by JR Tomlin
Wallace jumped to his feet, his chair going over with a crash. "I gave no oath. Nor will I." He glared at Alexander Comyn.
"Brigand..." Alexander sneered. "Your oath means less than nothing whether you..."
A curse of outrage from Wallace drowned out his voice.
I don't think the king's council ever went like this, Andrew slammed down his fist. "Enough! This is a council, not a brawl." He gave Alexander Comyn a cold look. "Be careful whom you name brigand--cousin. Edward of England dishonored my king and stole what is ours. He imprisoned my father. Held me without honor." Andrew unsheathed his sword and laid it softly on the table, the steel bright against the dark wood. "This is the only oath I have for the English."
"Fool," Alexander Comyn snarled.
Andrew held his peace as the man stormed from the hall, and then he picked up his sword and sheathed it. "We're done here. In the names of Andrew de Moray and William Wallace, letters will go out to levy the army of Scotland. We prepare to meet the English when they move against us."
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The smell of salt was heavy on the wind blowing in from the east. The meeting place was a heathery slope of the Ochils dotted with clumps of gorse and tangles of hawthorn. Across the summer dry fields and stony ridges, Andrew could see the great castle of Stirling looming against the horizon, its back to the Firth of Forth. Below the jutting prow of that massive fortress, the River Forth ran, looking as insignificant as a ribbon. Yet divided the south of Scotland from the north. Here all armies must cross or die.
"My lord, where do you want your tent?" Donnchadh asked as they reined up amidst the patches of flower-covered brambles.
"Here, at the top of the rise. The men to camp there." He pointed. "Pickets for the horses there and supplies there. Latrine ditch on the far side so it is downwind."
Donnchadh clambered from his mount to plant the pike he bore. Atop it flapped and waved the starred banner of Moray.
Sir Waltir and Robbie Boyd led their horses to join him. "No sign of Wallace," Sir Waltir commented.
Wallace would be here for battle. He had no doubt of it. The man lacked nothing in daring from what he had seen. "The two of you come with me to inspect the bridge. Somewhere down there we must tempt the English to fight on our terms."
"Donnchadh, convey my orders to the sergeants." He flicked his reins and set off down the long sloping road toward the river. Suddenly, he pulled up and made a sweeping gesture to the fields on each side of the dusty road. "Those look soft for chivalry."
Robbie turned his horse's head and kneed it into the field. The horse's hooves sank into the soft earth. "I've seen worse--not quite bog," Robbie called, "but a destrier would have a difficult time of it."
As Robbie rode back to them, Andrew nodded towards the river. "My map does not show the shape of the river course properly. That horseshoe shape..."
Sir Waltir grunted in agreement. The narrow wooden bridge was at the base of a horseshoe bend of the deep, fast flowing river.
"It makes a narrow front for a fight." He squinted at the wooden bridge over the fast running river. "Two horses abreast to cross. If my map is right, there is another crossing though."
"Aye," Waltir said thoughtfully, "something called the Fords of Drip. Some miles upriver. We'd best send men to look at it."
"If we concentrate our force here..." Andrew sucked on his teeth for a moment. It may be possible to get the English to attack here. Tempting bait might do it. "Robbie, take a dozen men and inspect the ford upriver." He turned back towards the top of the Abbey Craig. "The question is just how poor a commander is Warrenne? Since Cressingham is no commander at all..."
* * *
At Abbey Craig on the slope of the Ochils, a long trestle table of rough-hewn pine had been put up. There, beside his tent, Andrew pushed away the map and spread out a parchment. He dipped his quill in ink and chewed his lip as he wrote.
My dearest lady wife,
Once the approaching English army is defeated, it will be too late in the season for our enemies to raise another this year. I have come to have great confidence in my new friend, William Wallace, and that we will defeat our enemies. Wallace is rough spoken but a fierce enemy to the English, which is all I could wish. In the spring, I have no doubt that the English king will return with a larger army. There is much to be done to prepare our forces for that day.
As soon as I may, I shall return to raise more men in the north. If I do not mention to my men that my true reason is to be with you when our bairn comes, you will forgive me, I hope. When it is safe for the bairn to travel, I would have you move to Petty to allow my visiting you whilst this war runs. I fear it will not end soon.
As much as I hope for an heir, I confess that a lass with your laugh and your eyes would not displease me. If that should be God's will, our next child will be my heir, or the next. Be careful of yourself for the bairn's sake and for mine.
Your lord husband,
Andrew de Moray
The gloaming of the day had settled, turning his banner overhead gray. Beyond his tent, the Moray camp sprawled for a mile atop the Craig. Sparks rose from hundreds of campfires like wandering fireflies. He caught the scent of a pig Donnchadh was roasting on a spit and his empty stomach grumbled. Away in the distance, voices raised in a raucous song about two corbies picking clean the bones of a fallen knight. Below, Robbie was returning with a score of horsemen from scouting upriver.
When Pilchie came, laughing, out of the murk, Andrew waved to the man to join him. Sir Waltir held up a wineskin and slapped Pilchie on the shoulder. "I'm weary as an old besom. Let's take our ease while we can."
Andrew tossed down the quill and folded the parchment close with his seal. "That wine would go well with some cracklings," he called. Grease dripped into the fire as his bannerman turned the meat. He filled his wine cup as Donnchadh cut into the pig. Hot juices ran from the meat as it was piled high on a platter. Andrew's mouth watered. The platter was laid in front of him.
"Any word of Wallace?" he asked.
Sir Waltir took back the wineskin. "Should be here any time. Goodly force with him, the outriders say--all foot."
Andrew skewered a chuck of meat and took a bite. "I'll hold what horse I have in reserve, I think." When Robbie Boyd strode towards them, he waved the man to a seat. "What of this ford?"
Robbie frowned. "It's wide enough to cross fifty abreast. Shallow and good ground for horse."
Andrew chewed for a moment. "How far?"
"An hour's ride."
"They'll know of it. So we must tempt them into crossing here." He tossed back the rest of his wine.
Waltir leaned forward. "They'll outnumber us even with Wallace's force and have chivalry aplenty. The question is whether they will bother to try to out flank us. If it were King Edward--" He shook his head. "He would have archers with him as well."
A hunting horn winded twice and cut the soft blue air of dusk. Donnchadh dropped the meat he had been eating in front of the fire and grabbed Andrew's sword where it hung from the tent pole.
He was a good choice to ride beside me. "The English blow trumpets not horns," Andrew said. "I won't need my sword. That will be Wallace."
Sir Waltir stuffed a strip of cracklings in his mouth and said around it, "I'll meet them and see that they're settled."
"Well back of our men. I'd keep the English from seeing our numbers."
Waltir called, "Aye, I know," as he ran for his horse.
* * *
In the heat of noontide, the next day, sound came drifting across the river and fields and up the Craig, swelling with every minute. Andrew got up from the table where he was tracing his finger over the map and went to watch the horizon. Wallace joined him staring, eyes narrowed, across the river's swirling waters glinting in the sun. Soon they could make out the whicker of horses, men shouting, and the clank of steel. The sound did not prepare them for the sight of the host come against them.
The lines of knights upon arm
or-clad destriers stretched a mile. The staffs bearing banners made a forest of flowing colors. The steel blades of thousands of pikes flickered yellow and white in the sun. "God have mercy," Wallace muttered. "How many are there, do you think?"
Andrew's lips moved as he tried to count the divisions, but they were too far to be sure. "More than at Dunbar that I can tell you, though fewer chivalry. More infantry... many more." Warrenne's banner flew high over all, the gold checkered banner large enough to carpet a hall. The man has more pride than good sense. But there were hundreds of other banners, most too small to make out from so far. Much of the north of England must have answered Warrenne's call.
"They'll not attack this late--after marching half a day," Wallace said.
"No." He rubbed the thick scar on his thigh. "They could send a party to flank us, but it looks like the main of the army will cross here."
Wallace chuckled low in his chest. "It's where we are."
This army was a great steel-armed hammer sent to crush them like a nut. Andrew couldn't tear his eyes the array. Trumpets blew and the lines of men began to break into shards. Pavilions sprang up like mushrooms. Wagons piled with goods crept to the edge of the camp, swineherds drove pigs, and grooms led stamping destriers to horse lines. Sooty fingers of smoke began to rise from a thousand campfires and joined into a haze that hovered over the English camp.
Two blasts of a sentry's hunting horn winded thinly from the west. Wallace frowned, turning. Robbie Boyd shouted something and ran for his horse. A score of men followed and in ten heartbeats, they galloped out of the camp towards the west. Donnchadh handed Andrew his sword belt and he hastily buckled it on. "Who the devil..."
Wallace stroked his red beard thoughtfully and shook his head. "Friends according to the signal. Scots? Not the Bruce. He is still in his lands of Annandale, raising men."
"Donnchadh," Andrew called, "our horses. Whoever these are, I shall meet them mounted."
When, in no more than ten minutes, Robbie Boyd appeared over the ridge, he rode beside two lords followed by a dozen more knights than he had left with, all handsomely armored and mounted on barded destriers. Over them fluttered a flag of truce.
Andrew's mouth popped open in surprise and he snapped it shut. "God save us. It's the High Steward and Earl Malcolm of Lennox."
The party came to a halt a short distance away. "I would speak with the two of you." Lord James might have weighed ten stone in his armor, but no more. He was a weed clad in steel, with no chin to speak of but an imperious stare above his hawk nose. The front half of his head was bald and what was left of his hair fell to his shoulders in white waves. Lord James was no fighter, had never been known to joust as far as Andrew had heard, and preferred priests to knights for company, but he was a man whom the nobility followed. The words of the High Steward of Scotland carried weight.
The dark-haired Earl of Lennox just shifted in his saddle. He nodded, dark eyes half hooded.
"Lord Stewart. My Lord Earl." Andrew raised an eyebrow at the flag of truce. "Does that mean you are riding with our friends on the other side of the Forth?"
"This battle..." James Stewart's voice was sharp. "You really think you can prevail? With so few chivalry?"
Wallace grinned. "When did I ever have chivalry for my battles, my lord? Yet I have won many."
Andrew shrugged. "Is that all you came to say?"
The Stewart snorted a laugh through his nose. "Cressingham gave us orders to tell any men of our lands to leave your forces and join them across the river."
Wallace leaned forward with a scowl. "You're no simpleton, my lord. Why would you come to tell us such a fool thing?"
No, the High Steward is no fool and neither is Lennox. "Because they're sitting the fence and deciding which way to jump, playing both sides. I'm right, am I not, my lords?"
"We know which side we're on, Andrew," the Stewart said. "We're on the side that keeps our people alive. I won't throw my knights' lives away. Win this battle and I'll help you." He licked his thin lips, thoughtfully, pale eyes narrowed. "I won't help the English, although I shall let them think so. We've promised them twenty knights on barded destriers on the morrow."
Earl Malcolm gave a quick bark of a laugh. "They can wait many a day and many a day for those."
Andrew turned his head to share a glance with Wallace. "So you'll let us cleanse the country of the invader whilst you sit safe."
"Think that if you will." The Stewart gave a pale look down his nose. "If the English flee, I have a force in the forest south of the Forth that will cut off any survivors fleeing. If. Now the two of you must show what you can do."
He gave a jerk of his reins, wheeled his mount and rode away, Earl Malcolm and the dozen knights who rode with them following.
Andrew shook his head. "Devil take them. After all this, we must prove ourselves."
Wallace cursed and rode back to the camp. Andrew had to admit he shared the feelings.
"My Lord! Look!" Donnchadh shouted, pointing towards the Stirling Bridge.
Andrew wheeled his mount, hand on his sword. Crossing were two friars in black robes mounted upon high-stepping palfreys. The breath gushed out of him in relief. They weren't ready for a fight.
"What?" grumbled Wallace. "Do the bloody English mean to talk us to death?"
Andrew threw back his head and laughed. "Mayhaps, my friend, or so it would seem. And we need to make our plans for battle before this night ends. Those English pikes must not cross."
Wallace scratched his beard as he watched the approaching churchmen. "Let's rid ourselves of these nuisances and do so."
"We'll meet them before the bridge. They're nothing more than spying out our numbers, like as not, and I have no intention that the English learn that." Andrew gave his horse a nudge. Wallace followed.
"Approach!" Andrew called to the friars.
They rode to the end of the bridge. At close hand, one of the friars pushed back his cowl. Underneath he had a mop of blond hair, a tonsured scalp and narrow, shrewd eyes. "Sir Andrew," he said. "I bring you an offer of truce from Lord de Warrenne. Yield and disband your army. On his oath, he will grant your freedom and that of your men. Only agree to peace in this King Edward's Scotland."
Wallace jabbed his horse with his heels. It snorted as it plunged close to the friar whose face turned white as whey. "Tell your commander that we are not here to make peace but to do battle. We will liberate ourselves and our kingdom." He thrust his face into the friar's and the man reared back. "Let them come! We will prove it in their very beards."
Hands shaking, the friar backed his mount away from Wallace. The other looked on like a bird frozen in the stare of a viper. "Sir Andrew? Is that your word as well?"
"Friar, get you to your commander." He dropped his hand onto his hilt. "Here is the only peace I offer the English in our land."
Chapter Forty-SIX
September 11, 1297
Motionless as a martyr's statue, Andrew de Moray sat mounted on his courser as his men formed a schiltron square at the base of the slope of the Ochils a quarter mile from the foot of the bridge. All of them, every pikesman he had, three thousand, hurried into place, Sir Waltir shouting orders to hurry. Three squares they formed, one within another, pikes sharpened and glistening. Andrew smiled.
Wallace's men were nowhere to be seen. All the better. At the top of the slope, Robbie Boyd waited with his hundred knights in reserve.
Since early morning, the English camp had been aboil. Once the knights had thundered toward the bridge but trumpets had blown retiral. Now the air was shrill with trumpets call screaming attack. Hundreds of horses snorted and neighed, and armor clattered as loud as church bells.
Mail draped the head and neck of Andrew's big bay. Blue silk draped his hindquarters. Donnchadh handed up his helm and his shield emblazoned with three six-pointed stars on a blue field. He walked his horse back and forth, as his men squatted in place. They would not tire themselves before times. When they were all in place,
he turned to face them. "You won't hear me shout for King John. You won't hear my Moray battlecry. It is Scotland the English mean to own. It's our nation they sack, our goods they steal. So for Scotland! Stand with me and destroy them!" Andrew stood in his stirrups and raised his sword over his head. "Scotland! Scotland!"
His men took up the cry with thousands of voices. "Scotland! Scotland! Scotland!" He was deaf with cacophony but who needs their hearing to kill?
"Pikes raised!" Pilchie shouted. The outer ring of pikesmen knelt, pikes angled up to rend horse's necks and bellies. Within the two inner squares braced their steel in lower rings.
"Unfurl the banner," Andrew said to Donnchadh and the lad shook loose the great silken Saltire he had been commanded to carry on a lance. Today they fought only for Scotland.
They rode knee to knee to the far side of the hedge of razor-sharp steel. Sir Waltir took his place on Andrew's left side, sunlight glimmering off his armor, his shield bearing the stars of Moray strapped to his arm.
Onto the bridge rode the first two English knights in armor so bright Andrew winced from the flash. The cross of St. George streamed crimson and white above their heads. Two more came behind them. Two more. Two more. An endless stream of lances moved towards the bridge. The hooves on the wood were a thousand drums. On the other side of the river, the shore was jammed with horses, stamping and trumpeting, impatient for battle as they jostled towards the bridge. Steel-clad knights rode off the bridge, forming a long scythe on the edge of the river, reeds and frothing water behind them. They stretched to the edge of the stands of oaks. The first line moved up. Another line behind. So many. But not enough. "Ready your trumpet," he said to Donnchadh. With one hand, the lad grasped the horn that hung from his saddlebow.
Two by two, English rode across the trembling bridge. It creaked and groaned under the weight. A fat man in silver armor rode in the midst of the army on a coal-black destrier barded in white. His cloth-of-gold surcoat showed a cross. Cressingham, was Andrew's first thought, but mine ran a close second.