March 1180 AD
The rearguard rode through the stink of shit.
It was the Roosmen’s fault. Them and their truculent laird. All through winter the previous year, the Laird of Roos been making threatening noises. The men of Roos were unfairly taxed, he said. William Dunkeld was no proper King of Scots, he said.
William Dunkeld, first of his name, didn’t like threatening noises.
He liked them so little he’d taken a host into the eastern Downs and put two of the Roosmen’s villages to the torch. He’d also sieged the Laird of Roos’ castle, slaughtered the Laird of Roos’ cattle and sent the Laird of Roos’ peasants to the gallows. There was a reason men called him William ‘Rough-Hand’.
In return, the Laird of Roos had shat him out.
As the siege of the Laird’s castle commenced, a sickness took hold throughout King William’s ranks. Those afflicted were forever running off to one side of the road or another, voiding their bowels in a stream of blood-streaked brown or wallowing in their own fever for days and days. Some of the men said it was because the Laird of Roos had made a pact with the Devil. William Dunkeld didn’t know about that, but he’d had half a mind to storm Roos Castle and ask the laird himself. A shame then, that the man had had the ill grace to catch an arrow to the throat first. The dead, as the saying went, told no tales.
But then the English had come, and everything changed.
Now Roos Castle was a smoking ruin, its lands in the gutter, while the royal host marched back to Fife. Ahead of them, messengers spread King William’s word wide and far. He was gathering the royal levy now, and every loyal clan must answer, bring their pikes, saddle their horses and raise their banners. Men were still sick, voiding their bowels left and right, and William Rough-Hand dreamed bloody murder.
Because the English had come, and everything changed.
Lothian, Scotland
March 1180
Food was ever scarce in the lowlands.
A patchwork land of rolling hills and wet, sodden moors; the lands the English host graced on their way north were none the less some of the finest in Scotland. Borderers, lightly armed cavalrymen so notorious for raiding Northumbrian cattle, watched sullenly from the eastern hills. They were usually in small bands, perhaps six or seven men, and if a force of English knights rode towards them they would inevitably draw away. Other Scotsmen were busy ahead of the English host, taking away the harvest to leave nothing for the invaders. Once in a while, however, an enemy might raise his lance as a signal that he was offering single combat. Then, perhaps, an Englishman respond and the two men would gallop together in a clatter of of iron-shod lances on armour and one man would topple slowly from his horse.
Another life gone for poor, blood-soaked Scotland.
Dubh Linn, Ireland
March 1180
Axel of Bruges didn't look like a Scotsman. This was probably for the best. He was Flemish, and the cut of the fur-trimmed half-cloak draped across his shoulders was distinctly foreign. None the less, Axel had an easy smile and an easier laugh. It made him an ideal diplomat, which was why King William of Scotland had dispatched him here. To ireland.
King Ian of Ireland,
In this dangerous world in which we live, an honourable agreement can mean the difference between life and death. In order to propose a long lasting agreement between our kingdoms, I offer my daughter's hand in marriage as a gesture of goodwill.
I await your reply with trepidation,
King William I of Scotland
Norway,
April 1180
No smiling courtier then, was John Buchan. Broad and imposing, the Scotsman was a warrior through and through, from his bushy brown whiskers right down to his stoved cheekbone; mauled by an English mace. He was a messenger on par with the message he carried.
King Yarleck of Norway,
The English need killing. Now. Join your forces to mine in a formal alliance, and we shall make them fear us.
I await your reply with trepidation,
King William I of Scotland
