by H A CULLEY
‘I take it that both of you have come through without a scratch?’ he grunted. ‘I have a small flesh wound you can tend to when we stop, whenever that might be.’
That wouldn’t be any time soon and he would just have to put up with the steady loss of blood seeping through the scrap of cloth he had bound round his right arm for now. He had a feeling that Douglas would like to close the gap with his quarry –Edward the Second of England - but the tired horses wouldn’t last very long if they pushed the pace too hard.
Edgar dropped back and fell in beside another squire. James Douglas, with ten knights, their squires and thirty serjeants, were in hot pursuit of King Edward and his escort as they fled after the debacle that had been the Battle of Bannockburn. James Douglas, the man whom the English called the Black Douglas, a nickname earned during his many raids into Northern England, pillaging, burning and demanding ransoms, had hated Edward’s father, Edward the First, nicknamed Longshanks because of his height. Longshanks had given away James’ ancestral lands in Douglasdale to an Englishman, Lord Clifford. Both Longshanks and Clifford were now dead but James had transferred his hatred to the former’s son.
‘Where do you think he’s making for?’ William Keith panted as he rode alongside James Douglas.
‘Well he’s headed for Edinburgh at the moment but the city and the castle, as well as the port of Leith, are in our hands, so my guess is that he’ll either carry on to Dunbar , which he captured on his way north, or go direct to Berwick. I imagine that Dunbar is the likeliest destination as its nearer and his horses must be even more exhausted than ours are. He can take ship from there back to England.’
As night fell the distance between the two groups had not changed much but Douglas decided to play his hunch and ride through the night, taking a few rest breaks, to Dunbar. At the first of these Edgar plucked the detritus out of William’s wound – shreds of cloth in the main but there were also some pieces of iron ring from his chain mail armour – before washing the cut with sour wine and sewing the gash up with catgut. The repairs to the chain mail hauberk would have to wait.
Douglas halted just outside the town of Dunbar to allow the stragglers to catch up and so that the squires could arm the knights ready for the coming fight. He took his helmet and a lance from his squire and pulled his shield round from his back, where it had rested during the chase, so that it protected his left side .
Although Dunbar Castle was easily defensible, sitting on its rock promontory at the entrance to the harbour, the Scottish constable had surrendered it without a struggle to King Edward as he made his way north from Berwick to Stirling a couple of weeks previously. However, the town was inhabited by Scots who, when they heard of King Robert’s stunning victory at Bannockburn, started to cheer. As Douglas rode through the town the citizens quickly armed themselves with a variety of weapons before following him and his men to the castle.
There was little they could do to capture it without having even the rope ladders that had served them so well in the past. If James Douglas’ guess was correct, the English king would arrive there shortly. So he decided to ignore the castle for now and posted scouts on the two possible approaches to the town. Then he waited.
A few hours later one of the scouts rode into the town with the news that Edward was approaching with about sixty knights. James drew up his men in the side streets leading off the road to the harbour and then blocked the way himself with the ten knights who had accompanied him. Edgar and the other squires were told to wait away from the action. The townsmen who had bows or slingshots were positioned on the roofs overlooking the approach to the harbour and the rest stood ready out to sight to close off the escape routes once King Edward and his escort were inside the ambush killing zone.
Edgar was determined to see what was happening and, with one other squire, he climbed up onto one of the rooftops where three archers sat. They didn’t have long to wait. King Edward led his knights towards the harbour at a canter but, when he saw the way was blocked, he reined in his horse. After a whispered discussion with Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, he retreated into the mass of his followers, then reappeared suddenly at the front of his men and led them in a charge at James and his knights.
That was the signal for the serjeants and townsmen to attack. Arrows and stones rained down on those towards the rear of Edward’s escort and the other mounted Scots charged into their flanks. De Valence led the charge alongside the English king, the latter resplendent in his red surcoat with the three lions passant. The English knights crashed into their Scots counterparts and three Scots and four English knights were thrown to the ground as their lances struck each other’s shields. One of these was King Edward. With a shout of triumph, James dismounted and knelt by the king’s side as he lay there injured. He slashed through the retaining strap and pulled off the king’s great helm before putting his dagger to his throat and demanding that he yield. It was only then that he realised that he had been tricked.
The man before him certainly wasn’t the handsome Edward of Caernarvon. The man had an unkempt red beard, a scarred face and broken teeth. He grinned in triumph as he agreed to yield. James realised immediately that, when Edward had withdrawn into the mass of his men, he had exchanged surcoats with one of his knights.
As the battle raged below him, Edgar had spotted three knights riding away down a narrow alley that ran directly alongside the roof where he was perched. They had fought their way through the Scots in their way with the help of several other knights and were obviously trying to escape by boat. Edgar thought them cowards and felt nothing but contempt for them. Suddenly he had an idea and, running along the ridge of the roof, he jumped down, landing on the rear of the horse at the back of the trio.
He threw his arms round the knight and rolled to his left. The man was taken by complete surprise and fell out of the saddle, landing with Edgar on top of him. Although Edgar was only fourteen and weighed half what the knight did, he winded him and he was unable to throw the boy off before Edgar had removed his helm and pushed the point of his dagger into the man’s neck, drawing a pinprick of blood.
‘Do you yield Sir Knight?’
‘Not to you, you puppy; you don’t have the guts to kill a man.’
‘Oh but he does,’ a voice said from above them. ‘But, if you won’t yield to my squire, perhaps you will yield to me to preserve your miserable cowardly life.’ William Keith sat on his horse, blood streaming from a wound to his right shoulder looking down at the two.
After the knight had given his parole to William, Edgar was told to take his armour, destrier and weapons.
‘They are yours, Edgar,’ William told him, ‘as is his ransom.’
‘But Sir William, he surrendered to you.’
‘Only because he was too proud to do so to a squire. It was your bravery that captured him. Now don’t argue with me.’
Meanwhile James Douglas was cursing with frustration. It seemed that the switching of surcoats had allowed King Edward to reach one of the English merchantmen in the harbour. Not only that, Aymer de Valence had fought his way clear and had also escaped. The remainder of the escort were either dead or captive. He watched impotently as the ship hoisted its sails and slowly made for the harbour entrance. As the harbour lay directly under the walls of the castle, and was therefore protected by it, there was nothing he could do.
~#~
Simon de Powburn rode behind King Robert in a sombre mood as he surveyed the site of the battle on the day following. The Carse was covered in dead bodies, many now stripped naked, and most of them English or Welsh. The Bannock Burn was still choked with the dead as well. Robert had been told that as many as seven or eight thousand had been killed or had drowned during the rout after King Edward’s army broke. Robert took no joy from his victory, too many had died to satisfy the vanity of the English king. At least the Scottish casualties had been no more than a few hundred.
He was also well aware that many of those who had managed to escap
e with their lives would fall prey to vengeful local inhabitants as they tried to reach the border some hundred miles to the south. If they bonded together they would be safe but most were fleeing in small groups, many having discarded armour and weapons to cross the Bannock Burn.
Simon idly wondered where his brother, Edgar, was now. When he had last seen the clouds of dust from the two mounted groups they were far away to the south east. If Jamie Douglas could take Edward prisoner it would complete the rout and probably bring the war to an end. Even if Douglas failed to catch him, it would take Edward a long time to recover from the humiliating defeat the Scots had inflicted on the much larger English army.
When Robert had seen enough, he turned towards Stirling and half an hour later Simon rode through the main gate of the castle behind him. Edward, Earl of Carrick, was waiting to greet his brother and he and Robert briefly embraced. Edward Bruce had been besieging Stirling since the previous summer and the English constable had agreed to surrender it if it wasn’t relieved by the end of June 1314. Edward of England had been confident of doing so but Bannockburn had dashed that hope; now the constable had no honourable option but to surrender the castle and he had handed it over to Edward Bruce that morning.
The prisoners taken the previous day started arriving under guard to be incarcerated in the dungeons until they could be processed and they had given their parole. Then they would be moved to more comfortable quarters until they could be ransomed. There were so many knights and lords that the dungeons were soon overflowing.
‘I assume that you’ve heard that John Comyn was amongst the dead?’ Edward asked his brother as soon as they were seated in the great hall. Simon handed each man a goblet of wine and then retreated to a discreet distance but stayed within earshot.
‘No, I hadn’t. You mean the Red Comyn’s son?’
‘Yes, the last pretender to your throne. Thank goodness there’s no threat from that quarter any more.’
‘There’s still Edward Balliol.’ Robert reminded him.
‘He seems to have remained in France with his father; certainly there have been no reports of him being present at the battle.’ Edward Bruce was referring to the son of John Balliol, the man who had been installed as King of Scots by Edward Longshanks, King Edward’s father, and then deposed by him in 1296. John Balliol was living quietly in exile at the Château de Hélicourt in France and was reportedly now frail and likely to die soon. ‘So I think we can discount him.’ He paused. ‘What happens now?’
‘Well, my priority is to obtain the release of my wife, sister and daughter. If Edward escapes, I propose to open negotiations with him for their release in exchange for some of those we have captured. I hear that the prisoners include the Earl of Hereford, Robert d’Umfraville, who still calls himself Earl of Angus and his kinsman, Ingram d’Umfraville.’
Edward nodded. ‘As well as numerous barons and knights. What will you do with the d’Umfravilles?’
‘Well Robert has always regarded himself as more English than Scots so he can go onto the list of those to be ransomed; after all, although I have confiscated his Scottish lands, he still has wealthy estates in Northumberland and elsewhere in England. Ingram is a different case. He has been a Guardian of Scotland and was loyal to me for a time until he turned his coat. He’s a traitor and can rot in a dungeon for a few years to teach him a lesson.’
Robert sat, lost in thought for a few minutes. Then he added ‘We will also need to negotiate the release of the Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow.’
‘What about the Countess of Buchan?’ Edward asked.
The Earls of Fife had the hereditary duty to crown a new monarch but the present earl had been a boy in captivity in England at the time, so his sister, Isabella McDuff, Countess of Buchan, had crowned Robert as king in 1306 as proxy for her brother. This was in spite of the fact that she was married to a leading Comyn supporter. In a fit of anger, Edward Longshanks had her imprisoned in a cage suspended from the walls of Berwick Castle for four years, then she had been transferred to the Carmelite convent in Berwick.
Robert sighed. ‘Unfortunately she died last year. I expect that exposure in all weathers in that wretched cage destroyed her health.’
He thought of all those who had perished to make him secure on his throne, including three of his own brothers and, just for a moment, he wondered whether it had all been worth it. Then he shook himself out of his maudlin mood and returned to the matters at hand.
~#~
When Edgar returned to Stirling a week after the battle there was little to be seen of the detritus of war that had lain scattered around the Carse. The dead had all been buried in pits and anything worth having had been looted. The hundreds of dead horses had also been thrown into pits and covered in lime before earth was shovelled in on top of them. Even the broken weapons and smashed in helmets had been taken to the armourers for melting down and re-use.
As he passed the Blackfriars Friary the stench of blood, putrefaction and faeces assaulted his nose and nearly made him retch. All towns stank but Blackfriars was where the wounded had been taken for treatment by the Dominican Friars. Of course, they had been overwhelmed by numbers and most of those who were seriously wounded would die. Those with minor wounds might survive if they didn’t catch an infection and succumb to septicaemia. The treatment was elementary: cleaning out and washing the wound with vinegar, stitching it with catgut and praying that it healed cleanly. Edgar held his nose until they were upwind and William Keith laughed at him, albeit good naturedly.
The Keith brothers had been billeted in a merchant’s house so Edgar didn’t see his brother for a while as Simon was with the king in Stirling Castle. He was bursting to boast to him that he had taken an English knight captive and was due to receive his ransom, so he would be relatively wealthy. However, someone drove all other thoughts out of his mind as soon as he saw her. Roger and William Keith and their households shared the house with the Scottish merchant and his family. That family included two children, an eleven year old boy called Callum and a thirteen year old girl called Elspeth.
Of those billeted there, Edgar was the squire who was nearest in age to Callum and the boy latched onto him like a leach. As soon as Callum heard that Edgar had captured a knight he began to suffer from a severe case of adulation. This didn’t suit Edgar at all as all he wanted was to be alone with Elspeth, not that this was likely to happen very easily as her mother kept a strict eye on her with all the men in the house.
However, Edgar was a good looking lad and he had caught Elspeth’s eye too. She had recently been betrothed to the son of a fellow member of the merchant’s guild, a youth of twenty. She could have done a lot worse but the young man was insufferably fond of himself and bored her to tears. In contrast, Edgar was something of a hero, almost the same age and there was an aura of adventure and excitement about him. His good looks and long fair hair didn’t hurt either.
She was determined to evade her mother’s protection and sneak a kiss of two from Edgar, so she got one of the servants to slip him a note asking him to meet her in the stables at midnight. Edgar was in two minds. He desperately wanted to try his luck with Elspeth but his place at night was to guard his master’s door; he could be dismissed if William woke to find him missing.
His solution was to bribe one of the other squires, whose knight had found a mistress in the town and who would therefore not need his door guarding, to stand in for Edgar for a couple of hours. He crept down the creaking stairs from his room on the third floor and cautiously made his way to the stables. To his disappointment Elspeth wasn’t there and he had almost given up hope of seeing her when she stole into the stables in her nightgown.
Edgar wasn’t at all experienced but he had heard the serjeants and the older squires boast about their conquests often enough, so he knew the theory at least. She bent her head upwards towards his and he hugged her to him before lightly kissing her lips. She moaned with pleasure so he pushed her lips apart with his tongue and
pushed it inside her mouth. At first she resisted but then opened her lips and moved her tongue to play with his. He felt her relax against him, so he lowered her onto the straw and straddled her, one knee either side of her body. As he continued to kiss her, she moaned more and more. It wasn’t long before he plucked up the courage to unlace her bodice and then he started to fondle her small breasts.
Both of them were in a little world of their own and Elspeth was as eager as Edgar. She unlaced his hose with trembling fingers and reached inside, pushing his braies out of the way so that she could feel his manhood. This drove Edgar wild with lust and, casting caution to the wind, it wasn’t long before they had lost their virginity.
It was Edgar’s good fortune that the king had moved on to Edinburgh well before the swelling in Elspeth’s belly started to show. Luckily the marriage to the boring, self-opinionated, Merchant’s son had taken place a month before the bulge was noticeable but he was less than pleased when his new wife produced a son five months after their wedding. In public he accepted the jibes of his fellows that he was a dog who couldn’t wait until they were married before bedding Elspeth but he knew differently. He only refrained from throwing his wife out to save face but he never again slept with her and made her life, and that of her son, a misery.
Edgar was, of course, totally unaware of the little tragedy he had been responsible for and the only outcome, as far as he was concerned, was that he now had a bolder eye for the girls he came into contact with and the confidence to try his luck with them.
He had, of course, told Simon of his conquest, and of subsequent ones. His older brother became envious, not only of his brother’s success in love making – at sixteen Simon was still a virgin – but of the ransom he had received when the knight he had captured had been released. The two brothers slowly drifted apart. Neither was particularly aware of this but they served different masters and didn’t come into contact much, unless one deliberately sought out the other.