The Bastard's Son

by H A CULLEY

  ‘How man armed men does he have in Redesdale?’

  The two boys looked at one another and the elder one shrugged.

  ‘None of his, apart from his bailiff. He doesn’t need to. We know he’ll come down from the hills and punish us if we don’t do what the bailiff says.’

  ‘And how many villagers are armed in Otterburn?’

  ‘None. We are only permitted to own farm implements and hunting bows. We have to work for Colm Dhu and we’re only allowed to eat what he allocates to us.’

  ‘Bastard Scots,’ the younger lad muttered.

  ‘So you would welcome it if I allowed you to keep most of what you produced?’

  The boys looked at the thirty armed horsemen and laughed.

  ‘Colm Dhu rode through here a week ago to go raiding. He had over a hundred men, mostly riders, with him. How are you going to beat them?’

  ‘Riders? Were they wearing armour like us?’

  ‘No, just normal clothes.’

  ‘And did they ride war horses like mine?’

  ‘No, just garrons. You know, hill ponies.’

  ‘Thank you. You have been very helpful.’

  -X-

  Once he had introduced himself to the villagers of Otterburn he had hanged the Scots bailiff from the tree on which the wretched man had hanged others, including a young girl guilty of stealing food because she was starving. They were more than thankful to be rid of his tyranny, but fearful of the vengeance of Colm Dhu. However, Hugo had promised to destroy him and kill his men, and one look at the grim faced knights and serjeants convinced the peasants of Otterburn that it might be better to trust in the Normans than to endure their present misery.

  They heard the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep before they saw the livestock looted from the Tyne Valley emerge from the early morning mist. The hundreds of cattle came first with twenty men and boys driving them on foot, then came the sheep – at least a thousand of them - with another twenty or so Scots herding them. Carts laden with plunder from the abbeys, churches and villages of south Northumberland and County Durham came next, escorted by yet another group of Scotsmen, this time riding garrons. Tristan counted them.

  ‘Sixteen with the wagons, father, and ten driving the carts.’

  Hugo nodded, sitting on his horse just inside the trees with his son and half of his men.

  ‘That probably leaves forty or fifty bringing up the rear, presumably to guard against any irate men who are chasing them. They certainly seem to be in something of a hurry.’

  Hugo was content to let the main body pass him. It was the rear guard he was interested in. That’s where he expected this Colm Dhu to be with his best fighters.

  When they came into sight he was surprised to see that they were engaged with about forty knights, serjeants and men-at-arms who had evidently caught them up. The Scots were riding the swifter mounts and they didn’t try to get to grips with their pursuers. They would dart in and either try to thrust at them with a spear or strike a blow with a sword before riding away again.

  Such tactics were never going to defeat the Norman and English pursuers but it was only intended to delay them sufficiently to allow the drovers to get their booty over the border. Once more the Scots on their nimble garrons made good their escape, but they rode towards the woods where Hugo waited before reforming. They had left behind several wounded and dead this time. Their pursuers lined up to charge them once more, although they must have known that the Scots would only ride around their flanks. However, the men from Liddesdale were in for a shock.

  Hugo hadn’t been idle since assuming the lordship of Otterburn. Training some of the villagers to be spearmen and the like to protect their homes from marauding Scots could wait but he had recruited ten men proficient with the hunting bow. Now they and his six crossbowmen let fly at the assembling Scots, killing or incapacitating three garrons and six men. It took the crossbowmen longer to reload, but the archers could send off several arrows in one minute and another volley hit them whilst they were trying to work out what had happened. They milled about in confusion as a few more volleys hit them and then Hugo charged with his knights and serjeants.

  They tore into the confused Scots just as their pursuers reached the other side of them and wrought their revenge for the way that the Scots had made fools of them hitherto. One of the first to die with a d’Umfraville lance in his chest was the dreaded Colm Dhu. His men fared little better. Of the forty six Scots in the rear guard, twenty nine were killed and the rest wounded or taken prisoner. It made little difference which as they were hung, wounded or not.

  The destruction of the Scots at the rear panicked the rest and they abandoned the carts and the livestock and started to make their way up Redesdale towards Carter Bar and the border as fast as they could. However, eight more of Hugo’s men lay in wait for them on either side of the valley five miles north of Otterburn. They charged into the fleeing Scots, concentrating on the mounted ones first, then they chased down those on foot. It was a complete rout and only about a dozen escaped to carry the tale back to Liddesdale.

  ‘Well done, my lord. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing? I’m not sure I recognise your shield. I’m Odinel d’Umfraville.’

  Hugo grasped the proffered hand, still in its mail gauntlet.

  ‘Hugo de Cuille, you may not know my silver chevron but my son Tristan here was squire to de Vesci until recently.’

  ‘Ah! I know the name of course. That explains your fortuitous presence here. I knew that William Rufus had granted Redesdale and other manors in the Cheviots to you, of course. I confess I think it was a mistake. He should have given Redesdale to me so that I could stop the Scots using it as a route to raid my lands. But I hope that you’ll now do that job for me?’

  Hugo thought that d’Umfraville was tactless to say that he thought that Redesdale should have been given to him. Hugo quickly came to the conclusion that the man might prove to be an uneasy neighbour. He was powerful and not a man to make an enemy of, but Hugo wasn’t about to be intimidated by him.

  ‘Well, we’ll make camp here for tonight and deal with the captives, then I’ll take my livestock and those carts back to where they belong,’ the man continued.

  ‘Yes, of course, but I think that you are forgetting that the fact that the Scots were halted and then defeated was due mainly to my men and the villagers of Otterburn.’

  Odinel’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘You’re not going to insist on a reward, I hope.’

  ‘I certainly am, not for myself but for the villagers and the other people of Redesdale. They have been oppressed by the Scots for decades and they have little livestock of their own. The raiders would have made it over the border if it wasn’t for us. I think ten per cent is the usual cut in such circumstances? Of course, if you dispute my right to it, we can always let the sheriff decide.’

  ‘You’re too soft, de Cuille. You won’t survive up here by mollycoddling these people. They won’t thank you for it. They hate us Normans and they only way you can rule the English is to make them fear you.’

  ‘I disagree. Several of my knights and serjeants are Saxons and my son’s squire is an Angle. Come to that my late wife was a Saxon. We all seem to get on well together. It’s a question of respect, not fear.’

  ‘Rubbish. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  D’Umfraville turned his horse to leave, his face an interesting shade of red.

  ‘Five per cent, take it or go whining to the sheriff, and fat lot of good that’ll do you.’ he called after him.

  ‘I’ll take it!’ Hugo called after him, grinning.

  He hadn’t expected d’Umfraville to give him more than a few token broken down specimens. He’d still give him the spavined cows, infertile bulls and oldest sheep, but in the five percent there would be some good stock to supplement the few that the Scots had left them with. He found out later that the flock of some thirty sheep that the two boys had been driving up into the hi
gher pasture were all that the villagers of Otterburn had owned.

  Chapter Eight – Canmore’s Invasion

  Summer 1091

  Malcolm Canmore, King of Scots, kicked his horse’s flanks and unwillingly it entered the cold water of the River Tweed at Norham. Edgar the Aetheling, acclaimed as King of England after Harold’s death at Senlac Hill near Hastings but never crowned, followed him across the ford into Northumberland. Edgar had supported Robert Curthose after William the Bastard’s death and had paid the price. He was deprived of the manors Robert had granted him in Normandy by William Rufus when he overran them in 1090 and he fled to Scotland where his sister, Margaret, was Malcolm’s queen. Canmore had seen the English king’s treatment of his brother-in-law as a personal insult and had decided to use it as an excuse to invade. However, his real objective was to move the border south to the Tyne instead of the Tweed.

  William of Calais had discontinued manning the watchtower at Norham when he had been restored to the diocese of Durham and so the first that Roger de Muschamp knew of the invasion was when his villagers at Barmoor fled into the town to avoid the marauding Scots. That night he watched the horizon to the north alight with flames as the villages of Lowick and Ancroft in the Durham Enclave burned.

  Malcolm’s objective was Newcastle and so he ignored the palisaded town of Wooler with its castle as being too strong to take without a delay and he swept on down Glendale, burning, looting and taking those he caught as slaves. By the time that Hugo heard of the invasion in his remote castle at Harbottle the Scots had crossed the River Wansbeck and reached Morpeth, another fortified town with a motte and bailey castle like Wooler.

  Over the past year Hugo had completed Harbottle castle and had started to construct another one at Otterburn. He had recruited more knights and serjeants so that those of his original conroy who wished to could return home to Derbyshire. Oswin and Sweyn had left but Wulfric had remained with him. Simon poured his master a goblet of wine as he sat playing shatranj with Tristan, now the constable at Harbottle, and Godric hovered attentively in case Tristan wanted to be refilled.

  Simon was now sixteen and his initially gaucheness had disappeared, as had his limp. He was turning into a muscular young man and a useful swordsman. He still needed to work on his riding and that was where Godric was superior. He was slimmer and a little more agile but he really came into his own on a horse. He had yet to be knocked from his horse when the squires practiced tilting at the quintain.

  ‘Sir Hugo,’ the captain of his mesnie, called rushing into the solar.

  Edith looked up from the window where she sat at her embroidery. Something important must have happened for Bertram to appear so agitated.

  Robert, Tristan’s twin, had taken over as constable of Castle Peverel and his father now lived at Edale when he visited Derbyshire. Robert had recently married the daughter of the baron whose manors adjoined Hugo’s in the High Peak and, naturally, she had become the chatelaine. So Edith had moved north to be with Hugo.

  ‘What is it Bertram? Is the place on fire?’

  ‘No my lord, but much of Northumberland is. Canmore has invaded with an army twelve thousand strong and has swept down Glendale, pillaging and burning. The last reports have him heading for Morpeth.

  ‘Good God! Is de Muschamp alright?’

  ‘The messenger says they bypassed Wooler but his other manors have suffered badly.’

  ‘Bring him in.’

  ‘I will, Sir Hugo, but he is exhausted so I sent him to the kitchens for refreshments first.’

  When Bertram left to fetch the messenger Hugo looked at Tristan.

  ‘This is a bad business. When we defeated the men from Liddesdale I knew we would have further trouble on the border but I certainly hadn’t expected a full scale invasion.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  The young knight’s eyes were alight with excitement.

  ‘Raise as many men as we can, we will need to leave enough to defend Harbottle and Redesdale against groups of Scots returning home with their plunder. You and I will make for Wooler to consult with de Muschamp as soon as the men are mustered.’

  -X-

  Yves de Vesci looked down from the top of the gateway of his new castle at Alnwick at the small army that had arrived at his gates. He recognised the white chevron on black banner of de Cuille and the alternating red and yellow horizontal bars of de Muschamp and breathed a sigh of relief. At first he had feared it was a detachment of the Scottish army reputed to be besieging Newcastle. He did a rough count and came up with ten knights and their squires, twenty mounted serjeants and nearly fifty footmen and archers. With his men and those of Morel of Bamburgh, the sheriff, he now had nearly three hundred men at Alnwick.

  ‘What news of Durham?’ Roger de Muschamp asked, gratefully taking a proffered goblet of wine, as soon as he had greeted de Vesci and Morel in the great hall.

  Hugo and Tristan had followed him in and joined him in washing the dust from their throats. Hugo was a little miffed that the younger man, who had fewer men, had assumed the lead.

  ‘I doubt if the indolent William of Calais has stirred off his fat arse,’ he put in.

  ‘You’re quite right, Hugo,’ Yves replied, turning to him. ‘Not that I expected anything else. If only Flambard was still the prince-bishop.’

  ‘Well he isn’t,’ Morel entered the conversation. ‘However Thomas de Bayeux is said to be raising an army at York.’

  Thomas had been the old king’s chaplain when he’d been Duke of Normandy and had been rewarded with the See of York in 1070 when the previous Saxon incumbent had died. He was elderly now but he had issued the call to arms across Yorkshire and Durham in conjunction with the sheriffs of both counties. However much of County Durham belonged to the prince-bishop and without his men, Thomas’ army wouldn’t be as large as it might have been.

  ‘Can I suggest that we leave enough men to defend our strongholds and march to join him through Rothbury and Corbridge to link up with d’Umfraville and the archbishop at Prudhoe? That way we’ll avoid the Scots forage parties around Newcastle and Prudhoe is only fifteen miles from the Scots army. Then we can trap the Scots between us and Robert de Mowbray’s men inside the castle.’

  Everyone seemed to think Hugo’s suggestions were sensible and so messengers were dispatched to Odinel at Prudhoe and to York whilst Morel said that he would send a boat from Bamburgh down the coast to inform the earl. As the Scots had no ships the boat should have no problems reaching the river gate of the castle.

  A day later the small army set off along the road across the moors to Rothbury.

  -X-

  William Rufus paced nervously up and down in his campaign tent whilst waiting to meet his two brothers. When he was told by his squire that they were approaching his camp, he mounted his horse and rode out to meet them accompanied by Robert de Bellême, Hugo’s erstwhile nemesis, and a small escort. De Bellême had acquired a reputation as a cruel master and an even harsher opponent. Rufus found the fear in which his supporter was held in Normandy to be useful, though he didn’t like the man personally. Rufus was generous, loved ostentatious show and despised the Church. Roger was a grasping miser and an implacable persecutor of the Church so they did have one thing in common, in addition to mutual self-interest, of course.

  For late summer the day was miserable, especially for Normandy where the climate was usually milder than that of England. It was overcast and a chill wind blew from the north. There was a hint of drizzle in the air, the wretched weather matching William’s mood.

  ‘What do you want, brother?’ Robert Curthose asked as soon as they had halted within speaking distance of each other. ‘Have you come to hand that nasty piece of vermin beside you over so that he can face trial for his misdeeds?’

  ‘Good afternoon to you too, Robert, and to you Henry. No, certainly not. De Bellême here is my faithful servant, unlike most of my nobles whose allegiance seems to belong to the highest bidder. No, what I want to discuss
affects us all. Malcolm Canmore has invaded and is laying waste the north of England.’

  ‘So what?’ Curthose responded puzzled. ‘What has that got to do with me?’

  Henry gave him an impatient look, such as a father might give a stupid child.

  ‘You need to reach a truce with us so that you can return to deal with the Scots?’ Henry surmised. ‘What are you offering?’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ His elder brother’s eye lit up. ‘Leave Normandy to me and you toddle off back to England then.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that and even you must see that, Robert. I have lands in Normandy, as do most of my nobles. Whilst we are fighting here they cannot support me in dealing with the Scots – and the bloody Welsh come to that.’

  ‘So you want our support in throwing Canmore back across the border?’ Henry asked thoughtfully.

  ‘More than that, I want to push the border back to where it was before the Battle of Carham seventy years ago, on the Firth of Forth. And I want Cumbria too.’

  ‘So, I repeat, what’s in it for us?’

  ‘Shall we say a three year truce? You don’t have much to lose, Henry, having been driven out of the Cotenin, but Robert controls far less that he did when my father died. If we continue to squabble amongst ourselves you will lose even more.’

  ‘I want what I have lost back.’ Robert said stubbornly.

  ‘And I want the Cotenin,’ Henry added promptly.

  ‘You are both trying my patience,’ William warned them. ‘I am prepared to help you to recover the counties of Eu and Aumale, Robert, and I’ll return Cherbourg and Mont. St. Michael to you, providing you help me against the Scots. I’ll even support you if you invade Maine once Malcolm Canmore has been put in his place.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Henry almost yelled. ‘Cherbourg and Mont St. Michel are part of my county of the Cotenin!’

  ‘But you are no longer Count of the Cotenin, brother dear. Remember?’ William asked sweetly.