by JR Tomlin
"Again," he shouted, waving an arm over his head. "At them before they escape."
Brian handed Lord Avoch his helm. He jammed it on and took his lance as well, couching it. Andrew jumped into his saddle and grabbed his shield from his back. Guarding his father was his only job. His heart thudded so hard it rang in his ears.
"God have mercy upon us," his father said before he turned to Sir Waltir. "Sound the charge."
Haaaarooooooo Their trumpets sounded. His father gave Andrew a long look. "Stay close." He stood in his stirrups. "A Moray! A Moray! For Scotland and King John!" He bent over his horse's neck and kicked it to a canter.
Andrew set his horse into motion and plunged down the slope, shield raised, knee to knee with his father. The drumbeat of galloping horses shook the ground. "Moray!" he shouted. On its hocks, his horse slid down the slope, rocks and pebbles flying. Their men took up the war cry. They shouted and screamed. Beside him, Brian hunched over his lance with a ululating bellow. His ears rang with the cries.
Scotland! Scotland! Scotland!
The English continued their retiral. The shouts and hoofbeats of Comyn's troops seemed to go further away. Andrew glanced over his shoulder. The whole line of Comyn chivalry was split off, climbing the steep slope to hit the English from the rear. When he looked back, the glittering line of English knights whom they pursued had slowed to a walk.
A distant trumpet blew twice. Another. A new line of English horse thundered into sight at the top of the ridge. The hoofbeats were a rumble of drums. The line thundered down on them.
The fleeing line of English knights pulled up, jerked reins, horses reared, pawed the air. They wheeled. The sun caught the points of their lances like a thousand flames.
The trap snapped shut.
Cursing, his father jerked his horse into a rearing turn. "To me! To me!"
The English were upon them from both sides. They were in a chaos of crashing lances, of horns, of trumpeting horses. Everywhere steel screamed on steel.
Andrew raised his shield and caught a sword slash on it. His father rammed his lance into a knight's shield. The lance shattered. The knight crashed onto his back under plunging hooves. Lord Avoch tossed aside the butt and scraped his sword free. A knight in a red tabard bore down, lance level towards his father's chest. Andrew threw himself forward, shield high. The lance skirled, screaming, along his shield. Ducking low, Andrew swung, shearing through mail, muscle, and gut. The man was dead as he slumped, bouncing from the saddle as his steed plunged forward.
Andrew's world shrank to his father's back and his sword. An unhorsed knight thrust at his chest. His sword lashed out, knocking the axe aside. The knight darted aside for another try. Andrew rode over him, bursting his head open. One of their men rode by, slumped over his horse's neck. A lance had gone through his belly and stuck out his back.
Sir Waltir de Berkely, unhorsed, slashed at an English knight but the mount reared. Sir Waltir ducked under slashing hooves. His father slammed his sword into a foe's side as another rode at him, swinging. The blade flashed. His father toppled. Andrew jerked his horse into a rear and shattered the man's chest with a kick. His horse made a small leap over Brian's body, blood trickling from his mouth and head in a crimson pool. He jumped from the saddle. All around rang sword upon sword and men wailed, screaming in pain.
His father rolled over. Alive. Andrew straddled him, shield up. Caught a blow. Swung hard at a mailed arm. Blood gushed over his hand.
A sickening crunch and pain exploded in his back. His vision shattered into broken shards. He was falling. He couldn't yell... Couldn't move... His father's body lay under him on the ground. A jolt jerked his head.
"England!" a voice cried out. "For England and King Edward!"
Andrew drifted into a wave of gray mist.
CHAPTER THREE
Caitrina de Berkely snapped off her thread and examined the seam she had finished sewing. There was no doubt. The seam was crooked.
She frowned in disgust at the gray underskirt and glanced across the sunlit bower at her sister. Isobail's needlework was always perfect. Everyone told their mother so. Even their father who had no use for such things had said, "Her embroidery is as dainty as she is."
Caitrina peeked at her mother, afraid that she might have noticed that she had stopped working, but her mother was paying Caitrina no attention at all. Her mother was counting a stack of white linen coifs and veils they had readied for Caitrina's departure for the convent, a crease between her fair eyebrows as she refolded them. She said Caitrina should be grateful they were giving her to the church and that she must be properly clothed for the novitiate. Her dower had already been paid.
Caitrina bent over the garment she held and chewed her lip. She could pick out the seam and salvage the skirt. It would take time, and her mother would notice. Sighing, she laid down her needle and watched her sister take a careful stitch in her embroidery.
Perhaps if she was careful she could slip out of the room. At least, she could have a last afternoon of freedom. Tears filled Caitrina's eyes, but she blinked them back. It wasn't fair that she was being sent to be a nun. She would never run along the beach, launch an arrow at a rabbit, or gallop a horse across the hills again. Never gather berries with her friends from the castleton and never have her own home where no one would judge her lacking.
She stood up and started quietly for the door.
"Where are you going, sister?" Isobail said in a voice as soft as one of the rose petals that scented the bower.
"I want to have one last glance of the firth before I go. Would deny me that? I'll never see it again."
Isobail colored, but even that she did daintily just as she did everything. She had even gotten their mother's golden coloring instead of red hair like their father. Her skin was soft and white as freshly skimmed cream instead of dotted with freckles.
Their mother raised her eyes. "You have no need to see the firth today. You will see it on your way."
Caitrina wanted to scream. It was just like Isobail speak up and let their mother know she was escaping.
"Let me see. Your clothes must be prepared for the morrow." Her mother stood and picked up the underskirt. "Caitrina, this must be unpicked and re-sewn. It will not do at all."
The corners of Isobail's mouth turned up in the tiniest smirk. It was all too much. Caitrina spun and bolted for the door.
Her mother said in a grimly soft voice, "Caitrina, come back here. Don't you dare take another step."
She stopped in the doorway and turned back. "What will you do to me? Lock me up?" She took brief satisfaction from the shock on their faces. "You're sending me away, remember?" With that, she whirled and made her escape, running down the stairs.
What had she done that was so bad? How could her father have agreed to send her away before he left to lead their men to fight the English? Isobail was fifteen, a year older. Perhaps by the time Caitrina was born there was no love left over for her. Or perhaps it was that she wasn't the heir they wanted. It wasn't fair. Isobail could dance, and sing, and play the harp. Even worse, she was beautiful like their mother. Their nurse had called Caitrina carrot-top while she doted on Isobail. Caitrina could ride a horse better and the sight of blood never made her cry. But who cared about such things in a lass?
She dashed past the guardroom at the postern gate before her mother could have them stop her, but there were few guards about now. Their father had taken most with him when he went to fight the invaders. Now she'd not see them return, not greet her lord father or feel his strong arms in a hug. She'd thought that he loved her. Tears were running down her face as she dashed down the hill, plunging her way through the prickly gorse.
One spiky leaf snagged her skirt so she stopped to loosen it, watching up the castle to see if they sent anyone after her. No one was in sight except a single guard walking atop the red sandstone wall. She took a deep breath and angrily wiped the tears away with the heel of her hand. She wouldn't waste her last day of freedom weeping.
She arrived, hot and breathless, at the round stone millhouse that jutted above the edge of the firth. Inside, below the floor, the wheel screeched as the tide turned it, blending with the swish of the frothy waves below.
Donnchadh propped up the wall, a faded plaid of green and yellow checks pleated over one shoulder and his saffron tunic hanging to his knees. He gave her a curious look. "I thought they had you locked up in the castle until you leave."
Caitrina wrinkled her nose. "I escaped. For a last day of freedom."
He grinned, showing the homey gap between his front teeth. "Come on, then. Let's go." He looked up the hill before he turned his gaze back to her. "What do you want to do?"
"It's been so warm, I'll wager some of the blackberries are ripe already. Let's go picking. We can eat our fill and then go climbing for eggs." She bent and pulled the back of her skirt through her legs to kilt it in front. She spun in circles, head back. The sun was warm on her face and the air mingled the scent of salt sea with the spice of gorse and heather. She stopped, a little dizzy, and grinned. "Come on. I'll race you."
She dashed along the beach and up a stony path to the top of the rise. Donnchadh let her have a head start. He always did, but she soon she heard the thud of his footsteps.
In a few minutes, they were deep in the blackberry brambles that grew eight feet high. They were covered with ripening berries and the two shooed away squawking birds. Donnchadh yelped when a thorn scraped a bloody line on his arm. She made a face at him. Her leg already bore a long scratch. She stuffed her mouth with a handful of juicy berries and grinned, so he did the same. A drop of purple juice dripped onto his chin.
When she heard a signal horn bugle, she stopped to listen.
"What is that?" Donnchadh asked, frowning.
"I'm not going back, whatever it is, but it's not from the castle." She took her lip between her teeth. "We're not expecting my father to return with his men for weeks yet. It might be news. They were going to fight."
"It could be." He parted the dense blackberry leaves to peer through the brambles. They were west of the castle, a good way beyond the southwest corner of the outer wall. They could see only a short stretch of the road leading out of the gate.
"I think it's too soon for news," Caitrina said. "What do you see?"
"Not much. But... Do you hear that?"
She didn't so much hear it as feel it, a rumble in the ground up through her feet from the road to the west. When she parted the brambles beside him, she could see nothing, because of the pinewoods that bordered the road, but as she stepped into the open, she could see sentries dashing into place on the castle wall.
The sound was horses, large horses. A trumpet winded from somewhere on the road.
"That's not my father's horn. Nor Lord Avoch's. I know the sound from when they marched away." A deep-toned horn called from the castle. A horseman came in sight around the angle of wall, riding fast out from the gate. His armor glittered. He wore the green cloak of their master-at-arms. "It's Sir Ailean," she said.
"Maybe you should go back."
Out of the trees came a column of men-at-arms behind a hundred or so horsemen. She gasped. "Look!"
"Whose banner is that? Do you know it?"
She jumped back into the brambles and peeked through the dense branches. "Just a second. White field—-something on it in red. The horsemen are all knights. But there are a lot of infantry." Row after row of single-edged blades on the end of tall polearms waved like a field of corn in the wind.
"None of our men were carrying those when they left," said Donnchadh.
"It is pikes. I can see the blades flashing in the sun." She swallowed. A huge rock had grown in the middle of her chest. "Holy Mary... I think that's the banner of England. The cross of St. George."
The master-at-arms rode to meet a fat man in shining half-armor who spurred his huge black destrier ahead of the column.
"Let's see..." For a few moments, Caitrina fell silent as she watched. Nothing moved. The only sound was a faint clatter of armor. The fat man gestured. Sir Ailean shook his head emphatically and turned to ride back the way he came. "I wonder what..."
The master-at-arms slumped over in his saddle. Slowly, he slid sideways and crashed to the ground, a crossbow bolt thrusting up from his back.
"No!"
"Quiet," Donnchadh said grimly, grabbing her arm.
The trumpet blew again and the column marched on the castle, riding over the body that lay on the ground.
"They killed him! The murdering devils..." She thrashed forward through the blackberry brambles.
"Caitrina, get down!" Donnchadh wrestled her as she squirmed to the ground. "Be quiet, you goose! It won't help for us to go out there."
"But everyone in the castle! We have to..."
"Think! Whisht. Be still. What can we do? And the castle has warning."
She pressed her hand to her mouth and gulped down a sob. "Let me go. I won't do anything. But what about my sister? My mother? What are they going to do to them? Will our men come out to fight?"
"Not if they're smart," said Donnchadh. "That's a lot of men. Your father didn't leave that many behind. Can the castle hold against an attack?"
The castle horn winded again. The crash of the iron portcullis as it slammed down rang across the hills.
"We can't get in now," said Donnchadh. "Even supposing we wanted to."
Caitrina crawled, pushing her way through the brambles so she could get a better look at the castle, but drew back sharply. "They're closer," she said softly. "Some of them are coming this way." They lay flattened under heavy branches so thick with leaves they cut off the sun. She could hear the squeak and rattle of harness as armed men came nearer, but all she could see was flashes of hooves through the leafy cover. She hoped this was true for the men outwith as well.
"Hoi, there!" cried a harsh voice. "Come out!"
They did not move. Caitrina heard a rustling crackle as a lance went into the bramble two feet from her face. She hid her eyes in the crook of her arm and made no sound. The rattle of hooves and armor passed on, was farther away.
"I told you nothing was up here," said the second voice.
"Take it up with Master Cressingham. He gave the order to search," growled the other.
"Argue with that lickspittle? I've better things to do than spend a month on guard duty, especially with a village just below."
The other man snorted a laugh. "I'll get there first. I'm in no mood to be fussy. Did you see that redheaded girl at Elgin though?" The voices and laughter moved away. Still she lay unmoving, without a sound. She met Donnchadh's eyes. His face was white.
They waited. A cleg buzzed around the crushed berries she had dropped. Shouts came from the castle, from the men below. A scream. More shouts. Caitrina glanced at Donnchadh again, and raised an eyebrow. He nodded.
With great care, they both crawled towards the edge of the brambles. Her hair caught in the thorns and she had to tear it loose, biting her tongue on a yelp.
They heard more shouting from the castle, but nothing closer. When she pushed up the leaves, gray tendrils of smoke rose lazily from near the gate. "I think they're making camp," she said. She'd heard of castles being besieged. Would her mother surrender? No! She couldn't. It was her duty to hold the castle. The Englishman had been talking about the village. Would they be there too? Hurting people? That scream... If they'd kill a knight, why would they spare villagers? She realized tears were dripping down her face, but they made her angrier. She rubbed them away. "What do you think we should do?"
"We've got to get away from here," said Donnchadh. "We have to hide somewhere."
Caitrina nodded. "The village?"
"I don't know. I don't think they'll
do anything to most of us if we don't fight them." He looked at her with a frown. "But you heard what he said about women."
She shifted, trying to see what was happening at the castle. "Donnchadh, can you tell what they're doing? If it's safe to move?"
"Sounds like they may too busy to worry about searching any more." He rose cautiously and peered out the upper level of the brambles. "There are men on the walls with crossbows, and a lot of troops and horses below. I think we'd better wait until dark." He cursed under his breath when he got snagged on the thorns as he crouched. "Maybe we should go to Avoch Castle. How far is it? Two or three days walk? We can try to warn them, and they'd take you in."
"I don't want to lie here to be captured by those devils." She gulped. "We'd better fill up on the berries. It'll be a long trip on foot."
"After dark. We'll fill up on what berries we can find and then we..." Donnchadh sucked in a breath that sounded almost like a sob. "I have to take care of you. It doesn't make me a coward to run away."
She reached out to squeeze his arm. He had a father, mother and sister, too. "You're no coward. And we have to warn Avoch." She tried to sound hopeful. "Mayhaps everyone from the village got inside the castle before the attack."
"I..." That he didn't believe so was clear in his voice. Neither did she. "Mayhaps."
CHAPTER FOUR
Caitrina shook her head. Donnchadh said they had gone north and a little east along the pine forest. He pointed to the North Star, faint in the black velvet sky. She rubbed her arms, covered with goose bumps, as they trudged. Even in April, the night air was chill. But how far east had they come? How far did they have yet to go to reach Avoch Castle?
A trumpet called somewhere behind them and she froze. It came again. She grabbed Donnchadh's arm. He pulled her, running, towards a dark mass of thick brambles down slope that extended over the next rise. She stretched her leg to keep up. They pushed their way into the scratchy branches and sank down. Panting and heart hammering, she squeezed his hand. It grew silent again except for an owl hooting in the darkness.