by JR Tomlin
By the next day, Waltir said the men would soon be ready for working with real pikes. It wasn't far beyond the barracks to the armory, a simple square building inside a paling fence. Andrew walked through the opening in the weather-beaten boundary, more to mark it as off-limits than as protection. Anyone foolish enough to think they could get away with thievery would find Sir Waltir had different ideas. Andrew frowned when he saw that the wide wooden doors stood open.
Squinting at the shadows, he went in.
A shove sent him lurching forward. He ran a couple of steps, partly to keep to his feet and partly to get away from the attacker. He whirled as he scraped his sword free, blade arcing to gut anyone trying for a blow.
His blade met another in a shriek of metal. The blades slide against each other and the hilts locked. Andrew's eyes met Robbie Boyd's. Andrew heaved him away, sword ready for his next move.
The tip of Robbie's sword circled a scant inch from his. Robbie moved with a quick fury, gleaming steel slashing down to cleave his head. He wasn't waiting. He swung as Andrew sidestepped. The blade swished by his head. He swept his blade down on Robbie's, twisting it so the sword up into Robbie's face. Robbie dodged back on light feet and then scythed his sword up and around. Andrew ducked, shifted and would have had his sword into Robbie's gut but Robbie changed his blow to a downward smash. Their blades caught again. Andrew leaned in, his bad leg burning with the strain.
"Too bad you don't know what to do with your sword." Robbie spat. "Too limp to use from what I hear."
"Not what your mother said." Andrew tossed his head to get his dripping hair out of his eyes. "I'll show her again when we finish here."
"I'll show her after I cut it off." Robbie lifted a lip in a sneer.
They broke apart and moved in a slow circle, swords at the ready.
"Come and try." He looked into Robbie's pitiless eyes. When Robbie swung, Andrew stepped in, his blade biting into the mail covering Robbie's arm. Robbie flinched, sidestepped and continued his swing. Andrew spun out and around him, bringing a hack from behind to cut off his head.
He rested the blade on Robbie's neck. "Yield."
Robbie's sword clattered onto the floor. He flicked a drop of blood from a nick. "That cursed hurt."
Andrew grinned. "Good. I've been aching enough every night. Will that do?"
Robbie nodded, propping his hands on his narrow hips in a familiar gesture. "You have a chance to stay alive in a fight now."
With a grin, he said, "Only if my foe is as slow as you are." But sheathing his own sword, he picked up Robbie's to return with a nod of respect. "Or if there are two of them. My leg still gives out too soon."
"Give yourself time. I didn't think they'd save that leg for you."
Andrew ran his hand through his wet hair and turned his face to the door for the cool breeze. "How does it look for pikes then?"
"Fifty ready stored and a store of cured wood hafts."
"Good because I want to move before the snow flies." Andrew tried to rub the deep ache away from his thigh as they strolled towards the keep. His stomach grumbled. Having someone to care for such matters as meals was a welcome relief even though the lady of was prickly as a gorse spine. Her reproach had been silent when he returned with Caitrina the day before. He suspected she'd do her best to see that the occasion wasn't repeated.
He took his place at the dais and she signed a servant to bring a basin for his hands. She was pleasant enough, listing at length what duties she had assigned to the servants. He listened as he attended to his food, the well-seasoned roast pig, wood pigeon pie, and neeps soaking in butter and afterwards honeycombs dripping onto fine bread. This was the best meal Andrew had tasted since he'd followed his father to war. She listed more tasks than could be done in three seasons by the people they had. He'd allowed no female servants likely to tempt his men to something he'd have to punish them for. She'd seated Caitrina at the opposite end of the table, too far for Andrew to speak to, but, as her mother droned on, he found they were exchanging a shadow of a smile. He couldn't be sure afterwards which of them had smiled first.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
As fall waned towards winter, the men honed their weapons skills. Robbie gave them lessons in using a sword and shield in addition to the pike.
Andrew watched as they began drilling in groups, one line against another, learning to work together with their weapons. They were allowed them to stand guard.
One gray, sleety day, Andrew watched the two lines of practice as they struggled to keep to their footing on the slick ground. The smell of cold air, smoke and reek of hot iron from the smithy and men sweating permeating everything. Donnchadh stood guard duty at the door of the keep holding his pike erect.
The surrounding climate of war and struggle subdued all possible futures to itself. In the midst of this, Caitrina walked out of the keep, her arms piled with cloaks.
The contrast was dazzling. Her youth and softness stood out amongst the stone walls and armed men as a clump of heather stands out on a rocky ledge. Watching her scan the yard, Andrew realized what a wrong memory he had of their ride together, for he had tried to remember her as a child. Even from across the yard, he could see that her eyes were blue.
She looked up at Donnchadh and slowly a charming smile lifted the ends of her mouth, different than her smile for him. She said something to Donnchadh. He answered, nodding. They both looked glad to see each other, and, for a moment, Andrew's face burnt with a flush. She laughed and turned her head to scan the yard, saw him, and strolled, smiling, in his direction.
"Hallo. I was supposed to bring you these for the men."
All the men watched them from the tails of their eyes, but he didn't care. "My thanks. You must have spent all your days with your needle."
Her laugh caught him up, and he was smiling. "Oh, not my needle at all. My sister's, but you may thank me for the planting in the garden if you like."
Her cheeks were pink with the cold so he called one of the men to take her burden. As she strolled, head thoughtfully bent, back inside he wondered when his uncle would come. He'd sent a message that he was bringing supplies and more men. They needed to talk. Across the yard, he saw Robbie grin.
Andrew gathered them around a table and began to lecture.
"But I thought we just ran at them and started fighting," said Donnchadh.
"No. That's how we were defeated at Dunbar. None of you will make these decisions now, but you all need to know something of why. You can do your job better if you know what I'm trying to accomplish. Now suppose this--here--is us. And this over here is the English. What about the lines?"
"Theirs is longer," said Aoich, stating the obvious. "But we--"
Robbie came up and hitched his hip onto the table to watch.
Andrew nodded. "Because there are more of them. There are always more of them." He looked around at them to make sure they understood. "Now suppose we engage just as we are. What happens on each end of our line, on the flanks?"
"If they have enough, they can go around," Aoich put in.
"And they're mounted while we're afoot. But suppose we form a square, and we engage one-on-one all the way around. If we are two or three deep, we actually have them outnumbered at each position even if they have more in their army. And to get close they have to expose their horses. We have turned their strength into a weakness." He smiled a dangerous smile. "An unhorsed knight is a dead man."
Robbie frowned at the table. "So you think a pike square can take on an army of chivalry?"
"Waltir has seen it in France with the Swiss. We can't move fast or far in the square though. Being able to move is important, too. If they can't outflank us, a line may be better. So the ground where we fight is important too--where is the good ground?" Quickly, he showed them how slope, water, and bogs could change the choice of tactics. "It's the commander's job to choose the best ground--for our side, of course. If I decide to retreat, it is to fight another day. But you need to know why it's
done, so you'll know what to watch for and which way to move..."
"But you'll give us your orders," Donnchadh said.
"In battle, there's no time to send questions to me. If you don't know what to do, the battle could fall apart. And I don't suggest trusting to English mercy if you're captured."
They'd all seen enough English mercy to know what he meant, but he gave it a second to sink in.
Soon the lessons in tactics went beyond table illustrations to the field. He took them to the sloping hillside to practice engagements, disengagements, squaring, flanking, and other maneuvers, first without weapons, and then with pikes or sword and shield. They made ladders and scaled the walls of the castle in mock attacks.
He paced the walls at night scanning the hills for his uncle and the men and supplies he brought. Soon, he knew, he must move against the English.
* * *
A fire in the hearth took the chill off the air in the solar. Andrew took a deep drink from the cup of mulled wine and pulled the rushlight closer in the hazy afternoon light. Even noon in winter Scotland was hazy. He bent over the list Robbie had made for him. Pikes... Helms... Gloves... Boiled leather jacks... Boots... Cloaks... Iron... Wood...
Not enough. Not enough of any of it. He sucked on his teeth. When would his uncle arrive? Pray God he had found what they needed. If anyone could get supplies, surely it was Elgin Cathedral--the Lantern of the North. Lantern indeed if it would light them to freedom.
He worried at it like a man with a sore tooth and just as pointlessly, he knew. There was no answer until David came and he was a day past due. But travel was slow already even though the passes weren't yet closed with snow. David had surely been only delayed.
He had much to discuss with his uncle. He paced around the room a time or two. In two days, he would attack Edirdovar Castle of Lunan, supplies or no. The risk of an English-held castle so close to Avoch was too great and meant that raising men from that part of the peninsula was impossible. It had to be seized.
Caitrina had smiled at Donnchadh. It meant nothing.
With an impatient grunt, he strode to the door and flung it open. "Send Donnchadh to me," he snapped at the guard at the turning of the dark, still stairway.
He went to a large oaken chest carved with vines. When he opened the flat lid to a gush of a scent of dried lavender and rosemary. He ran his fingers over the blue cloth that laid there, tightly woven linen, and took it out. His father's banner flew over the castle as was right. But this was his own knight's pennon, smaller, swallow-tailed as befitted a knight, not a lord, a gift before they went to war. He spread it over the table, fingering the fringed gold. This would be their battle standard. Someone hammered at the door. "Enter," Andrew called.
Donnchadh stepped inside, his young face creased in puzzlement or worry. "You wanted me, sir?"
"Yes. Close the door."
Andrew rested his arm on the high mantle board.
The young man closed the door softly and waited, looking a little alarmed. "Have I done aught wrong?"
"No. I want to talk about the matter of my bannerman. I gave you my word on that."
Donnchadh snapped his gaze to the pennant spread across the table. "I..." He flushed. "I thought you'd forgotten. Or that a knight should do it."
Andrew kept the question of what Caitrina had said to Donnchadh behind his teeth though it squirmed to get out. It must have been nothing. "I've not forgotten. If you want to do it, the position is yours." He paused. The lad couldn't know how dangerous it was. "It makes you a target--the first target after me. If my banner goes down, the battle may well be lost. They will try to kill the two of us first." He waited until Donnchadh looked at him. "If you don't want to do it, I'll not think less of you."
Outwith, someone shouted and a horn blew. They were in no case to stand off a siege. Discovery would be the end.
The guard hammered at the door. "Riders!"
"I want to do it," Donnchadh said hurriedly.
As Andrew sprinted for the door, he said, "Take that to be mounted then."
He threw open the door and took the stairs two and three at a time. By the time he got to the keep door, Robbie was awaiting him. "It's Father David."
Andrew blew out a long breath. He hadn't realized he was sweating until he ran a hand over his face. He stepped outside to the clamor of the raising portcullis and crash of the drawbridge.
Shadows from the walls covered the yard. The sun had dropped to the horizon and the wind carried a scent of snow. The newcomers poured through the gate in a dark flow of leather and steel, fifty strong. Over their heads, whipping back and forth in the strong wind, flew the cross-emblazoned banner of the Cathedral of Elgin.
There came his uncle, his blond hair catching the last rays of the sun. Beside his Uncle David rode a barrel-chested man Andrew did not recognize. Behind them rode the friars from his last visit but also men in leather, not clerics from the looks of their swords and metal studded jacks.
David vaulted off his horse. He dashed up the steps and threw an arm around Andrew's shoulder. "God be good. I'm ready to get out of this wind, and I have news."
The stranger climbed down more slowly.
"Andrew, I've brought Alexander Pilchie, Burgess of Inverness, and his men." David shoved the door open. "But get us inside, man."
They couldn't possibly talk in the hall for the noise: in the yard the horse master shouting for the horses to be unloaded, the clamor of feet, scraping of benches as hungry men hurried to take their place at the table, horses neighing and harness rattling, the rough bump of unloaded burdens being dragged across the yard.
Andrew yelled to one of the servants to bring wine and food to the solar. He waited until two of the servants put platters of steaming venison redolent of garlic and thyme, a stack of bread and flagons of wine on the table, and then closed the door behind them as they left.
David rubbed his hands to warm them over the crackling fire whilst Andrew poured three cups of wine.
"Alexander is a long time friend of the cathedral." A shiver shook David but he turned his back to the blaze. "A steady man we can trust."
Andrew raised an eyebrow. "You're most welcome, Burgess. Your men seem right well-armed."
The man was heavy-muscled with sharp looking gray eyes that weighed Andrew up like a pound of meat on the scale before he answered. "A man whose caravans travel the roads needs guards he can trust, though a few friends in Inverness added to their number."
"True enough, I'm sure, but using them for a war..." He frowned. "That is something other."
"Aye, I can not argue. For some, had the English king not seized all the wool in the land for himself and closed the ports to our trading, they might have said 'one king is much like another'." He took a contemplative sip of the wine, nodded in satisfaction at the taste and went on. "But he is not king of Scots and cares nothing for us. He'll destroy us for his own, plain enough."
Andrew seated himself on the edge of the table and kicked his chair close so he could prop a foot on it. "There is no harm he could have done me that he hasn't." He gave the man a level look. "A long, dark year in one of their dungeons convinced me. I'll not surrender to them. Understand. I'm in this--" It sounded too much like a minstrel's mouthings to say to the death so he kept the words in his throat. "If you are thinking this is a fight you can start for profit and quit, not so--as much as I need you and your men."
"Fair enough." Pilchie's eyes looked through the wall for a while, and the room was quiet except for a pine knot snapping in the fire. "You guessed, most like, that I was named for the old king. I'd have died for him and his, gladly, but his house died with him. Fighting for King John Empty Jacket doesn't sit well with me. But this Sassenach... The massacre of Berwick said what he thinks of us. Dead--merchants, women, children--heaped in the streets by the thousand. Now the country stripped and bled for his wars. We're sheep for the slaughter, nothing more. Once he and his are out of our country, we can straighten the matter of the kin
g out for ourselves." He gulped down the last of his wine. "Until then, it's war." He slammed down his cup and held out a hand. "You have my word on it."
Andrew grabbed his forearm in a hard grip and looked over his shoulder at his uncle. "News indeed!"
David grinned. "Indeed, but not all."
Andrew slapped Pilchie on the shoulder and stood to slice of a slab of the meat. "How so?"
He dropped the dripping venison onto a trencher and handed it to Pilchie who eagerly dug in.
"Bishop Wishart is moving matters in the south," David said.
Andrew set down his knife and turned to stare.
"There will be a rising in the spring. Already Wishart's man is gathering a force."
Andrew took a deep breath and stilled the tremor in his hand. A rising in the south would give him time, would tie up forces so the enemy couldn't bring them against him. Oh, yes. News indeed! He couldn't contain it and threw back his head, rocked with laughter. The two men laughed with him, and, after a minute, he wiped tears of laugher from his eyes. "God is good." He filled both men's cups. "Now we must take advantage of this blessing. Tomorrow we march on Edirdovar Castle. A silent attack, for the night will be moonless. The English think us cowed so they'll not expect it. Pilchie, I'll leave your men to hold Avoch under Sir Waltir's command."
Pilchie nodded slowly, giving him a considering look. "As you command. But I would go with you. If I might."
"My thought exactly. We'll start learning to work together, the three of us and our men on the morrow."
He handed his uncle a slab of meat. "You can get a message to Wishart? Let him know our plans?"
His mouth full with a large bite, David nodded.
"And there is a family matter I'd discuss with you, uncle, after we've taken care of some English."
David finished the mouthful of food and said, "What's that?"
Andrew paused. He had never until now wondered how his uncle felt about being a priest. He'd risen high in the church and would rise higher yet. Everyone knew he would be the next Bishop of Elgin but was it what he would have chosen had the choice been his own? Studying his uncle intently, he decided to go at the matter from the side. "I think it's time to consider my marriage."