The Grail Quest Books 1-3: Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic

by Bernard Cornwell

  'Shoot! Shoot!' Lord Outhwaite called. 'That's the way, lads!' The arrows were pitiless. The Scottish wounded cried to God, called for their mothers and still the feathered death hammered home. One man, wearing the lion of Stewart, spewed a pink mist of blood and spittle. He was on his knees, but managed to stand, took a step, fell to his knees again, shuffled forward, blew more blood-stained bubbles and then an arrow buried itself in his eye and went through his brain to scrape against the back of his skull and he went backwards as though hit by a thunderbolt.

  Then the great horses came.

  'For England, Edward and St George!' Lord Percy called and a trumpeter took up the challenge as the great destriers charged. They unceremoniously thrust the archers aside as the lances dropped.

  The turf shook. Only a few horsemen were attacking, but the shock of their charge struck the enemy with stunning force and the Scots reeled back. Lances were relinquished in men's bodies as the knights drew swords and hacked down at frightened, cowering men who could not run because the press of bodies was too great. More horsemen were mounting up and those men-at-arms who did not want to wait for their stallions were running fonvard to join the carnage. The archers joined them, drawing swords or swinging axes. The drums were at last silent and the slaughter had begun.

  Thomas had seen it happen before. He had seen how, in an egeblink, a battle could change. The Scots had been pressing all day, they had so nearly shattered the English, they were rampant and winning, yet now they were beaten and the men of the Scottish left, who had come so close to giving their King his victory, were the ones who broke. The English warhorses galloped into their ranks to make bloody lanes and the riders swung swords, axes, clubs and morningstars at panicked men. The English archers joined in, mobbing the slower Scots like packs of hounds leaping onto deer. 'Prisoners!' Lord Percy shouted at his retainers. 'I want prisoners!' A Scotsman swung an axe at his horse, missed and was chopped down by his lordship's sword, an archer finished the job with a knife and then slit the man's padded jerkin to search for coins. Two carpenters from Durham hacked with woodworker's adzes at a struggling man-at-arms, bludgeoning his skull, killing him slowly. An archer reeled back, gasping, his belly cut open and a Scot followed him, screaming in rage, but then was tripped by a bowstave and went down under a swarm of men. The trappers of the English horses were dripping with blood as their riders turned to cut their way back through the Scottish host. They had ridden clean through and now spurred back to meet the next wave of English men-at-arms who fought with visors open for the panicking enemy was not offering any real resistance.

  Yet the Scottish right and centre were intact.

  The right had again been pushed into the low ground, but now, instead of archers fighting them from the rim, they faced the English men-at-arms who were foolish enough to go down into the hollow to meet the Scottish charge. Mailed men clashed over the bodies of the Scottish dead, clambering awkwardly in their metal suits to swing swords and axes against shields and skulls. Men grunted as they killed. They snarled, attacked and died in the muddy bracken, yet the fight was futile for if either side gained an advantage they only pressed their enemy back up the slope and immediately the losing side had the ground as their ally and they would press back downhill and more dead joined the corpses in the hollow's bottom and so the fight surged forward and back, each great swing leaving men weeping and dying, calling on Jesus, cursing their enemy, bleeding.

  Beggar was there, a great rock of a man who stood astride the corpse of the Earl of Moray, mocking the Scots and inviting them to fight, and half a dozen came and were killed before a pack of Highland clansmen came screaming to kill him and he roared at them, swinging his huge spiked mace, and to the Scarecrow, watching from above, he looked like a great shaggy bear assailed by mastiffs. Sir William Douglas, too canny to be caught a second time in the low ground, also watched from the opposing rim and was amazed that men would go willingly down to the slaughter. Then, knowing that the battle would neither be won nor lost in that pit of death, he turned back to the centre where the King's sheltron still had a chance of gaining a great victory despite the disaster on the Scottish left.

  For the King's men had got past the stone wall. In places they had pulled it down and in others it had at last collapsed before the press of men, and though the fallen stones still presented a formidable obstacle to soldiers cumbered by heavy shields and coats of mail they were clambering across and thrusting back the English centre. The Scots had charged into the arrows, endured them and even trapped a score of archers whom they slaughtered gleefully and now they hacked and stabbed their way towards the Archbishop's great banner. The King, his visor sticky with blood from his wounded cheek, was in the forefront of the sheltron. The King's chaplain was beside his master, wielding a spiked club, and Sir William and his nephew joined the attack. Sir William was suddenly ashamed of the premonition that had made him advise a retreat. This was how Scotsmen fought! With passion and savagery. The English centre was reeling back, scarce holding its ranks. Sir William saw that the enemy had fetched their horses close up to the battle line and he surmised they were readying themselves to flee and so he redoubled his efforts. 'Kill them!' he roared. If the Scots could break the line then the English would be in chaos, unable to reach their horses, and mere meat for the butchers.

  'Kill! Kill!' the King, conspicuous on horseback, shouted at his men.

  'Prisoners!' the Earl of Monteith, more sensible, called. 'Take prisoners!'

  'Break them! Break them now!' Sir William roared. He slammed his shield forward to receive a sword stroke, stabbed beneath it and felt his blade pierce a mail coat. He turned the sword and jerked it free before the flesh could grip the steel. He pushed with his shield, unable to see over its top rim, felt the enemy stagger back, lowered the shield in anticipation of a lunge underneath, then rammed it forward again, throwing the enemy back. He stumbled forward, almost losing his footing by tripping on the man he had wounded, but he caught his weight by dropping the bottom edge of the shield on the ground, pushed himself upright and thrust the sword into a bearded face. The blade glanced off the cheekbone, taking an eye, and that man fell backwards, mouth agape, abandoning the fight. Sir William half ducked to avoid an axe blow, caught another sword on his shield and stabbed wildly towards the two men attacking him. Robbie, swearing and cursing, killed the axeman, then kicked a fallen man-at-arms in the face. Sir William lunged underhand and felt his sword scrape on broken mail and he twisted to stop the blade being trapped and yanked it back so that a gush of blood spilled through the metal rings of the wounded man's armour. That man fell, gasping and twitching, and more Englishmen came from the right, desperate to stop the Scottish attack that threatened to pierce clean through the Archbishop's line. 'Douglas!' Sir William roared. 'Douglas!' He was calling on his followers to come and support him, to shove and to gouge and to hack the last enemy down. He and his nephew had carved a bloody path deep into the Archbishop's ranks and it would take only a moment's fierce fighting to break the English centre and then the real slaughter could begin.

  Sir William ducked as another axe flailed at him. Robbie killed that man, driving his sword through the axeman's throat, but Robbie immediately had to parry a spear thrust and in doing it he staggered back against his uncle. Sir William shoved his nephew upright and hammered his shield into an enemy's face. Where the hell were his men? 'Douglas!' Sir William thundered again. 'Douglas!'

  And just then a sword or spear tangled his feet and he fell and instinctively he covered himself with the shield. Men pounded past him and he prayed that they were his followers who were breaking the last English resistance and he waited for the enemy's screaming to begin, but instead there was an insistent tap on his helmet. The tapping stopped, then started again. 'Sir William?' a gentle voice enquired.

  The screaming had begun so Sir William could scarcely hear, but the gentle tapping on the crown of his helmet persuaded him it was safe to lower his shield. It took him a moment to see
what was happening for his helmet had been wrenched askew when he fell and he had to pull it round. 'God's teeth,' he said when the world came into view.

  'Dear Sir William,' the kindly voice said, 'I assume you yield? Of course you do. And is that young Robbie? My, how you've grown, young man! I remember you as a pup.'

  'Oh, God's teeth,' Sir William said again, looking up at Lord Outhwaite.

  'Can I give you a hand?' Lord Outhwaite asked solicitously, reaching down from his saddle. 'And then we can talk ransoms.'

  'Jesus,' Sir William said, 'God damn it!' for he understood now that the feet pounding past had been English feet and that the screaming was coming from the Scots. The English centre had held after all, and for the Scots the battle had turned to utter disaster.

  It was the archers again. The Scots had lost men all day and still they outnumbered their enemy, but they had no answer to the arrows and when the Scottish centre broke down the wall and surged across its remains, so the Scottish left had retreated and exposed the flank of the King's sheltron to the English arrows.

  It took a few moments for the bowmen to realize their advantage. They had joined the pursuit of the broken Scottish left and were unaware how close to victory was the Scottish centre, but then one of Lord Neville's men understood the danger. 'Archers!' His roar could be heard clear across the Wear in Durham. 'Archers!' Men broke off their plundering and pulled arrows from the bags.

  The bows began sounding again, each deep harp note driving an arrow into the flank of the rampaging Scots. David's sheltron had forced the central English battle back across a pasture, they had stretched it thin and they were closing on the Archbishop's great banner, and then the arrows began to bite and after the arrows came the men-atarms from the English right wing, the retainers of Lord Percy and of Lord Neville, and some were already mounted on their big horses that were trained to bite, rear and kick with their iron-shod hooves. The archers, discarding their bows yet again, followed the horsemen with axes and swords, and this time their women came as well with knives unsheathed.

  The Scottish King hacked at an Englishman, saw him fall, then heard his standard-bearer shout in terror and he turned to see the great banner falling. The standard-bearer's horse had been hamstrung; it screamed as it collapsed and a rabble of archers and men-at-arms clawed at man and beast, snatched at the banner and hauled the standard-bearer down to a ghastly death, but then the royal chaplain seized the reins of the King's horse and dragged David Bruce out of the melee. More Scotsmen gathered about their King, escorting him away. and behind them the English were hacking down from saddles, chopping with their swords, cursing as they killed, and the King tried to turn back and continue the fight, but the chaplain forced his horse away. 'Ride, sir! Ride!' the chaplain shouted. Frightened men blundered into the King's horse that trampled on a clansman then stumbled on a corpse. There were Englishmen in the Scottish rear now and the King, seeing his danger, put back his spurs. An enemy knight took a swing at him, but the King parried the blow and galloped past the danger. His army had disintegrated into groups of desperate fugitives. He saw the Earl of Menteith try to mount a horse, but an archer seized his lordship's leg and hauled him back, then sat on him and put a knife to his throat. The Earl shouted that he yielded. The Earl of Fife was a prisoner, the Earl of Strathearn was dead, the Earl of Wigtown was being assailed by two English knights whose swords rang on his plate armour like blacksmiths' hammers. One of the big Scottish drums, its skins split and tattered, rolled down the hill, going faster and faster as the slope steepened, thumping hollow on the rocks until at last it fell sideways and slid to a halt.

  The King's great banner was in English hands now as were the standards of a dozen Scottish lords. A few Scots galloped north. Lord Robert Stewart, who had so nearly won the day, was free and clear on the eastern side of the ridge while the King plunged down the western side, going into shadow because the sun was now lower than the hills towards which he rode in desperate need of refuge. He thought of his wife. Was she pregnant? He had been told that Lord Robert had hired a witch to lay a spell on her womb so that the throne would pass from Bruce to Stewart. 'Sir! Sir!' One of his men was screaming at him and the King came out of his reverie to see a group of English archers already down in the valley. How had they headed him off? He pulled on the reins, leaned right to help the horse round and felt the arrow thump into the stallion's chest. Another of his men was down, tumbling along the stony ground that was tearing his mail into bright shreds. A horse screamed, blood fanned across the dusk and another arrow slammed into the King's shield that was slung on his back. A third arrow was caught in his horse's mane and the stallion was slowing, plunging up and down as it laboured for breath.

  The King struck back with his spurs, but the horse could not go faster. He grimaced and the gesture opened the crusted wound on his cheek so that blood spilled from his open visor down his ripped surcoat. The horse stumbled again. There was a stream ahead and a small stone bridge and the King marvelled that anyone should make a masonry bridge over so slight a watercourse, and then the horse's front legs just collapsed and the King was rolling on the ground, miraculously free of his dying mount and without any broken bones and he scrambled up and ran to the bridge where three of his men waited on horseback, one with a riderless stallion.

  But even before the King could reach the three men the arrows flickered and hammered home, each one making the horses stagger sideways from the shock of its impact. The stallion screamed, tore itself free of the man's grasp and galloped eastwards with blood dripping from its belly. Another horse collapsed with an arrow deep in its rump, two in its belly and another in its jugular. 'Under the bridge!' the King shouted. There would be shelter under the arch, a place to hide, and when he had a dozen men he would make a break for it. Dusk could not be far off and if they waited for nightfall and then walked all night they might be in Scotland by dawn.

  So four Scotsmen, one of them a King, huddled under the stone bridge and caught their breath. The arrows had stopped flying, their horses were all dead and the King dared to hope that the English archers had gone in search of other prey. We wait here,' he whispered. He could hear screams from the high ground, he could hear hooves on the slope, but none sounded close to the little low bridge. He shuddered, realizing the magnitude of the disaster. His army was gone, his great hopes were nothing, the Christmas feast would not be in London and Scotland lay open to its enemies. He peered northwards. A group of clansmen splashed through the stream and suddenly six English horsemen appeared and drove their destriers off the high bank and the big swords hacked down and there was blood swirling downstream to run around the King's mailed feet and he shrank back into the shadows as the men-at-arms spurred westwards to find more fugitives. Horses clattered over the bridge and the four Scotsmen said nothing, dared not even look at each other until the sound of the hooves had faded. A trumpet was calling from the ridge and its note was hateful: triumphant and scornful. The King closed his eyes because he feared he would shed tears.

  'You must see a physician, sir,' a man said and the King opened his eyes to see it was one of his servants who had spoken.

  'This can't be cured,' the King said, meaning Scotland. 'The cheek will mend, sir,' the servant said reassuringly.

  The King stared at his retainer as though the man had spoken in some strange foreign tongue and then, terribly and suddenly, his badly wounded cheek began to hurt. There had been no pain all day, but now it was agony and the King felt tears well from his eyes. Not from pain, but shame, and then, as he tried to blink the tears away there were shouts, falling shadows and the splash of boots as men jumped from the bridge. The attackers had swords and spears and they plunged under the bridge's arch like otter-hunters come to the kill and the King roared his defiance and leaped at the man who was in front and his rage was such that he forgot to draw his sword and instead punched the man with his armoured fist and he felt the Englishman's teeth crunch under the blow, saw the blood spurt and he drove the m
an down into the stream, hammering him. and then he could not move because other men were pinioning him. The man beneath him, half drowned with broken teeth and bloodied lips, began to laugh.

  For he had taken a prisoner. And he would be rich.

  He had captured the King.

  Part Two

  England and Normandy, 1346—7

  The Winter Siege

  It was dark in the cathedral. So dark that the bright colours painted on the pillars and walls had faded into blackness. The only light came from the candles on the side altars and from beyond the rood screen where flames shivered in the choir and black-robed monks chanted. Their voices wove a spell in the dark, twining and falling, surging and rising, a sound that would have brought tears to Thomas's eyes if he had possessed any tears left to shed. 'Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna,' the monks intoned as the candle smoke twisted up to the cathedral's roof. Deliver me, Lord, from everlasting death, and on the flagstones of the choir lay the coffin in which Brother Hugh Collimore lay undelivered, his hands crossed on his tunic, his eves closed and, unknown to the prior, a pagan coin placed beneath his tongue by one of the other monks who feared the devil would take Collimore's soul if the ferryman who carried the souls of the departed across the river of the after-world was not paid.

  'Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,' the monks chanted, requesting the Lord to give Brother Collimore eternal rest, and in the city beneath the cathedral, in the small houses that clung to the side of the rock, there was weeping for so many Durham men had been killed in the battle, but the weeping was as nothing to the tears that would be shed when the news of the disaster returned to Scotland. The King was taken prisoner, and so was Sir William Douglas and the Earls of Fife and of Menteith and of Wigtown, and the Earl of Moray was dead as was the Constable of Scotland and the King's Marshal and the King's Chamberlain, all of them butchered, their bodies stripped naked and mocked by their enemies, and with them were hundreds of their countrymen, their white flesh laced bloody and food now for foxes and wolves and dogs and ravens. The gorestained Scottish standards were on the altar of Durham's cathedral and the remnants of David's great army were fleeing through the night and on their heels were the vengeful English going to ravage and plunder the lowlands, to take back what had been stolen and then to steal some more. 'Et lux perpetua lucent cis,' the monks chanted, praying that eternal light would shine upon the dead monk, while on the ridge the other dead lay beneath the dark where the white owls shrieked.