by Robert Low
‘Fuck,’ he said and Will saw the horsemen, big as giants and growing larger, the huge legs of the beasts pounding the ground to dust as they came on them at a full gallop.
Gray’s fury thundered with every hoofbeat, a blood pulse that sent him shrieking at the ring of spears, cursing Bruno’s slowness and raking him until he squealed. Even the sight of the spear points, wavering as they drew together to point at him, provided only the briefest spasm of apprehension, no more.
That was driven away by the sight of Sir William Deyncourt spurring past him, sitting forward and almost lunging with his lance – bad posture that, he thought, for you are off balance when you hit and will go straight through the gatehouse, out between the ears like a slung stone …
Deyncourt rode Bruno’s stablemate, a big Frisian cross called Morningstar. The pair of them had been trained together, at the straw men in ranks, at the weak withy hurdles so that they believed there was no barrier they were put to which was stronger than their own muscle and bone. All it took was a madly determined rider and they would try to punch a hole in a castle wall – or a deadly shrike’s nest of points.
Gray sat back, legs stuck almost up by the arched neck of Bruno, the last furious gallop into the ring a great roar that rang inside his helm and deafened the splintering crash.
Will saw the leading horseman as a flicker to the left of him, heard the grating crash and felt the slam of bodies rippling away from the impact point. Staggering, frantic, he was peering to see when the second knight erupted out of the golden haze, a massive monster with bared yellow teeth topped with a featureless creature of metal.
There was a brief confusion of red and white, a glimpse of a silver lion on a shield and then the horse struck the front rank as if it did not exist; there was the sound like a great tree falling and Will saw the man in front of him flung into the air to disappear with a shriek. He ducked instinctively at the great whirl of splintered wood from broken spears, saw the snapped-off points lanced into the horse’s chest and head – straight through the flaring nostril and out of the other eye.
Then there was a moment when the world seemed to stop, when the man on the dying horse’s back took his lance to within a foot of Will and skewered the astonished grizzle of the veteran through the neck; he seemed to float up in the air, higher and higher so that Will started to follow him with a tilt of his gape-mouthed stare.
The dying horse, legs flailing still, screaming a high-pitched shrill, ploughed on and skittled the ranks of men. Time sucked back to Will, just as the horse capsized, the last mad shriek and kick arriving into the sunlight of Will’s world like a huge black cloud.
He felt the blow, felt himself hurled backward into other men and wanted to apologize. He saw himself as if he stood outside the blackness that had cloaked him, with his fine sprout of red-gold beard like stubble on a sparse field, big-handed, big-footed and awkward. Proved and not a coward, all the same, he thought, even if I am in the dark and afraid of it.
I need a candle.
Gray knew Sir William was already dead when Bruno hit the spearwall and died in an instant. He barely had time for the regret of such a loss before he was shot upward as if launched from a trebuchet, sprung up but not cleanly; one foot was briefly caught in the stirrup and he felt his leg wrench. Then it was free and he was flying in a whirl of arms and legs, like the tumblers he had seen at a fair day once. There was a brief flicker through his helmet slit, an eyeblink vision of a boy with his mouth open.
He crashed down in a great heap, the air driven from him. He thought he had been pinned like a sheep’s eye on a crow beak, but felt himself dragged and kicked, felt his mind narrowing to a last small point of light. I am too young, he thought frantically. I have achieved nothing … he felt the savage wrenching of his neck, then light flared as his helm was torn off; blind, stunned, he blinked into a growl of shadows.
God preserve my soul …
This was chaos and Randolph flailed in the centre of it, bawling for the bodies to be cleared away, the dead spat out like gristle, for the ring to hold, for it to crab away from the dead horses. Someone flung a body at his feet and he stared down into the glassed daze of the knight, his red surcote torn, the silver lion streaked with gore.
‘Yield, my lord?’ he asked, out of politeness’ sake, and Sir Thomas Gray, his senses rushing back into the dubious blessing of a world of pain, could only nod.
A few feet away, Davey the Cooper fought the splintered length of lance from the neck of Bannock and rolled him away – helpful feet kept him going, feeding him out of the ring as it drew back. Peel o’ the Bannock, Davey thought, the hero of Linlithgow who had driven the haywain under the cullis and stopped it dropping long enough for men to spring through and take the place. It is a weeping shame to be leaving him in his own blood for the birds to peck, him who had sworn to defend his own birthplace. Him and a dozen others, he saw, torn and savaged to death by only three knights.
He examined the boy at his feet, hearing him softly moaning out of his smashed face.
‘Swef, swef,’ he soothed, though he knew the lad – Will, he thought the name was – had been sore hurt. Christ’s Bones, you could see the half-moon circle where the iron-shod hoof had caught him full in the face, the bloody furrows where the raised shoenails had gouged him.
‘Candle,’ he heard the boy mush out of his ruined mouth; somewhere, men shouted out a warning and Davey had no more time to think about it, drew his knife and slit the boy’s throat, the blood scalding on his hands.
No candle would bring light to the poor boy, he thought, wiping his fingers down the front of his tunic. Not when his eyes have been torn from his head and his face so monstered his own ma would not recognize him. Better this way …
He helped the press to roll the boy out and rose up, shouldered into a space and braced for the rest of the English to arrive.
Clifford was near weeping with frustration and had torn his helmet off, flinging it away with a bawled curse so pungent it would strip the gilding off a saint’s statue. Beaumont, horrified at what had happened, saw that the entire Battle was in disarray.
There were knights flung to the ground trying to fight their horses for control, others who had failed were streaming away in all directions on mad bolters and a good long hundred or so had compromised with their mounts and were rolling forward against the spear ring but at a steady foam-mouthed canter and all strung out.
‘Form. Form,’ Clifford roared and those remaining fought their plunging mounts into some semblance of tight knee-to-knee order – but the act of this, familiar and tantalizing, simply fanned the flames as the warhorses fought for their heads, squealing and blowing like whales.
‘Advance,’ Clifford called in desperation and, like a bolt from a springald, the relax of reins sent the whole pack raggedly forward in a fast canter. Throwing up his iron fists, Clifford gave in and followed, his own mount held in a steel grip that Beaumont could only admire, smiling and nodding his praise.
Clifford scowled back at him.
‘This is your fault, my lord,’ he said as he swept past and Beaumont, floundering for a reply, could only fume in his wake.
In the end, they could only circle the ring, kept at bay by stabbing spears, reduced to hurling their lances and maces. Beaumont cantered round once, threw his lance, thought about hurling his helmet into the sea of wet, open-mouthed scum, but considered the pointless expense and kept it.
His excellent mount, at a trot, picked a delicate step over the flung bodies, snorting at the dust and blood as Beaumont searched for Sir Thomas.
If God had been just, he thought, he would have discovered Gray alive and bloodied, been able to climb off his expensive warhorse and present it to the man and so expunge his odious obligation. But there was no sign of Gray, only the battered and bloodied remains of his horse, something that might have been Sir William Deyncourt – and, to Beaumont’s added horror, young Reginald Deyncourt as well, who had clearly decided to avenge his e
lder brother and paid the price for it.
He swung round as Clifford, red-faced and hoarse with shouting, galloped up to him, flinging one hand behind him. Lifting the fancy visor of his new bascinet, Beaumont squinted; there were more men coming out of the woods, spears up and hedged.
Bruce sat and watched the three riders crash to ruin; Jamie Douglas gave an admiring shout as they did so, even as he shook his head at the futility of it. He had uncowled himself from maille and bascinet so that his tousled dark hair stood up in sweat-spikes and his face was bright with joy.
He loves all this, Bruce thought as he massaged the ache of his right hand, pulling off gauntlet and maille mitt to study it; he carefully wiggled his fingers and noted the signs of blue bruising, mottled and ugly. Count the blessings of Heaven, he thought wryly, at least you can still feel all your fingers. And toes.
‘Do you wish me to go to the Earl of Moray’s aid?’
The tone was bland but the question was as loaded as any latchbow; when Bruce turned, Jamie Douglas had a face and smile as innocent as a nun’s headscarf.
‘Let my nephew bide a wee,’ Bruce answered laconically. ‘He seems to have matters in hand.’
And if you go to his aid, Jamie Douglas, he thought, it will only be to preen and wave the rescue of it at Randolph for the rest of his life, so that he will not forgive either you or me.
They watched while the horsemen rode up in ragged skeins and then balked and circled. One dashed in and the horse went down – men cheered as the rider was clearly pounced on by the dirkmen and sent, as Patrick announced cheerfully, ‘all the way tae his ain Hell’.
Other horses were downed, but the riders weaved and staggered away, half walking, half falling. Eventually, as if tiring of the entertainment, Bruce turned back to Jamie Douglas.
‘Move your men to the line of the wood. No farther, Sir James, upon your honour.’
Jamie pouted, but then grinned, for he knew what his king was up to and he turned to the waiting men, winking at Dog Boy.
‘Rank up, lads. Make some noise, too, just to let the bloody English ken who we are.’
They marched out, shouting and singing as if it was a parade of apprentices on the spree – but, as Bruce had planned, the English saw reinforcements arriving. There was a flurry among them, the distant faintness of shouting and then a horn blew.
Bruce sat deeper in his saddle, suddenly aware of the tension leaking out of him like grain from a burst bag; his arm and hand pulsed with a vicious heartbeat. He heard horsemen and turned to see his brother ride up, grinning like a shark out of his broad face and waving vaguely at the sky.
‘The sun is going down,’ he declared as if he had been personally responsible for it. ‘They will try no more until the morn.’
Bruce nodded and sucked in a long, deep breath; below, Randolph’s schiltron was uncurling like a cautious hedgepig, waving their sharpness and hurling jeers at the backs of the retreating knights.
The day had gone well, Bruce thought. Yet tomorrow it would all have to be done again – or else tonight we will have to be gone. And smartly, too, since it is the shortest night of the year.
He wondered, suddenly, why his brother was here at all and not with his own command, turned to ask and saw the broad grin widen further as Edward nudged his horse aside to reveal the men he had been hiding.
Bruce stared. Kirkpatrick was dappled with sweat and leaning wearily on the cantle of his mount’s saddle. Beside him, with a great half-bruised face and a bound arm, swaying with fatigue but grim and steady as ever, sat Hal of Herdmanston. Behind them prowled a slew of Campbells, all bristle-bearded and proud, but scowling to have arrived too late for this day’s fighting.
His brace of dogs returned. He blurted it out before he could think and saw Hal’s raised eyebrow and Kirkpatrick’s lopsided smile.
‘Aye, betimes,’ Kirkpatrick answered, ‘with our jaws stuffed with retrievals.’
‘There are cartloads coming,’ Edward Bruce declared, unable to keep silent any longer. ‘Weapons and armour and more of the same.’
His face was shining with it as he stared at his regal brother.
‘Now we can stand and fight.’
ISABEL
They can feel it, the irregular heartbeat of it. The seneschal here, a fat and fussy man, has banned Malise from my side by order of the new warden, John de Luka. It is not pity nor mercy that does it, but Your Hand, my Lord. That and the fact that, if all goes badly, I might be a counter for bargaining a truce of peace for this town, as good as gold to some folk. So here I am, curled in my cage like a cat, prinked and preened and dyed and painted and dressed, with one hand clutching an ivory sieve holding balls of musk and crushed amber, the other carefully hidden because of what Malise has done to the nails and fingers. I have a barbette edged with cloth of gold. Nestling between my breasts is a gift from the warden himself, a fat enamelled pendant which has two lovers kissing on one side and, on the other, a grinning Death; it is a common enough theme, but it reveals more sensibility than I saw in the hard face of that royal squire. I wonder if he chose it himself or had someone do it? Either way, Your Hand is in it, Lord. I am still on display, but more gilded and most of those who still come to gawp think I have a toad hidden somewhere the better to curse them, or suck on an emerald in my sleep to preserve my seeming youth.
Let them. I am Isabel MacDuff, with a dowry portion of Fife. I am a long ways past girlhood, yet I am ready to receive my lover. God wills it that he comes soon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bannockburn
Midsummer’s Night, June 1314
The dusk was soft and blue like woodsmoke, though there was a haze of that, too, from the small flowers of a thousand flames. Looking out, Dog Boy could see the scatter of English fires, like the tail of a long-haired star.
He ate from a wooden bowl, horn-spooning in oats and barley savouried with a good stock bone which had even had some meat on it. There was bread to sop it up and some small beer, but no ale or wine; Dog Boy thought that was deliberate, to prevent everyone getting drunk with little or no time to sleep it off.
He heard the whine and spang of music from a viel, accompanied by the heartbeat thump of a drum and great growling barks of laughter and raised voices; the Islesmen, or the Campbells, who had their own drink and would not be stopped from it. For all that they looked longingly and thought of the fiery drink, none of the Lowlanders would risk arriving uninvited at such a fire, so they sat and stared morosely at the flames until blinded by the light.
‘Good, this,’ Yabbing Andra declared, slurping the last and scraping the bowl noisily. ‘This is fine fare, is it no’, lads? I mind the time …’
People sighed, for the only time Andra was ever silent was when he was eating and, even if he scraped shavings off the inside of his bowl, there would be precious little left in it to occupy his mouth for long.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, Troubadour Tam interrupted him. He seldom said anything at all, seemed to speak only through the bowing of his viel, but he seemed to have lost his touch for it this night, for he crossed into Andra’s ramble with a slashing few words of his own.
‘Mak’ the best of it – there will be precious little else this winter. Hunger is coming.’
Those who worked the land knew it and nodded. Patrick, who worked cattle more than he did fields of oats and barley, announced that the saving grace of Our Lord in all this was that the English would be visited by the same bad-crop famine – and they had more fields given to wheat and less to livestock or hardy oats.
‘So? What use is that to us?’ demanded Horse Pyntle and Patrick explained it to him, shaving little cuts off a splinter and curling them into the fire for amusement.
‘They will only have beasts left to them. When we raid, as raid we must for food, then we will have meat and lots o’ it.’
There were grim snarls of laughter at this, save for Parcy Dodd, who said that too much meat made you sick. Since none there had ever had e
nough meat to make them sick, there were growling, jeering questions fired back at him.
‘Aye, aye,’ he declared defensively. ‘I never said I had ever been sick from too much meat. Tainted meat, aye – and it tak’s precious little of that to make ye boak. But my ma had experience in curin’ folk – rich folk, you ken – whose shitholes and insides were choked up with too much meat.’
‘Good, was she?’ demanded Sweetmilk, while everyone had that wary look you got round Parcy Dodd, since you could never trust anything he said at all, on any subject.
‘In a godly fashion,’ Parcy declared, frowning, ‘though I have long since hauled myself away from her notion that what galled ye or made ye boak was a blessin’.’
‘Every mother is the like,’ Geordie offered and there were growls of assent at that; there was a vagrant coil of the wild music of the galloglass warriors from the north and west; and Dog Boy saw Troubadour Tam’s head come up, cocked to listen to it like a dog sniffs the wind.
‘Aye, mayhap and mayhap no’,’ Parcy replied. ‘I have no experience of Geordie’s ma, nor none else but mine own, who brewed physick that would gag a hog. She would clutch my neb until I had to breathe – then pour it down my thrapple.’
Dog Boy heard them, bleared with memories, chuckle at this shared moment, but it was not for him; he could barely remember his ma at all these days and certainly not her face.
‘Did it work?’ demanded Horse Pyntle and Parcy flapped a loose hand.
‘It did what it was aimed at – once swallied, ye had better have a bush to boak in.’
‘Aye, well,’ Patrick murmured dreamily, ‘here you are – so it must have been good.’
‘Not to my way o’ considering it,’ Parcy answered. ‘Once, as a wee laddie, I swallied a penny. A whole siller penny, my da’s rent-price for our ox. So it was out with the physick – and back came the money, so sick it would not spend.’
‘Away, Parcy ye liar!’
Parcy held up his hands.