Insurrection: Renegade [02] (30 page)

After a pause, Humphrey answered. ‘The relics are kept in the Tower under guard. They are brought here only for ceremonial occasions.’

Robert’s disappointment weighed heavily on him. All this time waiting for this moment and the object he sought wasn’t even here. James Stewart might be right – he might never find any proof to confirm his suspicion that Edward had ordered Alexander’s murder. But if he could prove the prophecy itself was a lie, the revelation might go a long way to alienating the king from the men he had bound to his cause by its power. Without their support, Edward would not be able to continue his war. Robert knew he was pushing his luck with Humphrey, but tried anyway. ‘Did you ever see the original prophecy the king found in Nefyn?’

Humphrey closed like a clam. ‘I thought you wanted to pray for your wife?’

After a moment, Robert nodded. Moving past the pilgrims, he went to the shrine and knelt on the steps. As he closed his eyes, the most prominent image in his mind was Edward’s coronation chair. The stone was a shard of Scotland embedded in the heart of England. Just like him. Left long enough, God willing, a splinter could infect the body in which it was buried.

PART 4

1303 – 1304 AD

Pleasures shall effeminate the princes, and they shall suddenly be changed into beasts. Among them shall arise a lion, swelled with human gore.

The History of the Kings of Britain,
Geoffrey of Monmouth

Chapter 24

Roslin, Scotland, 1303 AD

An eagle drifted on the currents, making slow circles in the sky as it moved south from its eyrie in the crags around Edinburgh towards the great darkness of Selkirk Forest. Below, a road and a river wound like two snakes between snow-covered humps of hills. Along this highway rode a company of men, the only thing moving on the ground for miles.

As the eagle passed overhead, Sir John Segrave, the lately appointed English Lieutenant of Scotland, looked up to catch the dull glint of gold. With a narrowing of his eyes, Segrave focused on the sprawl of beech, pine and holly filling the way before him.

King Edward’s order that he lead the advance of a scouting party into rebel-held territory as a prelude to the summer’s planned invasion had not been a welcome one, less so given the conditions. It was almost March, though there was little sign of a thaw, winter still gripping the country in its fist. His company was less than a day’s ride from the English garrison at Edinburgh, but they might as well be in another world for all the signs of life they had seen on the road. There was some comfort at least in the knowledge that the two other companies that formed the rest of the scouting party were only a few miles behind.

With Segrave rode the three other English royal officials who had been sent on the mission. They were escorted by sixty knights, the hooves of their destriers sinking in the slush, the horses’ bulk increased by mail skirts and by the burden of their charges, each man clad for combat. The standards borne by the bannerets, the largest of which was Segrave’s own black banner emblazoned with a silver lion, snapped in the wind, which carried on its bitter breath a trace of snow. Behind the knights came squires on palfreys, followed by two hundred foot soldiers and a band of archers. They turned the air to a soup of odours with the tang of metal and stink of sweat, leather and dung.

Bells on bridles vied with the clink of mail against wooden saddles and the harsh rhythms of hooves and tramping feet. Breath steamed in front of faces chapped red with cold. Dogs loped alongside their masters, tongues lolling, and six supply wagons rolled at the rear, hauled by teams of oxen. The drivers kept the beasts ploughing forward with lashes of the whip as the road sloped down between two shallow hills.

Conversation among the men, already subdued, grew dimmer as the Forest loomed, a dark cloud stretching as far as they could see. It had a menace, made all the more potent by what it concealed. Somewhere in those depths was the lair established by William Wallace at the start of the rebellion, its location still a closely guarded secret. Over the past six years the insurgents had used it as a safe haven, a training camp and a place to hoard supplies and plunder. They had sallied often from its green shadow, attacking English-held castles and supply lines, even raiding into England itself. It had become known, in time, as the cradle of insurrection.

Segrave had no intention of going far into that maze of trees, where noon became midnight and a man could get lost in moments, impeded by rocky rivers and hidden gorges, no room to manoeuvre his horse in the deeper parts. Instead, he and his company would skirt the fringes to check on the Borders and seek out the best routes for the king’s planned march north.

All of a sudden, shouts of alarm erupted around him. Segrave caught movement in the periphery of his vision. His eyes fixed on the brow of the hill to his left. On the ridge a host of riders had appeared. His brain made a rapid calculation: three hundred, maybe more. They seemed to hang there for a second, a black mass against the sky, before rushing down the slope in a thunderous wave, heading straight for his company.

Powdery snow rose beneath the tumult of hooves. Segrave’s bellowed commands were drowned by battle cries that ripped through the valley. The cries were incoherent, but for the English lieutenant and his knights – now wheeling their destriers around – the banners hoisted above the charge were enough to identify the tide of men. One in the centre, raised like a fist, was decorated with three sheaves of wheat: the arms of John Comyn, guardian of Scotland.

Roaring orders to the squires and foot soldiers, Segrave snapped down the visor of his helm and pulled his blade free from its scabbard. Kicking at the sides of his horse, he impelled it up and over the bank that bordered the road, spurring the beast across the white field towards the enemy, followed by his men. In the wake of the knights and squires, foot soldiers plunged through the snow, hefting falchions and iron-flanged maces. The dogs, straining at their leashes and barking furiously, were loosed to hurtle ahead.

On the road, the drivers hauled the supply wagons to a stop and watched in fearful expectation. The band of archers scrabbled on to the verge. Stringing their longbows, they plucked arrows from the baskets attached to their belts and took aim. They had only seconds before their own men would be in range. Two volleys were shot in rapid succession. One arrow punched into a horse’s neck, sending the animal and its rider slamming into the ground in a plume of snow. They disappeared under the hooves of those who came behind. Other missiles skidded off helms or stuck fast in gambesons. Two more horses went down in a flail of limbs, one rearing and crashing into another as an arrow pierced its eye. The archers raised their bows again, but stopped short of loosing them. The two forces were almost upon one another.

Segrave was in the front line as canter became gallop. He braced for impact, teeth gritted, sword swinging round for the first strike. Around him, knights crouched into the charge, raising shields and blades. Ahead, rushing up at speed, the enemy did the same.

The sound as they met was horrendous – a brutal concussion of iron, wood and steel. Some men were heaved out of their saddles, rolled up and over the rumps of their mounts. Others were pitched forward, their horses buckling under the vicious hack and slash of swords that ripped flesh and shattered bone. The initial crack of blades meeting helms and shields was followed by the crunching, grating sounds of two armies grinding into one another. Swords clashed in the frozen air, spitting sparks. Feral cries tore from throats in the twisting thicket of weapons as armour was pierced and limbs chopped in the butchery of battle. Men squealed like animals as they were opened, undone.

One of the dogs loosed by the English infantry leapt at a Scot who was unhorsed and had lost his sword. He staggered back as it sank its teeth into his arm. Protected by his vambrace, he was saved from the bite. Pulling free his dirk, he shoved the thin blade into the dog’s stomach, puncturing its guts. Leaving the animal spurting blood into the snow, the Scot turned to face a foot soldier coming at him with a falchion. He crumpled at a blow from the blade that cleaved his skull. Close by, another Scottish knight was dragged from his horse by two infantrymen and went down roaring under their swords. But for every Scot that fell, more were there to take their place.

Sir John Segrave was fighting fiercely. His black surcoat had been ripped right through the silver lion, the mail beneath snapped to reveal the felt stuffing of his gambeson. Sweat poured down his face in the tight encasement of his helm as he stabbed at a Scot crushed in beside him. His broadsword was growing heavy in his hand. The ache, he knew, would soon build to a muscle-clenching agony.

His head rang as a sword cracked against his helm. Enraged, he snarled and thrust his blade through the defences of the Scot beside him, managing to jam it partway through the eye slit of the man’s helm. There was a gush of black blood as he yanked it free. As the Scot slumped in the saddle, Segrave realised the enemy had surrounded his forces. Those on the edges of the battle were punching holes through the English lines, moving to outflank them. Two wings had already split from the fray and were riding down the foot soldiers behind, cutting through them like corn. Others were impelling their horses through the chaos to the road where the wagons were halted.

Before Segrave could yell orders to his men another Scot lunged at him, forcing him to counter. He fought on, bitterly. In between the thrust of swords and shields, he caught glimpses of a giant of a man among the Scottish ranks, wearing a blue cloak over the bulk of armour. Sitting astride a muscular palfrey, he wielded a great axe. The colossus was scything this weapon through the ranks of Segrave’s cavalry like a man making hay. Segrave just had time to see a fellow royal official hacked apart in a burst of blood and entrails, before his sight was cut off by a tide of red cloth that swept into his vision. The banner of the Red Comyn had been hoisted higher. As the war cries of the Scots grew stronger and the death screams of the English rose in pitch, the lieutenant spurred his horse desperately towards a man in a black surcoat and crested helm who was fighting beneath that banner. Certain it was Comyn himself, Segrave cuffed aside the sword of one man who crashed into his path, rammed his shield into the face of another, then blocked an axe that smashed in, nearly breaking his arm with the impact.

He was almost there; close enough to see the dark hanks of hair beneath the rim of Comyn’s helm. The rebel leader was yelling orders to the Scots around him. He wouldn’t see him coming. With blood thrumming in his temples, Segrave swept in at his target from the side. The blow, when it came, was like a thunderclap. It slammed into his back with a force that reverberated through his bones. Thrown forward, his stomach jammed against the saddle’s high pommel and his sword slipped from numbed fingers. He didn’t even have time to raise himself upright before the next strike came, this one a searing pain in his side as a sword pierced his mail. He slipped from the saddle, falling down among the hooves and the dying, as a horn began to call.

As John Comyn pulled off his helm the blare of horns filled his ears. More of his men were sounding them in victory as the last of the English scattered before them. Sweat-drenched, his chest rising and falling, Comyn surveyed the churned-up fields. Scores of bodies littered the ground, the snow stained where the insides of men and horses had spilled out. Among the dead, the wounded whimpered pleas into the leaden sky. The surviving English were fleeing the battleground, but there was little hope of escape with a large force of Scots covering the road around the wagons and only the river beyond. Some urged their destriers towards the fringes of the forest, swiftly pursued. Others threw down their weapons and begged for their lives. Triumph flared in Comyn.

‘Sir!’

He turned to see Dungal MacDouall approaching. The red shield on the captain’s new surcoat had spread down his chest, elongated by a bloodstain. Comyn’s gaze moved past MacDouall to two Galloway men hauling someone through the snow between them. Their prisoner was dripping a trail of blood that pumped from a wound in his side, visible through broken rings of mail and torn padding.

‘He claims to be the leader of their company,’ said MacDouall, halting before Comyn and glancing at the captive. ‘I cut him down when I saw him coming at you. My men dragged him out from under his horse. He pleaded for mercy.’

The prisoner’s face was oily. His eyes flickered open. When he spoke his voice was barely a breath. ‘My name is Sir John Segrave. As Lieutenant of Scotland under the authority of King Edward, I ask that clemency be granted to me and my men.’