The Renegade(11)

That conversation, which had lasted throughout an entire afternoon, had resulted, as such talks with his uncle Nicol nearly always did, in a far broader understanding of things in the boy’s mind, prodding him to think about matters he had never considered before. The Romans in ancient times had built wide, straight roads throughout England, as they had throughout the entire world, for the sole purpose of moving their armies quickly and efficiently, and those roads had made it possible for men to build towns everywhere along their lengths. Scotland had few such roads, because the Romans had never made a determined attempt to conquer the remote and inhospitable territory they called Caledonia. As a result, Nicol had pointed out, Scotland had far fewer towns than England and only a few port cities. The revelation had fascinated the boy.

In and around the villages and hamlets of the Carrick region there were beaten paths, created by the coming and going of the local folk. But there were no large settlements worthy of being called towns in Carrick, other than, perhaps, Maybole, the administrative centre, and there were no roads. England lay mere miles to the south of where Rob and his uncle rode now, but on the entire western seaboard there was only one real route between the two countries, and that was little more than a winding track, unusable at the border crossing much of the time because it was under water. Travellers coming north from England did so along the single narrow road that ran north from Carlisle to the border, but then they had to wait for low tide before crossing the wide, sandy estuary of the Solway Firth that separated the two countries.

It was a tedious and inconvenient route for travelling merchants, but at least they could use it. Armies, on the other hand, could not, so the Solway crossing was never considered seriously as an invasion route. The firth was as safe as a wall in shutting out large armies, because the shifting tides and treacherous sands made crossings impossible for large numbers of soldiers and supplies, and the lie of the land on the north side of the firth made it possible for small numbers of defenders to destroy any advance guard that might have crossed from the south before the next low tide allowed the invaders to be reinforced. Rob knew that was true because his uncle Nicol had taken him all the way down there the day after their talk, and they had spent the night on a low hill overlooking the wide, wet sands of the firth so that Rob could see for himself how straitened and dangerous the crossing was, even at low tide. He had asked his uncle when an army had last tried to cross there from England.

“Eighty-five years, I’ve heard. That seems a long time even to me. But it’s not that long at all. There has been peace between Scotland and England for all that time, and life has been good in these parts. But in truth that could all change tomorrow, for any one of a hundred reasons. All it would take is for some idiot on either side—and not even a king, just some powerful baron or earl—to offend, or threaten, or cross some other fool on the opposite side, and we could have English armies trotting towards us across those sands within a month. So look well at what I’m showing you and remember it. This route will lead any enemy who crosses here directly into Carrick, into your lands and towards your folk. Take heed, then, and don’t ever lose sight of the dangers of having an open door at your back.”

Rob, for all his youth, felt certain he would never have to worry about such a thing.

Lost in his thoughts and the places they led him, the boy fell into a daydream, content to allow his horse to follow Nicol’s, his body adjusting mechanically to the lurching of the beast’s back as it picked its way across the tortuous landscape and began the long climb up the last sloping hillside between them and the sea. He came back to attention, though, as they crested the hilltop and he heard his uncle speak.

“They’re here already. But we haven’t kept them waiting.”

A hundred feet below them, on a shallow, sandy beach, a long, sleek, wide-bellied galley was drawn up onto the strand, its sail already furled and secured to the enormous spar that braced it, and a number of men were busy around it in the shallows, some of them up to their waist in water as they laboured at transferring horses from the vessel to the shore. Two beasts had already been unloaded and were being tended on the pebbled shore above the wrack by a boy whom Rob gauged to be about his own age. A third horse was about to be swung over as he looked, hoisted in a wide cloth cradle slung beneath its belly, and a fourth stamped nervously on the small cargo deck that seemed barely large enough to have held four animals. Nicol kicked his horse forward, leading the way down the grassy hillside as Rob shortened his reins and followed.