Kingdom 01 - The Lion Wakes (47 page)

‘Very good, my liege,’ he said, then glanced up the long roll of slope and dips to where the faint line marked the enemy. ‘Do you think they fear us yet, sire?’

Wallace felt the fear behind him, washing like stink from a shambles as the coloured skeins of armoured horsemen advanced over the meadow, careless and bright as trailing ribbons. A Battle, forming the left of the English line, it was a dazzle of fluttering pennons and banners that Wallace knew well and he smiled grimly to himself. De Warenne again . . .

The Van, pushing forward to the right of De Warenne, were singing, the voices faint and eldritch on a fickle wind:
Quant Rollant veit que la bataille serat, plus se fait fiers que leon ne leupart.

When Roland sees that now must be combat, more fierce he’s found than lion or leopard – Wallace knew that
chanson de geste
to Roland well enough and screwed half round in his saddle, into the drawn, pinched grimness behind him.

‘Have we no voices, my lords?’ he demanded in halting French.

A high, clear voice started it and Wallace thanked God for his kin – Simon, his cousin. The other two, Adam and Richard, joined in almost at once, for they had been known as the Unholy Trinity since they had started to tear around together, causing mischief. You would not know that now from their angel voices and the thought made him smile, even as other throats, gruff, out of tune, trembling, rose to join in.

Hostem repellas longius, pacemque dones protinus; Ductore sic te praevio, Vitemus omne noxium

Drive far away our wily foe, and Thine abiding peace bestow; If Thou be our protecting Guide, no evil can our steps betide.

In the tight ring of dry-mouthed spearmen, men unflexed a hand from the shaft and crossed themselves. Even if they did not understand the Latin of it, they knew it was a call to God to hold His Hand over them as the coloured talons scarred towards them, paused, then started to coalesce into fat, tight blocks of silver-tipped dazzle.

Deep in the forest of spears, someone was sick.

Peering through the leaves like an animal, Hal saw the horse of the Van gather like wolves, the great bedsheet banners of Lincoln and Hereford smothering the host of lesser pennons of their retinues. They were planning to fall on the centre and Hal grinned through the sweat as he saw the sudden flutter in them; the Selkirk archers had released.

The horsemen bunched; commanders galloped back and forth and, in the still, fly-pocked swelter of the woods, men who knew the muscled sign of it grunted expectantly as the huge blocks started forward at a determined, knee-to-knee walk.

‘Not long afore they find oot,’ Bangtail shouted with glee and was shushed for his pains. Still, the joy of it was hard to keep from bubbling up, Hal thought and almost let out a sharp yell of triumph as the splendid, implacable riders came up over a slight lip – and found the great slew of boggy loch they had not seen before, spread out like a moat in front of the first two
schiltron
rings.

Confusion. Milling. The Selkirk men let loose again and horses were goaded to plunge and buck, flinging men to the ground with a noise like falling cauldrons. The faint sound of cheers washed up the Hal’s ears, followed by the great tidal roar . . .

Tailed dogs.

Slowly, painfully, the commanders galloping and yelling – even striking shields, Hal saw, so that the whole straggling mass started to turn to the left, towards the Battle of De Warenne, their unshielded side to the arrows as they circled the long strip of muddy marshland that had balked them. Many of them had not put on their full-face helms and were hunched and turned from the arrows as if in a snow storm.

It was a moment to savour – yet Hal saw that all this did was concentrate all the force from the centre to the right of the Scots line, where he and the other Herdmanston riders huddled in the trees.

‘Watch to yer right, lads,’ Sim growled and the men crouched on the patient garrons as De Warenne’s knights came up, wheeled into formation and started in towards the great shield ring – and the Scots knights that blocked the passage between it and the woods. They would pass close to Hal, he saw, funnelled by wood and
schiltron
spears to a mass the Scots knights could match for frontage – and Hal would lead his twenty riders out into their flank, hoping the flea bite would be enough to unnerve the crush of English knights.

‘God preserve us,’ muttered Ill Made Jock.

‘For ever and ever,’ came the muttered rote response.

‘Lente aleure!

The cry came, faint as lost hope, from the English commanders of the
echelles
as, one by one from the right, these sub-units began to move off, lances raised.

‘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 . . .’

‘Neither will you charge home,’ bellowed a new voice and everyone turned as Edward and his retinue came cantering up. Eyes went down; no-one wanted to look at the furious, droop-lidded lisping rage that stormed out of the king’s face.

Especially not Basset, who went as white as his horse barding and started to stammer.

‘Quiet,’ Edward ordered, then surveyed the wreckage of staggering, unhorsed knights, trailing back like drunks from an alehouse. A groaning knight in green, torn and spattered with mud and blood, was helped by two others; his left hand was hanging from a bloody mess by a few last fragments of tendon and flesh and someone had tied his baldric round the forearm to stop him bleeding to death.