Games of Otterburn 1388 (10 page)

“They’re
stirrin
’ a bit now James,” whispered George.

Douglas
’ knights were within spying distance of the town market.

“There’s a
holdin
’ pen out back from the flesh hewers, did ye see it?” asked
Douglas
.

“Ne’er did,” admitted George.

“It is there, believe me, and it’s full of kine and such ready for the
takin
’,” said
Douglas
still in a whisper.

“Ye want me to go that way?” asked George with a nod of his head.

“Take twenty knights and ten archers, the rest of us will go straight up the main street and bring them havoc,” said
Douglas
. Then he nudged his horse forward while Sir George culled out his forty or so men and pushed toward the right side of the market behind the row of buildings.

Douglas
began the raid with a shock to the population. He had his men ride to the edge of the buildings of the market and all hooted their horns as loudly as they could for about three minutes while Earl George got his men around to the back of the flesh hewer’s shop.

By the end of the hoot the population of the town was wide awake and in a panic to get to their weapons or get far beyond the horn blast.

When the two large framed and well fed flesh hewers of the shop heard the horns blare out they instinctively knew their livestock was in jeopardy.

“After our stock, they are!” said the first man looking around the darkened room for his cleaver.

The second man pulled an old sword from its
pinnings
on the wall.
“Scotch been scared off from here for some years now.
Reckon
its them
come again?”

“Be
findin
’ out quick enough,” said the first as he opened the door to the pens.

In the fog the flesh hewers could vaguely see George and his men hacking the rope defining the pen at the posts.

“They’re
thievin
’ us!” yelled the first man as he started through the animals with his cleaver high in the air hoping he would appear fearsome.

A bowman on his horse
raised
in his stirrups and drew back his bow. The arrow flew striking the man mid-throat.

The second flesh hewer saw the hand cleaver fly up in the air and knew his fellow butcher had been struck. He quaked as the archer got a second arrow in the air. The man ran back inside and gasped as he heard the thud of the arrow hit the door behind him.

The butcher made straight for the front of the shop and out onto
Market Street
swinging his partially rusted sword and screaming in unintelligible gibberish.

Douglas
saw the man fleeing and knew George had gotten to the livestock pens.

The spearmen tied their spears upward to the saddles and got from their horses going to work using the cord from the fence to tie the tail of one bovine to the horns of the next.

The bowmen kept a careful watch from the saddle on their horses as the spearmen worked their ropes.

The merchants in the town were running hither and thither as scared rabbits hoping to be saved by somebody else or find a hole to hide in.

James Douglas and his men moved onto the street. Some were still hooting. Some were cutting down anyone who approached them with a weapon. It was easy to see that brave disorganized people were no threat to the Scots so that in moments not even the brave sallied out into the overwhelming odds.

Fear and panic gave way to screams of agony as the reivers poured into the murky besieged streets.

Bishop Walter Skirlaw of
Durham
,
happened to be at the battlements of the castle keep when the mass horns sounded. A cold chill traversed his spine. He could see nothing through the morning fog but he could hear the weeping and screaming of the people in the market and knew something was terribly wrong and that there was mass devastation and mayhem afoot less than a hundred yards from his ears.

He ran to the entrance of the battlement level of the castle and frantically called out, “
There’s
killin
’
a’goin
’ on in the market!”

“Shall we send troops, Your Grace?” shouted back one of the guards.

“Call the warden of the garrison and get men to the market, quickly!” shouted the bishop who was by then in a panic. He could not abide the guard’s slow-witted manners and so hiked up his robes tight to his buttocks and raced down two flights of stone steps to deliver the message for
himself
pounding directly on the warden’s door. “Get troops to the market! Something terrible is
happenin
’!”

The warden opened his door fast and stared with wide bleary eyes at his liege. “The market, you say…
Your
Grace?”

“Now man!
Now!” emphasized the bishop, not understanding why the warden was not moving faster in time of peril.
 

The besotted warden then realized the bishop’s want and became animated to the cause. “Yes,
Your
Grace!” he chirped and tottered past the bishop, sans britches, toward the garrison’s quarters.

When he saw the warden’s bare legs, Bishop Skirlaw realized his own were showing and feeling a bit embarrassed suddenly dropped his own gathered robes, pressed the cloth against his body just in case someone was watching then headed toward the castle’s small chapel to pray.

James Douglas had occasion to reconnoiter the town three years earlier on a minor excursion and knew the buildings and their contents. He went straight for the money lenders in a building in the middle of the row of establishments.

Within the building were doors to rooms where the money lenders dealt with their customers who would borrow money and make payments or make exchanges for proprietary coinages from the different regions or even other countries.

With two knights to his back he went into the building and kicked down the first door. Within was a lender clutching a leather pouch to his breast and wildly swinging a sword that he had no notion how to handle.

“Best give it all over,” advised
Douglas
, “lest I kill
ye
here and now.” The frightened lender threw the satchel to the floor at
Douglas
’ feet and stood back with both hands on the handle of his beautifully crafted sword.

Douglas
picked up the bag and looked inside.

So distraught was the lender over his money being handled by a thief that his sense of possession overcame his fear. He screamed and ran straight for
Douglas
swinging madly.

Douglas
dropped the money and followed it to the floor. The lender had no idea he had been upper sliced to his rib cage until his scream failed his lips.

The two knights came into the room as the man fell at their feet.

“I like his sword,” said one.

“Have it,” said
Douglas
handing the pouch of loot to the man. “Look for more in trap doors in the floors or… walls. There’s probably more in some of the other rooms, too but be aware that some money lenders are not as inept as this one.”

James Douglas left the building and mounted his horse to see how the reiving was progressing. He knew the longer it took the worse off they would be in terms of a fight.

Earl George came to him saying, “Got the bovines and sheep in the north wood. The
stinkin
’ pigs and the shoats were slick with mud and hard to catch but we got most.”

“We’ll be
a’leavin
’ soon,” said
Douglas
. “Take what
ye’ve
got at hand, go back the way we came and the rest of
us’ll
be along directly.”

The earl nodded, wheeled his destrier and left to do
Douglas
’ bid.

Douglas
rode toward
Gillygate
and Silver Streets. The fog was still thick enough that he could not see the wall surrounding the castle and cathedral but he could hear noises and knew the garrison would be coming from the gate at any moment. He knew they would not know the strength of their opponent and he would not know how many were coming for him.

Earl Douglas hooted a retreat on his hunting horn hoping to escape a conflict all
togather
.

One of the first men to emerge close to
Douglas
was a yeoman named Mungan who was a giant compared to his peers. He had a screaming woman over his shoulder and when he got to his horse he threw her over its rump behind the saddle.

Douglas
rode close to the man saying, “No women!”

“She’ll fetch a ransom, Milord,”
lied
the man looking up at
Douglas
.

“Ye
a’payin
’ it?” growled
Douglas
.

“
Nae
, Milord… I
catched
her for
ye
,” said the spearman.

“Put her off and get more men-at-arms to meet me in the midpoint of
Market Street
,” ordered
Douglas
.

“Aye, Milord,” said Mungan reluctantly.

 
“Now, soldier!” said
Douglas
forcefully.

The man pulled the woman off his horse. “Can’t go, wench,” he muttered as he gave her a shove.

“Ye
be
back?” she asked in a disappointed voice.

Douglas
paused. “Ye know that woman?” he asked as Mungan climbed aboard his horse.

“She’s Scotch, like us. Her name is Adara,” he said as he wheeled his horse. “They’ll be
killin
’ her
soon’s
they find out it was Scotch that run over their town, Milord.”

“I reckon they
a’ready
know that fact. Draw her aboard,” commanded
Douglas
, “Get those spears in the street now. We’re ‘bout to have a fight!”

Mungan smiled broadly and motioned for Adara to come to him and when she did his strong arm swung her back onto the rump of his horse only that time sitting up. She was so glad she released another of her blood curdling screams and laughed joyously.

He grimaced for the sake of his ears and kicked his horse.

“By yer leave, Milord,” said the warrior as he hurried off to round up more spearmen and archers.

Douglas
could hear the chains working to raise the portcullis inside the gate and knew the time was short. “Hurry, damn ye, hurry!” he shouted after Mungan then went into the other direction bent on the same errand.