25
Lanercost, 11th of October, 1346
Night
They followed the line of the river, using the trees along its bank as cover, until they were a safe distance from the camp, and then Mora led them up a steep wooded hill, following the line of a small burn splashing down from the moors above. Merrivale listened for sounds of Scots patrols, but there were none. The Scots had taken few precautions; the nearest English force was many miles away.
Behind them the Scottish camp was a patchwork of torches and fires in the fields and park around the priory. A trumpet sounded, harsh and urgent. ‘That’s the alarm,’ Mora hissed. ‘Quickly now! If they catch us, we’re raven’s meat.’
They fled up the hill, stumbling over stones invisible in the dark and sliding on the dew-damp grass. At the crest of the hill was a long line of stones half-embedded in the ground, the remains of the old Roman wall. Further along was an ancient tower, a black crumbling silhouette against the stars, and they heard the whicker of horses.
Agnes of Dunbar walked out of the tower, followed by her Manx bodyguards. She too was wearing mail, a coif pinning back her black curls and framing her face. ‘Thank you,’ the herald said. ‘I know what risks you have taken. I hope you do not end up sacrificing yourself for us.’
‘So do I,’ the countess said dryly. ‘Actually, it was the Countess of Béthune’s idea.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. The prospect of your death had reduced her to tears. Mind you, so do most things. That woman dwells in a house of melancholy, with grief for a foundation and sorrow etched into its rooftrees. I thought this was likely to be a trap and refused to help, but my husband and Mora both said I was wrong.’
‘I knew Brother Alexander would be willing to help us,’ said Mora.
Horses were led up, and Merrivale helped Tiphaine into the saddle. ‘I am grateful,’ he said to the Knight of Saint John. ‘May I ask why?’
‘The king informed me yesterday that he was awarding all the confiscated lands of my Order to the Seigneur de Brus,’ Seton said bitterly. ‘Not just the ones where Brus has purchased the title, but all of them, dozens of manors, thousands of acres. My years of work have been wasted, and I have been told to leave Scotland. So, having nothing to lose, I went to her ladyship and volunteered my services.’
‘Nevertheless, you too are taking a great risk,’ Merrivale said. ‘But I am profoundly grateful to you.’
‘As am I,’ said Tiphaine, and she looked at the countess and Mora.
They mounted their horses. ‘There is one more thing you need to know,’ Agnes said. ‘Brus intends to assassinate the king and take the throne for himself. He told me so, though not in so many words. Does this fit into the larger conspiracy you mentioned?’
Scotland in the control of the man from the north and his allies would be far more dangerous than Scotland ruled by David Bruce. ‘Yes,’ said the herald quietly. ‘It does. Thank you.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Try to cut Brus off from his co-conspirators. That is about all I can do.’
‘Time is short,’ Agnes warned.
‘There is never enough time, but I will do my best. Farewell, my lady. I do not know when we will meet again.’
‘At a conference to discuss peace, I hope,’ said the countess. ‘Stick to the high ground, away from the river. Follow the line of the wall east, and eventually it will take you to the Tyne. From there you can descend to Hexham. May God watch over you.’
Lanercost, 11th of October, 1346
Night
In the corridor of the monks’ dorter, Brus raged over the bodies of the drugged guards. ‘When these two wake up, I want them whipped until their backbones show.’ He looked at the men around him. ‘Well? Does anyone know where they went?’
‘The scouts found tracks further upriver,’ said Béthune.
Douglas nodded. ‘They’ll go east towards Hexham and Newcastle, looking for safety.’
‘Then we must stop them. That damned herald knows too much. Did you say he was asking about Gilbert de Tracey?’
‘Yolande was quite definite,’ said Béthune. ‘He asked her whether I knew Hainault, and about Tracey and the Bishop of Durham.’
‘Christ,’ Brus said bitterly. ‘He really is getting close. No more mistakes, gentlemen.’
‘I’m not aware that any of us made mistakes,’ Douglas said cuttingly.
Brus looked at him. Béthune held up a hand. ‘This is not the time,’ he said. ‘What are your orders, seigneur?’
Brus rubbed his ribs again. ‘Carrick, you’re with me. We’ll push on up the road towards Hexham. Put out a cordon, search every cottage and barn and byre we come to. Béthune, Douglas, take the high ground along the wall. I don’t care what you have to do or how far you have to go, but find them.’
Another man ran up the stairs. ‘The preceptor of the Knights is missing, my lord. His servants say he left a couple of hours ago. No one knows where he went.’
Béthune snapped his fingers. ‘That solves the mystery of who helped them. Very well, my friends, to horse. We have a long night ahead of us.’
Roman wall, 12th of October, 1346
Early morning
They rode in near silence at first, Merrivale leading the way and Seton bringing up the rear. The pace was slow. In some places there were tracks paralleling the stumps of the wall protruding from the earth, but elsewhere there was only rough open ground, cut by burns and sikes running across their path, tumbling downhill to join the river below. Overhead the cold stars turned on their slow wheels, marking the passage of time.
After a couple of hours they halted to rest. ‘We are about to cross the watershed,’ Seton said. ‘From here the streams run down into Tynedale, and the waters flow east.’
‘Can we reach Hexham by morning?’ Merrivale asked.
‘Not unless we go down into the valley,’ said Seton. ‘But I think that is too dangerous. The countess is right, we should stick to the high ground.’
‘We could go to Chipchase,’ Peter volunteered. ‘My father will give us shelter.’
Merrivale started to say he did not want to draw trouble down on Sir Robert’s head, but stopped. Faint to his ears, almost imperceptible in the night air, came the clop and thump of hooves.
Swiftly, the herald slid out of the saddle to the ground. ‘Give me your knife,’ he said to Seton. The knight passed it over and Merrivale rammed it point-first into the bole of an ash tree and closed his hand around the hilt, feeling the vibration.
‘How many?’ asked Seton.
‘Too many to count. Thirty at least, probably more. I reckon they’re about a mile behind us.’
He handed back the knife and climbed into the saddle. ‘Come on,’ he said.
Thereafter Peter led the way and both Merrivale and Seton rode rearguard. ‘That was a neat trick with the knife,’ Seton said. ‘Where did you learn it?’
‘I used to be a King’s Messenger,’ the herald said, listening to the distant murmur. ‘Have you given any more thought to what I said? That Brus and the conspirators may have designs on the Knights of Saint John?’
‘I have thought of little else,’ said Seton. Like Merrivale, he was listening to the horsemen behind them. ‘The Order has been the target of plots before. Like the Knights Templar, our lands and estates make us tempting prey for greedy men. Indeed, when the Templars fell, we were nearly dragged down with them. How widespread is this conspiracy?’
‘In the summer it embraced Bohemia, Genoa and the papacy as well as France and England. Now we see Scotland dragged in. God knows how far the net has been spread.’
‘Then we are all in danger,’ Seton said quietly. ‘My Order included.’
‘Yes.’ Merrivale spurred his horse, calling to the others in front. ‘Pick up the pace, my friends. They are getting closer.’
Torches flickered like stars behind them. ‘They’re lighting the ground,’ Seton said, cantering beside Merrivale. ‘They must have
picked up our trail.’
‘It’s going to be damned hard to throw them off,’ said Merrivale. The ground was growing rougher; the river valley was a deep pit of darkness to the right, while to the left lay high moors broken by bogs and crags. The broken stumps of the wall remained beside them, punctuated from time to time by ruined turrets and the vestigial remains of castles. They slithered down the banks of another deep burn and climbed back up a slope so steep they had to dismount and lead their horses. The ground hampered the enemy too, of course, but somehow they were edging closer. At the top of the next hill Merrivale and his party were silhouetted against the starlight, and a shout from behind told him they had been spotted.
Now they were in a race, and with the pursuit both fresher and more numerous, there could only be one winner. Galloping across a broad expanse of moorland, Seton drew level with Merrivale. ‘It is about three hours until dawn. If they catch us out in the open in daylight, they’ll finish us.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
Seton pointed towards the deep valley. ‘I’ll ride downhill. Try to draw them off.’
Merrivale looked at him. ‘Do you know what you are doing, brother?’
Seton smiled in the starlight. ‘My soul is already safe. You know more than anyone about these men, who they are and what they intend.’
The herald said nothing. ‘Go,’ said Seton. ‘Find safety. Then write to my grand master, and tell him what you told me. Do this, so that my Order may survive.’
Merrivale closed his eyes for a moment. ‘May God receive you in glory,’ he said quietly.
Seton raised a hand. Pulling up his horse, he turned back to face the pursuit while the others raced on. Out of the shadows came the pursuing pack, forty horsemen with two armoured men-at-arms in the lead; it was too dark to see clearly, but he thought he recognised the diamonds and bar of Béthune.
Seton let the pursuit get to almost within bowshot, and then spurred his horse to a full gallop. Leaping over the remains of the wall he rode down the dark hillside towards the invisible river below, his pace reckless, daring the Scots to follow him. Most of them did. Two horses slipped and fell almost at once, throwing their riders; the rest crashed after Seton, yelling with fury, quickly lost to view with only the shouts and clatter of hooves telling that the pursuit continued. There came a sudden clash of metal, sword blades clattering on armour, and a piercing scream of agony followed by another. The swords clattered for a little longer, and then stopped.
The others rode on, leaning forward in the saddle, urging their mounts to the utmost speed. Tiphaine had tears on her face. ‘Are they still following us?’
Merrivale glanced behind. Not all of the riders had followed Seton; a solid group of six or seven horsemen led by Béthune was still coming after them, though they had dropped back a little. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘As long as we stick to the wall, they will continue to follow us. We need to go out into the wild lands. Peter, can you guide us?’
‘I’ve hunted over this ground since I was old enough to ride,’ Peter said. ‘Follow me, sir. I’ll see us safely through.’
Wark Moor, 12th of August, 1346
Early morning
There followed a nightmare scramble through a wasteland of hills and crags and moors. No one lived here; the only signs of human life were occasional circles of stone, planted by people far older than the Romans. Sometimes they splashed through burns thick with boulders, soaking themselves and their mounts; sometimes they skirted treacherous bogs, slipping and skidding in the oozing black mud. Without the stars, Merrivale would soon have lost all sense of direction.
Peter guided them. As he had said, he knew this moor well. He pointed out the patches of dark grass that showed where the ground was wettest, and the pale screes of stones that would clink against horseshoes and betray their presence. He kept them off the high hills where they would be easily spotted and down in the shadows along the burns. They could hear Béthune’s men following them but rarely saw them, and when they did there was always another hill to duck behind, hiding them from view again. Gradually, as they twisted and turned among the hills, the pursuit fell further and further behind.
Dawn found them deep in the heart of the moor. Peter called a halt, dismounted and ran up the nearest hill where he lay flat on his belly for a while, scanning the horizon. Eventually he slithered back down again. ‘I think we’ve lost them, sir.’
It was three hours since Seton had been killed, and they had been riding without a pause for longer than that. The horses were drooping with exhaustion. They had nothing to feed the animals, but they found a deep burn where they could water them and drank a little water themselves. No one had eaten since the previous morning. Merrivale instructed the others to get some sleep and stood guard while they did so, acutely aware that the only weapons they had were a few knives; Peter’s bow had been left behind at Liddel Strength. The past few days had shown that his herald’s tabard offered no protection, not against enemies like Brus and his allies.
He grieved for Seton, who had been so willing to sacrifice his life to save them. The Knights of Saint John he had known in the past had rarely been so selfless; at worst, like Jean de Nanteuil, they were ruthless political creatures who would do anything to serve their own ends. But Seton had been a decent and honest man who, in dying, had passed his burden on to Merrivale. His own duty was clear; if he survived, he must get word to the grand master and do whatever he could to unravel the conspiracy that threatened the Knights. Seton was owed that much.
After a couple of hours, Peter woke and came to relieve him. ‘You should get some rest too, sir.’
The sky had clouded over, and a north wind was rising. ‘Where are we?’ Merrivale asked.
‘That hill is called Black Law,’ Peter said, pointing. ‘Go over that and you come down to another burn, bigger than the others in a deep valley. There’s a place there called Stonehaugh that has good grass all year around. We can graze the horses there, and then follow the burn down to the North Tyne. Once we reach the river, my father’s house at Chipchase is not far away.’
‘I do not wish to endanger your father,’ Merrivale said.
‘Don’t worry, sir. I’ll ride ahead to the house alone, and see if it is safe. If nothing else, I can take some food from the kitchen and ride back to join you. I’m in need of a good feed,’ the boy said, rubbing his stomach.
There it was again, Merrivale thought, that quick assumption of authority. Smiling a little, he lay down on the grass and fell immediately asleep.
When he woke it was around midday, though again it was hard to tell; the cloud ceiling had lowered, obscuring the sun. The wind hissed in the dry grasses around them. ‘No sign of the Scots, sir,’ said Peter.
‘Good.’ Mauro and Warin were already awake, and he shook Tiphaine gently. Her eyes opened and he saw a moment of fear in them. ‘Where are we?’
‘The middle of nowhere,’ Merrivale said. ‘But Béthune and his men have gone. We’re safe, at least for the moment.’
They watered the horses again and then mounted and rode on. Peter remained cautious, keeping to the valleys and skirting around Black Law rather than going over it, never moving at faster than a walking pace so he and Merrivale could listen to the air around them. Gradually the deep valley Peter had spoken of began to open out ahead of them.
The clink of metal on stone behind them was the first warning. Merrivale looked back and saw horsemen coming over the skyline, spears upright and dark against the clouds, and heard the shout as they were spotted. More horsemen appeared on the right. ‘Ride downhill,’ he said to the others. ‘As hard and fast as you can.’ If they could reach the burn and follow it down to the Tyne they stood a chance, even if only a faint one.
They kicked their horses and rode down the steep slope, slipping and sliding, hearing the pursuit coming after them. For a moment Merrivale thought they would get away with it; their mounts were rested, if hungry, and had recovered some of their vigour. For a qua
rter of a mile they fled downhill, turning past a spur of rock that they hoped might hide them from the view of the enemy. Warin, who was up front, shouted in alarm. Merrivale looked up and suddenly he felt sick again.
An entire company of horsemen faced them, sixty or seventy men easily, far larger than the force that had pursued them last night. They were border hobelars, armoured in boiled leather and carrying long lances, with faces like slabs of stone under the brims of their helmets. Merrivale reined in, the others alongside him, hearing the pursuing parties coming down from behind to hem them in. The chase was over.
One of the horsemen rode forward, staring at Peter. ‘Are you Master de Lisle?’ he demanded. ‘Sir Robert’s son?’
‘I am,’ Peter said sharply. ‘And who might you be?’
‘I’m Jamie Hall from Redesdale, sir. You won’t remember me, but I saw you at Bellingham horse fair a couple of years ago; you were younger then, of course. What are you doing out here, master?’
‘I can’t see that is any of your business,’ Peter said. ‘This is Simon Merrivale, herald to the prince of Wales, and he is on the queen’s service. Stand aside, if you please.’
Hall shook his head. ‘I’m afraid we can’t do that, sir. We’ll have to ask you to come with us. Our lord gave particular instructions that any persons found in this area were to be detained and brought to him.’
‘And who might your lord be?’ demanded Peter.
‘He is Sir Gilbert d’Umfraville, Lord of Redesdale. He’ll remember you too, no doubt. Now, sir, and you too, Sir Herald, come along please. Sir Gilbert’s camp is not far away.’
Out of the pan and straight into the fire this time, Merrivale thought. They had evaded the Scots, but unless he could talk his way out of this, the end was likely to be the same. They were in the hands of the Disinherited.
A Clash of Lions Page 28