The Renegade(220)

“Aye.”

“Good. The English force is of a size with my own, two hundred and fifty in all, but of those only a hundred are a fighting force, the mounted men-at-arms. The others are sappers, tasked with manning and handling the siege catapults. My Carrick force is infantry, a hundred and a half of those, backed up by a hundred bowmen. How many bowmen could you bring with you?”

“Another hunnert, I jalouse, mayhap half as many again gin I had time to raise them.”

“How much time?”

“A day or so. They’re a’ close by. I just need to send for them.”

“Good. Send for them at once, then. I’ll be gone from here by dawn tomorrow, to meet with my Carrick folk and the English force half a mile from Douglas Castle. We’ll meet in council tomorrow and make arrangements for the following day. Can you have your men in place by tomorrow night?”

“Aye, easy.”

“Right, then so be it. If all goes well, you’ll have a night in the open and no harm done, and then you can return to Annandale. But if I need you, I’ll need you at the English rear. With my hundred bowmen in front and your hundred and fifty behind, we’ll outnumber them by more than two to one and disarm them, then send them home. Guiscard won’t fight once he sees the number of bowmen against his riders. He’s a steady man and a good soldier, not at all hotheaded. He’ll withdraw and report back to Berwick for further orders.” Jardine nodded. “Aye. An’ what will you do then? It’ll look like rebellion against Edward’s wishes. Your favourite priest there will see you suffer for that.”

“Let him. All I’m doing here is trying to foresee all possibilities and have reserves in place against the worst of them, and that sanctimonious whoreson is my sole reason for being suspicious. I’ll put him in his place tomorrow and that should be an end of it. Thereafter I’ll expect no trouble.”

Jardine shrugged and rose to his feet. “Fine, then. I’ll thank ye for the toddy and be on my way. And I’ll send men out wi’ the word for the bowmen right away. Five an’ seventy bowmen each frae Jardine and Dinwiddie and as many others as might want to come wi’ us. Three or four hours’ travel should see us at the big ash tree by mid-afternoon tomorrow.”

Bruce was up and away more than an hour before dawn the next day and made excellent time, despite his early fears for the weather. The sky remained overcast the entire time, but the clouds were high and the threatened rain never fell, so that he found his Carrick men, under Nicol MacDuncan and Thomas Beg, waiting for him when he arrived at the meeting spot, close by but out of sight of Douglas Castle. Everything was ready, and Nicol reported that they had met or seen no one on their way south from Carrick, and so they set out immediately to where the English force had gathered less than half a mile away.

The officer in charge of troop dispositions had already set out the lines of a camp for the Scots contingent some two hundred yards beyond the horse lines on the far side of the main English encampment, and as soon as he had dismissed his men to set up camp, Bruce made his way towards the large pavilion that was Sir Christopher Guiscard’s command post. The first thing he noticed on his arrival, much to his surprise and delight, was that the English cleric Benstead was nowhere to be seen. All the English knights were already there, though, and so as soon as he had greeted Guiscard and his officers he called them to order and launched directly into their reasons for being there.

There were sixteen knights in attendance, with a scattering of senior sergeants from the siege-engine division, and they listened attentively to Bruce’s plan to surprise the Douglas household the next morning. As soon as it was light enough for movement, the Carrick contingent would surround the castle, throwing a ring of bowmen into place where they could scour the battlements with arrows should the need arise. The mounted English men-at-arms would be held in reserve but assembled in plain sight before the gates, their threatening siege engines in readiness, their implicit double menace a highly visible deterrent against resistance. Then, with the risks of resistance clearly demonstrated, Bruce himself would ride out to parley with the castle’s castellan and make his best efforts to persuade her to surrender. If she refused, then they would attack the castle, which could not hold out for long against the English catapults, and the surrounding Carrick men, backed by the mounted English, were a guarantee that no one inside could escape.

There was no argument of any kind; everyone knew why they were there and understood the situation, and Bruce, watching closely, could see no sign of disgruntlement among the English knights. Only when everything had been agreed upon did he ask about Benstead’s whereabouts, and Guiscard told him that the cleric and his assistant, Father Robert Burlington, had been unexpectedly summoned early that morning to attend upon the prior of the nearby Monastery of St. Gildas. No reason for the summons had been given, and Guiscard, apparently happy to be rid of the odious priest, had asked no questions.