by Robyn Young
Now, at a wail from the trumpets, their horses snorting and stamping the ground, the English cavalry began to move. They crossed the stream, the knights leaning back in their saddles as their mounts descended the banks into the brown water then hauled themselves up the other side and set off at a confident trot. But with all their attention fixed on the Scots on the slopes above, the knights didn’t see the bog that lay ahead until the front lines had ridden right into it. Horses went plunging into the sucking black mud, treacherously concealed by reedy grass and wildflowers. Knights cried out in surprise and fear as their mounts panicked and lunged forward, searching for surer ground, only to take them deeper into the mire. Men clung desperately to saddles as the beasts bucked in the stinking slime. All the while, the Scots on the hillside jeered and laughed to see the trap so easily fallen into.
Surveying his troops in such embarrassing disarray, Edward launched his destrier, Bayard, across the stream so he could bellow orders at his commanders. Slowly, the front lines began to pull back from the bog. Bishop Bek, riding with his men between the stream and the marsh, shouted that the ground was firmer to the east. Another company, under the earls of Hereford and Norfolk, found the same to be true to the west. The Scots fell silent as the English cavalry reordered itself and charged left and right, sweeping around to meet them.
“Archers!” came Wallace’s yell, as he stood in his saddle on the crest of the moor.
The Scottish archers, set between the schiltrons, fixed their arrows and let them spring in two dark arcs at the converging arms of the English, who were bypassing the schiltrons and heading straight for Wallace and the cavalry. But unlike the Welsh longbow, the strength and accuracy of which could propel an arrow clean through armor, the shorter Scottish bows didn’t have the force to puncture the metal hides of the English. A few shots caught horses, but for every one man who fell, thousands more rode on, picking up speed as they crested the hill and thundered toward the Scottish cavalry. The faces of Wallace’s troops filled with fear as this steel horde came crashing toward them, lances thrust forward. As a few turned their mounts and rode for the woods, Wallace cried at them to stand firm, but the courage of those who remained was a futile gesture. Now, truly for the first time, the Scots understood the terrible power of an English cavalry charge.
The English host slammed into them like a wall of iron, making a shambles of their thin line of defense, slicing through those who stood against them, scattering the rest. Quickly, it became a rout. The Scottish peasants in their tight schiltrons watched aghast as their commanders abandoned them on the field, fleeing into the safety of the woods, where the trees would hamper the pursuit of the English on their armored destriers. Only Wallace and a handful of his men remained. Seeing the battle on the hilltop was lost, they cantered recklessly down the slope to their infantry. Abandoning his mount, Wallace threw down his axe, grabbed a spear and wedged himself in the front line of one of the schiltrons, yelling orders until he was hoarse, as the English knights turned and surged toward the Scottish archers. The foot soldiers watched, helplessly, as the archers were divided by the cavalry charge, then pursued like frightened rabbits across the hillside. Knights yelled as they gave chase, the first few knocking men down with sword blows or lance thrusts, their comrades behind riding on over them, pounding bodies into the black soil, bones and spines snapping like twigs. In less than fifteen minutes, the only part of the Scottish Army left standing was the four huge schiltrons that braced themselves for impact as the English circled around and came at them.
“Hold!” Wallace bellowed as the knights careened toward them. “Hold! ”
From the safety of the woods, Will sat forward in his saddle, his breath in his throat, as the English charged the schiltrons. There was a second of confusion as the lines struck; a blur of metal, color and motion, then the air was rent with the screams of horses and men. The Scots had stood fast and the English had barreled straight into their outthrust spears. The English lines wheeled around and retreated, leaving dead and dying comrades. Horses had been pierced and had collapsed, crushing their riders, or else had thrown them into the thicket of spears. As the wounded tried to haul themselves to their feet, the Scots in the row behind stabbed down, finishing them off. There were murmurs of relief around Will, as the men with him realized the schiltrons had held.
“Uncle!”
Will turned to see David riding up with Adam. Both were drenched in sweat.
“You’re hurt,” said David, staring at Will’s upper arm.
His tunic was ripped and the rings of mail beneath had been rent in a jagged line, through which he could see torn flesh. An English knight had caught him with a slicing cut during the charge. “I’ll live.” Will looked at Adam. “The earls?”
“Most have fled, taking their knights with them. Gone through the woods, back toward Stirling. They said there was no point us all losing our lives.” Adam spat on the ground. “Bastards.”
Will stared between the trees at the remainder of Wallace’s cavalry, who had scattered into the woods when the English charged them. All were watching the English hurl themselves at the shield rings. There were probably fewer than five hundred of them. Half were wounded, some mortally, and thirty or so had been unhorsed. “We can only hope the schiltrons hold. This heat will soon weaken the English charge. If our men can hold, the knights will have to fall back sooner or later.”
“And if they can’t?” growled Adam.
Will didn’t answer. He turned his gaze back to the schiltrons.
Time and time again, the English launched themselves at the rings of spears, growing more and more frustrated as they were pushed back, losing men and horses. They hurled axes and lances into the rings, but even when one man fell, those to either side of him, well drilled by Wallace, drew in tight. Soon there was a pile of English weapons lying useless in the center of each schiltron.
Before long, trumpets sounded and the knights, angered, began to withdraw. Will, watching closely with the rest of the cavalry from the fringes of the wood, saw the commanders heading toward Edward’s scarlet banner, raised high to the right of the field. He guessed the king was there, moving amid the mass of men and flags, and felt frustration prickle inside him. The Scots in the woods became hushed as the Welsh longbowmen were drawn up on the hillside in front of the defeated cavalry. Together they took aim, and fired.
The arrows entered the schiltrons with lethal speed, driving through clothes and armor, piercing necks and raised arms, slamming into skulls and chests, throwing men backward with the force. Slowly, but surely, gaps began to appear in the shield rings. A second trumpet sounded and the English cavalry began to charge.
“God, no,” murmured Will, seeing the schiltrons begin to break apart as men panicked and ran. Wallace was down in those lines, as was Gray and a hundred other men who had become his brothers in arms over the past year. Worst of all, Simon was there. Not thinking, only feeling, Will slammed his heels into the sides of his horse and charged out of the woods.
He wasn’t the only one. Scores of men, seeing their comrades in danger, rode out with him, David and Adam among them. A few English knights, observing this ragged band surging down the hillside, broke away to confront them, but most focused their attention on the scattering schiltrons. The butchery began in earnest, the English making bloody work of the fleeing Scots, many of whom ran blindly down the hillside into the very bog they had intended the enemy to fall foul of. Men flailed in the black mud, trapped like flies in honey.
Brian le Jay thundered grimly after four Scots, broadsword swinging. But he misjudged the ground and his horse pitched into the mire, the blade flying from his hand. One of the Scots, scrabbling on hands and knees across the bog, clutched at the fallen blade as it landed nearby. Seeing the Templar master struggling vainly with his horse, the beast almost up to its stomach in mud, the Scot crawled back, sword in hand. Le Jay saw him coming. He pulled his foot from the stirrup, his mailed boot coming out of the mud with a su
cking sound, and kicked at the man. The movement further unbalanced his horse, which staggered sideways, taking him down. At the same moment, the Scot thrust up with the sword, sinking it into Brian le Jay’s neck.
Will rode furiously for the schiltron on the far left of the field, where he knew Simon had been placed, his breaths coming short and sharp through his helmet. His eyes fixed on the mass of men, he didn’t see the rider coming straight at him. The first Will knew of him was the impact of the man’s lance in the flank of his horse. The beast reared in mid-flight and crashed down, sending him flying from the saddle. He smashed into the ground and bounced, over and over, his helmet snapping free.
Coming to a dazed stop, Will lay on his back, panting, the sun in his eyes. He rolled over with a groan, then pushed himself up on his hands in time to see his assailant wheel around and come riding back. Staggering to his feet as he drew his sword, Will caught a flash of red on the knight’s white mantle and realized, as he crouched to spring, that it was a Templar. Then he was throwing himself aside, cutting his falchion in a savage arc that slashed across the horse’s front legs. It tumbled forward, throwing its rider over its head. The knight hit the ground with a thud and lay there unmoving. Not giving him the chance to get up, Will sprinted to him and stabbed down, hard and fast, through the eye slit in the knight’s helmet. Blood spurted up and the man’s body jerked for a few seconds, until Will withdrew the blade and slumped on the grass.
The sounds of battle and slaughter seemed to fade away as Will stared at the knight, whose white mantle was awash with blood, trickling out from beneath his helmet. Will suddenly went forward on his knees, wanting to see the man inside, wanting to know that under that featureless helm wasn’t the face of anyone he knew. His heart lurched into his throat as images of Robert and Jacques, even Hugues, filled his mind, although he knew no French knights, let alone the grand master, would be on this field. Before he reached the dead man, he heard his name being shouted, somewhere close by. There was a drum of hooves. Will stood. As he turned he saw a broad blade come sweeping toward him, wielded by another Templar, come to avenge his brother. Will raised his falchion to block it. There was a flash of light as the sword caught the sun, then a clash of metal, followed by a wrenching sensation as his arm was thrown wide. At the last there was an abrupt feeling of release. The knight went riding past and Will reeled backward. As he fell, he saw the falchion in his hand. It was broken. Then the ground came rapidly up behind him and cracked against his skull.
16
Falkirk Battleground, Scotland
JULY 22, 1298 AD
Sky, ground, up, down; everything was distorted. His mouth was full of blood and earth. He tried to spit, but there was no saliva. His body felt ruined and his head was hammering. He could almost hear it.
Raising himself on his hands, mail gloves digging into the soil, Will pushed himself up until he was sagged on all fours, dizzy and nauseous. There was an appalling stench saturating the dead air, making it hard to breathe. As his vision sharpened he saw its cause. The hillside was covered with corpses. Men lay curled and broken, reduced to a mess of parts. Limbs, still covered in scraps of clothing, were strewn beside bodies at impossible angles. Heads, severed from necks, stared at the sky. One man, close by, was half buried beneath his own entrails, bursting from a gash in his stomach. Will felt a rush of bitterness in his throat and hung there weakly as vomit poured out of him in a vile stream. Wiping his mouth on his torn sleeve, he heard the hammering in his head again. After a second, he realized the sound was external. It was echoing everywhere.
Across the slopes of the moors, English soldiers were wading through the corpses, dispatching the wounded, chopping at bodies like firewood with axe and sword. Cavalry were pursuing survivors, struggling for the woods. Will remembered spurring his horse down to the schiltrons as they broke apart, the Templar attacking him, falling from his horse. Then . . . He twisted around, feeling on the grass for his falchion. He found it beneath him. Holding it up, he stared numbly at the blade, which came to a jagged stop less than a foot from the hilt. As he turned it, he recalled someone shouting his name, just before the second Templar struck. The recognition of that voice was like a punch in his chest. David. Sticking the broken falchion in his scabbard, he went forward, pain grinding in his body. The stink assaulted him as he crawled through the piles of dead. Here and there bodies moved beneath him, squirming in agony. A few times, he put his hand in something sticky and the padding on the palms of his gloves was soon soaked red. Someone grabbed his wrist, making him start.
The soldier’s glazed eyes focused. “Please, help me. I can’t feel my legs.”
Will’s gaze moved from the man’s face down to the place where his legs should have been. He ended at the torso. “I’m sorry,” he said thickly, pulling his hand away. As he crawled on, the air around him shuddered with screams and whimpers. The lines of English soldiers moving up the hillside were closer.
Becoming frantic, he began lifting men’s heads by the hair to check the faces. Some were just a bloody pulp. The sun beat on his neck and everywhere flies buzzed over the dead and dying. Will halted. Several paces ahead, he saw a horse, its great head lying limp. Sprawled over its rump was a burly man with shaggy hair, matted with blood. It was Adam. As Will went to him, he saw his skull had been caved in. He sat back on his heels, feeling the last of his strength draining. Someone grasped his tunic. He jerked around to see his nephew’s face, bloody, but whole, in front of him.
David’s teeth were chattering. “I tried to wake him,” he said, staring at Adam. “He saved me.”
“We’ve got to move,” groaned Will, dragging himself to his feet.
“I want the master found. Who saw him last?”
As the imperious voice rang out, Will saw a figure some distance away, astride a war charger. Even though the man wore a coif of mail that hid his hair and part of his face, Will would recognize that voice anywhere. It was Edward. There were several men with the king, including a Templar.
David was pulling at him. “Will, come on!”
The Templar was heading for the body of the knight Will had slain, the white mantle stark against the drab clothing of the Scots.
For a moment, Will was rooted to the spot, his gaze moving between the dead knight and the king.
David hauled on his arm. “Will! ”
The Templar was heading straight for his fallen brother, paying no attention to them, but one of the other men with the king had spotted the two Scots and now kicked his horse toward them, sword out.
At once, Will began to move, pushing David in front of him. “Run!” he yelled, hearing hooves striking the ground behind.
“Wait! ”
As the command snapped out, Will stumbled on the corpse of a spearman and dropped to his knees. The rider checked himself and went storming past.
“I want them alive! Bring them to me.”
Raising his head, Will saw men dismounting. They came toward him, swords drawn. The rider had circled around to block David’s escape. He felt hands pulling him up, dragging him toward the king. He heard David struggling, then a cry of pain.
Edward towered above him on the warhorse. In his aged gray eyes Will saw surprise.
“My lord!”
Edward turned, glaring at the interruption.
A soldier in a scarlet surcoat rode up to him. “We’ve found the Templar master. It seems he drowned in the marsh.”
“Very well. Call off the search.” Edward looked back at Will, then gestured to the men holding him and David. “They are my prisoners.”
THE DOMINICAN COLLEGE, STIRLING, SCOTLAND, JULY 28, 1298 AD
The door opened and a wooden bowl was kicked into the room. Half the contents slopped out and a voice called, “You can eat off the floor, dog.”
As the door banged shut, Will crawled to the bowl. A few spoonfuls of grain floated in water. One by one, he carefully picked up the handful that had soaked into the dust and returned them to the bo
wl. Clutching it, he slid back to the far wall, where a patch of sunlight warmed the gray stones. The grain tasted bitter, but it was the first meal he’d had in days and every seed strengthened him. When he had finished eating, he set the bowl to his lips and drained the water, the feel of it bathing his parched throat the sweetest sensation imaginable. As he licked the last drops, his tongue rasped over a deep groove in the bottom. Studying it, he saw a crack zigzagging through the wood. Taking hold of the bowl, he forced the sides until it snapped in his hands and he was left with two jagged pieces. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
Stowing the halves of the bowl in the bucket they had given him for his toilet, he slumped against the wall, the stone chilly against his spine. His breeches were the only thing they had left him with. His mail coat, tunic, boots, the broken falchion: all had been stripped from him at Falkirk. They had beaten him then, as Edward rode away, two royal guards in scarlet, their mailed fists punching into the wounds he had sustained in the battle. A third held him, so he couldn’t shield himself, and he was barely conscious when they threw him on the back of a cart. He had seen David senseless beside him and a few other men in similar states. After that, he remembered little, until the English Army entered Stirling.
Will had smelled the smoke before they reached the town, its acrid odor drawing him from his stupor. His eyes, gummed with blood, cracked open and he squinted against the glare as the cart jolted along the road. Stirling had been razed. The houses that clung to the rock below the castle were burned-out shells, skeins of smoke drifting between them like ghosts. The castle walls were blackened from the fire that had gutted it. Listening to the angry mutters of the soldiers, Will felt hope rise in him. If this devastation wasn’t the work of the English, it must have been done by the Scots. His hope grew as he recognized Wallace’s tactics and prayed this was a sign he had made it from the field. Certainly, Wallace wasn’t among the captives in the cart, two of whom had died and been dumped on the road. David was asleep, or unconscious. Will wanted to reach over to him, but didn’t dare. Instead, he lay motionless as the vanguard marched into Stirling.