Games of Otterburn 1388 (9 page)

August 11

Carlisle
Village

Cumberland
- West March

“Somebody’s barn’s
a’burnin
’ yon ways off,” cried Osbert pointing toward the northeast and well over the treetops.

Claricia came from the small hovel they called home followed by three small children.

“You see the smoke?” asked Jacob, the oldest of the six children Osbert and Claricia had still living.

“I see,” replied Osbert keeping his eye on the column. “Scotch reavers, they might be.”

Claricia got a definite chill up her spine. She was well aware of the fear the Scots could bring out in a person.

“We need to get the livestock and hide in the wood ‘til they’re gone from
Carlisle
,” advised Osbert.

“How you figure its Scotch?” asked Claricia taking her youngest golden-locked girl into her arms.

“‘Cause there’s another column of smoke
a’startin
’ yon,” he said pointing in a slightly different direction then added, “
Movin
’ right fast this way I’d say, too.”

“I’ll gather what I can from the lodge,” said Claricia, “You get what you can from the rest of the grange.”

Osbert said nothing and Jacob was already heading for the lean-to style structure under which the family kept their only livestock, the cow and two goats.

Osbert ran to catch up to Jacob.

Within minutes Claricia scuttled from the lodge with the babies at her heels. When Osbert looked, the lodge was showing a bit of smoke.

Claricia caught up to Osbert and looked back. “Turned the cook fire out on the wall,” she admitted.
“Might well give us a bit more time ere they come to investigate.”

“How you figure?” asked Osbert as he was throwing the two tied sacks of necessaries over the haunches of the cow and pitching the babies behind.

“
‘Cause
they’ll figure another bunch of Scotch already got here,” explained Claricia as she tugged on the tether of the stubborn goats.

They balked.

Jacob gave one of the goats a swift kick on the rump and made it jump to its feet and loudly bleat. The other followed without any further complaint.

The cock keeper held his prize fighter tight in his arms as he approached the cockpit. Men from the Castle Carlisle garrison were tightly packed around the ring so they each could get as close a look as possible at the cock that they had placed their bet on.

Gambling was certainly not beyond the interests of the castle’s custodian, Sir Ralph Neville who might have been gnarled of body from age, but was in the thick of the crowd and on the front edge of the ring, anyway.

The keeper made his way through the crowd and stood opposite his opponent who was less than three feet away.

He turned to Lord Neville for a signal to start the fight.

Excitedly Neville put his right hand up, gave it a couple of short waves and the two cock keepers held their vicious birds between their hands and began to circle the open ring taunting the cocks to their expected aggressive nature.

The surrounding men cheered when the two keepers figured the birds were riled enough. They bounced the cocks to the count of three released them on the ground.

The cocks immediately flew at each other locking talons in midair. Their beautifully colored feathers became quite a showy flurry as the first flash of blood flung across the near throng.

There was a mixture of cheering and laughing as the splattered men wiped the blood from their faces and out of their eyes.

Archibald Douglas sat his great Frisian destrier outside the strong walls of Castle Carlisle. His three thousand warriors were broadly fanning out according to his command. His archers he held close by.

They heard more cheering inside the castle to which Earl Archibald asked his chief bowman sitting horse at his elbow, “Ye reckon where o’er that wall comes the
cheerin
’?”

“I reckon, Milord,” he replied

“Reckon ye also that ye could drop an arrow down their throat?” asked Archibald with a wry smile.

“It’s a try at best, Milord,” said the archer.

“Make them shut their maws,” he ordered. “Get out front there as far as ye need to be with all yer bowmen and see that the English within hain’t got
nothin
’ more to scream about than
bein
’ arrow stuck!”

“Milord,” replied the bowman then gave a whistle.

The archers sifted through the mixed lines of warriors and stood with their commander. He told them what he wanted. Archibald watched as the man pointed with his hand in the direction he had thought the cheer was coming.

They waited for another spontaneous outburst and the hundred or so archers slipped a barb into the string, drew it back in a high arch and loosed.

Just as a cock was jabbing in the killing strike on his foe the arrows began to rain down on the men in that part of the bailey.

As Archibald predicted, their cheers turned to screams of terror.

The garrison was running in every direction. The sudden storm of missiles put the whole of that end of the castle into panic. Most ran for the barracks or against the protective walls leaving the wounded and dying men where they fell.

Caught in the moment of excitement the victorious cock ran.

The guards on the wall walk, who had had their attention riveted on the cockfight wheeled to see their possible enemy. The men on the south wall stations first knew that the Scots were at their gates.

“Milord, Neville!!” they screamed loudly from the top of the wall but not in unison and what Sir Ralph Neville heard was a garble that was unmistakably a clarion call of panic.

Ralph got up the stone steps to the wall walk as best and as fast as he was able expecting to be attacked by arrows at any second. He ran a bit crouched below the top of the wall to where the guards were yelping and pointing.

“Milord!
Milord! Scotch
are
on us!”

Neville stood taller and looked over the wall top to see Archibald and his army on the outskirts of his castle sitting horse.

“We’re under siege,” muttered Neville almost inaudibly.

“Milord?” asked a close guard.

Lord Ralph did not answer but took a deep breath and scanned the length of the Scottish line then he ordered his guard, “Send runners to the other parts of the wall to see where else these wild heathen are and what they’re
doin
’…
Report back only to me!”

“Milord,” replied the guard and set off.

To a second man standing he said, “Find that goddamned warden of the garrison, Easley, and get him here! And tell him to get the archers to the wall… quick!” Then he looked again over the top and saw an armored standard bearer riding down the line on a handsome white warhorse carrying a fast fluttering banner with a white lion rampant on one half and the three white stars on a blue bar across the top and the red heart of Robert the Bruce emblazoned on a white field below.

“Archibald Douglas!” he gulped in his throat.

August 12 - Early Morning

The Bishopric of
Durham

It is going to be a perfect day
thought James Douglas as he first opened his eyes and saw nothing more than the close trees misted in the copse.
 
Being in ‘enemy’ regions he slept in some of his armor and felt completely absorbed in the environs as his clothing was as dank as the air.

He and his men had had a good half night’s sleep after mostly staying in the saddle for the last two nights. They were anxious to get to the reiving so they could have red meat to go with their oat bannocks.

Earl John Dunbar stood tall in the fog and looked about him.
“How we
goin
’ to find
anythin
’ to reive in this muddle?”

“I ken where
Durham
town is,” said
Douglas
coming to John. “We’ll be a plumb surprise to those folk.”

“Be a plumb surprise to me if we get there to surprise them,” replied John.

The remaining knights began to stir from their wool coverings.

George Dunbar came to the knot of Douglas and John. “Hell of a morn for a raid,” he said wiping his eyes.
“How we
findin
’
Durham
?”

Douglas
smiled and shook his head a bit then explained, “We’re camped on the east side of the River Wear.”

“And Wear runs past
Durham
,” interjected George.

“How far?” asked John.

“Less than half a league,” answered James.

John smiled in approval. “
Ye been
this way in the fog before?”

“Have,” said
Douglas
as he turned to fetch and saddle his destrier.

The mist was thinning a bit as the Scots approached the town of
Durham
.

On the south end of the loop in the River Wear and high up on the bluff stood the famous cathedral and north of the cathedral was the strong castle keep. Surrounding the cathedral and keep was a high impregnable wall.

The Bishopric of Durham included a land mass similar to an earldom except it was separate from the
London
government in that it had its own laws, parliament, tax collections, customs duties, army, and even to the extent of issuing its own coinage. It was like a country within a country except it paid a portion of its revenue to the English crown.

It was not what was within the wall that was the target of the Scots but the influential and lucrative market on the north end of the fortress.

Market Street was narrow between the buildings and the buildings were tight set together. The sheriff’s men patrolled the streets from Market to
Gillygate
. Within the trading atmosphere there was always somebody in an argument with somebody else.