‘Paulatim.’
The pace picked up slightly, the huge mass of mailled men churning forward, horses snorting and calling out in high-pitched squeals of excitement. Griff shifted under Hal, for he smelled the rank battle stink, felt the tremble – as they came level, the great quake of it came up through the saddle into Hal’s belly. Leaves shook; a twig fell.
‘In the name of all God’s Saints…’ someone whimpered.
‘Pongnie.’
One by one the units obeyed and spurred, the great warhorses churning up the ground, the riders bellowing. Yet they were so closely pressed that they could not manage more than an ungainly half-canter, half-trot and still remain knee to knee.
‘Now,’ Hal hissed, watching the distant block of horse, the figure of Wallace head and shoulders above the tallest in it, watched him raise that hand-and-half to arm’s length over his head…
Someone broke from the back ranks, speeding off into the woods like a pursued fox. Another joined him. Then another. Wallace brought the sword down and surged forward, trailing a knot of men – twice as many hauled their mounts round and bolted.
The nobiles of Scotland had run after all.
To fight and win was now a dream. Hal saw it even as he saw Wallace and the pitiful knuckle of remaining knights slam into the great chest of English lances. The only sensible thing to do was run – the sudden rush of that made him jerk Griff’s head back – but, in the same moment, he saw the horse fall, saw the red and gold giant vanish into the mass; Hal raised his sword, kicked Griff hard enough to make the garron squeal and every man at his back surged out of the wood, screaming, ‘A Sientcler.’
They ploughed into the flanks of the struggling knights, just at the point they piled up like water at the dam. Hal cut and thrust and heard his sword bang like a hammer on a forge, felt the shock of it up his arm. A figure in stripes loomed; Hal cut and the man’s armoured head snapped back like a doll, his helmet dented on one side. A blow smacked Hal’s shield, reeled him so that he had to hang grimly on, while Griff spun in a half-circle.
He saw Nebless Clemmie hook his Jeddart staff in a knight’s fancy jupon, then spin his horse and ride off, dragging the knight to the ground with a clatter, where Ill Made Jock, elbow working like a mad fiddler, rained a flurry of furious stabs until the battle surged his plunging garron away.
The dam broke; the great mass of armoured horse rode over the remains of the Scots knights, who were either unhorsed and dying, or fleeing for the woods. Hal knew that his own attack had achieved only a moment of surprise and now the English were cursing and turning to fight. He saw Ill Made Jock’s garron, Wee Dan, smashed in the chest by the fearsome hooves of a warhorse, go down screaming – Hal lost sight of Jock in the whirl of hooves and legs and spuming blood.
Corbie Dand, on foot and with his face all bloody, was screaming and wielding the remains of his Jeddart, splintered down to a short-handled axe; the blow that crushed his head, kettle hat and all, came from a knight in blue and gold.
‘Wallace…’ yelled a voice and Hal turned into it, ducked a mad axe-cut at his head, took a mace on his shield and slashed back. He registered Sim as a flicker, on foot, open-mouthed and pointing; Hal spun Griff, felt the animal stumble, cursed and flogged it with cruel heels.
Wallace, off his mount, stood like a tree in a flood, the sword in both hands now and the added power hacking Hell into his enemies. Horsemen struggled and fought to get to him, for they saw the red lion rampant blazing on his chest and knew who it was, could taste the glory of it – but he stood there, a roaring giant, more ogre than man.
He turned briefly as Hal surged Griff up on one side, not even sure of what he was doing or why – then he saw the sheer joy of Wallace, the great beatific smile.
He is prepared to die, Hal thought, stabbed with sudden wonder. He is not afraid at all…
Sim staggered out of a ruck, slashing right and left, and stood on one side of Wallace, so that Hal found himself on the other, feeling Griff stagger and buckle.
‘Make for the ring,’ Wallace yelled and they did so, moving as swiftly as they could. Hal suddenly felt Griff sink and managed to kick free and drop; the snapped lance shaft was deep in the animal’s chest and, even as Hal cursed himself for not having seen it – when had it happened, in the name of Christ? – he heard the animal blow a last bloody froth and die.
‘The ring,’ yelled Sim, grabbing an elbow – a horse slammed into them, splitting them apart and sending Hal over in a dizzying whirl that left him dazed and looking at calloused, filth-clogged feet; when he rolled over, trying to get his eyes in focus, he saw the hedge of shafts over him.
Then a hand grabbed his surcoat, dragging him backwards; he heard the cloth tear and thought, mad as gibbering, that Bet the Bread would be furious at the ruin of her sewing.
A figure floated in front of him, a hand came forward and he felt the blow only faintly, then the second, sharp as a bee-sting. He flung up a hand to ward off a third and saw Wallace, his face streaked with blood, grinning at him.
‘Back with us? Good – there is work yet to do.’
Hal had lost his sword and his helmet and there was something wrong with the coif, which seemed to be flapping loose on one side. A mad-eyed figure with hair bursting out from under a leather helmet shoved a long knife at him, grinning insanely. Hal took it, looked up and round, feeling the shudder through the nearest shoulders and backs as English knights tried to force into the hedge-ring of grim men, standing like a single beast at bay.
The riders circled, frustrated and hurling curses, maces, axes, the remains of their lances and – now that the Selkirk bowmen had been scatteered and ridden down – their huge barrel helmets. The spearmen thrust and slashed, panting and snarling, and the great horses died, spilling the proud blazon of their riders into the crushed grass and bloody mud, where men in dirty wool came from the back ranks of the ring of spears, squirming between legs and feet to scuttle out and pounce on the trapped, or those too slow to struggle away on foot.
‘No’ chantin’ noo, ye sou’s arse,’ howled one, leaping like a spider on a black and silver figure, crawling wearily on hands and knees away from the kicking shriek of his dying horse. The thin-bladed knife went in the visor and blood flooded out the breathing holes – then the spider was back beneath the shelter of the spears, breathing hard and smiling at Hal like a fox fresh on a kill.
He wiped the dagger on his filthy, ripped braies and Hal saw it was Fergus the Beetle, black-carapaced in his boiled leather and grinning with blood on his teeth. He winked, as if he had just spotted Hal across a crowded alehouse.
‘Aye til the fore, my lord.’
Hal blinked. Still alive. Beyond the safety of the spear rings, the Scots archers were being ridden down and killed in a running slaughter and he wondered what had happened to Sim.
The Bishop’s horse limped and his surcoat was torn open under one arm, so that it flapped like the wounded wing of a red kite. Behind him stumbled a knight on foot, helmet and bascinet both gone and his maille coif shredded; there was blood on his face and a great spill of it down a once-cream surcoat, almost obliterating the two ravens blazoned on it.
Addaf did not need to hear Bek to know his anger, for it was plain in the wild, red-faced hand-waving he did at the knight in red and gold stripes, who sat sullenly on his expensive warhorse. It was draped in pristine white barding scattered with little red-and-gold-striped shields, each one ermined in the top left quarter; Basset of Drayton, Addaf had been told after the first angry encounter between the knight and the Bishop.
That was when Bek had tried to check the knights of his command and wait for the king before attacking, but this Basset of Drayton had arrogantly pointed his sword at Bek and told him to go and celebrate Mass if he wished, for the knights would do the fighting. Bek’s retinue heard it and took off in a mad gallop, a great metal flail that splintered itself to ruin on the nearest Scots ring of spears while the Bishop beat his saddle with futile anger.
Now the survivors of it, their horses dead, staggered away – and Addaf knew that Bek was scathing Basset because neither he nor any of his two bachelor knights nor nine sergeants had ridden anywhere near the Scots.
‘This horse is worth fifty marks,’ Basset argued, scowling as Addaf and the other archers came level with the arguing pair.
‘Then point it and spur – it should charge home,’ Bek snarled back, ‘even if the rider does not care to.’
‘By Christ’s Wounds,’ Basset bellowed, his beard bristling. ‘I will not take that from the likes of a tonsured byblow…’
