From the Scottish lines a trumpet sounded and Menteith’s company of horsemen began to move, sweeping forward and spurring to a gallop. The archers turned to face them and for a moment Merrivale was reminded of Crécy, armoured men-at-arms charging, the archers standing their ground and shooting fifteen arrows a minute in hypnotic, repetitive motions, nock-draw-release, nock-draw-release, nock-draw-release, over and over as horses and men crashed to the ground. Shattered, most of the Scots turned and fell back out of arrow range. Menteith charged on alone; a hailstorm of arrows converged on him, but he seemed impregnable. A murmur ran through the watching English ranks as the lone horseman bore down on the archers, lance levelled, and just when it seemed that nothing could touch him, his horse was shot and fell, throwing the earl to the ground. Some of the archers ran forward and seized him, dragging him back to their lines.
Harsh and raw, its notes cracking in the wind, a trumpet sounded. Another answered, and another, and the pipes began to wail their war songs, and with a clash of metal that rose to the clouds the Scottish army stirred into motion.
* * *
Moray led his men from the front, as he always did. The schiltron behind him was like the blade of a spear, and he and the heavily armoured men-at-arms around him were its steel tip. Arrows hissed around them as they tramped forward, clattering off armour, thudding into upraised shields; Moray’s own shield was hit three times in less than a minute and another arrow hit his bascinet and ricochetted away, leaving a dent the size of an egg behind it. A fifth found a gap in his plate armour and punched through the mail beneath; the wound was not deep, but he felt the blood began to flow. But Moray never wavered, and the men behind him did not waver either; each time a man fell, another ran forward to take his place.
The English line drew closer. Strathearn’s schiltron was close beside his own, the men of Fife on his other flank. This is our moment, Moray exulted; this is the day we pay the English back for the last fifty years. He thought of the rewards that had been promised him, the lands and titles and power that would come to him in the aftermath of victory; he imagined, as he had imagined many times before, presiding over the execution of his sister, the bitch who had abandoned him to his death… He heard a sudden scream of pain and looked over to see Strathearn staggering; an arrow had smashed through his visor and hit him in one eye. Two men were alongside him, shielding him as more arrows rattled off their armour, but Strathearn raised his head and motioned with one hand; forward.
The English lines were just ahead, gorse bushes a dense obstacle in front of them. Moray hacked at these with his sword, feeling another arrow bite into his leg, but the pain merely spurred him on. ‘Come on!’ he shouted to his men, and the schiltron burst through the last of the gorse and slammed into the English line.
* * *
Harry Percy was waiting for them. As the Scottish schiltrons began to move he left his post beside his father and ran to the forward line. The men around him cheered when they saw the blue lion, men of the Northumbrian dales and the high hills of the Cheviots, fighting for their kin and their homes. Anger surged in Harry’s mind as he watched the Scots coming; anger at his father for having considered treason, anger at himself for having listened to the old man in the first place. He knew the herald still distrusted him too, and that angered him still further.
Mary was right, he thought, watching the red diamonds of Moray come closer and closer, the scream of the pipes shredding the air; we should have done our duty. Well, we’re doing it now.
The Scots were coming on fast now, the gleaming wedges of the schiltrons tearing through gaps in the gorse bushes, and after them poured Moray’s highlanders, swords and axes aloft. They smashed like a battering ram into the wall of English men-at-arms. Under their impact, the wall buckled. ‘Stand fast!’ Percy shouted, and he ran down the line, warding off blows with his shield and dragging his own men back into the line again.
Arrows, dark furies hissing in the air, clawed and tore at the Scots. Percy found Moray in the middle of the fighting, swinging his sword around him, armour and surcoat stained with blood, shield riddled with arrows, and ran straight at him. They clashed swords, again and again, and sharp rapid blows drew blood on Percy’s leg and neck, but he had hit Moray again too, and the Scottish earl stumbled. Slowly, step by step, Harry Percy drove Moray back and his men retreated with him.
* * *
As Moray’s men fell back, fresh schiltrons from the king’s division came crashing into the attack. Niall Bruce of Carrick led one of these, holding his sword aloft to guide his men. The English archers saw him and a cloud of arrows converged on him; shot twice, he stumbled but came up again, roaring like a bull, and led his men straight at the solid shield wall of the Disinherited.
Raging, Carrick threw himself at the enemy. The Disinherited had promised to serve Scotland, and had broken their promise; therefore, they must die. He hacked down two men, breaching the shield wall, and drove forward, his men crowding behind him and stabbing at the English with their long spears. Sword blades hammered at his shield; he stabbed back, feeling the point of his weapon burst through mail and leather and slash deep into flesh and bone. His battered lion shield was splattered with blood.
More and more Scots came piling in. Douglas was there too, moving towards the heart of the fighting; Sutherland was not far away. The air reverberated to the clash of metal, punctuated by the screams of wounded men. Carrick spotted the cinquefoil of Umfraville and slashed through the press until they were face to face. He raised his shield, and Umfraville’s sword split the shield vertically and banged off the Scot’s vambrace. But Umfraville stumbled on rough ground, and a back-handed blow from Carrick knocked his bascinet off and threw him onto his back. Carrick stood over the dazed man, sword raised for the kill.
Another sword smashed into his shoulder, ringing off his pauldron. He turned to face his assailant, a man in gleaming armour with white hair flowing out from beneath his bascinet. ‘Sir Robert de Lisle,’ he snarled. ‘It will be a pleasure to kill you, old man.’
De Lisle said nothing. For a moment they faced each other, red lion and white; then de Lisle circled, clashing his blade against Carrick’s, and stabbed low, sword point gliding beneath the bottom of Carrick’s breastplate and punching through the mail links beneath.
Disbelieving, Carrick felt the blood start to flow. How could this old man hit him so hard? Roaring again, he attacked with a flurry of cutting and slashing strokes, but de Lisle’s shield and blade blocked every blow; and when Carrick halted, gasping for breath, de Lisle advanced, stabbing and cutting through weak spots in his armour time and time again. Staggering, faint now with loss of blood, the Scot reeled back. God damn it, he thought, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Rollond had promised that they would roll straight over the English, grind them into dust. He wondered if Douglas was right, if Rollond really couldn’t be trusted, and then another blow hit Carrick on the head and the world around him went black.
* * *
Carrick was down, but the enemy were still pouring forward, the schiltrons of Douglas and Sutherland hacking their way through the English line and ignoring the hail of arrows around them. David Bruce’s men were coming forward too, ready to administer the final blow. Off to the left, the archbishop’s standard was almost entirely surrounded. De Lisle leaned on his sword, gasping for breath and feeling a sharp pain spreading through his chest. Rokeby, he thought, now is the time to commit the reserves. Do not wait for orders, old friend. Throw your men in, now.
He raised his sword again. A Scot came at him with upraised axe; de Lisle ran him through, pulled his sword clear of the body and pressed on towards the red heart of Douglas, shouting at his men to follow. Wake was alongside him. ‘We can’t hold on much longer, Robert.’
‘We’ll hold until the end,’ said de Lisle. The pain in his chest was stronger now, and speaking was a great effort. ‘Our honour demands nothing less.’
Behind the visor of his battered bascinet, Wake gri
nned at him. ‘I knew you would say that. Let me lead the way.’
De Lisle opened his mouth to object, but this time no words would come. The pain was spreading, swelling, roaring in his ears. He looked up suddenly and saw that the clouds had parted, and in a patch of pale sunlight he saw suddenly the faces of his family; Eleanor his beloved wife, Robert his son who had been killed at Annan, Richard who had died on pilgrimage far away and dearest of all, Peter, the sweet, eager boy who had wanted so much to be a herald. All of them were smiling at him, and suddenly the pain in his body was gone, and the sounds of combat disappeared too, replaced with music like an eruption of joy. Light as a cloud, he rose through the air to join his family, and the knowledge came in a flash of light; we will be together now, for all eternity.
* * *
Standing on the base of the pilgrim’s cross, Rokeby surveyed the scene. ‘Percy’s men and the Disinherited are still holding firm, but the archbishop’s men are almost done.’
John Coupland grunted. ‘Time we saved their arses, then.’
‘My thoughts precisely.’ Rokeby jumped down and turned to the captains of the rearguard, Coupland and his nephew Tom among them. ‘Archers on the flanks, men-at-arms up the middle, hobelars behind them. Run fast, hit hard and do not stop for anything. After that, you know what to do.’
He slammed down the visor of his bascinet. Young Tom grinned at him. ‘I can imagine old Charlemagne giving just such a speech, before leading his army against the Saracens.’
‘If we survive this, you can set it to music,’ Rokeby said. ‘Trumpeter! Sound the advance!’
They ran, the men-at-arms and hobelars raising swords and lances, the archers on the wings nocking arrows. Ahead Rokeby could see Zouche standing with a heavy mace in his hand, and Merrivale beside him holding a wooden staff – damned heralds, he thought with a flash of irritation, why should they get to avoid the fighting, but he knew Merrivale had already survived more brushes with death than most men – and beyond them a wedge of Douglas of Liddesdale’s men cutting its way through the English line. Already one gap had opened up and the Scots were breaking through. Following his own instructions Rokeby ran straight into them, knocking two men off their feet, punching a third with his shield, slashing at a fourth, and then Coupland and Tom were alongside him forcibly heaving the Scots back. Through the bars of his visor Rokeby saw Douglas coming at him with upraised sword and he ducked under the blow; before the Scot could strike another, Tom Rokeby had smashed the sword out of his hand and knocked Douglas down. ‘Do you yield?’ the young man asked.
Rokeby didn’t hear his response because the rest of the rearguard slammed home around him, hitting the struggling, shouting, screaming mass of men with a shock that could be felt in the air. Cohesion began to vanish and formations broke up; men fought blindly, hacking and slashing at other men around them until they crashed down among the gorse bushes, and the clatter of weapons on armour and the deadly hiss of arrows went on and on, and on. There was little movement; men occupied their own yard of ground where they stood, fought and died. But the English had no more reserves left now, and a few hundred yards away stood the third Scottish division, wedges of men-at-arms and the feared spearmen from Galloway and the few remaining archers, gathered under the white lion banner of Dunbar.
Gradually, the pace of the fighting fell away. Men-at-arms and hobelars on both sides began to stumble, exhausted. Many of the English archers were out of arrows and had thrown themselves into the hand-to-hand fighting, which they were not used to or trained for, and they too were staggering with weariness. Little scattered combats broke out between men barely able to lift their weapons, and died down again.
* * *
Merrivale ran forward, pushing his way between groups of men. ‘My lords, withdraw your men!’ he commanded. ‘Make a truce while you treat your wounded! Put twenty yards between your lines, now!’ He began shoving bewildered Englishmen away from their enemies; Lyon Herald arrived on the scene a moment later and began pushing the Scots away as well. Slowly, raggedly, the men of both sides began to rejoin their formations, bringing their wounded with them. The smell of blood was harsh and hot in the air.
Sir Robert de Lisle lay on his back. They had taken off his bascinet and his white hair stirred a little in the wind, his sightless eyes staring up at the sky. Gilbert d’Umfraville knelt beside him. ‘What happened?’ Merrivale asked.
‘He is unwounded,’ Umfraville said, and the hard border man had tears in his eyes. ‘His gallant old heart has given out. It is a miracle that it sustained him for so long.’
‘A miracle that saved us,’ said Wake, wiping his eyes. ‘God sent him for a purpose, to recall us to our duty. Now God has taken him for his own.’
Merrivale gazed down at the old man’s face, peaceful at last in death. It happened, sometimes; in the heat of battle, burdened with armour, a man’s heart would fail. He had seen it before, but that did not make this loss any less painful.
Come! How long will your mind be chained to the earth? Do you not see into what regions you have come? The herald thought of The Dream of Scipio, and wondered if it was still lying on the table in the hall at Chipchase. It would lie there for a long time now, until the king’s escheators came to take the estate into their hands and, no doubt, sell off the contents of the estate to help fill the Treasury’s coffers. There would be no monument in Chipchase chapel to mark Peter’s grave.
He looked around at the others. ‘God has taken him,’ he repeated. ‘But if Sir Robert were still here, he would remind you that the work is not over. Honour his memory, gentlemen.’
Wake nodded. ‘You may be sure that we will,’ he said.
* * *
Water bearers were coming forward on both sides. An Englishman struggled to rise to his feet and one of the Scots stepped out of the line and helped him up, patting him on the back as he hobbled away. Guy of Béthune leaned on his sword, sucking in air. He and Brus were so far unwounded, but the same could not be said of many others. Moray was down on his knees with his eyes closed, his armour stained with blood; Strathearn’s face was a gory mess, one eye gone. Niall Bruce of Carrick lay on the grass, eyes closed and breathing shallowly while blood poured from his wounds; he would be dead within a few minutes. The king’s own schiltron had disintegrated under a hail of arrows before it could reach the English line; David himself had an arrow embedded in his body and another in his head, punched through the visor of his bascinet. Douglas had disappeared, God knew where.
The king spoke, his voice taut with pain. ‘Send for Dunbar and the reserves. We need them.’
‘No!’ Brus said violently. ‘We are on the verge of victory, sire. We can win this battle without Dunbar’s help.’
Guy of Béthune stared at him. ‘On the verge of victory? For Christ’s sake, man, look around you!’
‘Damn you, Béthune, are you questioning me? If Dunbar advances now, he will claim all the credit and the glory. Let him stay where is.’
‘You have taken leave of your senses. I’ll send a messenger.’
Brus drew his sword. ‘If you do, I’ll kill him myself. This is my victory, Béthune. No one will take it away from me, not you, not anyone.’
He nodded towards the English lines. The herald, the hated Merrivale, was conferring with his Scottish opposite number. He imagined briefly the fate he would finally mete out to Merrivale once the battle was over, but tore his mind away. There was other, more important business to do first.
‘Get ready,’ he said. ‘We are about to resume.’
Merrivale met Archie Graham in the bloody space between the armies. ‘You’ve taken one hell of a hammering,’ Lyon Herald said quietly. ‘There’s no need for more bloodshed. Any chance you could persuade your side to withdraw?’
‘And leave Durham to its fate?’ Merrivale shook his head. ‘The commanders will never agree. Your fellows are pretty beaten up as well, you know.’
‘We’ve taken losses,’ Lyon Herald acknowledged. ‘But
I’m afraid it’s a foregone conclusion, Sim.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Merrivale. ‘All right, Archie. One way or another, let’s get this over with.’
They walked to one side of the battlefield, turning to stand on top of a hill looking down to the Wear. The sound of chanting drifted up from the river; the monks had come down to the bridge and were praying for an English victory. I don’t suppose it can hurt, Merrivale thought. He wondered what would happen in the priory now that Hugh de Tracey was dead, and realised that if England lost this battle, it would not matter; within days, there would no longer be a priory.
He turned towards the two armies. He saw the banners waving in the wind, the lions rampant and roaring, the red of Scotland, the blue of the Percys, the white of de Lisle which his men had raised once more. ‘My lords!’ he shouted. ‘Are your men refreshed?’
‘They are,’ said Lord Percy, and the Marischal of Scotland nodded.
‘Then you may resume,’ said the herald.
* * *
Like the fighting lions on their banners, the two armies launched themselves at each other. Men shouted and stabbed with sword or spear or knife, or when weapons broke, grappling with one another and falling down to wrestle on the bloody grass. Arrows still flew, but fewer now, and once again the archers ran in among the fighting men, groups of three or four surrounding Scottish men-at-arms and dragging them down to kill them. That was how Strathearn finally died, stabbed over and over by English daggers as he lay helpless on the grass.
The Disinherited still stood in the middle of the English line, and in blind fury the Scots threw in their battered schiltrons in hopes of breaking them. Moray’s men led the first wave, shouting their war cries while the pipes screamed and moaned. Umfraville was still groggy from his head wound, and into his place stepped Lord Wake. His armour dented, his shield split, his sword crusted with blood, he turned to his men. ‘Honour Sir Robert’s memory!’ he commanded. ‘Do not yield an inch of ground!’ They hammered their sword hilts against their shields and crouched, intent on the oncoming Scots.
A Clash of Lions Page 35