‘Christ betimes, they have broke the truce.’
It was a fact as harsh as a stab in the eye. The English had come out of Perth, hard and fast and Hal knew that he saw the foot only because he had already missed the horse, riding eagerly ahead.
He called Dog Boy, whey faced from his night with Jamie Douglas, yet grimly determined.
‘Ride to Bruce, hard as ye can,’ Hal said. ‘Charge into his fancy tentage if needs be but warn him that the English have broke the truce and the horse are upon him, wi’ the foot comin’ up hard.’
He did not add what he was doing, for he knew Bruce would work it out. The others had already done so, looked at the vanishing back of Dog Boy with envy while the warm summer’s morning turned cold as blade; yet their hands sweated on the shafts of the Jeddarts as they wheeled out like a flock of sparrows, into the view of the worming column.
Addaf saw the horsemen at once across the far side of the field and threw up a hand to bring his men to a halt; they stood in the sea of calf-height green stalks, watching the faint morning breeze ruffle it in slow ripples, like waves.
Light horse, Addaf saw without even narrowing his eyes much. Prickers, but Scotch ones and he had seen these kind before — more mounted foot than horsemen, though they could manage the latter at a pinch. Glancing quickly behind, he was pleased to see his men, quiet and calm in their ranks, standing hipshot and still as if paused on a pleasant stroll.
Good men, mostly with around twenty summers on them, a few older — and one, Hwyel, colt-young and eager. It struck him, suddenly and for no reason, that he was the oldest one and that none of them had been with him more than a five-year.
It would be the Scotch, he thought, bringing on such memories, for he had been leading men in the French wars for long enough and the last time he had been this far north had been the King’s campaign of’97 against Wallace. Christ — near ten years since, he realized.
Not one of the men he had been with then were around now and most of them were dead of sickness and disease, the others gone home. He alone had survived and the Welsh band who had fought for Edward then had become a company hired out to the highest bidder and he, though he hated to think of it, had become that most reviled of men, a contract captain.
Contracted, in this case, to de Valence, a retinue Addaf did not care to be in because he remembered de Valence riding down Welsh archers in that same campaign against Wallace. Drunk and quarrelsome Welsh, he admitted, but none that deserved death at the hands of English knights; King Edward had been fortunate that any of the Welsh archers had fought at all on the day and most had not out of spite, leaving most of the work to the Gascon crossbows.
That was when Addaf had seen Scots like this, whirling in and out on their little, fast-gaited horses, hauling proud knights out of their saddles with hooks, stabbing and slashing them as they scrabbled on the ground.
That was then and this was now; none of the ones he barked orders at cared who de Valence was, only that he paid on time and let them plunder. Obedient to Addaf’s instructions, the column turned smartly to the right, to become a loose-ranked block three-deep, facing the horsemen; there was a birdwing rustle as the bows came out of their bags.
‘Smart your sticks,’ Addaf called and his bowmen strung the weapons with swift, easy movements.
Hal led his riders out at a fast walk, all spread out to look more threatening towards the flanks of the column. His plan was to keep just beyond the hurling range of these spear throwers and harass them with shouts and waving, pinning them in place with the idea that, if they turned to move off, the riders would fall on them. He saw another fat column, coming to an uncertain halt to one side and tried to watch it as well as the one in front. Slow them all down, he thought. Give Bruce time to fight the English heavy horse.
The flicker in the middle of the three-deep column of spear throwers disturbed him a little, as did the determined, cool way it moved — unlike the second one, who were now waving spears like beetle-feelers and milling in an ungainly, uncertain mob.
Closer still and his unease turned to a deeper chill; not one of these little javelinmen had a shield. Not one… the cold plunge in his belly coincided with the pungent curse from Sim Craw.
‘Virgin’s erse-cheeks — they are Welsh bowmen.’
Bowmen. Welsh. The two words struck a gibbering panic into everyone and Hal had to fight himself for control. It wasn’t that they had better bows or more skill than the archers Hal knew from Selkirk and elsewhere — it was because the Welsh delivered death in steel sleet, all loosed together rather than the ragged shooting Hal was used to seeing, even from the vaunted Gascon crossbows.
It was a rain of arrows that swept men down like sudden storm did summer wheat, flattening them to ruined stooks.
‘Turn. Away,’ he yelled and took his own advice, hearing the giant barndoor creak of drawing strings, then the Devil’s-breath rush of feathers in flight.
Too late. Hal knew it even as he flogged the garron into a mad race for the far side of the field, half-stumbling through the fetlock-clinging barley. Too late. He heard the evil breath of it the way a night mouse hears the owl’s wing, an eyeblink before the talons close.
There was a rising hiss and then the rain fell on them. He saw Jemmie o’ The Nook arch, heard the drumming thumps and the scream from him as his back turned to a hedgepig; the garron, stuck in rump and haunch, squealed, veered off and he was gone.
Another garron went over its own nose, but the man on it was pinned to the saddle through the thigh and backbone and was plunged to the bloody greenery whether he cared or not.
Hal’s horse leaped in the air, came down half on and half off the ragged bundle of him, then stumbled on for a stride or two until it stopped, head down, legs splayed. A great gout of blood and a groan came from it, then it started to fold and Hal kicked free of it, only seeing the strange sprout of feathered twig in one side. Into the lungs, he thought wildly; it missed my knee by a hair.
Addaf was satisfied with the one shoot, for he would have to send men out to recover what arrows they could; they were in short supply and too crafted to waste. He watched the riders vanish into the treeline on the far side of the field, saw the riderless little horses, some running in mad circles, most limping painfully.
A single man staggered and Addaf, tempted, started to nock an arrow — a long shot, but no longer than ones where he had put a big battle-arrow through a willow-wand…
The sudden shouts distracted him and he turned to see the second column, now no more than a crowd, waving weapons and cheering.
‘An audience appreciates you,’ he said, nodding to them, and his men laughed.
‘We make them jig, we make them kick,’ yelled out the irrepressible Hywel, ‘with a feather shaft and a crooked stick.’
All of them laughed aloud and, when Addaf remembered the limping man and looked for him, there was nothing to see. He frowned, unsmarted the bow and sent men out to fetch the arrows back, or dig out the valuable points for re-shafting.
In the treeline, Hal sank down, sweating and panting, while others retched, spat and then examined each other and their mounts for unseen wounds.
‘How many?’
‘Six,’ Sim Craw told him. ‘Five are gone down the brae, certes, and Hob o’ the Merse has a barb in his back and says he cannae feel his legs. Eight garrons down. God be praised.’
‘For ever and ever,’ Hal answered, then struggled up. ‘But not this day, I think. Mount and ride, double if you need — Sore Davey, I will climb ahint you, since you are lighter. Throw Hob over a saddle an’ bring him. There is a battle yet to be won.’
He was wrong. There was no battle left to be won and they discovered the heart-sick lurch of truth when they came up on their old camp, into a confused, whirling affray of men in knots and struggling knuckles, fighting like dog-packs with no order or command.
There were men on foot, formed in little rings half-armed and defiant, while others ran like fox-struck chooks in a coop, pursued by vengeful men in maille mounted on warhorses. Glancing over the shoulder of Sore Davey, to the left of where they had come up, Hal saw a huddle of riders, the bright blue and white stripes and red martlets of Aymer de Valence blazing from the horse barding of himself and his retinue.
‘The King…’ Sim Craw bellowed and pointed to the fist of riders surrounding a figure. He had no jupon, but
