CHAPTER 5

      They had drawn up before the walls of Perth. The Earl of Pembroke had ridden hard into Scotland at the bidding of the English king, his army of six thousand men drawn from the northern counties of England and the lowlands of Scotland.

      Robert Bruce, knowing of Pembroke’s advance and his own dire circumstances and lack of men, had gathered forces for the country north of the Forth and Clyde. He had managed to raise an army of about four thousand, five hundred men. Having received word that Pembroke was at Perth, they had ridden there hard, ready to do battle. But he hadn’t the necessary siege engines to batter down walls or gates, nor could he afford the cost in human life it would take to send a relentless stream of men to scale the walls. Bruce and his advisers had argued their tactics, many doubtful of the honor of the Earl of Pembroke, yet many equally convinced that he was a man who would not give his word lightly. In the end, Robert Bruce insisted that he knew the Earl of Pembroke, and many silently agreed. He should know many of King Edward’s men, since there had been a time when he had given his allegiance to the English king.

      “I know Pembroke!” He stated firmly in the copse where they had come to talk. “And there is also the matter that we have little choice. I will challenge him, in the chivalric code, and hear what he has to say.”

      Old Angus spat into the grass. “It doesn’t matter what he says.”

      Eric shrugged when Robert Bruce stared his way. “It’s true, we haven’t the means to lay siege to the castle. That is the only real and substantial fact we have.”

      So Bruce himself rode to the gates, and issued his challenge. And he was so convinced that the Earl of Pembroke would honor his promise to bring his men forth and do battle in the morning, that no guards were officially ordered to watch the camp that night.

      And so, the English came in.

      Many of the men had been out, searching for supplies. Many had been sleeping.

      The English fell upon them in the summer dusk.

      Slaughter ensued.

      Eric was fighting near the king when he slew the horse of the Earl of Pembroke, the man who had broken his promise, but not even Bruce’s wrath allowed him to break the sudden crowd of men around the earl. Bruce’s horse was seized next, but Christopher Seton broke through, and sent Philip Mowbray, who had gotten hold of Bruce’s horse, reeling to the ground. Eric pushed through then, forming the guard around Robert Bruce that allowed them to escape the English troops and bring their king to safety.

      Robert Bruce survived but his army was shattered. Many of his finest followers were hunted down and later found at the castles where they had fled. They met King Edward’s fury, and paid with their lives.

      The handful of men who survived and still gave their loyalty to Robert Bruce knew, as he did that it wasn’t time to fight, but rather to retreat, to set out into the countryside, and over the Irish Sea, to gather more followers to form a new army.

      They had to build. The forces they gathered had to be passionate, about the cause of Scottish nationalism, and they had to create a body of men that was large and strong, if they were to come against the English again.

      Everyone knew that there were no rules of chivalry in this war.

      No mercy to be had.

      And so Eric had gone to the isles—stopping for his wife and child, for riders had warned him as he made his way cross country that the English had seized Bruce’s wife and women kin, after Bruce had been sure that they were safely in the care of his brother, Nigel.

      Nigel, having heard that the Earl of Pembroke had arrived at Aberdeen, sent the women ahead once they had reached Kildrummy Castle.

      The women, in the company of the Earl of Atholl, were captured at the sanctuary of St. Duthac at Tain.

      Sanctuary had availed them little.

      They had been seized and sent straight to King Edward, who had come to the monastery of Lanercost.

      Kildrummy Castle had not shielded Nigel.

      Nigel, a handsome young man, quick to laugh, as quick to find courage and fight, had paid the price for supporting his brother. A brutal price. And the women . . .

      So Eric had determined to keep his own wife and child and the kin of his men with him. They had set forth upon the sea to find men in the rugged north and among the western isles, among them their own kin, largely Norse, and the Irish, many with a hatred for Edward as deep as that which stirred in the heart of the most maligned and bitter Scotsman.

      For a moment, he felt the sea breeze, fresh and cool.

      And he heard her voice, ever gentle, ever compassionate.

      “It’s a man, we must stop. A man, a human being . . . he will drown . . .”

      “Aye, and maybe an agent of the English, better off dead!” Peter had warned.

      “And perhaps a loyal follower of King Robert Bruce, in such dire condition since he chose to serve his king,” Margot had said.

      And so they had taken in the man . . .

      And they had taken in death.

      And the English, coming upon them when they were weakened and desperate, had seized the women, and knowing he hadn’t the power to beat the forces bringing them to their imprisonment, he had allowed his own capture . . .

      Maneuvered his escape, and come back. Too late. He came back to sickness, to death.

      Faces seemed to whirl in a fog before him. Drawn, ashen, marred by plague,