And then, Bannockburn. The memories spiraled. Each time, he had HAD to choose. And he chose the right and swore his fealty with blood. Lewes, Evesham, Towton, Barnet and Tewkesbury, even in those days rife with treason - even Bosworth. Then, much later, Marston Moor, Naseby, then Dunbar, Worcester. And finally, at Glenfinnan, and then to Culloden field. You always rally on the side of right.
A final battle, for the greatest king alone, remains.....and the warrior waits. For the final arbitration of good and evil. Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside........ avoiding the choice and rationalising is the smokescreen of doom for this age. Behind that veil lurks the end of the world, waiting to catch us in uncomfortable stealth and then to wreak annihilation. The warrior knows that all life's important choices are for good or evil; we choose one or the other even though we might not know it.
The warrior waits....he knows the King will come.
The warrior knew the ways of this land. It was not a land of mere actuality, but of surrealism and myst. The visage of today, the veil of tomorrow. No one place was like it had seemed yesterday; and yet the warrior knew it in all weathers - the colours, the aspects, the guises, the days of cunning sun, of chill rain and frosty snow.
Shipwrecks and splinter at Land's End. The devilry of Lydford Gorge. Sunshine through the Durdle Door and lazy, benign, sunny Lulworth Cove. The pure, serene, angelic Seven Sisters at Beachy Head. Obscure, dark granite crags at Roche. Chalk cliffs at Dover, white and clean. Unending flatness of the Fens at Lincolnshire.
The incredible beauty of the woods at the Forest of Dean. Sunshine over the Black Mountains. Over the Brecon Beacons, into the savagery of other-worldly Snowdonia. 'The veil of rain drawn straight across the face of Cader Idris.' The vastness and variety of the Pembrokeshire coast. Bala Lake. Mythic falls at Pistyll Rheadr and the rushing swirl at Devil's Bridge.
Across the sea, the wild beauty of Wicklow. Lunar rocks and the sinister chill at Dunloe Gap. Ancient, grey, frosted-out Connor Pass, heavenly Killarney. The poignant yet frightening black spires of the Skelligs, looking over to distant America. Moon-like landscape north of Spiddal. Neatly stacked horizontal shelves of cliff-rocks at Moher. Sun-gilded mountains at Connemara. Weird limestone ways over the Burren. The land of the stranger and the wanderer at Donegal. The scree-strewn perfection of Errigal. The 'chair of the giants' on the Antrim Coast.
Back on the mainland.....limestone artistry. A natural amphitheatre at Malham Cove and the horrible gash at Gordale. The pomp and circumstance of falling water at High Force. Green-and-white splendour at Winnats Pass. Smugglers at Flamborough Head. Timeless eternity at Lindisfarne. Taste of Scotland over Northumberland and the Cheviots. The limestone artistry in Yorkshire - Norber Moor and Pen-y-Ghent. Each erratic boulder set lovingly on its own socle. Savage beauty in the valley at Henhole, the inventive mischief of a brook tumbling over a frosted valley.
Over into the heaven-on-earth splendour of the jewel-lakes in Cumbria, nestling among savage, knife-edged mountain ridges, and the exquisite myst of Honister Pass. Helvellyn, Striding Edge. Scafell and Skiddaw. And in between, the jewels of Derwentwater and Buttermere. Daffodils on the shore of Ullswater. Green-and-gray chill mornings, through the trees at Raven Crag, over ribbon-like, silent, still Thirlmere. A storm at Bassenthwaite. Black clouds at hemmed-in Wastwater.
And then, the surreal wonders of Scotland. A land where you are never sure of today, where tomorrow is always new and yesterday....well, if you hadn't been there yesterday, you could only write about it.
The sinister, chilling bog at Rannoch Moor, hemmed in by brooding mountains. Savage, unmerciful but unbelievably beautiful Glencoe, where the snows have still not thawed the memory of 1692. The Great Shepherd of Etive, formidable, venerable, lighting your way north. Ben Nevis, inviting and friendly but treacherous in climb. The bewitching, enchanting, story-book splendour of the glens - Etive, Nevis, Lyon. The vast reservoirs of the Scottish lochs - each a world within a world, ancient, unchanging and eternal in their serenity - Katrine, Tay, Leven, Rannoch; and the gem among gems, "like a flash of images from another world", Loch Lomond, with brooding Ben Lomond and the azurest of azure waters. Loch Ness, always the home of twisting, ancient legend and lore.
The ancient snowfields at Cairn Gorm, remnants of the great Caledonian forest; the home of all those venerable munros. Over to the west, dramatic, emotion-wrought, patriotic Glenfinnan, where the Stuart fires have never been extinguished. Trackless Knoydart, where no man has ever been - the remote Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis. The graceful beauty of the Five Sisters, and the evening sun at Plockton and Kintail, the eternal, mist-laden heights at Glenshiel, never to be revealed.
Eilean Donan, distilling the very spirit of Scotland nobly at the head of the lochs. Over to Wester Ross, the untamed beauty of Loch Assynt. Legendary and mystical Torridon. The flatness of Caithness in such a land - looking over the dramatic, hermit-like stacks at Duncansby and Yesnaby Castle. The soft sculpted sandstone cliff structures at Arbroath. The fiddlehead at Dunnottar, where gold was housed that encircled the brows of Scottish Kings.
Then, to the islands - megalithic Hoy, with that raging, proud old reprobate, the Old Man. Sculpted, musical Staffa where 'nature scoffs at art'. The inhospitable, horrible crags of the Cuillins at Skye, contrasting with graceful, fine-boned Kilt Rock where the waterfall meets the sea. Cloud-blanketed, wet, seeping fog and rain at Mull; stupendous cliffs at Gribun and the mute stones at Fionnphort, overlooking the sea. Sunsets that were more real than an artist's finest dream. Noble Aran, looking over to the trackless wastes of Knoydart on the mainland.
Yes, the warrior knew this land in all weathers; his steed had ridden all over it, from noble battle to noble battle. He knew leaf and stream, mountain and fen, glen, loch and ben, fall and cliff. It was a land that might have been distilled out of a bit of heaven, not always real but provoking imaginings that were every bit as vivid as the land itself. It lodged itself inside you; yet, you could never prove it existed. The images were always more real and tangible than the land beneath your feet.
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