The Wayward Alliance

by J. R. Tomlin

  The Wayward Alliance

  A Historical Mystery

  J R Tomlin

  Albannach Publishing

  Contents

  Map of Perth, Scotland

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Historical Notes

  Glossary

  Map of Perth, Scotland

  Chapter 1

  Year of Our Lord 1424, Near Stirling, Scotland

  It had been years since Sir Law Kintour had made the ride from Glasgow to Stirling. The road was well made and busy with merchants who kept their distance from two armed riders, traveling in a cloud of late summer’s dust. With Duncan beside him, they trotted their horses through villages, ignoring barking dogs and weans who scattered out of the way as they passed. Kilslyth bustled with a fair day crowd, so they had to wend their way past stalls piled with kale and leeks, a pen filled with shaggy cattle, and a towering cartload of firewood. Past the town, Law kicked his horse to a canter, gritting his teeth against a knife’s edge of pain that stabbed into his left thigh.

  Law was damned if he would give Duncan, five years his senior and his belly big under his leather jerkin, the satisfaction of calling for a rest, so they rode on toward Stirling where he was sure he would find a place in the new earl’s service. As they passed fields ripe with barley, a few men and women in rough hodden-grey stopped swinging their sickles through golden barley plants to watch the two pass. Scotland was not so long at peace that people were not wary of armed men after the chaos of the late king’s reign and the interminable fighting while King James was imprisoned by the English. By the time they rode through the Stirling town gates, Law’s doublet was sopping with sweat, and he felt gray from pain. The two clattered up the High Street, snaking their way through the traffic. His horse snorted and tossed its head at rowdy cries from peddlers and shouted bargaining of servants and wives buying food for their dinner.

  “Will your cousin be here, so we can reach the earl, do you think?” Duncan asked as he nudged his horse to skirt past a pudgy woman clutching a basket of dark green kale to her ample breast.

  “He’d be no help, but I’ll find someone I kent when I was in the Duke’s service. I’m sure of it.” His cousin, the oldest son of his father’s elder brother, had been in the following of the old Duke of Albany, who’d been no friend to King James at the very least. Law doubted his cousin would be in favor at the court of the newly returned king. But Law had been in the following of the Earl of Douglas before he died, and the earl’s son was a close friend to the king. Law knew many who followed the son, now Earl of Douglas, since his father’s death in battle. Law looked at every face as they passed, hoping he would see one that was familiar. The earl was in Stirling with the king, and certainly, he would not have come without at least a hundred or more of his own knights in his tail.

  They were halfway up the steep hill to Stirling Castle when Law spotted a tall, leather-faced man in a tabard marked with the crowned heart of the Douglas device over shining armor. “Tam!” Law shouted.

  The man stared at Law open-mouthed before he exclaimed, “By the Holy Rood! I thought you were dead.”

  Law stifled a groan as he swung from the saddle, praying that his leg would hold him after the long ride. “Near enough,” he said through gritted teeth. He slung an arm across his saddle and let the horse take most of his weight. It wasn’t usually so bad since a month had past but was still only half-healed, and the ride had nearly done him in. “I am looking for an audience with my lord earl. Or does he call himself duke now?”

  “Ach, no, he seems content enough with calling himself earl,” Tam, a sergeant in the Earl of Douglas’s service, said. “The king would have his head if he went to France to claim his father’s title there. I think you’ll be welcome. As far as I ken, he has nae spoken to anyone who lived through the battle.” He considered Law with his bushy eyebrows raised. “You weren’t captured, then?”

  “No.” He tilted his head toward Duncan. “Duncan here helped me off the battlefield. We managed to escape, though it was a near thing.”

  Tam considered Law and gave a sharp, quick nod. “You look right knackered. Can you stand without that horse to hold you up?”

  “Aye,” Law said. “I’m still healing, and it pains a wee mite. Where is his lordship?” He wouldn’t mention that with twisted scarring and mauled muscles, his leg would most likely never be strong again. He would somehow grow strong enough for battle again, though, because he must.

  “He’s attending the king’s grace.” Tam was giving Law an assessing look, but he waved in the direction of the castle.

  “I must speak with him. Can you get me in? He may want my story of the battle, and I’ll offer him my service.”

  “Certes. I’m bound there. He sent me to carry a message, but I’m done with it the nonce. Getting you in should be worth something to you, though.”

  Law snorted. “All the coin I have on me is a tale. I can recite you the story of the battle and his father’s death over an ale. After I see the earl.”

  Tam scrunched up his leathery features, but after a moment, he nodded. He pointed to a hostelry up the street. “We can settle your horses there and go up to the castle. I can get you in but the story had better be good.”

  “If a bloody tale is a good one, that’s what you’ll have.” Law was forced to let go of the saddle in order to lead his horse to the stable yard in front of the two-story hostelry that was bustling with a crowd from the court. “You can meet me at the inn this evening, and I’ll tell you how my lord, the Duke of Touraine, met his death.”

  Duncan climbed from the saddle with a sigh of relief. He ran a hand through his sweaty damp hair. “I’ll wait at the inn. I want ale.” He had been in the Earl of Buchan’s force, so he had no stake in seeing the new Earl of Douglas. Buchan had died in the battle as well, so Duncan was in no better situation than Law for a patron. A landless knight with no patron was as useless as a toothless rat terrier. Once Law was taken into the earl’s service, he’d have a chance to plead for Duncan as well.

  Limping like a halting old man, Law led his horse up the street and tossed a penny to the stable lad to curry and water him. “How is the court?” he asked Tam as the man slowed his pace to Law’s speed.

  “As unsettled as you would expect,” Tam said morosely. “Since he returned, the king is reining in the nobles like they’re unruly horses and many dinnae like it, especially the late Duke of Albany’s grandsons.” He lowered his voice and glanced around to be sure no one was listening. “The king arrested the duke’s eldest boy, and war is brewing. There’ll be fighting, you may be sure of it.”

  Law grunted in a neutral tone. The Earl of Douglas would be supporting the king, and if fighting was at hand, he’d need all the swords he could raise. That should bode well for him and for Duncan.

  Sweat dribbled down his sides and face, and his leg burned at the hard use it had had. But walking began to loosen the cramp, so by the time they reached the huge, gray stone castle, a maze of turrets and parapets, it had eased. He welcomed the coolness within the stone walls when the door of the keep closed behind them. He followed Tam through a string of chambers. He scanned the courtiers for a familiar face, but there were none amongst the men sitting and standing about, playing cards, dice, or chess. The air was heavy with the sound of men’s voices talking about tomorrow’s hunt and with the smell of musk and lavender and summer sweat.

  “My lord was playing chess with the king when I left,” Tam said. “Wait here, Law, and I’ll see if he will speak to you between
games.”

  Law grimaced. He honestly was not sure how much longer his leg would hold him after the long ride, but he nodded. He watched as Tam’s broad shoulders disappeared into the next room. He couldn’t let the earl see how badly he limped, so he turned so he could discreetly rub at his leg to loosen the cramp. The earl must accept his service. It was unthinkable, not.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” said a voice near him. “I heard you’d died in France.”

  Law turned to find at his elbow a big man, more gray than blond, decked in somber black like a crow amongst the glittering crowd. Richerd Kintour, the cousin who held what land in Buchan was left to their family, shook his head as he looked Law up and down.

  “If you came thinking to beg for help from me, your luck has run out.”

  “I no more thought to find you here than you did me, Cousin.” He carefully kept his voice even and face blank. “I have a duty here, and once it’s done…” He looked around at the splendid confusion of the room, not sure what to say because he had no idea what he would do when this last duty to the lord duke was done. “When I am done, I shall serve my lord as I always have.”

  His cousin snorted. “Serve how? From the look of that limp, you’ll fight no battles any time soon.”

  Law’s face heated. “My leg is healing, but such wounds as I received take time.”

  “My good wishes to you on that,” Richerd said stiffly. “So you hope for a reward for bringing the earl details of his father’s death?”

  “He must want the details of the battle, though the loss is hardly news now.” Several of the courtiers had sidled close to Law’s annoyance, plainly taking in every word. “I dinnae ken though if any others who weren’t captured survived, so the earl should have the chance to hear it from me.” He kept his face blank.

  “Sir Law,” Tam said from the doorway, “my lord Douglas will see you.”

  With some relief, Law gave his cousin a courteous bow before turning to follow the sergeant out of the chamber.

  Archibald, Earl of Douglas, with a full head of bushy black hair and dark eyes like all the Douglases of his line, stood in an antechamber staring out a narrow window slit. A beam of light gleamed on the blue brocade of his doublet and the gold of his earl’s belt. He was little changed but for a few more lines about his eyes in the three years since Law last saw him at the celebration of their great victory at the Battle of Baugé. When Tam closed the door, the earl held out his hand. “I would hear what you have to recount.”

  Law knelt with a wince at a twinge in his thigh and bowed over the earl’s hand.

  The earl’s face was tight, lips pressed thin. “You were with my father’s following when he fell.”

  “Aye, and your brother fell beside him.” He hesitated. “And the Earl of Buchan as well, of course.”

  “I recall you from the practice yard when you were a lad and a squire. Did my father knight you?”

  “On the field at the Battle of Baugé. You were there in France that day, my lord, but many were knighted after the battle.” It had been a surprise, and a welcome one for his connections were not so great he expected more than to serve as a squire in the duke’s following. Baugé had been a great triumph for all of them.

  Douglas studied Law for a moment, the sunlight from the window slit shining on the dark skin of his broad brow. “I’ve had no more than the bare bones of what happened. Most died and those captured…” He shrugged. “The English have been generous to captured Scots only with executions.”

  The earl motioned for Law to rise. “I must return to the king, and this is a tale he should hear as well. His Grace will want to ken how such a loss came about.”

  The inner chamber was crowded with courtiers and servants standing about. Near the window on the far side of the room, two men were seated at a small table covered with a silk cloth. A chessboard and pieces were on it. At the table could only be King James, in his middle years, perhaps thirty, with chestnut hair and large piercing blue eyes set off by a doublet of slate-colored silk and yellow velvet. He looked up with a curious tilt to his head as he watched them approach. The other finely dressed man, hulking, with short hair and beard streaked with gray, Law did not know. A cleric of no more than thirty in dark hair tonsured and in a fine woolen robe, though simply cut, stood next to the king, head bent as he whispered something into the monarch’s ear.

  “If it is true, then I must have it, John. Gold must be found somehow, so put your—” The king glanced at Law. “—put your agent to finding the truth of the matter.”

  The king was said to be in great need of gold to pay the ransom to the English for his release, and for a moment, Law wondered how the king would raise such a great sum.

  “The king’s secretary, John Cameron,” Douglas muttered. “A man on the make.”

  As Cameron moved away, Douglas made a noise in his throat, and the king motioned them closer. Law knelt again, careful not to wince.

  Douglas nodded to the king’s companion. “Mar, if you are interested, he has news of the Battle of Verneuil. He was there with my father.”

  The Earl of Mar stood and offered Douglas his place. “None of mine have been fighting in France, so it’s your business.” He bowed to the king and strolled to a sideboard where goblets and wine awaited.

  The king waved a hand to permit him to rise, so Law pushed himself to his feet with a shove on his good leg. The murmur of conversation around them paused, and Law rubbed a hand over his bristly face as he tried to think of how to give an account of the worst day he had ever lived. The king gave him an impatient look.

  He took a deep breath. “You ken the English attacked and took Ivry beforehand from our French allies as we marched that way.” At the king’s nod, he continued. “When Ivry surrendered to the English, the Earl of Buchan, my lord earl’s father, and the other commanders decided to take Verneuil in the west, instead of making a direct attack on their army. We used a simple trick. Some of us led a group of pretend prisoners and said we were Sassenach under Bedford’s command, so they opened the gates.” He smiled at the memory. “We easily took the town and the entire army entered it.”

  Douglas watched him as he talked, frowning and intent. The Earl of Mar had returned to listen but turned to whisper to a servant.

  The king was paying close heed, his expressive eyes wide with interest. “And then the Earl of Bedford attacked to retake Ivry?” he asked.

  “I heard that it was the Earl of Buchan who insisted we make a stand and that the French commander argued against it. But I wasnae there when the commanders decided. Anyroad, we did make a stand on a plain across the road that Bedford had to take to reach the town gates. We were fighting afoot as is our wont.” Law slowly shook his head. “Our force was…disorganized. The French were supposed to take the left flank and we the right, but it was chaos. The Lombard mercenaries refused their orders. The French and our men were milling, commanders shouting, few of our men were where they should have been. Buchan was beside himself and…” He glanced at the earl’s tight grim face. “…your father, the duke, was sending messengers to and fro to try to bring order. Then when the English archers got within bow range, with no warning, the French forces charged. They were supposed to hold our flank! We were…unprepared.”

  He stared at the wall, the butchery that followed the charge still clear in his mind as though it was laid out before him. Battle shouts from the French that turned into shrieks as they were butchered. Screams of horses dying under them. “The English broke the French charge—” Law cleared his tight throat. “Chased them down and it turned into butchery.”

  “By the Holy Rood…” Douglas muttered.

  “Our Scots were rained with arrows but held our ground. After the damned English finished off the French, they charged our open left flank where the French should have stood. So we were surrounded.” These men had seen battle. No need to describe the stink of blood and shit. The sweat, terror, and blood-lust in hacking down man after man
, his comrade-in-arms, Alan, lying at his feet, bleeding out. “We did not break, my lords. At the last, we formed a schiltron around our commanders as the Sassenach screamed for vengeance for the Duke of Clarence’s death at Baugé.”

  Scottish cries of “A Douglas! A Douglas!” as they shielded the duke still rang in his head. He twitched a shoulder and described the bloody hell as the remainder of the thousands of Scots fell, guarding their lords. Around him, men were mowed down like wheat by a scythe.

  “My father and brother?” Douglas asked stiffly. “The Earl of Buchan?”

  “They stood their ground within our schiltron, but I did not see them die. We were making a last stand when…” He cleared his throat. “An English knight put his lance through my leg. They rode over us as we fell. Then I remember no more.”

  “Yet, you escaped.”

  “Luck of a sort, though I’m not sure if it was good or ill. There were thousands of bodies in piles. After the battle, they were looting, but you know such looting can go on for days. After dark, I clawed my way out.” He suppressed a shudder at a memory that was more of a nightmare.

  His leg screaming with pain, he found the strength to push off a body heavy across his chest. The reek of blood and shit and death was thicker than the black night. Somehow, before the English returned to finish looting the bodies, he had to escape. His hands shook with exhaustion and pain, as he was used his tabard to wrap his mangled leg when Duncan grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. “They’ll be back anon. But I’ll want gold for hauling your sorry carcass with me to safety.”

  For days after, Law had sworn the stink and feel of stiffening bodies clung to his skin. Law made his account of the horror of his escape with Duncan’s aid as brief as possible. “We reached a monastery nearby in the Forest of Piseux. Our luck held since the abbot was French and hid us for a week until my leg was well enough that we could flee. But it took us another week to reach a ship and another to reach Stirling.”