan, slept head on arms, and shook him into wakefulness.

“James — waken, man,” he urged. “Have you your wits? Aye, well — at last we can move. Not you, not you. The King sleeps on. You and my lord Bishop here, the Chancellor, to stay and see that all is in order here. If any could call this uproar order! The drinking and entertainment are to continue. See that we are not disturbed, in the chapel — that is important. If His Grace wakens, assure him that all is well and we will be back. Not to leave the hall. With wine he will fall asleep again — he always does. You have it?”

Yawning, his older kinsman managed both to nod and shake his head at the same time. “Aye — but I do not know that I like this, James,” he said. “It smells of deception, of trickery, bad faith towards His Grace. Our oaths as Privy Councillors . . .”

“Like it or no, it is the only way, man. You know that. God knows I would prefer to have it otherwise — but it is this, or nothing. And I have worked sufficiently hard to bring it thus far. Are we to be tied for ever by a degrading, weakly-signed truce and an old done man’s palsy? Ha — there Robert rises now. He has been hard enough to move, I tell you — no warrior that! I will after him. See you to matters here. We will be back anon. Where is Archie of Galloway? Ah, here he comes . . .”

In company with the tall stooping eagle of a man who was Sir Archibald Douglas, Lord of Galloway, third in the Douglas hierarchy, by-named The Grim, the Earl of Douglas slipped out of the hall by the dais entrance, in the wake of the Stewart princes.

 

In the Chapel-Royal of Stirling Castle, distinctly chilly in bare stone, the illustrious company gathered. Carefully selected, these were the most powerful nobles and most puissant and experienced warriors on the land — with two or three militant churchmen amongst them including the mitred Abbots of Melrose and Dryburgh. Jamie Douglas had found only two or three too far gone in drink to be able to attend, although some were scarcely at their brightest owing to the long wait. Significantly the French ambassador was present, the only non-Scot. The Earl Robert of Fife sat in the chapel’s throne, as of right, and looked down on them all coldly, with a sort of steely patience. He did not suffer fools gladly, however high-born.

“Your attention, my lords,” he said at length, the very slight impediment emphasising the clipped manner of speech rather than the reverse. “You have been brought here, I hope, to good purpose. A considerable endeavour is intended. On the realm’s business. As commander of His Grace’s forces, I am concerned. The Earl of Douglas will explain. Proceed, my lord.” The Earl Robert was no great talker.

The Douglas was not either, really — although he had his own forceful eloquence on occasion, and a sort of dogged sincerity which could be very effective. “My lords,” he said, “and Monsieur le Comte. As you well know, this realm is still smarting from the invasion of King Richard of England of three years back, when he burned much of our land, the abbeys of our good friends here, Melrose and Dryburgh, also the towns of Berwick, Cold-stream, Roxburgh, Haddington and part of Edinburgh. And my lord of Dunbar and March’s castles of Dunbar and Ercildoune — and attempted mine of Tantallon.” A brief hint of a smile flickered on his dark, strong features.

A rumble of agreement, almost a snarl, rose from the company.

“There are stirrings again, over the English March. It could be that Richard Plantagenet, to draw attention from his misrule, thinks to do what his thrice-damned forebear Edward sought to do, and could not — to make Scotland but an English province. The great Bruce and our forefathers stopped that. We may have a similar task. It may not be so, but it behoves us to recognise the danger.” He held up his hand. “Wait. We did not strike back at Richard three years ago, as we should have done, and as our French allies desired. For we were weak, lacked armies and armour. His Grace was occupied with other matters, and re-signed a truce, a truce the English had just broken . . .”

“His Grace was feart!” Archie the Grim barked, an outspoken man. “His Grace turns