His uncle said nothing, and after a moment Rob added, “My father has always treated me with kindness and my grandfather never has, in the past. And yet since last night all of that has changed, for now I see that my father has never involved me in anything— nothing of importance anyway—seeing me, I suppose, as yet a child. Lord Robert, on the other hand, has brought me into his life after a lifetime of silence and taught me more than I have ever known of who I am and where I belong. And all within a single day.” He smiled, shaking his head again. “I find it hard now to believe I could ever have been afraid of him, Nicol, and I want to spend all my time with him from this point on. Impossible, I know, but that’s what is now in my mind and in my heart. But am I being disloyal to my father, or to you?”
“No, to both. But your life and the disposal of it is still your father’s to command, for years to come. And knowing how his life and his father’s seldom cross paths, I can see he might not wish to see you spend too much of your time with the sire he himself knows none too well. He might resent that, might simply be reluctant to see you enjoy a knowledge and a privilege that he himself was never asked to share.” Nicol shrugged. “I can’t say anything on that matter, for God alone knows how this will all work out. But I’m glad, none the less, to see you over your fear of the old man. Enjoy it while you can, and to the full.”
Rob grinned. “I intend to. Tomorrow will bring great adventures, I pray.”
“Don’t pray too hard, Nephew.” Nicol’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Adventures sometimes bring surprises, and too many of those can be of the unpleasant kind. I would suggest you remain content as you are, and simply accept what comes along. We’ll be marching north in force, sometimes through lands whose folk care nothing for Bruce interests. Did you have any indication that your grandfather foresees armed hostilities?”
“He hopes not, but he’s prepared to fight, if fight he must. It will depend, I suppose, on what he finds at Scone.”
“Aye, that’s what I’m afraid of.” Nicol looked around and was unsurprised to discover that they were almost alone, most of the others having gone inside, leaving the clearing up to the kitchen helpers. He cleared his throat and pushed away the wooden platter that held the scraps of his meal. “Come on, let’s leave these people to their work. It’s dark outside already and I’m cold. Bed beckons, lad, and the dawn will come too soon. We’ll need all the sleep we can get this night.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
A RIDE TO PERTH
No one paid Rob the slightest attention as he emerged from the kitchens in the pre-dawn gloom of the following morning, hitching his travelling pack up higher on his shoulder and reaching down to adjust the sole weapon he carried, a dagger sheathed at his waist. The Lochmaben men were assembled in the main yard outside the tower as planned, and the noise was deafening: the snorting and whinnying of horses; the stamping and clatter of shod hooves on stony ground; the creaking and clinking of saddlery and harness competing with the sounds of steel armour and rattling weaponry, all mixed with the clamour of voices as men shouted loudly, trying to make themselves heard above the cacophony. The entire walled gate yard was brightly lit by the flames leaping from two massive iron cressets that dominated the yard, each containing its own bonfire.
Ahead of him, beyond the fires, the horsemen, some fifty of them, were drawn up in two distinct groups, facing the outer gates, their shadows dancing wildly in the firelight. Beside them stood the foot soldiers, far more of them than Rob had expected. Given what his grandfather had told Earl Robert, he had anticipated that there would be perhaps fifty to three score of infantry, rounding out the hundred-strong force from the fortress itself, but at first glance he saw that this muster was far bigger. The men were ranged in separated groups of twenty or so. Rob’s first swift scan of them registered at least seven groups, amounting to no fewer than a hundred and fifty bodies, all of them heavily armed. And finally Rob saw his own small contingent of Turnberry retainers, with Nicol MacDuncan mounted at their head.
A gust of wind whirled over the walls, filling the yard with bluster and making the fires bellow even more loudly, and his eyes followed the explosions of sparks that flew upward against the grey, paling sky where the flush of the approaching day was a faint stain of pink on the horizon. And then the scene in front of him was transformed as every man there raised his arms and shouted in salute, calling the name of Bruce over and over.
Rob turned to look behind him, and his jaw dropped. The main doors of the tower had swung open at his back and two lines of identically uniformed guards were now marching shoulder to shoulder down the wide steps to the courtyard, carrying burning flambeaux mounted on long poles. The front pair stopped at the bottom step, and the entire column behind them split to line both sides of the steps, the swirling smoke from their torches creating the effect of a downward-sweeping ground fog. They were followed by two standard-bearers, each carrying a banner depicting the arms of the House of Bruce. The first, a blue lion rampant on a white field, was the ancient emblem of the Bruce family, brought north to Scotland a hundred years before in the service of David, Earl of Huntingdon, who became King David I. The other, magnificent in its richness, was the personal standard of Robert Bruce of Annandale: a blood-red saltire on a field of gold, with the blue Bruce lion embedded in the right corner of the red bar across the top. This pair stopped at the head of the stairs and then moved to each side, leaving sufficient space for the man at their back to pass between them and stand looking out over the cheering crowd that filled the great yard.