So there was still a little room to manipulate fate.
By now, both places would be tightly invested by the shipmen. But by the time his force joined with Cormac’s, they would have a good band of horsemen between them. Say the Cumbrian army from Dunkeld was still several miles off, marching south. Say, for the sake of argument, that they brought their prisoners with them—well guarded, of course.
Even a thousand marching men, if laden with booty, if full of food and good plundered wine, would stagger under the impact of four hundred horse. And the shipmen, abandoning Scone and hurrying, as they would, to the rescue, might well arrive far too late, if at all. And might leave the way free for the skilful, in their turn, to race back and into Scone with their prisoners.
It was a good plan, and it might work if the Dunkeld army were only far enough off. Up to now, there had been an answer, a possible response to every disaster. He would find one for this.
The answer he found was not that one.
Because both forts were under siege, it was hard to get over the Tay. He found the horsemen on this side were leaderless, since Ferteth was dead. Then Cormac, over the river, created a diversion, and they crossed to the Scone side and streamed into cover, to Cormac’s incoherent welcome.
It was taken for granted that the King came in the van of an army, and he had to collect them and break the news quickly. But first he told Cormac, who had reared Maelmuire, and whose wife was at Dunkeld with Ferteth’s wife, and with Groa.
He waited until the anger came, and then outlined his plan. Then, on the barest heels of their scouts, they mounted and streamed north at once, on both sides of the river, spreading out as they went through the smoke and the trees, counting every furlong a gain before they should find themselves at grips with the Cumbrian army.
It struck Thorfinn to wonder whether Thor his third cousin or Malcolm his nephew would be with the Ruthven banners or whether they might meet him face to face here. He did not share, now, Cormac’s tempestuous fury with the men he thought of as traitors. Affairs changed, and policies had to adapt to them: his as well as other men’s.
Nothing yet.
The horse-ford lay ahead, through the trees, by which they would cross back over the Tay to take the Dunkeld road that was shortest and firmest. He could see, flashing bright through the leaves on the other side of the water, those of his men who had been at Perth with Ferteth riding parallel with them.
Shallow-draught boats used the river, so he kept it scoured, as Crinan had in his day, and men on foot used boat-bridges or ferries or walked down the right bank to Perth, where there were crossings all the time.
Because of the woods on either side, and the booths at the crossing, there was not a long view. There were always sheds of a sort by fords like this one. When the river was high, travellers sometimes preferred to sit and wait, rather than cast about for a crossing. And then the man with fat ducks to sell, or some ironmongery, or a piece of cloth or a basket of berries, would find a customer, or the husband of one.
The Cumbrian army might come down either bank, but it was likelier, now, to be the one they were joining. If he was wrong, the scouts would warn them, and on horses they could always get back.
Today, of course, the booths were empty, as were all the farms they had passed. He watched the scouts make sure, however, and then wade over and search on the other side before he gave the sign to start the crossing. He led it himself, and had just thrust his horse down and into the water when he caught sight of the new stake driven into the banking, and the rope round its neck that ran sagging under the water.
Thorfinn flung up a hand in warning, and halted.
On either side, too late to stop, horses slid and splashed into the water, and others, pressing behind, pushed lop-haunched into the turmoil. The water, thickened with mud, slapped and surged, and a pair of wood-pigeons exploded, gay as pudding-time bladders, from the forest ahead. One of the Strathearn men over the river gave a short cry.
Every head turned. The river chattered over its selvedges. Their feet soft in the mud, the horses nipped one another. On the other side, a man fell slowly down the flank of his garron until the haft of the spear in his throat met the ground.
Thorfinn roared, ‘Back!’
And then, deep in the woods on both sides of the river, the trees stretched, and walked.
A memory plucked at the warp of his stomach. ‘Lulach?’ said the King; and Tuathal looked at him.
Then anyone could see that the razored leaf-blades and whorled metal boles were no more than human: a party sent to secure a crossing for wains and horses and perhaps even some of the army. And sent, for better concealment, with twigs of oak and birch and hazel thrust in their harness. From what forest, it could not matter.
They had been unwise to make themselves known, for Thorfinn’s band greatly outnumbered them. As the first throwing-spear whipped past him and the first arrow made its hit, he shouted the dismounting order and flung himself with the others out of the saddle. Across the river, his men collected themselves and surged into the light, open woodland, steel flashing. On Thorfinn’s side, his main party behind in the trees were already engaged on either flank, sword against sword, with the Cumbrians who had already crossed.
He joined them, catching Tuathal’s eye again as he lifted his sword. Their scouts had been deceived, and it might have been a disaster. Instead, a unit of the Cumbrian army had been delivered into their hands.
He met a fist with steel in it and swerved, slashing. The feel of the hand-grip, filling his palm, reminded his muscles of the fighting already behind him, as did the jarring on shoulder and wrist through the blows on his shield. The noise-curtain of shouting and battering steel was deafening. Green and red, sheared flesh and sliced boughs tumbled together, and lobes of honeysuckle stuck to the mesh of his mail, along with faggots of truncated hair.
The smell of blood; the smell of sweat; the smell of ordure; the smell of bruised green things. The smell of battle on land.
Battle on land, where land hid your enemy. Behind this advance guard was Allerdale’s army. How far behind? Their scouts ought to warn them. But scouts made mistakes. And got killed.
No screamed warning came from the riverbank. From the glimpses he contrived, the fighting on the further side, as on this, appeared to be going his way. It began to seem as if most of the Cumbrian party had already crossed to this, the Scone bank, before his band arrived. Then, hearing him come, had hidden and let them through.
In which case, why give themselves away as they had done? And why, outnumbered as they were, make a stand as stubborn as any the shipmen had countered with?
An axe bit into his shield between the studs, but he was backing already. He wrenched his sword out from flesh and leather and turned on the axeman. In the distance, above all the noise, a trumpet blew with his own warning-call.
It was what he had been waiting for. Except that the alarm came from his own side of the river, behind him.
The Allerdale army, then, was approaching. It had crossed the Tay already, upriver. Trap or accident, this crossing was secondary. And its leader, whom he had been fighting towards, had engaged and held them, knowing that the main army would arrive at their backs.
The men over the river were safe. There was no time for his small army to cross now. ‘My lord?’ said his trumpeter at his side.
‘Mount and retreat,’ said Thorfinn. Tossing their heads, the horses would be waiting under the trees, nervous camp-followers, distant spectators of every battle. There were few enough men left to oppose him. He saw the leader’s mouth open, under the nose-piece of his helmet, and guessed he, too, was ordering some sort of deployment, but could not hear what he was shouting. A moment later, a sudden concerted movement told him. The remaining Cumbrians were dashing to cut them off from their horses.
Whoever he was, their leader was good. But Thorfinn’s men, too, were well practised, and there were more of them. He saw Cormac already in front of them, a line of
men waiting; and, calling to those nearest, Thorfinn, too, forced his way through the lumber of battle to attack the little band on the flank.
Between Cormac’s men and his own, the Cumbrians had no hope of escape and fought as men fight who have nothing to lose. The group round the leader were the last to die, and there was room in Thorfinn, as the leader turned, for regret that it was no normal campaign in which he might give quarter or take prisoners. Then he saw the bright-stubbled jaw under the helmet, and the determination in the bright eyes, and the uplifted arm with an axe in it, and realised that Thor of Allerdale had sent his son Dolphin to lead the van of his army.
The axe came down, clipping the mesh of the King’s shoulder and hacking leather and flesh as Thorfinn flung himself sideways. His own sword was already descending through the flank of the other man’s face and into his neck and chest, clean as slicing a steak from a mackerel.
It was a death-blow: so quick that as the boy fell they saw him stamped in the meat of his cheek by the volleyed rings from Thorfinn’s splintered tunic. Then Cormac said, ‘My lord!’ and, through the trees, the King saw the first lines of the main Cumbrian army running towards them.
A horse appeared, pulled by Tuathal, already mounted, and Thorfinn vaulted wrong-sided into the saddle, letting his shield drop. Then, streaming through the trees between the whistling barbs, the Alban horsemen began to force their way back from the river, round the nose of the Cumbrian army, and, using what cover they could, into the hilly country behind, out of reach of footsoldiers from either Scone or this oncoming army. Out of reach only for the moment, and within range of anyone else’s mounted scouts.
As soon as he could find a fit man, Thorfinn sent off a scout of his own to report the size of the new army, and whether the women from Dunkeld were with it. By that time, he knew that the wound in his shoulder was a bad one, and that he had taken others, worse than the cuts and bruises and gashes they had all borne from early morning.
It was true, he saw, of everyone. By now, none was as quick as he should be, and their numbers were a good deal depleted. He had left wounded in the wood, as well as dead, and men who could not find horses in time, although some of these would hide and escape. On the other side of the river, the survivors, too, ought to save themselves with any luck.
What he had to decide now was whether he had enough fit men to launch the flank attacks he had planned to weaken the advancing Cumbrians still further, or whether he should send all he had back to Scone to arrange some sort of diversion and try to get most of the party inside.
Scone, the heart of the kingdom, and fortified as well as they knew how. But, of its nature, not as amenable to the work of Bishop Hrolf or the Normans as would be a rock-citadel or a simple fortress of mound and bailey and ditch. And even of these, Osbern of Eu had made no promises. They can pin down a countryside, he had said. But they won’t stand against an army mustered for war.
They would see about that, when they got inside. Meanwhile, they drew breath, counting, assessing, while the wounded were attended to in a heathery hollow, and those who had ale-flasks shared quickly what they had.
He spoke to them briefly, commending the fight, warning them that the respite would be of the briefest. Then he dismounted, rather abruptly, on the side furthest away from the company and found Tuathal arriving already with his knife and a helmet of water and a lad carrying an armful of torn cloth and moss.
He sat, his right arm looped through the reins, while Tuathal hacked away broken mail and got a dressing in and began to bind it tightly enough to stop the bleeding. The sun shone full on Thorfinn’s face, but coldness visited him with occasional fingers. Old and familiar warnings. Loss of blood was a serious enemy. You never ignored it. He said, ‘How long till sunset? Three hours, perhaps less? Siward and Allerdale and Malcolm with the Normans’ horses could be at Scone by now.’
‘I sent a scout that way as well,’ Tuathal said. His neck was scarred and his hand bleeding, but his colour was still high. He said, ‘The Lady won’t come to harm.’
In action, you felt almost no pain at all. Out of action, you did. Thorfinn said, ‘What does that mean?’
Tuathal’s hands did not pause. He said, ‘That you can probably either retire to Scone or escape up Strathmore without affecting that issue.’
‘Or, being disabled, I can safely surrender?’ said Thorfinn.
Tuathal finished his work and looked up. ‘You’re not crippled,’ he said. ‘But a lot of your men are, and Cormac has a leg-wound. Most could ride well enough to escape to the north. This fight held us up just a little too long. You may get inside Scone. But getting inside Scone may not save it.’
Thorfinn said, ‘It is the centre of Alba.’ He rose to his feet and looked down on Tuathal, his arm on the saddle.
Tuathal said, ‘I understand all it implies, But would it not be a gesture as great to take the remains of Scone’s people north with you to fight in consort with northmen to take back the kingdom? Instead of losing everything, you might find in disaster the unity you’ve been striving for.’
‘And Eochaid?’ Thorfinn said; and saw Tuathal’s colour become higher.
Tuathal said, ‘With you, that is not a consideration. And against me, a dishonest weapon.’
True. Thorfinn said, ‘Do my promises have any value?’
‘No doubt,’ said Tuathal, ‘you will make up your own mind. You said you would never leave Scone. You didn’t say you would kill everybody trying to get into it.’
Thorfinn said, ‘If you listen, you will hear me say in a moment that anyone wishing to escape to Strathmore has my full leave to do so.… Here!’
It was the first of the scouts, looking for them. The fellow dropped, gasping, from his horse, and all round the hollow, men stood up. ‘Eight hundred men, my lord King. Marching for Scone in close formation, shields outermost.’
Cormac, mounted, was at his side. He said, ‘We expected a thousand or more.’
Thorfinn said carefully, ‘We killed a hundred or more at the crossing.’ And next: ‘Could you see any women?’
‘My lord, I could see,’ said the man. ‘There are no women.’
His body had dissolved, leaving a wintry filigree of half-empty veins.
The man said, ‘My lord, there’s more. I saw a man ride up shouting. He said Earl Siward and a hundred horse were at Scone.’
‘A trick?’ said Thorfinn.
The scout shook his head. Had he been less tired, it would have been vehement. ‘They didn’t see me. I’m sure of it. And anyway—Look! He’ll tell you!’
The scout from Scone, who did not dismount at all, began shouting as soon as they saw him. The message was the same. The shipmen were tight around Scone and Perth, and now a hundred horse had joined them, under Earl Siward and my lord Malcolm and my lord Thor of Allerdale. Most of the horses he recognised as belonging to the Normans. The rest must have been Siward’s own.
Tuathal said, ‘My lord King, you cannot get into Scone.’
Cormac said nothing. His wife, too, had been at Dunkeld. Thorfinn said to him, ‘How bad is your leg?’
‘Well enough to ride to Dunkeld,’ Cormac said. The sun sheened the sweat on his face. He said to the scout, ‘Was my lord Maelmuire with the Cumbrians from Dunkeld?’
‘There were no colours of his,’ said the man. ‘My lord, I thought Dunkeld was levelled.’
Tuathal said, ‘In less than two hours, Allerdale’s foot-army will be at Scone also. My lord, whatever harm we do now to this Cumbrian army, we cannot save Scone, neither can we get into it. Nevertheless, it is for you to say. This is your kingdom and we here are your people. What do you want us to do?’
The resolution, as with most problems, was clear enough. He worked through to it in the time it took him to leave his horse and stride to the highest part of the knoll. He looked down at them all, standing, faces upturned, under his shadow.
‘No band of men I have ever known could have fought better. We set out to fight one army and
found ourselves invaded by three. We tried to save Scone. Now Scone must fall. It is the heart of the kingdom, but it is not the whole kingdom. So I repeat what I said on the Earn. Angus may still be ours. Moray is certainly ours. Save yourselves, therefore. Take the valley to the north-east and the coast. Get to Lulach my stepson. Whatever the Earl Siward may take, he will not be allowed to hold it for long. God be with you.’
‘And you, my lord? My lord King, where do you go?’
The shout came from the thick of the crowd, loud against the looser cross-talk of the others.
Thorfinn said, ‘Somewhere between here and Dunkeld there must be a party with the Lady of Alba, and my lady of Atholl with her. Perhaps Dunkeld is not burned and they are still there. Before I leave for the north, I mean to search for them. I need no company.’
‘You have it, however,’ said Tuathal. ‘Do you imagine Cormac or I will leave you with that task?’
It was odd. It was Earnside over again, with every man who could ride fighting for his attention. To ride, searching. To stay with him, for whatever purpose.
He must have worn an unaccustomed expression, for Tuathal suddenly smiled and said, ‘You see. You see how greatly your lady is loved.’
He did not want to speak again, and it was Tuathal who discarded the wounded and chose escorts for them and mustered the fit men, mounted and ready to leave. Cormac said, ‘My lord King,’ and stopped. Cormac’s face was grey, and the brown wash over his horse’s flank was overlaid with fresh red.
He said nothing when they eased him from his horse and laid him down. Thorfinn said, ‘Rest. The others will help you to move when you can. We shall find them and bring them back safely.’
Cormac said, ‘Maelmuire.’
‘What could he do?’ Thorfinn said. ‘It was his family. I shan’t harm Maelmuire.’
He saw the relief, and left quickly, for there was nothing more he could say. He had two hundred men, and Tuathal and the Brecbennoch; and somewhere out there, within half an hour’s ride under the evening sun, was what was left of Dunkeld and a party of valuable women, strongly escorted, making—one would expect?—a leisurely journey to Scone in order to arrive there when all the fighting was over and the citadel had surrendered and the flag of Malcolm or Siward would greet Groa, entering, and not that of her husband.
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