©2004-08 -
N. Gemini Sasson/Gemini Sasson-Brickson
All Rights reserved. All photographs and narratives from this web site are
copyrighted and can only be reproduced with written permission from the author.
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The
ruins of Kildrummy Castle in Scotland. One of Robert the Bruce's
residences. After a siege by the English in 1306, his brother Nigel Bruce
was captured from here when the castle blacksmith set fire to the stores of
grain.
Following
is a preview
of The Crown in the Heather, the story of Robert the
Bruce's long and arduous struggle in 14th century Scotland to dislodge the English from his
country and secure freedom. The tale is told through the eyes of King
Robert himself, his chief commander Sir James Douglas and also the troubled
Edward, Prince of Wales, son of the infamous Longshanks (Edward I).
The Crown in the Heather
Prologue
Robert the Bruce – Atholl, 1306
Each night when I lay down, bathed in the rank sweat of a day’s pressed march, I am so weary that I neither stir nor dream in my sleep. For weeks, I have felt neither the cushion of a pillow beneath my cheek, nor the caress of a blanket upon my shoulders. Sometimes my bed is a pile of bracken. Sometimes a slab of stone. Come morning I am soaked with dew. I feel the barely warm light of the sun upon my soiled face. Hear the familiar murmurs of wretchedness. Smell the ungodly stench of bodies and I am awake.
Now five hundred, we live off the land, taking only what we need and no more. We stay far from the towns and main roads, keeping to the highland heather and dark forests. I have often looked upon the hungering poor as I passed through the cramped, stinking streets of London on my way to meetings of lords to argue over the details of treasury and taxes; but with nothing more than a fleeting twang of pity and a wave of disgust. Now, I think, I am living a worse life than they, for I envy of them whatever little they possess. A place to sleep. A roof to shed the rain. A stolen loaf of bread. Arrows and spears be damned, I would sell my armor for a stew of peas and carrots or a handful of radishes and some salt. What irony that in these months since I have been king not for a day have I lived like one. A crude living it is, especially when we have no plan or provisions to begin with. When we fled Methven, it was with nothing more than our skins and our weapons. The heather is a beautiful place, but when you are cold at night and hungry all day, beauty becomes nothing.
Our sick and wounded we are bringing with us. Although they slow us, to leave them behind is to offer them up as quarry. The days are long, the miles endless, our feet and backs weary and aching. It is the pinnacle of summer and hot as a blacksmith’s forge. The rain so usual of Scotland is not to be seen. Every night when we halt, the footsoldiers pull off their shoes and nurse their raw, oozing blisters with poultices made of moss and herbs boiled and mashed into a paste or ointments made from whatever animal fat they can scavenge.
This is the army of Scotland and I… am their king. Robert the Bruce, grandson of Robert the Competitor. Once, I was Longshanks’ sworn man. Now I am his mortal enemy. Beaten to the hills, hiding in the forests of Atholl, clinging to existence.