Kings Swift Rider

Author's note  It was the death of Scotland's king in 1292 that led to the events in this story. With civil war threatening between the main claimants to the throne, King Edward of England was called in to arbitrate between them.One of these, John Balliol, Lord of Galloway, was backed by the Earl of Buchan, head of the powerful Comyn family. The other was Robert Bruce, grandfather of the Bruce of this story. King Edward chose Balliol, a weak man through whom he meant to rule Scotland, and it was when Balliol at last rebelled against being treated as a mere puppet king that Edward seized the opportunity to do so.In a campaign of unparalleled ferocity he destroyed Balliol, garrisoned Scotland with his troops, and declared himself its king. But such was the brutality of his rule that it led eventually to a general uprising led by that legendary hero William Wallace; and among the nobility who rallied to him were Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick and also grandson of the Bruce who had opposed Balliol's claim to the throne, together with John "the Red," leader of the Comyn faction. Yet bravely as the rebels fought, Wallace was still eventually defeated, dragged to London, and executed.The only man who dared then to continue the struggle was the Bruce who had fought with Wallace and who, by then, had inherited his grandfather's claim to the throne. But to establish that claim, he had first to reach agreement with the Red Comyn. His attempt to do so ended in a quarrel that led to the Comyn's death--thereby putting Bruce at blood feud with the whole of that powerful family, and so also leaving him with but one option. He could leave Scotland to its fate, or else he could have himself crownedKing of Scots and fight on, as such, against the combined might of Edward and the house of Comyn.Bruce chose to fight, and his story from that point is told here as accurately as research will allow. But in oral tradition there is much also of his epic struggle to free Scotland, and it is from this source that the character of the king's swift rider has been evolved.  Chapter One"F"For hours, that day, I had watched the hunted man.I had a vantage point in this— the ridge of hill where I had got the two hares meant for my family's dinner. The clearness of the March air also allowed me to scan far and wide across the moor beneath, and when I first saw him, the man had been in the lead of around sixty others, all briskly marching. Then from somewhere in the distance behind his band had come the sound of hunting-horns.The man swung round to his followers with gestures that sent them scattering in all directions--his intention in this, I guessed, being to increase each one's chance of escape. The moor became dotted with running figures, vanishing sometimes into its broken landscape, suddenly reappearing to run again. The horn calls, meanwhile, were growing rapidly louder, with yelling voices now sounding through them.I brought my gaze back to the man who had led the fugitives. He was running in my direction, with only one other now alongside him. He halted--very suddenly. I looked to my left and saw what he had seen— five men running fast, but with swords drawn, and coming towards him at an angle that would intercept his path of flight.The man's sole companion had halted also at sight of the attackers, and would immediately have turned to run from them if the man himself hadnot checked him in this and then stood firm, his own sword unsheathed for action. Readily then, the other took example from him. The five came on, yelling menace, and closed in battle. Steel flashed in the spring sun, flashed and flashed again.I heard the repeated ring of blade striking blade, saw what seemed to my untrained eye to be no more than a meaningless movement of figures dodging, weaving, and staggering over the uneven ground of the moor. And then out of all this, my view became that of a veritable net of steel whirling around the man’ s head— because now he was fighting alone, his companion disarmed, sword arm drooping, the other arm clutched across his chest. But three of the five were also out of the fight by then, all of them lying prone on the heather of the moor. And it was this lone man who was pressing home the attack against the other two!I have since then seen much fighting, but never anything to outdo the controlled fury of that man's swordplay. One of his remaining antagonists went down. Faintly I heard the howl of fear the other gave as he realized he now stood alone against that terrible sword. And then, even as he fell before it, I saw distantly a wave of the pursuers, some afoot, some on horseback.The man ducked for cover behind one of the great rock masses that littered the moor, dragging his wounded companion with him. From there, he got them both as far as a clump of small birch trees, and from there again into the further concealment of a great stretch of prickly whin bushes. The pursuers, meanwhile--lacking the viewpoint that showed me how their quarry was using the broken terrain of the moor to such advantage--were searching it more or less atrandom. And only after my attention had been for a while diverted to them did I realize that their quarry had vanished from my sight also.For an hour and more, I watched their search fruitless one, since all they found were the bodies lying where the fight of two against five had taken place. They gathered in a group around these.